Events | 2009.11.20
Simon Hoggart's week: Feeling like a plum at Twickenham
On Monday we went to the National Theatre to see Alan Bennett\'s new play, The Habit of Art, about a fictional meeting between WH Auden and Benjamin Britten. It was the performance before press night, so there had been no notices in the papers, although the word of mouth was not particularly good and the amateurs on the internet had given it a panning. "Self-indulgent", "rambling", and "it seemed to go on so long, I couldn\'t believe it was only 10 when it ended" were not untypical.
So we were pleasantly surprised. It is, at times, rather diffuse and, since it takes the form of a play within a play, you have to watch a superb actor, Richard Griffiths, play a not so good actor, playing Auden in a play which Bennett has written but wouldn\'t have written, if you see what I mean. Then, just when you\'re praying for things to get a move on, there comes a great Bennett line, like a scud from the skies. "I\'m not a rent boy! I went to Keble," for instance. The printed reviews have varied from doubtful to out-and-out raves.
One thing he got exactly right was Auden\'s drinking, specifically dry martinis. I\'ve described before the time he came to stay at our house (my Dad had written a book about his work and had nominated him for an honorary degree) and Bennett has caught perfectly his almost lustful affection for his favourite cocktail.
Here is the recipe as the poet demonstrated it to me, then an undergraduate: you take a very large jug and pour in an entire bottle of gin. Then you throw in a whole tray of ice cubes, with a lemon, sliced. Add a single capful of dry vermouth and stir.
My parents had invited some friends and colleagues round to meet Auden, so he sat down, placed the jug on a table in front of him and it lasted exactly the length of the party, about two hours. Then he started on the wine.
Incidentally, I have learned of an intriguing addition to Alan Bennett\'s life. Earlier this year the Duchess of Devonshire – Debo, the last surviving Mitford sister – published her second volume of jottings, called Home to Roost. She needed an introduction and told her publisher that, although she had never met him, she would love to have Bennett write it. He was duly approached and, slightly puzzled, agreed. The two have now become great friends and she drops into his house in Camden Town, north London, where they eat cheese on toast. From the lady in the van, through Thora Hird to the Duchess of Devonshire! Does this prove, or destroy, the notion that we are still a class-bound society?
An event that was not pleasantly surprising was England\'s rugby match against Argentina at Twickenham. Our cheap seats in the top corner of the new south stand were pretty good, which is more than you can say for the game. Giant screens at either end of the ground let us see Martin Johnson bury his face in his hands, recreating the sensation of watching it at home, only with cold knees.
England were playing in their new plum-coloured change strip and there was a cardboard poster in the same colour on every seat. We were enjoined to hold them up after the two national anthems, in the hope of inspiring the team. We dutifully did just that and the stadium was a great wall of purple – except for the Nike swoosh, in white, on all four sides. We had been conned into taking part in a mass advertising stunt. I don\'t know why this was so annoying, but it was.
Most people would be surprised to learn that the commander of Winston Churchill\'s bodyguard during the second world war had been born Wolfgang von Blumenthal in Berlin, but Charles Arnold-Baker was brought to Britain by his English mother after her marriage to Baron von Blumenthal collapsed. He took his step-father\'s name, and worked in a great variety of jobs through a long life. He died this summer, at the age of 90.
But he will be best remembered for his extraordinary one-man tome, The Companion to British History. It took him 30 years to write, is 1,400 pages long, and contains 2m words, covering almost every imaginable aspect of our history and foreign history where it impinged upon Britain, sometimes in eye-watering detail.
I refer to it constantly. It is always scholarly, and, like the work it\'s most often compared to, Dr Johnson\'s dictionary, often eccentric.
Before his death he completed the third edition, which is just out now and well up to scratch. New entries includes one on mobile phones: "Described by Norman Lamont as \'one of the greatest scourges of modern times\'". Or a final addition to the entry on the Thirty-Nine articles: "Anglo-Catholic priests\' cassocks have 39 buttons which, according to the Revd. D. Skeoch, represent those articles he can accept (to the navel) and those he has rejected (below)."
The book is expensive, but good value, at £78. Henry von Blumenthal, the author\'s son, would like to offer a discount to Guardian readers: email him at info@loncrosspress.com.
Gordon Brown\'s strange pronunciations, part 87: the prime minister has been making much of the Conservative party leader David Cameron\'s "cast-iron" promise, now abandoned, of a referendum on the Lisbon treaty.
"I suppose that is a cast-iron promise!" he says sarkily of any proposal the Tory leader makes. Though sometimes he gets it the wrong way round and calls it an "iron-cast promise".
It\'s rather spoiled, though, by the fact that he seems to be the only person in the English-speaking world who pronounces the letter "r" in "iron", thus: "cast eye-ron promise." It brings you up short and makes it hard to concentrate on what follows.
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