News

To see the News Archive from Year One of the Club (October 2006 to October 2007) click here.

To see the News Archive from Year Two of the Club (October 2007 to October 2008) click here.

To see many splendid daguerreotypes documenting the Club’s antics, click here.

2^nd June

Gentleman Thief Outwits the French

A man in a fedora hat walked into a high-class jewellers Chopard in Paris last Saturday, produced a pistol with a silencer and instructed staff to put necklaces and watches worth £5.8 million into a bag. Then the unmasked, smartly dressed man in his 50s walked from the building and melted into the tourist crowd. The sauvely audacious raid took less than two minutes and was executed yards from the offices of the head of the French criminal justice systems. Doubtless there will now follow an intense manhunt, as ladies all over the country seek to shower the Silver Fox with offers of marriage. See the full story here.

Is The Chap On Its Uppers?

You may have heard the rumours, or seen the message on thechap.net, suggesting that The Chap magazine was in dire financial straits. Indeed the website states:

“Like many venerable institutions, The Chap has run into financial difficulties, due principally to a disastrous result in the 2.30 at Wincanton. But also the spiralling costs of paper stock, printing ink and distribution services, and of course the increase in tax on tobacco products.

“The harsh reality of the current situation is that if the June issue doesn’t go to press, The Chap will cease publication for ever.”

Gustav Temple, the organ’s editor, goes on to touch passers by for a hand-out to help him through the crisis—there is a button on the page enabling well-wishers to donate instantly via PayPal.

So what is all this about? After what seemed like steady growth both in the physical magazine and its reach across the nation, can it really be true that behind the facade the august institution’s financial health was distinctly sub-prime?

We dispatched ace reporter Torquil Arbuthnot to establish the truth. He returned hours later have tried the cunning ruse of simply asking Gustav, and this is what he reported: “Managed to have a chat with Gustav last night. He’s just short of the readies to get out this particular edition in the new, larger format—it’s just temporary cashflow problems rather than sales dropping. Once June’s edition is printed, he’s going back to the old A5 size.”

So there you have it: the magazine is essentially healthy but Gustav has miscalculated and finds himself short of the up-front cash to publish the June edition. If you did feel minded to tuck a few notes into Gustav’s blazer pocket he is offering to list all donors in the magazine and give the top benefactors free VIP tickets to the planned Chap 10th anniversary party in October.

7^th May

Fairytale Turn From Ms Rhodes

We were gently led to the very gates of the Fairy Kingdom last night by Eugenie Rhodes, who gave an intriguing talk at the May meeting entitled, Faeries, Their History and Reputation. We learned both of the universality of mankind’s belief in a fairy world and fairy folk and how our attitudes towards them have changed over the years: if 21^st Century Londoners give them little thought and doubt their existence, this is much less the case as you move away in both time and space. In fact Willow Tomkins testified that when she was growing up in Ireland the existence of fairy folk was a given; and they were not benign Tinkerbell characters, but mischievous, sometimes malignant forces that were an unavoidable fact and needed to be placated. A bit like the Mafia, I suppose. In fact fairies are not necessarily small at all—they can sometimes appear colossal and opaline. Rather like Dr Manhattan, by the sound of things. Needless to say, Ms Rhodes is a firm believer in the fairy world, seeing it (if I understood her correctly) as a more natural, spiritual, emotional counterpoint to the hard, logical world of our everyday perceived reality. She also revealed that the fairy folk give her stock market tips which have yet to let her down…

Mad Hatter Under Threat

It is with a heavy heart that I must report that Bates, the splendid Jermyn Street hatter, may soon be no more. It seems their evil landlord wants to develop the site of which Bates is a part. I would have thought that if you remove the colourful, traditional establishments like Bates from the street not only will gentlemen struggle to outfit themselves but the tourist value of the place will also plummet, leading to lost revenues all round. If you would like to berate Westminster Council for their dunderheadedness in even considering this planning application there are details of how you can help on the Bates website. In theory you can comment on the case online but it seems the deadline for this has passed, so I guess it must by letter—and soon.

