The Times - UK (2021-12-06)

2 Monday December 6 2021 | the times

times2

Kevin Maher

P

oor Prince William.

His guilty pleasure

tune is that emetic

earworm, The Best

by Tina Turner. The

song, which was

overplayed

torturously in the

late 1980s, reminds him of

childhood bliss. He pictures,

specifically, being driven back to

school by Princess Diana and

roaring out the lyrics from the

backseat to overcome the

emotional pain of impending

separation. And, indeed, there is

something indelible in the image

of a child telling a parent that

they’re simply the best (better

than anyone, anyone I ever met!)

as they prepare to be dumped for

another bleak term in a Berkshire

boarding school. Like warbling

through I Feel Free by Cream as

you head in for a stretch in

Pentonville prison.

We know about this because

William mentions it in his newly

released Apple Fitness+ episode of

Time to Walk. The 38-minute

programme, which features him

walking and discussing his

favourite songs and the memories

they trigger, has been described

by the prince as the kind of

relaxed chat that might occur

during “a walk with my best mate

or my wife”. In my case that

would mostly consist of tetchy

complaints about ageing and

ailments (mate), or a mind-

blowingly complex scheduling

deliberation around swimming,

cricket, tennis, football and violin

drop-offs and pick-ups (wife).

And while the temptation here

inevitably is to listen askew to the

William tapes and decide snidely

that he knows nothing about “real

life” (he learnt a love of flying, for

instance, after being in the

cockpit of a helicopter at four

years old), there also appears to

be plenty of material that makes

me shudder with recognition.

William, for instance, recalls his

“cringing” karaoke nightmare in

2013, when he was dragged

onstage by Taylor Swift at a

charity ball in Kensington Palace

to sing Livin’ on a Prayer with

Swift and Jon Bon Jovi. He barely

knew the words and the voice

wasn’t exactly polished, but he

muscled through gamely, while

beneath his dinner jacket “there

was a lot of sweating going on”.

I’ve been there, had that exact

experience. Not quite in the same

rarefied celebrity air, but cringey

nonetheless. At a busy, boozy

summer party I decided (and, like

William, I don’t know why) to

take to the stage (the patio),

silence the stereo and sing a

slow and vocally rich folk

song called The Dutchman by

Michael Peter Smith. It wasn’t

great, but I muscled through,

sweated profusely and

received some

sympathetic

applause, after

which a friend, who

is also a former

radio DJ,

congratulated me

with, “I just love

that kind of

performance.

Where I can feel

your emotions,

even though you

can’t sing!”

William also

speaks about

giggling in

Sandringham

church services as a child. I spent

most of my younger churchgoing

years giggling with friends

through school services, even as

priests roughly lifted me from the

pews and promised to ban me

from making my Holy

Communion and send me straight

to Hell instead. William mentions

being forced as a reluctant child

to go on nature walks with the

Prince of Wales. Same here

(obviously not with Charles —

although I love the idea of

HRH abseiling down into my

suburban garden from a hovering

chopper, kicking in the backdoor

and saying, “Right, Kev! Time

for one’s nature walk!”). Hated

them. Moaned incessantly, all

over the spectacular forests,

mountains and riversides of my

youth. And now? You can’t stop

me. Twice a day, every day.

And with dogs too.

The one place we differ,

however, is our wake-up

routine. William, apparently,

struggles with Monday

mornings and so plays

the rock anthem

Thunderstruck by

AC/DC for an

adrenaline

boost. My ideal

track, however,

and the one

that’ll

inevitably get

me out of

bed and over

to the speaker

to administer

a desperate

thwack on the

off switch?

Tina Turner,

The Best.

Obviously.

A dog’s

dinner of

a card

wherewithal, and the

preening self-

absorption, to arrange

themselves in wacky

jumpers and zany poses

for the annual “In Your

Face, Losers! Who

Wants Camels and

Jesus When You Can

Have Us?”

You have to be

careful this year, in the

context of a pandemic

that’s killed almost

146,000 UK citizens,

that your glamorous,

zany and upbeat

personalised card

doesn’t seem even

slightly, well, crass,

facile, short-sighted,

self-congratulatory and

fundamentally morally

repugnant. This is

probably why Boris

Johnson has opted, for

the second year

running, to stick Dilyn

the malformed Jack

Russell (he apparently

had a misaligned jaw as

a puppy) on the front of

his card, which will be

winging its way to other

world leaders this week.

I picture Macron

scoffing sarcastically,

“Oh la la! Le chien

malade! C’est

magnifique!”

I might send out my

own Dilyn-inspired

personalised card this

year, but with Lara my

leonberger puppy as

the star attraction.

She’s nine months old

and still an absolute

nightmare (in the

nicest way). Eats cow

poo. Annoys kids with

footballs. Chews

expensive shoes

(doesn’t go for cheap

ones). Rolls in fox poo.

Chews dead things

from the undergrowth.

Terrifies small dogs.

Barely sleeps.

Otherwise, an utter joy.

To be truly authentic,

in fact, and to undercut

all the fake sentiment

of personalised cards,

mine should simply be

a photograph of Lara

eating cow poo with

me, irate, in the

background,

screaming, “Leave!”

