Two Chaps Talking

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