If you are a pedant like me, you survive on occasional small triumphs. So imagine my joy in seeing a promotion by the Royal Academy of an interview on 'Whistler's Women', where the narrative talks of Whistler's partner as 'his principle model'. In true savant style, I screenshotted the extract and posted it on Twitter, tagging the RA.
Answer after over two weeks.....is zilch. The old Academicians would turn in their graves.
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[Early in the month] The news from Ukraine is overwhelming. To my shame I can no longer listen to concerted wall-to-wall coverage. I find myself dipping in for key development moments. It feels like checking to see if England have lost their last four wickets for 15 runs.
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And in the middle of this there are questions on how you should pronounce the name of the capital City of the country. Kiev, or phonetically Ki-ev, is apparently wrong. The first syllable should be 'Ky', and the second 'iv, thus Ky-iv or rather Kyiv, with two distinct syllables. Yet for trained TV and radio journalists this seems to present a problem, resulting often in 'Keev', perilously close to 'that bloke Keef down the pub'.
The problem I see is that the 'y' and the 'i' are close together as vowels, whereas the 'e' as in Kiev produces an opening of mouth to make the sound, so much easier to get phonetically.
Anyway, this is the last of our worries, and would any one of us fancy reporting from a rooftop in helmet and flak jacket, knowing that having 'Press' emblazoned on the latter will not make much difference if a missile arrives?
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However, the phonetic approach to pronunciation is useless when you face a Gaelic name. You either know it or you don't. So I had a delegate on one of my courses with first name 'Aiofe'. Less common, to me at least, and not a chance. But, friends, with the magical Google, it is easy. A quick check on sounding it out and you see that phonetically it is 'Eefa'. I just wonder how much we take this research source for granted.
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On the tube home after a convivial lunch with a friend I had not seen for a couple of years, I wrote a memory-jogging note to self of something I wanted to put in here for March. I have just re-read the note. It makes no sense. A convivial lunch indeed.
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Another example of deficiency, this time tonsorial. Walking down a side street in the City, I was passed by a car. The rear window wound down, and a teenage type shouted: 'Oi Mister, you've dropped your hair!'. My younger daughter, who was with me at the time, declared that they were just kids being silly. I was reassured of no need to feel traumatised.
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A journalist, discussing debates over changes to the Gender Recognition Act, declares:
'But it's the job of politicians to wrestle difficult problems into comprehensibility.They're supposed to be the ones who fearlessly negotiate detail and sweat through the night on legislation to make sure any unwanted implications are eliminated.'
That statement, for anyone familiar with the work of the courts in resolving disputes over the meaning of legislation, constitutes remarkable, I venture to say incomprehensible, optimism.
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To the Park Theatre, for a performance of Whodunnit 2, a spoof murder mystery. On each performance, a guest actor plays the Inspector, with no rehearsal and with lines being fed in from offstage via an earpiece. On our visit, Adrian Dunbar was the willing victim. The show raises money for the theatre - the Park needs £400k a year over and above box office takings, in order to survive. Those who know the life of off-West End theatres will be aware that ticket prices are way below those of central London.
At the end of the show Jez Bond, the Park's artistic director, spoke eloquently about its work. He pointed out the outreach work it does over and above enabling writing, directing, performing etc. talent to thrive: recent examples include workshops for dementia sufferers, and for those living with Downs Syndrome. Thus it is not just about keeping middle-class North London culturally nourished.
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To Eataly, the food and drink emporium by Liverpool Street Station, for a healthy supper with my kids of mixed meats/cheese followed by pizza/pasta. The place, modelled on the original in New York City, is vast. We urban dwellers have been told that office workers in London are TWATS......meaning that they only come in on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Eataly was packed on a Monday evening, so don't believe everything you read.
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It's always a tricky one deciding how to do self-promotion. Should it be the studied subtle approach that is easily seen through, or the in your face somebody has said I am wonderful angle? So I shall come straight out and say that for a course I have just run someone reviewed me as 'top man'. I mention this of course solely because of the originality of expression.....
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I wonder if it is possible to have a superfluity of gravitas. I felt that this was the condition of former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and perhaps the same might be said (a deep voice helps) of St Terry of Waite. However, what better person to be a source of support for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as she faces the not to be underestimated challenge of re-integrating into life in the UK.
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To ITV, to watch the running of the Cheltenham Gold Cup. I had placed a small each-way bet on a 16/1 shot, Chancery House, a nod to my legal career. I do not bet online, so only on getting to the bookies did I realise that the horse was called Chantry House. I went ahead. Not a good decision, as it pulled up with a few fences to go. Next time I shall go the whole hog and pin stick.
The winner was Rachael Blackmore on A Plus Tard. From a racing perspective this was making amends for her ride on the same horse in last year's Gold Cup, where her tactics were not spot on and A Plus Tard came second. But my focus here is on the publicity for her winning. Women riders are no longer described as lady jockeys, thank God. Yet there is still some frisson when a woman wins. The sport works well to narrow physical differences between men and women: the horse does the heavy lifting, and although the jockey needs a high standard of fitness it is the piloting skill that is paramount.
