1. f i l m / s t y l e / i n v e s t m e n t / S P O R T / Tr av e l
POLO, PARTIES AND POWER GAMES
p.31
M AR IO ED T om
SUMMER 2012
T E S T I N O p.17 S M I T H p.26 H olla n der p.66
What I owe to Peru Roger Federer’s late style In love with folk
/
S P E C TAT O R L I F E
/
ISSUE 02
T H E CU RIOUS
REBE C CA HALL
p.22
Britain’s subtlest young star on spies, Hollywood and lessons from her father
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David Morris
www.davidmorris.com
Dent
www.dentlondon.com
Graham
www.graham-london.com
Harrods
www.harrods.com
Humphrey Butler Ltd
www.humphreybutler.com
Jack Vartanian
www.jackvartanian.com
Jade Jagger
www.jadejagger.co.uk
Nigel Milne
www.nigelmilne.co.uk
Robert Procop
www.robertprocop.com
Suzannah Crabb
www.suzannah.com
The Hummingbird Bakery
www.hummingbirdbakery.com
Theo Fennell
www.theofennell.com
Tiffany
www.tiffany.co.uk
William & Son
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Spectator Life
Supplied free with the 23 June issue of The Spectator
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Stockists and Ed Letter_Spectator Life_Spectator Supplements 210x260_ 10 6/6/12 11:27:25
11. EDI T OR’S L ET T ER
T he predominant theme
running through this, the second issue of Spectator Life,
is Britishness. It would be redundant to point out that
patriotic feelings are running high this summer, but rather
than join the jamboree in championing the Olympics, we
have chosen to focus on some of our nation’s other great
strengths. We celebrate great British design, in fashion,
interiors and jewellery; the rise of private members’ clubs
in London; the bucolic pleasures of the British countryside;
and a day at the polo.
If there’s another strand running through the magazine,
it is understatement. Consider our cover star Rebecca Hall,
whose performances are always fascinatingly nuanced;
and the modesty, grace and sheer sportsmanship of Roger
Federer, whose ‘delicious contribution’ to tennis we glorify
in these pages. He may be approaching the autumn of
his career but that in no way diminishes the midsummer
delight of watching him play. We wish him well as
Wimbledon fortnight begins. He may not be British,
but he’s still the best.
Lucinda Baring, Editor
Spend a third of your life in first class
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Chairman Andrew Neil
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Deputy editor Danielle Wall
Sub-editors Peter Robins, Victoria Lane
London Paris New York Berlin Stockholm Beijing
Design & art direction Steve Fenn – Design by St, www.designbyst.com
Client services director Melissa McAdden:
melissa@spectator.co.uk, 020 7961 0212
11
SpectatorLife_234x90mm.indd 1 07/03/2012 12:06
Stockists and Ed Letter_Spectator Life_Spectator Supplements 210x260_ 11 6/6/12 11:27:45
13. CONTENTS
17 47 C U LT U R E STYLE
31 61 LIFE
14. The Index
Where to go and what to see in July, August and September
T R AV E L
43. Invested interests
Merryn Somerset Webb on London property
17. A gift to Peru 47. Rock stars
Mario Testino on giving something back to Lima Sophia Waugh on celebrities’ adventures
in jewellery design
21. Pop fiction
Chinese writers are finding new platforms, says Clarissa Tan 51. Personality, please
