Two Chaps Talking

Mon vieux,

I don't have to tell you that when piloting Coventry's Finest a Chap has a natural feel for the correct forward velocity at which to proceed. It's in a true Englishman's genes after all. The calculation is minutely affected by many things including; his surroundings, the condition of his motor, the comely frippet at his side, the distance to the next cocktail, and the time since his last. With Blake's Jerusalem echoing off the burnished walnut and the low purring of the oily thing under the bonnet to comfort him a chap wouldn't dream of pootling along at anything other than the correct speed.

Such was the case last week when the Mem and I were taking a couple of pals for a spin out of Manhattan to look at the changing leaves. It's the closest I can bring myself to nature apart from the greenery in one's glass. With that in mind you can readily imagine the polite manner in which one was passing the gun-racked pick-up trucks and chain gang prison vans that line the 'roads' in all parts outside the metrop.

It was while gliding past a convoy of such dregs that my special-forces-trained vision discerned a brightly painted clown's car that had been abandoned amongst bushes on the central reservation. The ludicrously dressed homeless person who'd made it his home was waving a comedy hair dryer out of his window.

Poor dear, thought I. Should I contact the Septic RAC to get his car fixed? Or the local nut house to get the rest of him sorted? Waving genially at him and making a mental note to send him a Fortnum's hamper I popped the car into some other gear and reached a polite and comfortable Mach II, and I don't mean the razor though frankly I doubt I'd've excited interest even doing a runner from Ratner's on Lewisham High Street after turning the place over.

So imagine if you will my surprise when the aforementioned clown car actually moved off the central res and furthermore switched on some rather ostentatious disco lights. Performance art perhaps? A 'reality show' whatever that is considering how stark raving mad this place is at the best of times. Or something more pernicious?

Traffic cleared before the Clown Mobile to the point where it and my gentleman's club were the only moving objects. The CM settled in some way behind me and I began to feel very sorry for his gear box. When he gamely tried to maintain this odd convoy my sympathy took over and I slowed to a stop to enable him to pass. He pulled in behind me.

Thinking that Halloween had come rather late on this stretch of 'motorway' I observed the clown step from his car and approach my own.

'Lar since surr,' said the miscreant.
'Good afternoon my good man. And what a splendid one it is too. What?' I rummaged around in the glove box for some chocolates and Gentleman's Relish to put in his 'trick or treat' basket.
'Ahh sid lar since surr,' was the noise with which he replied.

Now as you may know, in spite of being entirely top notch and utterly beyond reproach the Mem actually lists a place that is not strictly speaking in England as her place of birth. With that in mind you may understand how it was that she managed to translate this person's 'speech' into actual words.

The Mem handed him a pile of papers to which I had paid scant attention and he made some strange marks on a cafŽ order pad or something.

But that wasn't all. And here's the rub, or indeed the Great Miscarriage of Justice of Our Time.

The cheeky bastard was only giving me a speeding ticket!

I know! Imagine. One touch of the hyperspace button in my Jag and he would've forgotten the droids he was looking for and had no recollection whatsoever of even having been in that part of the country. But no. I'd taken the high road and pulled over to let him pass.

For Gawd's sake. A gentleman doesn't speed. Joy riders, chavs and men in white vans speed. A gentleman knows the correct rate at which to drive and he sticks to it. He pays no heed to mis-spelt historic relics (signs? Ha!) that are clearly left-over from the days of horse drawn carts. The fact that he's prepared to drive on the wrong side of the road is surely concession enough to this woebegone land.

I tried this on the stripy-trousered knuckle-dragger but it fell on deaf ears. Turns out his little present is to deprive me of the price of a very decent bottle of '78 Margaux. Plus they also take it upon themselves to inform the bally insurance company who will want their own pound of flesh, and furthermore they have the bare faced cheek to besmirch something called my driving licence (don't even remember getting that).

Chap doesn't take this lying down I can tell you. There is a re-recorded version of Land of Hope and Glory about to launch itself onto the pop charts to start the appeal and I have spoken to the British Ambassador, the UN and Amnesty International. There will be a day of protest at walnut burnishers across the land and until this wrong is righted my tailor refuses to attend to anyone with an American accent.

I shall have my day in court and this appalling travesty will be shown to the world for what it is. Or I'll do a five stretch on A wing and keep me head down son.

Rule Bloody Britannia.

