Two Chaps Talking

Mon vieux'

In the days of dear old Queen Vic there were chaps like myself who ventured far from home to teach people to drive on the left and perhaps earn a guinea or two in the process. Sometimes these chaps left Albion because their tailor’s bills had mounted beyond their interest in paying them, other times it was over a affair of the heart. Either way there would always come a time when these chaps would need to recharge their batteries and head home for a spell.

I know how they felt. Toiling as I do three thousands miles from home there are times when the call of a full English breakfast and a proper cup of tea is more than I can bear, and fly home I must. Our recent meeting was a result of that. Though the details are understandably hazy, and perhaps best left so, let me try and fill you in on the bits you weren’t personally involved in.

You’ll find this hard to believe old love, but there’ve been times when a chap’s been deep in conversation with his chums and one of them has the gall to call him ‘Yank’ simply for using a word or term that might have inadvertently gained popularity in the New World.

For their sake and others’ let me make something abundantly clear: I may live in the Colonies, but by God I don’t speak the lingo.

Now I know you, old thing, would never suggest I do. Though you’d be surprised how many have tried. And a fellow can’t spend his entire trip to the Seat sending out seconds and despatching scoundrels at dawn for slurring his vocab.

So it was with some relief that during my recent visit I wasn’t accused of having gone native even once. And as you know I mix with those who don’t hold back when it comes to going forward. Indeed it was I who had to give out the occasional correction when someone erred. I think it has to do with the popularity of crap American telly. All over the Old Country youngsters, and the not so young, are speaking as though every line ends with a question mark. Or saying ‘hu-llO’ with eyebrows raised, as though this was somehow amusing.

A pernicious heresy and something that needs to be stamped out at every turn. Not that I don’t embrace the various dialects that go to make up our beautiful mother tongue. God’s own language is all the richer for them. I just don’t speak ‘em. Enough said.

Anyway, with that off my chest, let me begin with my brief visit to our dear home town. It used to be the case that the gentleman coming from the tropics was the one to bring interesting diseases to the local populace. Imagine my chagrin when, upon arriving at the seaside town of our births, I was informed that one of my dear nieces had contracted a particularly obscure and virulent ailment that is about as safe as a cornered red-neck with an assault rifle and a problem with authority. Luckily for her it’d been caught early enough to give her nothing worse than a day or two off school and half a page in the local Echo. But I did feel she rather stole my thunder.

With my pride dented but my spirits undaunted I went north to the wilds of Wiltshire, there to feast heartily with local farmers and try not to sound like too much of a flaneur. Dressed correctly in a Barbour (pre-used naturally), thornproof Harris tweed, Cordings Tattersall, moleskins, brogues and a tweed cap from Lock I naturally expected to blend in perfectly.

‘Ere who’s that there townie then eh?’ was the cry, as the owner of a three hundred acre dairy farm opened a pint of Tesco’s milk and spread the Lurpac butter on his Mother’s Pride doorstep.

From the country I moved East to the grandest city in the Kingdom. There to eat, drink and be merry with you my old mucker. First thing I noticed in the Metrop was how much whining everyone’s doing. You expect Daily Mail readers to hate foreigners (and gay people, non-whites, the poor etc.) but it seems half the country is up in arms about asylum seekers. According to popular opinion, upon arrival at Dover these poor souls are given the keys to a Ferrari and a house in Hampstead. They then marry everyone’s virgin daughters and ‘take our jobs’ or something. A mystifyingly revolting phenomenon.

There was also something of a furore about the PM being caught telling lies. This too is mystifying. I mean, he’s a politician. It’s what they do. Expecting him not to is rather like going to church and expecting the vicar to keep off the subject of God.. The most we can expect from either of them is to have a bit of discretion about it. At least the PM hasn’t been caught selling babies and killing puppies, unlike the corporate whores, sorry politicians, over here.

On that subj. I expected a bit of a hard time about the despicable actions of the current junta of my country of domicile. Though with the PM’s nose so firmly wedged up the Idiot-in-Chief’s backside who can really cast the first stone?

On to weightier matters. What the hell was that intestine sandwich you force fed me? It went down all right, and didn’t come back up, so can’t have been all bad, but surely it was the stuff that burger bars mix with ash and fluff to make their Macdogburgers or whatever they are. Were it not for the brace of Bullshots, the Chateauneuf du Pape and the Margaux I might perhaps not have been quite so sanguine.

