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,… … Keep Reading
The Chap will celebrate 25 years of publication with our grandest party ever on 12th October. There have been many ‘nights of a thousand waistcoats’ over the years, but 2024 is the year for the grandest chap party of all. This year we celebrate twenty-five years on magazine racks and doormats, and thus shall be… … Keep Reading
The Chap marks 25 years of publication with a special commemorative issue. This year – 2024 – will be the 25th year of publication for our humble organ. To mark this momentous occasion, we are publishing a special silver jubilee edition. Gracing the front cover is uber-Chap, suave gadabout and all-round-good egg David Niven, who… … Keep Reading
2024’s saunter sans purpose also marks 25 years of The Chap Magazine. This year sees two very special milestones for The Chap Magazine. We mark our Silver Jubilee, having first published in 1999, and we shall sally forth on the fourth Grand Flaneur Walk on Sunday 5th May 2024. Assembling as usual at midday beside… … Keep Reading
I still find the Eurostar really rather wonderful. You get on a train at St. Pancras and alight some two hours later at Le Gare Du Nord into a different world, where the attitudes, tastes, smells, people and culture are as different from London as sand is to salt. Undeniably, it is quite an anomalous… … Keep Reading
From the eleventh floor balcony of a hotel overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the horizon flashing with lightning, brassy wisps of Mariachi music wafting up from somewhere through the heat of the night, was the sense that we were definitely in Mexico. It had taken nearly 20 hours to reach this moment of Mexican awareness, though… … Keep Reading
On a recent trip to Rajasthan, I discovered that not only does India possess its famous wealth of history and architecture, but it is also one of the most natural habitats for the travelling Chap. My journey took me first to Delhi, only nine hours away by plane but, as soon as you land, the… … Keep Reading
Rev’d Oliver Harrison: Somewhere between the vulgarity of checking the time on one’s phone and the sheer pomposity of tugging out a pocketwatch’s gold chain lies the wristwatch. And of all the accoutrements a man might acquire, it is surely his watch that says most about him. Here I must confess to a penchant for…
Steve Pittard: Armchair sleuths tackling Cluedo this Christmas might be in for a shock. The traditional Hampshire country mansion has been bulldozed to make way for an Essex style gangster’s gaff. The library has gone, with an integrated garage in its stead. The biggest crime here is not Dr Black’s demise, but the wholesale killing…
William Smith, newly installed as Head Cutter at Douglas Hayward, incredibly finds the time to pen an instructive tract on overcoats. As the nights draw in and the weather turns, the annual ritual of retrieving heavy, woollen overcoats from their summer hideaways begins. The heady scent of mothballs brings a feeling of impending frosty days,…
Nathanial Adams: On 13th October 1898, the fourth Marquess of Anglesey died at the family seat of Plas Newydd, an estate won by the First Marquess for the price of one leg at Waterloo (his bloody trousers are still on exhibit there.) His heir, Henry Cyril Paget, was now the Fifth Marquess, newly-minted master of…