Although we “take” the
Guardian in our house on Saturday, I
often wonder if the wife puts the paper into our shopping trolley just to
ensure that I have a rant, which I suspect she enjoys more than the rag itself.
The Guardian’s Weekend magazine is the first section we turn to, but, sadly, for the
wrong reasons. Its women’s fashion spread, “All Ages”, is as far removed from Vogue as you can imagine, a dreary serving
of maladroit mishmash, where expensive clothes are thrown together with such
little thought that you have to assume the stylist, Priscilla Kwateng, is
blackmailing somebody in the Guardian
boardroom. It’s criminally poor – I might call the police. This sort of
ostentatious cluelessness is an anomaly in the newspaper world. Usually, if
you’re not up to the job, you’re quickly found out. But Kwateng has an immunity
that defies belief.
Although I’m a writer,
I was once erroneously employed by the Mail
On Sunday as a freelance designer. I stuck if out for three days before bailing.
It remains the toughest freelance booking of my entire career. I’d just
returned from a stint in Japan, writing gadget pieces for British magazines. It
wasn’t the happiest time. I soon realised I’d made a dreadful mistake flitting
to Tokyo – not helped by my arrest at Narita airport as a suspected
industrial spy. Back in London, desperately in need of graft, a design pal
called Kev asked if I fancied a few days at the Mail On Sunday as, I assumed, a sub-editor.
The cash was great –
this was 1998, and it was a better day rate than I’m on in 2013. I walked into
the Kensington office with a big smile, thinking I’d made it. I was met by Kev,
who seemed anxious to have a quiet word. “Now Lee,” he said in low tones, “I’ve
got you in as a designer, no, listen, all you need to do is sit next to me, do
a bit of scanning, make lots of tea, and by the end of the week you’ll have
enough cash to get a round of canny eeyels in.” Eeyels = ales; Kev’s a Geordie.
He didn’t say canny, but I’m using artistic licence. Probably didn’t say
eeyels, either.
I’ve never known
minutes to tick backwards before. This was a newspaper, remember, where
hard-boiled, extremely capable writers, subbers and designers plied their
trade. No hiding places – this was the real deal. I felt like a child sitting
next to my big, art Apple Mac and scanner. I’d never scanned anything in
before, but quickly learnt – I wrote down instructions in my notebook. For the
first two days, when Kev went to the toilet, I felt as exposed as a British
soldier at Dunkirk, waiting in line to board a troopship. By Wednesday, I was a
wreck. Just before dinnertime on Wednesday, Kev nipped to the lav, leaving me
staring at a half-designed double-page spread on my massive computer screen. No
sooner had he left the office than the angry editor, a furious woman, drifted with
visible agitation in my direction like a glowing spectre from Poltergeist. “Please don’t come to me,
please don’t come to me,” I said. My words were like a magnet to her.
“Oh, you’re the
designer, aren’t you?” she cawed. “Could you get Lord Arlwood’s food column on the
screen, because I want to make some severe, very tricky alterations to the layout
that would take even a competent designer to the edge of his training and
capability?”
At first, I thought
I’d disregard the command or pretend that I was hard of hearing, but you can’t
go around ignoring editors, so I replied, “Err.”
“The food page, the food
page, be quick, I haven’t got all day.”
“I’ve been… told… by
Kevin… to specifically… specifically not to touch that page, because he wasn’t…
happy… with the final… typeface.”
“Typeface, there’s nothing
wrong with the typeface! I’m the editor, let’s make a start and he can
contribute when he gets back from lunch.”
Lunch? Had he buggered
off for an hour and not told me? I glanced
at the server, which was by now a jumble of words. I’d gone dyslexic. Your body
can be your worst enemy in these situations. “Let’s have a little look,” I said
slowly, stalling, stalling, stalling. With some agony, I managed to locate the
file and just as I was about to click on it, which would have spelt personal disaster
and a great deal of awkwardness and embarrassment, Kev rushed back to his desk.
“I’m just about to
work on the cookery page,” I told him, “the page you told me not to touch.”
“Lee, go and take your
lunch, mate, I’ll sort this.”
Outside, on
Kensington’s wide pavements, I breathed like Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption after he’d escaped
from prison, taking in the sweet air of freedom. For an hour, I lay on some grass
in a park, thinking, wondering what I was going to do. Pickles were alarmingly
frequent during this time. When I returned to the office, I admitted to Kevin,
“I can’t do this any more, I’m dying here – today will have to be my last day. I’ll
be found out.”
Kev seemed to find the
whole scenario amusing and said, “Orkee.”
“It’s getting to the
point where I’m having to follow you to the toilet,” I added, “like I’m
frightened, like a Mary Ann.”
“I’ll cover you if you
can stick it out till Friday,” he said.
“The editor suspects
I’m a halfwit,” I told him. “This is like representing Great Britain at
swimming with armbands on – but I do appreciate what you’re doing for me.”
Kev let me leave at
5pm. I think I drank four pints in quick succession once I’d reached the
nearest pub.
