Home//The Oldie/February 2023/In This Issue
The Oldie|February 2023Among this month's contributorsKenneth Cranham (p17) is one of our leading actors. He was in Oliver! and starred in Shine on Harvey Moon. On stage, he's appeared in Loot, Entertaining Mr Sloane and An Inspector Calls.Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones (p18) is known as the Black Farmer. He farms on the Devon-Cornwall border. Born in Jamaica and brought up in Birmingham, he was a BBC producer of food and drink shows.Amelia Butler-Gallie (p31) is a postgraduate at Lincoln College, Oxford. She is doing an MA in 18th-century literature. In this issue, she writes about the threat to Virgil and Homer at Oxford.Elinor Goodman (P32) was political edi tor of Channel 4 News from 1988 to 2005. She is a regular presenter of The Week in Westminster and was a member of the Leveson Inquiry panel.…1 min
The Oldie|February 2023My lovers’ spat with George BestI have started the new year with a new hobby.I am taking a weekly walk down memory lane – literally. My physiotherapist, Finola, is doing her best to improve my posture and balance in the hope that I fall over less in the future than I have in the past.Part of her regimen requires me to take regular brisk walks. To add interest to my promenades, I have decided to revisit places I once knew well but haven't been to in a while.I started in Oakley Street, London SW3, where I lived with my parents as a little boy in the mid-1950s. It's a wide, handsome street of Victorian terraced houses that runs from the King's Road down to Cheyne Walk and the River Thames.My father liked to say that…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023MODERN LIFEWHAT IS main character syndrome?Main character syndrome is when you find yourself behaving like the protagonist of some kooky Hollywood romcom. Or maybe it's a French arthouse movie for you, a Taylor Swift video, or a novel by John Le Carré.You imagine all the world is your stage and everyone you interact with is a supporting player. Not a medically recognised condition, it's a way of investing each mundane interaction with cinematic grandeur and novelistic significance.The term gained currency on pandemic-era TikTok, when millions of bored teenagers started uploading parodic videos, gently ironising their own humdrum lockdown routines. Some are funny deconstructions of common Hollywood tropes – the montage of the romcom heroine returning to her home town, for example.Main character syndrome isn't confined to TikTok. It is a widespread…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023Only connectGetting the 5.52am train from Exeter St David's to Paddington is not a journey for the faint-hearted. But I believe face-to-face meetings are essential to build and maintain relationships in our business and personal lives.It is an expensive trip at this time of the morning and a long way to go for a one-hour meeting. Still, my belief is that the old-fashioned way of doing things outstrips the convenience of the modern age.‘Why not send an email or have a Teams or Zoom meeting?’ my younger colleagues are always asking.I organise trips up-country myself from my farm on the Devon-Cornwall border, and I do so as if I were getting ready for a date. I confirm, confirm again, and ring ahead so I can hear from a person's lips that…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023Fighting for my rightsWhen I was asked by Qatari human-rights defenders to stage a protest in Doha in the run-up to the World Cup, I was apprehensive.Sure, I've done more than 3,000 protests over the last 55 years, been arrested too times and experienced 300-plus violent assaults. So I'm a risk-taker and not afraid of a few knocks.But Qatar upped the risk factor to a much higher level. It is a police state where protests are banned. Protesters get beaten and jailed. Westerners have died after being arrested. I was afraid – but my fears were overridden by the importance of shining a light on Qatar's abuse of women, LGBTs and migrant workers.I knew protesters can end up in prison for several weeks – or months. I took a calculated gamble that the…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023Oxford bluesOtempora! O mores! The Classics faculty at the University of Oxford is looking more likely to proceed with proposed reforms to the degree course, first suggested in 2020.Homer and Virgil – the greatest poets of Greece and Rome – would be pushed to the sidelines in favour of a more diverse assortment of Classical texts and contexts. Horribile dictu!The implications – not only for undergraduates, but also for the wider cultural messages this sends about how we value civilisation's most magnificent literary works – are gargantuan.The reforms would mean the compulsory study of the Iliad and the Aeneid, normally examined during second-year Honour Moderations (or Mods), becomes an optional study for papers in Greats, the Classics Finals papers.As Virgil warned in Book VI of the Aeneid, ‘facilis descensus Averno’, ‘the…3 min
The Oldie|February 2023The Oldie Literary Lunch in DorsetTuesday 14th March 2023 At Kingston Courtyard, near Corfe Castle, BH20 5LRSponsored byThe kitchens of the National Liberal Club are closed until May. So we have decided to go on tour, in aid of local charities (save the dates: 26th April at Fairlight Hall near Hastings; 9th May, back at the National Liberal Club)on Et Tu, Brute? The Best Latin Lines Ever, written with John DavieHarry MountLatin omnibus, from Virgil to saucy graffitiAndrew Lownieon Traitor King: The Scandalous Exile of the Duke and duch*ess ofWindsorThe gripping tale of the Windsors after the AbdicationSasha Swireon Diary of an MP's WifeThe juicy inside story of the David Cameron yearsTO BOOK TICKETS email reservations@theoldie.co.uk or call Katherine on 01225 427311 (Mon-Fri 9.30am-3pm). The price is £60 for a three-course lunch including wine or soft drinks • Fish and vegetarian options available on advance request…1 min
The Oldie|February 2023Best of BritishNowadays, it isn't just oldies who are baffled by thoroughfares like Bond Street.The glossy facades of our most famous shopping streets have never housed cheap goods. But there was a time when Covent Garden piazza had stalls selling quirky belts, scarves or trinkets and Burlington Arcade could yield a delightful, affordable gift such as a Battersea enamel box or an Irish linen, hand-rolled handkerchief.Today, Covent Garden is a soulless hub for high-street chains and brands such as Chanel or Tom Ford. Burlington Arcade is a polished marble souk for the super-rich.To browse in Asprey or Hermes is to feel overwhelmed by the prices and beady-eyed, hovering staff. Suited-andbooted security men make the very act of entry intimidating.And once you're in, then what?A Chanel woman's jacket costs more than £6,000, a…6 min
