Now it is a development strategy, even an engine of regeneration. “Heritage” was once a defensive impulse that cherished its objects against modernisation. But the transformations of the last 20 years are no less startling for that. The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History by David Lowenthal, Viking, pounds 25
The tweed jacket can still be seen, symbolically draped around the bicycling figure of Dan Cruikshank, Georgian hero of BBC2’s One Foot in the Past.
It lasts an evening but you have to be home by midnight, like Cinderella. (I did not know if I would ever see him again, let alone sleep with him.)Duncan says we must both buy skin-tightener You can get it in any good chemist. (I had accepted, although I had gone out to the oldies later on my own.) Do not sleep with him for at least three months. I had gone straight out to dinner with the young man.) If he telephones you for a date, refuse the first time. (I had not done this, either, at the summer party where we had met. His hunter-gatherer instincts will be so aroused that, even if the second man is gay, the first man will assume that he is a heterosexual competitor. (I had already blown this, as I had telephoned the young man back.) If he shows interest in you at a party, walk away and talk to another male.
With him in mind, I thought of The Rules, the book that was a hit in America recently, teaching women how to play hard to get You have to be very disciplined One rule is that you must never, ever, phone a man. Our last meeting had been a tete-a-tete lunch in a pub where I had asked: “Are you a Christian?” and avidly taken notes.Anyway, my interest in older men had now been ruined by the vision of the young Greek god from Epping. He was married, unfortunately, but I was spinning out the task by doing personal interviews every so often. I was taking it very seriously and still hadn’t read all his 15 novels, let alone his autobiographies and biographies.
My mind was on the subject as I was writing a pre-obituary on another interesting and charming older man. (He had once been very successful in the media.) Everyone else at the table became paralysed with heartless laughter I explained that I had meant it as a compliment. (He and I were the youngest.) Another guest, one of the most handsome men of his generation, said that he had recently had a check-up for a heart murmur and had to go back for further tests.”Have you had your obituary done yet?” I asked conversationally. Even Duncan’s handsome, tanned 47-year-old face looked lined and ravaged. He promised to telephone when he returned from university.After this, everyone at the dinner seemed far too old. I kept my mouth firmly shut about the date.) All too soon, I had to leave. (I had dropped out of my philosophy course at Edinburgh University in 1969.
