Two Chaps Talking

Mon vieux,

So I think it's all right. No one remembers exactly who was where and what they were doing. M'learned friends have given me the all clear and now it's all down to plausible deniability, but then, old love, what isn't these days?

I hear tell that the Idiot-in-Chief's man in London, Bliar or something (used to be a Labour man apparently) has invited him over for a few days, much to the chagrin of all right thinking folk. About as welcome as newly expelled wind in a telephone box I'm told. The thing is, you know the warnings one sees on trinkets and baubles about the avoidance of small parts being swallowed by little children who then quite inconveniently choke? Well the I-i-C has the brain of just such a small child and when left unattended has been known to choke on a packet of Golden Wonder. To avoid a diplomatic incident, should anyone want to, I would strongly advise keeping him well away from anything intended for three-year-olds and up. Including world affairs.

Measuring the number of little grey cells between the ears of such an imbecile might be a problem one might think. But the other day a chap down the club told me it's all about Quantum Physics. From minuscule non-entities like the aforementioned to the length of time I may or may not have recently spent on our Sceptre'd Isle. Or getting an Army Land Rover up a hill. Or indeed the time between consecutive editions of the Gazette. Quantum physics the lot of it.

Allow me to elucidate.

As you may now be beginning to remember I just spent a solid fortnight in Albion. (Don't worry about the blank spaces, that's repressed memory syndrome and jolly useful it is too.) Anyway Old Thing, some have asked how I am able to describe the duration of my trip as a round fortnight when it was anywhere between ten and thirteen days depending who's asking.

Quantum Physics.

Which are I am reliably informed all about measuring stuff quite accurately. Not unlike Ringpiece's measures when he's fixing up a snifter. Thus a fortnight is in fact precisely and exactly the amount of time between consecutive editions of the Two Chaps Fortnightly Gazette, be it ten days or thirty. I mean, if it wasn't then obviously we wouldn't call it a Fortnightly Gazette would we? Simple.

Now that's all very well but you may be wondering what this has to do with yours truly and an Army Land Rover and a hill? Bringing the beaters out for a shoot perhaps? Squaddies looking for the Idiot-in-Chief (and his man in London)'s fabled WMDs having given up in the East? A Soho House parvenu having taken a wrong turn en route to Babbington House to 'do the country thing'? No. None of the above. I was in fact the guest of a dear old friend who, for fun, likes to drive this ALR up and down steep hills where only the local hunt would otherwise canter. I believe there is a name for this but it escapes me now.

Under normal circ's this would be far from my agenda. For a flaneur the countryside is the merely the un-visited green bit above London on an OS map and to be avoided. Perhaps. But on this occasion I happened to be clad in a fetching windowpane thornproof, recently acquired on a trip to some foreign lakes, which was crying out for a rural backdrop. Not only that but I had it in mind to get a little genuine mud on the butterscotch brogues and chocolate moleskins. Something to show the chaps at the club.

Well the funny thing is I couldn't get it up. The hill that is, cheeky. For some inexplicable reason my hand was repeatedly drawn to the reverse gear and I simply couldn't peak. And yet mine host had no trouble at all. Quel horreur. An Englishman who couldn't throw a Land Rover over a small part of our green and pleasant land. What would Monty and his Desert Rats have said? Not only that but I had inadvertently adjusted the mirror to reflect my hair-do rather than whatever else it was supposed to be for.

Supernatural forces at work? Electric soup playing havoc with an already enfeebled brain? Or something altogether more pernicious? Nothing to do with Quantum Physics, surely? Well in my distress I naturally reached for the hip flask and in doing so discovered that the vents on my thornproof were a full half-an-inch too deep! A bloody outrage. And how did I know this? Quantum Physics that's how. Precise measurements.

Ripping the offending article from my person I happened to catch sight of the label and Ye Gods. Horror upon horror. It was made in Italy. No wonder I was drawn to reverse gear.

Now we all know that our dear Euro cousins can drive dead fast in those little red cars from Modena (though it takes a German driver to help them actually win anything). But as you mentioned recently, Italian tanks have five gears, one forward and four reverse. And here I was in a military vehicle, wearing an Italian jacket, trying to go forwards.

Previously the offending garment had only seen action in restaurants where constantly trying to reverse wasn't a problem, though it did go some way to explaining my uncharacteristically charitable attitude towards Bruno a bolshy Bolognese barrista. But that's another story entirely. Anyway once the offending article was consigned to a nearby drainage ditch I aced the hill in a trice.

