33 summer faux pas (no 1: heels on the beach like Lauren Sánchez)

Times

3 days ago

It's August and therefore super season for quality snaps of the rich getting it wrong on holiday. In the past we've had David Cameron in Ibiza wearing dark trousers and black brogues (not the right vibe for Spain in summer). This week we have Lauren Sánchez, again in Ibiza, wearing her signature second-skin-minidress-with-high-heel-stilettos while attempting to navigate a rocky (not just pebbly) beach.
You can see how it happened but you also want to shout, 'Lauren! Nobody wears heels on a beach. You'll break your neck, love!' Then again, we've all been there in some way, shape or form. We may not have trotted down a beach in 4in mules (mules!) but there are plenty of other summer faux pas we've been guilty of, starting with …
Rain, wasps, tractors and tiny bikinis — Shane Watson's rules for surviving a British summer holiday
There is no law but if you want to wear a white silk slip split to the thigh etc, your best bet is that restaurant on the edge of Lake Como where you may see George and Amal and their one per cent chums. Here, no one is going to fine you for wearing a £10,000 outfit but they will stare and whisper and you're unlikely to get out of there without a stain that'll be hard to get rid of.
Dryrobe-wearing is a swimmers-only privilege. Sauntering about in one because you like the look of it is a bit like wearing state-of-the-art skiwear in a ski resort when you can't ski — somewhere on the cheaty/idle spectrum. Again, you won't be stoned but you may stick out like Sánchez wearing heels on a beach.
The unspoken rule, when holidaying in the Med, is that you may wear a tiny bikini or half a tiny bikini, but if you're in the UK you want to avoid anything too flash or potentially flashing. A navy-and-white-striped Boden one-piece would be the right sort of vibe.
You'll get popularity points for this in several parts of the world but on our island you will be singled out as rude and antisocial. (Ditto in-water canoodling, by the way. You'd have to be very keen given the temperature and the jellyfish and the current but if you were thinking about it, hop on a plane to Mykonos.)
Another way to alienate your host community. Pretty obvious why. They are part of the landscape, don't sting much and endlessly pointing them out is on a par with fussing about the seagulls (get under your poncho to eat your sausage roll! Don't deliberately tempt them!). Also, on no account ask about potential sea pollution levels. It's probably fine if you keep your mouth closed (but don't let the dog go in).
This is like the jellyfish faux pas only worse because they occur in restaurants and cafés so waving your croissant in the air and wailing, 'OMG! The wasps!' is tantamount to brandishing a cockroach you found in the kitchen: not good for business. Maybe don't order something sugary.
Every so often the heavens will open and you will be soaked. Don't be the people who limp into the nearest Co-op and tearfully ask for help with the drenched little ones. Were you not prepared? Would you go to the beach without sun cream (in a hot place, anyway)? What do you call those? Flip-flops?
Head to the countryside in August and there will be farming and farm machinery (noisy, slow). Leaning on the horn behind a tractor because you're in a rush to get to the beach is the No 1 faux pas. It's like not clapping for the NHS, or shouting, 'Screw global warming, I like it hot!', somewhere on that level.
'Kimchi! You must have heard of it.''Is there somewhere nearby where the water is less brown?''Is that smell normal?''Do you know where Jeremy Clarkson lives?''Do you sell Dubai pistachio chocolate?''Can we get a taxi round here?''Where's the nearest shisha bar?''Can I hire, like, a Lime bike?''Can you take us dolphin watching?''But where's the beach? This is like … boulders.'
Each summer, otherwise reasonable men lose the plot — grilling obsessively, swigging lethal cider and treating children's football like the Champions League, says Ben Machell
Too many of us do this. We can be absolutely normal, reasonable, self-aware men for nine months of the year but as soon as there are two consecutive days of hot weather, we persuade ourselves that we are in fact a grizzled barbecue 'pit master' from Texas. When this happens to a man you'd previously quite liked it's heartbreaking and — even worse — just incredibly tedious. 'If you bank the coals in a gradual slope, it means you can modulate the heat,' he tells you for the billionth time as you stand beside him at the grill, staring into the middle distance and fantasising about dousing him in lighting fluid. 'I make my own burgers, soooo much better than that supermarket rubbish,' he says before handing you something that tastes of hot gristle and ketchup, and makes you pray for rain.