Hatta Byng tells us how to create interiors
22. Interview: Rebecca Hall with character
The rising Hollywood star talks to Peter Hoskin
54. A stitch in time
26. An ace in autumn Mary Wakefield on London’s best-kept fashion secret
The eternal joyfulness of Roger Federer, by Ed Smith
57. The Wish List
31. Polo, anyone? The best of British watch and jewellery design
The party crowd are too much for some sponsors, says Dan Jones
61. Yacht or not?
34. Cheaper by the glass Ian Henderson on where to get afloat in the Mediterranean
David Blackburn seeks out vintage wine at old-fashioned prices
64. Globe trotting
37. Members only Which hotels to head for this summer
Matthew Bell takes us on a tour of Mayfair’s hottest new clubs
66. One to Watch
40. Less muck, more brass Tom Hollander extols the appeal of Hannah Peel,
Harry Mount on the new breed of country squire a rising young folk star
13
Contents_Spectator Life_Spectator Supplements 210x260_ 13 6/6/12 11:36:43
14. T H E I NDE X
E d va r d M u n c h P o r t Eli o t
Tate Modern, Until 14 Oct F e s t i va l
His most famous painting (all Cornwall, 19-22 July
$120 million of it) dates from The stunning seat of the Earl
the 1890s, but the Norwegian and Countess of St Germans
expressionist kept working is the setting for this eclectic
JUL until the 1940s; this extensive arts and literature festival.
AUG
survey show makes a case for Ali Smith, Geoff Dyer, Kate
his later work, including film Summerscale and Jon Ronson
and photography will all be appearing
Ch a ri o t s o f F ir e E n gl a n d V
Gielgud Theatre, Until 10 Nov S o u t h Afri c A
The great British Olympic The Oval, 19-23 July
story adapted for the stage by This could be the Test that
Hampstead Theatre, complete decides the No. 1 team in the
with that Vangelis score world. And if South Africa’s
fast bowlers hit their stride,
M e t a m o rph o s i s it could also decide the fate
National Gallery, 11 July-23 Sept of several England batsmen
The National’s two great
Titians — ‘Diana and J u li u s C a e s a r
Actaeon’ and ‘The Death Newcastle Theatre Royal,
of Actaeon’ — serve as 19-28 July
Greg Doran’s African Caesar
Dr D e e in Newcastle’s lovely 1837 L o n d o n Roa d
English National Opera, theatre, as part of the RSC’s National Theatre, Until 6 Sept
Until 7 July World Shakespeare Festival A musical about the Ipswich
A second opera from Damon prostitute murders might
Albarn, the Blur frontman, Th e L o d g e r sound like a dreadful
this one about the brilliant Barbican, 21 July idea, but Alecky Blythe’s
occultist John Dee, who Hitchcock’s most acclaimed breathtaking show is returning
was one of Elizabeth I’s silent – an audacious serial- by popular demand
most remarkable courtiers. killer drama – is likely to be
Typically inventive and even more gripping when Antony’s
eclectic music fits a staging accompanied by the London M e lt d o w n
with something of the Symphony Orchestra Southbank Centre,
Elizabethan masque to it 1-12 Aug
B e iji n g For his programme at
G e rh a r d S y mph o n y the Southbank’s genre-
Richter Or c h e s t r a bending festival, Antony
Louvre, Until 17 Sept and London Hegarty has invited Laurie
If you enjoyed his big P hilh a rm o n i c Anderson, Marc Almond
retrospective at Tate Modern Or c h e s t r a and the performance artist
last year, a closer look at Royal Festival Hall, 29 July Marina Abramovic, among
Richter’s works on paper inspiration, along with their Two top-class symphony many others
will be well worth the trip Scottish sister ‘Diana and orchestras, two Olympic-
Callisto’, for new works from themed pieces from China —
big names including Chris one of them ‘a gift to London’
Ofili and Mark Wallinger — oh, and Beethoven’s Ninth
14
Diary_Spectator Life_Spectator Supplements 210x260_ 14 6/6/12 11:38:08
17. VIEW FROM PERU
Photographer Mario Testino on what he owes his homeland, and why
he is setting up a foundation and exhibition centre in Lima
All images Mario Testino
17
Culture - Mario Testino_Spectator Life_Spectator Supplements 210x260_ 17 6/6/12 11:41:01
18. C u lt u r e
Claudia Schiffer, German Vogue, Paris 2008.
