Peter Rhodes on unwise words, the legendary Mustang and a beautiful generation
We Brits have a quirky relationship with our monarchy, hence the little joke on Coronation-themed cups, balloons, bunting and napkins with the advice, in best Windsor-speak: “One is totally recyclable.” The irony, of course, is that most of this tat is manufactured in places where making even a little joke about your head of state is very unwise.
When will they ever learn? The humiliation of the doctors' leader who took a week's holiday while his comrades were manning (sorry, personning) the picket lines ought to become a cautionary tale but probably won't. For despite all the warnings and all the evidence, some folk simply never learn the golden rule namely that if you are in public life in any way, you should never do anything without first asking yourself: “How's this going to look in the Daily Mail?”
I have in mind also the young Tory candidate who, having failed to win a seat on Cardiff council now complains that Welsh people “have lower IQs” and “I find it so tough to find someone who is intellectually on my level.” End of glittering political career. For ever.
I didn't pay much attention when it was announced that “a new Ford car” would soon have driverless controls. Who cares if the occasional Fiesta gets an upgrade? And then you hear that the model in question is the Mustang.
The Mustang, for pity's sake - the fabulous, fearsome, brutal, burbling, slung-low sweet chariot of all our boyhood dreams. A whole generation relishes the memory of Steve McQueen hurling his wheel-smokin' Mustang through the streets of San Francisco in the cop movie Bullitt (1968). Who on earth is going to buy something as lovely and legendary as a Mustang and then meekly hand over the controls to a computer? It's like fitting a Harley-Davidson with stabilisers. Lieutenant Frank Bullitt must be spinning in his grave.
Only a female writer dare make the point that the late, great fashion guru Mary Quant was blessed not only with imagination and vision but also with “Chelsea girls with the best legs in the world.” (Lisa Armstrong, Daily Telegraph). Quant made clothes for post-war babyboomers, girls raised in peace time, on sensible food and cherished by the welfare state. No fillers, no trout-pout, no ferocious mono-eyebrows. Just a naturally beautiful generation.
