^ Enough of the 'Reds under the bed' paranoia, I was talking about clothes!

Philby-Burgess-McClean posturing... superb! He definitely saw himself as a subversive and a traitor to his class (or what he said was his class). He was an Oxford drop-out (again according to him) so the wrong university I guess. Maybe he was born twenty years too late and missed his calling.

Frosty sometimes reminded me of one of those strange, often American, women one reads about.  They have about fifteen or twenty different personalities.

don’t need another copy. A quick recce of the attic turned up both of mine. Still no sign of The Ivy look, which is starting to worry me, it seems to be commanding similar prices to Take Ivy on fleabay.

In spite of the criticisms of the time (and I did my best to goad the authors, just out of sheer mischief) and my pro-US/collegiate/WASP leanings (Buckley-Vidal, Harvard, Yale) as well as jazz/Abstract Expressionist enthusiasms, the book was/is a nicely presented item, with that understated passion only a Gaul could possibly bring to it.  I've never been quite as eager to embrace the Japanese side of Ivy style as some but I acknowledge their contribution with a glad heart (as well as remembering the Japanese imports my late father was buying circa 1974).

It's the best possible introduction to a very specific way of dressing I wish had been available a good many years before it saw the light of day.  I don't regret spending time poring over photographs of Fred Astaire, Cary Grant and David Niven but who can live up to those high standards?  Well, Woof, probably.  But not I.  'The Ivy Look' had that rather pleasing casual feel to it: wear your polo shirt tucked or untucked for your stroll along the warm sands.  It mattereth not.  The girl in the teensy-weensy bikini ain't going to be looking in your direction anyhow.

As someone once said (quite likely on 'Talk Ivy', years ago), wearing an orange sweater will not make you look like Frank Sinatra.
According to that daft if well-meaning article in 'The Independent', Sir John Lally conjured up a patient, tired smile when the hack's wife referring to the 'arrington the hack was treating himself to (doubtless running an expense account) as 'beige'.  Nay, said Sir John, 'tis natural - and Frankie Sinatra wore one in one of those crappy movies like 'Tony Rome'.  Ring-A-Ding-Dull.  So, there you have it.  Hack turned instantly from suburban London tosspot into cool, swinging, broad-shagging legendary vocalist.
Or possibly not.