Previous page: Stella Tennant, American Vogue, New York 2006
A
couple of years ago I had means. I want to give them an international
an exhibition at the MALI platform to exhibit their work, which I
Museo de Arte in Lima. On hope in turn will help them get residences
seeing the positive reaction to show their work abroad. I love Lima; I
of my fellow countrymen, feel excited by its potential and I am in the
I started to feel my work should live in fortunate position of being able to create
Peru so the people could feel it belonged opportunities for people which they might
to them. not have had otherwise.
Later, a friend brought a derelict build- This foundation is also a way of saying
ing to my attention. I’ve always been thank you, as I think my nationality has
obsessed with the great buildings that were in some ways been the key to my career.
put up after Peru became independent in When I started out, all the other photogra-
1821. Many of them were built in the 1850s phers on the circuit were German, Italian,
but became largely disused due to their size French, American or British. My Peru-
and the cost of the upkeep. My friend sug- vian background gave me a totally differ-
gested I buy the building and restore it. So ent perspective. It’s no secret that I adore
I set up MATE, Asociación Mario Testino, Italy, London and Brazil — Italy because
and established there a permanent home it’s part of my heritage, London because
for my work as well as a foundation to sup- it’s the most exciting place in the world,
port local artists. full of tolerance, humour and individuality,
The foundation’s aim is to identify and Brazil because it taught me what it is
Peruvian artists who have talent but lack to have a really good time.
18
Culture - Mario Testino_Spectator Life_Spectator Supplements 210x260_ 18 6/6/12 11:41:32
19. In some ways
I think my nationality
has been the key to my
career. My Peruvian
background gave
me a totally different
perspective to all the
other photographers
on the circuit
But home is where the heart is and, in a
very humble way, I feel I carry the flag for
Peru. I want to use that to my advantage.
When I was younger, I considered enter-
ing the priesthood. My career followed
another path in the end, but I still want to
put my energy into good causes when and
where I can.
MATE will open with ‘Todo o Nada’, an
exhibition of my work that was first shown
in Madrid in 2010. When choosing which
of my portraits to include in the show, I
decided to concentrate on putting together
a collection of images that contradict but
compliment each other. There are portraits
of people dressed most exquisitely in cou-
ture; in others, the models are in a state of
undress, even semi-nudity.
What I love about photography is being
Kate Moss,
able to share what I see. Everyone I photo-
British Vogue, graph adds something different; they are all
London 2008 fabulous and interesting in some way. Take
19
Culture - Mario Testino_Spectator Life_Spectator Supplements 210x260_ 19 6/6/12 11:42:46
20. C u lt u r e
Nicole Kidman, American Vogue, England 2006
Stella Tennant. Every time I work with woman; she collects art and is always curi-
her, the final result is completely differ- ous about life. The same can be said for
ent; each photograph is full of her person- Kate Moss. She and I have had parallel
ality. She is very down to earth and full of careers, despite the age gap between us. It
surprises. I have come to know her well. In takes a photo rapher a lot longer to build
g
fact, she married my assistant, David Las- a career than it does a model and Kate has
net. One day I was working with Stella and been an inspiration to me from the very
noticed there was something funny going beginning — not only for her beauty, but
on. When I asked her who she was flirting also her style, kindness, humour and open-
with, I ealised one of my assistants was
r ness. She’s awesome.
blushing furiously. They now have four Every person I photograph brings some-
children, one of whom is my goddaughter, thing unique with them; they are all fabu-
Jasmine. lous, beautiful and interesting in some way.
It has been fascinating working with People often ask me who is the most beau-
models and watching their careers develop. tiful person I’ve ever photographed and
I’ve always been obsessed with how people the honest answer is that it’s impossible to
change through the years. When I first met choose just one. But the portraits I took of
Claudia Schiffer, she was only 17 and just Princess Diana have become iconic; they
embarking on modelling. Then her career stay in people’s minds. So perhaps I should
took off and she became a supermodel. choose her, simply because she is the most
She has developed into such an interesting
everlasting.
