It’s that time once more: the Ibiza closing parties are done and this country’s lads lads lads are busy dry-cleaning their Asos two-pieces, vacuum-packing their white vests and giving the short shorts one last run round to the Co-op, before they hunker down in their vintage football tops and maybe one of those bobbly coats like The Bear’s Carmy for the autumn. But this year, we want to snuggle in with them.
It’s been an enlightening summer for ladkind. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie laid the patriarchy — with its manhoodextending horses and trucks, and silly wars over slighted feelings — out for us all to pick over like the unsightly spoils of a Toby Carvery roast. But somehow Ken shed his blond fragility, finally realising he was ‘Kenough’ while the Barbies re-took the lead. Similarly allowing his vulnerability to tumble forth, Lewis Capaldi, Bard of Lads, allowed the crowd to carry him home after his Glastonbury set overwhelmed him at a point of crisis and we fell in love with him even more.
