Sect o :G N aGe: d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 8: 0 c a aGe ta e o b a How Annie Hall’s Great ‘dad pants’ became the look stride of the summer Tuesday 15/06/21 Peony envy Instagram has changed our taste in flowers – and everything else page 3 Anyone for monkey tennis? Peter Baynham on helping create Alan Partridge, Brass Eye and Borat page 8 49 / 73 Sect o :G N aGe: d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 : c a aGe ta e o b a 50 / 73 Sect o :G N aGe:3 d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 7: 9 c a aGe ta e o b a • The Guardian Tuesday 15 June 2021 Pass notes 3 Emma Beddington Do I really like I’m trying plant milk: it is peonies – or am I in stomach- thrall to Instagram? churning n an enforced mid-walk pause as the elderly dog licks Following my bleating about the a lamp-post , my husband’s eyes alight on the nearest ethical complexities of milk , I garden. “Ugh,” he says. “That’s ugly.” A thrill of have been experimenting with № 4,295 delicious horror runs through me: he is pointing at a plant-based options, prompted O peony. A bubblegum-pink one, sure, but a peony: it’s by many helpful suggestions from like saying you hate puppies, or your mum. “You hate non-dairy evangelists. This has Virtual intimacy those?” I ask him, scandalised. “But … they’re peonies!” He shrugs. involved numerous sacrifices The thing is, I don’t think I could have picked a peony out to the dark lord Tetra Pak, and Age: As old as the telephone, or possibly even of a lineup five years ago. The reason I can now is not (just) my the kind of side-effects you see the postage stamp. advancing age: it’s Instagram. on medicine packaging: nausea, Appearance: irtual, digital, not safe for The peony is the main event of the botanical Insta-year, dwarfing dysphagia and vomiting. I’m ultra- work . even big hitters such as #wisteria – cascading purple catnip for sensitive to tannin, but addicted Are we talking about sex? It’s sex-based, yes. influencers (728k posts) – or the 2021 lacey upstart cow parsley, layer to tea, and plant milks do not seem But it’s not sex. Well, no, but only in the upon layer of blowsy, extravagantly aspirational petals gracing the to neutralise its nausea-inducing sense that you’re not actually there. grid. Peonies are peak Instagram, the mascot of this rose, gold and effect the way cow’s milk does. Not actually where? In the same room as the pink place where nothing bad seems to happen. A coconut-based contender, other person, or persons. Don’t get me wrong: I like Instagram. Some find the relentless which got rave reviews for its Doesn’t that make sex difficult? Are you positivity mentally draining, feeding into their insecurities, but I “neutral taste” (if you’ve tried pea kidding? It makes it much easier. enjoy pretty micro-treats for my tired eyes. milk, you’ll understand), seemed I suppose it cuts down on transport costs. I do worry, however, about what it is doing to my taste, and taste perfect for the first few mouthfuls, It’s more than that. According to a survey more widely. I have no knack for the beautiful and unusual . My but by halfway through my cup, I conducted by OnePoll for the dating site home is a bland time capsule of what was vaguely fashionable five was rushing to throw up: not the Plenty of Fish, nearly half of young single to 10 years ago (knockoff Farrow & Ball Scullerymaid’s Impetigo optimum start to the day. Americans haven’t been physically intimate crossed with that episode of US sitcom Portlandia where they put Rice milk was oddly reminiscent with anyone since the pandemic started. birds on everything ). Previously, I copied more stylish friends; now of those soya desserts my mum’s I bet they can’t wait to be out there, and I just copy Instagram. hippy friends used to pretend were at it, again. About 42 % feel that way, but It is not a deliberate thought process, more a gradual bleeding “just like chocolate mousse” when I two-thirds of respondents said they would of all those variegated house plants and maximalist wallpapers was little: a lie then and a lie now. continue to rely on virtual intimacy after the into my consciousness. The Instagram algorithm sees that I like Oat, of course, is the plant milk pandemic, including sexting, phone sex and looking at hens, cakes and videos of porcupines du jour: a market predicted to be video sex. I am condemned eating, and kindly gives me more of them. Then, worth $6.8bn (£4.6bn) by 2026. Doesn’t all this virtual sex make them like