Have you heard of «borecore»? It's very trendy right now. All the rage in your glossy magazines and social networks. If I understand correctly, which is probably not the case, then this is a fashionable embrace of everything gaudy and beige. Pale carpets, mushroom risotto by Keir Starmer. Gwyneth Paltrow's courtroom wardrobe: oversized cream turtlenecks, belted cardigans and awkward Prada shoes. Something like that.
Borecor is not the same thing as boring, you know. That's why I'm quoting Gwyneth Paltrow. There's nothing boring about standing your ground in Utah because the grumpy optometrist makes it look like you bumped into him and changed his personality forever. This never happens to me. But the clothes she wore for this were the very essence of this trend: soft, knitted, colorless and did not frighten the horses.
Borecore goes beyond clothing, extending its fashionable fingers to lifestyle choices, social habits and cultural tastes. It's been around for a while; In 2019, I found an article in The Telegraph “praising burekor” written by a 29-year-old woman who “suddenly became obsessed with staying at home, White Company interiors, antique shops, pub dining and BBC dramas… I’m thinking about homemade food.” maybe a nice bottle of red, a movie, or maybe a board game with my boyfriend. Definitely nothing that requires leaving the house, talking to strangers, or screaming over loud music.”
I found it a poignant read, I must say. Be careful what you wish for! It's 2020 and we're all on the cutting edge of «nothing that requires leaving the house.»
You wouldn't think this trend would survive years of lockdown, would you? But the term has reappeared like a vampire out of a coffin, especially with the multi-million dollar «#vanillagirl» movement on TikTok, plastered approvingly on everything WASPy and expensive.
I'm not a fan of gray jersey myself, not least because of the risk of shedding, but I'm still having a very trendy spring season due to my recent dive into vintage murder mysteries. According to the internet, this is the most boring of TV genres: cozy, luxurious and white for everyone. (Or, if made after 2018, almost everything.)
The programs themselves — and this is an important, albeit subtle, distinction, so please keep up — are not boring. Why didn't they ask Evans?, Hugh Laurie's three-part adaptation of Agatha Christie's Hugh Laurie, which was made for BritBox last year and aired on ITV over the Easter weekend, was extremely fast-paced and action-packed, full of car crashes and screamers. It was filled with amazing performances from people you are happy to see: Paul Whitehouse, Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson and the most magical Hugh Laurie playing a psychiatrist. If you don't want Hugh Laurie to play a psychiatrist, you might want him. It's as nice as a Boxing Day whiskey miniature.
Miles Jupp in Why Didn't They Ask Evans? Credit: ITV
It also featured Miles Jupp as a wealthy junkie, which deserves a special mention given his bravura performance last week on the first episode of the new I've Got News for You. Keep an eye on iPlayer if you missed it; proving that a 30-year-old satirical series can be as edgy and hilarious as anything made up this morning, and Miles Jupp is underestimated as a national treasure. I keep laughing in hindsight at the moment when Ian Hislop began to reason: «If Stormy Daniels was, for example, an English pole dancer …», and Miles Jupp mournfully interjected: «Oh, Ian, what did you do?». He speaks so softly and calmly, but with such sharp intelligence and perfect phrasing; he somehow creates time and space around him, like great batsmen. It's like watching Brian Lara do a comedy. Except that would probably be terrible.
Anyway, why didn't they ask Evans? was the opposite of boring, but I understand why they call it boring: all the pretty people in cashmere golf jerseys roaming the beautiful lawns for sumptuous tea, every shot as neat and gorgeous as Gwyneth Paltrow in the dock. It's damn easy to digest.
I also have high hopes for Murder Magpies, Anthony Horowitz's Saturday night series on BBC One (although all six parts are available on iPlayer if you're into Saturday nights, which would be very unfashionable of you). The action jumps between the classic nerdy murder scenario, in which Sir Magnus Pye is found dead at the foot of Pye Hall's wide ancestral staircase, and the modern world, where it's all a novel written by a prickly author named Alan Conway.
Call me a layman, but I could do without the meta side of things. I'd be happy enough just watching the various suspects in Py Hall glare at each other over shiny tureens. There are a few setbacks in the movement between contrasting worlds, but I've only seen a couple of episodes and, like in Agatha Christie's Witnesses for the Prosecution, there is no jury.
Meanwhile, if you want something really boring, I I can recommend The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle on BBC Sounds. We listened to it every night for six months. Reliably fell asleep within five minutes, each time. We keep losing from where we fell asleep last night and it could be 10 years before we're done with it. It's hard to say why; it is an excellent novel, though full of words about the tropics that would never be used today (unless I dreamed of these passages, in which case I should be canceled immediately), but it is impossible to stay awake for more than a few sentences. Awesome stuff.
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