The liberation of Tripoli considered as a catwalk opportunity

All wars of whatever kind have always had a strong fashion element. Hence such things as: grunts decorating their helmets in Vietnam; the adoption of the keffiyah by both middle eastern terrorist/liberation movements and as a western university uniform; the occasional pop star falling into a pit of embarrassment and vacuity when challenged about their claim that the Nazis were 'cool'.

The Libyan uprising, though, seems to have taken war-fashion to a new level. I can't help myself noticing the dress code of the rebels.

With the advent of effective long-distance rifles in the mid 19th century, warriors abandoned their previous battlefield finery. Out went feather plumes, red jackets, striped trousers and - a personal favourite - the pelisse, a fur-trimmed jacket that cavalry men (there were few, if any cavalry women, I'm assured) wore slung over one shoulder but never actually put on. In came olive drab, sensible boots and jackets with lots and lots of useful pockets. The only time modern troops get to dress up properly is when guarding the Queen or the Pope or something.

The rebels have upended this completely. They go into battle dressed up as if for a night out on the passegiata. No worries that their blue and white hooped polo shirt might make a target for enemy snipers. No, they seem set on cutting a bella figura. They really do offer a full range of well-chosen sports wear for the would-be liberator. They've mostly gone for the white trainers option, too.

I particularly like watching out for the football shirts being worn. I've seen a lot of Barcelona ones but my favourite was a Manchester United away shirt — complete with number 10 and 'Owen' on the back. If football is war by other means, here war is football by other means.

I was left with a question, though: what about the regime forces? Where are their fashionistas?

Then last night I found myself watching Newsnight or somesuch and seeing old footage of Gadafi. I'd long cracked the gag that the way he dressed these days, it was hard to tell him apart from Carlos Santana — moustache plus loose, brown outfit and unusual head-covering (for male pattern baldness reasons, I suspect).

But I'd forgotten just what a fashionist he'd been over the years. He had his Michael Jackson phase — peaked cap and military tunic, lots of excessive gold frogging, dark glasses. And as I watched Newsnight, I saw him in his 1980s phase — pale blue trakkie. He looked like a Scouse scally on his way to a pre-Heysel Liverpool away match in Europe. (Or were Michael Jackson and the scallies copying Gadafi?)

So maybe the rebels realised that as, in the end, all military victories can only be successfully secured by concomitant social victories, therefore when going into battle the choice of shirt is at least as significant as NATO air support, maybe more.

Plato: When the texture of shirting fabric changes, so the walls of the city shake.

PS When my friend Paul published a big magazine article on the fashion aspect of terrorist groupings, he got into terrible trouble. Here's hoping.

The dietary requirements of the average north London rioter . . .


The smashing etc time reached to within a few hundred metres of my house, to Chalk Farm station. I was expecting more damage, I guess, but all I could see was broken fronts — all now guarded by calm policemen — on Evans cycles, Sainsbury's mini store and this, the local Domino's pizza.

Notice that the sushi place next door was left untouched. As was Marine Ices over the road. And even the Marathon kebab bar — though the some of the clientele there really wouldn't take kindly to their consumption patterns being disrupted.

So . . . just Domino's Pizza, please — the chosen dinner of rioters. Perhaps even now, in Ann Arbor, the owners are thinking of that as a slogan. You are, it was often said, what you eat.

PS1 I was there because there was an online call for people to help clear up this morning. It was needed, I'm pleased to say. It had already all been cleared up, by the council, I should imagine.

PS2 Perhaps I should have guessed that: I was woken up this morning by the council street-sweeper doing the kerb outside my house.

Art appreciation

One evening, two openings.

One, in Camden Town, near Mornington Crescent. Part of the London Street Photography Festival. Photos taken of people on buses — who didn’t know they were being photographed.

I think: Walker Evans taking secret pictures on the New York subway. I think: this would be illegal in France because of their privacy laws. I think: I shall take a photograph of the photographer with his photographs. He’s the blur, obviously. Time passes.

Two, in Kentish Town Road, at the Zabludowicz Collection.

I see a golden urinal and think: it’s nearly a century since R Mutt took the piss.

Eating and drinking reviews

Street Photography two bars, Ketel vodka (sponsor), either truly horrible special cocktails or neat on ice; nothing to eat.

Zabludowicz one bar, waiters and waitresses in black and white, wine, beer, espresso machine coffee; tea-cup sized portions of Polish-ish food (esp potatoes).

Lucien Freud and me, part one

Not an a obituary or an assessment of the newly dead painter, just a recounting of an encounter. Well, one and a half encounters. Or maybe one and one-tenth.

I did once have a conversation with Lucien Freud. I can remember exactly nothing of what was said. I can, though, remember its tenor and ending. (I’m sure that says something about memory — both mine and in general. But this is not the time or place to consider that. I’ll maybe come back to it some time in the future. If I remember. Boom, boom.)

It was in the mid-1990s, in a then newly fashionable (in certain circles) bar/club/restaurant, Green Street in Mayfair. An alternative (of sorts) to the Groucho, it was — as you’d expect of somewhere favoured by Freud — a louche establishment. The chef was Peter Gordon, the pan-Asian gay New Zealander later in charge of the Sugar Club etc. Regulars included Toby Young, Jay Jopling and the whole YBA crowd.

One night, my friend Tim and myself found ourselves alone at the bar ordering a drink when Freud appeared next to us. I’d seen him there several times before. He’d put good energy into convincing another friend’s girlfriend to have lunch with him. I have two memories of what happened next, either of which might be true.

