Männertag? Just No

Last Thursday it was Männertag here in the non-Catholic bit of Germany. That’s ‘Men’s Day’ to you and me. It is a secular booze up in lieu of a religious holiday, and it actually spills over into the weekend. The form is to wander around getting drunk all day, lugging crates of beer from place to place, and generally being obscene. According to the Federal Statistics Office, so I’m told, there are more than three times as many alcohol related traffic accidents on this day, compared to the daily average. It’s also a good day to get into a fight.

It’s pretty sad to see masculinity reduced to a personified belch, and I really wonder what the men of this land have done to deserve their weekend of over indulgence. I went to the Tiergarten with three ladies and had a civilised evening, trying to avoid the male natives. Looking into the zoo next door, all the animals seemed very well behaved. An American would call that ‘ironic’. On Friday morning I was awakened by a ‘man’ rolling home just before seven o’clock, doing his best tribute to a cat in heat singing Angels by Robbie Williams. Think that’s funny? You had to be there.

I hereby consign Männertag to the cultural dustbin. Men don’t need a special day to be at their worst. We’re capable of that whenever. It might be an idea, on the other hand, to encourage an alternative Männertag next year, at which time we shall be on our best behaviour, and spend the day looking dapper and generally being civil to one and all. It may serve as a reminder that we can do that anytime too.

Bloomsbury Notes

Outside the window is a sweet-chestnut tree, inhabited by blue tits, doing what birds do in Spring. The window belongs to a characterful room atop a Georgian hotel in Bedford Place, which is probably the best street in London to bed down. In the evening a dog fox’s bark is the only sound of the city, looking for some vixen nightlife. Down the street in Russell Square the tulips are wide awake, and the British have loosed their stiff collars and inhibitions and are sprawled out on the grass. It’s twenty degrees, which feels like melting point after six months of frost, and the kids are jumping naked in and out of the public fountain. People are smiling. English people, even in times like these, are smiling.

The poet is here on a flying visit, having had long-stay ambitions curtailed by unforeseen circumstances. He has been re-united with his wife, after an unexpectedly long visit to the Americas, and she has brought with her the necessary accoutrements of his summer: linen and loafers. Life looks very well with linen and loafers, after the London winter shroud has lifted. The poet now pads around his favourite neighbourhood, marking his territory, on a lazy Sunday.

First thing this morning, while foraging for food, an elderly man called out ‘hello’ to the poet, and as he looked up the old man took his photograph. ‘Hello’, said the poet, somewhat surprised.

‘Are you British or foreign?’ aksed the man, in the friendliest manner possible for such a question.

‘I am English’, replied the poet, wondering why it mattered (and, for that matter, how there could be any possible doubt).

‘Well’, the man went on, ‘you look very smart. Don’t tell me you haven’t been home yet’.

‘Alright,’ said the poet, enigmatically, ‘I won’t tell you’, and they parted smiling.

This kind of encounter happens more regularly than it used to do. Our bard does not know whether it’s him becoming more approachable, or the world getting nicer, but he dares to hope it’s something of both. In any case, it’s the kind of thing that happens to him in Bloomsbury, on sunny Sundays especially.

He arrived here yesterday afternoon and immediately indulged in some St. Austell beer and haddock and chips at the Marquis Cornwallis. British pubs, especially in London, have become so reliable in recent years for the quality of their food. He returned today for a healthy dose of roast beef, followed by a peek in the local second-hand bookshops, a stroll around the neighbourhood, and finally returning to his Georgian perch for an afternoon nap. Outside the window there is a chatter of beaky friends, and the distant hum of life. For once he will sit still: sit still and write, and wonder what the Bloomsbury set were so upset about.

On Possession; or, ceci n’est pas une pipe

‘Have you got anything to smoke?’ Frédéric went on.

Dessardier felt his clothes, then took out of the depths of his pocket the debris of a pipe, a splendid meerschaum pipe, with an ebony stem, a silver lid, and an amber mouthpiece.