The Oldie|February 2023The patron saint of modern IrelandWe're in the age of compulsory equality – and now it has reached the community of the saints.The Irish celebrate St Patrick's Day across the world on 17th March. But this year, for the first time, St Brigid is to be given equal status with St Pat – with her very own bank holiday. St Brigid's Day is traditionally on 1st February, but the public holiday for Brigid will now be held on the first Monday of every February.Brigid was a holy woman who flourished in County Kildare from c 450 AD until 523. It's said her father was a nobleman and her mother a slave.She was (according to legend) an early peace advocate, who broke her father's sword to deter him from going to war. Although apparently gifted with…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023Quite Interesting Things about… horses• Napoleon owned 1,762horses. • The Queen owned more than 3,280 racehorses. • A horse is capable of almost 15 horsepower. • Horses have the largest eyes of any land mammal. • A horse's skin is more sensitive than a fingertip. • A horse's teeth take up more room in its head than its brain. • Horses have five ‘hearts’: each hoof acts as an additional blood pump. • The average horse weighs over half a tonne (540kg). • The sound of the hooves in a televised horse race is actually a recording of asloweddown buffalo stampede. • More people in Australia are killed by horses than by bees, wasps, snakes, spiders and jellyfish combined. • Horses were first domesticated in Kazakhstan.• Today's ‘wild’ horses are all descended from domesticated…1 min
The Oldie|February 2023The cost of living painlesslyI hesitate once again to bring my own case before the public, but I do so for purely educational purposes. Besides, who is not interested in his own case?For the last several months, I have suffered from a condition called polymyalgia rheumatica, which has a lifetime prevalence of more than two per cent among women and one per cent among men. It afflicts mainly those of about 70 years of age and seems to be increasing in frequency for reasons that are not understood – not surprisingly because its cause is unknown.The symptoms are pain and stiffness in the shoulders and the pelvis and hips. It has one serious complication, giant cell arteritis, which occurs in ten per cent of untreated cases and can cause blindness or stroke and therefore…3 min
The Oldie|February 2023Feeding time at the zoo with Ted HeathIn the summer of 1976, I had a phone call from Ted Heath's PA. I was working at Westminster as a political correspondent for the BBC.Would I like to help set up an event on TV, I was asked, to celebrate Heath's 60th birthday? Heath had lost both the premiership, and the leadership, of the Conservative party. So he needed cheering up.We hit on the idea of getting him to go to London Zoo to feed one of the two pandas that Mao Zedong had presented to him during a visit to China in 1974.Heath had given Mao two very rare Pére David's deer, and a book by Charles Darwin. One panda, a female, was called Ching Ching. The other was a male called Chia Chia but, as Heath said…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023Posh misery memoirBy Rory Knight BruceMount Orleans Press £20Rory Knight Bruce was one of Fleet Street's characters in the 1980s and ‘90s: a bit of a legend in his own lunchtime.A Puck-like, Will-o’-the-wisp Withnail in everyone's peripheral vision, he seemed to appear from nowhere, leaving a trail of larger-8than-life pranks, triumphs and more frequent disasters, which fuelled drunken gossip to everyone's amusem*nt.For a period, he edited that prepschool of posh journos, the Evening Standard's Londoner's Diary, from where he sallied forth nightly to terrorise society and browbeat complainants.And then he was gone – rumoured to have become a Master of Foxhounds somewhere in the great blood-drenched Valhalla that is the British countryside.Twenty pages into An Unanchored Heart – a suitably i930s-ish-sounding title, being both dated and poignant – the reader can admire…4 min
See Also
Love Vote Show Wish Donald Jackson Hits YMCA Zumba Shoots Clarence Public Library Shred Dust Clean Hockey Game Marlon Jackon, Liza Minneli, Frank Welker, Mitt Romney, James Taylor’s Birthday Work It Out Wombats Haircut Dogs The Alpha Baa Baa Twinkle500 Unique Boy Names For A Boy Dachshund PuppyIssue 1-Mar-2023 - Country LifeIssue 41 - 2022 - BestThe Oldie|February 2023When the Protestant Wind blowsBritons are obsessed with the weather, so why doesn't it play more of a part in our view of history?As far as British history is concerned, that might be because extremes of weather have been quite rare. By the standards of the tropics, or the unforgiving polarities other countries have to put up with, we are, or at least have been, pretty lucky.That is not to say that weather hasn't played a part in our history – or been assigned one by historians and chroniclers when convenient. A book to be published later this year by the global historian Peter Frankopan – The Earth Transformed – set me thinldng.Frankopan's canvas is as broad as it possibly could be: the whole of human history across the whole globe, tracing interactions be…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023THEATREGarrick Theatre, until 25th February‘The true length of a person's life, whatever the Dictionary of National Biography may Say, is always a matter of dispute.’That's Virginia Woolf's surreal premise of her novel Orlando, about an androgynous Tudor nobleman who lives through several centuries without ageing, and ends up in 1928, the year this fantastical ‘biography’ was written.It was inspired by the family history of Woolf's lover, Vita Sackville-West, brought up at Knole, Kent, and later to revitalise Sissinghurst with her husband, Harold Nicolson.Stories about time travel are always entertaining. What makes Woolf's yarn so fashionable is the ambiguous sexuality of its hero – or heroine.On his/her journey through the ages, Orlando falls in and out of love (and in and out of bed) with a bewildering variety of suitors, and…3 min
The Oldie|February 2023MUSICMaurice Ravel is said to have looked back with pleasure, and a touch of envy, at what he called the ‘artless mastery’ of the string quartet he completed in 1903 at the age of 28.It would be his only string quartet; a happy highway he once trod but could not tread again.It's a vibrant, multi-faceted piece that received an unforgettable performance by the Takacs Quartet at last year's Edinburgh Festival. Now the recording they made earlier in 2022 is with us, released by Hyperion on 6th January.The other works on the new CD are Henry Dutilleux's 1977 piece Ainsi la nuit, six short studies in sonority's ‘suspended time’, and a delightful new six-movement divertissem*nt for string quartet Les Six rencontres, which was commissioned by the Takács from pianist Stephen Hough.It…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023GARDENINGPity those people who don't get a Valentine's card. Age is no excuse.It's unlikely but, should I be in your amorous thoughts on 14th February, no red roses please. These flowers are not exactly abundant in British gardens at this time of the year and, anyway, who wants expensive, unseasonal, scentless blooms flown in from several thousand miles away? (You could, however, send them on 6th July, when the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates the venerated San Valentino and homegrown roses are plentiful.)Ins tead, consider Lenten roses hellebores, known variously as Helleborus orientalis and H x hybridus. Although native to Greece and Turkey, they've been in our island gardens long enough to avoid that controversial probe ‘Where are you really from?’If you do want to know a garden plant's true origin,…3 min
