Simple Pleasures

I do not much care for anything contrived. A parsimonious approach to life is my preference. People really do make such an effort to have fun that it becomes difficult to distinguish it from work. The crescendo of anticipation rarely gives way to the expected climax, but rather its opposite. Leisure, in short, is generally not.

This is not to say that I advocate mindless wastes of time. Computer games are typically benumbing of brain and character, and in some cases are akin to large amounts of narcotics, alcohol or gambling. Best avoided. The television is fine in moderation, where the choice of programme is truly an act of volition. I fear, however, that the television is more of an hypnotic device, situated so as to absorb our attention, to anaesthetise us. It is also the West’s answer to feng shui. Imagine your television removed: your furniture placement will suddenly seem quite odd.

So, pleasures fall between these two poles: the overwrought and the mindless. The possibilities are endless, but I shall name one or two (not prescriptively, of course). A good, solid, print newspaper, with a challenging cryptic crossword and decent review section: spend half an hour a day with this and I find I think better; my mood improves; I feel refreshed. I listen to jazz in the mornings as I write: nothing like the sound of other people blowing hard when I am, well, not. I listen to BBC Radio 3 in the evening: one of the advantages to being expatriated across the Pond is that I get the all-night classical marathons five hours in advance. In addtion, a ready supply of Cabernet; a happy mix of good home cooking (yes, it is manly to cook) and edifying (not fast) restaurant fare; and a regular run to keep the heart pumping. All provide the necessary ease – the requisite balance – in an otherwise consuming life of work. They are simple pleasures, but they are all the more pleasant for their simplicity.

A Short Step to Eccentricity

Dressing well is not a straightforward matter. Even for those in the know, the difference between classic elegance and ridiculousness is slight, the pitfalls awaiting missteps great. Everyone will tell you to be an individual, to mix things up, to not be too studied, or too ‘put together’. Acquire an air of relaxed formality, they will say. Yet one is to know one’s palette, and work within it. And of course, the basic rules must be observed. All well and good. But to a man without a friend in the know this can be bewildering. Just as watching Tiger Woods videos won’t improve your swing, watching the world of fashion will not usher you into it. The basics – fit, cut, cloth, colour – are not obvious. The ambitious but misguided may feel like they are really cutting it, when in fact they have made themselves into mere caricatures. This is the basis of all those magazine ‘experts’ and TV media hacks who make their living pointing out where the celebs went sartorially wrong. Perhaps the rich and famously stupid can get away with it. The man on the street may not fare so well.

My case in point, so as not to embarrass anybody, is Mr. Charles James Mathews, 1803-78. As an English comic actor, his public appearance may not be thought to have been in earnest. It was all ‘just so’, and yet all ‘off’. I imagine it took quite some considerable skill on the part of Mr. Mathews to achieve such a studiously eccentric and nonsensical appearance, without obviously transgressing any rules of formal wear. A couple of details ground the look: the umbrella is charming, the moustache in keeping with the times, the shoes all too ordinary. The rest, while retaining a clear sense of the English gentleman, does enough to make one question his sanity. His posture accentuates the stomach and narrows the shoulders (too many men stand like this without realising it). His trousers are on the long side, breaking at the knee, the shin, and above the shoe, and giving the impression of limpness. So, no backbone, and no strength. A fop, to be sure. The jailbird reference in the trousers is a screaming faux pas and the jacket, with big metal buttons and plaid lining, invokes a cross between a policeman and a bookie. The hat is as like to produce a rabbit as to be doffed at the ladies. In short, this is a man at whom one would laugh, unless he tried to sell you anything, in which case you would run away. The laughter, from Mr. Mathews' point of view, was sought. Unless you seek it too, be mindful.

Pugilistic Encounters: Pierce Egan's 'Boxiana'

Tom Cribb, Britain's finest champion?

Pierce Egan was out of step. A sporting journalist for the common man (and by that I refer not to matters of class, but to matters of taste), he was cast in sharp contrast to his hobnobbing foxhunting contemporary, Nimrod. Egan celebrated the ‘fancy’, just as the ‘fancy’ went out of style. These were the dog fighting, cockfighting, rat worrying set. These were the prototypes of the modern athlete. These were boxing men. The culture of sensibility that grew up in the late eighteenth century would eventually see to it that these men would look incongruous in a well-heeled empire. Yet this was not mere rough and tumble, even if it was the gutter press. Egan’s love of sports masculine had, at its root, those concerns that motivated his more refined compatriots of the horse and hound, field and stream.

In the dedication to Boxiana, a four volume compendium of English boxing biography from 1829, Egan addressed Captain Barclay, that redoubtable pedestrian:

In viewing you, Sir, as a LOVER AND PATRON OF THOSE SPORTS that tend to invigorate the human frame, and inculcate those principles of generosity and heroism, by which the inhabitants of the English Nation are so eminently distinguished above every other country, is the sole reason of dedicating to the attention of Captain Barclay, the work entitled Boxiana…

To those, Sir, who prefer effeminacy to hardihood – assumed refinement to rough Nature – and to whom a shower of rain can terrify their polite frames suffering from the unruly elements – or who would not mind Pugilism, if BOXING was not so shockingly vulgar – the following work can have no interest whatever. But to persons, Sir, who, like yourself, feel that Englishmen are not automata, and however the advantages of discipline may serve for the precision and movement of great bodies, that it would ultimately lose its effects, were it not animated by that native spirit, which has been found to originate, in a great measure, from the fastidious term – vulgar Sports, Boxiana will convey amusement, if not information.