For three years he had been working on this pipe to make it a masterpiece. He had taken care to keep the bowl constantly encased in a chamois leather sheath, to smoke the pipe as slowly as possible, never putting it down on a marble surface, and to hang it up every night beside his bed. Now he shook the broken pieces in his hand, the nails of which were bleeding; and, with his chin sunk on his chest and his eyes staring, he gazed at these ruins of his happiness with a look of ineffable melancholy. (Gustave Flaubert, Sentimental Education, 1869).

We are given to think of sentiment, and to put it in its place. Manly men are not sentimental. We do not fawn over objects for their own sake, and we do not reduce things to banal aesthetics. We are interested in beauty, yes; cuteness, no. We are interested in ritual, yes; possession for its own sake, no. These divisions may at times be finer than we should like, but we shall adhere to them nonetheless.

Dessardier does not lament the loss of a pipe because it is precious, or even because it is precious to him. He laments the loss of the meaningful ritual that the pipe embodies. Indeed, this is not merely a pipe: it is the store of hours that structure a life; the joyful occupation that balances other arduous and necessary occupations. There will be other pipes, but in the wreckage of this one are times lost.

We may apply this principle to most of the material possessions of the manly man, for he knows that the best a man can get is not a plastic razor, but rather that which incorporates experience, good habit, ritual and a weight of meaning. He knows that to own a thing of quality is to reflect on quality. An understanding of what is good, what it is that lasts, is to strive to be good, and to last. When a man harps on his possessions, or on that which he aspires to possess, we may form a sound judgment about the man. That which he cherishes, or desires, tells you of his depth, or its lack. To buy a thing only because a thing is en vogue, or because it is expensive, is to manifest shallowness to a world that consumes conspicuousness, but nevertheless cares not for it.

We must cherish our possessions and understand why. Chances are, if we do this, we shall require a lot less and value what we have a lot more.

Measuring Up; Or, Analogies of Weather

Clearly I pricked your interest with the story of the phallus, which is no fallacy mind you. I suppose it could be considered odd that a platform erected for the discussion of manliness has not before measured up the nether man, save to talk of trousers. Well, decency typically forbids, but where there is an intellectual point to pursue, we cannot help but to give it thrust. I hope my readers of a more sensitive disposition will by now have forgiven me. I shall try not to penalise you further. For a while anyway.

Being the awkward English fellow that I am, it would be usual to start a conversation about the weather after unwittingly taking the discourse into sensitive areas. What could be safer, after all? Funnily enough, and contrary to the answer to my rhetorical question, I’ve noticed that men compete for the weather, as if they take ownership of their own climates. You perhaps won’t notice this unless you travel, but take my word for it. Wherever you go, men will claim their weather to be better, worse, more interesting, or more boring than yours, and in some bizarre way this serves to make them hardier, more resolute, than you. I will own to having done this, albeit unconsciously at the time. The conversation in winter might go like this:

Berliner:          ‘It’s so damn cold here!’

Montrealer:      ‘Cold? You don’t know cold. I remember when it was minus 50 Celsius and my face froze off’.

Berliner:          ‘Yes, but isn’t it a dry cold in Montreal? Here the humidity cuts you like a knife. It feels colder.’

Londoner:       ‘Damp? You don’t know the meaning. When it’s plus one Celsius in London it feels like minus twenty. And the wind. It does blow’.

Yorkshireman: ‘Shurrup you daft Southern pillock. You dunt know the meanin’ o’ the word cold. Yer just thin skinned. When I were a lad nobody bothered wi’ heating and nobody wore a coat. You just braced yerself and gorron wit work’.

Berliner:          ‘But when the wind blows from Siberia…’

Siberian:          ‘Ahem!’

In short, men (and women too, but I suspect their motives to be different) seem to compete for ownership of the worst conditions. The worse things are, the more hardy the man. The more he can endure, the more worthy he is. Isn’t this true of most things with men? I see no reason why it should be any different for meteorology. It might be considered to be all rather sad and pathetic, but as I’ve said many a time in these pages, the threads of civilisation are tenuous, and through such displacements we are able to rise above our inner animal. Next time you compete over the weather, just be glad you aren’t actually trying to kill one another.

