Miss Martindale’s short-lived column for the Chap provided much needed advice, in 2004, on how young ladies should dress and comport themselves. Welcome to the Ladies’ Smoking Room – and you must welcome me too, for with my appointment as your Resident Ladies’ Columnist, I make my debut into the world of the Woman Worker.… … Keep Reading
Mass spluttering at the breakfast table of gentlemen across the land results from announcement that Patum Peperium is no longer available. Shocking news came last week when the manufacturers of Patum Peperium: the Gentleman’s Relish announced they would be ceasing production. Patum Peperium has been gracing the hot buttered breakfast toast of gentlemen from Kolkata… … Keep Reading
The Tournament of Tomfoolery returns after seven years in the wilderness. After a hiatus of seven years, during which time many chaps and chapettes have forgotten how to toss a cucumber sandwich on a plate or ride a bicycle while holding a teacup and saucer, The Chap Olympiad is back on Saturday 18th July, from… … Keep Reading
Full details of this year’s saunter sans purpose, determined by the same principles of flannerie as ever, but with a new starting point. All photos by Soulstealer Photography. The 2026 Grand Flaneur Walk takes place on Sunday 17th May. This will be the sixth incarnation of The Chap’s saunter sans purpose during the Summer (last year… … Keep Reading
Gustav Temple takes a liquid journey around the world to see whether single malt whisky can be trusted from anywhere except Scotland. To some readers (and they may be right) is is already blasphemous even to suggest that whisky can come from anywhere except Scotland. But when one discovers that whisky is also made in… … Keep Reading
Gustav Temple assesses a new Irish Whiskey with rather ghoulish credentials. The word ‘sexton’ derives from the Mediaeval Latin word sacristanus – ‘custodian of sacred objects’. A sexton is ‘a person who looks after a church and churchyard, typically acting as bell-ringer and gravedigger’. The gravedigger in Hamlet calls himself a sexton, for example. The typical… … Keep Reading
Gustav Temple nosedives into rums that don’t come from where they used to come from, because they are either made or refined right here on these craggy shores. Over the last decade or so, rum has been slowly shaking off its old reputation as something to swill in discotheques mixed with Coca-Cola. But only recently… … Keep Reading
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…
A Pakistani man is determined to maintain his impressive lip weasel despite death threats from the Taliban. Malik Amir Mohammad Khan Afridi, a resident of the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province on the Afghan border, is currently in hiding with his moustache. Mr. Afridi’s face furniture originally measured 30 inches from tip to tip, easily making it…
Nathaniel Adams: Our message,” says Peter McGough, “is about history and time and the trap of the calendar.” Since the 1970s, McGough and his partner David McDermott have been living in the past. Under the name McDermott and McGough, they have been making art – painting, performance, film, photography – about time. In those early…