I don't normally drink cider but it's often on offer at this time of year so I'll buy a few and happily swig them in the sunny patch of my garden. And then, after an indeterminate amount of time, something odd happens as I realise I've completely lost the power of speech, and that it's night-time, and that I'm no longer in my back garden but shivering on the deck of a slow steamer to Shanghai. So I rub my eyes and check the label of the bottle still in my hand and find it reads 'Aneurysm Orchard's Finest Somerset Scrumpy, ten zillion per cent proof'. And I think, 'Not again …'
I accept this one is quite personal to me but I just have this horror of those creepy low-cut socks that men wear in summer that are meant to make it seem like they're not wearing socks under their trainers even though everyone can see that they are obviously wearing socks. Is this an irrational phobia I should probably just keep to myself? No. These socks are objectively weird, wrong and very, very sinister.
• How to spot a millennial: look at their socks
It's the time of year when for various reasons — picnics with friends, trips to the beach etc — middle-aged men will often find themselves playing football with groups of kids. Coming through these matches without shaming yourself is a real high-wire act. On the one hand you want to demonstrate to everyone present — particularly the other dads — that you are no slouch and still have that bit of stardust about you. But what you absolutely cannot do is obviously try to win or, even worse, start getting ratty when your team is losing. I've seen good men screaming 'control the half-spaces!' and 'we keep getting caught in transition!' to a bunch of frightened seven-year-olds before completely losing the plot and blasting in ten unanswered solo goals. It was like watching the footballing equivalent of seal-clubbing and it haunts me still.
Really basic stuff, this. I see groups of middle-aged men who should know better doing this, walking down the street like the producer of Magic Mike XXL has decided to cast the next West End run of the show exclusively with people they found in a Wetherspoons beer garden. Even worse and even less forgivable, though, are men who know they're in decent shape finding any excuse to strip to the waist. Runners in summer are the worst for this. In their minds they think they're the Diet Coke Break guy. But the Diet Coke Break guy didn't spray so many innocent passers-by with so much sweat that he was declared a biohazard.
I'm not saying men need to have pedicure-perfect feet. I certainly don't. My bare trotters look horrendous: bony, hairy, misshapen and with nails that are cracked, blackened or simply not there, each foot is like something a seriously disturbed child would draw when given crayons and paper by a forensic psychologist. However, I like to think I am big enough to accept this and understand that wearing open-toed sandals isn't in the best interests of humanity. Not everyone does.
• This summer men are baring their chests — how low will you go?
Happens like clockwork every year. The camping catalogue hits the doormat and we (men) snatch it up jealously, privately poring over the contents with the same sweaty-palmed excitement we had once reserved for copies of Razzle found in suburban scrubland. Why? How can you even ask why? Just look at all the camping products! The gas stoves! The air mattresses! The tents and lanterns and folding chairs and solar-powered showers and clever storage solutions! 'But … we … hate … camping,' your wife grunts, trying to wrestle the joint account card from your grip while your two children do their best to put you in a chokehold. Honestly, I just want to spend everything I have on this stuff. If the government nationalised Go Outdoors between May and September, our economic problems would be over.
Are you guilty of following these ridiculous food and drink trends? If so you have no taste, says Tony Turnbull
Most of us went through a phase of experimenting with ill-advised cocktails when we were teenagers (Malibu and pineapple, anyone?), but then we became adults and did away with childish things. Except in the case of Aperol spritz.
Yes, I know it originated in Venice and the Italians are inherently cool, but let's face it, with its mix of sticky, Day-Glo orange Aperol and sweetshop-flavoured prosecco, it's basically an alcopop. So do yourself a favour and graduate on to a bitter amaro such as Campari. Now there's a proper drink. Dilute with soda or, for a more alcoholic hit, throw in some dry white wine as well to make a bicicleta. And it's still a pretty colour.
What is it about the summer heat that makes people start acting like toddlers? The things you buy to eat in the park, on the beach or wherever — olives, stuffed peppers, sausage rolls, pork pies, etc — have proper names, so why not use them? Or if you want a catch-all, I find 'picnic food' or even 'nibbles' does the job just fine. But 'picky bits'? You're not a three-year-old, so eat your bickie-wicky and grow up.
• The best supermarket picnic snacks for summer — tested!
It was Torres, the Spanish brand, that started this with its truffle-flavoured crisps fried in olive oil. I remember going crazy for them in, ooh, about 2010, but since then crisp manufacturers have lost their heads in a demented arms race of ingredient one-upmanship. Himalayan sea salt, oyster, tiger prawn, serrano ham, wagyu beef … It's all nonsense, so please stop. Plain salted, or salt and vinegar at a push, that's the way to go.