We followed this driving experience with something called gardening. Which is very similar to what gardeners do but done by gentlemen. It involved sitting in a chair with a cocktail and watching the Trouble put small dirty lumps of coal in the ground. Amazing what people find to amuse themselves. At the conclusion of this strange ritual I tip-toed through the tulips to get a light patina of Wiltshire's finest top soil on my brogues. They should polish up nicely and I look forward to showing them to you on my next visit.

Before I dash off for last orders, or is it first by now, allow me to laud a little gem that happened by of late. Sent by a chap who was kind enough to comment on our correspondence it had hitherto been seen in the Guardian and other reliable places of note. It is from HM's Ambassador to Moscow and it was written during the darkest days of the Second Little Unpleasantness. Like our own Fortnightly Gazette it should be required reading for Englishmen abroad and needs no explanation other than to say Sir Archibald, we salute you.

Bugger. I think they've got my range. I'm off.

Yours aye,

S

PS. Do you think I'm still barred from SH?

Old Chap,

So once again, the first frosts of autumn dust the playing fields and a chap knows it’s time to put away the racket and dubbin his rugger boots. Well obviously, in my case, there aren’t actually any rugger boots, I mean, how bloody daft do you think I am? I played rugger once at school (and by that I don’t mean I once played rugger, I mean I played just the one game). I stood terrified in the middle of a sea of frozen mud with divots and furrows like concrete knives and inadvertently caught the ball. When I noticed the opposing front row bearing down on me I, unsurprisingly, ran. I would have kept going all the way to the warm safety of the pavilion but tripped as I crossed the line and scored my one and only brilliant try while breaking jaw, wrist and spirit. They carried me off the pitch that day shoulder high. Unfortunately it was on a gurney.

Tennis, on the other hand, is decidedly my sort of game. I know what you’re thinking. There he goes again, dreaming of limp locked Ganymedes in unbesmirched whites, building up a fetching glow on the lawns before a hot bath, a brisk rubdown and eight hours of uninterrupted buggery in his rooms but no, I mean actually playing it.

It was the Memsahib who put me up to it. I think she felt I needed some physical counterpoint to the otherwise rigorous life of the mind I have chosen. She opined that the spiritual quality of my existence perhaps lacked the more temporal anchor of a robust earthly frame. She also called me ‘fat-knacker’.

I remonstrated, as you may well imagine. I averred that I was in excellent shape. She responded that I was, indeed, an excellent shape for a large egg and, furthermore, that she considered normal conjugal relations to be not only aesthetically unpleasant but, increasingly, physically impossible.

In short, I needed to lose a few pounds.

I equipped myself, in short order, with an expensive racket, a can of balls and some ludicrous shoes of such glaring whiteness that I went temporarily snowblind until I’d fallen over in them a few times. I summoned the finest Professional to be had at the Regent’s Park Tennis Club and took lessons.

Within a very short time I was adept at forehand, backhand, volley and service. I could drop the ball into the required box with reasonably repeatable accuracy and I felt ready to humble the Mem in a game.

I limbered up with the prescribed stretching exercises, jogged up and down a bit, pensively twanged my racket strings and speculatively tested the bounce of the ball. The Mem strolled onto the court looking like a very high spec Joan Hunter-Dunn and assumed a relaxed pose of politely feverless anticipation.

Now was my moment. I cast the ball perfectly, coiled the muscular powerhouse of my spine into an impossible backward curve, sent the racket through a perfect arc and, at it’s precise apogee connected with the descending ball, my entire strength behind it. I grunted as the shot fired through the box and past the Mem in a perfect ace.

She raised an eyebrow.

“Dear God. There’s no need to play like an American”.

With which she lobbed the ball up, as if she were testing the wind with thistledown and, without appearing to move at all drove the ball back past me. At least I think she did. There was no actual trace of the ball. There was an eighteen inch melted scar in the playing surface somewhere just inside the box, a smoking hole in the chainlink fence, cut edges still glowing red and a light cloud of neon green fur.

I decided it was time for a strategic regroup over a lemon barley water.

This is what I learned. You can forget lawns, clay courts, real and indoor tennis, the only real game is Middle Class or ‘Sorry’ tennis. What follows is a necessarily brief rundown of the rules. As with any sport played to a high enough level, it can take a lifetime to get it right

First of all, the location. It is imperative that the playing surface is a shite tarmac, just like the player will have learned on in their school, regiment, university or suburban garden. (The finest MC courts in the world are to be found in Regent’s park). It is essential that they should be fully open to the public so there is always someone worse than you to tut at. Private tennis clubs are for strivers, climbers, arrivistes and foreigners.

