Two Chaps Talking

New York City

My Dear Friend,

Ugh. I say again Ugh. This country is all agog over a singularly domestic phenomenon and, as is so often the case, it falls to me to disabuse them of the dignity of this charade. They rave and they shout and they generally foam at the mouth, and all at the thought of the incumbent and un-elected Idiot-in-Chief and his worthy challenger standing some ten feet apart and both telling lies. The sort of lies that if a new boy backbencher had the temerity to whisper would see him jeered with cries of 'Shame' and 'Wanker', and ultimately have him black-balled and ejected from that noble house.

Over here no one is ever required to face genuine questions so the nearest they get to an actual debate is seeing the two corporate whores on stage together in a contest where you can do little more than compare their haircuts and heights, though even these are monkeyed about with as floors are raised to ensure equality. In theory questions are posed that both are supposed to answer (I know, ridiculous) and then each is given a chance to reply to the others' answer. Ha! And I say again Ha!

In fact the entire contest hinges on whether one of them can avoid tripping over his knuckles as they drag along the floor, and the other can restrict his 'sentences' to no more than four words with nothing duo-syllabic contained therein. Think of Tinky Winky and Po, then dumb it down.

It's all about managing expectations. Last time around it was deemed a resounding victory for the current Idiot simply because he responded to his own name and managed to stay up past his bedtime. We are told to expect little more this time.

Frankly you wouldn't trust either of them to run around the block, let alone run this banana republic, sorry country. Not, I hasten to add, that I am advocating anything less than a mass turn out on the side of the challenger. They have a term over here called a 'Yellow Dog Democrat' which signifies one who would sooner vote for a yellow dog than a Republican. Were I of the local persuasion (perish the thought) I might term myself a 'Bucket of Horse Dung Democrat'. After all, the challenger may lack personality, charisma and a decent haircut, but one thing he is not is a stark-raving-mad-bible-thumping-war-monger.

On a lighter note it was recently my great pleasure to attend the opening of a tailor's shop owned by a good friend of mine. I have no doubt you are familiar with his wares as he already has a shop on Savile Row. The New York arm of Spencer Hart is located in the Bergdorf Goodman department store (think of Grace Bros. for the colonies) and I have no doubt he will be an enormous success given the superiority of his wares and the appalling state of what's usually on offer over here.

With the weather changing one is naturally drawn to thoughts of flannel and tweed and to this end I have just had my plus fours adjusted to my newly race-engineered frame (see passim. A-Goy etc.). It's a jolly pleasant feeling to instruct one's tailor to take waistbands in, I can tell you.

My visit was also to linseed the willow for a new whistle. Ah yes, that joyous time in a chap's life when only the feel of something virgin against one's inner thigh will satisfy. That would be wool Old Chap, wool. Hmm. You may recall some while ago I began to ruminate at length on the bespoke suit; pitfalls and joys of. At the time I believe I covered 'Choosing One's Tailor.' Well if you'll allow me I shall now muse on 'The Style of One's Suit.'

Funnily enough, though nothing about a bespoke suit is amusing, it's remarkably easy to select the style of one's suit. Though there are differing opinions on every aspect of the style of a chap's suit frankly, and here I shall endeavour to be enormously frank, every single one of them bar one is wrong.

I am having a piece of charcoal grey flannel super 150's pure new wool made into a suit. Ergo it follows that the suit will be a slim-fit, single-breasted, twin-vented, scarlet lined, cosh-pocketed, two-piece with a natural shoulder line, horizontal flapped pockets, an additional ticket pocket and no pleats on the trousers. Any talk of turn-ups, angled flaps, single vents and shoulder pads is the talk of fakirs and Republicans and is not to be tolerated. Could anything be simpler? All right, anything apart from the above-mentioned Tinky Winky debate. Precisely.

Another joy for Autumn is the changing of the leaves at one's country pile. However since having a country pile would necessitate living somewhere other than Manhattan this clearly isn't on and so the Memsahib and I like, at this time of year, to motor around the part of North America that they bewilderingly refer to as New England, and which I am told has nothing to do with the recent comment made by one of the jackals about Old Europe.

Anyroad one might perhaps imagine having the Men's two-seater spruced up and brought round. One might have the roof down and then shoot over the George Washington (who he?) Bridge and off into the countryside, there to enjoy animals grazing in their pastures, the spectrum of changing leaves, fragrant fields of cut grass and rolling verdant forests.

One might imagine that.

Not bloody likely. Who in his right mind would choose to inhale the effluent from CO2 belching power stations, genetically modified cyborg crops that're so chemically enhanced they could eat you rather than the reverse, and the whiff of cordite as Beau and Luke Duke use their newly legalised automatic assault weapons to shoot anything that 'ain't frum araound heeeere'. No thank you. Windows up in the Jag with Last Night of the Proms blaring and a Fortnum's hamper in case of emergency. Bugger the countryside.

There'll always be an England.

Yours, arrectis auribus,

S