The Edge of Virtue; Or, Good Habits

Most men walk along the edge of virtue, the steep precipices of indiscretion, immorality and vice running closely adjacent to their poorly marked paths. How does a man stay on this path, when lurking close to the surface lies the beast, skulking in the corners of the mind, and stalking the outer reaches of conscience, eager to attack? Most men will confess, if they are truly frank, the demons that attract them: a rather too thirsty attraction to alcohol; a depraved sexual appetite; aggressive and angry sentiments and urges; a compulsion to gamble more than can be afforded to be lost; and the enjoyment of procrastination. Strip away the thin atmosphere of civilization, and men are deeply unpleasant creatures. Fortunately, most men only fall by degrees, rather than all the way to the bottom. And most men pull themselves back up the cliff of failure, through shame, contrition, and renewed intent. But how to stay on the path in the first place?

Good habits are our signposts, our guide rope, our safe port in uncertain waters. Routine – not a slavish obsession over the minutiae of life, but a basic regimen of what should be done regularly – is the means by which we continue to find the right path when the animal urges us in different directions. What is in a routine? Whatever we feel like. But it must hold us to things as we would ideally like them, for then we have a notion of when we are beginning to disappoint ourselves. The objects of our routines consciously jar us into steering a steady course. Let’s say I have ten pairs of shoes: wouldn’t it be good if they were always clean, polished and ready to be worn? Wouldn’t it be best if they were properly dried after wearing, stored as the cobbler would have wanted, and kept mended and maintained when necessary? To the outside, it might seem like I have a fetish, but I will know that I am merely keeping up standards. And chances are, if I keep my footwear fastidiously, I will keep more important things with equal care.

One could make similar cases for matters of the body: hygiene, grooming, fitness. A million men resolve to get in shape everyday, but how many of them incorporate that resolution into their daily understanding of what must be done? Probably not many, and that is why they fail. If we elect to do a thing because we see that it is good, then we must practice that thing because it is good. It must become habitual in its execution, but we must be mindful always of why it is important. I knew a man once – a gentle man under great strain – who insisted on simple politeness. At work he would be confronted by angry and anxious Young Turks, barking questions and commands in lieu of ‘hello’ and ‘good morning’. He would stop, smile, and say ‘Good morning, how are you?’ and would then remind them that everyone was behoved to observe the pleasantries if they were to hold on to their humanity. I’m sure the approach irritated people, but it tended to calm them, and him, down a little.

Keep good habits. Not letting this humble blog slide is one of mine.

Christmas Delivery

He wasn’t in the usual garb of Father Christmas. Think more blue overalls and a couple of days’ lazy beard. He was also Arabic. Nevertheless, he came on Christmas eve and delivered all the Christmas presents, not to mention my underwear and shaving kit. Earlier, one of his elves had called (from India, apparently), and foretold of his coming, sometime before 11 p.m. All this seemed to me most unorthodox, but who am I to judge of the mysteries of his delivery methods? Rudolf (a white Ford Transit) didn’t seem too interested in my proffered carrot, and Santa himself averred that sherry wasn’t quite appropriate for a man with a lot of Christmas deliveries to make. Such modern responsibility! And he was even so good as to substitute his usual sack for the exact suitcase that Mrs VB and I had lost in transit from Germany. It must be a little miracle in Montreal.

Merry Christmas to all!

On Giving (Up?); or, The Thought that Counts

Some of you may remember my advocacy for shopping with women, why it’s worthwhile, and why it’s joyful. In these happy instances, the purchase of a gift heralds a warm glow of mutual satisfaction. It needn’t be contrived, nor hitched to the calendar, but simply occurs as an outward show of affection. What then, of those gifts that are contrived and calendrical, and that must be purchased in the absence of the intended receiver? Such is Christmas shopping, and I hereby declare it no fun.