Your racket should always be last year’s top model. This implies the perfect combination of thrift, carelessness but frightening ability. Most serious players have already bought next year’s racket and will spend the off-season soaking the handle in tea to make it look suitably used. Balls should be marked in felt pen with a secret code mark (almost always, for some reason, three dots, like a Chicano prison tattoo) as MC tennis players who wouldn’t consider for a second breaking the law in any other way are happy to steal each other’s balls with the brazen glee of council estate twoccers.

Whites are absolutely forbidden. Anyone who arrives on a MC court wearing whites would be ‘trying too hard’, a capital crime in the UK, and is almost certainly some kind of Eurotrash banker. They may be adept at the regular game, possibly to near International standard, but no one will play with them. The true MC player spends years getting the look right, striving for the perfect combination of ‘fuck you’ nonchalance with display of the maximum number of class signifiers. The idea is that you’ve just tumbled out of bed in your stately home and have fallen into your most relaxed weekend gear for a knock-up on your private court.

Tennis shirts are for football hooligans not players. A gardening shirt will suffice.

Shorts are never white. They should be blue, school or regimental issue and at look like you wore them at eighteen. Note how this simultaneously implies that a) you don’t care for appearances, b) you went to the kind of school that had uniforms and played tennis and c) your arse is the same size it was at 18. Selfridge’s tennis department sells pre-aged shorts of this kind in sizes up to XXXL.

Ideally one should play in original Dunlop Green Flash tennis shoes, ancient but lovingly Blancoed. Sadly this is likely to result in ankle and cartilage damage so many players have regretfully shifted to modern shoes. It is hoped that, with the increasing fashion for ‘Retro’ sportswear, Nike will bring out a ‘Venus Williams, Extra-Fast, Serve Like a Bastard and Turn on a Dime, Kevlar and Neoprene, Mid-Arch-Support, Anti-Pronation, Lo-Skid Jet Dap’ that looks just like a Blancoed Green Flash.

Other recommended accessories are rugger socks from one of the better Eton houses, knackered rowing jersey, T-shirt from bar in Barbados and a straw panama. Things to avoid are dresses, skirts, sweatbands, visors, caps, bobble backed socks, logoed tennis shirts, racket bags, sports drinks, power bars, wrist exercisers, elastic bandages, hi-tech elbow or knee braces, towels and bananas.

It is rumoured that a Swiss gentleman once walked onto a Surrey court with a light coloured cashmere sweater casually thrown around his shoulders. They found his body hanging from the swings in the children’s playground, an old ball jammed in his mouth and beaten black and blue with rackets. They flew him back to Zurich in restraints and under heavy sedation.

Finally to the game itself. There is no scoring system as it is considered impolite to actually win. Players knock the ball backwards and forwards in a way that gives the opponent the maximum chance to return. The important underlying idea is that, as two equally charming people, you play evenly until one of you inadvertently makes an error and allows a point. This way, points occur by accident rather than by one player trying harder than the other. A surprisingly Catholic system really. Scoring by omission rather than commission. It’s also much more polite and, as no one would dream of keeping score anyway, highly equitable. Difficult line or net calls are settled by both players hotly insisting that the other was in the right until one gives in, exhausted. Most importantly shots that are too good or too bad should be accompanied by the cry of ‘Sorry’. This should be called in a Home Counties accent with the emphasis on the long, flattened last syllable, thus….

“Sorrrr- ehhhhhhhhhhhh”.

If in doubt whether a shot is good or bad, it’s always worth saying it anyway. You should also apologise for the court, balls, weather and dragging your opponent away from something far more interesting. Above all never be the one that breaks the rally.

The point of all the gamesmanship in clothing and kit is to imply that you are brilliant but far too much of a gentleman to show it. Some of the best MC tennis players look so good at the game that they’ve never actually needed to play it. At whatever level it’s played, the game is won or lost before anyone walks onto the court

Which is why Americans always lose. Sure, they’ve won Wimbledon pretty consistently for years now but, where it really counts, in the home of the game, on municipal courts all over England, they are dressing perfectly, equipping themselves well, limbering up and grunting their way to total failure.

They may ‘win’, but they’ll never win.

T

Posted by T at 07:50 PM | Permalink

Mon Vieux

You won't be surprised to hear that after these last two weeks prodigious boozing in the Seat I flew directly to Zurich for a full blood change. En route to New York I received word of a consignment of O neg. from a scout troop in Lucerne who'd got together to donate claret for Swiss Bob-a-Job week. Pure and virginal with a dash of teenage rebellion and pubescent angst. I can tell you I felt a new man (and no, I don't mean Terry Turbulence the air steward). The Trouble was less than impressed with my mile high frisky teenage groping but I'm told it'll pass.