20
Culture - Mario Testino_Spectator Life_Spectator Supplements 210x260_ 20 6/6/12 11:43:17
21. P op f ict ion
China’s pulp writers reflect their urban readership: spoilt, young and tech-savvy
Clarissa Tan
T
o the West, Chinese literature Gabbana accessories, or looking winsome dad’s mysterious journal. And the ‘work-
is a takeaway that comes in two in a crumpled bed. Bro Guo may have been place novel’ is a genre in its own right — Du
flavours — the ancient clas- accused of plagiarism, but that didn’t stop Lala’s Promotion Diary tells about a wom-
sic that offers sage morsels of his novel Cry Me a River, about a pregnant an’s rise from secretary to human resources
advice, such as the I Ching and Sun Tzu’s high-school student, from selling a million person at a Fortune 500 company, and has
Art of War, and the weighty full-course copies in ten days. He has also released been made into a 32-part TV series. Fan-
Nobel-winning novel, often written by a music album called Lost. tasy, as you might expect, is strong — Bro
someone the Beijing authorities have put Much of Chinese popular fiction is pop- Guo’s first book was set in the Ice Kingdom
in the slammer. Chinese authors, in the star fiction, the domain of a generation of and told the story of a 350-year-old prince
western imagination, are either dead or youngsters who don’t know what it’s like forced to kill his brother.
incarcerated. Clearly though, a country to have brothers or sisters. Their plots exist
H
of 1.4 billion people must consume more in a kind of shiftless, wistful, self-centred owever, it’s not the content
varied fare. In the past ten years, Chinese never-never land, the sort of literary land- that’s most significant, but
popular fiction has developed a weird and scape you might get if previous generations the platform. Much of Chi-
wacky texture all of its own, one resulting had feared for their lives for producing cer- na’s pulp fiction is no longer
from a confluence of factors — the Cul- tain kinds of art — and if everyone then on pulp — an entire industry has emerged
tural Revolution, the one-child policy and took a great leap forward into wanton in mobile literature, where books are down-
the internet. And just the fact that China is loaded and read on smartphones. A crop
pretty weird in general. of new authors now write uniquely for
Take Han Han, probably the nation’s the mobile, China’s pictogram-based lan-
most famous writer. Han published his first guage being particularly suited for the text
book, Triple Door, when he was 17. Relat- Much of Chinese screen: the biggest phone publisher, Clou-
ing the experiences of a third-year junior
school student in Shanghai, it sold 20 mil-
popular fiction is the dary, started off by making phone games.
The rights to film the popular mobile novel
lion copies and is the best-selling novel in domain of a generation Ghost Blows Out the Light was sold for
China in 20 years. But Han, now 29, is not of youngsters who don’t millions of yuan, according to C114 website.
just a novelist. He’s also a professional rac- Then of course there’s web literature, tailored
ing driver and China’s most popular blog- have brothers or sisters for the internet — a sub-industry now worth
ger — indeed, by some accounts, the most five billion yuan (£500 million) a year.
popular blogger in the world. Han appears The business is brutal. A new pop-lit
in many photos as a fey young man with generation has popped up to usurp the
hair perpetually skew-whiff, like the lead materialism. Anchored in nothing, they likes of Han and Guo and, like child gym-
vocalist of a boy band. often twist into anything. nasts, they appear to be getting younger
But even his glossy public persona dims In Daffodils Took Carp and Went Away, and younger. If Han and Guo are of the
in comparison to that of the cross-dressing 26-year-old Zhang Yueran’s hit novel, post-1980s generation, these new writers
author Guo Jingming, Big Brother Guo to a bulimic girl falls in love with her stepfa- are of the post-1990s, not so much Little
fans, whose mass-market fiction has been ther, is mistreated by her mother and then Emperors as Precious Snowflakes, so-called
described by the New York Times as focus- carted off to boarding school. Sheng Keyi’s because they’re too coddled to withstand
ing on ‘the tortured psyches of his ado- Northern Girls follows the adventures of much heat. Authors Tang Chao and Yang
lescent characters, who either nurse their a country girl seeking a new life in the city, Daqing were around 13 when they first got
melancholy by sitting alone for long hours her future driven by her unusually large published; Yang Yang — all of nine when
under trees and on rooftops, or try to blunt mammaries. There’s a constant searching he made his debut — has been compared to
it with drinking, fighting and karaoke’. Big — Nanpai Sanshu’s Grave Robber series J.K. Rowling. His first book, The Magic Vio-
Bro Guo’s photos feature him half-naked traces the adventures of the grandson of lin, is about a little boy who befriends magi-
in the shower, or bedecked with Dolce & a grave robber who discovers his grand- cal objects after his father disappears.