I confess to be at a loss, most typically at this time of year, when it comes to she who is closest to my heart. She has excellent taste and a refined judgment. She desires only that which she desires, and that which she desires she generally already owns. She dislikes extravagance and conspicuous expense, and is not a fan of clutter. Any event that tends to increase the sum total of stuff in our lives is generally met with terms of disapprobation (you may have noticed, we tend to move countries several times a year). Books are too much like work, she being also of the academic persuasion (we tend to come in packs, or whatever the collective noun for academics happens to be. Perhaps it should be a dust of academics). Chocolate she has in stockpiles, and it is all divine. Scents make no sense – she has several litres of the stuff. Jewellery is oft a winner, but I’ve ploughed that furrow rather too much and the field must now be left fallow lest the crop starts to wilt. Clothes must first be tried on, and therefore have no element of surprise; likewise shoes, boots and hats. Watches, diaries, stationery, writing implements – all of these she owns and, because she is exquisite in her selections, none of them needs replacing, augmenting, or upgrading. In short, I am looking for an elegant wonder, that is valuable and to be valued, but which comes at a thrifty hit. It must be imaginative – innovative even – and be the embodiment of her heart’s desire, and yet she must not have had the prior knowledge of it being so. It should be large in gesture, yet small in stature (ethereal might be best, second only to consumable). I so much want to give such a thing, but its rarity always has me on the verge of giving up.

I shall not give up, however, for this annual process is, I aver, what is meant by the tired cliché ‘It’s the thought that counts’. This phrase is typically and erroneously associated with presents that are completely unwanted and discarded. I have heard it explained that the ‘thought’ in question involves the remembrance of the friend or relation who is the recipient of the gift. ‘Ah yes’, says the gift giver, ‘It is so-and-so’s birthday. I must give any old piece of tat that I can lay my hands on. At least I will have remembered so-and-so, and it’s the thought that counts’. This sounds to me like a very low standard of care, and if it is this kind of thought that counts, then I am sure it counts for little. Is it not better to give not a lot but especially well? ‘I am on a tight budget’, says our gift giver, ‘but I want to make sure that the recipients of my gifts appreciate that I really thought about them this year. The gifts may be mere tokens, but they will be meaningful, because it is the thought that counts’. The process may be not much fun, but the end result ought to be full of joy.

I shall endeavour to give well this year. And so I must continue to think.

Badger, Badger, Badger

Mushroom (look it up)? No, not on this occasion. However, the unrivalled Christmas markets of Germany have provided yours truly with an advance Christmas present from Mother dearest, in the form of a former badger on the end of a piece of wood, all the better to lather one’s face, my dear. There’s something rather medieval about these markets: there’s actually a fair bit of quality fare to be had, and not just the Chinese trash of lesser English varieties of the vaunted Weihnachtsmarkt. Add some Gluehwein, Baumkuchen, and a dose of snow, and one could really be immersed in an early Protestant Christmas (save for the German cabaret version of Wham’s Last Christmas, and some gay fire jugglers pretending to be French). A manly Christmas beckons: was machst du?
 

Weihnachts Zauber, Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin.

Love Thy Neighbour?

It is festive season, and we shall all be drawing together our disparate lives and attending parties and obligations-flying-under-the-banner-of-parties for the next few weeks. I say disparate lives because the Christmas party tends to be an Event that has little to do with conviviality, or spirituality, but rather more to do with an official letting-down of the collective hair of people who normally only see each other at work. One’s colleagues usually have precisely one thing in common with oneself, namely, they work at the same place as one. And to get over the awkwardness of it all, enormous amounts of alcohol are consumed and nefarious activities take place in the vicinity of the photocopier. It is altogether not particularly charming.

Anonymous photocopier Christmas art

And there are the parties with friends and family, which are much more congenial, but these days no less representative of our disparateness. In the age of Facebook, who can say anymore that all their friends and family live close by? Mine don’t, and I shall be making the 4,000 mile trip to see some of them, while leaving others behind. Even then, people will be dispersed across the vast metropolis, and will come together only through Planning, Organising, and the tool that works at any distance, Facebook: in short, through Contrivance. One can never escape the feeling on such reunions that water has passed under the bridge. It is not so much a catching up, as a patching up; re-building ties undone by distance.

Isn't everyone's family gathering like this?