8^th April

NSC Women Are Revolting—Official

In a worrying demonstration of independence and organisation, Miss Isabel Von Appel is establishing a dedicated ladies’ wing of the Club and has asked me to post this message:

“Ladies of the New Sheridan Club, your club needs you!  Heed the call and join the NSC Women's Auxiliary!

“The Women's Auxiliary is the delicate feminine extremity of the New Sheridan Club. It will provide a haven for NSC ladies to meet and discuss important topics such as kittens and frocks. Knitting, cakes and vintage hairstyling demonstrations will prepare members for facing the Great Un-Interested and spreading Charm and Civility wherever we go.  No New Sheridan Club woman will stand aside as the hour for approaches! 

“Your membership in the NSC WA is absolutely vital.  Please join us for our inaugural meeting at 19:30 on 24 April 2009, at the residence of Mr Niall Spooner-Harvey.  Cake and tea will be provided. Address on application to info@lazyandvain.fake.com (with the “fake” removed."

7^th April

Earl in Woollies Probe

At our April meeting the doughty Earl of Essex, in his second outing as a Club Night Turn, treated us to a history of the Woolworth’s brand. We learned of the humble origins of its founder F. W. Woolworth and his revolutionary idea of a shop where the goods were on open display for the customers to handle and everything had a low, fixed and clearly displayed price. The idea was a hit and Woolworth became very wealthy. Sadly his descendent Barbara Hutton managed to fritter away the whole fortune in her endless and unhappy pursuit of an ideal husband, Woolworth’s mansion Winfield Hall fell into disrepair and, of course, most recently the UK company went bust. Many thanks for Essex for his thoughtful elegy.

30^th March

Prototype Club Cufflink Announced

Working with Brighton artisans Ring Jewellers, the Club has unveiled a Club cufflink, pictured left, priced at £24 a pair. If you are interested in purchasing one, please do not hesitate to get in touch with Torquil Arbuthnot. Needless to say, they are available only to Members of the NSC.

Members Execute Dazzling Display of Chappist Knowledge

March saw the first ever New Sheridan Club Alehouse Challenge. This did not, in case you are wondering, involve the Committee being helicoptered from one alehouse to the next, frantically quaffing pints against the clock while chattering to television viewers through headsets. In fact it was a pub quiz, organised by Mr Artemis Scarheart, and a very fine job he did too. The venue was the Fitroy Tavern, a haunt of many a booze-soaked writer and thinker, so we were on appropriate territory The nine rounds covered a broad range of subjects but all tending towards a Chappist sensibility—including a Chappette round set by Miss Minna, testing the teams’ knowledge of plucky heroines and vintage fashions. The quiz was set at just the right level—neither too hard nor too easy—and some fierce competitive spirits emerged, not least from Devils in Skirts (pictured right) who won, largely thanks to the huge brain of Mrs H. Well done to everyone.

Film Crew Turn Out for WWII Fashion Talk

There was a good turn-out for the March gathering, where the historian, Mr Sean Longden delighted us on a subject close to all our hearts, 1940s fashion. In particular he examined the ways that British soldiers, envious of the stylish uniforms worn by the Americans and others, tried to enhance their own unflattering dress to make it more modish. We heard how some would have tailors adjust the lines and how it became fashionable to wear German army belts. In addition, we learned how, as the war drew on, some soldiers found ways to express their individuality by augmenting their uniforms with silk scarves, riding boots, umbrellas and eccentric headgear such as top hats.

For the evening we were also graced by the presence of a team of cinematographers from Lincoln University. Needless to say, the Earl of Waveney is the connection here and the film crew were making a documentary about Chappism. They interviewed Mr Longden and various other Members. They even took what I believe is known as a subjective tracking shot from the point of view of someone entering the venue, climbing the stairs and approaching the Club table to sign in.

