TOM UTLEY: The best thing about the Garrick? Stingy guests like me don't have to 支払う／賃金 for their grub. Feminists wanting 会員の地位 should be careful what they wish for

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取り消す me, 燃やす me in effigy, do what you will, but I hope members of the Garrick Club will find the courage to 支持する a tradition almost two centuries old, by 保持するing their 禁止（する） on ?会員の地位 for women when the question is put to the 投票（する） this coming Tuesday.

Indeed, I wish it all the more since Stephen Fry, Sting and other members like them have 約束d to 辞職する 一団となって／一緒に if the 禁止（する） stays in place.

Bring it on! What’s more, I reckon I’d think just the same way if I happened to be a woman myself. But I’ll explain what I mean in a moment.

I 急いで to say that I’m not a member of the club, and never have been. It’s true that the 広大な／多数の／重要な Sir John Junor, who was once my editor, 申し込む／申し出d to put me up for 会員の地位, but I 拒絶する／低下するd.

This was partly because I was daunted by the 会員の地位 料金, but mostly because there was then an eight or nine-year waiting 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる）. As an impatient 28-year-old, I 簡単に couldn’t imagine having to wait so long for anything.

非，不，無-member Tom Utley has been? able to enjoy the many delights the Garrick Club, above, has to 申し込む／申し出 without having to 支払う／賃金 a penny

Celebrity members such as Sting have 約束d to 辞職する 一団となって／一緒に if the 禁止（する） on women stays in place at the Garrick

That was more than 40 years ago ― and the １０年間s since have passed in the mere blink of an 注目する，もくろむ. Ah, 井戸／弁護士席.

But I’ve never regretted having turned 負かす／撃墜する Sir John’s 肉親，親類d 申し込む／申し出. This is because over the years I’ve often been able to go to the Garrick as a guest ― on 正確に／まさに the same 条件 as women are 認める now. They, too, have long been welcomed as members’ guests ― an 協定, I reckon, that 申し込む／申し出s us the best of both worlds.

Not only do we escape having to 支払う／賃金 the 会員の地位 料金, which now stands at a forbidding £1,600 a year. Better st ill, club 支配するs dictate that members must 支払う／賃金 for their guests’ food and drink (although I have to 追加する that, in the past, members have shown themselves ?willing to 受託する my under-the-（米）棚上げする／（英）提議する 申し込む／申し出 of a 財政上の ‘gift’ 量ing to 正確に my 株 of the 法案!)

Self-righteous, exhibitionist poseurs, such as Stephen Fry, above, 調印する up to almost every 流行の／上流の enthusiasm of the Left, reckons our man Tom Utley

The upshot is that, more often than not, I’ve been able to enjoy the many delights the club has to 申し込む／申し出 without having to 支払う／賃金 a penny.

My point is that almost 正確に／まさに the same goes for women guests. In my 事例／患者 it’s just meanness that stops me ?捜し出すing paid-up 会員の地位, while they have the unanswerable excuse that they are banned from joining. Why would any sensible woman want to change that, when the best the club has to 申し込む／申し出 can already be hers?

For a start, the grub is superb, at least by the 基準s of most gentlemen’s clubs. For this, and for much else besides, members have to thank a ?遺産／遺物 from A.A. Milne, who left the club a chunk of the 王族s from ?Winnie the Pooh. When Disney bought the film 権利s to the 調書をとる／予約するs, this gave them ?millions to spend on 最高の，を越す chefs and magnificent ワインs.

A 簡潔な／要約する digression: I’ve long had a soft 位置／汚点／見つけ出す for Milne, in part because he left another slice of Pooh’s 王族s to his school and 地雷, Westminster, but also because of something he wrote in his 1939 autobiography about his time as a columnist on Punch magazine: ‘I know of no work, 手動式の or mental, to equal the appalling, ?heart-breaking anguish of fetching an idea from nowhere.’

That’s putting it a bit 堅固に, ?perhaps. But, my goodness, I know what he meant!

