EDW: pants and politicians

It might not be elegant, but there is something both amusing and gratifying about seeing politicians stripped of their dignity.

There is a theory that if you are nervous about addressing an audience or an individual, you should imagine them in their underwear or in the nude and your fear will vanish. Similarly, when a politician is stripped down in this fashion their authority vanishes. Certainly Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen lost most of the tattered threads of dignity and respect that clung about his stately, plump personage when some prankster placed in two of Dublin's main art galleries a couple of pictures: one showing him on toilet, the other being the delightful image you can see on your left.

To compound the embarrassment, Cowen and his underlings over-reacted a tad. (One hears rumours which may explain why). RTÉ was forced to apologise for reporting the stunt (you may watch it here, apparently the initial report was seen as an attack on the dignity of the office of taoiseach; as if the likes of Bertie Ahern and CJ Haughey were universally revered statesmen); gardaí have, unbelievably, been called in to investigate. The reaction to this over-reaction has not been kind: but the derision and anger is well-deserved.

As it is Biffo can only aspire towards attaining the dignity and respect accorded to John Major - another failed leader in the Cowen-esque mode. It was Alistair Campbell's masterstroke to convince the world that John Major was a man who tucked his shirt into his underpants. It was almost impossible to take him seriously after that. (Oh and the Afghan hat did not help).

It takes a truly special political talent, though, to achieve this level of humiliation solely through your own efforts. Chris Bryant, now deputy leader of the commons, managed it though, when he injudiciously posted a picture of himself wearing only his underpants on Gaydar. (Here it is, if you care for such things). What a silly sod.

EDW: Turned out nice again

For advice on how to conduct oneself with a modicum of dignity at the seaside, please study this video of Blackpool. Any true Englishman can wear a suit at the seaside, so there is no need - none whatsoever - to rush into t-shirts, shorts and so on just because the temperature has reached double figures. Where do you think you are? Abroad?

Most readers, I trust will not need this advice. Those in paid drudgery are strongly advised, however, to play this video and sing along. Ideally keeping time with your little sticks of Blackpool rock.

EDW: Lord Palmerston

Shall we stop whining about the fact that Barack Obama has returned the bust of Winston Churchill that his predecessor had installed in the Oval Office?

(Was this some grudge on behalf of his grandfather's treatment during the Mau Mau rebellion? Does he not care about Britain? Personally I reckon that whereas Bush wanted to be Churchill, he wants to be Lincoln.)

The Mau Mau theory might have something to it, I suppose, so Gordon Brown's decision to give Obama a biography of Churchill might not have been the wisest gift (the pen holder made from the timbers of a 19th century warship, on the other hand, is a fine choice; I'd be very glad to receive something like that myself).

However, were I in Brown's shoes I'd have given him a bust of Lord Palmerston, the last Edinburgh University educated PM until our own dear leader's accession. (Admittedly, Tom Paine would be the ideal Brit for the current president's office, but I've EDW'd him already).

Henry Temple might seem an eccentric choice. If "dear old Pam" is remembered at all these days it's for the fact that he was, in the face of some pretty stiff competition, the most sly and cynical of all British PMs, for gunboat diplomacy, a colourful private life and genial populism. (Oh, and the story that he died having sex with a parlour maid on a billiard table. In his eighties. Sadly, it appears he died while going through his ministerial papers; a half-written letter was found by his side. Still, it's a fitting tribute to him that people prefer the former story. After all, he did refuse to move into Downing Street because his house in Piccadilly gave him much better opportunities to eye up passing fillies). Florence Nightingale gave him a rather handsome epitaph: "Though he made a joke when asked to do the right thing he always did it."

But he was not, please note, entirely devoid of principle. His zeal to curb the transatlantic slave trade managed to inflame the Americans to the brink of war (at this point we'll gloss over his sympathy for the Confederacy in the US civil war, eh?) He would support liberal, progressive causes abroad - if possible; balanced against that you have things like the Don Pacifico Affair - you know the Civis Romanus Sum speech - and the manner in which he masked naked self-interest behind an appeal to high ideals. Which is not to say the ideals were absent.

