Week 72: The Arch Bishop of Canterbury naked
January 19, 2020
- When I was expecting E, Eliot told me that sometimes his daughter does something odd or funny and then he realises - “oh - I do that, she’s picked that up from me!”
- Yesterday E (wearing only a nappy and t-shirt) walked into our bedroom, picked up a sports bra, put her head through an arm hole, said “I’m goin’ shoppin’” and walked out. It was like looking in a mirror.
- It was Lionel Barber’s final day at the FT after 14 years as editor on Thursday. I went to the editorial floor for the final speeches and the banging out.
- Banging out is a Fleet St tradition where journalists will bang their desks when a leaving journalist exits the building for the last time. The louder and more vigorous the banging - the more respected the journalist. To not bang is considered serious shade.
- The banging is quite something - really thunderous, almost primal, quite intimidating.
- The first time I witnessed a banging out I didn’t know what it was or why it was happening and it was actually quite scary.
- In Lionel’s leaving speech he told us a couple of funny stories. The time he walked in on the Arch Bishop of Canterbury naked due to a hotel room mix up was a good one. Also quite a few stories about being shouted about by politicians.
- For anyone wondering - Anna has cleared up the “have I met Anna Goss” question from last week in a way that really satisfies the feeling I have that we might have met. Because we literally could have met in Beckenham Place Park at least once. I didn’t see Anna but she saw me. I hope I wasn’t doing anything embarrassing.
- On Monday night I witnessed some crime. It was 4:30am and I had been awake since 3 because E had decided to cry relentlessly for an hour and I still hadn’t managed to get back to sleep. Then I heard “whaeyyyy CRACK”. I looked out of the window and there was a man knocking all the kerbside wing mirrors off the cars on my street. I phoned the police, who were clearly a bit bored because they sent a squad car and a van but he had gone by the time they arrived.
- The next day I noticed he had damaged quite a few cars, so where I knew which house corresponded to which car I knocked on the door to give them the police incident number and tell them what had happened.
- This led to a weird conversation with Les*, a pipe smoking retired police officer, who asked me immediately if the perp was wearing a hoodie, then checked I was OK and that I had a husband at home and I wasn’t alone with the baby. His ancient Volvo 265 is going to be a nightmare to fix because they don’t make wing mirrors for them anymore.
- *not his real name.