Egan’s argument may be lost on us. It seems that something specific, in fact, has been lost. To be sure, violent sports still exist, and not solely in the realms of illicit gambling and extra-legal gatherings. Ultimate Fighting’s popularity – its usurpation of the boxing fan’s attention – would suggest that Egan’s rough Nature is alive and well. But I see nothing of the spirit that these sports were deemed to activate in Egan’s time. They were to:

Impart generosity to the mind, and humanity to the heart, by instilling those unalterable principles in the breast of every Briton, not to take an unfair advantage of his antagonist.

If they also served to foster ‘the daring intrepidity of the BRITISH SOLDIER in mounting the Breach, producing those brilliant victories which have reflected so much honour on the English Nation’, well, for the men of Egan’s time, so much the better. But what of us? Upon what reserves, and upon what experience, do we derive our mettle? Are we so assured that we do not need it? Will our looking-on at cable television from comfy couches ignite the sparks of generosity of mind and humanity of heart, and do we care? Where is our well of heroism?

An Elegant Weapon for a more Civilised Age

Yesterday I was almost decapitated by an umbrella, twice. In truth, the second occasion was more of a narrow escape from having my eye skewered. The first incident caused me to limbo in the most ungainly fashion, and it really wasn’t the weather for limbo. Both assailants were cursed, roundly and loudly. Neither paid the slightest attention.

What is to be done? I regret that I was not carrying my own umbrella at the time, for this would surely have acted as my force field. But I am having umbrella difficulties at present, exacerbated by my having to keep on crossing international borders. The gentleman’s umbrella, for all its dignity and refinement, has a pointy metal bit at the end and looks too much like an offensive weapon for most carriers. This is a gross prejudice. As I have discovered, the crass and wholly unpleasant common-or-garden umbrella, in pastel shades and pretty patterns, destined to blow out and crumple at the slightest puff of wind, is also a lethal weapon! And for all its look-at-me-I’m-compact-and-modern glibness, this is a brute of a device. When closed, it is more akin to a police baton than to a rapier; when open, it bespeaks Medieval torture device, rather than rain shield. With their short shafts and inadequate canopies, they obscure the vision of their carriers, who lead with spokes primed, ready to assail the unsuspecting eyeball. And really, nobody looks where he is going anymore. Walking is just one big imperialist adventure, with territory conceded only at a high price.

I must make a plea for a return to gentlemanly standards of rain protection (and ladies, for you too there really are preferable options to the aforementioned unfurling truncheons). A proper umbrella will last a long time; it will be too big to forget in every taxi, pub, restaurant, etc.; it will not be so big that walking down the street is an impossibility (golf umbrella wielders take note: you belong on a golf course); it will allow you to see while you walk; it will allow you a companion, with a reasonable expectation of staying dry. Back when we knew how to be civilised, a man would not be without such a device in periods of inclemency. And if the need arose – let’s say, a young oik threatened to encumber your way with his inadequate brolly – when properly furled this instrument served very nicely as an idiot deterrent. The next time I am assailed by walking imperialists with no style and much less manners, I shall give them cause to say touché.

Hitting Out of the Woods: Manly Golf

The world of golf has been reeling of late. Tiger Woods’ indiscretions have brought our collective attention to the question of character and we have found the preëminent golfer to have fallen a long way short of respectable. Not that golf in America has a lot to say for itself anyway. Golfwear has become a caricature of itself. Golf fans have become loud and obnoxious. Never was there a less edifying shout than ‘You’re the man!’. Never was there a more crass allusion than ‘Get in the hole!’. Falsetto whooping abounds from fans and players alike, accompanied by contrived fist pumps. The niceties of etiquette (which, by the way, was the major topic of conversation when I started to play golf in the late 1980s) are probably still observed, but not so that anybody would notice. In short, golf’s media image has never looked worse. As Augusta approaches, the most strictly controlled Major for both players and fans alike, it may be apropos to restate golf’s values and its virtues.

Golf is first and foremost a competition with the self. One only needs to have struck one ball well to have gained the knowledge of possibility. Thereafter, gaining control over one’s movements, and the elements, is the challenge. It is frustrating, but breeds fortitude, patience, and temperance. The impetuous golfer is mercurial, and mercurial golfers garner no respect. The refined golfer embodies controlled power. He is never flamboyant.

Now, this ongoing battle with the self, if persevered with, leads to humility. On a golf course, inadequacies are public, failures self-evident. So too are triumphs. It is never wise to indulge too much in the latter, for the former always lurk on the next hole. Moderation is key. The golfing temperament, ultimately, is moderate: courageous where necessary, but sensibly safe where fools rush in. This is why Phil Mickleson has not won many Majors, despite his genius. It is why Sir Nick Faldo won five, despite his flaws.

In the best of worlds, this moderation would trickle down to golf’s ‘army’ of fans. As things stand, a more effete army has never been seen. Knowledge of the game – its ethos – should be the first criterion for a golf fan. There is a wealth of tradition, form and respect in this great game that make it bigger than any one individual, any one event. Those who choose to spoil the professional golfer’s good walk would do well to bear that in mind.