Your ex-con friend,

S

Posted by S at 05:41 PM | Permalink

Dear Boy,

You'll remember when I visited you in Manhattan, how delighted I was by your study. It seems that, pace our own eponymous column, the most essential piece of kit a chap could wish for is a quiet room where he can have his books and things around him. In these dark days, the smoking jacket on the back of the door, the tantalus and the pipe-rack are perhaps supplanted by the quiet hum of a powerful computer with a screaming broadband connection but, nonetheless the essential calm spirit of the place is still there.

Imagine, therefore, my delight on finding a house with a beautifully proportioned room overlooking the garden, equipped with floor to ceiling shelves and (be still my heart) a ladder.

My books were installed within hours: though I'm allowing myself months to develop the perfect cataloguing system. Objets and arcana have been retrieved from storage and engravings and photographs enliven the tiny remaining spaces of naked wall.

I think the enormous throbbing PC, which contains the entirety of the Two Chaps' Empire, will be sent to do its work out of earshot in a cupboard under the stairs while I compile my immortal missives on a totally silent Mac G4 cube kept under a bell-jar like the Batphone. Through many concealed speakers the subsequent eremitic silence can be adorned with choral music or opera at will. I have never felt more content.

Away from the desk is the other desideratum of civilised existence. Though I know you favour the fauteuil or fainting couch, I have rescued a thoroughly disreputable 1930s red velvet sofa of sufficient length for full indolent supinity by a 6'1" reader. It looks as if a dog has slept on it since the War; a difficult effect to achieve for a man with no particular love of domestic animals but worth, I think, the added effort. The reading light of choice is an early 1950s focussable, supplementary operating-theatre lamp upgraded with a daylight-balanced bulb, minutely adjustable by a rheostat.

With all set out to perfection I stood in the centre of the room poll-axed by choice. Should I spend my first moments in the contemplation of the bronze head of Hypnos? Should I take my place at the keyboard and give birth to the opening paragraph of some great work. Perhaps I could leaf idly through a first edition or toy with the Leica on the shelf of vintage cameras.

There was only one choice when it finally came down to it. Reaching for the knackered, grubby paperback of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, I turned to chapter forty-six.

Were I permitted but a single piece of prose to take to a desert island it would be a Solomonic choice between the Llanabba School games in Decline and Fall and Lawrence's description of a desert feast in a Howeitat encampment.

As they were nomads, Howeitat feasting was defined by what they could carry. Their herds moved with them and provided the protein. Sacks of rice, dry and light, and an enormous ceremonial bowl - 'a shallow bath, five feet across, set like a great brazier on a foot' - would be carried on a pack camel. This elephantine receptacle was ringed with a foot-deep breastwork of boiled rice surrounding the roasted carcasses of at least three sheep: their heads facing upwards with jaws open to provide a central focus.

There is a strain of sheep that spreads from the Western Sahara, across the Fertile Crescent and from Manchuria down to India which is remarkable for its ability to store fat around its hindquarters and tail. Herodotus had much to say on the subject of the Arabian sheep remarking that, in some cases, the fat tail was no less than four and a half feet long and would have to be supported on a little wooden cart pulled by the sheep itself. This 'mutton-butter' would render out as the sheep roasted yielding gallons of valuable fat that was collected in copper cauldrons.

The guests reclined on camel saddles on three sides of a carpet and after conversation, handwashing and coffee the main dish was brought in. Once the mutton and surrounding rampart of rice were placed before the guests, servants ladled the fat and cooking juices into the central depression, to the point - crucial in Howeitat hospitality - where they flowed over the edges of the bowl and onto the floor. Finally, as a triumphal flourish, the fat-poached livers were placed in the yawning maws of the sheepheads.

The guests set to, bunching the rice and meat into managable lumps with the permissible right hand and deftly flicking the fat and juice bound morsel into the mouth with the thumb. As the feast progressed, jewelled daggers were drawn and men vied to slice off more toothsome pieces to offer to their companions. Finally, once everyone had gorged to satiety, the host bade everyone rise and walk outside to contemplate the desert night and converse. As the guests, hosts and first rank of the tribe left, the next sitting of Howeitat fell upon the food. Finally, once all the men had eaten, the dish was taken out of the tent and the remains fed to the women, children and hounds.

I'm trying to find an excuse to do that at a dinner party in Camden Town.

Finally, I must leave you with a quote I heard this week from Hilaire Belloc's poem 'The Modern Traveller' (1898).

'Whatever happens we have got
The Maxim Gun, and they have not'.

How redolent of the arrogant self-assuredness of the world's greatest empire and supreme confidence in the superiority of her military technology.

