The rise of slottification: Why can’t I have any fun in London without booking?
When a boy cannot even go to a pond without booking it on a desktop app, something has gone wrong in London, writes Matt Waksman in today’s Notebook
Booking culture is ruining my London summer
“Summertime… when the living is easy,” sang Ella Fitzgerald, conjuring up glorious visions of the hazy wanton abandon that the season should usher in. Well, Ella had clearly not tried to get a seat by the pool in Shoreditch House during the last heatwave. No longer can you stroll in and smoke your way through the afternoon with a paloma in hand like God intended. No, the poolside at every House in London is now strictly reserved for those who have so little going on in their lives that they have the wherewithal and the energy to book their “slot” a week in advance. Free and easy living, it is not.
The slottification of summer is not just impacting the reprobates who probably deserve it at Soho House Group. It’s a worrying trend taking over all fun in the sun in the capital. Fancy a dip in the ponds in Hampstead Heath? Not so fast. Yes, even murkey, slimey, grimey Hampstead ponds now require you to be on some god forsaken desktop app at midday on a Wednesday to secure your dip. A vibe kill to say the least.
What is summer coming to? Is there anything more miserable than turning your weekend into an exercise in administration? When challenged, the response is always the same. Without the slot system it becomes too busy. But since when is busy bad? Busy is where the fun starts. Busy is where you meet people, share a spot, make best friends for the next 12 hours and where summer takes on the frisson and energy that makes it worth sticking around for. Booking your “slot” destroys the magic and makes the best things to do the preserve of those who, ironically, don’t have much going on in the first place.
Thigh Guy Summer
Move over ‘hot girl summer’. With searches for short shorts up 138 per cent and M&S introducing the perfect five-incher, men of Britain have ditched scraggy boardies for thigh grazers, meaning leg day must no longer be skipped. Will it stop there? GQ asked “are straight guys ready for a speedo summer?” Judging from this year’s Love Island, that horse has already bolted with Harry leading the way. Given 46 per cent of men are ready to take on the look, expect to see a lot more skin on the street after the rain.
Checking in on that Jaguar campaign
When it comes to opinions, unlike Jaguars, we’ve all got one. Everyone became an Auto Expert and Brand Strategist when Jaguar launched its explosive “Copy Nothing” campaign, and now the latest sales data has heralded in another slew of ill-informed thought pieces… claiming #gowokegobroke. The real reason for the lack of sales is actually because Jaguar stopped producing vehicles ahead of total EV transition. Meanwhile, in the real world, Jaguar’s new concept car drew crowds at Goodwood…
Quote of the week:
“You can’t be superior and the victim. You have to decide.”
Dialogue from Beth Steel’s Till The Stars Come Down stings long after the curtain falls
Orange is not the only spritz
We all know that when the temperature rises, Brits drink more. You see it everywhere from the thronging beer gardens and prosecco filled parks, to the clinking sounds drifting across the city’s garden fences. But it’s not just how much we drink, how we drink changes too. Aperol first paved the way for a new form of summer refreshment but now we’ve woken up to a world of spritzes at arm’s reach. From the zesty St-Germain Hugo spritz to limoncello spritzes, a revolution is fizzing.
A recommendation
It wouldn’t be a British summer without a good few washout weekends to puncture the sunshine and ruin garden parties. Revelling in a weekend of cancelled plans as the rain lashed down, I spent the entire weekend binging on Lena Dunham’s searingly honest new show, Too Much. If Girls was the voice of a false-start generation, Too Much is the perfect follow up for viewers now facing into middle age, dealing with the highs and lows of society’s encouragement to ‘be themselves’. Meg Salter is triumphant as a New York exec who moves to London post-breakup for her reinvention era. Her monologue on “messy” as a label is chaotically profound. Too Much is too much, but in the best way.