Thurifer

 

A popular public house and restaurant in my leafy suburb of Wokeburyfield Green now seeks to entice passers-by by boards advertising ‘a curated wine list’. Readers will be well aware of the noun curate. They used to abound in the Church of England but are becoming something of an endangered species. There are curators in museums and art galleries and in archives and, doubtless, they curate (look after, care for, preserve) their paintings, objets d’art, and documents. But what is it to curate a wine list? Is it the wine which is curated or the list? Does it mean no more than the wine has been carefully chosen and described? 

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It is oddly disconcerting how one palpable, egregious error can undermine confidence in an entire book. In recent years, Andrew Gimson has carved out a literary niche by producing a series of books of brief lives. One is on Kings and Queens since 1066, another on Prime Ministers from Walpole to May. His short chapters, usually between four and a dozen pages, are sharply etched profiles that capture the significance, strengths and weaknesses of each subject. In his latest offering on USA Presidents, Brief Lives from Washington to Trump, he has Abraham Lincoln’s assassin as Robert Booth. Surely John Wilkes Booth, for it was he, is engraved on the consciousness? Evidently not. 

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One of my favourite printing errors was that of an Oxbridge or Camford place of worship that managed three different dates for Ash Wednesday; all of which were incorrect. And, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa somehow (I still cannot work out how) in preparing a liturgical calendar for the year, I succeeded in locating the Feast of Corpus Christi in November. It was not spotted until 3000 copies came back from the printer.

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Another grammatical and linguistic glitch to add to the growing list. Earlier this year the Shadow International Trade Secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds asked about an expensive event held in a venue owned by a donor to the Conservative Party, against Civil Service advice. He wrote (inter alia), ‘it is understood that the department’s own press office stated that the reason for such expense was due to it being organised at “short notice” and therefore down to availability. However, in correspondence it showcases that it was not down to short notice, but the insistency of the former secretary of state’ [Liz Truss]. Given that it is quoted in the Guardian, it may be the gremlins at the newspaper rather than the worryingly grammatically slipshod Shadow Cabinet member.

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Polymath and ubiquitous man-about-the media that is Stephen Fry first attracted my attention on Radio 4’s Loose Ends, chaired by Ned Sherrin, on Saturdays too many years ago than I care to admit. He essayed an acidulous don, Donald Trefusis, Regius Professor of Philosophy, Extraordinary Fellow St Matthew’s College, Cambridge. Archly mellifluous, acerbic, didactic, very funny, he was a remarkable creation. Sir (it cannot long be delayed, surely?) Stephen has gone on and achieved the top rank of showbiz aristocracy. In recent years my admiration has waned as he became increasingly preachy, embraced more, and yet more, trendy causes; when his familiar tropes became tedious. Particularly egregious was the faux modesty, often displayed. Oh gosh … not me … not silly old me? Pish, pash … you are too kind dear-heart. In my Christmas stocking was his latest offering: a book about ties. It exudes all his strengths and weaknesses. It is a neat conceit, occasioned by the coronavirus lockdown. The design is charmingly attractive. The photographs, the easily followed diagrams of various knots are excellent. The Trinity knot proved to be, not surprisingly, the most complicated and demanding, requiring some dexterity, yet was singularly unattractive when knotted. Much of the text was less than appealing. A large amount seemed to be the result of assiduous internet trawling and reliant on web-sites of tie designers and manufacturers. References to himself in the third person grated and irritated, as did other stylistic tics: ‘Shush, Stephen, shush’. Name-dropping was to be expected. In a short book there was excessive repetition. Two thirds of the way through the book, I was bored with the potted history of Jermyn Street and its ties’ emporia popping up in slight variations. Given his pre-eminence among the political and cultural glitterati, it is unsurprising that he voices the prevailing ethos and, thus, apologises for the ancestry of manufacturers in less enlightened times and his own membership of exclusive clubs and societies. He does not go so far as to resign from the Garrick and MCC. He kowtows to the dictatorship of the terminally aggrieved and annoyed and historically ignorant. Most of the ties are hideous.

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I like ties. I never feel properly dressed without one, even casually attired. As a callow youth I invariably wore a tie indoors or out. I flirted with the flower-power psychedelic and the kipper before settling with the safety of conformity and convention. Plain, polka dots striped are my preferences, paisley occasionally. Comic, never, yet I am not authority on such matters. My worst sartorial faux pas was to attend an interview for a job wearing a pin-stripe suit, a check shirt, and a polka-dot tie. Quite a geometrical array. But I was appointed. After that it was bow ties all the way.
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