Whatever happened to shirt tails? I was pondering on that sartorial deficiency the other day as I unbuckled my belt and adjusted my trousers for the third time that day in order to tuck in my shirt. Shirts just aren’t what they were. I can remember when shirt tails stretched halfway down your thighs, providing that additional layer of warmth and padding, but those days have long gone unless you can afford those excellent shirts sold by Charles Tyrwhitt. I suppose the shorter garments are to accommodate the current fashion, pioneered by schoolboys, of walking around with your shirt hanging out of your trousers and therefore looking a complete scruff. Of course, many men adopt this style because it hides their fat belly, but I’m afraid I cannot contemplate such an approach despite my increased waistline. No, the shirt must go in, the trousers must fit properly (not sag around the lower belly like a sporran), braces must be worn if necessary, and the belt must match the shoes. Before the late 19th century, of course, men did not have underpants and so the long shirt tail served as underwear, being tucked round between the legs as a useful layer between the bare buttocks and the buckskin breeches. Women did not have even that luxury. Those were the days. Gosh, the things you learn in these blogs.
Perhaps the ultimate shirt for size and endurance, in my experience, has been the shirts issued to me by the Royal Navy at Dartmouth in 1969 for wear with full dress uniform: they came with double cuffs, as one would expect, but without collars. I was completely non-plussed when I first saw them, though the situation became clearer when I saw the separate stiff collars (some of them wing collars) that accompanied the shirts. The only time I had ever come across such a combination before was on my grandfather. I vaguely seemed to recall that the collars were attached to the shirts using collar studs, front and back. I cannot remember if the Navy provided those items or if I had to buy them myself, but I soon got the hang of it. We were issued with standard collar-attached shirts with shoulder straps for epaulettes also, of course, for everyday use, but I was to discover that a shirt with separate stiff collar produced a very smart appearance with a tie – far better than today’s shirts with attached collars; the only difficulty came with getting the collars laundered and starched while ashore – at sea, ships’ Chinese laundries had no trouble with them. There was a laundry in Anniesland, Glasgow, that provided a useful postal service for laundered collars, but I expect that closed down long ago. Incidentally, the wing collars were for wear with the starched stiff white dress shirt worn in the evening for special events such as Balls or Ladies’ Nights (as seen in Downton Abbey). Those shirts were a nightmare to put on, being as stiff as plywood and held together with decorative studs down the front instead of buttons; but they did add that special sense of occasion that comes with accompanying a beautiful woman to a good night out. Any ardour that might have been generated by the romantic atmosphere soon dispersed, however, because it took you half an hour to get the shirt off again. I was amused when, a few months ago, I received a lecture from a young shop assistance on how to wear cufflinks after I had just purchased a double-cuffed shirt; I smiled tolerantly at that spotty youth and thought, “I must look younger than I really am but, son, you don’t know the half of it.”
I am so pleased that our armed forces have moved on from the uniforms of 1940. It was announced earlier this year that the RAF is to provide optional vegan uniforms for those aviators (we can no longer call them ‘airmen’) who have a strong aversion to wearing animal-based clothing, such as wool or leather. How very 21st century and how very important that Biggles should be able to conduct his or her dogfights with a clear conscience in comfortable acrylic sweaters and plastic boots. But wait – don’t those materials melt against the skin in a fire or explosion and – oh horror – aren’t they produced from fossil fuels? Oh dear, maybe they should move to linen, cotton or jute, but I wonder how much all that is costing the defence budget? Can we really afford to indulge the whims of all parts of society when it comes to maintaining a defence force on a finite amount of money? When you join the Armed Forces you voluntarily relinquish all manner of privileges: privacy, individuality, personal comfort, choice of appearance, liberty to come and go at will, and the right to strike, to name but a few. In their place you adopt and accept uniformity, obedience, restrictions on leave, comradeship, honour, professionalism, a sense of common purpose, and recognition that there are practical and financial difficulties in providing for individual beliefs when operating in a war environment, sometimes in the field. If you are a vegan with views so strong that you cannot even bear to wear leather boots, why on earth did you join the RAF in the first place?
On a light-hearted note, I am grateful to The Times for reporting an extract from a book by the actress Joanna Lumley, My Book of Treasures [Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN-13978-1399741613]. I quote the extract verbatim:
One of the jottings concerns a court case in Massachusetts, where a lawyer was interrogating a pathologist about a corpse. Had they checked for signs of life? No. Breathing? No. A pulse? No. “So how could you be sure the patient was in fact dead?” the lawyer asked. “Because,” the doctor replied, “his brain was in a jar.” The lawyer attempted a climbdown and asked if the patient could possibly have been alive. If so, the pathologist suggested, it was “probably practising law in Massachusetts”.
