Being A Grumpy Old Man!

A few days ago Pat and I were trawling around department stores in Nottingham in a largely fruitless search for kitchen items – new crockery, kitchen knives, chair cushions, baking trays and the like to fill our new kitchen. I can’t say I felt inspired by this but as a dutiful  husband I carried the bag for “she who must be obeyed”, made a few (hopefully) enthusiastic utterances and silently prayed that we would soon go home!  Now, I’m ready to admit that perhaps my enthusiasm had waned a little and that perhaps I was looking at the world through less than rose coloured glasses, but, as we stumbled around John Lewis my lack of enthusiasm turned to cynicism. Let me explain.

Sebastian - steeped in good design

I stood in front of a large display in the kitchenwares department. At the side of the display was a huge  advert for items designed by someone called Sebastian Conran. The items on display seemed to me to be excessively expensive. I learned that I could buy a Sebastian Conran knife block for only £130! We were looking for a knife block – but not at £130 for a very ordinary looking bit of kit!  Putting it bluntly I think that if I had paid £130 for this then each time I walked into the kitchen and gazed upon this object of desire I would feel a little space in the palm of my hand where my £130 pounds had once resided!  I was reminded of a couple of clichés, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and “a fool and his money are soon parted”.  Of course, being the liberal well adjusted guy that I am I wouldn’t dream of making pronouncements on what constitutes "good design" – and yet deep down I felt someone  was having a laugh at the expense of gullible shoppers.

Good design - at £130 a throw!

But putting aside the worth or quality of this particular knife block, my cynicism related rather more to the advert behind the display telling me all about this designer. I was told that Sebastian is the son of Sir Terence Conran and is therefore “steeped in good design” and that he has won “many awards”. There were several other eulogies extolling this man’s virtues and convincing passing shoppers that they were not just buying a pot or a knife but a well designed pot or knife. Mmmmmm! As I stood there reading this and looking at the very ordinary stuff on display it occurred to me that the ad was heavy on unsubstantiated assertions and light on facts. I suppose the thing that got me thinking was the phrase “steeped in good design” – the connection was being made that because this man is the son of Terence Conran (who is a designer I have heard of, but could tell you little about) then it follows that he will have soaked up good design and he in his turn is a good designer. Mmmmmm!

When Pat joined me I mumbled that my dad had spent his life as succesful lorry driver and was, I believe (and everyone seemed to say so), very good at his job. So, I wondered, was I “steeped in good  lorry driving”? Did dad's skill and knowledge pass into my genetic make-up? Can I recognise a good diesel engine when I see one? Do my very pores ooze the whiff of the motorway exhaust smoke  and the  transport cafe’s bacon sandwich - just as Sebastian Conran’s ooze good design? When I walk down the street do people whisper to their neighbours as they peep through their windows, “There goes Tony, the son of Fred the lorry driver – he’s steeped in good lorry driving you know!” ? If I decided on a career change is lorry driving the thing that I would naturally excel  at – it seems so for Sebastian, why not me?

My dad drove a lorry in India
during the war. He spent his whole
 life  on the road - am I steeped in good
lorry driving? Doesn't feel like it!

I elaborated on these points to Pat as we stood in the store. For some reason I can’t explain  her eyes seemed to  glaze over and I’m sure that I remember her muttering something about a grumpy old man – although as I didn’t have my hearing aids in I can’t be too sure of that! Having said that she couldn’t answer my questions  about me being steeped in good lorry driving - or maybe she had just lost the will to live!

Seriously, of course, this is, I suppose, an example of the much discussed question of nature versus nurture – how far we are affected by our genetic inheritance and how much our environment and experiences shape us. Any sensible person would realise that it is not one or the other – we are all shaped to a degree by what we have been given and by what happens to us. But my experience in John Lewis did get me thinking.

These grumpy musings, however, then  took an unexpected turn on Sunday morning and gave an edge to my thoughts.

Robin Van Persie

I was reading the report of the Premiership football match between Liverpool and Arsenal which  had taken place on Saturday. For those readers with no football knowledge this was  a big game – one of the great  clashes of any English football season. Arsenal won the game and the hero was their Dutch star Robin Van Persie who scored the winning goal in the last few seconds of the match. Van Persie is one of the world’s great players who, I learned from the article,  came into football rather than following his father’s footsteps into the world of art. Van Persie’s parents are both famous and  well respected Dutch artists whose works hang in the world famous Rijksmuseum  in Amsterdam. The footballer, however,  confessed that he had little interest in art and could not draw at all – so, going back to my previous argument he, unlike Sebastian Conran is clearly not steeped in his father’s qualities!  