a subtly patronising friend, it suggests what I went for doorstep-delivery anxious? On the contrary: 45 % of singles had to alifeof ogling else I might like, nudging me in towards the glass bottles. Unfortunately, the more confidence in their virtual intimacy age appropriate and inoffensively pretty until sight of this in my morning brew skills than in their in-person techniques, rattan chairs and I find myself thinking that maybe I do need – a chilling, perpetual-motion including 54% of men. Murano glass tumblers, or a reclaimed Irish snowstorm of oat scum , seemingly And what exactly counts as a virtual Berber patio rugs linen dress. This week, it showed me a 1930s alive – is stomach-churning. intimacy skill? I don’t know – good spelling, French greenhouse, a cake stand shaped like Now Alpro has launched the I suppose. Some experience with lighting a cabbage leaf and a “refreshing Japanese soya-based My Cuppa, targeting the couldn’t hurt, and knowing when to shut up snacking experience”: give it a week and I will doubtless be longing tea problem. I managed one mug of probably comes in handy. for all three. it without even really noticing. The I don’t have the bandwidth for this at the Does it matter? It’s just nice pictures, no obligation to buy. And I second attempt was less successful. moment. I know – it’s hard to process, and don’t buy (immediately – though I fear it shapes what I might buy It’s close, but slightly spooky: the we’ve all been under a lot of stress lately. later). There are, of course, serious questions around selling us stuff uncanny valley of milk substitutes. No, I mean I literally don’t have the based on our data, but surely that ship has sailed: we have accepted I’m not giving up. Science has bandwidth. I’m never going to be virtually it as the price we pay for our social media dopamine buzz. given us some highly effective intimate with upload speeds like these. But what about what it is doing to aesthetics, and, by association, vaccines against Covid in a matter There’s probably a lot of it in your area. creativity? Because it is so easy when you are insecure about your of months. Surely a non-dairy Is there no future for the old-fashioned one- taste, or simply overwhelmed by the infinity of possible influences liquid that does not turn tea into night stand? Not if the young people of today out there to fall back on default curation by algorithm. a curdled, nightmarish broth is have anything to say about it. According to When that happens, taste – what excites us, what we like – within our grasp? the survey, 57 % of millennials think one- becomes flattened and homogenised. The algorithm commoditises night stands have been consigned to a pre- aesthetics: it isn’t in the business of showing us anything shocking, Covid past. challenging or even particularly interesting, just what is saleable. It Are we saying that no one is ever going to is as though we’re consuming Huel, the meal replacement powder , have meaningless, non-virtual sex again? for the eyes – blandly sustaining, the online equivalent of identikit It’s still happening, through a process called high streets that are so dull there is no reason to go there . “ room-mate-ing”. I am probably condemned to a life of ogling rattan chairs and Does that mean mating, but in an actual Berber-style patio rugs . Do I even, intrinsically, like peonies? I room? No, it means having sex with your have no idea. But living with someone as resolutely offline as my roommate, or housemate, out of sheer husband offers a bracing corrective. He might not understand expediency. E V hashtags, but for good or bad, his taste is entirely his own. Needs must – I won’t judge. Thanks, just “So what flowers do you like?” I ask him cautiously. “Dandelions,” don’t tell my virtual boyfriend or he’ll he answers, firmly (he feeds them to his tortoises). Looking at them unsubscribe. afresh, I realise, excitedly, how beautiful they are . Then I check Do say: “I can’t tell you what I’d do to you if the app: 2.1m #dandelion posts. Turns out, Instagram got there I was there, because if I was there I wouldn’t E before me. do it.” : E Don’t say: “Get dressed, Frank – this is the V Wednesday planning meeting.” 51 / 73 Sect o :G N aGe: d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 8:0 c a aGe ta e o b a • The Guardian 4 Tuesday 15 June 2021 ‘You can’t consent when you’re asleep’ longer wearing her pyjama bottoms t was 3am, had nowhere to go, for example, they had ever been and had semen on her body.