Deixo aqui parte dum dos artigos da Spectator. Fartei-me de rir ao ler isto. Lembrei-me dum artigo do Nuno. Este para ser mais exacto! E Acho que este ele tem de ler. É british quanto baste, mas por isso mesmo está excelente. Se quiserem ler o resto, ou compram a revista ou inscrevem-se. Boa leitura...

The slob culture

We all know that life under the Blair Terror can be pretty grim, but I am beginning to fret about the increasing signs of a collapse in national morale. I do not refer to the well-documented exodus of Britons to live abroad, or to our sense of defeat in the face of rising crime and seemingly unlimited taxation, or even to the semi-formal establishment of the Church of England as an arm of the light entertainment industry. I refer, of course, to the demolition of our pride and self-respect to the extent that many even quite civilised men can no longer bring themselves to dress appropriately when they go out in public.

This topic has been of great interest to old bores for most of the last century. We recall, for example, His late Majesty King George V’s stinging rebuke to Lord Birkenhead, a picture of whom the King saw one morning in a newspaper. Birkenhead had been summoned from the country to attend an emergency Cabinet meeting on a bank holiday, and was wearing a rather smart tweed suit. The King was outraged that one of his ministers should be seen in London attired in such a fashion. Then there was Evelyn Waugh, who took the spendid step of writing to every man who attended his daughter’s coming-out ball wearing a black tie to upbraid them for not wearing a white one. These may be taken as extreme representations of the concern, but in the last few years the lowest common denominator has taken a serious plunge downwards.

Sitting in some of the plusher seats at Covent Garden the other night — thanks to the generosity of a friend — I could not help but notice the general dishevelment of many of those around us. A fair proportion of the men in the audience were, like me, in dark suits and ties, either because they had come from work or because they quite correctly regarded a visit to a grand opera as an event. Many others, though, had no tie. Yet others had no suit or tie. Some were wearing what could best be described as polyester jerkins. It may be that if you have had to spend £175 on a ticket for the opera you cannot afford proper clothes, in which case I would almost applaud such people’s priorities. Sadly, I suspect what we were witnessing was yet another manifestation of the I-just-can’t-be-bothered demoralisation of the modern Briton.

There used to be such a thing as a sense of occasion, and those participating in the occasion — whether it be a night at the opera or an invitation to dinner or to a religious ceremony — would avoid insulting their hosts or diminishing the event itself by not turning up for it dressed as if for an afternoon in the garden or at the dog track. That now seems to have gone by the board. Formality at recreational occasions is regarded as utterly absurd; and, indeed, conservatism of dress in the workplace is now increasingly frowned upon, as indicating a range of unsavoury attitudes including a hidebound mentality, political incorrectness and class-consciousness.

I went to a wedding recently at which the groom didn’t wear a tie, even though the male guests did almost to a man. The groom is, however, at the cutting edge of the public-relations industry, so this lapse could be explained away by the fact of his conformity with his tribe. I then attended a country christening hosted by a well-to-do family. It being a Sunday in rural East Anglia I chose — appropriately, I thought — the sort of tweed suitings favoured by Lord Birkenhead, to find that the only other man in a large congregation to do so was the grandfather of the family. Everyone else, though participating at full throttle in a joyous occasion, appeared to have dressed not for that momentous event, but for the reading of the papers that preceded it and the happy hour or two at the saloon bar that would come later. For having got this wrong I blamed my atheism: if I attended routine services of the Anglican Church more often, I would no doubt have realised long ago that regular worshippers no longer regard church as something that merits the bringing out of the Sunday best.

Foi produtiva. Comprei o E depois, Pronto da Clara Pinto Correia, do qual já li mais de meio. Prometo escrever acerca dela. Mas vale a pena!

Almocei com o Tiago Cavaco. E valeu a pena! Uma hora de conversa, sobre blogosfera, Evangelicalismo(s), e afins. Voltei para casa com três cds novos (obrigado) e vontade de repetir a receita.

De regresso passo pelo Domingos, bebemos um café, falamos das respectivas vidas (amorosas) e ainda tenho tempo para lhe “roubar” uns dvds. Querem saber quais?

Hi Hi Hi. Salivem: Lost in Translation; Scarface; O Recruta; e a 2ª Season dos X-Files.

Resumindo, há muito que não andava tanto por Lisboa. Passava uma tarde na conversa. Lia um livro bem interessante da Clara P.C. E trazia tanto DVD bom para casa.

Aproveitando a dica do Tiago comprei, também, uma Spectator e já sorri a ler um ou mais textos.