The Oldie|February 2023RESTAURANTSWe're in the depths of Dry January: the month of sobriety and austerity.I'm utterly skint. I've already made some raids on the freezer, discovering mackerel from June and an iceberg of various stocks which I have dragooned into soups. Last night, I found a tin of gesiers de canard (duck's gizzards), which I will have for dinner with a clothes peg on my nose.I'm very bored – so bored that I have done an analysis of the cost of eating out in 1973 compared with 2023.In front of me is a 1973 menu from the Ebury Wine Bar, on the edge of Belgravia. It had just been taken over by Nigel Pullan and Shura Shihwarg, the res taurateur husband of Joan Wyndham (Love Lessons), who went on to open The…3 min
The Oldie|February 2023MOTORINGA seven-year-old Range Rover Sport hybrid suffered complete main-battery failure. It was the hybrid battery, not the ordinary car battery.A partial failure would apparently not have been too serious because sections can be replaced. But replacing the whole thing requires a special jig (because the battery is built into the car) and specially trained fitters (because of'elfnsafety). The bill? That'll be 21,000 smackers, guv.Next, a gentleman describing himself as the ‘happy owner’ of a 14,000-mile BMWi3 wrote to Autocar about what happened after his drivetrain warning light came on. His main dealer had the car for four weeks while replacing the ECU and the electric motor.That was 17,000 smackers – and it didn't even solve the problem. An engineer from BMW head office diagnosed a faulty battery-cooling condenser, replaced in…3 min
The Oldie|February 2023The Oldie invites you to come and stay at La Foce, the former home of Iris Origo, in southern Tuscany 13th-20th October 2023La Foce was the Tuscan home of Iris Origo, which she immortalised in her wartime memoir War in the Val d'Orcia. In the 1920s, she commissioned Cecil Pinsent to design the world-famous gardens. Four years ago, her granddaughter renovated the 15th-century villa and its outbuildings, and they are now available to rent. So we snapped up an available week. We will have the Origos’ home to ourselves, and will be able to swim in the pool and wander through the gardens, while looking across the valley and its famous zigzag road which features on so many book jackets. Not to be missed.ITINERARYFriday 13th October – arrivalMorning flight to Rome; late lunch at the villa followed by tour of the garden.Saturday 14th October – Perugia and AssisiGuided tours of Perugia, where…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023Magnificent duch*ess in her flying machineAlone in a copse in the park at Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, stands a Corinthian temple. Built in 1916 by the duch*ess of Bedford, it honours a pet Pekingese.A bronze effigy of the dog, by Paul van de Kerckhove, lies atop a stone plinth on which are inscribed both his dynastic and his familiar names, Che Foo and Wuzzy. We read that he was born in 1904 and died in 1916.The memorial has a stepped, circular base. Six Corinthian columns, carved with decorative bands and linked by benches – on which to sit sadly – supported by lion's feet, encircle the tomb. A stone frieze of bows, fruit and flowers carries the dome of wrought-iron work; no mean monument to a peke.On her dog's demise, the duch*ess made a desolate entry…3 min
The Oldie|February 2023Moron crossword 422Across1 Boracic (sl) (5) 4 Altitude (6) 9 Abnormal (5) 10 Sad, infelicitous (7) 11 Stretches out (7) 12 Allowed within the law (5) 14 Fasten; draw (3) 15 Freezing cold (3) 16 Young of goat (3) 18 Personal (3) 21 Tooth (5) 22 Assert, state (7) 23 Student discussion group (7) 25 Vote in (5) 26 Circumvented, avoided (6) 27 Head of city government (5)Down1 Undergo, endure (6) 2 Exactly alike (9) 3 Charming; stealing (6) 5 Breathe out (6) 6 Space; opening (3) 7 Secret lovers’ meetings (6) 8 Below par (11) 13 Shenanigans (9) 17 Entertained (6) 18 Citrus fruit (6) 19 Cry loudly; amusing event (6) 20 Drink of the gods (6) 24 Muck; slander (3)Genius 420 solutionWinner: Alan Scollan, London W1Runners-up: Dr Arabella Woodrow, Keighley,…1 min
The Oldie|February 2023Oh, I do like to be beside the North SeaImagine the Scottish coast. If you're a southern tourist like me, you'll picture the drama of the west coast and the romance of its islands. So a walk on its east coast was an education, and a revelation.I began by parking on the pier in the comely fishing village of Collieston, north of Aberdeen. Read that sentence again, oh lovers of Cornwall, and envisage a miraculous universe where you can still find a free space on the harbourside for your car.The fishwives of Collies ton once trudged inland with wicker rucksacks full of the catch of the day, to exchange for meat or cash from farmers’ wives.The fishing has gone now and, when I visited, Collieston harbour was populated by cold-water wives standing neck-deep in the icy sea, chatting to…3 min
The Oldie|February 2023The fall and rise of Michael CaineSixty-five years ago, many cinemagoers wanted to avoid the supporting feature for the Danny Kaye vehicle Merry Andrew.That supporting feature – Blind Spot (1958) – was standard B-film fare, with scenery costing approximately 5/6d. The only redeeming element was the last-minute revelation of the villain, nicely underplayed by a tall, fair-haired actor billed 13th in the opening credits.It was the great Michael Caine, who will turn 90 on 14th March.‘Michael Caine-spotting’ is a pastime familiar to those of us who appreciate British cinema of the 1950s and early 60s.Caine did national service between 1952 and 1954, seeing active service in Korea. After he'd left the army, it was a long, hard slog before he hit the big time.Before the release of Zulu in January 1964, he appeared in 16 films.…5 min
