Is Me+Em the answer to everything?

and a visit to Guildhall

My sister Florence is married to the man who is going to be the Lord Mayor of London for 2024/25. Do not ask me what the Lord Mayor of London does, because I’m still not completely sure. But I do know that the ceremony surrounding the election of the person to this office goes on for months and is totally bonkers.

Last week we - my other sister Hannah, my father Angus and I - went to Guildhall, which is a big building in the City, to witness one small part of this circus. It was the official election of my brother-in-law, Alastair, to be the next Lord Mayor. There is a fourth sister but she has a job and so wasn’t available.

“Dress as if it’s a smart wedding,” said Florence. “Wear a hat.”

I haven’t got a hat, I thought. Moreover, I don’t have any smart clothes. As Jenna Marbles once sang, “I’ve got three looks and that’s it. Homeless man, 12 year old boy and hooker.”

I haven’t bought a day dress or a pair of heels since… I honestly don’t know since when. My one long floral dress is a Zara hand-me-down from Hannah. So I went on to Me+Em and bought three dresses and wore this one, which is the Travel Tailoring Collar Midi Dress. It’s so good. Covers up everything you want covered up, skims over the stomach, allows for stout underwear, the cuffs are a little stretchy so you can push them up a bit and you can toss it in the washing machine. I am sometimes uninspired by the models at Me + Em, but whenever I actually wear anything from there I am always reminded that it’s all brilliant and Clare Hornby is a genius.

For a hat, I dusted off a burgundy trilby. Literally. I found it squished at the back of a hat shelf in the downstairs coat cupboard and covered in dust.

The day arrived and I spotted Hannah on the corner of Gresham and King Street. This was easy because she is very tall. I was standing outside a Pret A Manger, eating a pot of Bircher Muesli.

“Do you want some of this?” I said. “Lunch isn’t until 1.30.” I went back inside and got another spoon and we ate the muesli in the drizzle

“Nice co-ord,” I said.

“Thanks, it’s from Me + Em,” she said. “Why are we here?”

“Because I wanted some bircher muesli,” I said.

“No, here, today. What’s going on? With Alastair. Why are we all here?”

“I’m honestly not sure,” I said.

Hannah was also wearing trilby, along with the natty Me+Em co-ord. So we walked into Guildhall in our matching trilbys, looking like we were going to a Humphrey Bogart fetishists party.

“No-one else is wearing a hat,” I said.

“Hmmm,” said Hannah. “We’ll leave them in the cloakroom.”

Then we went to sit upstairs in Guildhall to watch this extended bureaucratic ceremony where there was a lot of processing about and maybe some voting?? Though I thought Alastair being Lord Mayor was sewn up, like a done deal.

Whatever. There were about six speeches. But from where we were sitting up in the gallery the acoustics were bad and we couldn’t hear a thing. My father, who is 89, took out his hearing aid, looked at it and then put it back in again.

“Dad, it’s fine, I can’t hear either,” I said.

To pass the time, I asked Hannah what she does about meal planning. I’m always interested to know what other people do about meal planning as I never do meal plans and seem to spend my life “running up the road” for things for dinner. I must waste so much time doing this. But whenever I do do a meal plan I suddenly find I am endlessly obstructed in making these meals that I have planned and everything ends up going green in the fridge.

“Oh, I just sort of make it up as I go along,” she said. Then she ran through a typical week: Monday leftovers, Tuesday fish, Wednesday roast chicken, Thursday red meat, Friday chicken curry and then I can’t remember what she said for the weekend.

More people in gowns made inaudible speeches. To add insult to injury, every now and again everyone sitting in the stalls below us burst into great gales of laughter at jokes we couldn’t hear.

“Are they still talking in English?” said Dad.

Then a man dressed like a barrister, complete with wig, shouted “God Save the King!” which was our cue to get up, fetch our stupid hats from the cloakroom and walk to Mansion House for lunch. I put my hat back in the cloakroom at Mansion House and walked up three flights of stairs to the lunch hall to find that… all the women were, somehow, now wearing hats!

“Everyone is wearing a hat,” said Hannah. “I’m going to get my hat.”

“I’m not going to get my hat,” I said. “They can throw me out, I don’t care. I am not going back down those stairs.” My feet were hurting, as I am unaccustomed to wearing smart shoes. I was also worried about me and Hannah with matching trilbies and the Humphrey Bogart thing. There is also something about smart occasions and venues that makes me want to put my feet up on the table and pick my nose.

“Okay,” said Hannah. In the end she didn’t get her hat, either.

I sat next to a nice lady at lunch who had three children, and was also a childminder for 12 years and we had a good old laugh about how hilariously dim small children are.

Afterwards I walked to Bank station to catch the Northern Line home and arrived on northbound platform 4 to find a train there with the doors open and a lot of people standing about. The train didn’t move and it was very hot. This is never, ever the scene you want to find on a tube platform.

I turned to two schoolboys of about fifteen, who were lounging against a wall, looking at their phones.

“Boys,” I said. “Do you know what’s happening with this train?”

“Dunno,” they said. “It’s just been sitting here, not moving.”

“How long have you been here?”

“About five minutes.”

Wait, hang on. The black suits, white shirts, the pink-and-black ties. Living ghosts from my past. “Are you at Westminster?”

“Yes,” they said.

“What house?”

“Grants,” they said in unison.

So I chatted to these two boys for a bit but then came to my senses and thought fuck, what the hell am I doing rambling on to these teenagers on a tube platform, like a complete weirdo?

I wrapped things up quickly and bid them farewell.

“Bye, Miss,” they both said, absently.

I got on the tube and eventually the doors closed and we set off north. And I reflected that I am now in a new place when it comes to talking to teenage boys: I remind them of teachers at school. It’s a fresh dynamic and one I think I will enjoy.

How about you? Any clue what the Lord Mayor of London does? Are you in a new phase when it comes to talking to teenage boys? Please leave a handy comment in the box below and do please feel free to hit the Like button on your way out.