Palmerston's highest statement with regards to international affairs was:

"I hold that the real policy of England... is to be the champion of justice and right, pursuing that course with moderation and prudence, not becoming the Quixote of the world, but giving the weight of her moral sanction and support wherever she thinks that justice is, and whenever she thinks that wrong has been done."

It's somewhat reminiscent of Tony Blair, isn't it? And you might wish to compare this rhetoric with the frequently sordid and self-interested reality. Nevertheless, many politicians have juggled principle and pragmatism in this manner. It is the peculiar genius of Lincoln, Obama's hero, that he made the latter the servant of the former.

Still, at this point it is worth noting that Obama seemed far keener to meet Blair than he was Brown (who wouldn't be?). Consider also the president's approach to foreign affairs (get the clearly doomed British and Japanese PMs in and out of the White House as quickly as possible; offer the Russians a quid pro quo to stamp down the Iranians - oh and do it in a way that subtly enhances the division between Putin and Medvedev - and make it clear to your allies that you are mainly interested in what they can do to help in Pakistan/Afghanistan) in the light of Palmerston's view that a country has no eternal allies, only eternal interests.

The conflict against the Taliban/al-Qaida/militant Islam is, after all, one where America's national interest and the support of justice and right neatly dovetail. One wonders if the track record of the prime minister at the time of the Indian mutiny would have anything to offer the 44th President of the United States in that regard. It strikes me that Obama is someone who would appreciate his qualities more than many people could imagine.

EDW: Un zest de Citroën

It was the car that seduced celebrities, saved a president and symbolised the rebirth of aspiration in a country battered by war and economic gloom. Now, more than 50 years after its pointed nose and power steering were introduced to the world, the Citroën DS is hitting the road once more. (Courtesy of the Guardian)

Quite. I'm planning to buy a car in the next couple of months or so (what with VAT being cut for the time being and everyone being broke). Maybe I should hang on for these to hit the market.

I imagine they'll be unreliable, over-priced and a let down: still…

EDW: John Milton

Coming slightly late to the great man's 400th birthday party, but there has been a superfluity of comment on his works – with commentators across the board, from Theo Hobson and Terry Eagleton in the Guardian, through Boyd Tonkin in the Independent to AN Wilson (since disembowelled) and Simon Heffer (sounding a little surprisingly sympathetic towards what Marxists used to call the English Revolution) in the Telegraph – all eager to claim the man for their own worldview.

I don't wish to add to this babel. Not least because if you don't appreciate his importance, I doubt I'll be the one to change your minds, and if you do then there's no point in boring you with it. Besides, the best line about him remains Blake's observation that he was of the Devil's party, but did not know it.

Satan is key to it all, of course, the defiance of the perpetual tyrannies of existence, the unfulfilled and unfulfillable aspirations (the perpetual fate of revolutionaries that; Milton was no great lover of the Cromwellian oppression that replaced the Stuart one), are all there – along with the Charles I-like over-inflation of one's own importance and powers, the unreasonable self-righteousness. It's the human condition captured in the supposed arch-enemy of man.

If a shower of contemporary hacks can reflect these contradictions, then so can some of the great poets who followed Milton: without Milton I doubt we should have Byron's Vision of Judgment or Baudelaire's Litanies de Satan. No Blake either, of course. Even if one dismisses the preposterous notion that Milton was better than Shakespeare, this range of influence does support the case for regarding Paradise Lost as the true English national epic (then again, why do the English need one?).

Although I most often use the term puritan as one of abuse, Milton represents another, better side to that complex skein of non-conformist thought – independent-minded, inquiring, free-thinking, unbending and unwilling to put conscience to one side. In other words, a libertarian if not a libertine. Besides that, one cannot wholly dislike a man who spent several years travelling, studying at university and a further six doing little except reading books in preparation for his career as a poet. That's the sort of work ethic I admire.