How far we have come in the last century.

Toodle Pip

T

Posted by T at 04:58 PM | Permalink

Dear Boy,

When counselling younger chaps I often look to the works of Lord Baden
Powell as something of an expert. Relief, as he is reputed to have discovered,
can always be found in 'Scouting
for Boys'.

“Don’t be disgraced like the young Romans, who lost the
Empire of their forefathers by being wishy-washy slackers without any
go or patriotism in them”.

There. What more could you ask? More of the woggle-abusing pederast anon.

I write from, believe it or not, the monastic seclusion of a riad
in Marrakech. I must correct myself there. It would be monastic but for
the echoing sound of the couple across the courtyard humping themselves
into pelvic trauma.

It’s a strange arrangement. She’s one of those PR-issue blondes
who’s clearly married cash, he’s far too good looking and
self regarding to be anything other than a gym instructor and they are
accompanied on their inter-intercourse excursions by a mousey Irish girl
in an ill-advised floral dress. The blonde keeps phoning home for intense
chats while pretty boy is sent to sun himself on the roof. I deduce that
the man who pays the bill is back at the old homestead, happy in the belief
that his beloved is touring ruins with her mate from work.

The delightful staff creep quietly about the place on slippered feet
and speak in low tones, fully aware how sound carries in these old places.
Our couple shed their chaperone twice a day to bang obliviously and to
the amusement of all.

This is one of those terrific ‘Hip Hotels’ places which can
always be identified by three factors; candles everywhere, rose petals
floating on every available surface and the soundtrack. For the past ten
years the soundtrack in every boutique hotel has been the same three CDs
of Bhudda Bar/Enyaesque Eurochill. Some relaxing and clearly identifiable
track - the Gymnopedies, Madame Butterfly, plainchant or some pleasantly
melancholic Billie Holliday is remixed by Parisian called something like
DJ Chilla to a subliminal house beat found, after extensive research to
evoke feelings of mild euphoria in Rhesus monkeys.

Last night, in a similarly styled restaurant I heard a new one that I
simply must have. Ever since Serge Gainsbourg did his strange interpretation
of an elderly gentleman doing something unclean with his pubescent niece
there has been a French musical genre that involves a breathy young chanteuse
doing old standards as if being rhythmically rogered. Last night’s
sounded similar. A bit of tinkly piano followed by a few lubricating warm
up sighs and then….

“We’re only mekking plan fo Nigel,(pant, pant)

We onli wan wass bess for ‘im…"

As I choked on my couscous this segued seamlessly into…

“Zis is not a lurv song…"(pant pant)

…before climaxing in a positively headboard chewing version of…

“ A wan to ‘ol you, wan to ‘ol you tight,

Get teenage kicks all sroo ze night." (moan, shriek)

Technically, John Peel may not actually be in his grave yet. Wherever
he is, he’s spinning.

Marrakech is, frankly, weird. I guess the original design of stealth
houses in a defensible Medina surrounded by ramparts and a million square
miles of desert must have had something to do with not wanting anyone
else to get their hands on your goods, chattels or womenfolk and was thus
entirely laudable. Now, these riads or garden-houses or conceal
beautiful hotels or restaurants. With no exterior windows they are entirely
invisible but for an armoured door down some tiny alley. Bugger defensibility,
a rival tribe could have occupied the city and been living next door for
six years and they’d never know you existed.

Between these lambent drops of tranquil elegance is a dusty expanse of
picturesque squalor.

Sadly the only treasures the riads protect today are wealthy French people
and Brits of the wrong sort (Why is it that an Englishman can only do
something romantic if it is illicit?) This, of course, causes tremendous
clashes of culture - This morning I saw a fashionable Frenchwoman leaving
our little enclave dressed in pink sheepskin boots. Not only was the temperature
outside enough to cause instant heatstroke but the streets are ankle deep
in human effluent and sheep blood. What is going on in her head?

Fortunately, the French men have universally adopted a more practical
look. Working from the ground up - Paris-Dakar branded hiking boots, egregiously
pocketty trousers with elasticated ankles, a carefully soiled drill workshirt,
a complex jerkin featuring sufficient pockets for a Paparazzo
on a fly-fishing holiday and a large scarf, like a pashmina but in a far
butcher fabric, the whole in varying tones of sludge. I think the impression
is supposed to be of an adventurous social anthropologist - a brilliant
and highly respected academic almost in spite of his unbelievable good
looks. Unfortunately they are French and thus look like overdressed twats.

