An old buffer at large
Nicholas Harman
MR WONDERFUL TAKES A CRUISE by John Nott Ebuty Press, 19.99, pp. 218, ISBN 009189834X Were I Lady Nott — a position for which I am ineligible — I would be a bit miffed. Sir John's new little book is unremitting about his mild longings for young women. This, to be sure, makes it more fun than his last publication, the 'controversial' memoirs of yet another ex-minister. But he does go on about the girls, and the free bus pass he now has giving him a topdeck view into the knicker-shop windows.
Nott was sent to parliament in the days before Mrs Thatcher and the marketing men, when the Conservative party put up gentlefolk as its candidates at elections, and therefore won them. Since he was cleverish they put him in the Cabinet, but he turned out to have inconvenient principles too, so resigned to become chairman of this and that. Whatever his fallings-out with the party he remained a staunch Tory, reluctant to modernise a country that had treated him so well as it was.
In retirement, with too little to do except write, he ventures upon a semicomical exploration of what Britain has become since his day. Tiny chapters allow him just one grumble each, with a result that is, perhaps, a touch too selfconsciously endearing — a rich old buffer's notion of what is to be expected of a nice, randy old buffer. He visits a lap-dancer (a 'very beautiful and lively' student of cognitive therapy), Shepherd's Bush market (like a bazaar in Bombay or Karachi . . . couldn't be more friendly and relaxed'), and tea-dances in Battersea and Bromley (organised by 'a charming middle-aged Indian', the Mr Wonderful of his title). After a garden party at Buckingham Palace he sets out for the Countryside March but finds that the throng (half a million people!) prevents him from actually walking, so drops in for drinks at some of his many clubs.
He visits, moreover, various foreign parts, eagerly mis-spelling their names when they are French, and fantasises about his Viking roots on a gloomy cruise among the fjords of Norway. For this he has prepared himself with bridge classes in Fulham, but the Norwegian skipper does not encourage card-playing aboard. All the time 'the most beautiful place in all the world' is the Cornish farm whose upkeep, bedevilled by Blairite, Brussels-spawned conservationist regulations, costs him so dear. One rather wonders why he does not stop there — a good question for many Countryside Marchers.
On the female problem that so prepossesses Sir John, I offer the advice of a fellow septuagenarian. If a delicious creature gives you a hug (and it can happen), just pretend your feelings are those of a chaste uncle, and keep your eyes skinned for the young thing's beautiful aunts. There your attentions, if not reciprocated, will at least be appreciated, and Lady Nott could have something real to grumble about.
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