So
in a fit of helpless nostalgia-seeking, I find a pile of colour
magazines from the early 1970s and churn through them looking for
whatever past I think I might have to thank for my current condition.
The contents are intrinsically complex, the early decade riddled with
a nostalgia of its own as the bright promise of the 1960s turns out
to be a bit crappier than anyone had anticipated, leading to an
enthusiastic rediscovery of earlier styles (Victoriana, Deco,
nineteenth-century sideburns, Regency high-waisted skirts) to take
away the taste of the present.
But
also much simpler, in that the hydra-headed monster of consumer
choice is still relatively under control: which means that the stuff
in the adverts between the articles, the stuff you can buy with your
rapidly depreciating currency (inflation hovering around 10% per
annum in the UK, rocketing to over 24% in '75) enjoys a much reduced
taxonomic range, and doesn't have much going for it when you do buy
it. A trawl through the ads is therefore blissfully underwhelming. A
new Ford Granada gives you a push-button radio with speakers front
and rear! Warerite offers a better range of standard sheet sizes than
any other laminate manufacturer! And if you want some wine with your
food? Blue Nun, from Sichel: Right through the meal.
Not just one less thing to worry about, twenty less things. Forty!
If
Blue Nun doesn't do it
for you, Deinhard Green Label ('A
crisp, refreshing wine characteristic of the finest Moselles') should
provide adequate cover, as will Goldener Oktober
('Cool, clear, light-hearted'), or Deinhard Hanns Christof
('A smooth, well-balanced
hock'), or, for red, Bull's Blood
('Full-bodied'), or for sparkling, Asti Martini
('A wine with finesse and perfect balance'), or, indeed, Marimont
('The light, delicate, sparkling wine from France'), at a very
reasonable £1.20 a bottle. Top and tail it with a Harvey's
Bristol Cream ('The best sherry
in the world'); and a Cockburn's Special Reserve
('A very fine bottle of port') and you're away. Quite apart from
which, you're probably smoking so much (did everyone
smoke in 1973? Judging by the pictures, then, yes),
any subtleties in the drink are going to be as evanescent as
starlight reflected in a puddle. Life couldn't be simpler.
Except:
a little cloud, like a man's hand, in the form of an advert from Mary
Quant - of all people, the famous fashion designer - who, in 1974, is
running her own wine import business, Mary Quant (Wine Shippers) of Chelsea. And she is going to shatter the conventions of mainstream
English wine drinking by bringing us a properly-sourced Côtes
du Rhône,
a respectable Blanc de Blancs and (something for the ladies, no
doubt) a Bordeaux Demi-Sec, all on mail order. 'Appellation Contrôlée
wine for around £1 a bottle,' she announces, and while part of me
leaps up at the chance to get away from the Deinhard
Hanns Christof
being boosted as if it were a '49 Margaux, the rest of me sees, for
all Ms. Quant's admirable high-mindedness, the dawn of the beginning
of the Modern Age, with its domesticated wine snobbery, its
specialisms, its drudgery of choice.
The
nostalgia trail ends here, in fact, with Mary Quant, not least
because of what I am about to drink when I finally put away this
stash of yellowing old colour supplements and fashion magazines: some
of that Waitrose Grenache which I originally bought to try and tame my deadly CDR. Why have I bought more of the stuff? It's not bad, a
nice mix of, frankly, fresh squid and fireworks in the nose - and
close enough to the psycho CDR to suggest that the CDR was mostly
Grenache, but without quite that CDR's desire to inflict harm - but
it's not that great. I
must have bought it on muscle memory or some similar low-level
autonomic impulse. It's slightly miraculous, I suppose, that I can
get such a wine on impulse, in suburban London, in the first place.
But am I getting any more real pleasure, real quality-of-life
pleasure, than if I were necking a bottle of Goldener
Oktober and considering myself
rather a swell for doing so? Exactly.
And if that makes me sound like an old
man who yearns to grow a pair of scimitar-shaped sideburns and drive
around in a Ford Granada with a beige vinyl roof while smoking a
Rothmans King Size, well, I'm not going to say it ain't so.
CJ
Hilarious! I remember all this shit only too well - better in fact than the events of last week. And Szeczardi Voros (sp?) - AKA Sex on a Saturday, an industrial strength panty remover.
ReplyDeleteWe will have to bow to your superior knowledge on this one...
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