As for the poetry itself: he might go on a little for modern tastes (that's what you get copying Roman epics rather than the Greek lyricists and epigrammists) but there's a grandeur matched with a sinuous subtlety in those mighty lines.

Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable,
Doing or suffering: but of this be sure--
To do aught good never will be our task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being the contrary to his high will
Whom we resist. If then his providence
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labour must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil;
Which ofttimes may succeed so as perhaps
Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb
His inmost counsels from their destined aim.
But see! the angry Victor hath recalled
His ministers of vengeance and pursuit
Back to the gates of Heaven: the sulphurous hail,
Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid
The fiery surge that from the precipice
Of Heaven received us falling; and the thunder,
Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.
Let us not slip th' occasion, whether scorn
Or satiate fury yield it from our Foe.
Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,
The seat of desolation, void of light,
Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves;
There rest, if any rest can harbour there;
And, re-assembling our afflicted powers,
Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy, our own loss how repair,
How overcome this dire calamity,
What reinforcement we may gain from hope,
If not, what resolution from despair.

Just don't, for goodness sake, bother with Samson Agonistes.

EDW: Lucrezia Borgia

A new portrait of her has come to light. When you attract sufficient notoriety that lurid tales of vice, murder, incest, orgies and the Vatican attach to your name for centuries after your death, you really don't need to try too hard with your outfit. The simple, almost demure, look works pretty well here. Still, she does look like trouble, doesn't she?

EDW: Duelling scars

A scar on the face is the way to win a lady's affections, according to a study. What the scientists responsible neglected to say, though, is whether or not the scar becomes even more alluring with the addition of a pickelhaube or other suitably Teutonic accoutrement. However, unless the study is complete rubbish (and it is unthinkable, surely that it would have been so widely reported if that were the case, then the flower of German manhood between roughly 1880 to 1920 must have been on to something good.

You see, this era was the heyday of the Mensur, when young men of the right sort liked nothing better than gathering together to drink beer and hold duels. It was all highly organised, of course, and based around student guilds and societies. The point was not to kill, of course, but the custom was laced with a peculiar concoction of machismo and masochism in which the highest proof of manhood was the giving and receiving of facial scars.

The cheeks were pretty much the only part exposed to the blade of the Schlägers, swords that were pretty much only good for this sort of scarring, and it was even suggested that the wounds would be stitched in a deliberately clumsy fashion (or that the medical student doing the stitching would be filled up with beer beforehand) to accentuate the appearance of the wound.

It was an era in which no self-respecting German of the right sort would venture out into manhood without a slash or two across his face. As we now know, they only did it to impress girls. Doubtless any female readers of this blog will now be weak at the knees from seeing the results, but there are more pictures available elsewhere. There's also a pretty comprehensive article about student duelling if you wish to know more, certainly I would not presume to improve upon a website with a name like pickelhauben.net.

Hitler, being something of a spoilsport, took a dim view of the whole business and the practice never really recovered from his disapproval (and I suppose the slowly dawning realisation that Prussian-style militaristic swagger might have a downside to it). Though as the image to your left shows, some of his minions had enjoyed the practice in their youth.

However, I understand German students of a certain type still enjoy formal duels; although the scarring seems to have fallen by the wayside, which might be an error on their part.

So, ladies, just for you, today's Elegentlische Deutsches Wodenstag (this is almost certainly grammatically wrong, but there you go) features some prime specimens of German manhood from an era when for pointless and ritualised violence their upper crust rivalled even the British public school system itself. Form an orderly queue if you please.

The type of man before whom all Europe trembled

EDW: Oswald von Wolkenstein

Let's revisit Theo Hobson's ravings for a moment. In bemoaning the coarseness, violence and immorality of the James Bond series he complains that Bond debases the traditions of chivalry:

In reality chivalry is simply incompatible with sexual hedonism. The heroic knight of medieval epic is a warning against sexual adventurism: his conquests are not of women but of various temptations. Chivalry is a tradition that encourages us to admire the sublimation of male desire rather than its indulgence.