21
21
Clarissa Tan on Chinese pulp fiction_Spectator Life_Spectator Supplements 210x260_ 21 6/6/12 11:44:38
22. C u lt u r e
Nathaniel Goldberg/Trunk Archive
22
Rebecca Hall Cover Story_Spectator Life_Spectator Supplements 210x260_ 22 6/6/12 11:51:32
23. R E BE C CA
One of Britain’s finest young actresses on
tackling challenging roles and playing the piano
HALL
Interview Peter Hoskin. Portrait Nathaniel Goldberg
Rebecca Hall has walked into the room and — nope — my movie-
star radar still hasn’t started beeping. I don’t mean this in a bad
way: there are countless photo shoots and red carpet appearances
to prove that she has awesome star wattage. It’s just that today she
seems so unfussy, so low-key. She tugs off the woolly hat she was
wearing against the rain outside, reclines into a chair, and kicks one
sneakered foot over the other. ‘Brrr… it’s so nasty out there.’
If you’ve seen any of Ms Hall’s movie performances so far, this
may be what you were expecting. In films such as Woody Allen’s
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) or Ben Affleck’s The Town (2010),
she stands out because of her subtlety. She’s one of those wonder-
ful actresses who do most of the work with their eyes, building up
a character with tiny flashes of emotion, rather than with look-at-me
dramatics. Only a few minutes into our conversation, I suspect some-
thing similar could be said of her in real life. This woman who had
the newspapers frothing last year after it was confirmed that she was
dating the film director Sam Mendes (only shortly after his divorce
from Kate Winslet) is remarkably understated as film stars go.
Strangely enough, some of this may be down to her theatri-
cal background. Her father is Sir Peter Hall, founder of the Royal
Shakespeare Company, and much of her immediate family works
on or around the stage. ‘I worked out, when I started doing thea-
tre, that I tended to play all the emotions in the most extreme way.
After three weeks of rehearsals I’d chip it down until all of that was
on the inside and I was able to play the minimum on the outside.
I suppose when I started doing film that became even more inter-
esting because you could really communicate an inner life without
playing it. Just have the inner life.’
Inner or outer life, Rebecca Hall seems to be changing things
at the moment. As she turns 30, the film roles that she’s taking
on are different from before, perhaps even more extravagant.
There’s her performance as Beth, a hyperactive former stripper
who totters into the world of sports betting and beyond, in Lay the
Favorite. And then there is Sylvia — scheming, destructive Sylvia
— in the forthcoming television adaptation of Ford Madox Ford’s
novel Parade’s End, scripted by Tom Stoppard. ‘Without wanting to
sound frightfully grand about it,’ she explains, ‘I do this purely out
of curiosity about people. If I just do the one type I’m never going
to satisfy that curiosity, so the more outside my realm of experi-
ence, the more outside my immediate understanding, the better.’
And that realm of experience could soon be stretched even fur-
ther. On the very day of this interview, the internet is all aquiver with
23
Rebecca Hall Cover Story_Spectator Life_Spectator Supplements 210x260_ 23 6/6/12 11:52:11
24. C u lt u r e
Hall with Woody
Allen on the set
of Vicky Cristina
Barcelona, which
brought her to a new
level of fame in 2008.
