2 LIFE & ARTS ★ FINANCIAL TIMES AUGUST 1/AUGUST 2 2009 Life

fter the double christening of two “We would buy a Routemaster and kit it upbringing gives you the confidence to announce to the world that you write.” delightful tots I was sitting in a out with bunks, I expect.” make that claim about yourself. People I made a lurid list of everything that’s field in the rain, shivering, talking “What do you do?” he continued. I like you have no idea.” Facing this ever gone wrong for me, changed the font A woman of Ato their grandmother, who was didn’t mind that he posed this question strange fellow, legions of possible retorts into bold caps, parcelled it up into a bundled up in a dark blanket and a but it isn’t one I ever ask. Why not? clouded my mind. I built a little pyramid bulging file and dragged it over into the child’s spare black hoody. “Bit too grim Because it’s nosey. I don’t hold with such where honest courtesy sat at the bottom trash part of my mental filing system. reaper, am I?” she asked with a laugh. a direct line of enquiry. You may as well and vicious outrage teetered wildly at the “Oh right, I see,” I said. “Well, I’d be very confidence She was an impressive woman, very go all-out, Oxbridge interview-style, and summit. Possible responses included: interested to hear more about about your funny and very happy-seeming, without a demand: “Say something brilliant about “I only say I am a writer because it’s photography work. Are there any current bad word to say about anyone. Wordsworth!” Besides, so many people true”; “I know I once claimed that all projects you could tell me about?” “When can I come and see your new don’t feel that their job or lack of job other people are to a certain extent our “Are you being sarcastic?” band, the one you say I’ll hate?” she truly represents them. Quite a few are own creations but your version of me is “Not at all.” teased her older grandson cheerily. He between things these days, uncertain and so unfamiliar that you had better answer “Wow, I’ve really pressed your buttons, coloured and scuttled away. We drank gin anxious, and do not wish to be defined by any further questions you have for me haven’t I? You’re on the back foot. I can to keep warm, and she chatted for nearly their current lack of definition. Even if yourself”; “Can you give me more details see this conversation is uncomfortable for an hour to my dog-mad toddler about you have a very clear answer, such as “I about my wondrous carefree childhood, you. Do we have some little issues by any canine care. am a Catholic priest, as it goes” or “I am s’il vous plaît?”; “Please know that I take chance?” His grin was wide. “And has he got a lead and a belt and a the home secretary,” your certainty can full responsibility for everything that has “Not at all,” I answered. “Oh, I’m silver clip and a bowl for food and a bowl seem tactless or boastful in the face of ever gone wrong in your life.” dreadfully sorry but I see my toddler has for his drink and a basket?” the little one others’ more hazy employ. disappeared into yonder forest please asked her, more than seven times. “I am a writer,” I said. He laughed, and said none of these things, of course. It forgive me if I pursue her, won’t you? . . . ” “Oh yes, he most certainly has,” the looked me up and down, doubtfully, in was all rather odd. I tried to imagine Ten minutes later there was a little tug woman explained again and again and the fashion of a teenage bus queue. He how little means such a contretemps to at the half belt of my polka dot mac. “I’d again. shook his head derisively. “Can I ask you IGod. like to continue our conversation from This happy scene was broken by one of a personal question?” “You see” – the fellow was still earlier,” the fellow said. “I was enjoying the new godparents, who came and sat I took a deep breath. “If you must.” speaking – “I am a prize-winning it. I think you misunderstood me. What I next to me, swaggering slightly in his “Would you say you came from a photographer, my pictures have been was trying to say was that when you very elegant suit. “Do you have a middle-class background?” exhibited around the world and are have had to fight for stuff all your life, godchild?” he asked. “I do.” owned by all sorts of celebrities, but it’s hard.” He patted me on the shoulder. “I don’t mean to blow my own trumpet, ‘”I knew it!” He smiled, knowingly. because I also work in a restaurant I tell “Don’t worry, I’m not blaming you.” but I have 11,” I said. “Right,” I nodded. people that I am a waiter. And that is “Thanks for that,” I replied. Susie “You’ll be up the creak if all the “I knew it when you said that you were because I had a difficult working-class parents cop it,” he replied. a writer,” he continued. “I expect your upbringing, whereas you with your easy [email protected] Boyt “Yes, that is probably true,” I agreed. secure and comfortable middle-class and privileged start in life are able to More columns at www.ft.com/boyt

The Diary The List Sean Smith Malcolm McLaren Things I have learnt from the stars