The Englishmen tend to favour light linen shirts, trousers and jackets
worn with either ghastly leather flipflops or sockless deckshoes. The
ensemble is intended to evoke the ‘Sheltering Sky’ but ends
up looking more like a hot night in an advertising agency circa 1982.
Their wives, partners or paramours wear layers of shawls, pashminas, kikoi
and sarongs the cumulative effect of which is to mercifully hide their
figures while occasionally being mistaken for a haberdasher’s stall
in the Souk.

And so, as the sun sinks low over the Djemma el Fnaaa, the muezzin
give it their all and the staff bend themselves to another reeking tajine,
I find myself lost in contemplation and short of a cocktail. For an Englishman
at a loose end in Marrakech the solution has always been Scouting for
Boys.

We all know that BP had strong feelings about twanging the wire but few
have actually bothered to seek out his actual words. I, naturally, have.
Here therefore, for the general good of humanity, they are….

“You all know what it is to have at times a pleasant feeling
in your private parts, and there comes an inclination to work it up
with your hand or otherwise… The practice is called ‘self-abuse’.
And the result of self-abuse is always – mind you, always –
that the boy after a time becomes weak and nervous and shy, he gets
headaches and probably palpitations of the heart, and if he carries
it on too far he very often goes out of his mind and becomes an idiot.”

You see, now I’m starting to wish I hadn’t laughed at their
dibbing and dobbing. Clearly they knew something I didn’t. Instead
of spending weekends in tents with boys working on my knots, I obviously
wasted my vital energies in working it up. And it gets worse…

“A very large number of the lunatics in our asylums have made
themselves ill by indulging in this vice although at one time they were
sensible cheery boys like any one of you.”

I was that cheery boy! Now look at me – hollow eyes, sunken chest,
three-inch lateral scoliosis in L2-5, asthma and a near permanent hangover.
If you think that’s bad, you should see the picture in my attic
- tertiary syphilis and a single nostril. Perhaps, though, it’s
not too late to stop the rot. BP has advice…

“Just wash your parts in cold water and cool them down. Wet dreams
come from it especially after eating rich food or too much meat, or
from sleeping with too warm a blanket over you or in too soft a bed
or from sleeping on your back. Therefore avoid all these.”

Mind you, if he’d had the occasional wank he might have been better
at punctuation.

Salaam Alaikum

T

Posted by T at 12:22 PM | Permalink

Mon Vieux,

These troubling times affect us all in different ways. While there is
little political discourse on this small island of Manhattan, there is
no argument in unremitting imbecility after all, strange tales do surface.

I offer one such to you, not from here but from there, though I would
like to think it's happening all over in its own way.

So this pal of mine's parked his motor in a No Parking private kind of
car park and paid no heed to the sign offering a free and easy clamping
service. Sure enough when he gets back from doing his business there's
a shiny new clamp on his motor and a big geezer putting the equipment
back in his clamping van.

Now this pal of mine is a bit tasty if you get my drift and one would
not be mistaken in supposing he could be a bit lively if given sufficient
reason. And the clamper was no shrinking violet either. Much used to having
abuse heaped upon him he was the quiet, violent type. A potent mix indeed.
So when my pal approached the clamper it looked like fireworks could well
have been in the offing.

'Did you put that on my car?' asked my pal in a neutral tone.

'Yeah,' replied the clamper, equally neutral, but clearly sizing up
the threat and preparing for a bit of argy bargy.

My pal reached into his pocket and the clamper stood up to his full six-three.

Seconds out…Round One.

'So can I give you a cheque? Or should I get cash?' asked my pal politely.

'What?'

'I just want to get it taken off. I saw the sign so I can't complain.
I mean, you're only doing your job. And a hundred quid is no big deal.
Not when people are getting their heads chopped off in Iraq.' My pal
smiled grimly.

'You know,' said the clamper. 'In all my years of doing this no one
has ever said that to me.'

A quiet moment of bonhomie ensued.

'Fuck it,' said the clamper kneeling down by my pal's motor. 'I'm taking
it off. You're right mate, compared to what's going on in the world
this is a joke. Put your money away.'

They parted with a mutual respect for those in danger on foreign shores,
and for the greater scale of things.

With the moral reflection out of the way let me apprise would of my current
situ. You are well aware that She Who Must Be Obeyed has made it clear
that though the muse may be with me I must once more offer my allegiance
to the Fickle Mistress of Fashion. I won't say I don't relish it to be
honest. There is much to be said for using one's actual training and experience
for something other than shopping for handkerchiefs and Officers' gloves.

