DIARY
ANNE McELVOY Some weeks ago I confessed in the pages of The Spectator that I briefly experi- enced ecstasy (the state, not the drug) with Labour's gyrator-in-chief, Peter Mandel- son. Attentive readers may recall that, after putting the ragged Atlantic Alliance to rights at a conference, we sought recreation at a discotheque in downtown Prague. Mr Mandelson was a very accomplished dancer — easily as fleet of foot as of political manoeuvre. The revelation of our Bohemi- an night out has since featured twice in the Guardian Diary, which leads me to con- clude that for all that newspaper's cultivat- ed modishness it is at heart churlishly old- fashioned and scandalised by the idea of young(ish) people having a good time in public. How odd that despite the advances of the permissive society mere jigging is still considered as suitable a subject for head- shaking as it was in Jane Austen's day. It takes but a small skip of fantasy to imagine the sophisticates at the Guardian Diary as a collection of Miss Bateses and Mr Eltons, comparing scandalised notes on how many quadrilles Frank Churchill and Mr Knight- ley danced with whom and what the conse- quences might be for society.
Ihave not yet had the opportunity to step onto the dance floor with Peter Lilley, the most sociable of social security ministers. We are limited to verbal communication, which is sometimes much more difficult than the rhythmic variety. He speaks very quietly, so in the babbling maw of The Spectator's summer party last week I strained hard to hear him. As Mr Mandel- son waltzed by, Mr Lilley commented wist- fully, 'He used to be my pin-up.' At least I thought that was what he said. I was stunned by such a frank admission of cross- bench adoration and said so. Mr Lilley looked pained and articulated carefully, 'I said, he used to be my pair.'
That Guardian diarist refers to me as `newly-wed'. My husband and I have just celebrated our second wedding anniversary and while we are still fairly dewy-eyed about one another we have surely graduat- ed from the conjugal novice stakes by now. We went to the swanky Nico Central restaurant to celebrate. On the way to the ladies', I glanced into the fashionably open kitchen to see one of .the chefs casually stripped to the waist in what fashion designers would call a 'homage' to Paul Gascoigne, post-snatch. The thought of one's dinner being prepared by men look- ing like galley slaves is curiously unnerving. The restaurant's veneer of elegance was immediately dispelled. After all, when a lady goes out to celebrate two years of hon-
ourable estate with her spouse, the only naked chest she hopes to see in the course of the evening is his.
Married ladies are instantaneously recognised as such by gentlemen. How can this be, since all the men I have asked insist that they never glance at third finger, left hand for clues on making a new acquain- tance? We must have an aura around us, like mystics. Attending a dinner party alone recently, I was introduced to the company chairman. His first question was, 'What does your husband do?' This struck me as strange as there was no candidate for this role in sight at the time. Presumably this is his opening gambit with any female who is not the Queen or Lady Thatcher. We should all be more reckless at such moments and reply, 'Oh, he works on a building site,' or, 'He's doing time for steal- ing cars.' A friend who is a barrister found herself sitting next to a man at dinner who enquired, `So, do you have a little job then?' Feminism has its drawbacks, but there are moments whep I have a sneaking regard for the late Valerie Solanas, the 1960s matriarchal guru who set up Scum the Society for the Cutting Up of Men.
Imight spare them, though, on the grounds that when fully clothed British men look quite smart these days. We tend to be blind to are improvements in Britain since the beginning of that unfairly maligned generation, the Eighties. Travel- ling in Germany always reminds me of how much better on average we look and live than our linguistic cousins. Let us scorn mere football and get down to the real inessentials. In a Euro-style '96 tourna- ment, we would beat Germany with no need of recourse to golden goals. The Royal Institute of Defence Studies kindly took me to darkest Bavaria recently. The hotel barman had a shaggy perm and apologetic moustache — a look last seen in Britain in the 1970s on the lead singer of that band who sang, 'Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree.' The radio plays incessant folk-music of the type known scathingly as Darelei The drabness of the hotel rooms reminded me of why the heroes of Rainer Fassbinder's films all went berserk.
In Britain, emphasis on modern Ger- many's industrial and technological prowess makes us forget how deeply provincial much of the country remains and how conservative is*sits spirit. The German tabloids are full of the news that Dieter Bohlen, a millionaire pop singer, is to divorce his wife after four weeks of mar- riage because she won't cook him break- fast, lunch and dinner and neglects to call the plumber when one is required. The national obsession with housework was already discerned by the Scottish travel writer Fynes Moryson in 1617 when he characterised prosperous German women as 'given to household affaires', as opposed to their Italian counterparts who studied humanities, and the French and Flemish who spent their time learning languages.
The hausfrau is one of the four durable stereotypes identified in Gunther Blaicher's excellent book, The Image of Germany in English Literature, Dr Blaicher comments rather caustically, `To judge by the English novel-writers of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the German housewife, when she isn't in the kitchen, is busy with her washing.' My own experience is that German Hausmiinner are far more partic- ular. As a student, I once stayed the week- end in an apartment full of Autonomen wild-haired metropolitan rebels who clash with the police every May Day and refuse to pay tax. Late at night over cheap red wine and marijuana, they spoke earnestly of the bankruptcy of capitalism and the urgent need to destroy the state. The next morning I went to my room after break- fast, leaving a sticky spoon in the sink and casting an empty jamjar into the rubbish bin. Ten minutes later, there was a peremptory knock on my door. 'In this house', said one of the freedom-fighters, 'we wash up straight away. And next time please put empty glass jars in a separate bin for recycling.' A revolution, should one ever break out in Germany again, will be a very tidy one.
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