By the way, did you notice a very disturbing presence in the American Bar? Yes, that’s right, just as our correspondent mentioned in the Club Room (currently closed for deco), there was the definite taint of an American accent. Now I’m delighted that our Yankee pals choose to come to London and enjoy the sights, but can’t they stick to the beaten track. I mean, we have the aforementioned Macdogburer bars purely for them. Surely no one else would eat that muck? Or am I out of touch again? One does get rather cut off in the tropics.

Do you have any recollection of the end of the evening? I have pictorial evidence of our retreat to the local boozer to assuage our understandable thirsts for Calvados but after that it’s all a bit of a blur. Probably just as well.

Much of the rest of my shore leave was a cotton wool wrapped cocoon of haziness, not, I imagine, entirely unrelated to the aforementioned consumption. Funny how we can recommend Bullshots as hangover cures while at the same time using them for just the opposite.

The only other bout of depraved debauchery I can recall took place in somewhere called Kensington. I believe conservatives live there. My pals and I attended a public house with the express desire to sample each of their hand pulled cask ales (drawn to the country you see, just a matter of time). Something called Bombardier does funny things to you and I narrowly missed a richly deserved ragging from a beefy 6’4’’ rugger player who I felt bore a more than passing resemblance to Dale Winton. ‘Twas only his generous nature and my fleetness of foot that saved me.

And so I passed once more unscathed from the Old World to the New. As I write some poor innocent has asked me to read from my ramblings to an audience of drunks and vagrants, I mean literary types. Is there a difference I wonder?

Dum vivimus vivamus, as if there was ever any doubt,

S

Posted by S at 08:44 PM | Permalink

Mon vieux,

'Tis a dark and stormy night right enough. Dark clouds hang around the
temples of mammon and rain lashes the teeming populace. Our hero steps
blithely from the boite and flicks up the collar of his greatcoat. Outside
of a naughty claret, a cheeky Bordeaux and a rather spectacular Calvados
he is unassailable by man or beast. But what's this? A chill in the air?
Brass monkeys? Thoroughly perishin' indeed.

Time perhaps for the addition of a new charcoal flannel to the stable?
Mmm, something slim and upright with perhaps an angled flap here and a
scarlet lining there. Cosh pocket bien sur and double vents naturalement.
But with our chaps having packed up a couple of centuries ago to whom
can a chap turn for the necessaries?

Mick Jagger used to fly his hairdresser over from Albion whenever his
barnet needed sorting. Some have asked why I don't do the same with my
tailor. After all who in their right mind could resist leaving Bethnal
Green for a weekend in New York? Fair enough, until one factors in helpful
advice from She Who Must Be Obeyed. It was pointed out to me that airline
tickets add considerably to the cost of one's worsteds and as such are
vetoed.

Thus began my quest for a tailor of the domestic persuasion.

Now it is well known that the nearest an American suit should ever get
to an Englishman's backside is in the stuffing of a cushion. Harsh I know,
but no less true for all that. On the other hand one of the particularly
pleasant aspects of the town I choose to call home is the multitude of
nations here represented. It's one of the reasons why the rest of America
dislikes us. And we them.

Anyway with the myriad chaps from around the globe I eventually came
across a gentleman called Hector Borrasco who gave all the right signs
of being able to make me a decent suit. I gave him the once over, which
I will come to, and decided he was the man for the job.

One of the benefits of having laboured under the lash of the fickle mistress
is a phone book jam-packed with chaps who can furnish one with acres of
Super 150's and the like at the drop of a hat. Thus I repaired to the
residence, there to summon the world's finest fabrics for my perusal.

After wrapping myself in various lengths of Biellese flannel and raising
a glass of the green faerie to check for glare I settled upon just the
charcoal worsted I was after. I added the requisite scarlet lining and
rang Senor B to arrange the afternoon's chat. Having only a passing association
with the Queen's English I assumed he understood, and so with the Mem
in tow I trekked Downtown to his lair.

Dreaming of the hand-stitched pocket flaps and lapels that I would soon
be sporting I rang the bell and entered his admittedly not entirely plush
establishment.

'Hello,' I said to the swarthy chap who greeted me. 'I am here to see
Senor Borrasco.'

'He no here.'

A mix up in the timing perhaps. Not altogether unexpected given his passing
assoc with HM's E.

'When will he be back?' I asked.

'Two month. He in Peru,' he added helpfully.

'Ah right.'

The Boss gave me the usual 'you idiot' look.

'Err, I rang you an hour ago and told you I was coming down.'

The chap smiled at me as if to say 'what can you do?'

And indeed what can you do?

We withdrew.

I relate this fairly mundane experience, old thing, to show the perils
of finding a worthy subject to measure your inside leg. In the spirit
of enlightening the masses I thought I'd run these guidelines by you.

