GENTLEMAN SCORE

7/39

There was some hoo-ha earlier in the week when the National Theatre announced it would phase out the words “ladies and gentlemen” from its announcements. Not from me, though. Nothing from me. And especially not today

– a day on which I’ve discovered I’m no more than 17.94 per cent a gentleman, anyway, having scored just seven from Country Life’s list. Clearly I need to have a long, honest talk with myself. But I can’t waste too much time, because I have so, so much to do – like plough a field, buy a barrel of Burgundy, deliver a foal, learn to ski, get married, have a son I call Guy, build him a Lego castle, have him admit I’m right, run in the fathers’ race on his sports day, then let him get into such grave danger that I have to save his life (perhaps because I’ve blown him up with explosives?) – before I’m finally accepted by Country Life.

Or I could relax and ignore it, safe in the knowledge that a magazine with a circulation smaller than the population of Andover might just have created that list with public relations potential in mind. And then perhaps I could consider what really makes a gentleman these days.

No, I haven’t opened a bottle of champagne with a sword, but I have opened a cash ISA and try to deposit a modest sum every month.

I don’t own a pair of smoking slippers (should that be vaping slippers now?), but that’s because I believe owning smoking slippers would mean I’m also the kind of man who possesses chronic gout, calls women “fillies”, wears a mobile phone belt clip and uses the term “clicks” instead of miles. I haven’t learnt to fly a plane, but I do feel physical guilt at the number of flights I take, because there’s a climate emergency on, you know. And I haven’t seduced anyone in a second language, but I could rank the fruit emojis on a scale of “appropriate” to “inappropriate”.

Surely all that counts for more?

I don’t own a pair of smoking slippers, but nor do I call women ‘fillies’