Who here knows their neighbours anymore? I’m afraid to say that over the years I have not known mine, and when I have tried I have found them either unresponsive or transitory. People don’t sit still for long enough, and where they do, the hatches are battened down. This is a shame, but I sense a glimmer of hope in my current abode. I always thought it was a matter of politeness to invite one’s neighbours to a party, since the best way to avoid disturbing them is to include them. I am pleased to report that the slightly eccentric man above us included us in his annual gathering – wine, whiskey, spätzle and a lot of cigarette smoke. It wasn’t our scene at all, but these were neighbours, offering a hand of friendship and hospitality, and we were most gracious. And strangely enough, everyone learnt something in the process: I learnt that even the most ‘ordinary’ of Germans – bad knitwear, leather trousers and the mandatory mullet – value politeness and tend to be decently read. We tiptoed around each other for a while, but soon the language barrier began to melt away. I spent a long time talking to a young man, eager to learn but with little worldly experience, about why one cannot claim multiculturalism to be an utter failure if one hasn’t actually tried it. I think I also successfully introduced this youth to the finer points of single-malt whiskey. The scotch-drinking part of the evening involved the removal of those with a robust palate to a separate room, where history and social policy became the topic of the night. I inferred from our host that those with a taste for fine spirits were more likely to have refined minds, and on the evidence of the evening I cannot argue. It finished with two complete strangers offering me the long-term loan of a guitar and amplifier. I was pleased as punch.

We had made a priori plans to stay an hour and politely take our leave. We left at 1 a.m. The sense of community was unlike the standard fare of the Christmas season, and although I am not known for being a literalist, I began to see the most obvious advantage of the phrase, ‘Love thy neighbour’.

Giving Thanks for Americans

Regular readers will know that I have an equivocal relationship with America and Americans, but it should be noted that while I have disliked It and some of Them with a fervency quite unmatched, I have also loved It and others of Them to degrees otherwise unknown. And this is not unbefitting for a country that has had a tendency of late to divide opinions, even among its natives (and historically, among its Natives). However much this leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, one can nonetheless state with complete certainty that American life is currently fully fuelled with passion, debate, and activity. While we may find fault with some of the chosen outlets for the burning of this fuel, we should be thankful that people are exercising their right to have a damn good barney.

Tomorrow is a special day for them, and it is scarcely creditable to me that this time last year I was there, cooking roast beef as a sort of Old World protest. I marked the day with mental relief at the removal of Hallowe’en decorations, and thought it was a jolly good thing to have a day of family and recreational time, filled to the gills with good food, only a month before Christmas: sort of a dry run for the real deal.

So, from my distant vantage, I raise a glass to the manly Americans out there, and salute your spirit. Long may you continue free.

To the Future King and Queen

The announcement of a Royal engagement is newsworthy for precisely one reason: we discover who is to be our future Queen. It is not important for us to know if she can work, but if she will serve; not if she is happy, but if she is dutiful; not if she is pretty, but if she is healthy. And one might say that even these things should be beyond our ken, for it is nothing to do with us after all whom His Royal Highness chooses to wed. She is entering a public role, and this should have nothing to do with the paparazzi, or with intimate knowledge about whether she can cook, or with what she chooses to wear.

Our utter disrespect for the Monarchy is generally expressed through our interest in all the bits and pieces of their existence that are completely and wholly irrelevant. We reduce them to first names, follow them in celebrity magazines, pass judgment on their comments, their actions, their every move. We answer nonsensical polls about whether we ‘like’ them, or what they’re ‘good for’, and go about as if our opinions on such things matter. We are generally so dim-wittedly unaware of what the Monarchy is for, and from whence it came, that one wonders why we bother taking so much ‘interest’ in it at all, or rather, why they seem so intent on managing their media presence. The Monarchy is now on Facebook, and you can ‘like’ it, and for its part, it will delete offensive comments. The post- modern court is dull, plebeian, and hideously democratic. If Royalty is reduced to this, then how do we distinguish it from its opposite: the Anti-Monarchy Society, also of Facebook?

