Mensur

Tweed: Lies To Tell Lefties



Sloane Ranger Analysis

'The fundamental sociological point that the Handbook [The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook: How The British Upper Class Prepares Its Offspring For Life, by Ann Barr and Peter York, 1983] makes, and Veblen would wholeheartedly endorse, is that Sloanes are ‘a living museum of old modes of behaviour’. The authors have rightly discerned that what the accoutrements and appurtenances of Sloane life unwittingly reveal is a 19th-century view of the 18th century, sustained and exemplified by token symbols of warrior/landowner gentrydom, which would be quite unrecognisable to a real Fielding squire. The obsession with the ubiquitous Horse Motif, the quasi-military trophies and table-mats, the taste for archaic breakfast food, the staunch preference for Georgian wood and silver, the too-prominent placing of the dog-basket, the Fields and Horse and Hounds in the downstairs loo, Caroline’s incurable addiction to Debrett, Henry’s thin, gold, oval, engraved, not swivel-backed cufflinks, the nostalgic love of dhurries and Mogul hangings and Indian bedspreads (even if Grandfather wasn’t in the Indian Army or ICS), the silk shirts ‘copied by Sam on a business trip to Hong Kong’, even the Sloanes’ ‘keen as bloodhounds’ sensitivity to the smells of boats, bonfires, leather and high-octane petrol (good) and aeroplanes, old vase-water, imitation leather and diesel oil (bad), are all symptoms of a half-conscious ideology whose deep structure is explicable only by reference to an unbreakable attachment to tradition: ‘Sloanes put tradition top because it keeps them top’ – or near enough to it to keep them happy.

There is, to be sure, a Darker Side. But true to the spirit of Malinowski, the authors do not shrink from revealing it, too (if only because it turns out to be almost touchingly harmless). Sloanes do commit a lot of traffic offences, and not infrequently cheat on their income tax. A few Henrys are unmistakable ‘four-letter men’, even if they seldom qualify as roaring shits on the full-blooded patrician and/or bohemian scale. There may well be a naughty uncle living in Marrakesh with ‘others of his ilk’, and another being dried out at the Priory in Roehampton or the Crichton in Dumfries. Sloane marriages do quite often come unstuck, whether just because Henry’s ‘moved into his dressing-room’ or because he’s decamped with his secretary, the nanny or his best friend’s wife, in which case Caroline (unless she’s the best friend’s wife in question) goes vengefully off on a Serenissima culture tour. Sloanes are not, on the whole, very charitable. Caroline can be not only meaninglessly gushing, but unpleasantly callous. (The authors are a little ambivalent about this: they are right that Ranger understatement is sometimes misinterpreted by outsiders as callousness, but they also recognise that ‘other Sloanes can be cruel if someone’s “a bit of a mess” ’ – i.e. a ‘fermented boozy’ who’s gone ‘well and truly off the rails’). More of them than are aware of it themselves are intermittent and sometimes chronic depressives, but it’s out of the question to go to a Shrink in (Dreaded) Hampstead or even to admit to the possibility of a need for one (‘You would be a behaviourist – if you knew what it meant’). The real trouble is that Sloanes are not merely ineducably complacent, but indefatigably resistant to any remote possibility of seeing themselves as others see them.'

'Henry and Caroline', by W.G. Runciman, London Review of Books, Vol. 5 No. 6 . 1 April 1983

New Order

“There is no more order to conserve; it is necessary to create a new one.”

Pierre Drieu La Rochelle (1893-1945)

The English Gentleman: National Colours

Musica Nocturna de Madrid (Boccherini)

Lamu Archipelago

Theology of Liberation

Prussian Spirit

Law Of The Sword

"The time of conquest is over. Now is the time of reconquest, inner and outer: the reappropriation of our memory and our space: and what a space! Fourteen time zones on which the sun never sets. From Brest to the Bering Straits, it is truly the Empire of the Sun, the very space of the birth and expansion of the Indo-European people. To the south-east are our Indian cousins. To the east is the great Chinese civilization, which could decide to be our enemy or our ally. To the west, on the other side of the ocean: America whose desire will always be to prevent continental union. But will it always be able to stop it?
...
Today we need more than morality. We need hypermorality, i.e., the Nietzschean ethics of difficult times. When one defends one’s people, i.e., one’s own children, one defends the essential. Then one follows the rule of Agamemnon and Leonidas but also of Charles Martel: what prevails is the law of the sword, whose bronze or steel reflects the glare of the sun. The tree, the rocket, the sword: three vertical symbols thrust from the ground towards the light, from the Earth to the Sun, animated by sap, fire, and blood."