8^th February

Blitz Party Goes Down Like a House On Fire

Saturday 7^th February saw the first of what will presumably be a series of parties with a a Blitz theme—the venue, some converted railway arches in Shoreditch, had been decked out with sandbags and wartime food products, the punters came in wartime uniforms and 1940s fashions and even the drinks menus were styled as ration books. Entertainment came in the form of swing disc jockeys and the live band Twin and Tonic, a swing combo fronted by the lovely Holland twins. It was co-hosted by The Chap magazine (though quite how much input Gustav Temple had, I’m not sure) so the usual crowd were out in force. There were, to be honest, plenty of people there who didn’t really have much interest in the period or its stylings, and saw this as just another fun theme, but a lot of effort had gone into the costumes—with special mention having to go to the chap who came as an evacuated schoolboy (as it were), even if he did bear a striking resemblance to Angus Young out of AC/DC…

Welsh Grit Saves Nation

At our February meeting the redoubtable Ensign Polyethyl put us right about the French invasion of Pembrokeshire in 1797, an event of which many outside of the area were probably not aware. Jessie took evident delight is regaling us with the manifold inadequacies of the French plan and its execution—such as the use of a taskforce consisting of shackled convicts arms with just 100 rounds each for the entire campaign. In fact the troops who landed were relying upon meeting up with two invasion forces; no one had thought to tell them that these invasions had been cancelled. But the humiliating defeat of the French by a much smaller local force was to a large extent down to the pluck of local peasant women, including the famous Jemima who rounded up a dozen or so Frenchmen single-handedly.

Many thanks to Jessie for a thoroughly researched lecture, presented with clarity and gusto. Bravo!

Custard-Crazed Musicians Rampage

Hosted by The Furbelows, a beat combo that features three Sheridan Club Members among its number, the Cirque de Crème Anglaise is a musical evening of dark humour and tomfoolery, blending raucousness with theatricality and cabaret finesse. The venue is the Cross Kings in London’s King’s Cross. For the Cirque’s third outing on 3rd February, The Furbelows were joined by Orlando Seale, a singer of intense and frankly rather sad songs (imagine Nick Drake crossed with an acoustic Radiohead) and the MC was the delightful Des O’Connor, who sings witty, and frequently rather rude, ditties to the ukulele. There was supposed to be a third band, Whitestar, but sadly the freak snowy weather had paralysed the transport network and half the band were stuck in Kent. Thanks to those hardy souls who braved the ice storms to be there.

28^th January

The Film Night Goes Stateside

The Ides of January saw the second in our new run of Film Nights. Perhaps appropriately, given the Obamania sweeping the land in the run-up to the new US President’s inauguration, the night had an American theme. Miss Isabel Von Appel, who herself hails from the former Colonies, showed the odd film True Stories, made in 1986 by David Byrne, then lead singer in the art pop band Talking Heads.

Byrne himself appears in the film, a pseudo documentary, and addresses both the camera and the other characters. He is visiting Virgil, Texas, on the eve of its Celebration of Special-ness for its 500th anniversary. It’s about the death of traditional Main Street America as shopping malls move in. But it is also a study of how strange ordinary people are when look.

This latter part is Byrne’s stock in trade, and much of the dialogue and, in particular his voice overs, sound just like Talking Heads lyrics, a rich seam of faux-naive observations about the oddness of life and people, delivered in Byrne’s studiedly autistic deadpan.

For a film with no real plot, apart from the narative of John Goodman’s character’s search for a wife, it’s remarkably engaging and thought-provoking.

If you have a film or combination of films (Isabel had some shorts to show but technical difficulties overwhelmed us) that you think would make a good presentation for a NSC Film Night please get in touch.

Des’s Inner Journey

At our January meeting, Des Esseintes, a figure who has been absent from the glittering soirées, creative furnaces and festering opium coaches of the Club for quite a while, returned in style with a talk all about his impressions from working in India as a teacher.