Robin Van Persie's dad at work
in his studio

I would be the first to agree that, of course, some people will show the same talents as their parents or will be interested in the same things that their parents are involved with. And probably an equal or greater number will develop their own fortes – Robin Van Persie clearly falls into this category.  But  my grumble about the Conran advert was the implied assumption that  as the son of a famous designer Sebastian Conran would naturally inherit these qualities. It was, it seemed to me, simply attaching the skills and fame of the father and using them to sell the son's to goods.  Of course, we see this with other people and in other ways. I wonder, for example, if Stella McCartney the fashion designer would have been quite so famous or successful had she not been the daughter of Paul – the father’s name gave her a leg up. Would she have climbed to heights of the fashion ladder quite so easily if she was Stella Murgatroyd, daughter of Albert Murgatroyd the totally unknown, unemployed ex-Liverpool  tyre fitter? Would women flock to buy the latest dress and boast to their friends "I'm wearing a Stella Murgatroyd tonight". Would we see the glitterati at the Oscars all dolled up in Stella Murgatroyd  and would the world's fashion pundits be swooning at the display and rushing to interview Stella's dad, Albert, as he leaned against the bar in his local  Liverpool pub! I think not.

David Beckham's
underpants - definite
style. Worth every
penny?

Or, and here it really gets interesting! – what about when it goes a stage further. The Beckham’s for example have used their name relentlessly to promote themselves. David, a once famous footballer from London’s East End and Victoria an Essex girl and average pop singer made millions from their respective careers and have for years now put their names to every kind of produce – underpants, women’s fashion, toiletries, perfume.....the list goes on – all on the back of their fame and name. And I ask myself  was it in their genes  or was it the world in which they grew up that made them such arbiters of good taste and high fashion?  And, why do people think that David Beckham’s recommendation for a pair of underpants is relevant . Where did he get this skill to be able to identify a good pair of underpants when he sees one? Was his father the underpants maker to the king and so, like Sebastian Conran, David Beckham is “steeped in good  underpants”? Or, did he go on an “underpant  design course” whilst he was playing football for Manchester United – to skill himself up when his  football career was over? Or is there some other mysterious avenue by which a footballer and a pop singer can, by osmosis, soak up all the knowledge, skills and understanding to make them competent and able to make accurate pronouncements on fashion items and the like.  The answer of course is no – it is simply a case of a famous name being attached to a very ordinary item and it immediately gives it  disproportionate worth. And, the sad and terrifying thing is that people are foolish enough to be taken in. It must be good because David Beckham says so. It must be good because the son of Terence Conran is involved! Fools and their money are soon parted!

Oh! Hasn't Victoria got such dress
sense and style? Clearly something
she can pass on to the rest of us
lesser mortals

I can’t help thinking of something that was once said to me by another grumpy old man when talking about people. My old work colleague Graham once said that he never trusted people who used their hands excessively when talking – as, for example, does Tony Blair or David Cameron or Prince Charles. Graham’s reasoning on this was that people who do this do it quite intentionally. It distracts you from what the worth and correctness of what  they are saying. Over the years I've often found Graham’s comment to be accurate – analyse what people  who wave their hands about  actually say and it usually doesn't add up to much or is highly debatable.  As the monosyllabic Humphrey  Bogart once said in “Casablanca” “it don’t add up to a hill of beans”! 

And so it is with goods like the Sebastian Conran knife block  or the Stella McCartney’s dresses or the underpants that David Beckham promotes – the famous name and its associative features become the thing rather than the substance of the item itself.   Companies like John Lewis are well aware of this trick selling technique: associate an item with a name that people recognise; allude to the fact that this is good design or high fashion or highly desirable and bingo people stop looking at the quality or the value, they simply get out their credit card. They lose the capacity to look objectively at the item and assess its true value or quality.  How special or good the items in question are becomes irrelevant  - the name’s the thing in the celebrity mad world we inhabit today.  When, in the case of the Conran’s kitchenware, the main selling point appears to be a rather nebulous  association with the designer’s father you can bet your life that the goods themselves are pretty average. Would shoppers have even looked at them twice or paid £130 for the knife block if there had not been a large display highlighting the connection and the people involved. Would people have walked by and said “Oh, there’s a well designed knife block – definitely the sort of thing that Terence Conran would design – I must have one......and look it’s only £130”. Call me Mr Grumpy if you like but I think the answer to that is no. They would walk past and either not notice a very ordinary bit of kit or say “What - £130 for a knife block that’s robbery!”


For me, it all smacks very much of the Hans Christian Anderson tale of the Emperor’s new clothes,  the gullibility of people and the ease with which they are taken in and part with their money.

But  then, what do I know, I'm just a grumpy old man!