Two words sum up today’s culture: journey into the bowels of London’s past. “authenticity” is one, and the other is, Years ago, I co-wrote a screenplay in For the past year I’ve been writing about Girls Aloud well . . . “karaoke”. Most artists spend Hollywood with Alan. I explain to David singer and X Factor judge Cheryl Cole. Hers will be my their lives trying to authenticate (or that Alan has become an alchemist. Sadly, eighth celebrity biography in the past eight years, a make true) today’s karaoke culture, but I can’t join them. sequence I began with JK Rowling in 2001. Since then, I’ve you have to be a magician to do that. I have dinner with another David, the favoured stars who we know by a single name – Britney, Karaoke is mouthing other people’s theatre producer David Johnson, known Robbie, Justin, Kylie, Jennifer, Victoria and now Cheryl. songs; it is life by proxy, liberated by for putting Malcolm Gladwell on the road. I don’t work like a journalist who breezes into town hindsight and unencumbered by the Crazy people who work with me thought knowing exactly where they are going and who they are messy process of creativity. it an excellent idea to tell my stories to interviewing. I travel with a blank notebook and an open Everything and everyone in a karaoke the public, and, at dinner at the Wolseley mind, not looking for scandal, just the private person world is for sale, and so successful are its restaurant in Piccadilly, David madly behind the public face. I start each biography by TV shows – Pop Idol, The X-Factor and agrees. Eyeing the crowd surrounding disregarding what I have read about the subject previously. Britain’s Got Talent – that I am racing us – Lucian Freud and his daughter Bella, down an ancient road to Portsmouth on Alan Rickman and fans, Justin 1 Britney is not poorly educated trailer trash a nothing Saturday morning to judge a Timberlake and American record All I had when I arrived in Britney’s birthplace of McComb, talent contest. I am on a mission: I have producers from my not-so-distant past – Mississippi, was the name of a downtown store which this undeniable thirst for something I realise fate is playing me a card and mentioned Britney’s school on its website. The owner, I authentic. But Portsmouth is agog with decide that is what I will do. “It’s discovered, was a former pupil who knew Britney, as well signposts and fast becomes impossible to agreed,” David says, “but what shall we as her first boyfriend, judge’s son Donald Reginald Jones navigate. And, then, no. It can’t be. Yes, it call it? Confessions of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Junior. She told me that their school, Parklane Academy, is ... the Live and Unsigned Talent Contest. Swindler?” “No,” I say, “History is for was strongly Christian and cost $3,000 a year. She also I have never been a good judge of Pissing On”. directed me to the Jones family home, a mansion so anything, not women, not friends. I am splendid there was an elevator between floors. feeling submissive sitting here at the back I work in a very shitty neighbourhood in of Portsmouth Guildhall. I’ve got “willing Paris: dogs are considered better folk in 2 JK Rowling’s birthplace prey” printed across my forehead; I am these parts and, such as Parisians are, According to early media biographies, the Harry Potter an icon of 21st-century unhappiness. they allow those creatures to shit author was born in the quaint market town of Chipping Surrounded by talent scouts and DJs, anywhere they choose. I am forever Sodbury in Gloucestershire, but her birth certificate names I am told that 10,000 acts across the UK slipping and sliding in it. But, perched on its not­so­lovely neighbour, Yate, a sprawling new town 10 have entered this competition: the names top of the Folies Bergère, in what was miles outside Bristol. I knocked at the modest bungalow in on the paper in front of me are the final once the atelier of the painter Kees Van Sundridge Park, the address listed. “I’m sorry to bother 60. The panel has to award marks out of Dongen, I sit on the floor of a large you,” I said to the woman who answered. “Is JK Rowling 20, according to look, originality and empty space. The bell rings. It is a from here?” “Oh yes,” she said, smiling, “I bought the performance. Suddenly, I see Simon curator from the Netherlands Institute place from her dad”. Cowell everywhere. Even the women look of Art History in the Hague. like him! I can’t be imagining this. She is here, she says, to do research: 3 Justin Timberlake is not so cool Looking for the authentic here might be a Van Dongen retrospective will open I thought Justin was a cool dude from Memphis, but I had like looking for a ruby in a field of tin. there next year and Van Dongen did his to drive an hour from the blues capital to the rural The bands thunder forth like horses at best work right here, in my studio. Did surroundings of Shelby Forest, where Justin’s family had a the Grand National. They occasionally he? She shows me photos of Van Dongen lovely detached home and where the yellow school bus trip up, singing variation after variation