Paper Monitor
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Upon a microblogging site this morning, one stumbled across this irresistible post from the Daily Telegraph:
@Telegraph: The thrill of dressing like Mrs Thatcher tgr.ph/OrCiYA
Reader, one clicked on it. For if this is not the definitive Telegraph feature idea, then what is?
A well-known auction house is selling a selection of the Iron Lady's outfits, and the paper dispatches fashion writer Hannah Betts to play dress-up. Sadly, this doesn't make the print version of the paper - it being filled with pictures of assorted happy hard-bodies - but for once, this shall not deter your humble correspondent.
"It is not a happy time for those of us with a feeling for fashion. There is too much Lycra about and far too much rain. Well, no more. For someone is bringing style back - and it is not a someone you would expect. Step forward one Margaret Thatcher, summer's most modish poster girl. This weekend, seven of Baroness Thatcher's ensembles are on sale at Christie's. And so, somehow I found myself donning her threads, crying as I twirled about in her gold lame: 'Thatch, you took our milk, but you gave us style.'
And not a blue power suit amongst them. There is the aforementioned gold, but also "shrimp, grass green, turquoise, even multi-colour". The outfits date from the 1970s when she was trying to stand apart from the men in suits.
"One immediately feels an urge to impose Thatcher-like perfection. I find myself adjusting a collar, repositioning a hem here, tweaking a pussy bow there, and tutting pettishly over creases. A fly lands on one of the razor-sharp pleats of the canary conference show-stopper and I actually emit a scream. How does it have the audacity?"
Meanwhile, there are photos aplenty of Bradley Wiggins in the winner's throne at Hampton Court Palace following his gold-medal performance in the cycling time trial.
Maybe it's the sun in his eyes, or perhaps his Lycra is pinching a little, but Wiggo looks a little... discomforted as he sits in golden splendour, with Henry VIII's favourite palace as a backdrop.
All hail king of the mods. (Beat that, rockers.)