I know it makes you feel like a low 'n' slow master of the Green Egg, but will you please stop putting chilli honey on everything you barbecue? When chefs talk about caramelising meat, they don't mean turning it into caramel.
Just what's the point? Botivo's the one everyone raves about, but it's basically flavoured vinegar at £50 a litre. Nothing wrong with plain tonic.
Beach to bar dressing? Think again. Seven in ten holidaymakers make at least one fashion faux pas, according to a recent survey. By Charlie Gowans-Eglinton
Just as unlikely as trying to dress 'from desk to dinner'', but instead of trying to make pinstripes look less uptight, you're covered in sand with a soggy bottom or a soaked-through bosom (that will sadly read less wet T-shirt competition, more surprise lactation).
Like creepy little condoms for your feet, only there's no chance of sex again ever if your other half sees you in these. Especially mortifying when you see a local 90-year-old walking barefoot for their morning laps.
If they've brought you an English menu, then — also as a sign of respect — don't make them endure the fruits of your three-day Duolingo streak.
Plane seats are small enough without having to worry about your neighbour's beloved straw hat taking up as much space as a toddler.
We want to hear the cicadas, the waves, not Now That's What I Call Balearic Beats 1997.
Only teenagers on holiday without their parents for the first time can be forgiven the accidental red nose; if you're prone to lobster shoulders or a red-raw décolletage, stick to the shade.
Absolutely no sitting bare-arsed in a thong or similar on a restaurant chair, or expecting them to take your order while your nipples are out. No one wants to look at your hairy chest while they eat their prawn linguine.
If that woven leather friendship bracelet seems to be calling your name, you've had too much sun. You are neither Prince Harry nor on a gap yah, so buy nothing you wouldn't wear to dinner at home.
No puka shell anklets and definitely no toe rings unless you're on a gap year.
Especially unforgivable if it's Oasis tour merch. It's not shading your nose, it's actually making your head hotter. Neither Gallagher brother is going to pop out of a prickly pear bush and call you mate.
Avoid unwanted attention this summer. Your literary choices can be surprisingly revealing, says Robbie Millen
Chaps, put down that Audre Lorde essay collection; chuck away that unthumbed copy of Emily Ratajkowski's My Body. It's incredibly naff of you to be seen with these feminist tracts. We know you're not really reading them. We know they are just a prop, like your carefully groomed 1970s porno moustache, a way of attracting the ladies.
Do you really think women see you and think, hmmm, he looks really concerned about the patriarchy/the male gaze/body positivity in late-stage capitalism …? Look at TikTok, that mirror to modern life's stupidity, and you'll find countless videos, surreptitiously filmed by sniggering women, of men pretending to read feminist books in cafés.
Women are not fooled by your copy of Roxanne Gay's Bad Feminist. Read Mick Herron instead. It's clever, it's funny and we know women adore real men such as Jackson Lamb.
PS: Men shouldn't carry Daunt's tote bags. It's emasculating. If you have stuff, put it in your pockets. That's what they are for.
Some books are so zeitgeisty, so current, so NOW!, that if you're reading after that moment has passed, it's lame. Sally Rooney's Normal People is one such novel. As an adult human, it was only permissible to read it between August 30, 2018 — when it first appeared — and summer 2020, a few months after the BBC adaptation aired in April 2020.
Unless you are writing a monograph on Overeducated Millennials Agonising About Feelings in Contemporary Literature c 2017-25 — or are unlucky enough to be Gen Z (sorry about the doomscape we've left you) — there is no reason you should be reading Normal People now.
One reads zeitgeisty novels to earn yourself some currency in the cultural conversation. Do you want to hear my opinions about Sajid Javid's chancellorship? Carole Baskin, Joe Exotic's nemesis? Marriage Story? Or what makes a 'Hot Girl Summer'? No, thought not. The moment has passed.
Some very good novels should be read only in the privacy of your home. Take Ian McEwan's debut. When The Cement Garden came out in 1978, announcing this great new talent, it earned him the nickname Ian Macabre. It's a sinister tale, full of odd vibes. Just some kids burying Mum under the patio and a teenage brother and sister who, ahem, become rather too affectionate. It's good, but remember that when you're on holiday you're on display.
Do you want strangers scrutinising your every move, searching for evidence of your perviness — did his hands linger too long applying that sun oil? Is that family too affectionate? Are those Speedos too teensy? You may well be weird but it's a mistake to broadcast your weirdness.
The same advice applies to Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, JG Ballard's Crash, Virginie Despentes' Baise-moi or the Marquis de Sade's The 120 Days of Sodom. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be too interesting around the swimming pool.