Don’t we all wish we could come up with an instantaneous riposte like that? Joanna Lumley’s My Book of Treasures is available in all good bookshops and will probably make a good stocking-filler for Christmas.
“May I help in any way?”
How many men have put that question to their wives while secretly thinking,
(“Please God, let her say ‘no’ ”)?
Such was my dilemma the other day when, in a moment of weakness, I made my offer because Jane had a Big Cooking Day preparing a vegetarian lunch for friends coming tomorrow. Not only did she accept the offer with what I thought was almost indecent alacrity, she rather took advantage of the situation by saying,
“Yes please. You can make the cheesecake.”
She must have decoded the carefully concealed expression on my face.
“Problem?”
“Er, well I thought maybe I could just chop an onion or something.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“For a cheesecake?”.
It turned out that the manufacture of the aforementioned item of patisserie would be perfectly straightforward (of course it would, I thought, for a cordon bleu chef like Jane): one crushed digestive biscuits in a bag then mixed them with melted butter to make the base. The base was then baked in one of those cake tins with removable sides, held together by a spring clip. After baking, it was chilled before some sort of gloop was mixed and poured on top. I duly mustered in the kitchen this very morning, tied on my pristine chef’s apron, and immediately three predictable snags emerged: first, Jane and I would be sharing her iPad which contained two recipes (hers and mine) and which kept turning itself off; second, we would also be sharing one small kitchen workspace; and third, Jane is incapable of delegating any task. Nevertheless, out came the digestive biscuits, and Jane insisted on showing me how to weigh them, as if I had never used a set of scales before. Ditto the 50 grams of butter. She left me alone to mix the crushed biscuits and butter, and tamp them down into the cake tin, but then could not resist commenting that the biscuits were not crushed enough. Well, there might have been the odd piece with ‘McVities’ still stamped on it, I suppose, but I felt that that added individuality. I duly put the cake tin in the fridge to let it cool and retired for a welcome cup of coffee. I was summoned ten minutes later with a demand of ‘where was the base?’. With a flourish I revealed the chilled biscuit mixture in the fridge, but was told (with some exasperation) that it was supposed to be in the oven, not the fridge; it had to be baked first, then chilled. So in it went. Fifteen minutes later, the cake tin came out and, as I placed it on a griddle to cool, the spring clip on the side of the tin sprang open. In panic, Jane shoved me to one side and tried to grip the hot cake tin to close the spring clip, while simultaneously making a chocolate sauce and a choux pastry mixture on the adjacent hob. In the subsequent stramash, a knife dislodged itself from the adjacent magnetic knife rack and dropped into the cake tin, bursting upon the spring clip again and shedding biscuit crumbs and parchment paper in all directions.
At this point, Jane said a very rude word. In fact, more than one if I am to be accurate.
I made myself scarce after offering Jane a glass of sherry (declined).
As I write, I am persona non grata in Jane’s kitchen and the beginnings of the cake are back in the fridge, chilling, preparing themselves for Phase 2: being drowned by Horatio’s cheesecake topping (yet to be made). I’m sure it will all be alright on the night. She should have let me just chop that onion.