Anyway as I write I am about to board a jetliner to the Flesh Pots of
Asia there to chat with a behemoth outfit who may or may not wish me to
join the ex-pat community. Long way no? Well yes but frankly one is so
alien here it hardly seems any different to be in the land of the communist
dictator. I mean, English buses driven on the left, the game of football
not confused with It's a Knockout in skid lids, and Rugby Sevens. One
could almost be in Albion.

With the possibility of leaving these fair shores for a period the Boss
and I have thrown ourselves wholeheartedly into the Autumnal social melee
with dramatic effects. As you know Old Thing I like nothing more of an
evening than to sink into the club chair with a slim volume of Yeats and
a glass of single malt, perhaps with the World Service playing quietly
on the wireless. No such luck these last few weeks. With a dear friend
making a royal visit we have been squiring him round this steaming metrop
to all manner of soirees. Let me share a few with you for your edification.

Bergdorf Goodman is like Grace Brothers but without the excitement of
Mr Humphries and Miss Brahms (who actually was very fit at the time).
Nonetheless they do provide a very acceptable White Bordeaux when it's
time to unveil a new something-or-other. This time it was a book by one
of those boys who go on the box to teach Neanderthals how to eat indoors
and stop wearing animal skins. Anyway I took our visiting royalty along
to this shindig and within minutes we'd consumed enough White B to warrant
the trip and much more besides. He's not altogether without his admirers
is my mucker and so with the Mem out of the way I was able to bask in
his reflected glory.

Next evening saw us at a wine tasting event at some gawd-help-us posh
restaurant in the Flatiron District. Swish area but sadly deluded establishment.
We were to sample Les Pinots Noir but, and forgive me for being ridiculous
here, they were from somewhere called Cally-Forn-Ya. It's in North America
apparently. Now isn't that the oddest thing - the thought that they're
making a sort of reddish liquid out of grapes and rather audaciously calling
it 'wine?' Whatever will they think of next? I won't bother you with the
results of the 'tasting' except to say that 'wine' may be a similar colour
to wine but it is far less pleasant to drink.

The following evening we went to, wait for it… the opening of a
Barber's Shop. Yes I know what you're thinking - TUFTs - Turn Up For a
Tenner. Hold your horses though. The B's S in question goes by the name
of a famous whiskey that coincidentally sponsored the event and provided
copious amounts of the amber nectar to mitigate any worry about one's
motives.

Enough? Not by a long chalk. For a change we planned a daytime excursion
to JFK airport and the Eero Saarinen designed TWA terminal. It's the one
shaped like a big sea shell and there was an art exhibition going on there.
Anyway we forswore the opening party and instead went for a leisurely
poke around during the week. Alas we erred. It transpires that during
the opening night's shenanigans people actually smoked inside the building.
That's right. Quelle horreur they actually smoked! The fact that there
were also gang fights, satanic rituals and human sacrifices is by-the-by.
For god's sake man, they smoked! Needless to say the exhibition was closed
down, the organisers sent to Camp X-Ray and the building razed to the
ground. Just in the nick of time.

Add to that bit of common sense the fact that apparently the Idiot-in-Chief
had a microphone up his Harris or something during the recent 'debate'
and you can see that life here in this banana republic continues as ever.
I understand they're going to have a novel public-participation stage
during the selection of the new I-i-C. I think what happens is they ask
whatever members of the public they haven't excluded from voting who they
want to win. Then the lawyers and judges secretly decide who's actually
going to win. And then they give it to the current knuckle-dragger anyway.
It's about as close to democracy as that Cally-Forn-Ya stuff was to actual
wine. And so the world turns.

However, lest I leave you with the impression that all is lost let me
share with you a recent triumph in the field of 'teaching the young how
to behave in polite society.' A very dear friend is parent to a young
scamp who is old beyond his nine years and so desperately in need of suitable
conv with which to dazzle his school chums.

Now I don't know how nine-year-olds are supposed to behave in this country
but I suggested to him that next time his school master gives him some
juicy information in front of the rest of the class he should purse his
lips, let his eyelids droop, stare pointedly at his perfectly manicured
fingernails and drawl 'Oh really? How fascinating.'

Wasn't that how we succeeded so well under Headmasters Granger and Harper?
I'm sure it was.

When next I write I'll be returned from the Flesh Pots and may have news
of great import. Or not.

Your own dear dedicated follower of fashion,

S

Posted by S at 12:19 PM | Permalink