But 支援する to the delights of the ?Garrick. Apart from the excellent food and ワイン, the rooms are magnificent, and adorned with the finest art collection I’ve seen in any such 会・原則.

Where other clubs are hung with ?boring, formal portraits of Victorian 政治家，政治屋s and other 高官s (almost all 年輩の men), the Garrick’s pictures show famous actors and actresses from the past, striking theatrical 提起する／ポーズをとるs in fabulously colourful 衣装.

My only 保留（地）／予約 about the place is the constant danger of running into one of the arch-bores of our time. It’s a ?danger more 激烈な／緊急の at the Garrick, with its hordes of Leftie luvvies and human 権利s lawyers, than in any 類似の 会・原則, with the possible exception of the 演劇 department of the BBC.

I reckon there are two 際立った types of club bore. There is the first, more 伝統的な 肉親，親類d, of which I count myself an 名誉として与えられる member.

When we’re 十分な of after-dinner port, we like to doze in our armchairs or ?burble on about how much better things were in the good old days, before political correctness 侵略するd our is land shores. My sort of people, in short.

Then there’s the new sort of crasher, exemplified by the likes of Fry, Sting, 示す Knopfler (of 悲惨な 海峡s fame) and a whole host of their fellow luvvies ― self-righteous, exhibitionist poseurs, who 調印する up to almost every 流行の／上流の enthusiasm of the Left. Suddenly, these hypocrites have woken up to the fact that for years they’ve belonged to a club that has always 辞退するd to 受託する women as members. How 半端物 that they seem only just to have noticed.

If they were happy to join when they did, what has changed? Are they 簡単に terrified of a Twitterstorm, whipped up by people who don’t understand that a 私的な members’ club should have the same 権利 as a 私的な homeowner to decide who should be 許すd in?

Whatever the truth, an exodus has already begun, with the 出発 this year of high-profile members 含むing the 長，率いる of the civil service, Simon 事例／患者. Imagine how delightful the ?Garrick will be if the 禁止（する） stays, and all those luvvies keep their 約束 to ?follow 事例／患者’s example.

As it happens, I myself tend to prefer mixed company to the undiluted society of my own sex. But that has seldom been a problem at the Garrick, since attractive and 利益／興味ing women have often been の中で my fellow guests.

I shudder to think, however, of the monstrous 連隊 of women who will throng the place if the woke 勝利，勝つ the day. You can bet your last penny ?交戦的な feminists will be at the 前線 of the 列, 意図 on 網状組織ing and ロビーing for pet 原因（となる）s (though discussing 商売／仕事 is 厳密に against club 支配するs).

Before you know it, they’ll 配列し直す the 施設s to 控訴 their convenience, rebuking older members for their old-fashioned 見解（をとる）s and 一般に ?making their lives hell.

True, members of the Garrick long ago abandoned the guiding 原則 （一定の）期間d out by their 前任者s: ‘It would be better that ten unobjectionable men should be 除外するd than one terrible bore should be 認める.’

But are they really 用意が出来ている to ?abandon two centuries of tradition, and sacrifice their peace, by throwing open their doors to the most tiresome ?見本／標本s of both sexes?

Bizarrely, Michael Beloff KC has ?結論するd that the club’s 憲法 does not 特に 除外する women as members, argui ng that the pronoun ‘he’ may be taken to 言及する to a male or a 女性（の）. Thanks to this eccentric advice, and the 批判的な 集まり of Lefties who already belong to the club, it now seems probable that next week’s 投票（する） will go the 改革者s’ way.

If so, the Garrick will hardly be the first 広大な／多数の／重要な British 会・原則 to cringe in 降伏する to the 政治上 訂正する. Look what has happened to our 広大な／多数の／重要な universities, the civil service, the BBC, the 国家の 信用, the police and even our 武装した 軍隊s.

But that’s やめる enough defeatist talk from me. So let me end with a 決起大会／結集させるing cry to my fellow club bores of the old?fashioned 肉親，親類d. Show some ?backbone, chaps! There are surely enough of you at the Garrick to see off the Lefties and 交戦的な feminists. Bring on the flight of the woke!