It may never have become a natural ice-breaker on the terraces at Ibrox, but
for a brief period it was the question every modern male had to consider.
Are you just gay enough? The idea that contemporary masculinity required a
man to keep in touch with his effeminate side was one of the tropes of our
times. Whether it was David Beckham in a sarong or Jamie Oliver cooing over
ceps, male role models had to bust out of the old stereotypes. They
demonstrated just how comfortable they were in their (carefully moisturised)
skin by going in for the sort of behaviour their dads would have thought
positively nancyish, without blushing.
The idea that men should have to take an interest in grooming, cooking,
interior design and (the horror of it all!) emotions to be thought passable
as mates for the modern woman was, of course, deeply troubling for me. I
dreaded all those “Is your partner just gay enough?” questionnaires in
magazines and newspaper supplements.
They asked such questions as: when you are in the chemist's and you ask your
man which soap he'd prefer, does he reply a) Imperial Leather; b) Roger &
Gallet; or c) Soap? No, it has to be Clarins shower gel! While a) was the
answer of the mouldy old cardiganed loser your wife was better rid of, and
c) was the answer put in to emphasise that there was a whole world of
campness beyond being just gay enough, b) was the preferred, sensitive,
tasteful, yet not too outré reply. These questionnaires seldom had space for
my preferred reply: “The Swarfega in the garage will do me for a wee while
yet ...” It has been a while, in any case, since being just gay enough, or
JGE, has been the approved benchmark of fashionability for the modern man.
And I wonder if the time isn't ripe for a new measurement of hipness and
general fashionability.
Given the wave of love for all things Boris right now and the recent upswing
in popularity (for the moment at least - and we might as well enjoy it) for
the Conservatives in general, perhaps the time is right for all of us to
consider if our partner is Just Tory Enough.
Now I stress, as with JGE, that this is all about modernity and getting the
balance right. If your partner is Simply Too Tory, then your friends may ask
questions about whether he can ever really settle into a long-term and
mutually fulfilling relationship with you. But then again, if he Isn't Tory
Enough, then you risk being landed with someone who, whatever his other
virtues, will be a bit of a throwback, and out of touch with the Zeitgeist.
To help you to decide whether your partner is Just Tory Enough, I've devised
this simple quiz. Answers below.
1. You ask your partner if he'd like something in tweed for Christmas. Does he
reply a) “Yes please: plus-fours, Norfolk jacket and weskit, M'dear”; b)
“That jacket in the Boden catalogue would be nice”; or c) “Yes, an earl to
put on the fire.”
2. You ask you partner if he'd like to mark the Queen's 60th wedding
anniversary. Does he reply a) “God Bless Her! And the Duke, too! Let us
raise a bumper to our sovereign Lady Elizabeth and may the Almighty confound
her Enemies!”; b) “I think it's rather good of her to cancel her own bash
because the economy's in schtook - she's got much better judgment than most
of the people elected to advise her”; or c) “Mark it? Mark it? I'd rather
bow the knee to a King Charles spaniel than show any reverence for an
hereditary monarch and the oppressive class system it embodies.”
3. You ask your partner who his favourite Today presenter is. Does he reply a)
“I never listen to anything on the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation other
than when Vaughan Williams is Composer of the Week on the Third Programme”;
b) “Evan Davis seems very balanced;” or c) “It's not about personalities;
it's about issues, and until we move away from this presenter-led model of
broadcasting to a more radically democratic way of holding power to account,
we'll never get anywhere.”
4. Your partner is looking for a book to while away the time on your holiday
plane journey. Does he opt for a) Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom; b)
Young Stalin by Simon Sebag-Montefiore; or c) anything actually by Josef
Stalin (or, failing that, Noam Chomsky).
5. You ask your partner for his ideal holiday destination. Does he reply a)
“The Wagner festival at Bayreuth”; b) “Cornwall”; or c) “Holidays are a
trick of the bourgeoisie to make the alienation of wage labour tolerable to
those whose eyes have never been opened to the dream of justice - but if
you're paying, it's got to be Goa, hasn't it?”
6. Which is your partner's favourite film? a) The Dam Busters - or, basically,
any film in which Jerry gets it in the eye; b) the first Elizabeth, with
Cate Blanchett; or c) The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Gandhi, The Patriot
or Breaker Morant - or, basically, any film in which British imperialists
get it in the eye.