The Oldie|February 2023My bum rap‘Molest me, Les. Molest me in my workplace, you dirty old devil!’The replay on the CCTV screen froze on a shot of my bum. The boardroom at Oz House was as full as a pommy complaints box – with Australian dignitaries, all old mates, sh*tting themselves. Otherwise, the boardroom was very quiet.On the screen, I recognised Chantelle Pugh, one of my nubile PAs and a trusted member of Team Patterson. I looked around the room. There was the picture of Betty Windsor on the wall; some bastard had forgotten to replace it with Charlie.Naturally, on the evidence of the hidden CCTV camera, my politico colleagues were a bit concerned that their own extra-curricular activities were similarly under electronic scrutiny. Most, if not all, research assistants in the office had had…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023Out, damned spot!I was watching daytime television, as a way of decompressing, when a charming old boy in a three-piece tweed suit appeared on the screen.He was sitting by a crackling log fire in a book-filled room with a dog at his feet as he answered, in alert and genial manner, the questions of his interviewer.I was just thinking to myself, ‘I wonder if he's a widower?’ as I called to mind an elderly spinster friend who might be just up his street.But, as the camera moved into close-up, I saw something stuck onto the centre of the adorable man's forehead. Pale-pink-coloured and conical, it protruded about two inches from his head, with a diameter of about three inches.What on earth was it filled with? And why was he not self-conscious about…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023Don't give trainers the bootWhen she was my age – in her seventies – my maternal grandmother had two pairs of shoes and a pair of slippers.Both shoes were lace-ups on sturdy, two-inch heels, of the kind nannies or schoolmistresses wore.My paternal grandmother had two similar pairs and a pair of Wellington boots because she lived on a farm.Both had roughly the same uniform: tweed, pleated skirts, cream blouses and a long cardigan with a pocket for a handkerchief.My mother was much more fashionconscious well into her nineties. Her favourite magazine was Vogue. She was aware of trends – big bows at the neck and padded shoulders when Mrs Thatcher was power dressing.She would take the hems up and down – just the right amount above or below the knee to conform with the…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023The lying gameTurning history into drama, you have some artistic licence. You can be cavalier about the precise facts, alter the sequence of events and even invent some, and you have to invent a lot of dialogue.But is there a line you mustn't cross?In November, two former prime ministers, Tony Blair and John Major, attacked The Crown for depicting Prince Charles (now King Charles) lobbying them to help force his mother to retire.I know the problem. I've just written a historical play, Vodka with Stalin. It tells the story of the troubled relationship between Stalin and the Communist Party of Great Britain.The meetings with Stalin happened, but I invented a pivotal scene between Communist leader Harry Pollitt and Labour Party leader George Lansbury.My other play, A Modest Little Man, about Clement Attlee,…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023My servant problem – I've got too many of themWhen I was a younger mouse, so much younger than today, I didn't need much help from anyone, in any way.I was fairly self-sufficient in my Devon life: growing vegetables, teaching myself ukulele, chopping logs for exercise and, rather than indulging in costly therapy or counselling, turning to a combination of books and beer to ease my burdens.These days, now in London, possibly because I'm not so self-assured, I need an awful lot of help in life.I woke up the other morning and counted up the dizzying array of consultants, specialists, doctors, coaches and other professionals I seem to require in order to keep healthy in mind, body and spirit.There were loads of them. I counted that I'd used the services of 14 over the last 12 months.There's the dentist,…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023I'm the Melvyn Bragg of CleethorpesJem Clarke is in his very, very early fifties, is five foot zero inches tall and has never left the family home in Cleethorpes, which he shares with his parents…Mother is often confronted, while shopping, by people she hasn't seen for decades.She runs through the checklist: grown-up children living abroad and in charge of companies; grandchildren – champion skiers; husband – recently dead; and replacement cat.The ladies then delicately ask, ‘Does your youngest still live with you?’It's decades since they've seen my mother and these cheeky Nostradamusin-drae figures nail it every time.Mother says, ‘Yes,’ and adds, ‘He's no longer in the box room. He's in the second-largest bedroom now.’No mention of me being Cleethorpes's first national columnist (in The Oldie); nor my 2005 Flair's nightclub Dance Idol competition win.That was…3 min
See Also
Page 986 – Christianity TodayThe Oldie|February 2023New Year's resolution don't be fussy or bossyGloria Dei est vivens hom*o – ‘The glory of God is man fully alive.’That's the best-known quotation from St Irenaeus's theological work Against Heresies. A controversial figure during his lifetime in the second century AD, St Irenaeus was made a Doctor of the Church by Pope Francis in 2022. That gives him the distinction of being the most ancient of all the Doctors of the Church.I had never come across this famous saying until I began my Carmelite noviciate. It was writ large on the noviciate noticeboard. It struck me then as a fairly straightforward ideal, and something to aspire to.Accompanied as it was by a picture of a leaping athlete, it left me at the age of 37 hoping that becoming fully alive didn't involve spending time in a…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023READERS’ LETTERSCuddly PaxoSIR: In his tribute to Jeremy Paxman (January issue), John Lloyd refers to the latter's ‘roasting skills’.I was lucky enough to encounter a much more benign Paxman. A good many years ago, I was speaking for an oil company on breakfast television.The oil industry was being criticised for its pricing policy; I imagined I was about to be filleted by Paxman and was duly apprehensive. While I waited, it seemed likely that my only benefit would be the opportunity to gaze at his co-presenter, the lovely Jill Dando.When Jeremy Paxman turned to me, his manner, far from being aggressive, was courteous throughout, and that of a man who just wanted to establish the facts of the matter.When we had finished – and, sadly for me, off air – he…6 min
The Oldie|February 2023Serious beauty of folliesIn the dark days of the 1970s, the politician Alistair McAlpine commissioned Quinlan Terry to design a giant rusticated column, topped by an urn.The Labour government was then threatening a wealth tax – hence the inscription, in Latin, which read ‘This monument was built with a large sum of money that would otherwise have fallen into the hands of the tax collectors.’Well, people say that the conditions of today are all too similar to those that created the Three-Day Week. Perhaps somebody could design a folly to remember the billions spent on the COVID pandemic. Of course, it might not be terribly funny.But, historically, that has been the point of follies. They were often serious little pieces of pure architecture, which could cost an inordinate amount of money – and,…6 min