sitting monk-like in the atelier and I stopped at every gate. “He was an Apex student,” said his of Beatles’ hits. Are these acts imitating wonder how he lived here. Regardless of teacher at the local school, meaning that he was gifted, the imitators? Is this what happens when the fact that this studio is a marvel of and particularly good at maths and science, before you watch too much Pop Idol? When light, it is all but impossible to get a stick producing a list containing his name. “The Algebra Club,” you aspire to join Simon’s chosen few? of furniture into the space, so narrow are she said, proudly. How old are they? They look old, the the doors and so tight the stairwell. I had music is old . . . and yet . . . to cut my bed in half and put it back 4 Victoria Beckham’s ride to school A girl wanders up to the mike. She together again so I could sleep It is widely believed that as a schoolgirl the soon­to­be­ is 14. Her face swells into a torrent of sandwiched along the mezzanine. Posh Spice was bullied because she used to be dropped tearful stagefright and I think I hear her Best is the view: grand, sweeping, off by her father, Tony, in his gold Rolls­Royce. I chatted sing a line from “Can’t Buy Me Love”. romantic, across the rooftops of Paris to to a schoolfriend who surprisingly told me that “it Her supporters, her particular tribe, wear the Sacre Coeur. I tell the curator I think happened so rarely it was no big deal”. She added, “Her their star’s T-shirts. They are coached by Van Dongen’s paintings are banal. She mum used to bring Victoria in her Renault.” mothers, or aunts or friends, who cheer described as a post-karaoke act that cuts Smiley faces in tiny, beautifully cut comments kindly that anyone who has and wave banners. up all of those groups’ Best Ofs: a verse purple suits bob up and down – a lost the connection with the fundamental 5. Cheryl Cole was no ordinary Twelve hours later, a strange-looking here and a chorus there that have no magnificent puppet show! in art also lacks sense for the banal. I Geordie girl boy in ill-fitting adult clothes strums reason to be stuck together and sung, look at her, amused and curious as to In the Girls Aloud biography Dreams That away on a guitar. His strings break but except for the fact that they are and in Monday morning, I am at the Baltic what will come out of her mouth next. Glitter, Cheryl says that before Popstars: he continues regardless. The sound is a similar key. Fascinating. Like out of Institute of Contemporary Art in She doesn’t mean the ability to see that The Rivals, she had never sung live in terrible. Sympathy from the emcee allows a William Burroughs novel. Gateshead: a converted flour mill that sits something is banal, she says, but the front of anyone, but I learned otherwise him a reprieve. His few friends wait in The 55th act, Theory of the Sixth on the banks of the Tyne overlooking ability to understand the artistic value of from Andrew Bailey, the boss of an anticipation and horror. Then Harry Degree, bellows out: “Mom’s in the Newcastle. I meet its new and enthusiastic banality. She thanks my girlfriend for entertainment complex in Gateshead which Houseago reprises his song, a fragile tune Moshpit”. She probably is at Glastonbury. director, Godfrey Worsdale, and curator iced coffee and explains further: “A great closed last year. He told me that Cheryl distinguished by a lyric that describes his By the time they segue into “Johnny B David Thorp for lunch on the top-floor work of art is the complete banality, and performed in front of a thousand or so kids recent love affair with a hospital bed, Goode”, I fall in love with what their restaurant. Godfrey describes the power the fault with most banalities is that they at weekends aged just 14, and then proudly a place he never wants to leave. Harry mum just might look like (in the moshpit breakfast he holds here every Monday are not banal enough”. I am sold. produced her first­ever demo recording, Houseago is 16 and I award him full of course!). They are 13 and full of it. morning for the titans and business clans Something Special, from those days. marks. He is a dysfunctional, impossible- Then there is Henry, Rupert and the of Geordieland. We both emerge from ‘History Is for Pissing On’ by Malcolm to-define, wonderful creature. How does Revolvers: girls dressed in purple shifts lunch intent on working together. McLaren, Live at the Pleasance Grand, Sean Smith’s forthcoming works he manage that? fire a revolver from the edge of the stage. On the train back south, David decides Pleasance, Edinburgh, Sunday August 23, including ‘Cheryl’ (Simon & Schuster, More Beatles, Stevie Wonder and Queen It propels them and the group into action: to pop into the British Library to see Alan 2.30pm. For bookings, tel 0131 556 6550 or September 3) and ‘Victoria’ (Pocket, covers follow. Next up is Boomin’, best a cover of Del Shannon’s “Runaway”. Moore give a talk: a psychogeographic visit www.pleasance.co.uk August 6)

Weekend’s most read on FT.com

