It's official, I'm a Harrie
We never go out of style
I’m typing this during a spell of blue sky and sunshine here in Edinburgh. Unlike much of England, it’s been overcast and humid here for most of the last couple of weeks - the kind of weather that makes me feel unwell - so I’m soaking up as much vitamin D as I can through the cafe window.
This week, I’ve mostly been transfixed by videos from Harry Styles’s Love On Tour - my TikTok For You Page is full of videos of feather boa’s conga lines and pink cowboy hats.
What struck me this morning, reading Robinne Lee’s The Idea Of You (Bookshop.org affiliate link) for at least the third time (if the link between Harry Styles and that book isn’t clear… read the book!), is the sheer contrast between the normal use of those football stadiums and the use of them by the Harries. They are masculine spaces, designed for the worship of a game built on attack and fed by tribalism.
That has made its way into the Harry sphere by dint of his Glasgow show(s?) being at Ibrox. I saw girls in comments saying they were fans of his but that you’d never catch them dead in the Rangers stadium. Maybe I just don’t understand, but that strikes me as kind of sad.
Other than that, though, the vibes are - as they say - immaculate. I’m ashamed to say that, like Taylor Swift, I had written off Harry Styles as being bubblegum pop (and even I’m unsure why I thought that was a bad thing). A couple of years after stepping into my Swiftieness, here I am, signing up as a Harrie. He is an unabashed showman and his shows are a celebration of joy. I’d put him in a category with Stanley Tucci (preferably travelling around Italy and explaining the finer details of pasta carbonara) and Tom Hanks (having a go at people who were intimidating his wife) in terms of his masculinity: unthreatening, sensitive, and very attractive. As I do every year, I am watching Twitter watch Love Island, and I tend to think the men on the Island could do with taking a leaf out of those men’s books.
Something good…
I have to rave about Legally Blonde, which is at the Regents Park Open Air Theatre for another two weeks (until July 2nd). Not just an outdoors version of the original musical, which you might have seen on tour or in the West End, this is a revival fit for 2022 in all the best ways. The object Emmett waved around during the lyrics “What’s this?” “It’s for hair!” “Wear a hat!” had the whole auditorium in stitches… but no, I won’t tell you what it is! If you’re in London before the show finishes, do your level best to get to Regent’s Park. Courtney Bowman is the most incredible Elle.
Continuing the audio theme from last week, I have two playlist recommendations, both on Spotify.
The first is songs like vienna, a whole playlist echoing the mood of Billy Joel’s Vienna. If you don’t like Gen Z discovering Running Up That Hill from Stranger Things, you won’t like how I fell in love with the Billy Joel song: I got sick of having to fake it when I raved about how much I love Vienna (the city) and people would say “oh, like the song!”. I went three times in 2018-19 but haven’t been since, for obvious virus-related reasons. My changed perspective on air travel means I’d also find it really hard to justify flying for a weekend, so it’s time I saved for a longer period of time there. I hope Vienna’s waited for me.
The second, of course, is this mega playlist, all taylor swift and harry styles songs, which does what it says on the tin.
Stay SPF-ed up, everyone!
Lily