The Oldie|February 2023Hollywood BabylonBy Kate Anderson BrowerHarperCollins £25The title page, and its verso, come dotted with little stars. How could they not be?They are there not only to show that Elizabeth Taylor was a star, who outshone other stars, but I think also to suggest the jewellery she loved so much, lavished on her by so many husbands. Ah, so many husbands…She once showed off a new ring to her ex-husband, Richard Burton (ex-exhusband? ex-ex-ex-husband?), which was slightly smaller than her usual baubles, but still in the double-digit-carat range. He said, ‘You on a diet, luv?’By the way, this is the kind of book in which the carats of her diamonds, and sapphires, and whatnots, are measured to two decimal places. And again: how could they not be?Her weight was an issue for…3 min
The Oldie|February 2023Commonplace CornerEither the camera will dance – or I will. Fred Astaire on how to film his dance sequencesBeauty is not the only thing in life. Money, power, intelligence, humour … these are forms of beauty, too.Charles AznavourThe rules [of manners], laid down clearly, reached back to a time before we could remember, so that following them wasn't painful.Diana AthillFor Americans, the most important thing is to be sincere and the worst is to be pretentious. For the British, the most important thing is to be sincere and the worst is to be boring. But, for Americans, English witticisms are pretentious and, for the British, American sincerity is boring. An anony mous Cambridge professor on his return from teaching at HarvardIt was not till 887, when he was nearly 40, that…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023An Englishwoman in New YorkOne successful British export to the United States is journalists. They don't attract any tariffs under World Trade Organisation rules.The latest person to be dispatched westwards is Emma Tucker, who is swapping the editor's chair at the Sunday Times for that at the Wall Street Journal. Both titles are owned by Rupert Murdoch.Though not an experienced financial journalist, she has her admirers in Fleet Street, and may bring a lighter touch to a business newspaper that can still be rather stodgy.Actually, while Ms Tucker is the first woman to be appointed editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal, she isn't the first Briton. Her predecessor but one, Gerard Baker, also hails from our shores. Murdoch's most senior executive in the US, Robert Thomson, is an erstwhile editor of the Times, though…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023RADIOOnly a month ago we were mourning the sudden death of Andrew Nickolds.He was co-creator of Ed Reardon's Week, the best satire on a freelance writer's life since – well, since George Gissing's New Grub Street, on whose character Edwin Reardon the modern Ed was based.Now, even before Andrew's ashes have finished smouldering in a Cambridge crematorium, we hear of the death, in Bruges, of Victor Lewis-Smith at 65.There is a species of humour that flourishes at the BBC despite its exploitation of the corporation's pomposities and absurdities.The late Ned Sherrin, Clive Anderson, Russell Davies and Ian Hislop all practised this: as did the late lamented Humph, Spike Milligan, Willie Rushton – and indeed the whole I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue team. To satirise without belittling, mock without deflating…3 min
The Oldie|February 2023GOLDEN OLDIESVideo was supposed to have killed the radio star.But who last slotted a video cassette tape into a clunky player, eh? And now radio and audio are totes boomtastic, thanks to the smartphone.That means music, podcasts, drama, news and everything from T S Eliot reading The Waste Land to shouty talk radio is coming in your ears on demand. Over 73 per cent of podcasts are consumed on our smartphones.Tempted though I am to plug my own radio show and podcast (the competition for eardrums is white-hot), we don't have world enough and time to cover the audioscape. We do have the bandwidth to note another phenomenon as we head into 2023: the avatar.So much going on here. In no particular order, Abba Voyage showcases ABBAtars’ of the Swedish foursome.…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023KITCHEN GARDENIt was Apollo's pursuit of Daphne, who escaped him by changing into a laurel tree, that spawned the laurel wreaths used as rewards for the military heroes, athletes and poets of ancient Greece.Hence laureate and baccalaureate and the herb Lauras nobilis, in French laurier, which we call bay.Unlike parsley and thyme, the other two components of the traditional bouquet garni, bay is not usually grown from seed but can be propagated from cuttings in late summer. A standard bay tree growing in a pot, about three feet in height, should not cost more than £40.We have had one by the front door for a few years which produces pale yellow flowers in spring and little berries in au tumn. A regular feed of liquid seaweed extract throughout the summer is…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023DRINKThanks to our capricious climate, you may be reading this on a sun-dappled terrace in shirtsleeves (I do hope so). But now, as I gaze through frosty windows at the garden, even our fiercely territorial local cats are huddling together for warmth.I am too young to remember the bitter winter of 1962-3 but if, as a child, I ever complained about being cold, I was firmly put in my place with hyperbole reminiscent of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, reminding me of the privations of the Big Freeze. My grandparents had survived that winter, so family legend had it, only because of a case of sherry.They lived in Bristol, in a terraced house with just a few fireplaces for warmth and a temperamental geyser for occasional hot water. But my grandma…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023What won't happen in 2023…A new year is the time to make predictions for the next 12 months. But, as somebody once said, prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.Looking back at my past prophecies is a salutary business. Some years ago, I predicted that, as filters improve, spam emails might soon become a thing of the past. That was hopelessly optimistic. If anything, the opposite has happened.In the digital world, developments are as hard to foresee as anywhere. Throughout the industry, people with large brains are constantly working on new ways to use this relatively new thing called the internet.So, this year, rather than trying to guess what will happen, I'll list some things that won't happen. Frankly, I'm more likely to be right.First, local newspaper websites will continue to be almost…3 min