Ah the good old middle ages: a time of brotherly love, virtue, easy living and tolerance. No matter that the chivalric literature of the day was as much escapism as the Bond stuff: in the 20th/21st century people like to dream of transcending the constraints and moral codes of an ordered society and acting pretty much as they please; in the middle ages courtly literature allowed the aristocracy a constraints from a harsg, cruel life defined by service to one's lord. The Knights Errant of literary tradition, you see, can go off on a whim for whatever cause they please rather than being bound by their feudal obligations and women are transformed from being either peasant girls to be ravished or units of property to mysterious, pure damsels.

At least the latter is how, I assume Hobson sees women in medieval literature. Its all bollocks, of course, there are quite a few "favours" granted to the knights in courtly literature. But it's easiest to grasp how much of a fantasy chivalry is by looking at the lives of some of the real life poet knights. The obvious English example is Thomas Malory: who wrote Le Morte d'Arthur, so tradition has it, while in prison for burglary, banditry and rape.

We don't know Malory's life story for sure, though, so let's go for an Austrian instead. The rather forbidding looking gent up top is Oswald von Wolkestein. He was something of a freebooter, travelling to the Holy Land, across southern Europe and Scandanavia. ("Gen Preussen, Littwan, Tartarei, Türkei, über mer, /gen Lampart, Frankreich, Ispanien mit zwaien küngesher /traib mich die minn auff meines aigen geldes wer.") You'll note he only has one eye, he lost that whilst having fun at a carnival, and spent much of his life feuding with his neighbours. He was also an accomplished poet, the last of the Minnesingers indeed, and an innovative composer.

Sadly I can't find any English translations of his poems, and I don't have one to hand, but his works give you a good flavour of the chivalric lifestyle. Ain guet geporen edelman, for instance, is a long litany of complaint about all the people who'd done him wrong, the misfortunes he'd suffered and includes the classic line "And then I got married just to make things worse." There are also love poems, of course, but many of the women encountered in his ballads are given the James Bond treatment; desires indulged rather than sublimated. In reality one suspects that he didn't indulge his desires as much as he would have liked to (does any man?) and so had to use his imagination instead.

Still, quite a fellow - and has a certain sense of style too (nice ermine that). I doubt Theo Hobson would have approved of him had they met.

Post Script: It's sometimes argued that the Age of Chivalry ended with Agincourt. Last week a group of eccentric Frenchmen tried to get the results retrospectively amended by charging the English with war crimes. Doubtless they would have been by modern standards, but that's the middle ages for you. The long tradition of holding up that era's mass slaughters as moral exemplars is far more pernicious than enjoying the adventures of a louche, fictional spy or a few legendary knights.

EDW: Françoise Hardy

I haven't done one of these for a while, but this makes a nice follow-up to my post on Brel and Gainsbourg.

See, I don't think the French get enough credit for their throw-away pop music (much less their first-rate song writers). So here's Françoise Hardy with one of the finest examples of the former.

The combination of jaunty tune and melancholy is not an easy one to pull off (really, I think we had to wait for The Smiths to see its full effect in English) but this is such a fine example of it.

There is something so very French about this video - including the disastrously unsuccessful attempt at slapstick humour - that has an ageless charm to it.

Et la fille de Yé-Yé, elle est assez chic, n'est ce pas?

EDW: Jeanne Moreau

Jeanne Moureau's finest moment from one of the finest of all French films (whisper it, but I think Le 400 Coups is even better, but still).

For EDW purposes she admirably demonstrates - throughout Jules et Jim - that it's not just what you wear but how you carry it off.

All together now.

Elle avait des bagues à chaque doigt,
Des tas de bracelets autour des poignets,
Et puis elle chantait avec une voix
Qui sitôt m'enjôla

Elle avait des yeux, des yeux d'opale
Qui m'fascinaient, qui m'fascinaient,
Y avait l'ovale d'son visage pâle
De femme fatale qui m'fut fatal.

Incidentally, let's not forget her co-star Basiak (the fellow playing the guitar here) who wrote the song. Fine fellow.