The only setback was that he had never actually made it there. He and his partner had accepted jobs, sold their homes and packed their steamer trunks, only for the Indian authorities suddenly to change the rules and declare the work visas would only be given of noble Englishmen if they could prove that no Indian could do the job in question. Given the sheer number of Indians in existence, the ergonomics were overwhelming. Des Esseintes did make it to India but only for a few days.

But he decided that this need not hinder his lecture. In fact he found he was in distinguished company in the business of appreciating a foreign land from the comfort of one’s own home. In fact even his namesake, in Huysman’s A Rebours, having intended to visit England, enjoys himself so much in an English-themed tavern in Calais that he decides that to go ahead with his visit would only be likely to spoils his mental picture, and he returns home.

1st January

Treharrock Revisited

The Sheridan Christmas House is an institution now in its fourth year. The idea is that a bunch of us hire a big country house for a week, where we take it in turns to do the cooking and otherwise spend our days loafing about, going for long walks, perhaps doing some riding (there usually seem to be facilities near by) or motoring to some local attraction for a spot of sight-seeing. Basically we pretend we’re the idle rich from a hundred years ago. One day is designated as “Christmas Day”—complete with traditional meal, stockings and “secret Santa” gift-giving. In the evenings we dress for dinner: black tie, except for Christmas Day, which is naturally white tie.

In the past we have stayed at Eskmeal in Cumbria and Stonebarrow in Devon. This time we returned to last year’s haunt, Treharrock Manor near Port Isaac in Cornwall, on the grounds that it was hard to improve on the place: plenty of space in handsome premises, extensive grounds, yet handily close to shops for all the comestibles you realise you’ve forgotten. Evidently built in 1815 (that’s what’s carved on a block in the wall of the cellar) the place boasts about a dozen bedrooms, three reception rooms plus a dining room, huge kitchen with Aga and conventional cooker, endless laundries, sculleries and other obscure chambers, with some working fireplaces—and you can smoke there too, which is pretty rare in these places.

One day, when the Club is finally endowed by a wealthy mystery benefactor, I imagine we shall purchase this place and set it up as a Home for Distressed Fops.

The Kredit Krunch Kabaret

The Club’s Christmas party, on 6th December, had a Weimar theme this year, in a nod to the nation’s unfortunate fiscal situation. The setting was the Punch Tavern on Fleet Street (renamed the Putsch Tavern for the occasion) a rather beautiful gin palace filled with mirrors and ornate mouldings. Sadly one of our main attractions, German comedian Henning Wehn, had to pull out at the last minute owing to a hernia operation. (I suppose if you’re a comedian and you’re going to blow out a gig, then a hernia is a suitably comic reason for doing it.) But we were still blessed by cabaret singer Maria Trevis and pint-sized Hibernian burlesque dancer Miss Dolly Tartan. The fun included two silly games—Shoot the Top Hat Off the Plutocrat and Blind Man’s Dada Painting—and our famous Grand Raffle. As ever, many pictures may be found at the Club’s Flickr page.

Cricket History Knocks Us for Six

At our December meeting, Mr Niall Spooner-Harvey delivered his History of Ashes Cricket, a race through 130 years of leather on willow. I think his main thesis was that it all went downhill when the players stopped sporting moustaches, though Niall was forced to bend the rules for Mike Brearley, about whom no evil can be spoken—even though he is the one who wants a more relaxed the dress code at Lord’s.

We also heard how Ted Dexter went on to write cricket-themed crime novels and it transpired that Ian the Padre, present in the audience, was the nephew of Brian Statham, requiring Niall to demand an autograph at once.

30^th November

Just Desserts for Custard Fans

For a second time the Cirque de Crème Anglaise came to town on 19th November, a musical event in which, among other performers, four NSC Members graced the stage. Organised by The Furbelows, the night is intended to have a coherent theme of dark humour, cabaret swagger and worthwhile words. (The first Cirque, in August, featured Club poet Niall Spooner-Harvey and Member the fabulous Mr B. the Gentleman Rhymer.)