The Oldie|February 2023The SiskinDecimating avian flu continues to be the chief bird concern as this article goes to press.The Tower of London ravens and equally treasured five zoo-bred pelicans in St James's Park have been locked up for the duration. The pelican Gargi is wild – she arrived in a Southend garden 32 years ago. So she roams free, unpinioned, occasionally venturing beyond her St James's Park base.The pretty siskin (Carduelis spinus) provides a bright contrast to the doom and gloom. In 60 years, British numbers have grown from 40,000 to 370,000 pairs. The principal reasons are the commercial planting of conifer forests and the provision of garden-bird food and feeders.In living memory, our resident siskin population was confined to the Caledonian Forest in the Scottish Highlands. Then came the industrialisation of forestry…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023In my father's footstepsIs there anythingyou can't leave home without?My long-haired miniature dachshund, Maurice. I paid huge amounts of money to bring him from America to England last summer. He's even been to the Palio in Siena.Is there somethingyou really miss?My family, my mum [Teresa Wells, sister of the late Alexander Chancellor, the former Oldie editor] and my siblings – or you think you do.What are your memories of Alexander Chancellor, your uncle?His crazy laugh [she cackles like him], playing the piano, smoking loads of cigarettes, and going to stay with them in Italy.Do you travel light?I wish I travelled light; I normally have a sticker on my bag saying HEAVY.What's vour favourite destination?East Sussex, where all my brothers and sisters come together to see my mum.What are your earliest childhood holiday memories?Portofino…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023BRIDGEI recall a biology class leading up to my O Level. We were doing a self-marked test. Not a model student at the time, I was reading a bridge book and had made no effort (of which I am not proud). ‘Please read out your mark,’ said the teacher. The highest mark before we got to R for Robson had been 96. ‘98,’ I said brazenly.There was hush, as I was known to be an underachieving student. ‘Let me have a look,’ said the surprised teacher. My entirely blank sheet did not go down well and a trip to the headmaster was immediate. (PS: although my grade in the mock O Level was Unclassified and the school did not want me to take the O Level, I was determined to…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023VIRGINIA IRONSIDEHe won't stop workingQ My husband has always been a workaholic, spending long hours at the office, and away on business. I'd long dreamed of the day we could at last have time to ourselves, being able to travel, spend relaxing evenings watching television together, go out to nice restaurants and visit our grandchildren. But now he's retired, it seems he has no intention of letting up. For the last six months, he's signed up to all kinds of duties, delivering food to food banks, visiting lonely old people, driving them to hospital appointments and so on. Now he's just dropped the bombshell – he says he's going to apply to be a local councillor! When he told me, I felt like weeping. I feel I might as well not…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023NOT MANY DEADMan in lederhosen sought The Press (York)Call for new Welcome to Colne signs Burnley ExpressStunned detectorist finds hoard of old p*rn mags Sun£15 for published contributionsNEXT ISSUEThe March issue is on sale on 8th February 2023.GET THE OLDIE APPGo to App Store or Google Play Store. Search for Oldie Magazine and then pay for app.OLDIE BOOKSThe Very Best of The Oldie Cartoons, The Oldie Annual 2023 and other Oldie books are available at: www.theoldie.co.uk/readers-corner/shop Free p&p.OLDIE NEWSLETTERGo to the Oldie website; put your email address in the red SIGN UP box.HOLIDAY WITH THE OLDIEGo to www.theoldie.co.uk/courses-tours…1 min
The Oldie|February 2023OLDEN LIFEWHAT WAS Noblesse Oblige?The phrase Noblesse Oblige first appears in a Balzac novel, Le Lys dans la Vallée (1836). An elderly aristocrat tries to sum up for a younger friend how to live.The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as ‘Noble ancestry constrains to honourable behaviour; privilege entails responsibilities.’Why is the concept originally French?It's related to the idea of chivalry, the word itself deriving from the French word for horseman, chevalier (from the lateLatin caballarius). This word doubled as a term for a member of a higher social class, as it did with the Greeks and Romans.The code of chivalry, familiar to us from Arthur's knights and Pre-Raphaelite paintings, dated from the end of the 12th century, but was never codified. It derived from the medieval Christian institution of knighthood and…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023The Irish Muse of PoetryIn February, I'll be performing a selection of poems by Rudyard Kipling, Wilfred Owen and Robert Lowell and I'll read prose by J B Priestley. The show explores the poignant experience of human beings in war.The first third of the show will be Kipling. His poems take me back to Bill Gaskill (1930-2018), the theatre director at the National Theatre and the Royal Court. I was in eight plays directed by Bill, including a part as Len in Saved by Edward Bond at the Royal Court.The last production Bill directed was his own funeral service. For his list of chosen readings, he wrote, ‘Kenneth Cranham – Kipling’.He didn't say which one. So I chose Kipling's When Earth's Last Picture Is Painted, with the lines:When Earth's last picture is painted and…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023The naked truthThe first Rainbow Gathering was in 1972, when thousands of people climbed Table Mountain in Colorado to pray and meditate for world peace.In the summer of 1986, I received an invitation at a Hare Krishna temple in Los Angeles to go to one of the Gatherings in the foothills of Big Sur, California – an invitation that was to change my life.What followed has been an epic 36-year journey of love and learning with the Rainbow Family, which has taken me to Gatherings all over the world – Hawaii, Thailand, Morocco, Russia, Guatemala, the Canary Islands, Australia, the Arctic Circle, Israel, Mexico and almost every country in Europe. My daughters have grown up at Gatherings and still sing the Rainbow songs.I decided to put together a new book of my…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023Fallen angelIn 1989, I moved from the country to live in a mansion-block flat in Battersea, with my family and bull terrier, Parker.Through Parker and his canine friends I met a variety of local people, including many of my neighbours. There was one who commanded attention, and I often saw him walking in Battersea Park where we exercised our dogs.He was tall and well-built with broad shoulders and long limbs. Nobody approached him, as he looked forbidding and seemed quite private. He usually carried a football and was always accompanied by his small dog.One day, when I was in the park talking to a neighbour, this impressive looking man passed us.