On to business. I read with interest the missive in our Guest Book from a fair maid in the New World who is having trouble meeting the right sort. She suggested, if I remember rightly, attending an establishment called Soho House.

Nay, nay and thrice nay. I say again nay. Lest she and others should fall from grace let me set out some thoughts on navigating the treacherous waters of these foreign shores.

It has oft been asked why here in the land of immigrants where there is a parade for every Tom, Dick and Harry of a country (even the Welsh bless 'em) but there is none for the English.

It's not for lack of numbers. Over here we crop up in all walks of life and you can scarcely throw a bread roll in polite society without beaning someone born South of Hadrian's Wall. Give us a couple of large ones and we're especially easy to spot, talking about the weather and being outraged at the draconian anti-smoking laws. In addition it has to be said that many of our number are perhaps a tad better turned out than some of our hosts.

So why then so we not come together to celebrate our place of birth?

Well would anyone in their right mind ask the random passengers on a Northern Line tube train to join them in celebrating, well, anything? No they would not. The simple fact is that if you invite a bunch of our lot without prior vetting you run the risk of sharing airspace with Daily Mail readers. A disgusting thought and something so vile that clearly it is not worth the risk.

What of News of the Screws and Sun 'readers' and their like? Well obviously they're too busy using their fingers to count the bare breasts and bingo numbers in their daily chip rags to actually go further than a package trip to Majorca (with British tea and bangers thrown in) so they’re not a problem.

That's not to say we don't run into each other over here. And I'd be lying if I said we don't occasionally do it on purpose. I myself have happily attended boozers with the express desire of drinking lager with my countrymen and shouting at the television when our lads are up against it in the footie. At such times the lumpen proletariat and I are as one (all right I know that's pushing it but you know what I mean). And there are egalitarian places here in the New World that thoughtfully provide Heinz beans, Cornish pasties and beef Wellington, without which life would be an empty and barren wasteland like the North. These oasis's can usually be relied upon to surround a chap with kindred spirits.

Furthermore there are occasional visits by the right sort from the Old Country. Like a recent one from the chaps at Popbitch and 2 Many DJs. This one was exactly the right kind of place to drink lager toasts and say excuse me. Fags were smoked, crap old records were played, jauntily correct attire was worn and fun was had by all.

But here's the point - Did we consider ourselves special? Were we exclusive? Did we revellers refer to ourselves with a cute name?

We did not.

The point about these coming-togethers is they are temporary and transient. We drink, we shout, we shake hands and slap backs and then we go our separate ways. We can and do return. But what we don't do, contrary to what has recently been reported, is exchange telephone numbers and make up little groups and call ourselves the Brit Pack. The people that do this are chinless ponces with posh families who're so unutterably revolting that even the already fully revolting chinless pseudo-aristos back in Blighty have given them the bum's rush. That they are welcomed here in the New World by some aspiring chinless wankers is a useful way of identifying locals best-avoided.

I'm not saying we never cross swords with like-minded folk with whom we strike up a drinking friendship. We do. But we are English. We do not charge in with guns blazing distributing our telephone numbers like so much confetti.

Now subscribing to Marx's infallible logic I have no interest in joining a club that would have me as a member. Furthermore the kind of chaps that a chap would chose to attend a club with are the ones that a chap wouldn't ask and who wouldn't ask a chap.

Is this Soho House such a club? Well I've never been there so in theory I can't say. But then a club with famously soggy carpets that considers itself a 'brand' and freely admits people who's sole achievement is a poncey name, or worse being related to someone posh, or people for whom speaking the Queen's English is their party trick, has to be questionable at best.

Such people would refer to you and I as having English accents. Bizarre. How can you be English and speak English with an English accent? I might add that doing so, particularly with an abundance of plums and silver spoons in your mouth, is no indication whatsoever of absence of Daily Mail reading and thus no barometer of character or acceptability.

Finally, any individual or institution that knowingly allows themselves to be associated with something called the Brit Pack should be shunned from polite society and ultimately forced to relocate South of the River or North of the M25 or indeed to the Grim Mid West .

I think I've made my point.

You may be wondering why I have made no further reference to my recent visit to the Seat of the Empire. Well, my legal team are still trying to clear up some 'loose ends' so watch this space (and if anyone asks, I was with you all the time. Straight up).

Yours on the lam and probably excluded for life from SH, tant pis,

S

Posted by S at 04:27 PM | Permalink