Sybilla Hart

Four years ago the NHS told us that over half the female population was trying to lose weight so it's hardly surprising that many millions are injecting themselves with fat jabs.  But I refuse to pander to the notion that us women all need to be a size 10 so I shan't be going anywhere near the jabs or dieting.  If I feel like a piece of toast with blueberry jam, the odd crisp and a nibble of chocolate I am not going to feel fat or guilty about eating any of it.  Who says we have to be so thin anyway?

In times past, any self-respecting man of a certain class would have been dripping in jewellery. Henry VIII is said to have owned no fewer than 700 rings – almost as many rings as wives. Ruby rings, gold necklaces, diamond earrings, you name it: jewellery was not just reserved for noblewomen and Queens of England, it was fair play in Tudor England for both sexes. Fast forward to the 21st century and, as a rule, you won’t find the English upper-class males sporting emerald knuckle dusters. But that’s not to say their jewels are lying rusty in a stately home attic. Take a look at any recent red carpet and you’ll see ‘bling’ is finding a new audience among modern alpha males.

Every self-respecting gent these days is sporting a gilet. Don’t laugh. The gilet has come along leaps and bounds; you can’t tar it with the same brush as the Schöffel ‘Chelsea Life Jacket’ which is worn by the Hooray Henrys who guffaw at dinner parties twinned with their strawberry corduroy trousers.  The gilet is the height of sophistication. It is worn by the finance bros, the best-looking dad on the school run, the recently retired silver fox barrister you met at the ‘locals’ drinks party last Christmas and the gruff farmer who is so rich he really shouldn’t be that dour for goodness' sake.

According to a YouGov survey earlier this year, the cost of living tops the list of public concerns at 54 per cent before immigration and asylum (49 per cent), health and the NHS (43 per cent) and the economy (33 per cent). According to the Independent, half of Britons have under £25 left at the end of the week and 79 per cent say the cost-of-living crisis has negatively affected their wellbeing. But here – at long last – is where the impoverished aristocrat comes out on top. Often found lurking in the depths of rural England, the impoverished aristocrat is more than used to weathering bad economic climes. Both they and their ancestors have dealt with a fair few cost-of-living crises in the past.

The Great Wealth Transfer has never felt more under way. Boomers who own more than half of owner-occupied housing in Britain are now grappling with the practicalities of downsizing.  It is estimated that in the next 20 or 30 years, boomers will pass down between £5.5-7 trillion worth of assets and, according to Savills, around £2.9 trillion of that is held in property.    Boomers who are living in houses that they have been in for decades are looking to their millennial children to shoulder some of the burden of their boomer junk, prompting much Swedish death cleaning and decluttering. This seems like a fair trade given that in many cases, these children stand to inherit their fortune; better still for them, this is set to double by 2035.

‘Do you have any more shoes? I need as many as you can find for my daughters.’ I had just made my first sale on the second-hand marketplace Vinted and, already, here was a message from a new customer wanting more. Delighted, I scrambled around and managed to locate more than a dozen pairs of no-longer-wanted, muddy old shoes. ‘Don’t worry about cleaning them,’ came the reply from ‘Mariella’ when I told her the good news. ‘They’re just for the garden.’ Slightly odd, I thought, but my customer seemed harmless enough: a part-time cleaner with young children who, she told me rather quaintly, was married to a cobbler.  It was only when I had to ship the huge black bin liner of shoes that I realised I had been duped.

A few weeks ago, I was driving four of my children to school in my tinny, battered Toyota. We were running late – as per usual – and were speeding – or, rather, chuntering – down a particularly treacherous road. Of all the questionable surfaces in my area of rural Essex, this one is notorious: marked by a huge pothole the size of Snoopy the dog’s head, which bleeds into a smaller, gloopier crater. As I was trying to navigate it, however, a large shadow zoomed into sight in my rear-view mirror. With a jolt and a tremendous bang, it pushed me, my family and my poor, beaten-up Toyota into the crater. Who would be so sadistic as to do such a thing, you may wonder? Was it a vengeful ex? A drunk driver? Another parent running late and pushed from road rage to road insanity?