NOTE: This was supposed to go up on Wednesday, as an elegantly dressed Wednesday thing but it - and some other stuff, now deleted - got stuck in the mix.

EDW: Encore des Belges

The song itself is, apparently, about a drunken sexual encounter. I imagine that all of those reading this will have no more knowledge of these things than I do, so we'll just have to take him at his word on that. However, I'm pretty confident that anyone who can carry of this combination of pinstripe suit jacket, white scarf, leather trousers and white trainers (nor one can dance, in his own words "comme un grand connard") will surely not be lacking in female company for long.

The best-dressed Belgian of all, however, is a fictional character. But then you probably know that.

EDW: Ali Pasha

Despotic tyrants are not what they used to be. Sartorially, at least, the modern crop seem a small-minded bunch trying to over-compensate for their failings.

Take Robert Mugabe, the despot du jours. A recent profile suggested that his fondness for Savile Row suits is based upon his belief that English tailoring makes one into a gentleman. Now, Mugabe may well have some high-quality tailoring but I think we can all agree that he is not, in fact, a gentleman.

(One might blame Mugabe's rather conflicted attitude towards English matters on his early upbringing at the hands of the Jesuits - more precisely an Irish Jesuit who believed the also imbued the "English gentleman represented the highest stage of human civilisation". That can't be a good combination, can it?).

The thing is, as Mugabe proves, you don't become something you aren't by dressing as that thing. Dressing appropriately, on the other hand, is always a good idea. If you are to be a murderous despot, you may as well dress in a manner which will awe and fascinate in equal measure.

Which is where Ali Pasha, the Albanian brigand who ruled a large swathe of the Balkans in the 19th century, comes in. His brutality and flamboyance fascinated contemporary Europeans in equal measure (he was a duplicitous old so-and-so too, of course, but that's pretty much what one expects of politicians of all stripes and all eras).

It's possible that his enduring fascination depends upon the quality of the travellers he entertained – Byron immortalised him in Childe Harold (writers from Dumas to Patrick O'Brian have also drawn on his career) and also described him "a remorseless tyrant, guilty of the most horrible cruelties, very brave, so good a general that they call him the Mahometan Buonaparte".

However, I'd like to think that his fascination is the fact that he had a good eye for the impression he was creating. Whether he was entertaining foreigners with perfect courtesy, carrying out brutal public executions he knew the importance of image. It's hard not to be interested in a man who had a harem of 500-plus women (plus a host of catamites).

If you want more, Wikipedia has a decent potted biography. However, you could pretty much guess all of this from the look of him, could you not? And, unlike the Mugabes of this world, you do not get the impression of a man deluding himself that he is a gentleman. He is, however, worth an Elegantly Dressed Wednesday.

EDW: Mareva

You might think that a former Miss France (so at least she does the wearing clothes well bit of EDW) turning herself into a singer and producing an album of 1960s French pop staples, with plenty of ukeleles, would be a recipe for disaster.

You'd be wrong. For the former Miss France is Mareva Galanter, the record is Ukuyéyé and I will not have a word said against her.

I've featured her on this blog before, and I've had the original version of this song up before too. But this version is considerably enhanced by the presence of right-minded fellow who prefers the pleasures of a dry martini and a good book to anything else.

There's a rake of good stuff featuring her on YouTube (I particularly like this video in which she lives out everyone's fantasy by attempting to kill a David Cameron-lookalike in a duel) many in the same Scopitone-style.

In all, she is a good thing.

EDW: Christopher Marlowe

One of those small details which caught my eye was this line from DavidT on the fulminations of religious extremists: "In English, as part of GCSE, they must study Shakespeare, whose books are full of homosexuality, fornication and adultery, each of which are great sins in Islam.”

There isn't that much homosexuality in Shakespeare - a bit of cross-dressing and the ambiguity of the sonnets aside - but Marlowe is a very different creature. The fact that he would annoy religious loons may be a spurious one, but that plus the melancholy elegance of Elizabethean dress are good enough for me to make him a candidate for Elegantly Dressed Wednesday.

