At the end of Monday's edition of Radio 4's Today programme, after discussing very calmly and politely such potentially world-shaking subjects as the future of Kosovo - which might well be the spark to re-ignite the Cold War - they addressed a subject about which high passions, hitherto restrained, at last bubbled over.
The subject? Whether or not members of the MCC, the world's most famous cricket club, should be allowed to enter the historic Long Room without ties. For the first time voices were raised and, paradoxically, the voice arguing for the maintenance of tradition was the only one to use bad language.
Normally, I, too, am a traditionalist. But not on the subject of ties, a fashion of relatively recent 20th century provenance, which could well be abandoned, in my view, without any lowering of sartorial
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standards. Indeed it already has been among the youth of all classes.
For my part, so seldom do I wear a tie, that on the rare occasions when it is still required - at the Garrick Club, for example - I feel quite literally strangulated. Untie that cursed knot is all I can think about.
Where, however, I would like to see rules introduced or at any rate enforced is in the matter of footwear in general and trainers in particular. Where ties represent everything about the English old guard which is dull and unimaginative, trainers represent everything about English modernity which is ugly and brutish.
In general, however, any rules for gentlemen's clubs seem to me a contradiction in terms since gentlemen should be able to behave well without rules. That, in my mind, is almost the definition of a gentleman. Convention, not rules, should govern conduct.
FIRST POSTED DECEMBER 12, 2007
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What did Abrahams want for his money?