Raider of the lost archive Elon Musk’s groundbreaking electric car 1 (from July 25) A library of the world’s compounds Continued from page 1 natively, sustaining him in power. To Sayer’s expertise. When the Hitler German authorities grudgingly initi- in honourable fashion, in the deci- 2 (from June 20) this end, he had made a secret agree- Diaries fiasco – in which the Sunday ated an investigation which lasted sive battle for Germany, and to set a of tiny coloured drawings, usually of ment with the head of the army, Gen- Times published extracts from Hit- several years before concluding in good example to all the rest.” Instead Why the Saab inspires intense feelings cherubs, which he later discovered eral Werner von Blomberg, in April ler’s supposed personal journals, 1994 there was insufficient evidence he shot himself. 3 (from July 25) were drawn by Hitler and handed 1934, by which the army would sup- which turned out to be forged – blew to bring Mohnke to trial. He died in a Sayer passed his collection over to out as souvenirs to intimates. (The port Hitler in his taking the presi- up in 1983 he demonstrated, by show- nursing home in Germany in 2001. his children in the mid-1990s and Lunch with the FT: Lars von Trier Sayer Archive contains 60 letters and dency of Germany once the incum- ing how Hitler’s handwriting had One of the star documents in the now acts as the archive’s honorary 4 (from July 25) photographs signed by the Führer, bent Paul von Hindenburg died changed over the years, that the dia- Sayer Archive is the last letter Hitler curator. He continues to look for from 1920 to just before his death in (which he duly did, on August 2). ries were forged. wrote apart from his last will and nuggets of history within it. He is Tyler Brûlé: an air of confidence (from the Berlin bunker in April 1945.) A week later, on August 9, Blomb- In 1988, Sayer tracked down the SS political testament. On April 23 1945, also a consultant to auction house 5 July 25) Another innocuous-looking note erg sent a note just one sentence war criminal General Wilhelm Field Marshal Ferdinand Schoerner International Autograph Auctions. proved to be a document so impor- long, saying, somewhat menacingly: Mohnke, who had been responsible sent a radio message to Hitler To those historians who despair at Robin Lane Fox on the American tant that it actually changed the “My leader, I would like to remind for killing a group of British soldiers exhorting him to leave Berlin as the the thought of ever trying to find 6 genius behind a great English garden course of the 20th century. On you of your statement to the Wehr- in retreat to Dunkirk in 1940 and for Russians approached, and carry on anything “new” about the second (from July 25) August 2 1934 Hitler assumed his new macht. Blomberg.” The general had, two other massacres in 1944. The the war from southern Germany. Hit- world war, I offer the thought that position as supreme commander of by standing by as Hitler crushed the Mohnke case developed into an inter- ler wrote out his response, which there might – perhaps – be other Ian Nigel Andrews on the return of 3D the German Armed Forces, or Wehr- Brownshirts and then took the presi- national “cause célèbre”. The West was radioed to Schoerner. Asking Sayers out there, men whose quiet 7 cinema (from July 25) macht. Some weeks earlier he had dency, effectively allowed him to him to push his group northwards, expertise and dedication can, even destroyed the potential challenge become dictator of Germany. Now he he wrote “every effort must be made seven decades on, shed new light on Andrew Clark asks is classical music from one of his own paramilitary wanted his reward. It was not long in to win the struggle for Berlin”. the story of the greatest cataclysm 8 trying to be fashionable? (from May 30) organisations – the SA, or Brown- coming. On August 20 Hitler issued a With the forces available to him, ever to engulf mankind. shirts – by executing their senior public proclamation which accorded Schoerner was unable to break Nicholas Lander on al fresco dining commanders during The Night of the the German army the sole power to through the tightening Russian Andrew Roberts’ ‘The Storm of War: 9 (from Jul 25) Long Knives. The executions were bear arms on behalf of Germany. encirclement but was nonetheless A New History of the Second World carried out by the Führer’s smaller Blomberg’s note, such a key docu- promoted to commander-in-chief of War’ is published by Allen Lane on Vanessa Friedman: from ‘Harry unit, the SS, but he needed to ensure ment, is not to be found among the the Wehrmacht on April 29, the day August 6. Available through the FT 10Potter’ to prêt­à­porter (from July 18) that the German army did not inter- Bundesarchiv material in Berlin but before Hitler committed suicide. In Bookshop at £20 plus p&p (RRP fere with his plans, as it was the only in the Sayer Archive. this last letter Hitler stated: “I shall £25). Tel: +44 0870 429 5884; body capable of ousting him or, alter- As the collection grew, so did Surrender Gen Jodl (centre) signs Getty remain in Berlin, so as to take part, www.ft.com/bookshop