As for Marlowe, the blank verse beast, himself: alleged to be an atheist, a heretic, a blasphemer and a homosexualist ('all they that love not boies and tobacco were fools') and spy who was stabbed to death in a tavern brawl in murky circumstances; his life was colourful enough. He was, however, the onlie begetter of the mighty line.

Admittedly the Jew of Malta might hold an unfortunate attraction for a hardcore jihadist, although the play is as much a satire on religious hypocrisy as anything. Then there is Edward II, which really does have plenty of homosexuality.

Music and poetry is his delight;

Therefore I'll have Italian masques by night,

Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows;

And in the day, when he shall walk abroad,

Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad;

My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns,

Shall with their goat-feet dance an antic hay.

Sometime a lovely boy in Dian's shape,

With hair that gilds the water as it glides,

Crownets of pearl about his naked arms,

And in his sportful hands an olive tree

To hide those parts which men delight to see,

Shall bathe him in a spring;

Add to that the diabolic genius of Dr Faustus (one can appreciate his desire to see the face that burned the topless towers of Illium) and Tamberlaine - a play glorifying the 'scourge of God', a character who burns a copy of the Koran (another attack on religion in general, of course) and who devoted his life invading places like Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan– and one can just imagine the impact he'd have on the GCSE syllabus. His valedictories are rather more eloquent than anything George Bush is likely to manage, to boot.

Farewell, farewell, divine Zenocrate –
Is it not passing brave to be a king
And ride in triumph through Persepolis!

Elegantly Deceased Wednesday: Lenin

After 84 years, its time to bury Lenin, says Gorbachev. I quite agree, you don't really want dead mass murderers cluttering up your cities. I can see that the question of what is to be done poses something of a dilemma, however. On the one hand he seized power in a coup, ruthlessly crushed any opposition, kept power through intimidation and had millions killed for messing up his theories; one the other even in death he knew how to dress smartly, iconically even.

For me the clincher is this: Vladimir Illyich Ulyanov may have been an aristocrat, but he was not a gentleman.* He also offers a good example of why intellectuals – especially those who espouse fashionably pretentious views - should not be put in charge of things.

If only the Russian embalmers had shared the foresight and selective incompetence of the Czechs the problem would have been solved. When Klement Gottwald, founder of the Czech communist state died, he was given the full Lenin treatment and interred in a mausoleum on a hill overlooking Prague. Unfortunately, the embalming was not entirely successful and when the body started to visibly decompose, they had to remove the body to somewhere more private.

* British left-wing lawyer Dudley Collard QC visited Moscow at the time of the show trials to see what was happening and blithely reported back that there was nothing to worry about, the whole thing was a storm in a teacup and all the people on trial were clearly guilty. As Francis Wheen writes: "As he explained in his book Soviet Justice and the Trial of Radek and Others, to say that the confessions were extracted under torture would imply that Comrade Stalin was not a gentleman - a possibility so manifestly absurd and insulting that Collard dismissed it at once."

EDW: Their Satanic Majesties

It's the Rolling Stones at Altamont in 1969. You probably know what happened. Mick Jagger might look a bit of a prat, but a whiff of sulphur certainly helps offset his get up.

I suggest you keep watching the crowd, it is rather instructive.

EDW: Politicians in morning dress

Have you seen the two twerps who have been following the 'Tory toff' Edward Timpson around Crewe in tail coats in a bid to undermine his attempt to convince the electors that the Conservative party is less contemptible than Labour? Their attempts to embarrass the Tory are horribly undermined by the fact that they can not carry off the outfits they have affected: cheap, button-down shirts, ill-fitting, off-the-peg clothes and grey top hats, all of which make them look very foolish indeed.

In truth, Timpson doesn't quite cut it as a toff. It was with some amusement mingled with horror that I learned he attended Uppingham school for a time; while I was there in fact. He would have been a year or two above me, but I cannot for the life of me remember him. I don't think he would have displayed any interest in politics*, anyhow, which makes him an ideal fit for the Cameron Conservatives.