This time the show opened with Mesparrow, a mysterious French lady who performs alone, either at the piano or acapella with a digital looping device, with which she built up a layered backing of her own voice. Next up was Club Member Marmaduke Dando a crooner of what he calls “morose ballads” whose stage image was somewhere between Noel Coward and Bryan Ferry. The Furbelows themselves played third.

Headliners were the startling Cesarians (pictured), a horn-heavy troupe whose world combines Kurt Weill, Tim Burton and Edward Gorey. True to their reputation, they lifted the roof. Thanks to all who came along.

Record Turn-Out For Gorefest

Either vampires are a popular subject or Miss Minna is a popular lady—because our November meeting, at which Miss Minna delivered her talk on The Vampire and the Modern Age, was the best attended Club Night ever, with some 50 people cramming themselves into the Wheatsheaf’s exquisite wood-panelled room.

Whatever the reason, it was a boisterous and good-humoured meeting. Miss Minna explained to us how, up to the beginning of the Victorian age, vampires were viewed as bestial. Even Bram Stoker’s Dracula was foul-smelling and the spin-off Nosferatu was, frankly, a bald leech. It was Bela Lugosi, his dandyism and his knowledge of correct dress codes, that led to Dracula’s appearing dressed “for an ambassador’s reception”, and the idea of the vampire as seductive sophisticate. Christopher Lee carried on this tradition of Dracula as a high-brow in white tie.

From there Miss Minna charted the popular incarnations of the undead dandy, including Blackula (which, she claims, is a very good film) up to Anne Rice’s Interview With a Vampire series. But her point was that the concept of the vampire seemed to be adopted regularly to represent whatever we might be afraid of at the time, whether it be syphilis, miscegenation or AIDS. The subject provoked great interest and many questions from the floor.

4^th October

Neckwear Reinforcements Arrive in Nick of Time

As I’m sure you have been all too painfully aware, our supplies of NSC Club ties ran out some time ago. I had fair developed the jitters, I don’t mind telling you. Fortunately, there was a knock at the gnarled Club House portal last night and, standing in the rain, clutching a tattered parcel stood an ancient mariner type. Never found out anything about him, to be honest, because he tottered in and promptly kicked the bucket. But the good news is that the parcel turned out to contain 100 new NSC silk ties. So either this fellow had intercepted a villainous plan to steal our ties and laid down his life to return them to their rightful owners, or UPS have seriously lowered their recruitment standards.

Anyway, if you’re a Member of the New Sheridan Club and you’d like to own one of these glorious ties, they are a mere £15. Not bad for 100% silk, especially as they have the Club logo subtly incorporated in an ingenious “shadow weave” that runs along the black stripe (see picture). Contact us for more details.

October Meeting Breaks With Tradition: Chaos Ensues

Lock’s of St James’s, the world’s most famous hatter, contacted us a while ago to say that they were sponsoring a lecture at the Royal Geographical Society by Colonel John Blashford-Snell on the subject of Livingstone and Stanley. It was a charity fundraiser for the Merseyside Youth Association (both explorers grew up in that area). As it happened the date clashed with that of the monthly Club Night. But since it was a subject undoubtedly of interest to Club Members, and a Good Thing to boot, we decided to make this our Turn for the month. So a dozen or so NSC Members attended the lecture then hot-footed it back to the Wheatsheaf to join the other Members for a few ales. The lecture was excellent and was, in a way, a classic celebration of the Great British Heroic Failure: despite his fame, Livingstone never found anything he was looking for and even as a missionary—his original reason for travelling to Africa—he only ever converted one African, who subsequently lapsed.

As you can see, complete pandemonium has broken out; Torquil offers a birthday toast to Robert; which he graciously receives