Bespoke Suits, The Acquisition of. An Occasional Series.

It was Milton who said 'Until their Lord himself bespake, and told them
go'. He may or may not have been talking about his tailor. Who knows?
Nonetheless the term bespoke has come to refer to this small band of men.

Literally meaning 'to be spoken of' the term implies that one hears of
a tailor by word of mouth and not through anything so tawdry as advertising
or garish signs above shops. This is important as the right tailor is
found through a chap's pals, those whom he trusts and respects. If a chap's
pals don't know of a good tailor then he should ask himself if he is really
moving in the right circles.

When a likely candidate is suggested some homework should be done. The
tailor's

address is key. If it's on a busy highway, even one noted for fine clothing,
then a chap can expect to have half his net worth removed from his wallet
and be surrounded by bloody American tourists, gakked-up record business
executives and ghastly SH members with wet feet.

Equally, if the address is quiet and posh then a chap may be sure that
his hard-earned will be going first to the landlord, then the decorator,
then the florist &cet. Only when they've all had their snouts in the
trough will a chap's lucre find its way to the artisans who actually make
the suit. To avoid this he should aim for the kind of address where he
can be reasonably sure he won't get murdered outside, but only just. Bethnal
Green for example.

Tailors need only a rudimentary grasp of the Queen's English. They know
what they're doing and don't need telling, so conversation is largely
unnecessary. Furthermore they can be from any country in the world, with
the obvious exception of America.

They will not have showy names that one's heard of, say through sleb
endorsements. They certainly do not have names that would appear on a
label inside the garment. A chap's own name is the only one that should
appear inside his suit, for personal identification when he's become tired
and emotional, or simply because he's forgotten it.

Once a likely suspect has been identified we come to the day of the visit.

Preparation.

A chap should wear his very best clothes. This rule actually applies all
the time for every occasion, but never more so than for his first visit
to a tailor. It's like a first date. Indeed the relationship between a
gentleman and his tailor is somewhere between marriage and a game of chess,
always assuming there is any difference between them. With luck he will
be with his tailor until he wears his final suit and his Boss is wearing
her black veil and choosing which of her 'personal pilates instructors'
will get the newly vacated position.

So best clothes, clean shaven and best pants; the 'in case you get run
over by a bus' theory.

Arrival.

Arrive exactly two minutes late. To be early would be too keen and to
arrive any later than two minutes is disrespectful. The two minutes give
the tailor a chance to take the weight off and perhaps have a sip of his
tea.

Conversation.

Don't ask about his other clients, they are none of your business and
if he were to tell you he would be no tailor. If he boasts about other
clients, or indeed mentions them at all, then leave at once. He is the
wrong tailor for you.

Swatches and Styles.

You are the customer and you should have a good idea about what you want.
However he is the expert and he should know what will suit you. Pay careful
attention to whatever he shows you. He is testing you as much as you are
testing him. There is much to learn about being a bespoke customer.

Differences of Opinion.

If he raises his eyebrow even a fraction then you have erred. That is
all he need do. Take careful note and don't ask again. If you don't pick
up on it then you may find he has no room in his fitting timetable for
your next suit. The message of 'Would sir care to have the vent just that
eighth of one inch longer for sir's powerful manly hips?' is clear.

The Next Fitting.

Bespoke suits cannot be rushed, nor should they be. The process should
be savoured as much as the end product. Your tailor will tell you when
it is appropriate to return. Pleading Royal Wedding engagements in a pathetic
attempt to rush him will see you tailor-less.

The Post Fitting Glow.

Just like a first date you have to feel your way and if all goes well
you will emerge from his shop a new man, long before you actually get
the suit. As time progresses your tailor will learn what you like, cosh
pockets and the like, and your relationship will develop without any need
for conversation. This is close to nirvana and is the reason gentlemen
do not bandy the name of their tailor.

Danger Signs.

Always be on the lookout for fakirs and parvenus, any slips on the part
of the tailor and you should terminate the relationship immediately.

If all goes well be especially careful who you tell, and who they might
then tell, remember it is an exclusive and very private club and you are
responsible for those you nominate.

Finally.

It is said that no gentleman pays his tailor. That was before a good tailor
became such a rare commodity. If you don't pay him he won't make you any
more suits and you will be damned to off-the-peg ignominy. Think about
it.

Having said all that I followed these rules as far as I could and he slipped
off to bloody Peru. At least I hadn't paid him.

Yours on the lookout,

S

Posted by S at 09:44 AM | Permalink