In any case, Uppingham is not an especially grand or prestigious school. It prides itself in helping the more bovine members of the middle classes to succeed in their exams, making sure the bright ones aren't too full of themselves and in turning out dutiful, dull and decent types (again, perfect for the Cameron Conservatives), rather than the type who has the insouciance, certitude and born-to-rule manner which morning dress demands.

It is a form of clothing which makes particular demands on the wearer. You have to make yourself worthy of it. It's not simply a matter of class - as this picture of the aristocratic Churchill and the lower middle class, Welsh-speaking Lloyd George shows. They do, however, have the command of the conventions and clothing of the Edwardian ruling elite.

You need not approve of many of their views or actions (I don't, although I hope you share my view that standing up to Hitler was a good thing), but both these great statesmen of the last century offer a sartorial example to today's politicians.

Few modern politicians could carry it off. Regardless of their social background, they tend - with honourable exceptions - to have the souls of management consultants, spivs, solicitors and PR 'executives'; as such they dress accordingly.

* I do remember Jenny Willott, now a Lib Dem MP. She struck me as earnest, well-intentioned and rather dull. Ideal for being a prefect or a Lib Dem. Although, to be honest, her only memorable contribution to the 6th form debating society was to begin a speech with the phrase 'I'd like to expand on Mr Dornan's point.' The rest was lost in the puerile, public school sniggering that followed. Good training, for the Commons.

EDW: Nell Gwynn

It was recently suggested that changes to the Act of Settlement would see the crown revert to the Stewarts. (Or more precisely their German heir). A more disastrous and unsuccessful royal dynasty it would be hard to think of. Apart from Charles I's remarkable achievement in getting himself executed, several other members of the family lost their thrones (Mary Queen of Scots, James II and VII) and many others managed to get themselves killed in unfortunate circumstances. (James I of Scotland, for instance, was murdered in a sewer which he'd blocked up to stop his tennis balls rolling away).

Against that: Charles II at least managed to get back on the throne and managed to enjoy himself while he was on it. I could, I suppose, use this for a series discussion on his reign, but those of you who are interested in that sort of thing, let me instead direct you to a book I've been reading: Restoration by Tim Harris.

Instead, let's talk about the fun stuff. In reaction to the puritanism of the Cromwell era, Restoration England was a time of unbridled libertineage. Pepys's diaries give a flavour of the age, as do some of the ballads of the times and the Earl of Rochester's bawdy verses. Charles enthusiastically reflected the spirit of the times with his string of mistresses. As Rochester put it (in a poem which led to his banishment from court).

Peace is his aim, his gentleness is such,
And love he loves, for he loves fucking much.
Nor are his high desires above his strength:
His scepter and his prick are of a length
And she may sway the one who plays with th' other,

Nell Gwynn is the best-remembered of these royal mistresses. Rightly so. She was, unlike many of the royal paramours, popular with the common people. Stories like the following indicate her wit and spirit.

Nell Gwynn was one day passing through the streets of Oxford in her coach, when the mob mistaking her for her rival, the Duchess of Portsmouth, commenced hooting and loading her with every opprobrious epithet. Putting her head out of the coach window, "Good people", she said, smiling, "you are mistaken; I am the Protestant whore.

Hard not to like someone like that.(The fact that unlike most of Charles's mistresses she wasn't a particular drain on the public purse probably helped). Should any of our current crop of royals be looking for a mistress, they could do worse than go for one like her.

Pretty, witty Nell had also started from rather humble origins. Her mother ran a brothel and the young Nell started by serving drinks in the establishment before becoming, variously, an orange seller, an actress, and kept women. These all may be euphemisms to various degrees, but given the miserable nature of life for the vast majority of people - the poor especially, she showed considerable astuteness in advancing her own interests.

It was her wit, as much as her good looks and lack of hang-ups which helped her rise. You could even, if you were so minded, make a case for her being a feminist pioneer; she was one of the first women to act on the English stage ( female roles had been played by boys prior to this) and was one of the first female 'celebrities' (okay, that's a bad precedent to set) in her own right. More than that, though, she was able to hold her own among the wittiest and most spirited characters at the royal court.

