Londoner's Diary: Only Savile Row will suit to meet the President

 
The names’s Modi: greeting Mr Obama with a unique type of pinstripe (Picture: Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty)
26 January 2015

The first day of Barack Obama’s visit to India was marked by a breakthrough on the two countries’ nuclear deal but there was also an unexpected fashion highlight.

Though Narendra Modi welcomed Obama wearing his traditional kurta, the Indian PM then changed to a black and gold pinstripe suit to have tea in the Hyderabad House Gardens, followed by a joint press conference.

The suit wasn’t as bland as it seemed: sharp-eyed observers noticed that NARENDRADAMODARDASMODI — his full name — ran through the pinstripe in gold thread thousands of times.

It appears that the suit has come from our very own Savile Row, with fabric made by “cloth merchants of distinction” Holland & Sherry. The fabric alone — seven metres required to make a suit — would have cost somewhere between £2,500 and £3,000.

Holland & Sherry supplies the fabric to international tailors Tom James. The Londoner imagines the final bill for such a suit would be approaching £10,000.

Holland & Sherry refuses to comment on individual clients but “[couldn’t] think of anyone else who would do something like that” and Tom James said “I believe we are the only ones doing that [style]” but wouldn’t confirm Modi as a client, nor the price.

At least President Obama appreciated our fine British clothiers. He said during their joint conference that Modi “is tough and he has style”. The Indian PM will also be happy to hear he has joined the very exclusive club of politicians wearing their own names on their suits. The only other member we know of is Hosni Mubarak.

Rest in peace, King Abdullah

Flags were flown at half-mast at Whitehall as a mark of respect to King Abdullah, the Saudi monarch who passed away last week. Critics said it was inappropriate due to Saudi Arabia’s human rights record but the Government insisted it was protocol when a foreign monarch dies. But was it quite so pressing an issue for one fellow to be woken up at 2am by the Home Office, and told to drive to the London prison where he works and lower the flag to half-mast? God save the king.

Mum’s the word now for team Sam

How many aides does a politician need to do a webchat? Five, it seems, if it’s Tory childcare minister Sam Gyimah. The Londoner hears the hardworking (and penis-beaker-debating) women at Mumsnet were amazed when Gyimah turned up at their offices with a larger entourage than your average pop star.

“They were all crowded around him while he did the live webchat,” said our motherly mole. “It just made him look as if he couldn’t write a sentence on his own.”

Gyimah’s department explained that Sam had been accompanied by a Spad, a member of his private office, a press officer and two department policy officials — but it was “routine for the minister to be accompanied by a team”. Perhaps it’s time to cut the apron strings.

Even the stars bow before Amal

Most of us dream about looking like our favourite movie stars but what about the movie stars themselves? They’d rather look like Amal Clooney.

Glamorous girl: Amal Clooney passing through LAX airport (Picture: Broadimage/Rex)

Anne Hathaway was recently told she bore a striking resemblance to the glamorous human-rights barrister — who was at LA’s LAX airport yesterday, jumping on a flight back home to England.

“That’s so going to be the best thing that happens to me today,” cried Anne on hearing she looked like Amal. “I hope that one day I become half the woman she is.” Don’t we all?

If all else fails, just blame Royal Mail

Errant schoolboys take note — “It got lost in the post” is the new “dog ate my homework”. Journalist Johann Hari — who stepped down from the Independent four years ago after owning up to plagiarism and insulting fellow hacks via a sock puppet — has sent off letters of contrition to two of his victims, the Observer’s Nick Cohen and Private Eye’s Francis Wheen. But he couldn’t resist adding that his previous apology must have been mislaid by Royal Mail.

In a recent interview on the podcast Little Atoms, Hari admits that he did some “really awful things … on Wikipedia sometimes I would edit other people’s entries under a pseudonym and I was horrible and nasty about some of them.” He sure was; he called Cohen alone a drunk, a hypocrite and — perhaps worst of all — a supporter of Sarah Palin.

Hari says he wrote a mea culpa to Cohen in 2012. “I didn’t actually post the letters; my flatmate posted them so he’s happy to point out that they were put in the postbox” but somehow Cohen never received the note. Now, a mere two years later and with a new book to promote, Hari is graciously sending out fresh apologies.

“It’s a small gesture but it’s symbolic, and I do think people will think that’s a great thing to do,” says the podcast’s sympathetic interviewer.

Will they? Cohen, for one, says he’d rather not comment.

Girl power for Ann Robbie

An envelope arrives on The Londoner’s desk. Inside it, a handwritten note on Garrick headed paper. As the male-only club appoints Ann Robbie as its first female club secretary, the Garrick deep throat writes: “Overheard by a club wag — don’t know why the newspapers are so interested in declaring we have a woman secretary. Isn’t that what women do?!’”

Rivals bond over dim sum

When Zanny Minton Beddoes was made the new editor-in-chief of The Economist, we assumed the process had been rather cut-throat. But Gideon Lichfield, who worked at the newspaper before founding news website Quartz, and applied to be editor, reveals a socialist whiff about it. “Mine was the last interview but one,” Lichfield explains.

“To celebrate our last moment as equals in rivalry, 12 of the candidates (the 13th wasn’t around) went for lunch in Chinatown, where we squeezed around a table at a dim sum joint like a low-rent version of Dorothy Parker’s clique at the Algonquin and reminisced about foreign assignments, office scandals and recalcitrant dictators we had known or pontificated about.” Let’s see how he Guardian does it, with Alan Rusbridger stepping down.

Good example of the day: from Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, who has flown back from Davos in economy class instead of the traditional private jet. How, well, economical.