‘Do you know who that is?’ my neighbour said, once the coast was clear. ‘He's John McVicar.’Memories came flooding back from…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023The Harrow bomberIn the autumn of 1984, the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was invited to be the guest of honour at Harrow's annual School Songs. I was at the school at the time.Churchill Songs, as the event is known, involves the whole school together singing from the school songbook, followed by an address from a person of note with links to the school, on a topic of their choice.School security (such as it was – there wasn't much) was ramped up. On the Tuesday (Songs was on the Thursday), our custodian (known as Custos) was in Speech Room, where Songs is held.In walked a man with a strong Northern Irish accent, asking if he could be shown round the school as he might be interested in enrolling his son as a…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023Anthem for a doomed youthThe word ‘tragic’ is often misused nowadays. It's fitting to apply it to the life of my friend and literary collaborator Matthew Leeming, who died at the end of November at the early age of 58.Matthew's life was tragic in the Greek sense of the word, with a descent from a high estate down to the depths.As an Oxford undergraduate, he shared a house with Boris Johnson, and was regarded as one of the most brilliant and promising members of a gilded generation there in the mid-1980s.In the early 2000s, thanks to his work in Afghanistan he was fêted as the next big thing in travel writing – as if ‘Hunter S Thompson meets Robert Byron’, one critic said.Yet he was not simply a man of letters. He was also…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023Return to the 1970s? Yes, please!I love clichès – in fact, with a number of friends I communicate exclusively in cliches. It's like a private language.‘A moment of impatience – a lifetime of remorse’ is one of my favourites and seems to be appropriate to so many everyday situations.This cliche harks back 50 years ago to 1973, when British Rail had a poster showing the agonised face of a passenger who had flung open the carriage door before the train had stopped. A woman on the platform is seen falling backwards onto her head.I use it to advise people trying to get into overwrapped packaging with a carving knife, or having difficulty parking.‘Too young to be a hippie, too old to be a punk’ is another favourite. It's a useful cliche to offer when clarifying…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023An Ofsted inspector callsWe've just been subjected to what the authorities call a ‘deep dive’. In reality, it is yet another ‘mocksted’.Where a full Ofsted inspection would examine the whole school at once, the mocksted takes place department by department, creeping insidiously around the corridors. Most of the brunt of it falls on the head of department, who has to deal with the data, the curriculum and reasons for absolutely everything, but it is still an undoubted strain on the minions.No matter how much ‘the grown-ups’ as I (perhaps ironically) call them assure us that it is ‘business as usual’, we can't help but feel Watched and Judged. The dreading is worse than the actual observation. No actress worth her salt would flinch at an audience, and neither does this old soldier in…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023Sir Robert Ogden (1936-2022)Property-developer, philanthropist and racehorse-owner Sir Robert Ogden co-owned See More Business, which won the 1999 Cheltenham Gold Cup.He was responsible for the £7-million Sir Robert Ogden Macmillan Centres for cancer patients in Harrogate and Northallerton. He invested in London Docklands and helped persuade Canadian real-estate tycoon Paul Reichman to build Canary Wharf.Accountant Fergus Cohan gave the eulogy at his memorial service in York Minster. He joined the Ogden Group as company secretary 50 years ago, eventually becoming Sir Robert's right-hand man.Colvin said in his eulogy, ‘Robert was an exceptionally astute businessman. He was also a great leader. We had the unique Ogden way of doing things.‘Did Robert have psychic powers or was it some sort of trick? The Uri Geller camp believed in psychic powers, and the Paul Daniels camp…1 min
The Oldie|February 2023Alex Ferguson‘Who the hell are you? What do you think you're doing here?’ shouted Sir Alex Ferguson.I looked over my shoulder. An interloper had got into Manchester United's Cliff training ground and was about to be ejected by the biggest name in English football.I, on the other hand, had a legitimate reason for being in the Scot's presence. It was July 1994, and I was a 15-year-old from County Kerry, Ireland, on the last day of my trial at Manchester United.Later that day, I would have my first proper encounter with Ferguson. The chief scout for Ireland – my chaperone in Manchester – arranged for himself, me and three other players to meet ‘the boss’.When we entered Ferguson's office, he was behind his desk, smiling warmly. He did not greet us…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023Intimations of mortalityBy Robert Douglas-FairhurstJonathan Cape £16.99A curse must have been placed on those teaching English at Oxford University.Richard Ellmann died of motor neurone disease (MND), and never saw the publication of his Oscar Wilde masterpiece, which he'd been researching for 30 years.The poet Mick Imlah, my contemporary, also succumbed to MND, aged 53. His posthumously produced Selected Essays (2015) is criticism at its finest. Humphrey Carpenter, the first-rate biographer, spent his last years ‘shaking, rattling and rolling’ (his words) from Parkinson's.Michael Gearin-Tosh, of St Catherine's College, battled myeloma with (selfadministered) coffee enemas, or so he told me. I myself, once a junior fellow, am hardly a picture of rude health. On the seafront at Hastings, dogs bark at me as I halt by them.Now we have Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, who makes ‘experiments…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023On the Roman roadBy Christopher HadleyWilliam Collins £20In the muscular movie Gladiator, which I recently re-watched with my far-tooyoung son, the hero Maximus harangues the jaded Roman spectators. ‘Are you not entertained?’ he bellows, after butchering his rivals in the arena. To his surprise, he finds they are.Yet what made that film a hit in 2000 wasn't, I think, just the bloodshed. It was also the vision it presents of a noble ideal behind Roman imperialism. ‘I have seen much of the rest of the world,’ Maximus observes earnestly. ‘It is brutal and dark and cruel. Rome is the light.’That same light is now the theme of Christopher Hadley's richly-written book about Britain's Roman roads. As he notes, the dazzling feat of engineering and logistics, which created 50,000 miles of such roads across…4 min