Friends and relatives,

you have been warned!

It’s that time of year.

Rush to the pile of post,

eagerly tear open those

Christmas cards and

discover just how

repulsively perfect are

the children, parents

and God-kissed lives of

your photogenic friends

and relatives. Yes, I’m

referring to the

personalised Christmas

card, and to my secret

envy of those highly

organised families

who’ve had the

That ‘cringing’ moment,

William? Been there, felt

a shudder of recognition

I was shocked

As the reboot of Sex and the City lands

this week, Simon Mills and others recall

its graphic conversations and the shock

of discovering what women really want

I

watched the first few seasons of

Sex and the City 22 years ago,

under wincing duress mostly,

squirming at the sight of

thirtysomething women

behaving like male predators,

boasting about their collective

bedroom batting averages —

the SATC girls dated more than 100

men between them during the six-

season run, bedding 45 of them — and

then casting them off, one by one, as

sexually deviant, manipulative,

emotionally abusive and sociopathic

cry babies, breezily and fearlessly

commodifying them in terms of

wealth, genital proportion, intellect

(lack of) and sexual technique

(lack of), as adversaries and objects

of lust.

You know, in just the same way that

we men had objectified women in

terms of, well, their bodies mainly

for... decades.

The show seemed, to this fella at

least, to be a middle-aged gay man’s

fantasy of what it must be like to hang

out with the girls; all bitchy comments,

forensically explicit sex talk, group

hugs and feverish discussions about

the latest Dior. But my wife at

the time (part Carrie, part Charlotte,

with a tinge of Samantha, if you’re

at all interested) seemed to see

something different.

Being a strutting, cocky,

freewheeling 1980s/1990s male —

these were the days when the term

“modeliser” was regarded as a

compliment, remember — I don’t

think I’d considered the idea of them

talking about us like this before. And

because of Carrie and co, it was

suddenly easy to imagine one’s every

move and performative failure being

judged by your wife’s or partner’s girl

gang confidantes, all slightly pissed on

white wine. Uh-oh.

Women who watched Sex and

the City liked to identify with the

characters. “Oh, that is such a

Samantha thing to say,” they’d say,

then giggle. “I am so Carrie about my

shoes.” For men it also reinforced the

notion of young women as princesses

obsessed with fairytale romance,

designer clothes and money.

Worse still, mainly they talked about

us men. Oh God, I thought towards

the middle of season one, is that me?

I was married during SATC’s cultural

zenith, but maybe some of those vain

and uncaring doofus males — the

ones who didn’t call, ghosted and

behaved like idiots — were me during

my enthusiastically priapic twenties?

Shivers.

What women liked and what men

didn’t was the way SATC demystified

the differences and unromanticised

the thrill of dating. Men couldn’t relate

to it because, until the male cast of

Made in Chelsea started their awkward

bro-to-bro musings on various

Camillas and Tanias, we blokes had

never talked about women or our

relationships or our sex lives to one

another. Honestly, not once.

Then there was the way the British

public reacted — they do have a habit

of taking the essence of something

sexy and glamorous and downgrading

it for the lowest common

denominator, and the show begot

some horrible nonsense. ITV’s Loose

Women, which launched around the

same time, was a booze-free man-

hating SATC-influenced show that

used to have a slot called “Pig in the

Middle” where, in between mindless

bouts of pornographying chocolate,

cooing over weekend prosecco binges

and updating us on their respective

divorces, the all-women panel invited

apparently porcine-headed, useless

males to sit among them and be

slagged off for their chauvinistic views

and ideas. (I know this, by the way,

because I gamely played the “pig” part

on the show once.)

Men like me, who knew how to

change a tyre and rewire a plug,

watched and adapted. We educated

ourselves in the difference between

Manolo and Jimmy Choo, we drank

cosmopolitans with the girls. We

learnt to wait around patiently in the

hallway for 45 minutes after the

minicab had arrived to take us to the

party because it was so much more

important to get the hair and

accessories right than it was to

actually make it to said event before

the whole thing ended.

Oh, and vibrators. The infamous

episode The Turtle and the Hare

was almost wholly responsible for

outing and legitimising elaborately

fashioned, buzzing rabbit vibrators

among polite society and recasting

them as comedic, Duracell-powered

fashion accessories. Having become

the scourge of hen nights and lingerie

soirées, Ann Summers’s Rampant

Rabbit G-spot-stroking vibrators are,

the company has reported, more

commonplace in Britain than real-life

rabbits, largely down to SATC. (FYI,

there about 37 million furry bunnies

in the UK.)

And men just had to laugh at all this

and go along with it. During SATC’s

early 2000s peak I remember being

confronted by a rabbit pulled from an

Hermès Birkin bag, in all its rubbery,

gaudy pink and oscillating glory, by a

drunk woman sucking on a Marlboro

Light, who kept asking me if I was

“scared” or “threatened” by it. And to

be honest, I wasn’t. I was absolutely

terrified of her, though.

We blokes never

discussed our

relationships

with one another

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