In an excerpt from CHAP Spring 24, Torquil Arbuthnot provides a chronology of the publication from 1999 to 2012.
1999
A chance meeting in the Portobello Road leads to the founding of The Chap magazine, when penniless artist Vic Darkwood chances upon boulevardier Gustav Temple’s market stall. Temple is selling “genuine” pieces of celebrity masonry, including fragments of Cary Grant’s rockery and Eva Peron’s ha-ha. While haggling over some Welsh slate from Lloyd George’s potting shed, Darkwood and Temple notice the unimprovable perfection of each other’s tweeds. After a few glasses of porter in a nearby hostelry, the magazine is born. The first edition immediately wins the Booker Prize.
2000
The Chap rents agreeable offices in Soho above Mr Paul Raymond’s Revue Bar. Torquil Arbuthnot and Nathaniel Slipper give up lucrative careers as commodity brokers (specialising in bauxite, sisal and cheese) to join the editorial board of the magazine as etiquette correspondents. Their first article is the seminal “Anatomy of Doffing” that identifies 73 different ways of doffing one’s hat. The Chap’s influence on headwear soon conquers the world and crooners like Mr Peterhouse Doherty and thespians like Mr Jonathan Deppington rarely saunter forth without sporting a trilby or a Fedora.
2002
Despairing ever more of the vulgarity of modern life, The Chap decides to take to the streets. The first “Civlise the City” event takes place, when several dozen agreeable fellows saunter through the West End doffing their hats, assisting elderly ladies across the road, and attempting to purchase pots of Lapsang Souchong in McDonald’s. One chap gets a little over-excited and suggests they march on Parliament and take over the government in a bloodless anarcho-dandyist coup. He is told to have a nice cup of tea instead. The contingent repair to the New Piccadilly Café for a sharpener and a plate of ham and eggs.
2003
Mr Stephen Fry presents a new noctovisual programme entitled QI. The saintly Fry and his “researchers” do not have enough money to employ gag writers, and hit on the cunning wheeze of lifting jokes and witty aperçus straight from The Chap without acknowledgement. The ratings for QI soar and the show wins a sideboardful of awards. After a public outcry the staff of The Chap all receive OBEs “for services to the Stephen Fry industry”. Mr Fry’s one-time comedy partner, Mr Hugh Laurie, develops a psychosomatic limp and forgets to shave.
2004
The Chap realises that the summer Olympics are taking place in Athens. Rather than sprint around some Greek building sites in tight clothing, sweating and getting muddy knees, The Chap inaugurates the first Chap Olympiad in Regent’s Park. The ceremony begins with the lighting of the Olympic pipe. Events include Freestyle Trouser Gymnastics, Synchronised Hat Doffing, Quill Throwing and Shouting at the Foreigner. At the end of the competition, the winner of the gold cravat is carried on everyone’s shoulders and hurled into the duck pond. In a breathtaking act of plagiarism, London wins the bid to stage the Summer Olympic Games in 2012.
2005
In the summer of 2005, the England cricket team have not won the Ashes since 1986-1987. Realising that in their current state they do not stand a chance against the fit, bronzed supermen of the Australian team, they call in The Chap for assistance. The team are set a gruelling fitness regime: each day begins with a full English breakfast followed by a Woodbine; a gentle twenty minutes in the nets; then a five-course lunch followed by a bracing walk stopping at every public house on the way; a game of billiards and The Times crossword for the more energetic; a slap-up dinner followed by a trip to the theatre to see Chu Chin Chow; and finally to bed no later than 2 ack-emma. This punishing regime, together with the surprise tactic of being completely useless on the field, ensures a glorious victory.
2006
David Cameron becomes leader of the Conservative Party. In a vain attempt to suck up to the populace he tells them to “Call me Dave” and omits to wear either a tie or a pocket-square. The Chap fears standards in the country have declined so far that the only civilised response is to climb a large piece of public sculpture. A base camp is established in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, while Messrs Temple, Attree and Arbuthnot conquer the summit of Miss Rachel Whiteread’s pretentious pile of plastic boxes. They are escorted from the Tate with their heads held high and their feet even higher.
2008
The Large Hadron Collider is completed beneath the France–Switzerland border near Geneva. Nobody, least of all its inventors, is quite sure of its purpose or whether it will work. The Chap generously agrees to facilitate the first trial run of the machine, and donates an ounce of finest Pure Cyprian Latakia pipe tobacco for the experiment. When switched on, a low humming sound emanates from the LHC, followed by a shower of blue sparks and some numbers whizzing round on a big dial. The experiment is declared a roaring success and Gustav Temple is awarded half-dibs on the Nobel Prize for Physics.
2009
The magazine formally becomes a staple of British life when a copy appears in an episode of Midsomer Murders. Gustav Temple is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but the prize is rescinded when his Interpol record comes to light. (An alternate winner is hastily chosen by sticking a pin in a list of the most boring, unreadable, contemporary Romanian poets.) Undaunted, Gustav Temple decides to ensure The Chap’s economic future by putting the magazine’s remaining funds on a six-dog accumulator at the Catford greyhound stadium. Unfortunately things do not go according to plan but fortunately generous donations from readers ensure the magazine’s survival.
2010
Apple release their iPad, a scientifical instrument for viewing the interweb and playing the card game solitaire. Not to be outdone, The Chap boffins come up with the iChap. This consists of a folding campaign card table, the complete 1911 version of the Encyclopædia Britannica, an abacus, an exercise book, a propelling pencil, a copy of popular gentleman’s magazine Razzle, and a Kodak Box Brownie. In a miracle of miniaturisation, the iChap fits neatly into a mahogany case that can be towed behind one’s bicycle or sent ahead by railway.
2012
On 23rd April 2012, St George’s Day, some 120 dandies and dandizettes assemble outside number 3, Savile Row. The Chaps carried placards proclaiming, “Save Savile Row from Abercrombie & Fitch”. The Chaps’ belief is that you can go to practically any street in any city in Britain and buy the sorts of overpriced yobbo-chic peddled by Abercrombie & Fitch. You cannot, however, go to any street in the country to get a bespoke suit made, and this is why the trade should remain where it is. Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer – long-term chap associate and musical aide-de-camp – strikes out the chords for the adapted Beatles’ ditty Give Three-Piece a Chance. The shirtless male employees of Abercrombie & Fitch gawp from the shop doorway.
The full article, taking the history of The Chap up to the present day, appears in The Silver Jubilee Edition