Guillaume Faye, Mars & Hephaestus: The Return of History

Velouria (Pixies)

contre le monde moderne

WKR

For Your Pleasure

Tintin en avance

Mensur

Monk Shoe Dissonance

As you know, I've taken to wearing my pair of Alfred Sargent monk shoes (not pictured at left) with great frequency. They are formal enough in a low-key, classic style, whilst retaining a bit of edge. I'm saddened to report, however, that in recent weeks they have developed an irritating squeaking sound--like a group of mice in a juice press in the next room--whenever I stroll about the office in my usual chalant manner. Careful analysis has failed to discover the cause. I'm considering greasing them with a mixture of extra virgin olive oil, Veuve Clicquot, and essence of ovulating 18-year old hottie. But I'm open to other suggestions. Have you any?

Sometimes I Feel So Low (Japan)

Night Bar Notes

"The main reason I have a hard time getting along with these men is their indecisiveness. They feel when they ought to think, and vice versa. All they have inherited from Socrates is scepticism, but, unlike Xenophon, they would not hoist him on their shoulders and carry him out of the fighting. Convinced as they are of the temporal and finite nature of things, they shy away from pain, sacrifice, devotion."

Ernst Jünger, Eumeswil (1977)

Rallying

Street Scene

Ugly people offend me. And when that ugliness is combined with outstretched hand asking for handouts, I find it practically intolerable.

Picture the scene. I was crossing the street in a Brooks Brothers chalkstripe suit with a 3/2 roll, monk shoes, and BB repp tie, tall, muscular, elegant, due to meet colleagues for lunch.

A heavy-set black-haired European-American woman with tanned, weathered face and chapped lips, appeared 50 but probably 35 or so, approached me with a small plastic bucket and polite request for a donation.

I cut her off. "A donation for what?" I asked.

"For people recovering from drug and alcohol addiction," she replied.

"Not today." I walked away.

In point of fact it was the chubby urchin who should have given me money. For, as you know, I am addicted to wine and codeine. But you won't find me on the streets begging for dosh like a common miscreant. I actually work to fund my addictions.

It's a lesson lazy, fat-arsed Americans should take to heart.

In the shadow of the darkening horizon it is the everyday encounters that continue to test my patience.

Von Bülow Style

“Come in, come in,” said von Bülow expansively as he opened the front door to Helmut Newton, the photographer, who had just returned from Monte Carlo for the session, and me. Von Bülow was standing in the marble-floored, green-walled, gilt-mirrored hallway of the Fifth Avenue apartment of his multi-millionairess wife, whom he was accused of twice trying to kill. In the background a very old Chinese butler hovered, watching the master of the house usurp his duties. On that May Sunday of the seventh week of his second trial, the Danish society figure was dressed in tight blue jeans and a black leather jacket.

“This is the first time I’ve actually posed for a picture since my front and side shots,” says von Bülow in his deep, resonant, English-school, international-set voice.

"Fatal Charm: The Social Web of Claus von Bülow," by Dominick Dunne, Vanity Fair, August 1985

Reds Don't Surf !

Brandenburg

Regatta Blazer

Haeckel

Pucci

Admiral Cod On Tour: The Desert (Arizona)

On Authenticity

A fellow interweb columnist recently posted some photos of beautiful train stations in Moscow. I commented on how well preserved these places are, in contrast to the decay and neglect in the West. It is remarkable to me how former Communist countries have maintained over the years their authentic architecture and traditions. And demographics! That is the key here. Despite decades of Communist rule and genocide by Judeo-Bolsheviks, Russia still remains Russian and Poland still remains Polish. In the West, under the soft-tyranny of the globalist MultiKult--heirs of the Judeo-Bolsheviks--everything is deteriorating all of the time. Including (especially!) the character and quality of the populations. And that, I think, is the intent. Race-replacement is the objective. I've suspected as much for years, but the veil is lifting and I see it much more clearly now. Human beings are not interchangeable. We are not mere economic units and digestive bags to be discarded and replaced by imported sub-hominids as if nothing matters. We are irreplaceable. In 50 years' time, just whose civilisation will survive? I wonder.

On The Cuff

As you are well aware, I rarely wear cufflinks. I think they are pretentious on men under the age of 50, and they positively smack of trying too hard. I do, however, like to keep my peeps on their toes, so to speak, and so I occasionally mix it up a bit and indulge in a bit of sartorial slumming. Because that is how I roll. The exclusive photographic image (at left) shows a silk knot from the defunct English clothing brand Blazer, acquired from the Covent Garden shop in the late 1980s. The shirt is a new addition to the collection, a flimsy number from the Rugby store in New York. I definitely have something to say about it, but will save it for later. It received several compliments, you might be interested to know, but I remain, as always, unmoved.