Afternoon:
10°c
It is always said that women have to worry about what they wear and men do not. Yet women are making decisions based on aesthetics whereas for men they touch a fundamental sense of identity.
The tie/no tie debate of the Blair years is still unresolved. In last Thursday's excellent BBC documentary on the fall of Lehman Brothers, one Barclays boss, John Varley, went tieless, the other, Bob Diamond, wore a tie. I bet they both thought long and hard about this.
That at least was a fairly straightforward decision about which looked more powerful. What if tie- wearing has an added dimension of social or political etiquette? I am told that Sebastian Coe arrived at one of the summer Proms without a tie, became uneasy and slipped one on, then panicked and whipped it off again.
If a tie can reduce an Olympic champion to wretched insecurity, what about evening dress? Is it fear of dressing up that keeps public figures away from the Last Night of the Proms or its sinister associations of tradition and enthusiastic patriotism?
The political shunning of the event never ceases to astonish me. Gordon Brown is forever preaching about Britishness but when you see it in action, humorous and stout-hearted, he runs a mile. David Cameron talks of fixing society yet a harmonious display of people packed together more tightly than aboard an Indian train is ignored.
Politicians fall over themselves to praise The X Factor, yet the teenagers who wrote the trumpet fanfares performed at Saturday's Prom do not get a mention. All MPs talk of ladders of aspiration, so long as the ladder does not reach too high.
What The Guardian described yesterday as “cartoon jingoism” amounts to four songs at the end of an ambitious and beautiful evening of music, listened to with calm appreciation.
Among Handel and Purcell was a jolly piece by Malcolm Arnold, A Grand, Grand Overture, featuring a cameo role for David Attenborough as a floor polisher. Was this what frightened the life out of the politicians?
Or was it the fabulous Sarah Connolly dressed as an admiral for the audience's favourite, Rule Britannia?
What I cannot understand is how politicians embrace the crude patriotism of the football terraces, sentimental, foul-mouthed and often quite racist, while avoiding the civilised, good-natured singing of some classical musical fans.
The only Tories I saw on Saturday night were Eric Pickles, who has special status as a John Prescott of the Right, and Michael Howard, who is about to stand down. I did not observe any Labour figures singing the national anthem or waving flags.
Among the Prommers I watched a gay couple grooving to Gershwin in their stylish waistcoats and hats before unfurling a giant Union flag.
Funnily enough, I felt that they would be much better company than the grim ranks of tieless politicians who boycotted the night.
Wives best betray literary husbands
At a party for Louise Patten's thriller Bad Money the other evening, the chairman of the Booker Prize, James Naughtie, was keeping his counsel about his shortlist preferences. The rest of us were arguing like fishwives over it. There were three camps. Those who wanted Hilary Mantel's historical novel Wolf Hall, those who preferred J M Coetzee's Summertime, and those who liked Wolf Hall, despite a lifelong aversion to Mantel's work. I am a Coetzee woman. It looks to me a far cleverer trick to write about yourself as others might see you — the first 3D book, in fact — than to tart up history.
Coetzee is both easygoing and profound in his questions about the nature of biography. One question is whether girlfriends are a reliable guide to the character of the author and his work. I always think lovers and spouses are a key indicator. For instance, the other day I was at a gathering of the alpha-male Johnson brothers (Boris and his siblings), all extremely blond and competitive. Their wives were all dark, quiet, and very intelligent. Interesting, no?
Victoria is a fashion saint
I can see that Victoria Beckham's new collection is, in its way, successful and authentic. She has her own style. The dresses are elegant in a stiff and stressful sort of manner. The shoes look glamorous and perilous.
A fashion friend of mine once watched in horror as a bustling assistant managed to topple Victoria simply by brushing too close. Victoria and her dresses are a monument to effort and will power. She is the patron saint of all women who think that fashion is not for the faint-hearted.
* When I saw the headline in the Sunday Times “Shirley Williams escaped gang rape”, I gasped. The founders of the Social Democrats, Roy Jenkins, David Owen and Bill Rodgers had seemed such nice men. Fortunately, the story referred not to the famous Gang of Four but to Williams's childhood wartime experiences as an evacuee. While returning on a Portuguese liner from America she had to fight off some sailors by “kicking and scratching”. This left her with a psychological determination to conquer her fear. She would force herself to take night walks, often passing single men.
Shirley Williams is the daughter of the famous feminist Vera Brittain, a fact she slightly resented as a child. But the first lesson of feminism, that a woman must not allow herself to be made a victim, is one she taught herself.
Emma Duncan is away.