The Mrs Malaprops of Fashion

The cream of society
Princesses Beatrice
& Eugenie

The royal wedding passed me by. As a confirmed republican I had no interest and felt it was all a glorious bit of theatre. The thing that depresses me, however, is the realisation that so many millions across the world have such shallow lives that they are actually interested and impressed by this sort of thing! Despite that  I will, however, comment on it. Be warned – none of this is going to be good – especially since the comments I will make are things I know absolutely nothing about!

When I saw the pictures of the wedding later in the day, on the TV news or in the morning  paper I had an awful sense of déjà vu. Let me explain.

Last summer my wife and I looked after our grandchildren for a couple of days at their home near Reading. Our son and his wife were, as they do each year, going to Royal Ascot and  so we were enlisted as childminders. I agreed to drop them off at Ascot (to save the cost of a taxi) and to pick them up afterwards. They went off in top hat and tails, all very grand and I later met them outside the racecourse as the throngs left. The roads around Ascot were filled with  bizarrely dressed people all climbing into their Rollers, Jags and Bentleys. The cream of English society. I was going back to the Reading area to my fish and chip tea (or should I say 'supper' when I’m in Royal Berkshire?)! I was really looking forward to my chip butties complete with HP brown sauce as my son and daughter in law sat in the back of the car a little the worse for wear having consumed vast quantities of champagne. As I drove home, my family slumbering, I put what I had seen down to the Ascot madness that we see every year where 'ladies' put on very silly hats to outdo each other in the 'Silliness Handicap' -  a glorious fancy dress parade - or is it a horse race for old mares?

Sally Bercow displays
her bits!

Next day we drove home and half way up the M40 stopped at a service area for a coffee. It was packed with coaches – all full of grotesquely dressed woman on their way to 'Ladies Day' at Ascot. I was doubtful that they would be allowed in since I was uncertain that any could be truthfully described as 'ladies' . Loud of voice, very tight short skirts displaying bulging thighs, bosoms on display, headgear ( I cannot say hats) that verged upon the ridiculous, shoes so high that many struggled to stand in them, bulging midriffs  and make up  that could in no way be described as tasteful or subtle. Now you may think that I’m just a grumpy old man (probably true) and I agree I am not a fashion aficionado but even my wife, who seems to knows about these things, agreed that these women must  have got dressed in the dark that morning or did not possess a mirror and certainly had absolutely no sense of style, taste or dress.  In short it was like walking through a TV set from the 1970s when all the characters were played by Dick Emery as he impersonated 'Mandy' – the bosomy tart he portrayed week after week and who always ended each sketch with the knowing wink and  'Oh you are awful' . But in the end, I put it down to nothing more serious than lots  of fashion wannabes on a girly day out, having a bit of fun.   It was however, reminiscent of some Hogarthian drawing of 'The Rake’s Progress' genre!

Hogarth's trollops and baggages

Got it wrong David,
and love your
 tasteful shoes and
 Croydon
face lift Posh!

And then I saw the fashion at the weekend’s wedding. The really was cream of English society.  The social event of the world and the decade and  I saw exactly the same styles (I use the word loosely) in Westminster Abbey as I had on the M40 service area - but this time from the great and the good, the movers and shakers, those who we are supposed to admire, look up to and to 'follow'. This was not  a girly day out or a fancy dress parade, it was serious stuff.  My interest was aroused – was I a fashion philistine or was this really just 'bad taste' - I suspected the latter. I surfed the net to see what the fashion commentators were saying – and they all agreed with me! I was not wrong! As always the Queen looked  wonderful – tasteful, quietly stunning, elegant, regal even (and I am not a supporter!) . The bride and her sister too looked breathtaking. But as for the rest – it was a re-run of the M40 service area. Even the royal sycophantic newspaper the Daily Mail  was critical – 'undeniably eye catching' was one of their comments – 'but for all the wrong reasons'. I couldn't have put it better myself – more or less word for word my comment a year ago on the M40. 'The overall result was brash and in your face' said one fashion expert.

Get Ed to buy you
 a mirror for your
 birthday!

                                                                                                                                                             
'The skirt cut her calves offat the wrong place, the shrunken velvet jacket with its baggy, wrinkled arms looked like it had a run in with a pair of shears and a hot wash and her stiff lace hat splatted dementedly on top of her head, spiking out at all angles and looking for all the world as though it was thrown there from a great height' said another when describing the outfit worn by Ed Milliband’s partner. Just what I thought! Princess Beatrice’s 'hat' was  described as looking like 'something that had melted on Star Trek'. Another commentator asked 'are times so hard that royals can’t afford irons?' and others, just  like the gang on the M40, simply flouted the 'rules' that dictate a demure skirt length and neck line. Sally Bercow, wife of Parliament’s Speaker John Bercow - and the most important man in Parliament  - was obviously so anxious to display her 'bits' (yes, I did say 'bits'!). And those great arbiters of fashion the  Beckhams strutted their stuff too. Good old David decided it was tasteful to wear his OBE (oh dear, how sad) – except he committed the ultimate faux pas by wearing it on the wrong side and had to hurriedly change it when he was advised of this. And the lovely Victoria, just like the gals on the M40 wearing heels so high she looked ridiculous  and in danger of needing an oxygen mask  she presented herself with what several fashion correspondents described as her 'Croydon face lift'! Yep, just like the M40 – although geographically the lasses last year on their way to Ladies Day would have been wearing their Birmingham face lift, or Nottingham face lift or anywhere north of Ascot! Even the bizarre fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld was critical. When talking about the dress sense of the Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice he commented:  'There's a word for those two sisters, but I'm not going to say it.'