It has been a busy time for us this Autumn and we are looking forward to a rest over Christmas, though our social calendar (I am pleased to say) remains packed solid. After our exhausting visit to Paris and its environs (Blog 145) we vowed not to take another trip away from home for quite some time, but we were were already committed to a short break in London in October to meet my American cousin and her husband, both of whom were flying to the UK to join a cruise. London, that most magnificent of cities, is only about 100 miles from where we live, but to us hayseeds it might just as well be abroad. Driving there is not really an option because of the cost of parking, the Congestion Charge, the Ultra Low Emission Zone Charge and the difficulty of negotiating heavy traffic in an unfamiliar city. One must, therefore, travel by train and, fortunately, there is a frequent – if expensive – service from close to where we live. We duly embarked on the 0558 train on a freezing cold morning, still half asleep, the other half wondering why we were punishing ourselves in this way. Still, the benefit was that we arrived in London at the beginning of a full day, and ready for a hearty breakfast at my club (the Victory Services Club, not White’s of St James’s – don’t be silly). My cousin and her husband were flying over on ‘The Red Eye’ from North Carolina and duly turned up, looking even more bleary-eyed than us, just as we were starting on the toast and marmalade in the Club. It was lovely to see them again and to catch up, but if my cousin has a fault it is that she will insist on packing as much tourism into a day as is physically possible. The process of showing her the sights in England is like undertaking a full-blown naval exercise off Portland: 0800Z breakfast; 0912Z clean teeth; 0930Z depart for British Museum; 1135Z arrive Kensington Palace…1730 Return to Club; 1745 Debrief and Wash-up. You get the gist, I am sure. Jane and I prefer to take London – or any other tourist spot – in a more relaxed way, walking everywhere and choosing places as the mood takes us. We compromised with my cousin by suggesting that she do her own thing on Day 1 while we visited the National Gallery then met our son, Rupert, for lunch. By her own admission, my cousin would be dead-beat and into bed by 1600 anyway. We duly met Rupert, in the manner favoured by secret agents, on the bridge in St James’s Park before strolling over to The Cinnamon Club in Westminster for lunch. The Cinnamon Club is not a club, but an Indian restaurant set in the building formerly used by Westminster public library, and one often favoured by Ministers of the Crown as the Houses of Parliament and various government offices (including our son’s) are located nearby. The food is excellent, it bears no resemblance to the food found in so-called ‘Indian’ restaurants in every British High Street (which are usually Bangladeshi), but – alas – it is very expensive. It is a funny thing, but when you have a grown-up son and you suggest we get together for lunch, he never says, “Excellent idea, Father. Have this one on me.” Or, at least, that is our experience – other mature parents may have enjoyed more beneficence from their offspring. But, hey – he works hard, he has a mortgage, he lives in an expensive cottage in the Home Counties in a village called Wrinkly Bottom (or whatever), and we see him but once a year; lunch is a small price to pay to enjoy our dear son’s company. The bill came to £265 for the three of us eating two courses; the wine alone cost £65. Ouch. ‘Dear’ is the right word.
Day 2 found us escorting our American cousins through the intricate windings of the London Underground to Westminster, thence by Thames Water Bus to Tower Pier for a tour of Tower Bridge. It was a very worthwhile visit as it enabled us to walk across the top gantry, which has a glass floor to enable you to see the road bridge or Thames below (not for the faint-hearted). We also toured the (obsolete) steam machinery previously used to raise the double-bascule bridge sections (the mechanism is now electric-hydraulic). Alas, the standard tour did not include the vast counterweights in their underground chambers, and there was no requirement for the bridge to open for river traffic, which would have been something worth seeing. Nevertheless, it was a good visit and for a relatively modest price. The Water Bus proved to be a good way to get across London, with sightseeing thrown in, though it was more expensive than the Tube. We would have returned up river that way, but we had to change some money.
Did you know that you can actually visit the Bank of England as if it really were a bank? My cousin had an old £20 paper note that is no longer legal tender, the UK having moved over to polymer bank notes about ten years ago, and she wondered what to do with it. I made enquiries and found that you can change these old notes at the Bank of England, either in person or by post. We all duly piled into the Underground at Tower Hill and, after a short journey, disembarked at (you’ll never guess) the station called Bank. In the process, we seemed to walk miles underground: up stairs, down stairs, through tunnels… the Americans were definitely showing signs of fatigue by the time we reached the bank. It is a curious thing: my cousin(s) never adapted to using the London Underground and they were like fish out of water as they followed me at my usual galloping walking pace through the subterranean thoroughfares. On reflection, I don’t suppose they have the Tube or ‘Subways’ in North Carolina.
Kensington Palace completed our tour for the day, and it left us all totally exhausted. The Palace itself was not tiring, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back after a long day on our feet. The palace staff were very welcoming and excellent, but we thought the tour was rather disappointing, for most of the rooms seemed rather bleak, which is a bit worrying when you consider that several members of the wider Royal Family still live in the Palace. The best parts of the tour were the rooms where Queen Victoria lived as a child before ascending to the throne. She had a weird upbringing, sharing a bedroom with her mother until she became Queen at the age of 18, and having to be escorted by her mother or governess, hand in hand, whenever she used the stairs. She abandoned those practises with alacrity when she came to power. I can’t say I blame her.