Rochester may have paid her several backhanded tributes, but in his Satire on the King (from which I've quoted above), he bemoans the fact that the king seemed to prefer Carwell (ie Louise de Kéroualle, the Duchess of Portsmouth) and the resulting "pains it costs to poor, laborious Nelly/Whilst she employs hands, fingers, mouth, and thighs/ Ere she can raise the member she enjoys."

Still, poor laborious Nelly's memory endures. There is a horse race named after her, at least one pub, and as the pictures show, whether dressed or undressed she had style, she had panache and a certain sort of elegance.

EDW: Carla Bruni

A poll this week shows the French are starting to warm to their first lady, with 90 per cent approving of her performance.

And, as this clip shows, even if she can't sing, she certainly knows how to perform. However, rather than worrying about what she wore to meet the queen, and whether or not she can behave herself in the company of Prince Philip, I'd like to suggest that this performance - a song by Georges Brassens and about soliders standing proudly to attention - indicates clearly that she has all the qualities needed to be a first lady. Ideally, they'd take the hint at the end to make it the national anthem.

Altogether now:

Quand je pense à Fernande
Je bande, je bande
Quand j' pense à Felicie
Je bande aussi...

EDW: Taoisigh Past, Present (and Future?)

Patrick Bartholomew Ahern, the "most devious and cunning" of them all (according to Charles Haughey) resigns after his increasing elaborate explanations for his finances started to test the patience of even the average Fianna Fáil politician. A good thing, too, if he was being given thousands of pounds from his friends, the very least he could have done was spend some of it on a bit of decent tailoring.

His predecessor and mentor Haughey may have been pretty venial, but at least he knew how to spend the money he was given in the grand style: £700 shirts and the best of tailoring, country houses, fine food and wines. No wonder he was nicknamed the Squire, while Bertie was nicknamed the Anorak.

Whereas Bertie, despite receiving thousands of pounds from his friends in the Nineties and coming up with the sort of preposterously unconvincing explanations as to where it had all come from (and where it had gone) that would not convince a more than usually gullible nine-year-old clearly never spent a penny of it on decent clothing. One might forgive a politician who took money from his wealthy chums and played on the soft-hearted credulity of his supporters to get away with it. One could even stomach his defence that he'd pocketed all the cash but, the ungrateful sponger, did nothing for those who'd given it to him. But it's hard to think kindly of the sort of man who turns up to summit of world leaders dressed like an ice cream waiter.

As for the succession, it's hard to think of any Irish politicians who have any sort of elegance about them (Micheál Martin is about as good as it gets, I'm afraid); and the likely winner of the FF leadership contest is Brian Cowan, a man nicknamed Biffo (Big Ignorant Fucker from Offaly). There are other options, though, if the soldiers of destiny want to eschew the obvious and plump for a man with a particular style of his own.

I was struck by Dave Hill's recent advice on how Ken Livingstone should turn around his mayoral campaign: take the piss more. If there's one thing the Irish are superb at, it's taking the piss, and the choice of a new leader should reflect this. It's probably too much to hope that our particular favourite, Jackie Healy-Rae, will be readmitted to FF's warm embrace to bring his particular talents on the world stage, nor do we have much confidence that his fellow south KerrymanJohn 'The Bull' O'Donoghue will vacant the Ceann Comhairle's chair to lead his party to new glories.

Only one man, then, remains, who can meet our criteria: Willie O'Dea. Not only would his bonsai stature (he's about 5 ft 2) allow him to meet world leaders such as Dmitry Medvedev and Nicolas Sarkozy on equal terms, the photo on the right shows what a forceful and effective leader he would be. Does he not ooze authority? Does not the reek of power fill the room? Is he not the only possible contender who could match the EDW credentials of the likes of Haughey or Seán Lemass?

UPDATE: Yup, Biffo it is (link includes picture which shows off his keen stylistic sense).