Clarke Hayes | The Spectator Columnists & Writers

Opportunity knocks | 12 May 2012

Opportunity knocks | 12 May 2012

Opportunity knocks | 12 May 2012

I should have thought about this more carefully — the timing of it, I mean. This is Crucible time, and in the normal scheme of things I would be watching almost nothing but snooker. Yes, dear readers, I am that sad and pathetic thing known as a snooker addict, and a red-button one at that. But I eschew the green baize and march purposefully into the world of television previews — and what a challenging world it is. Not, I suppose, as challenging as the task that faces The Town Taking on China (BBC2, Tuesday), one of those programmes that reassuringly does exactly what it says on the tin. Kirkby-based cushion manufacturer Tony wants to see whether the ‘British manufacturing lion can take on the Asian tiger China’, and as Tony owns a sister plant on the east coast of China — the ‘textile capital of the world’ — you’d think he’d know better.

Opportunity knocks | 12 May 2012

Switching off the spotlight

Switching off the spotlight

Switching off the spotlight

Having tea with Gillian Anderson is a thoroughly pleasant business — a splash of muted glamour in a fairly drab London autumn. I thoroughly recommend it, as a more engaging companion it would be a challenge to find. We meet in the studiously bijou surroundings of the Zetter Townhouse in St John’s Square, chosen, I suspect, because no one there has the slightest clue who she is. She is wearing the no-make-up disguise, and glides serenely under London’s radar, something she clearly enjoys. She is a tad jetlagged, she says, having just arrived home from a three-week stint ‘doing press’ in LA. We are talking in the Games Room downstairs when there is an unexpected rattling at the window. We are momentarily flustered – is it a stalker?, a pap? — though all is well and we laugh off our over-reaction.

Switching off the spotlight

Bookends: When will there be good news?

Bookends: When will there be good news?

Bookends: When will there be good news?

I am in love with Jackson Brodie. Does this mean that, in a literary homoerotic twist, I am actually in love with Kate Atkinson, his creator? I think it must. Sometimes I think I am Jackson Brodie. We share many traits: 50-odd, mid-life crisis, a lost (though in my case not murdered) sister. I know that it’s really Kate Atkinson who is Jackson Brodie. She must have a lost or murdered sister, mustn’t she? I am in love with Jackson Brodie. Does this mean that, in a literary homoerotic twist, I am actually in love with Kate Atkinson, his creator? I think it must. Sometimes I think I am Jackson Brodie. We share many traits: 50-odd, mid-life crisis, a lost (though in my case not murdered) sister. I know that it’s really Kate Atkinson who is Jackson Brodie.

Bookends: When will there be good news?

Bookends: When will there be good news? | 17 June 2011

Bookends: When will there be good news? | 17 June 2011

Clarke Hayes has written the Bookends column in this week's issue of the magazine. Here it is for readers of this blog: I am in love with Jackson Brodie. Does this mean that, in a literary homoerotic twist, I am actually in love with Kate Atkinson, his creator? I think it must. Sometimes I think I am Jackson Brodie. We share many traits: 50-odd, mid-life crisis, a lost (though in my case not murdered) sister. I know that it’s really Kate Atkinson who is Jackson Brodie. She must have a lost or murdered sister, mustn’t she? I came upon the Brodie novels (Black Swan, £7.99 each) quite by chance, through a Waterstone’s deal. When Will There Be Good News? caused me wonder and confusion in equal measure.

Gimme Patti

Gimme Patti

Gimme Patti

‘Hi,’ said Patti Smith, giving us a slightly awkward wave. ‘You know it’s really great here, by the sea. The air is so fresh. You guys are really lucky.’ Well, we felt lucky, sitting inside the iconic De la Warr Pavilion in Bexhill of all places, within touching distance of our collective icon.‘Hi,’ said Patti Smith, giving us a slightly awkward wave. ‘You know it’s really great here, by the sea. The air is so fresh. You guys are really lucky.’ Well, we felt lucky, sitting inside the iconic De la Warr Pavilion in Bexhill of all places, within touching distance of our collective icon. Blessed, though, would be nearer to the truth, so close was this to a religious experience. We — 1,000 in all — were there to worship, to pay homage and to revisit a hugely important and emotive part of our younger selves — our veneration of and identification with Patti, punk rock poet extraordinaire.

