Life and times

The author endures a heatwave at Eton and a star-studded spinning class

Author Elizabeth Day

The height of The recent heatwave found me at eton College, where i’d been asked to judge a short-story competition. ilea pt at the chance, partly because my new novel, The Party, is set in a boys’ boarding school and i wanted to see if i’d got it right.

i’d never been to eton before, and wasn’t entirely sure that girls were even allowed in, but it turned out fine and i didn’t have to be branded with a scarlet letter or anything. The Provost, Lord Waldeg rave, hosted a dinner in his lodgings and the food was far superior to anything i remember from my schooldays (salmon on black rice followed by the lightest fig tart).

The College itself was ridiculously beaut if ul. in t he Provost’s garden, a couple of statues were pointed out to me by a teacher. ‘That’s a Rodin,’ he said nonchalantly .‘ And that’ s a henry Moore.’ in the hallway, there was a fullleng th portrait of Jacob Rees-mogg in his school days, looking exactly the same as Jacob Rees-mogg does now.

The boys themselves seemed more like mini adults than moody adolescents. is at next to one 17- year-old who had spent his holidays attending a course in Renaissance painting and had just finished reading Gormenghast. Clea rly out of my dept h, i rest r icted myself to comments about the food and the weather, like a Victorian spinster.

When it came to judging the stories, i gave a speech in a room where none of the windows opened. The heat started to rise. When i began to answer questions, i felt a damp prickling on the back of my neck. With each question, i got hotter and hotter. By the end of it, i was soaked through with sweat and shame. it’s impossible to style out a hot flush when you are in a room full of teenage boys. But i needn’t have worried: their manners were so impeccable, none of them even mentioned it. Talking of SWEAT, i’ve recently discovered the joys of the Psycle spinning studio. i say ‘joys’ but what i actually mean is ‘righteous pain’. for the uninit iated a mong you, spinning is highintensity cycling on a fixed bike, while being shouted at by an instructor and listening to loud, pumping music. it’s strangely addictive and when you come out of a 45-minute class you feel totally adrenalised. i suppose it’s the middleaged equivalent of going to a club.

Psycle is something of a cult. You can buy bra nded clot hing a nd order £6 smoothies called things like ‘Just Ride’ and ‘no Resistance’. You can also amuse yourself by spotting various celebrities in their gym kits. Last week, i was two bi ke s a long f rom t he ac t re s s Rut h Wilson. i’ve also seen Claudia Winkleman there, and John Torode. i once WROTE A column about how much i loat hed t he t heat re. My basic argument was that a lot of it was pretentious, the tickets were expensive, and i’d really rather watch a film. But recently, i’ve seen not one but t hree plays i’ve adored. Fleabag at soho Theat re was hilarious. The Kid Stays in the Picture at the Royal Court was phenomenal. And a few weeks ago, i saw Ink at the Almeida, the new play by wunderkind James graham about Rupert Murdoch buying

The Sun, and it was brilliant. There were a number of journalists in t he audience, most of whom had come straight from work and looked rather crumpled. graham, by contrast, is so outrageously young that when he appeared in the foyer wearing a suit, he looked like a teenager on work experience. Any way, i do hope t he t heat re forgives me. it seems as though i may have spoken too soon. The Party, by Elizabeth Day (4th Estate, £12.99), is out now

It’s impossible to style out a hot flush when you are in a room full of teenage boys