We called a cab to get back to the Club, for we had had enough of walking. I simply love London taxis – the so-called ‘black cabs’. I know of nowhere else in Britain where you can just stand on the street, wave your hand, and a taxi appears as if by magic. The cabs are very clean, voluminous, private, and professionally regulated and driven. I understand some Londoners prefer the private hire firms such as Uber, which are cheaper, but those people just don’t know how lucky they are with their ‘black cabs’. I am very happy to pay the price for a quality product and, oh, what a treat to be chauffeured across London.
Dinner in the Club was excellent, spoiled only by a diner at an adjacent table pulling faces because I was telling a story to my cousin about the history of the coroner service and the development of law for dealing with dead bodies (as you do). This was brought to my attention by Jane using frantic hand signals to change the conversation. It appears that the the gurning eavesdropper at the next table objected to my conversation about dead bodies but, as I pointed out to Jane with the same volume of voice, people really shouldn’t listen in to other people’s conversation should they?
Next day we were back on the train for Barsetshire and the day after that my cousin was onboard her cruise ship in Southampton, heading for Bermuda with a hurricane heading towards her. It was a good break, but we needed another rest. I can recommend joining the Victory Services Club for a stay in London, by the way, if you are serving or retired Armed Forces personnel of Britain, NATO or the Commonwealth – any rank, and including families. The Club is located in central London near Marble Arch and the accommodation is modern, and modestly priced for London. The food is very good and the staff excellent. The annual subscription for an individual is only £55 – just over a pound a week. My cousin’s husband is ex US Navy and he took joint membership with his wife, on my recommendation (www.vsc.co.uk).
“Would you kindly count your cards above the table in future!”, said the woman sharply as we prepared to play a round of bridge at our supposedly informal bridge club. Yet she still lives. My initial thought was, “Who am I, Brett Maverick? Do I look like a card sharp?” and, indeed, I nearly retorted with that very sentiment and in the same tone of voice as she had used. However, I swallowed my resentment and later consulted my friend, a well-established bridge player elsewhere, and he advised me that the request the woman made was not unreasonable. I daresay it was and, as a newcomer to bridge, I welcome all guidance on playing correctly. However there are better and more polite ways to instruct someone. When I related this experience to my American cousin, also a bridge player, she said – in that philosophical Tennessee drawl of hers,
“Y’ know Horatio, the truth is, bridge is a social game for anti-social people”.
She was dead right there. We will press on with the game in a casual setting with friends, but I’m not sure about the club. I might end up grabbing someone by the throat.
Now tell me: do you like spiders? Or, more realistically, can you cope with them? I only ask because I read in The Spectator magazine last month that, in a cave on the Albanian/Greek border more than 11,000 spiders have made the world’s largest spider web, covering an area of 1,140 square feet (106 square metres) – roughly the equivalent of a square 33 feet by 33 feet. Two types of spider have produced the web, but neither is poisonous to humans. Still, I’m not too sure about that adventure holiday to the Balkans now.
Well, it seems to me that, if it was good enough for George Washington, it is good enough for us. I refer to that predominantly American drink, the Egg Nog. I think it is fair to say that the tipple is not a common one in Britain but, every time we turn on our television set to watch an American film with a Christmas theme, there the drink is, apparently being drunk by the pint. Jane is very fond of those American television romance films that seem to be playing non-stop on the box at the moment, and I confess to a weakness for them myself (this is my feminine side coming out). You know the sort of thing: girl returns to Home Town (pop 5,000) in the sticks from a high-pressure job in The Big City for Christmas; meets hunky, kind, sensitive-yet-assertive chap selling Christmas trees/pastries/home repairs/houses [delete as applicable]; falls in love; gives up high-profile job to help Mum and Dad with their business in Home Town, where everyone is happy, smiley and friendly. The snow is always ubiquitous, the outdoor clothing scant, and (as you discover later) the film is usually made in Canada, not the USA, because the snow is better north of the 49th parallel. As I may have mentioned before, Jane and I take great delight in the filtration of these films before they are actually viewed, for if you do not like the characters in a book or film, you will not persist with them. Also, it is one of the few areas left where you can indulge your prejudices. The stars of the show must look reasonably home-spun and not like something that has stepped out of a wool pattern catalogue; men should not sport the currently trendy half-shaven look as if they were Desperate Dan emerging from The Dandy comic; tattoos (on men or women) are taboo, as are face jewellery; the characters must be likeable so that you can empathise with them; and, finally, the dialogue must be intelligible, for the American accent does not always cross the Atlantic well (I don’t suppose our British Geordie, Brummie or Liverpudlian accents do either). Anyway, we were watching one such film the other day and I suddenly asked,
“What exactly is an Egg Nog?”
