The Gentleman's Club

[T]he Drones, where a certain standard of decency is demanded from the inmate. Ask anyone at the Drones, and they will tell you that it was a black day for the dear old club when this chap Glossop somehow wriggled into the list of members… the universal consensus of opinion is that the fellow is a bounder and a tick, and that the moment he showed signs of wanting to get into the place he should have been met with a firm nolle prosequi and heartily blackballed (P.G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves).

In my time I’ve had the good fortune to frequent a number of gentlemen’s clubs. Most of them were perfectly frightful, but anthropological curiosities nonetheless. As a teenager, I watched the awkward sociology of the private golf course club house, not knowing then quite what was wrong. Lower middle-class golfers acting up; upper middle-class golfers trying to be of the people; over made-up women golfers posturing, not realising their hopeless subjection; the odd working-class golfer, spitting old-school venom and being anonymously reported to The Committee. After 8 o’clock, no male was allowed past a certain pillar, upon which hung a brass bell, without donning a jacket and tie. Nothing distinguished the one half of the room ‘past the bell’ from the other, except the haughty stiffness of those who dressed up, looking at the casual slum of monstrous costumes on the other side. Such a bizarre line in the sand, this. Incidentally, the television resided on the formal side of the line. Want to watch Coronation Street with your whisky and water? Get a tie on!

At age fourteen I was bemused. Now I see the point, but I confess that this small mindedness was pushing the envelope of pointless snobbery. Dress codes serve a meaningful purpose, but the boundary should have been the club as a whole. It serves no one to stratify a single room, for God’s sake. It might surprise, perhaps, to note that the higher up the social scale one travels, the more relaxed the regulations. Some institutions exclude by reputation. A man who feels he doesn’t belong automatically stays away; for those who assume a place, the door opens (there are always ways around the money question). A brass neck can take you far, if you know where to stick it. As a case in point, a number of esteemed institutions have recently opened their doors to me, and I haven’t parted with a farthing. Jolly decent of them.

The social dancing and niceties aside, I mention all this merely to make an objection. Perform a Google operation on the phrase ‘gentleman’s club’ and you will be appalled to find that the vast majority of institutions listed rather fall short of the description. No doubt, gentlemen have always visited houses of uncertain repute, but the institutions had not the audacity to presume that the presence of gentlemen signified for them a like status. I know that the word ‘gentleman’ has been emptied of its meaning in the last hundred years, but that is no reason completely to derogate it. It is horrifying to think that the drunken hordes who tonight revel at post-modernity’s rather tangible version of the greasy pole will wake up tomorrow and think themselves upright men of social standing. The gentleman’s club need no longer be the exclusive resort of the social drone, but it ought still to be something more than a grotesque projection of the gutter.

Down Loden; Or Inheriting Tradition

The strong point of the English gentleman pure is the easy style of his figure and clothing; he objects to marked ins and outs in his costume, and he also objects to looking inspired (George Eliot, Daniel Deronda).

These words still have a ring of truth about them, although I am afraid they indicate that there aren’t many gentlemen, English or otherwise, left in the world. Most people succumb to fads, fashions and phases. I’m also rather afraid that the English have unwittingly adapted their manners in accordance with their exposure to American television. English people were not known formerly to whoop. English men did not even scream for the Beatles; now they unleash their girlish falsetto appreciation for passing mediocrities. This by way of an aside. I would rather focus on the positive part of Miss Evans’ observation.

Adhering closely to classic designs, one can build a wardrobe that will hardly date. To borrow an apt aphorism from the sporting world: form is temporary, class is forever. The seasonal highlights of the catwalk are tomorrow’s reason to bury your head in shame. The avant-garde always look silly, ten years later. They do leave behind little bits of elegance that will endure, but it is probably better to be one step behind. Since the classics are always recycled, one can apparently be a trend setter by simply following tradition. Paradoxical? Perhaps, but tradition will (should) always trump the merely temporary tricks of the trade.

Let us also add thrift into the analysis of the English gentleman pure. Classical elegance and quality can be expensive, but they last so long that they afford the possibility of recycling. The best of men have never shunned quality upon the grounds that a thing is used. A thing demonstrates its quality through its age and ought, perhaps, to lead us to be mistrustful of the new (this is partly why I can’t bring myself to read contemporary fiction, but that is for another time). My latest purchase – a rare find indeed – is to the point: an Austrian Loden coat of uncertain vintage. Such a timeless design can fetch a pretty penny in the finest stores. It will last me a long time yet, and was a snip at $40, don’t you think?

More weightily, from a sentimental point of view, Father has promised me his Raymond Weil watch when he passes – we have discussed it without morbidity – and I await my inheritance with infinite patience, but with certainty that I will myself bequeath the object when my time comes. How fitting that such trust can be placed in a time piece. It marks the hours itself without appearing to age. I applauded his taste as a child when he purchased it, and secretly coveted it for many years. It will be passed down laden with meaning, assured to last, and as a token of a permanent bond. Form is temporary, class is forever.

Where's Wallet? Or, Luck Out!

I lost my wallet yesterday. I didn’t actually, but for ten minutes it felt like I did. And then it showed up, in the sleeve of my jacket, having made its way there somehow from my inside pocket. Lucky I found it. Lucky.

I don’t believe in luck. The worst thing a man can do is to believe in luck. It shortcuts work, fastens his attention on false hope, makes him complacent, slack-minded, and liable to curse everything but himself when luck does not last. Luck is for losers, as George Eliot knew well:

She had begun to believe in her luck, others had begun to believe in it: she had visions of being followed by a cortège who would worship her as a goddess of luck and watch her play as a directing augury. Such things had been known of male gamblers; why should not a woman have a like supremacy? (George Eliot, Daniel Deronda).