Yep,  didn't go a bundle on her
but she had style!

They were like so many Mrs Malaprops of fashion. Just as Mrs Malaprop in Sheridan's "The Rivals" tried desperately to look wise, sophisticated and erudite by showing off her linguistic skills – but then unfortunately always fell short and in doing so and  displayed her lack of learning and breeding to   eighteenth century  Bath society - so too did the women on display in the Abbey.   Like the gals on the M40 or those stumbling drunkely out of Ascot  they tried to look stylish, but since they had no idea of what style or good taste was, fell far short and looked like Hogarthian 'baggages' and 'trollops' – or to use the modern technical term, 'scrubbers'!

I could go on – but will not dwell on it. In the end it was just a wedding and so what if people want to  look very foolish. But I did think it bizarre that  a man known for his extravagant and tasteless dress code – Elton John – was in fact one of the more tastefully attired people on view.

She had it too!

I cannot, however,  resist commenting that  in a celebrity driven culture such as ours  these people exert a disproportionate effect. In the great scheme of things it isn’t perhaps too important but as the fashion correspondent said 'the overall effect was brash and in your face'. And this characterises so much of our society today – brash and in your face. Whether it be the violence portrayed on our TV and cinema screens, the casual use of aggressive, abusive and unpleasant language on our streets and in our football stadiums , the casual and often explicit sex that seems to comprise  so much TV  or the crude language of modern comedians it seems to me fashion is a  part of this bigger picture. As with TV and the cinema, brash, in your face fashion or drama or music only continues to be exciting or memorable if it becomes ever more brash and in your face. We have all got used to violence and bad language on our TV screens so programmes have to become even more brutal to have an impact - just as with the drug user the 'fix' has to be continually upgraded to have any effect. And so it has become with fashion - the ridiculous 'hats', the styles, the materials, the shoes are all designed and chosen for effect and impact and to have the desired impact they become ever more bizarre. Just as a cheap, violent sex movies rely on sex and violence to sell them over  storyline and worth as  pieces of drama so too the bizarre fashions mask the shallowness and shortcomings of the people who wear them.  Subtly, understatement, quality  and quiet taste now has to be sought out. In fashion terms, where at the royal wedding was the equivalent of Audrey Hepburn’s 'little black dress' or Jackie Kennedy’s  smart dress sense. Where are the style setters like Callas or indeed the person hovering in the Westminster background throughout the wedding – Princess Diana?  I am not a Diana fan – she was a very silly and immature girl – but she had style and taste.  Maybe that was at the root of her problems with the royal family – she had something that they have never had and deep down people recognised this and loved her for it!

Will the Abbey fashion
 be remembered for as long
as Hepburn's 'little
 black dress'?

As a child of the fifties and sixties I'm supposed to be liberal in my views - let it all hang out, accept that fashion is personal and that beauty is in the eye of he beholder. As I mentioned above I know that I am not conversant with the finer points of fashion and dress sense so perhaps I should just accept it for what it is. I don't know if the clothes worn by people like Diana or Hepburn or Kennedy were intrinsically more tasteful or better designed or better 'works of art' than Sally Bercow's offering. In the end it comes down to the old chestnuts such as is Bach better than the Beatles or is Emin better than Rembrandt? But deep down I believe that most things do have an inner worth and that an essential quality of good design or taste or music or art or designer clothes etc. is that they should pass the test of time. Hepburn's little black dress, the music of the Beatles, Rembrandt's art, the music of Gershwin or Bach, the wedding dress chosen by Kate Middleton will still turn eyes and ears half a century hence. I'm not sure about the dress code of Princesses Beatrice or Eugenie or Victoria Beckham or many of the other baggages on display over the weekend. I suspect that one day, twenty years hence these women might look at the photographs of themselves and say, 'Oh my God, did I really go out looking like that!'

Fashion, of course, is by its very nature transitory and ever changing but that is not an excuse for the brash, the gross and the tasteless – which is what we got from the cream of English society on Friday -  and millions across the world tuned in and thought it was good and something to aspire to.

But then again, what do I know?