The Oldie|February 2023Green binsGreen bins make me see red.The owner of the bin is throwing away a valuable resource – brown gold – and paying someone (about 50 quid a year) to take it away.Some garden waste needs to be removed: branches, roots and soon. But that can be done via an occasional trip to the municipal tip.Disabled? Can't drive? Then the person who cut the branches and uprooted the roots could do it.How angry I am to see owners of big fat Volvos unloading grass cuttings at the tip. Why not put them on your very own compost heap? Or, better, leave the cuttings on the grass to nourish the next generation.There's really no need for green bins. Most green bins contain grass cuttings, leaves and weeds – all ideal for a…1 min
The Oldie|February 2023FILMReleased on 17th February‘The weasel under the co*cktail cabinet’ – that's what Harold Pinter said his plays were about. Well, Alan Bennett's plays are about the rock in the rock bun.By his own admission, Bennett isn't the cuddly national treasure he's often hailed as. His plays are so original and funny because of the dark seam beneath: the cynicism and paedophilia of the teachers in The History Boys, say, or the ruthlessness of Bennett's motives behind his apparent kindness in taking in the lady in The Lady in the Van.That's why Allelujah is a rare dud from Bennett, now 88. Yes, there is a dark undertow in this 2018 play – his tribute to the NHS, now adapted for the big screen by Heidi Thomas and directed by Richard Eyre.But…3 min
The Oldie|February 2023TELEVISIONHow's that for synchronicity!No sooner have we recovered from six hours of the self-pitying, selfpampering duch*ess of Sussex speaking her truth from a sun-drenched Californian mansion (Harry & Meghan, Netflix) than we are hurled headlong into Versailles, circa 1770.Marie Antoinette (BBC1), created and written by Deborah Davis (who also wrote The Favourite), is the latest attempt to rebrand the most hated woman in France. In Davis's version of history, the Queen, ‘free, independent and feminist’, tries to drag the fusty monarchy into the modern age.The analogies between Marie Antoinette and the self-image of Meghan Markle are there for the asking: the innocent girl transposed to the hostile foreign land; the drippy husband; the poor press relations; the airless world of protocols; the spying, plotting and scheming of the court.When Meghan…3 min
The Oldie|February 2023EXHIBITIONSCompton Verney, to 7th MayConnoisseurship is a word that you don't hear often nowadays, because it's deemed elitist and exclusionary.However, even Wikipedia admits that ‘in the art trade, expert connoisseurship remains a crucial skill for the identification and attribution to individual artists of works by style and technique’. So it is admirable to find an exhibition that aims to develop that skill in its visitors.In his 1969 The English Icon, Sir Roy Strong identified eight previously unattributed early-Elizabethan portraits as the work of a single artist, whom he labelled the Master of the Countess of Warwick after an example at Woburn Abbey. That was connoisseurship in action and more followed, since the Master is now credited with about 50 – mostly female – portraits.Among the rare males is Sir Thomas…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023SPORTThere is no more terrifying sporting place of work than a ski-jump tower.Forget walking out at Wembley with 80,000 voices bellowing out their affiliation. Never mind the summit of an Alpine climb in the Tour de France before you make the descent. The top of a 10-metre diving board, petrifying as it might be as you stand on the edge looking down way below on to the water, is nothing in comparison.Up at the top of a tower, wai ting to jump, is on another level entirely.I climbed to the top of an Olympic tower many moons ago and the thought of it still brings me out in a cold sweat. I was in Oslo to interview Willi Railo, the Norwegian professor who was SvenGoran Eriksson's psychologist of choice.We met…3 min
The Oldie|February 2023Stop house-thieves!Fraudsters will steal anything.Even people's homes are being stolen – house-hijacked – with several instances a year. Since 2009, the Land Registry has prevented 400 fraudulent applications being registered, worth more than £207 million.One property that slipped through belonged to a vicar who returned to his empty house in Luton to find the locks changed and builders working inside.Crooks had broken into his house, applied for a duplicate driving licence in his name and then managed to sell his home to innocent buyers – who immediately became the legal owners. A year later, he was still in limbo.Paper-based property deeds no longer prove you own a property. HM Land Registry's electronic register is the only accepted record and whoever's name appears on the register is the legal owner. A separate…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023The British Queen of ArcadinIwould rather this article was more about Arcadia than about me,’ says Wendy Copage, quite sincerely – although she has done more than anyone in recent times literally to put this fabled but very real part of Greece on the map.So, yes, let's talk about Arcadia – before we come on to the remarkable work done by this 6o-year-old Yorkshirewoman, who has just been granted Greek citizenship, thanks to her fluency in the language and her decades-long passion for her adopted country, particularly the wild beauty of its most unspoilt area.In the history of art and literature, Arcadia is as much an idea as a place. In myth, it was the realm of the god Pan and featured in the poetry of Theocritus in the third century BC. Later, Virgil…6 min
The Oldie|February 2023EL SERENOAcross1 Neighbour sent back for a bit of brass (4) 3 Determined to see cover goes on for each relation, briefly (10) 9 Before function, millions meditate (4) 10 Estate worker willing to look back – I'm not sure! (10) 11 Shot after disputing title – don't think about that (3,2,2) 13 9's heartless time in continent without love (7) 14 Imagine accepting beaten emir must be put on top (11) 18 School leaver split coat on trophy, perhaps (6,5) 21 Surly chap – accountant with a love for drink (7) 22 A scream left one cold – that's material (7) 23 Soldiers may wear these if group looks after old (10) 24 Drink is good, say, occasionally (4) 25 One might catch small mice at sea panicking (7,3) 26…2 min
The Oldie|February 2023TESSA CASTROIN COMPETITION No 288, you were invited to write a poem called Always Carry Water. For Paul Holland it was simple: ‘Always carry water is terrible advice/It's the same weight as beer and doesn't taste as nice.’ So it was for Jennifer Coville: ‘Personally I like to have two hands free/so carrying water is never for me!’ David Dixon put such advice among other nannying directives, such as ‘And if you put a deckchair up/Make sure your fingers don't get stuck.’ Max Ross thought it ‘a useful metaphor;/Even when you live in peacetime/Realise there might be war.’ Commiserations to them and to Susan Greenhill, Katie Mallett and Con Connell, and congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £25, with the bonus prize of Chambers Dictionary going to Bill…3 min
