I’m yearning for the great escape
Nigel sets off charm alarm Posh blends it like Beckham Dark days out of date, Kate
ASKED what he would tell his younger self, thespian Nigel Havers, 68, says: “If he knew about my romantic history, he’d congratulate me.”
How many of us can look back at our imploded romances, unsavoury exes, unwise choices
VICTORIA Beckham’s luscious locks have attracted a gaggle of commentators.
Some posit the theory that she must have had an illicit rendezvous with her hairdresser. They speculate that her crowning glory couldn’t possibly be so vividly streaked with gold without the skills of a professional crimper.
As the grateful recipient of four applications of tint on my gratifyingly dark roots at the careful hand of my musician consort, I can testify that it is possible to enlist a gifted amateur and still look the business.
Does Mr Beckham have secret tonsorial tendencies?
OH,WE do like to be beside the seaside – or in a forest, up a mountain, down a valley or frankly, anywhere at all that isn’t home sweet home. Psychologists confirm that we benefit immeasurably from a change of scene. Even those who live in a sylvan idyll pep up enormously after a few deep breaths of polluted urban air.
The fact is this – we’ve all had an elegant sufficiency of our own four walls. Adore that feature wall and our charming neighbours as we may, we’d all love a bit of variety.
That’s why, whether we have the cash laid by for a fabulous foreign foray or just enough for a weekend in a B&B in Bridlington, we are desperate to roam.
Many of us haven’t felt this anxious for an exeat since our freedom depended on parental permission. Daily we scour the headlines wondering if the moment to pack our buckets and spades and dig out the bikinis and budgie smugglers has finally arrived.
Frankly, we have been yearning for what feels like forever. We’ve been yearning for human touch and contact, yearning to cuddle our grandchildren, yearning for all the cancelled fun, yearning for the sense of safety we used to take for granted.
NOW the yearning for pastures new, fresh fields and a seaside vacation longer than a mere day trip is almost overwhelming. Please, we silently urge the powers-that-be – give us leave to leave. We want to get out and up and at ’em. We promise to wear masks, visors, helmets, hairnets, gold lame fishtails – anything you say at any social distance you decree. Just let us escape for a few precious days.
If this yearning is colouring our dreams, peppering our conversations and escalating beyond endurance, only imagine what the tourism industry is suffering.
Hopes are pinned on a Cabinet meeting and an announcement later today but it will involve hard work. Just think of the disinfecting and dusting, the airing and staff re-training, the livelihoods hanging in the balance and the difficulty of communicating an atmosphere of hedonism in the throes of a global pandemic spread by human contact.
May the Lord rain blessings on the hoteliers and restaurateurs, ice-cream vendors and innkeepers.
They need every guest and every penny. They need us to trust them to keep us safe.
SNAPPED while taking a lockdown stroll, supermodel Kate Moss has been congratulated on her chic all-black ensemble.
Far be it from me to question Kate’s sartorial judgment. But haven’t you felt it almost immoral to wear black since the pandemic? Hasn’t it been a joy and an obligation to dig out the fuchsia, primrose, carmine and emerald and sport it with gratitude?
At a time when too many families are in mourning it behoves those of us who are symptom-free to celebrate our good fortune by cheering up anyone glimpsing us at a social distance.
Black may have been the last word in elegance in BC days (before coronavirus). Now it looks dated and out of sync.
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WHO could have predicted the culinary stars of lockdown?
Would any of us have imagined banana bread becoming a daily staple? Could we have envisaged folk harping on about their sourdough starters? Would we have believed that the star of the breakfast table would be peanut butter?
As a nation we seem to have forgotten AA Milne’s verse about “the butter for the royal slice of bread” and replaced it with “the peanut butter”.
This gloop comforts us by reminding us of childhood. And dare
I say it, the smooth is not a patch on the crunchy.