DIARY
SARAH SANDS Te British retail trade is puzzled by the paucity of Christmas shoppers. I know the answer. They are all in New York where I have just been. Fifth Avenue looked like Lakeside, Thurrock, last week as over-sub- sidised Oxford students, middle-aged women and retired couples elbowed their way into stores. It was a wonderful glimpse of imperialism as the Brits waved their strong currency and headed to the Ballan- tyne cashmeres. New Yorkers have a strong brand of sales technique, but we outrode them. 'My name is Shirley, how are you today?' drawled the assistant at Saks. 'Well, I'm fine, Shirley dear,' said the Lancashire matron, meeting familiarity with intimacy. `But I'm not sure that this is the right jumper for my husband. Would it suit him?' Shirley was reassuring, though she had never met the man in question, and she went on to express strong positive opinions about the rest of the family. From Saks to the true meaning of Christmas — F.A.O. Schwartz. The shop has shades of pink that Barbie would think over the top, and even the shop assistants are in Babygros. Hell is other people's children, righteous in their adorableness, trampling over the Salvation Army to get into wonderland. It is curious that a nation that is brilliantly subversive about childhood — Britain does whimsy, America does Rugrats — can allow itself to drown in treacle. I did not find much to buy, for the children I know ask Father Christmas for dollars or at least traveller's cheques. Toys are witheringly dismissed as `pants' (rubbish). Children of seven are fully developed yuppies with a taste for all the excesses of the Eighties, including designer clothes and water-sports. A 12- year-old girl of my acquaintance wanted Dior tights and a bikini wax for her birth- day. Those of us with rogue traders instead of children are left, like Barings, just blink- ing at the debts. The most striking thing to me about shopping in New York is how expensive it is. For a start one is overcome by exchange-rate triumphalism, so one spends too much and unwisely. Then there is the shop assistant's secret weapon of the New York tax, which immediately brings everything up to Harrods prices. Further- more, your selection is skewed by what you can carry; so my dearest ones who request- ed Furbys or Ralph Lauren dressing-gowns or Martha Stewart books will nevertheless all receive Bergdorf Goodman ties. Where New York puts London to shame is with its decorations. The infamous Birdseye Regent Street lights, which would embar- rass the Third World, have been dwelt on by others, so I will not intrude further into public grief. But until we can produce the exuberant glamour of the Rockefeller Center in December, we should not dare to talk of Cool Britannia. The film on the plane home was The Parent Trap, an F.A.O. Schwartz-style tale of two children trying to bring their estranged parents back together again. The villain of the film was the father's girlfriend. The children devised a camping trip which illustrated her absurdity. She turned up in a Calvin Kleinesque gym outfit and a Prada backpack — and with a bottle of mineral water! The scene recalled the episode in The Sound of Music when the father of the von Trapp family introduces his socialite fiancée to his children and she plays a list- less game of ball with them. Urban women are quite used to being butts for self- improving romantic comedies, and it is true that the juxtaposition of town and country is funny. I still laugh when I hear of the senior member of The Spectator staff who allegedly got a stiletto heel caught in a cat- tle-grid (not the editor, I hasten to add). But why does nobody turn the joke around? I would like to see Maria, the wholesome heroine of The Sound of Music, dressed in curtains and striking up a con- versation with Peter Mandelson at the
Atlantic Bar and Grill, and find out how far her talk of hill-walking and childrens' pup- pet shows gets her.
omen have been generally censorious about Christine Boutin, the centre-right French MP who burst into tears after being insulted by Lionel Jospin. We have to con- demn feminine tears, the way men have to denounce Geoffrey Boycott. I am generally heartless about misfortune but I have twice been moved to tears by the workings of the state. Epic irritation is more unsettling than misery, I find. I once cried in an office over a rejected planning application and I cried last weekend over a parking ticket. It was a borderline five minutes on a yellow line and I caught the traffic warden in the act, so urgently appealed to him. He was a gentle, polite black man who said that his machine showed clearly that I was over the time and it was too late to cancel the ticket. So (0 earth, swallow me up) I yanked my small daughter in front of me and said that the blameless traffic warden had ruined her Christmas. The truth is that her room is a major branch of Toys 'R' Us and she can hardly keep her balance due to the quantity of sweets stuffed into her pockets, but I passed her off as the little match girl while I indulged in some theatrical crying of my own. I left the poor warden completely wretched and muttering, 'Please don't do this to me, please.' My tears were the worst act of bullying I have ever come across, yet, unlike male aggression, tears attract no recrimination.
Iam considering a slim volume on unfor- tunate encounters in restaurants. There seems to be a growing belief that you should be able to choose your guests, as if at a dinner party. Recently, Ruth Rogers of the River Café told the Daily Telegraph's Alice Thomson that she felt sick when she discovered that she had unknowingly served General Pinochet. One of the Sun- day papers revealed 'a stunning security lapse' last Friday when Tony Blair and his son Nicholas inadvertently played basket- ball with a Serbian terrorist at Babe Ruth's restaurant. If you go to a sports café in the East End of London you are unlikely to fall into conversation with Sir Roy Strong. This particular restaurant is the kind of place where a family lunch means a table for 30 and even the babes in arms look like body- guards. That, and the sports simulator machines, is why teenagers like it. Anyway, since when has Tony Blair shied away from meeting terrorists?
The author is deputy editor of the Daily Tele- graph.
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