She’s likely to step
up again this year
with the Stoppard-
scripted Parade’s End,
below left, in which
she’s the unfaithful
wife of Benedict
Cumberbatch’s noble
soldier, and as co-star
to Bruce Willis in
Stephen Frears’s Lay
the Favourite, below
the news that Hall is to be cast in the comic-book mega-film Iron I read the book, as she’s acting within incredibly reactionary con-
Man 3. She doesn’t confirm or deny the reports, although she does fines. I kept on thinking if she had been born into a different family,
grimace when I tell her how the role is being described (‘A sexy with an education, after women’s rights, what would have hap-
Woody Allen Antena 3 Films/Mediapro/The Kobal Collection; Parades End BBC/Mammoth Screen
scientist? God, that’s depressing. Why can’t she just be a scientist pened to her? She probably would have been running the world!’
or why can’t she just be sexy, why do they have to qualify it?’), and There are projects with more obvious modern parallels on
admits that she isn’t so averse to doing big Hollywood fare as she Hall’s slate as well. She is currently bobbing between courtrooms,
was in the past. ‘I used to be all very Marlene Dietrich about it: “I shooting a film about the legal fog that surrounds the intelligence
don’t want to do anything like that! I just want to be on my own!” community — and, gosh, it has her animated. ‘I understand that,
But I’m getting over that now.’ for national security reasons, it is important to keep some things
We mostly discuss Parade’s End, though. This BBC and HBO secret. But somebody has to be given a fair trial, and if you start
co-production fits in with a peculiar vogue for dramas — such as letting that slip, and you start creating weird situations that are out-
Downton Abbey and Boardwalk Empire — centred on the years side of the law, it’s just not fair. It’s as simple as that.’
during or just after the first world war, when all the wounds were Before Hall has to leave, I quickly ask whether she has any
still fresh. ‘There is something specific about times of complication, heroes. Her eyes gleam as she replies, ‘Plenty! But mainly jazz
financial crisis and all the rest of it, when we look to certain histo- pianists. Bud Powell or Art Tatum or Bill Evans, people like that.
ries that have connections with our own,’ she muses. ‘I don’t know, I get nearly everything from music. If I had been remotely talented
I’ve always been quite a nostalgic person and I’m quite pro it.’ in that department I’d have done it in a flash. I still try to practise
Her character, Sylvia, will probably be advertised as the queen piano for a couple of hours each day. It’s how I decompress.’
bitch of the series, not least because of the affairs she conducts And then, as compact as one of Thelonious Monk’s melodies,
in defiance of her husband, our starched protagonist Christopher it’s back on with the woolly hat and the jacket, and out into the
Tietjens (played by Benedict Cumberbatch). But Hall is keen to rain. If you don’t look closely, she might be just another person,
get in her defence early. ‘I felt increasingly sorry for Sylvia when sliding through just another wet afternoon in London.
24
Rebecca Hall Cover Story_Spectator Life_Spectator Supplements 210x260_ 24 6/6/12 11:52:34
25. TO BREAK THE RULES,
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THEM.
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TODAY THE NEW ROYAL OAK COLLECTION STAYS TRUE TO
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OVER 130 YEARS OF HOROLOGICAL CRAFT, MASTERY AND
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26. C U LT U R E
AC E
AN IN
AU T U M N
As Roger Federer’s power wanes,
his grace becomes even more evident
Ed Smith
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Ed Smith on Roger Federer_Spectator Life_Spectator Supplements 210x260_ 26 6/6/12 11:54:41
27. T
here shouldn’t be anything left to say That he is lucky to earn a living playing a sport he pro-
about Roger Federer. The superla- fesses to enjoy seems never to have occurred to him.
tives ought to be exhausted, the eulo- Compare late Woods with the eternal joyfulness of
gies weary, the mysteries resolved. late Federer. I have watched Federer field questions from
And how could anyone advance on journalists asking if he is planning to retire. You don’t
David Foster Wallace’s New York need to listen to the words; Federer’s body language tells
Times essay from 2006? ‘Almost any- the real tale. We might translate them roughly like this:
one who loves tennis has had… Federer Moments. These ‘Why would I give this up, why would I not want to enter-
are times, as you watch the young Swiss play, when the tain as I do, to bring joy around the world? What could be
jaw drops and eyes protrude and sounds are made that better? No. 3, No. 4, No. 1 — yes, each number has mean-
bring spouses in from other rooms to see if you’re OK.’ ing. But which other sportsman is able to be so gloriously
Foster Wallace’s words still hold. But the Federer himself? Who can run that race as well as I do?’