We really should take note of the Monachy mottos, and so might They

We are mistaken to think, and the Monarchy is mistaken to endorse the thought, that we all inhabit the same world; that they’re ordinary people, like you and me; that we have a right to know, and that they have an obligation to tell us. If all of that were true then they should not continue as a monarchy, but instead retire into middle-class ennui. The Monarchy has forgotten how to be a monarchy, it seems. They care what we think, and they appear on sofas talking to journalists who call them William and Kate. And this breeds nothing but contempt in those who look for reasons to abolish the whole lot of them, for they flaunt the lie of their special distinction, rubbing our noses in it. For God’s sake go back into your palaces, and occasionally deign to wave at us from a balcony. Be mysterious, aloof, eccentric. Be evasive, elusive, and above all have contempt for the media limelight. You do not need to court it, or to woo us. You are the Monarchy. You have to believe, or at least portray that you believe, that you are morally, spiritually, and constitutionally distinct from me, and from everyone else. It may be utter nonsense, but those are the terms, or else all bets are off. Either You reign, or You do not. Either You serve a constitutional function, or You do not. Either You appear on stamps and the money, or You do not. There is nothing democratic – meant in the crass modern sense, where everyone thinks they should have an equal say about everything – about You.

But who am I to tell you what to do? I’m just one man at court among millions.

Hold On A Mo; or, Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

It is November and therefore the month of the moustache. This recent convention is in aid of prostate cancer research and awareness, and on that score it is unimpeachable. But what of the moustache itself? Clearly identified as a masculine symbol by the orchestrators of this movement, the moustache is nevertheless of uncertain historical status. At the very least, Jeeves was highly circumspect about matters of the upper lip, and that should give us pause. Of course, the ladies of the Wodehouse world thought otherwise, but they were universally awful and had poor taste. Further pause. By no means do I suggest that P.G. tips offer the best insights into the manly life, but then again, they aren’t far off.

Barbarian lipwear, c. 300 BC.

 

The first reported depiction of a moustache was on the face of a Scythian warrior. The civilised world at that point in time would doubtlessly have considered him a barbarian. This is an inauspicious beginning. Still, the Greeks coined the thing, calling it mystax, and her philosophers were no strangers to the cultivation of facial hair. Our modern associations with the hairy lip don’t help settle the thing, with everyone from Ned Flanders to Stalin to confuse us.

Flanders

Stalin

The most sensible words on the subject can be extracted from Household Words, via the pen of Dickens, in 1853. We must be on our guard, for Dickens was not averse to quackery and nonsense, and we can quickly disregard his arguments about the bodily expulsion of carbon and the body being thrown into chemical imbalance by daily chin scrapings. More persuasive are his allusions to the symbolic importance of the thing:

The idea that there existed a connection between a man’s vigor of mind and body, and the vigor of growth in his beard, was confirmed by the fact that Socrates, the wisest of the Greek philosophers, earned pre-eminently the title of the bearded. Among races of men capable of growing rich crops on the chin, the beard has always been regarded more or less as a type of power… The beard became naturally honored, inasmuch as it is a characteristic feature of the chief of the two sexes (I speak as an ancient), of man, and of man only, in the best years of his life, when he is capable of putting forth his independent energies. As years multiply and judgment ripens the beard grows, and with it grows, or ought to grow, every man’s title to respect.

Still, this deals in zones rather lower than that upon which we currently gaze, and Dickens hastens to draw our attention to the mistaken mystax of the nineteenth-century aristocrat. The association of whisker and rank was stamped into the popular imagination, so that after the revolutions of 1848 the Germans did away with their hairy adornments so as not to be confused for members of the old order. The Hungarians, however, continued to place great esteem in the thing, and famous Generals sported moustaches that might have been caught under foot. Despite this nonsense, Dickens averred that it was better for Englishmen to lay down their razors, for it would save them a year over a lifetime. And this, ultimately, speaks against the moustache, for it saves no shaving time, and indeed probably makes for fiddly shaving and, if you will, mo’ maintenance. It should be beard or nothing, and even then it should be tended and trimmed, just as the philosophers insisted.

I don’t aspire to any of these labels.

All this having been said, and with my former assertions about the joys of shaving in mind, I am attempting to grow a moustache, if only to demonstrate to myself that the judgements of history are not wrong. I doubt it will last, for Mrs. VB is not a fan, and there are certain acts that should not be compromised, as this fellow in 1855 discovered:

A caution during the approaching festive season to young gentlemen who wear sharp-pointed moustaches: Pretty cousin: ‘What a tiresome great awkward boy you are! Just see how you have scratched my chin!’ (Punch)

Hallowe’en Has an Apostrophe; or, Thoughts on Dressing Up

Without the slightest qualm about being labelled a killjoy or bore, I can safely say that I do not like, do not see the point of, and cannot wait to see the back of Hallowe’en. The ubiquitous lack of its customary apostrophe is enough to put me in a bad mood. What happened to it? It was there when I went to school, but is now lost. Are we so lazy? In any case, this is the minor quibble. The bigger problem is the excuse it gives to grown individuals to behave even more idiotically than normal. I would be as charmed as a snake if it was just the kids. I saw some really pleasant little tykes this evening, out accompanied by adults, and wanting nothing more than a handful of candy in exchange for doe-eyed cuteness. All power to their elbow. I only ask that when they grow up they, well, grow up.