Is every working day
like that for Kwateng? Has she become a shivering pigeon, terrified that the
next email or phone call will spell the end? I somehow doubt it – she’s been at the Guardian for donkey’s years. Kwateng’s
either bone idle, doesn’t give a s***, or believes she has the Midas touch. I
firmly suspect it’s the latter. Has anybody ever taken Kwateng to task, and had
the guts to say, “By crikey, lady, you must think we’re tapped!” If I was the Guardian editor, I’d race towards
Kwateng’s fashion cupboard, kick open the door, fling her keyboard, clothing
rails and contacts book out into the hallway, and then holler, “Out, out, out,
out, out, out, out, out, out, out, out, out! You’ve taken too much from this
place already! What do you think you are, radged? Skedaddle!!” How is it that Kwateng
can dress women in a series of car-crash fashion statements, yet be assured a
stonking pay packet every month? It’s completely wrong in my book.
Well, that’s women’s
fashion covered. On the subject of male dress sense, it’s a very troubling time
for footwear. Unless you like brogues popularised by Messrs Silly, Noisy or
Small, pointy estate-agent slip-ons, Dickensian chimney-sweep’s boots, Lord
Fauntleroy dandy slippers or flimsy shoes with Wall’s ice-cream wafers for
soles, you’re effectively left with the Tarzan option – wear nowt on your feet.
Liking a shoe is difficult enough nowadays, but even in the rare instance that
you can live with a style, the fit is often crippling. It’s said that you have
to wear in decent shoes. Recently, I bought a pair of traditional Dr Martens
1461 shoes that, over the space of year, refused to yield. They had a lifetime
guarantee, but ended up at the Red Cross shop on Green Lanes. No doubt they’re wringing some poor devil's feet in North London as I write.
Dr Martens 1461 shoes certainly
look the business, but they chew your heel into a bloody pulp, like an inverted
kicking from a skinhead! Walking down a street in 1461s is like stepping across
an oak floor in bare, bruised feet. Basically, any DM with a heel gives me problems
– I’ve learnt that the hard way. Stick with a wedge sole and you’ll be fine, because
the weight is evenly spread. In 2011, DM sold a superb casual shoe in blue,
black or red called the Valin Monkey. With a white wedge sole and white
stitching on the Tectuff leather, they’re the most fantastic shoes I’ve ever
worn. They lasted a year. Hugely comfortable and a real standout piece, as soon as DM knew of my
love for the Valin Monkey, the varmints halted all production and burnt the
instructions on how to make them.
I contacted Air Ware
International, DM’s parent company in Northampton, pleading with them to re-start
Valin Monkey production, but they told me they had no intention of ever making
them again, that they were s***, that they were embarrassed they’d ever designed
them, and that if they found any for sale on any website, they’ll buy them and
destroy them. However, if you’ve got monstrous gorilla feet, you can still find
the odd pair of size 12s or 13s on eBay or Amazon – but be quick, because DM want
to wipe them from the face of the earth.
In London’s Fred Perry
Laurel Wreath shops at the moment, there’s an interesting monkey-boot
collaboration with George Cox, yours for a stiff £150. They’re menacingly cool,
albeit well clear of my price bracket. But if you take a look in Sherry’s of
London (sherrys.co.uk), just off Carnaby Street, there’s a very passable monkey
boot on sale for £50 – and they’re pretty comfortable, too. I bought some on
Monday. On the tube the next morning, with oxblood skinhead monkeys replete with
yellow stitching and yellow laces and a copy of One Hundred Days: The Memoirs Of The Falklands Battle Group Commander
by Admiral Sandy Woodward in my hand, I may have resembled an aggro merchant
with much to say on the topic of immigration. At least I got some space in the
carriage – and anyway, the rate of actual racist skinheads was pretty low, I’m
led to believe.
I’m desperately short
of round-neck T-shirts right now, so do let me know if you see anything I might
like. Swedish fashion brand Fjällräven, my favoured north European outfitter for
casual matters since 2005, with its exotic umlauts, seem to have stopped making
tees completely – maybe Dr Martens has bought the company and specifically ceased
production of the items I like. When it comes to fashion, it certainly pays to
be a big fat bloater. If you’re XL and have feet that could easily fill out two
canal barges, you can effectively cherry pick the best fashion and footwear from
the last five years at knockdown prices. I might have to buy an 808 State or
New Order T-shirt to see me through, or start stuffing my face with pies.
It was my magazine’s
annual awards ceremony in a swanky Central London location earlier this week. It
was a black-tie event, but I steer clear of dicky bows. You’ve got to be a
man’s man to pull off a style like that – Daniel Craig’s James Bond looks fantastic
in the full dinner-jacket ensemble, but it makes me feel like a fraud. A true
alpha male will always wear an evening suit well; I noticed that Michael
Douglas, Sir Bobby Charlton and Wilko Johnson from Dr Feelgood were perfectly
at ease in their formal get-up, but if you show any fear or weakness, a
dinner-jacket with dicky bow will wear
you. Instead, I just get my funeral tie out of the drawer and that
suffices.
Me and the wife got
talking to artist Tracey Emin for 20 minutes, in which we covered such diverse topics
as Margate beach, the swimming pool in her London studio, synth groups (“Oh, I
love New Order,” Emin declared) and the meaning of feng shui. She was a dream conversationalist.
And then, unlike almost any other star I’ve spoken to, Emin asked what me
and the wife did for a living, and took genuine interest in our less-than-glamorous
existences. At the end of the chat, Emin made her excuses – she had to mingle.
But before she whipped off, she mentioned, “Do you know what, I don’t think
I’ll meet more lovely people than you two tonight,” and with that she sauntered
into the crowd. Now, that’s style.
