It is Sunday and we are deep in Sussex, in the shadow of the South Downs. Even this far into autumn, the hills are lush with greenery, but the landscape remains self-contained and civilised. It is English, it is tasteful and it has a pub.

I go in. This is a new world for me that appears, on the surface, to be a very old world indeed. The ancient flagstones are suitably uneven and the roof beams are sagging to roughly forehead height on a run-of-the-mill man. Appropriately, there is a small watermill for a man to run in immediately outside the door. A pipe leads from the mill to a trough where trout are kept.

It is dark inside the pub, and it takes a moment to see the group of ten men and women in their early thirties. The women wear jeans and blouses but are heavily made up; the men are in corduroys and brogues. They look like budding young fogeys, but the men's shoes and trousers are
not battered but new. And rather than Kipling or Betjeman, the conversation, as far as it goes, is standard bourgeois philistine, expressing a keen appreciation of the work of Pink Floyd and David Gray.

They drink lager and squirt ketchup on burgers; they squirt ketchup on the table, and they squirt it on each other. The women scream and the men shout things like "Winky!" and "Wonky!" for no clear reason. They are excited and they get even more excited as the door opens.

A cry goes up: "Teddy!"

Teddy has arrived. I don't doubt for a minute he is a blackguard, the evidence - blond hair coming over his ears and a dark blue blouson bearing the legend "Ski Courcheval" - is too strong. But he works a palpable magic on the women, who, used to the podgy faces and piggy eyes of the men they are with, react with unabashed pleasure to Teddy's well-defined cheekbones and the orangey-pink trousers that cling to his backside.

If the women are aroused, the men are slavering. They edge towards Teddy and, gripping the handles of their beer mugs, they snort in agreement. Beer and burger particles shoot out of their flared nostrils and settle on Teddy's dark tan deck shoes.

Teddy orders trout.

Why all this simpering toadying? Because, I realise, the people in the bar are pretending to be posh, but Teddy, who drawls his words and whose orangey-pink trousers are more orangey-pink than any other trousers in the world, is the real deal. He is an utter toff and his faux-toff admirers are almost incoherent with pleasure.

This noisy good cheer is understandable. Politically, their time has come and they stand on the edge of power. I leave the pub, stopping only to piss in the watermill.

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