One, she agreed, he propositioned her, she was upset, her boyfriend was thrilled.

Two, she declined, her boyfriend (possibly knowing what was in store) persuaded her, she went to lunch, he suggested she pose for him (and propositioned her), she declined both offers, her boyfriend (probably thrilled by the prospect of a kind of post-modern troilism with Lucien Freud) was upset and tried to convince her to change her mind but failed.

I’d never stood so close to Freud or seen him outlined against a wall. He was tiny, I remember thinking. Astonishingly vulpine and beautifully suited. Exactly the kind of aged man you’d expect to be still propositioning young girls — he was then in his mid-seventies.

So Tim and Lucien and I talked a bit about whatever. Then the owner of the club emerged from somewhere, came over to us and greeted all three of us warmly. Then he said to Freud: ‘Lucien, I see you’ve met my friends Tim and Pete, a pair of the finest journalists in London.’

At which point, the laws of physics were ruptured. Freud disappeared in front of our eyes. He was there and then he was not there. There was no stage of transition. In the face of journalistic enquiry, he had, quite magically, de-substantiated. Why? Well, a general desire for distance from journalistic enquiry — bordering on distaste for journalism and journalists.

Oh, how conflicting it must have been for him to have enjoyed himself chatting to us then discovered we were the enemy. As it happens, neither of us had any designs beyond a chat and wouldn’t, I’m sure, have repeated anything in print — at the time, anyway.

He didn’t, of course, disappear from existence. I remember seeing him at the club, in fact. But we never had another chat.

The one-tenth of an encounter was not long after the first. It was outside the Cafe Rouge in Kensington on a Saturday lunchtime. I was eating with my friend Paul. Perhaps Freud was eatint there, too. All I remember was that he became upset about something. I have two memories of what it was, both probably false — another rejection by a young woman or a betting slip torn up and thrown down.

Whichever it was, what I do remember is that he launched himself into his car, a vintage Bentley, I think, of some distinctive colour — deep blue or perhaps powder blue. He span the wheel, u-turned in the face of oncoming traffic and disappeared up Kensington High St in the direction of Hyde Park.

This time, I didn’t see him again. Ever.

Next part two of me and Mr Freud

Hackety hack

Last autumn, an American friend, a US TV news man in London, told me I should read the New York Times article on what was going on at News International. You won’t believe it, he said. It’s really serious, much worse than I realised. You really should read it.

I didn’t. I kept meaning to. But I didn’t.

Then the other day, I did. My friend was right. I should have read it before. It tells the story clearly and directly and devastatingly without ever spoiling its pitch by joining the Guardian on its high horse cantering across the moral high ground.

Read it here. It’s long, really long, but worth it. In a fun way.

Hackety hack

Last autumn, an American friend, a US TV news man in London, told me I should read the New York Times article on what was going on at News International. You won’t believe it, he said. It’s really serious, much worse than I realised. You really should read it.

I didn’t. I kept meaning to. But I didn’t.

Then the other day, I did. My friend was right. I should have read it before. It tells the story clearly and directly and devastatingly without ever spoiling its pitch by joining the Guardian on its high horse cantering across the moral high ground.

Read it here. It’s long, really long, but worth it. In a fun way.

And if that's not enough fun, try this. It's an NPR podcast of Joe Boyd (worked with Pink Floyd, produced Nick Drake, John Martyn, Fairport Convention etc etc) reading from his book. The book's worth reading, too.

Things change . . .

It’s the cliché of anarchism (etc): if voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.

Well, here is a good, clear of example of how voting changes . . . graphic design.

For something I was writing, I looked up government approaches to music education. Without realising it, I downloaded not, as I thought I had, two contemporary reports, but one produced under the current government and one under the former.

Here’s the old (new Labour) cover . . .


Here’s the new (coalition) cover . . .

Striking, no?

Old (new Labour) a large image, shot on 21mm (I think) lens, adding (rightly or wrongly) drama, with (as always in the last government’s publications) an ethnic minority (as per new Labour usual, a young ‘black’ person); a two-colour title, with the words unaligned (in builder’s terminology, ‘on the piss’); a subhead aiming at inclusion but begging a question (more music than what? more people than who?)

New (coalition) consciously sober title (it says what it does on its cover); conscious, perhaps archaic capitalisation (‘Government Response’ rather than the less stentorian ‘government response’); blue colour (an indication of coalition balance?); a seemingly pointless shadow rectangle with a grid pattern which perhaps hints at an underlying mathematical response to music (for better or worse)

It doesn’t stop at the cover, either, of course. The difference continues inside.

The new (coalition) document opens with a quote from Plato and includes this sentence: ‘Music is an enriching and valuable academic subject. Research evidence shows that a quality music education can improve self-confidence, behaviour and social skills, as well as improve academic attainment in areas such as numeracy, literacy and language.’

The old (new Labour) one aimed, among other things, ‘to develop a world-class workforce in music education’. Workforce, world-class — how quaint and early 21st century those words now seem. It included this statement from the then Arts Minister, Estelle Morris: ‘It's about everyone with a love of music coming together to create the soundtrack to young people's lives.’

Then love, everyone, soundtrack, coming together, young people.

Now research evidence, self-confidence, improve, academic subject, social skills, attainment, numeracy, literacy.

Plus ça change, plus ça change.

Plato (him, again) wrote: ‘Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the laws of the State always change with them.’ And, it seems, vice versa.