So we looked it up in that well-known source of knowledge, ChatGPT, and Egg Nog turns out to be a concoction of egg yolk, milk, cream, caster sugar, nutmeg and the all-important final ingredient of ‘hooch’. The ‘hooch’ can be dark rum, brandy or bourbon according to whim. Apparently, the concept of Egg Nog actually originated in Britain when monks in winter time laced a posset with whatever alcohol they could get hold of, but it was our former Colonials who developed the drink further in the 18th century by using rum (grog) to make Egg Grog, which became known as Egg Nog. If you are an American reader, you will know all that of course, but bear with us Brits who apparently still wear separate collars and think that cars with automatic gearboxes are a dangerous novelty. Well, Egg Nog was too good an opportunity to miss, so it was decided that we would have a go at making one – and therein lay the problem. In the Shacklepin household, I make the drinks and Jane makes the food, leading an innocent bystander probably to conclude that I should take on the job of Chief Apothecary. But wait: the job entailed breaking and separating eggs; beating weighed quantities of foodstuffs in bowls; pans on stoves; stirring, blending, mixing, chilling. Surely these required the talents of a cook (and a very excellent cook, if I may say so). I submitted these cogent and logical arguments to Jane in a demarcation dispute that lasted quite some time, but it cut no ice (or egg nog) with her: Egg Nog was a drink – get on with it. Of course, I got my own back, using that well-tried technique known as, “How Does This Work?”. Mummy insisted on separating the egg for me and felt bound to supervise the beating of the egg with the sugar to the correct consistency. She was preparing a Shepherd’s Pie at the time and it was becoming clear from her expression and manner that I was increasingly encroaching physically on her territory with my bowls and egg whisks and measuring jugs and pans. But, as I pointed out to her, she had insisted that I take on the task of making the drink and – the truth is – it really was quite tricky in parts because (as she commented) I was essentially making an egg custard, which needed some expertise if I were to avoid making sweet scrambled eggs. Anyway, the drink was finally finished, having been anointed with that most American of all American drinks, a large cupful of Woodford Reserve bourbon. The Egg Nog is chilling in the refrigerator as I write and we will give it a taste test tonight, toasting our American friends to the tune of The Star Spangled Banner. It was a lot of hassle making it though – I bet you can get it as a powdered ready-mix in a US supermarket.
Christmas, for some, has come early this year in the form of several shipping containers washed up on the shore at Selsey in Sussex, having been swept off a container ship during a storm in the English Channel (‘What has happened to our cargo, Mr Mate? Bring me that Bosun!’). Naturally, this has resulted in a free-for-all on the part of the good burghers of Selsey. The last time this happened, it was in Devon in 2007 and the shipping containers contained BMW motorbikes. The locals had a field day, while the local bobby flitted helplessly along the beach trying to stop them, like a scene from a Gilbert & Sullivan opera. This time the containers ashore in Selsey beach hold, not BMW motorbikes but…wait for it…bunches of bananas. The police have warned beachcombers that they must report any valuable flotsam that they find to the authorities within twenty eight days or face prosecution and a fine of £2,500 under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995. But, my dear chap, of course we will…absolutely. Anyone for fruit salad this Christmas?
So, seventeen days to go. Where did all the time disappear to? It seems only yesterday that we were baking outside in the heat, praying for rain. Now it is coming down in stair rods and Storm Bram is blowing Jane’s plant pots and our recycling boxes all over the garden. There is not much likelihood of a white Christmas here unless you live on a mountain in Scotland; indeed, temperatures of 19C have been predicted for next week in Melbury, along with lots of soft refreshing rain. My distant cousin in South Dakota longs for a ‘brown’ Christmas every year, because snow for her comes early, stays deep, and leaves late. I suppose I should be careful what I wish for. Anyway, after a series of lunches and dinners with friends, Jane and I are on our own again this Christmas, but we have peppered fillet steak lined up for lunch, and we are comfortable in our own company.
Merry Christmas to all my readers, wherever you may be: on land, at sea, under the sea and in the air. Wishing you a joyful time and a happy 2026 with your friends. I know I would be lost without mine.
Now, if you will excuse me, that Egg Nog chilling in the refrigerator is just crying out to be drunk. I must satisfy its need. And then there’s that cheesecake…
8 December 2025
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 