I won’t labour the point. Instead I’d rather celebrate the kind of dressing up I like to endorse. While the West went mad for witches for a weekend, I went shopping for something rather more refined. The German appreciation for professional attire, even among academics, is putting pressure on my suit rotation, and it doesn’t help that two-thirds of my wardrobe had to stay in Canada. Airlines are increasingly enrolled in weight-watching programmes, much to the customer’s discomfort. So, a new grey flannel suit is now in my armoury. Nothing garish; nothing notable; simply a classic cut and fabric and minimal fuss. I trust it will repel the worst that Berlin’s winter will throw at me.

Most people have forgotten, if they ever knew, that dressing up everyday is a joy. Perhaps if we reminded ourselves once in a while that the fabric of life has a lot to do with fabric – the whole looking good feeling good bit, which is pithier than you might think – then we’d probably take a lot less relish in grease paint, pointy hats and, what seems inescapably to go with them, getting pointlessly drunk.

And Other Utterances

It is ‘Frosh Week’, which seems to mean that the neighbourhood goes to hell for a few days. Not being overly inclined to dwelling within Sodom and Gomorrah, I annually reflect on the reasons for this descent into every kind of vice. Alcohol, immaturity, and the complicity of the university authorities seem to make the lethal cocktail. The immaturity we may blame on the parents; the university should be ashamed of itself; the alcohol would perhaps not be such a problem without the other two. In any case, I wonder how many fun first weeks end in unanticipated tragedy of one form or another. The principal chant, boomed out military style all week by hordes of roaming children (with apologies to readers who’d care not to know), goes ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, three cheers for fucking’. These words will no doubt haunt those afflicted with unintended pregnancies, diseases, and humiliations. And how many alcoholics begin their journey here?

 (c) 2010 academicmice.com

A less weighty observation to terminate this post: whooping, out of the mouths of young women, is unladylike; out of the mouths of young men it is effeminate. Can the young not find a more civilised way to utter their enthusiasm for their misguided lives?

Hands: Shaken, or else Stirred

The elegant Lily Lemontree has been on top form of late, and if you are not among her followers already, I hasten you there. Of her recent posts, one on shaking hands caught my attention in particular. Anyone with any doubts about the whys and wherefores of this essential practice should look in with alacrity. I thought I’d add my two penn’orth on the subject, for the first one ever knows of a man is his handshake, and its importance cannot therefore be overlooked.

There are many good reasons to shake hands. First and foremost, the handshake behoves each participant to make eye contact, and a failure in this regard arouses all manner of suspicions about character. A man who cannot look another in the eye betrays a want of something – a mere lack of confidence may be misconstrued as shiftiness – and the other shaker would be judicious in proceeding with caution.

Second, the handshake establishes an equality between men, for if done properly each shaker will respect the other as well met. If not done properly, however, a superior shaker will immediately assume superiority over the man who proffers a limp wrist, or too soft a squeeze. The hierarchy may not be justified in fact, but how is the man who puts forward a sock in a cup for a handshake supposed to recover his status? First impressions are lasting impressions, and we should do well to remember that beginning on the wrong foot – or wrong hand – will set us back considerably.

The handshake is the very standard of sportsmanship. After fierce competition, the declaration of no personal animus ensures that the game continues to be played in the right spirit.

Finally, there is the horror, and the offence, of the absence of a handshake. Nothing could be more disturbing than a failure to shake on first meeting. I can think of no good reason for such a failure, and please spare me your hygienic scruples. What are we to make of such a man? Since he makes nothing of himself, I suggest we also make nothing of him.