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| Watch as Dry January ends and Britain becomes a middle-class Magaluf Watch as Dry January ends and Britain becomes a middle-class Magaluf | |
| (about 5 hours later) | |
| FThis weekend the bars, pubs and off-licences of the nation are gearing up for Wet February. After the interminably long and quiet month of Dry January, in which restraint has been de rigueur, the part-time virtue-signallers and hashtag self-deniers who have been refraining from alcohol are preparing to relax. | FThis weekend the bars, pubs and off-licences of the nation are gearing up for Wet February. After the interminably long and quiet month of Dry January, in which restraint has been de rigueur, the part-time virtue-signallers and hashtag self-deniers who have been refraining from alcohol are preparing to relax. |
| As midnight approaches on Sunday, the nation will be waiting with a glass of Shiraz in hand, the size of a vase. Wet February Britain will be more like Middle-Class Magaluf. | As midnight approaches on Sunday, the nation will be waiting with a glass of Shiraz in hand, the size of a vase. Wet February Britain will be more like Middle-Class Magaluf. |
| Those of us who have experimented with the 5:2 diet know the pattern. On your fasting days you have tiny satsumas (that consume calories because so much work is needed just to get the fiddly peel off), glasses of mineral water, insipid rice crackers. And then, on the normal days, you behave like someone in the last days of Rome or a competitive eating event in Tennessee or Alabama, where you have to consume a meat pie the size of a car tyre in 90 seconds. | Those of us who have experimented with the 5:2 diet know the pattern. On your fasting days you have tiny satsumas (that consume calories because so much work is needed just to get the fiddly peel off), glasses of mineral water, insipid rice crackers. And then, on the normal days, you behave like someone in the last days of Rome or a competitive eating event in Tennessee or Alabama, where you have to consume a meat pie the size of a car tyre in 90 seconds. |
| And that’s just for breakfast. It’s sort of the 7:2 diet. Wet February may well prove that novelty abstinence months are not working. | And that’s just for breakfast. It’s sort of the 7:2 diet. Wet February may well prove that novelty abstinence months are not working. |
| Jane Austen and my prejudice | Jane Austen and my prejudice |
| For longer than I can remember, I have been one of the refutists: a fanatical cult dedicated to banging on about how the word “refute” means “objectively prove to be wrong” and doesn’t just mean “vaguely deny” or “crossly dispute”. | For longer than I can remember, I have been one of the refutists: a fanatical cult dedicated to banging on about how the word “refute” means “objectively prove to be wrong” and doesn’t just mean “vaguely deny” or “crossly dispute”. |
| I have stuck to the refutist policy of screaming with rage when some politician blandly remarks on Radio 4’s Today programme: “I completely refute that.” I have also been known to drone on about how journalists have promoted this sneaky meaning shift of “refute”: when someone denies a potentially libellous accusation, journalists will say he or she is “refuting” it, so lessening the chances of being sued themselves. | I have stuck to the refutist policy of screaming with rage when some politician blandly remarks on Radio 4’s Today programme: “I completely refute that.” I have also been known to drone on about how journalists have promoted this sneaky meaning shift of “refute”: when someone denies a potentially libellous accusation, journalists will say he or she is “refuting” it, so lessening the chances of being sued themselves. |
| But now I read in Jane Austen’s Emma about the heroine’s apparent pique at the existence of a rival beauty: “Mr Knightley had once told her it was because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she wanted to be thought herself, and though the accusation had been eagerly refuted at the time, there were moments of self-examination in which her conscience could not quite acquit her.” | But now I read in Jane Austen’s Emma about the heroine’s apparent pique at the existence of a rival beauty: “Mr Knightley had once told her it was because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she wanted to be thought herself, and though the accusation had been eagerly refuted at the time, there were moments of self-examination in which her conscience could not quite acquit her.” |
| Oh no. Could it be that Austen is a non-refutist? I prefer to think she is deliberately reflecting Emma’s thought processes: in her nervous vexation, Emma in her own mind fudges the meaning of “refute”. But it is a worrying moment for refutists. | Oh no. Could it be that Austen is a non-refutist? I prefer to think she is deliberately reflecting Emma’s thought processes: in her nervous vexation, Emma in her own mind fudges the meaning of “refute”. But it is a worrying moment for refutists. |
| More Dad’s Army than Beatles | More Dad’s Army than Beatles |
| Air India has caused consternation in the world of male grooming by announcing that it is getting tough on its cabin staff with facial hair, and in particular is banning “intimidating moustaches”. What that means isn’t clear, and it’s not necessarily about excessive size. | Air India has caused consternation in the world of male grooming by announcing that it is getting tough on its cabin staff with facial hair, and in particular is banning “intimidating moustaches”. What that means isn’t clear, and it’s not necessarily about excessive size. |
| Frankly, the smaller and thinner a moustache is, the more intimidating it is, for historically obvious reasons. But there is something intimidating about a moustache anyway. | Frankly, the smaller and thinner a moustache is, the more intimidating it is, for historically obvious reasons. But there is something intimidating about a moustache anyway. |
| Unlike beards, which can be grown just by neglecting to shave, moustaches are artificially created. They are essentially mysterious and exotic. At one stage in the Beatles’ history, they all had moustaches. Was this ’tache-synchronicity ever discussed between them? | Unlike beards, which can be grown just by neglecting to shave, moustaches are artificially created. They are essentially mysterious and exotic. At one stage in the Beatles’ history, they all had moustaches. Was this ’tache-synchronicity ever discussed between them? |
| As a young man, Bertrand Russell had a huge, fleecy, droopy moustache and then shaved it off. A big decision, surely, but not one that has ever interested any biographer. I once experimented with a moustache in my 20s and everyone said it made me look like Private Walker from Dad’s Army. I shaved it off. I had become intimidated by my own moustache. | As a young man, Bertrand Russell had a huge, fleecy, droopy moustache and then shaved it off. A big decision, surely, but not one that has ever interested any biographer. I once experimented with a moustache in my 20s and everyone said it made me look like Private Walker from Dad’s Army. I shaved it off. I had become intimidated by my own moustache. |