What chance no issue being made one day over whether the jockey is a man or a woman? Every chance I think, but a slow change. These things tend to happen incrementally, as opposed to, as one might say, a forcing of the pace.
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Was chatting to a tutor of my vintage - we teach junior lawyers for the same institution. I have been running online courses as part of the mix, now for over two years. The chap knows his stuff, but said he had not had a go at online, because he was fearful of appearing an idiot in front of the youngsters. The giveaway is when someone refers to a computer as a 'machine'. I am sure he would have been fine if he had had a go. I was lucky enough to be nudged over the line into risking perceived idiocy.
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The BBC, generally denuded of live football, blasts its schedules when it is able to show FA Cup games. The Middlesbrough v Chelsea match gave an opportunity to hear a section of the Chelsea supporters singing 'Roman Abramovich'.
I shall set that out again phonetically with the syllable emphasis - Roman Abramovich - easy to bellow out. For the uninitiated, the chant is modelled on 'La Donna e Mobile', translated roughly in football-speak as 'That bird moves well'. To be honest, I don't think the lads are advocating support for President Putin's revanchist venture to establish territorial hold over what was once Czarist Russia. I suspect that they do have feelings for Ukraine as a body that they can understand, the underdog. However, they don't want anyone messing around with their game.
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[Later in month] I recall one insight from the journalistic outpourings on Ukraine. It suggested that there are three factors determining whether military forces are successful in battle. One is the degree of resources: here Russia wins overwhelmingly; another is will to succeed: here Ukraine wins overwhelmingly.
The third factor is skill in deploying resources available. For most this was an unknown when the invasion started. Now it appears that, however many exercises the Russian forces undertook, Ukraine is superior. Who would have known? Maybe the Ukrainians themselves had a good hunch.
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A new wheeze from The Barbican. An attempt to print tickets booked online yields not a screen message telling you that this is not possible.............but a printout of a message to the same effect: not totally on message for environmental care.
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Stigmatising Russians living in the UK seems to have become a game for some. However, a Times article suggests that out of c. 80,000-100.000 here, only c. 1,000 are dodgy by the highly reliable World Dodginess of Individuals table. You'd need a lawyer to deconstruct the meaning of 'dodgy', but corporate and private client lawyers have done well from Russian client connections. You'd also need a lawyer to deconstruct the meaning of 'living in the UK'.
I won't even start into the labyrinth of that last last one, but consider this from the same Times article, surveying London in the early 2000s: 'Soon mink-clad women patrolled Harrods and their husbands cruised The Bishops Avenue in north London in blacked-out Porsches.'
I know The Bishops Avenue well. It is a cut-through from Aylmer Road (A1) to Hampstead Heath. My kids used to make me drive up it when the family was in the area so that we could gawp at the houses before retiring to home in middle-class Crouch End.
These days I run up the road from time to time. This is a good running route as the only people on the pavements are security guards and the occasional nanny. It is the most ghastly place imaginable, full of pastiche buildings (I struggle to say homes) that no sane person would want to design, and it is unimaginable to think of a stream of Kings Road-style blacked out Porsches driving up and down, essentially because there is no one standing on the pavement to gawp at you. The majority of properties are unoccupied.......although ready for use if an oligarch needs a safe haven.......Oops.
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The word 'rad'. If you think radiator then you are almost certainly over 40. It is slang speak for an excellent something or someone. I only know this as I saw the word and had to look it up. But hurry hurry in getting it into your active vocabulary, as otherwise by the time you trot it out to impress a younger generation, the slang world will have moved on.
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Abusive behaviour at the Oscars. Yes, a phenomenon of every ceremony of that ilk, where celebrities pitch up ready to be insulted by a 'comedian' (or someone playing comedian for the night) telling 'jokes' at their expense.
For Will Smith the joke about his wife's alopecia crossed the line. So he crossed the stage and slapped Chris Rock. This horrified the Academy, and as I write, disciplinary action is being considered against Smith under a torrent of representations from fellow celebs, possibly after taking orders from their PRs to stand by Chris Rock.
Forming a view on this is difficult. Is the deal for celebs that they have to take every jibe that comes to them on the night.? If the slap had been on white Ricky Gervais would Smith have been less culpable? If the joke had been against Peter Dinklage would Rock have been able to dismiss it as a little bit of fun? Was Smith's wife fair game because she is attractive and successful? If the joke had been on another woman, say pre-shrinkage Rebel Wilson (she of course post-shrinkage doing the compere job) and some role she had played had been called a heavyweight performance, would that have been ok?
I am going to suggest that the Academy's principal issue was the awards glitz being overshadowed by the slapping incident rather than any sympathy with Rock (whose profile has only been enhanced by the incident). To be honest, much of me wants to stand by Will Smith and dismiss the Academy and celeb reaction as transparent posturing. But Smith did step over the line, in more than one way. On reflection I reckon he should have left out the physical part and stuck with launching expletive-laden invective from his seat. That would have had more then enough impact. And Chris Rock would have deserved it.
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Sad times. But there is a small comfort: Bonkerton has returned.
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The author is a writer, speaker, historian, occasional tour guide, and former Managing Partner of a City law firm