AND ANOTHER THING
Let's not go for the most unpopular boy in the school
PAUL JOHNSON
The phenomenon of the Most Unpopu- lar Boy in the school has always fascinated me. Why do they get the title? Is it fate? Do they earn it? How do they cope with it? It was much in evidence at Auberon Waugh's annual Bad Sex Awards last week, held in the splendid St James's Square mansion that was once the Astors' town house. It is the best party of the year because it attracts a staggering number of ravishing young women, all high on excitement, and I tell Taki he is a fool to miss it. This one was particularly jam-packed, so I oiled my way through it to sit by the stage where I could talk to the amazing actresses who read out the dirty-funny bits, and meet the mystery guest of honour who presented the prizes. He turned out to be Major James Hewitt, Diana, Princess of Wales's chattering lover, variously denounced by the press as 'the bounder', 'shit of the year', 'love-rat', etc. Here, if anywhere, was an Unpopular Boy.
Not a bit of it. The major is a perfectly mannered, well-preserved, youngish man who reminded me strongly of pre-war Hol- lywood movie actors; the Errol Flynn, Clark Gable type. His beautifully groomed hair positively glowed. His lithe, keep-fit body fitted perfectly into a Savile Row suit (and when one of the floozies accidentally spilt wine on it he dismissed the lese-majeste as unimportant, though he was clearly rather put out). The girls crowded round him pant- ing. They obviously wanted to touch the hem of his garment, and perhaps more, and it was all they could do to prevent them- selves grabbing hold of him. When he final- ly did his turn — a brief, modest perfor- mance — there were one or two male efforts to boo, but they were quickly silenced by a positive siren fanfare of ecstat- ic screeching, for the debby girls had learnt as teenagers how to do wolf-whistles at pop concerts. Bearing in mind that no one in recent years has been so vindictively hound- ed by the newspapers, it was an impressive demonstration of press impotence.
By contrast, the winner of the Bad Sex Award, A.A. Gill, to whom the major pre- sented the prize (a curiously intriguing object) is genuinely unpopular; and his per- formance showed why. Most of the winners and runners-up do not show, understand- ably. Gill did. He breasted his way through the totties and clambered on stage with admirable effrontery. His courage won him respect, and when he made some cracks
about Waugh he even got a few laughs. But the unaccustomed applause went to his head, and he went on and on and on, until a storm of booing drove him from the stage and he was hooted out of the room. I saw him later when we were both leaving; he was white-faced and clutching his delectable girlfriend, Nicola Formby, known as 'the Blonde', whom I sometimes at parties greet with a kiss under the mis- taken impression she is Princess Pushy. Gill is a clever man and a master of self-promo- tion, and he uses the hate factor with skill to publicise himself. All the same, the hos- tility must hurt, and at times it shows.
Now Jeffrey Archer has been turned into the school MUB, to be debagged and hunt- ed by the wolf-pack of less important boys that always forms instantly on these nasty occasions. Human nature being what it is horrible — the pack is usually led by the Second Most Unpopular Boy, so it's not surprising to see that Archer's most relent- less journalistic scourge is a certain newspa- per editor usually known as 'Hitler'. The trouble with hate figures and witch-hunts is that they bring out all my instinctive feelings for the underdog. When Archer was riding high and smothered in ermine, thanks to his 'best friend', John Major, I found him insuf- ferable. Now he is down and being kicked, not least by those who were only too glad to go to his parties, I feel a sneaking sympathy for the poor little squit. At least he had, and has always had, guts and chutzpah and brass, and all those other signs of life. He also has a great deal of commercial talent, and has made a lot of money, perfectly hon- estly, by his pen, which is one reason why the journalists envy and therefore hate him so much. He took on one of the tabloids and won, and, if he played foul, when have they played fair? Never, in my observation. So if the media witch-hunt leads to an ele- phantine police prosecution, at vast public expense, and to no conceivable public bene- fit, I for one will protest. After all, the Metropolitan Police are always complaining how overstretched they are, and their list of unsolved crimes has never been longer. Most people now report burglaries only for insurance purposes, having little confidence in the police doing anything about them.
So I say: lay off Archer. He has been pun- ished enough, for what seem to me not par- ticularly heinous offences. And if 'Hitler' or any other journalist thinks I'm being
squeamish, I reply that, if ever the shadows close in on any of them, I would likewise raise a lonely voice on their behalf. The hunted wretch is a pitiful spectacle. I felt for unpopular boys at school and I feel for the fallen public man now. With few exceptions, the snarling pack snapping at the heels of a beaten creature is a more disgusting specta- cle, morally and aesthetically, than anything he or she may have done. Some of the most disgusting photographs ever taken portray the unfortunate young Frenchwomen who slept with German soldiers during the Occupation and then, come 1944, had their heads shaved and were dragged through the streets by a jeering multitude. The faces of these fallen women, though distressed, do not radiate wickedness; it is the triumphant snarls of the mob which embody evil.
An exulting crowd at an execution is a col- lective crime in itself. The ghouls clustered around the Tower when St Thomas More was beheaded. They were back again at Oxford to see the pathetic, perjured Thomas Cranmer burned alive, and then again to howl their imprecations at St Edmund Cam- pion when he was hanged and, still alive, dis- embowelled. In the Royal Academy show of Van Dyck's works there are remarkable images of that great and troubled man Sir Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford. 'Black Tom' was, next to Oliver Cromwell, the greatest Englishman of his age, who served the undeserving Charles I mightily, only to be abandoned by the king in his hour of need. He became the most unpopular man in the country, feelings being whipped up by Puritan divines and scurrilous pam- phleteers, the distant forebears of the tabloid journalists of today. Condemned to death by a show-trial in the Lords, he was dragged to Tower Hill through a screeching mob and executed in front of the largest col- lection of people ever to assemble at that bloodstained place. They set up a deafening caterwaul of joy when his handsome head was severed from his shoulders. Such dis- graceful scenes punctuated our history in the grand old days when we were a noble nation. Now that we are puny and base they re- enact themselves in farcical but nonetheless ugly newsprint vendettas against Pantaloon villains like Archer. He has already been punished by having all that he wriggled and panted for taken away from him. Let us turn, rather, on the real sources of evil in our society, of whom there are plenty.
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