Alexandra Shulman’s Notebook
When did Britain’s dogs get so spoilt?
PET ownership as a whole is on the decrease in the UK but dog ownership is bucking the trend, up 400,000 to nine million. That comes as little surprise to me. Dogs seem to be everywhere.
Offices, restaurants, hairdressers, and dinner parties used to be considered dog-free zones. The pets were left at home where they belong, faithfully waiting to greet their owners on their return at the end of the day.
Not now. Today there’s almost nowhere that you’re safe from having somebody’s pooch rub up against you. And given that not all dogs share the same love for each other as they get from their besotted owners, the issue of whose dog is welcome – and whose is banned in order to avoid canine chaos – can be the subject of testy negotiation.
When did dogs become so spoilt? Children are taught the basics of polite behaviour but dog owners are worse than toddler parents, allowing their pampered pets to run riot with impunity. Should you make the slightest objection to your new pair of shoes being treated like a Bonio, you are instantly treated like Cruella de Vil’s more evil sister.
The other day I watched a friend’s huge dog charge up to some poor woman in Hyde Park and eat the remains of the sandwich lunch she had lying by her deck chair. My friend laughed heartlessly, as she watched her pet rush off afterwards to murder a few squirrels with the admiring words: ‘That’s Stevie for you. She’s so quick.’
Dark times ahead
TODAY is the most depressing day of the year. The clocks going back might bring us lighter mornings, but with darkness falling by 4pm it marks the extension of what I call ‘the grey hours’ – the bleak time between 3pm and 6pm when all the promise of the morning is spent and the excitement of the evening still to come. Whether, like myself, you are a lark with your most productive time early in the day or Barack Obama, who thrives at night, I defy anybody to say they are at their best during this lacklustre period, which only feels longer by changing the clocks.
Is YOUR man a macrophobic?
I LIVE with a macrophobic. No, I didn’t know the term either until recently, but it is derived from the Greek prefix for long (macro) and describes someone who has a fear of long waits or queues. This condition insinuates itself into daily life more frequently than you would think; the supermarket till check-out, any traffic, ticket collection in the cinema. All triggers for an attack. Symptoms include a particular style of head-craning to see why the queue isn’t moving, a muttering that becomes increasingly Tourette’s-like, a faintly sweating brow and fury with a companion who tells you to calm down. The condition is unfortunately self-perpetuating, since macrophobics often want to get to places early thinking they will avoid a wait, but in reality often find themselves simply stuck in the queue for longer. My entirely unscientific research sample shows that macrophobics are most often male. You can see them in line stamping their feet in an attempt to convince themselves they are moving along, while standing still. Normally mildmannered men will turn into aggressive bullies at the slightest suspicion that somebody might be jumping ahead of them.
As someone who at one point simultaneously suffered from both agoraphobia (fear of the open) and claustrophobia (fear of the enclosed), I am pretty familiar with the phobic state and being told to keep calm is particularly useless advice. But when you see your loved-one working themselves up to an early heart attack approaching the British Airways check-in desk, it’s not always easy to say the right thing…
An equal rights bully
SIR PHILIP Green may be a bully but his verbal abuse was democratic and just as likely to be aimed at successful men as junior females.
He once told Sir Stuart Rose that he wasn’t earning enough as chief executive of Marks & Spencer, adding ‘and you can’t even spell jet’ – a boastful reference to his own Gulfstream.
I remember his rant on hearing that Sir Alan Sugar had been tasked with running the Government’s apprentice programme in 2008. ‘That man can’t even run a bath.’
Funeral was a blast
THE will of Italian restaurateur Antonio Carluccio revealed this week that he wished his ashes to be blasted into space in a rocket.
When my father died we did the same. He had no religious affiliation but, as a journalist, he had a great attachment to newspapers and as a gambler, to the local bookie.
My brother wrapped him up in a firework constructed from Dad’s long-time employer, the London Evening Standard, and we went into our local garden to send it off in the direction of William Hill.
It was a wonderful moment, and although not one he had imagined, we felt sure he was where he would have wanted to be.
Putting the knife in
LOW point of the week: being handed a flyer on the street advertising cosmetic surgery – the over 50s, friends and family deal.
Miami Vice is back
IN RECENT years, street-style fashion has turned luxury, capped this spring when Louis Vuitton put the American designer Virgil Abloh in charge of its prestigious menswear. His own label, OffWhite, became famous for its triple-figure-priced T-shirts and beanies.
This, of course, spells disaster for the young guys whose individual style originally inspired big brand houses like LV.
Now that every wealthy dad and Silicon Valley honcho is togged up in fancy trainers, oversized sweats and expensive joggers, it’s the last thing ‘cool’ kids want to be seen in.
Cue the new trend of Miami Vice style wide-lapelled suits, bright, patterned shirts and Cuban heels on the club scene.
The scary thought is, when this goes mainstream – and the Saturday morning football touchline is populated with ageing Don Johnsons cheering their offspring along.