Of all the things an Englishman might be called, “shoddy” is perhaps the most demeaning. Call us “mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” and we’ll hear “eccentric, handsome, and thoroughly good value on a long weekend.” But shoddy? There’s something schoolmasterish about it all—repressed memories of untucked shirts and smudged homework, of moral weakness and experimental haircuts. French masonry is shoddy. Italian elections are shoddy. American presidents are shoddy. But an Englishman’s output? Not so!
Which is why the wording of a lawsuit currently simmering away at High Court is so delicious and so telling. In it, the Earl and Countess of Wemyss and March are suing their former art adviser (or rather their trust is suing his limited company) on the charge of conducting his business in an “unprofessional and shoddy manner.” In short, the couple say that Simon C. Dickinson, a one-time senior director at Christie’s who worked for the couple privately, instructed them to sell a painting for far less than they now believe it was worth—and they’d like him to recoup the difference, thanks very much. Dickinson is denying the claims and any negligence.
