Uncle Mac

My apologies for the recent hiatus: Events, dear boy...events.

I am still in shock from one particular piece of new. This is between you and me, of course, and must go no further. Uncle Mac is considering changing his tailor.

Few of you will have any conception, I am sure, of the world-historical significance that this event has in the life of a Chap.

Mac has been with...well, perhaps I had best not name names... let us say "A certain Savile Row tailor".

Mac has been with this Savile Row tailor since soon after the earth's crust cooled. There are certain immutables in Mac's life: His vintner; his shoemaker; His shirtmaker. At one time I should have included his Club in this hierarchy but then a couple of years ago the unthinkable happened. Mac, already discountenanced by legislation allowing use of mobile phones in tightly-circumscribed areas of the club, encountered some feller using one on a saturday morning in casual dress. After making exhaustive inquiries, Mac discovered that the rules had been amended to allow this iniquity.

In shock and distress, he left the establishment, never to return.

You will be pleased and relieved to here that Mac is now happily ensconsed in a (highly reactionary) military club which must remain nameless. Suffice to say that it meets his rigorous standards in the hidebound rigidity of its rules, the lavishness of its cuisine, and the quality of its cellar.

But I digress. Here is Mac, representative of dying breed of gentleman, already hounded from his club, assailed by a succession of blows. His Vintner stops running accounts, starts to display prices and even (God Forbid) attempts to become "customer friendly". His shirtmaker confesses (under duress) that some shirts are now made up "overseas". Fortnum's remodels its Food Hall to become more functional. And then the cruellest blow of all: some damn fool decides that his tailors is stuffy and old fashioned and must be modernised.

Like an American Indian, driven across the plains by the relentless advance of "Civilisation" and the destruction of all he holds dear, Mac has steadily drawn back from modernity. Soon, there will be nowhere to go, and his people will become extinct. But for the time being, he fights, retreats, and fights again. No doubt the new tailor will meet his demanding standards. It will be cramped, untidy, and old-fashioned. But, given the way things are going (i.e. to the dogs) it is unlikely to be on "the Row". Soon, I fear, Savile Row will be the preserve only of Investment bankers, professional footballers and the Russian mafia.

And something rather magnificent will have been lost.