story has become even more interesting since those hal- Revealingly, his rivals recognise this about Federer.
cyon days of the mid-2000s, when he was so dominant Nadal holds an 18-10 winning record in head-to-heads.
that he won five consecutive Wimbledon titles. ‘Late Fed- But he insists Federer is the greater player. Nadal’s convic-
erer’ — assuming, perhaps rashly, that this is the autumn tion is only partly explained by Federer’s superior talent
of his career — is even more fascinating than ‘High Fed- (Nadal’s words), and only partly informed by Federer’s
erer’. I do not apologise for the artistic terminology. If higher tally of majors. I suspect there is also a deeper
you do not admire the way Federer plays tennis then you reason. Reading Nadal’s autobiography, you sense that
are blind to beauty. Federer is a tennis player through he subliminally envies Federer. Nadal has always played
and through, but the play he produces should not be clas- with a hounded intensity, as if he were scared of someone
sified as simply ‘sport’: it has a universal quality. noticing he’d taken his foot off the gas. Even though he
So we begin with two Federer paradoxes. In terms of has beaten Federer so many times, Nadal sees in his great
ranking points, he is now behind both Novak Djokovic rival an expressiveness and openness that he finds more
and Rafael Nadal. The world’s most admired sportsman is elusive. Nadal has trained himself to be the ultimate win-
only its No. 3 tennis player. Secondly, this relative decline ner, but the real nature of winning is more complicated
has not chipped away at his innate self-possession and than what is written on the score sheet. For Nadal, the
self-confidence. Most champions find being dragged more he suffers, the better he plays. Federer is just the
back into the pack unbearably painful. Not Federer. He way he is. As a life, that is hard to improve upon.
demonstrates the same joy, grace and expressiveness as At the peak of the David Beckham craze, Julie Burch-
world No. 3 that he once showed as No. 1. By doing so, he ill replied to Beckham’s critics by asking them to stand
has made a delicious contribution to the age-old debate alone in a room and shout ‘I feel sorry for David Beck-
about how to measure greatness in sport. ham!’ They would, she felt, be unable to spit out the
A few years ago, two sportsmen could claim to be the words. It was a nice conceit: no doubt Beckham enjoys
outstanding athlete in the world: Tiger Woods and Fed- life. But he surely suffers from the vulnerability of some-
erer. By chance, they had very different styles and person- one who needs to be liked. Federer has much of Beck-
alities. Woods embodied the triumph of determination. ham’s charm, but more self-reliance. I suggest Federer’s
He sought to be a machine; treated emotions as flaws to critics try shouting ‘I feel sorry for Roger Federer!’ at top
be ironed out like a faulty backswing. Federer, in con- volume alone in their garage.
trast, for all his epic consistency, embodied the effortless Federer’s achievements are the least of it — the 16
elegance of the perfect amateur. So which would prevail? majors, the 22 consecutive semi-finals, the way he raised
Would future champions be defined by self-expression the bar of courtesy and sportsmanship. No, he has done
(the Federer type) or iron-willed self-denial (the Woods something much bigger than that. He has always been
type)? Was professional sport marching towards the tri- entirely, joyously himself. ‘I have to play every point dif-
umph of willpower and the elimination of joy? ferently,’ he once said. Every day presents the chance to
Watching the two players now tells us the answer. play new points and to express himself in new ways.