Gimme Patti

Waste not, want not: join the new food revolution

Waste not, want not: join the new food revolution

‘Are you saving that, Clarke?’ they ask, sniggering.‘Are you saving that, Clarke?’ they ask, sniggering. ‘Is there enough room in the fridge, what with all the other leftovers?’ Then they giggle, and turn on EastEnders. They mock me but I am resilient, and full of resolve. I have no time for soaps and mindless television because I am a food waste-buster: one of a growing group who can’t bear the amount of food people throw away. I have no time for TV — I have cupboards to organise, soups and stocks to concoct, chutneys to make, tomatoes to bottle and jams to set. There are many of us out there, a hidden army. Some may think us obsessive, but I’m convinced we are simply right: deep in our collective bones we all know that our grandparents were correct — it’s just plain wrong to throw away good food.

Murray mania

Murray mania

Murray mania

So there we were again – those of us with access to Sky Sports, that is – sitting on the edge of our sofas, willing the improbable to pass, and willing indeed to stay up very late to watch it happen. But it was not to be. Few on this earth – with the possible exception of Rafael Nadal – could have beat Roger Federer in the ‘grapple in the Apple’ on the Arthur Ashe court last night. Andy Murray clearly could not – this time. And yet, and yet! There were glimpses of the Murray that has, and I’m sure will again, beat Federer. Murray loves Flushing Meadows – its vastness, its buzz, its NYC setting; and hard court seems to be his favourite surface. So expect him to compete well here again next year. But what of last night? We could grumble, petulantly, that Murray was a victim of tropical storm Hanna and the US networks, and was simply worn out after his epic win over Nadal, played over two long days.

Murray mania

Bay State Blues

Bay State Blues

Bay State Blues

I have just returned from Massachusetts, where I cast my vote in an absentee ballot for Super Tuesday. This wildly wide-open presidential race is like mainlining for political junkies, and it’s a pretty exhilarating rollercoaster ride for the ordinary voter too. But what happened last week, when the economy crashed headlong into the election bandwagon, will be fascinating to watch – the battle of the Big E’s, I call it. Now Massachusetts politics is an incestuously Democratic affair, and with John Edwards effectively out of the running in the state, it’s the big clash once again between Hillary and Obama. I can’t see a cigarette paper between them. In fact, in a privately held straw poll, I guestimate that up to four in five voters are undecided in the Bay state — with the primary just three weeks away.

Bay State Blues

Fare’s fair

Fare’s fair

Fare’s fair

There’s a fair glut of food festivals going on all across the country in the coming weeks, reflecting — and rightly so — the harvest.There’s a fair glut of food festivals going on all across the country in the coming weeks, reflecting — and rightly so — the harvest. But how retro is that? Fantastic! Even better, to my mind, is that it proves that our collective mindset has changed dramatically — we are growing ever prouder of our food and its local provenance, willing even to think that British might really be best. That in itself is cause for celebration.My local is the second annual Hastings Seafood and Wine Festival (22-23 September). This one neatly conflates the old and the new. Hastings’s fishing industry is older than memory itself — we still boast Europe’s largest land-based fishing fleet, modest both in number and size of boats and nets.

Fare’s fair

A handshake with Clinton on the golf course

A handshake with Clinton on the golf course

It was all there at the K Club last weekend — just what it had always said on the tinIt was all there at the K Club last weekend — just what it had always said on the tin. The passion, the best golf and golfers in the world, a glorious setting, rain, sweat and tears, an emphatic triumph for Europe and, of course, the craic. I was on the front row of the barrier overlooking the 16th green on Sunday — where I had stood for four hours — and shook the hand of Bill Clinton as he walked to the scene of the denouement. A short time later I shook hands with Henrik Stenson, the Swede who, moments earlier and cheekily against the ‘script’, had just clinched the Ryder Cup for Europe by 4&3 at the 15th. Then we all watched in the lush silence as Darren Clarke won his match and became the first king of a united Ireland.

Sex and Society: A short visit to hell

Sex and Society: A short visit to hell

Several years ago, in another lifetime it seems, I played a porn star. In fact I played the Pornstar, in a fairly successful little two-hand play called The Dyke and the Pornstar. The piece gained a deserved reputation for being daring, risqué, even provocative. It was described by one critic as being ‘artfully performed, and sexy as hell’ and it was nominated for something called a UK Freedom Award. (We didn’t win.) Though it played unashamedly on the tactic of shock and awe, we in the company were often surprised that our appreciative, though often embarrassed, audiences overlooked the underlying theme of the piece — the loneliness and emotional fragility of the outwardly confident Pornstar, suffering the guilt attached to being a sex worker.