Gwendolen, the subject of this passage, proceeded to lose everything by the next chapter. And if you care to show me a male gambler who is a talisman of good fortune, I will show you a highly skilled practitioner of this or that game, or a cheat. One can have occasional good fortune – nothing ventured, nothing gained – but nobody is lucky per se; lucky to the core. My luck today was merely relief. And had I lost my wallet, or anything in it, it would have been through my own complacency. Trifles, you say; yet the rule holds good. There is no substitute for hard work. As Jefferson is thought to have said: ‘I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it’. If you are in the right place at the right time, it is invariably because you, and the world you live in, have set a million things in motion to put you there and then. And if you have a rotten streak, then you can find real causes, out of which you may derive real solutions.

Even the things that affect us most deeply cannot be ascribed to luck. Redundancy is not bad luck: it is economy, and so is redundancy’s cure; illness is not bad luck: it is pathological. Its cure is medicine or not, but that is the nature of being a being. We may explain these things by luck, for it makes them easier to handle, and we may be forgiven for it. But in the day-to-day, I hate to see a man rueing his luck. It is not reasonable, and a man should above all else be reasonable.

Let's Talk About Sox

All this swanning about in New York does make one fantasise. Yet I find that a pied-à-terre in New York is presently out of my reach, so to keep my feet on the floor I’m thinking about earthly mundanities, namely socks. I apologise for titillating with my titular allusions, but I am of the opinion that the male ankle is sorely overlooked these days. The well-turned ankles of women used to make men swoon, and were to be kept concealed lest the stoic reserve of the robust sex be disquieted in public. The male ankle was once thought a critical indicator of a man’s character. Properly considered, a fine figure of a man with the exception of portly ankles was not a fine figure of a man at all. We can rarely discern this crucial sign of moral rectitude today, as ankles remain covered by the superfluous folds of ill-fitting trousers, and are further concealed by the saggy whatever-I-put-my-hands-on-first-in-the-dark garments that go under the misnomer of ‘socks’.

Men rarely buy their own socks. I cannot think why. They are perhaps deemed unimportant, but necessary, and therefore something to be put up with, like paying the gas bill. Men rely on Christmas and birthdays for their annual quota of socks to arrive courtesy of the ill-taste of well-meaning mothers, wives and children. This being the case, an opportunity to portray one’s individuality is missed, in favour of the slouched anonymity of dark-coloured conformity. Worse still, these nylon nasties are typically ill-fitting. Heels protrude rudely from the backs of shoes, and bare skin can often be seen peeping from between the sock and trouser hem of a seated male. If you are going to flash your pins at people, why bother to get dressed at all? Worst of all, the sports sock with shoes is still seen in abundance (as terrible a crime as the sports shoe with trousers, which is lamentably even more common). It’s time men took their ankles in hand!

Socks really can set a man off to advantage if chosen well, and co-ordinated with an overall look. I am known for the boldness of my choices, especially in pinkish hues. Pink is truly a manly colour if you have the skin tones to cope with it, and I urge all men who shun pink as effeminate to have a second think. Pink shirts are generally a huge hit with the sophisticated eye of the beholder, and I would make a similar claim for the pink sock. But whatever colour suits your character best, I recommend that socks be well-made, be long enough not to reveal any skin when you sit down or cross your legs, and be well-fitting of your foot. If, through a little discernment, your inadvertently displayed ankles portray your individuality, so much the better. And unless you want to be considered merely a novelty, do not wear novelty socks. Cartoon characters do not belong on any item of clothing. At the very least, your socks ought to leave no doubts that you have bought your own clothes, and that you have dressed yourself.

New York Inspirations: Manly Monuments

New York is the site par excellence of the manly monument, or, if you prefer, the architectural erection. I can think of no other place where one’s eye is dominated by a masculine skyline. All allusions to stout perpendicularities aside, New York affords some stunning examples of masculine architecture, symbolising an historical and peculiarly male view of the world as it pertains to society, work or industry, and liberty. One need look no further than the Rockefeller Center, beacon of hope in the Depression, for proof of that (also see my prior post). Lest it be thought that I am slighting one half of the population, I must maintain that I adhere to a bald historical truth. New York’s skyline was designed by men, funded by men, and built by men. Given this triad of vision, economy and graft, it should hardly surprise us that the overall effect says something about American manhood. And what it says could not be more profound.

Take the Chrysler Building, for example: an Art Deco masterpiece, for sure, but one that is rooted in male industry and manufacture. It symbolises the motorcar industry in more than just its name, bearing gargoyles under its crown which evoke automobile ornamentation in the late 1920s. Its steely appearance sizzles with strength and elegance, sunrise upon sunrise emerging as its spire telescopically projects, celebrating the spirit of masculine innovation. This building that reaches for the sky is rooted, symbolically, in the steel automobiles of the earth. Statuesque, it is moving.

The association is apt. Viewed from the West, the Chrysler Building seems to emerge directly out of the roof of the Grand Central Terminal. This squat, flat affair of the beaux-arts immediately reveals its commodious innards upon entry from Vanderbilt Avenue. The ceiling represents the heavens, which have not only been attained, but mastered. On the concourse, man is dwarfed by the cosmos; but this is a worldly vision of masculine provenance. From this palatial hub, men of the railway age connected a nation by the steam power of their ambitious minds.

Not least among these manly edifices is the Empire State Building. The 3,400 men that erected this structure represent the idea of America from its most muscular aspect. Built by European immigrants and migrant Mohawk workers from near Montreal, the building embodies American history. That it stood largely empty for a time after it opened is neither here nor there. The style is the substance. For in America, more than in any other place, the medium is the message. In gazing upon this structure one sees not just a prominent erection, but the manly hands responsible for it.