Shorn of his dominance, we can see the emptiness that In his essay ‘Late Style’, Edward Said described how
ran through Woods’s career. Winning was the only point ‘age confers a spirit of reconciliation and serenity on late
for Woods; the game, and the friendships within the works’. We’re now enjoying Federer’s late works. In their
game, were incidental. Now that Woods is not winning, own way, they are at least the equal of his earlier pre-
he struggles to find joy in anything — he snarls his way eminence. How typical of the mercurial Federer that he
around the course, cursing the failure of the fairways and would start with perfection and then improve upon it.
greens to co-operate with his commands. He finds the
Getty Images
challenge of being a human baffling and unfair. ‘Why am Ed Smith’s Luck: What It Means and Why It Matters
I being asked to stoop so low?’ his body language asks. is out now
27
Ed Smith on Roger Federer_Spectator Life_Spectator Supplements 210x260_ 27 6/6/12 11:55:05
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31. POLO, A N YON E?
How the event of the season lost its sparkle and its sponsor
Dan Jones
Getty Images
31
Dan Jones on Cartier Polo_Spectator Life_Spectator Supplements 210x260_ 31 6/6/12 11:56:41
32. LIFE
Alice Gipps Polo Photography www.alicegipps.com
T
here’s a moment when the day The polo season runs from May to Sep- Angelina Jolie or Piers Morgan. Some
turns. The sun has gone down, tember. On pretty much any weekend dur- come for the sport, but many more come
the clonk of mallet on ball has ing the summer you can sniff out a match, for the larks afterwards.
fallen silent, and the wicker mostly in the corridor between the river This year, however, Cartier has dropped
h
ampers have been packed away, back into Thames and the M4. Polo is one of the more its sponsorship of the International, and
the boots of the SUVs and 4x4s from which agreeable spectator sports imaginable. It’s switched focus to another event, at the same
they were taken earlier in the afternoon. exciting, demanding supreme physical fit- ground but on a different day. After sev-
All around the Guards Polo Club at Wind- ness and bravery from its contestants (both eral years of trying to weed out the trash-
sor, people are calling their chauffeurs, pil- ponies and men). But unlike an afternoon ier elements of the crowd who came to the
ing back into their cars and snaking out at, say, the football, your fellow spectator is International to table-dance — most years
of the park, towards the motorway — east not likely to be a puce-faced bald man with since 2008 there has been a story about the
to Chelsea or west back towards the Cots- halitosis and a pie gut. glamour model Katie Price, a.k.a. Jordan,
wolds. Polo’s daytime set is going home. Rather, polo attracts the well-heeled being ‘banned’ from the event — Cartier
The traffic is moving, however, in both and well-groomed. As John Zammett, head has finally abandoned ship. It has switched
directions. As dark descends over Wind- of PR at Audi UK, who sponsor a number to the smaller, more exclusive Queens Cup,
sor, a new crowd is arriving for whom the of the highest-profile polo events in the held at Guards a month earlier, long before
night has nothing to do with polo and eve- calendar, puts it, polo attracts ‘very high- the Chinawhite tent has gone up.
rything to do with partying. The rumble of end individuals’. ‘When we started our association, polo
bass has replaced the thunder of hooves. In The greatest concentration of those was associated with the kind of lientele
c
the huge Chinawhite tent the most raucous high-end individuals has traditionally been that we knew: the elite, the kings, the
shindig in the polo calendar is about to begin. at the International. The event attracts queens, the maharajas — all these people
Corks are popped; shots are served; tanked- crowds of up to 25,000, including actors, were associated with the sport of polo,’ says
up flopsies from Fulham get their thighs out pop-stars, socialites, journalists, royals, mod- Arnaud M. Bamberger, executive chairman
and dance on tables, sweaty hair plastered els and the broader set of the internation- of Cartier. ‘But there was also something
on their foreheads. These are the two faces ally wealthy. Chuck a polo ball and you’d very exciting about the sport: the unique-
of what used to be known — until this sum- be unlucky not to hit someone like Prince ness, the beauty, the danger.’
mer — as the Cartier International Polo. Harry, Emma Watson, Freddie Windsor, Over the past three decades, Cartier
32
Dan Jones on Cartier Polo_Spectator Life_Spectator Supplements 210x260_ 32 6/6/12 11:57:09