If the answers are mainly a), I fear your partner is Simply Too Tory for
words. And no less loveable for that. Cherish this rare creature by keeping
him well supplied with port, pipe tobacco, bloater-paste sandwiches and
copies of The Salisbury Review. If the answers are mostly c), I'm afraid
your partner Just Isn't Tory Enough, but no less loveable for that. Cherish
this increasingly rare creature by introducing him to the dwindling number
of others like him (Seamus Milne, Robert Fisk, Ken Livingstone ...) and keep
him happy with a constant supply of conspiracy theories involving Dick
Cheney and Lord Lloyd-Webber. If your answers are mostly b), congratulations
- your partner is Just Tory Enough. But don't embarrass him by letting him
know that you know. Wait until he suggests over breakfast that taxes on
hard-working families should be cut and replaced with measures to reduce
pollution, and give him a knowing smile.
Why Play for Today is not the way to go
I was intrigued by Kevin Spacey's plea last week to bring back Play for
Today. Did he see any of these when they were broadcast in the 1970s? I
remember trying to watch these dreadfully earnest exercises in
socialist-realist art during my childhood and thinking that watching live
footage of people queueing for a bus would be more compelling. Play for
Today was such a terrible exercise in viewer patronisation that it was
directly responsible for making the snooker that was on at the same time on
BBC2 a huge TV success. Even though we were all watching in black and white.
I take Spacey's point that he'd like TV to provide a showcase for new
theatrical talent beyond the seasonal contest to find a star for the latest
Lloyd Webber musical. Even though I hugely enjoy these camp extravaganzas
(is I'd Do Anything Just Gay Enough? Discuss), I understand why we need more
quality platforms for new actors. But they won't come by reviving Play for
Today. Instead we should learn from the US, where the success of series such
as Six Feet Under, The West Wing, The Sopranos and Mad Men shows that great
writing and great acting flourish when you create the right competitive
pressures in broadcasting. Spacey's stint running the Old Vic is living
proof that the British stage benefits by learning from quality American
imports. We should build on that insight.
Lame flame slogan
That Olympic torch parade. With Gordon Brown at the centre of it all. What
should have been an historic handover turned into a maladroit performance
that left no one happy. No further comment needed. Except to say: have you
ever heard a worse example of marketing speak than the Olympic torch slogan,
“Light the passion, share the dream”? Why not light the dream, share the
passion. Or dream the passion, share the light. Or, well, as Wittgenstein
said, whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.
Michael Gove is Conservative MP for Surrey Heath.
Splendid, but .... no true Tory (Mrs Thatcher was never a Tory) would read the musings of an Austrian - or indeed any other - philiospher. Rather, novels by Surtees and Trollope (A) and biographies of Viscount Slim and Sir Claude Auchinleck.
Also, films about the RAF - a suspiciously modern institution and therefore likely to be unsound. Watch instead 'The Cruel Sea' and - best of all - 'Zulu'.
Patrick Cowie, Berkhamsted, England
Out of curiosity why is the test of Just Tory Enough just for men. Are women still not allowed to be Tories?
Nick, LDN,
Quite brilliant article!
Is there a possibility of combining the two categories? London Tory circles could do with a quiz to determine whether one's partner is Just Gay Tory Enough.
1. Is your partner a Tory activist in (a) Hackney, (b) Barnet or (c) Dagenham?
2. When attending Tory shindigs in town, does your partner favour (a) jeans and those sexy velcro converse trainer things, (b) open-necked shirt a la the leader, (c) pinstripe suit?
3. When asked to canvass the home of a London cab driver, does your partner (a) burst with excitement and positively run to the front door involved, (b) relish the chance to discuss Boris' plan to put a cabbie onto the TfL board or (c) harrumph grumpily at the likely gender of the canvassee?
Answers mostly (a): your lovely partner is probably More than Enough Gay Tory. He'd best stick to Hackney. (c) Hmmm. Time to move out of Zone 1? (b) You win! This way for the Priority List ... :-0)
Graeme Archer, Hackney, London, UK
Here we go again: "...series such as Six Feet Under, The West Wing, The Sopranos and Mad Men...". There's a strand of thought in the British press that is besotted with all American television. And always those same few shows are trotted out, along with a phrase along the lines of "shows such as ...". Try living over here in north America with nothing but American television and you'll soon realise there ARE no "shows such as" Six Feet Under, The West Wing, The Sopranos and Mad Men. That's it. In the last decade of American television, with its squillion channels of 24-hour output, that was pretty much it. Almost everything else it churns out is mind-numbing garbage of the most execrable kind. Really, Michael, you might as well argue that English football is better than Brazilian because it produces "players such as Stanley Matthews and Bobby Charlton". If you want the reality of USA telly, try watching CSI Miami while sober. And that's one of the better ones.
Sarah , Halifax, Canada