Name: Freemasons.
Age: Their origins can be traced back to the stoneworkers’ guilds, whose members built the great medieval gothic cathedrals. The first Grand Lodge was established in 1717, in London.
We are talking about the secret society, right? Well, maybe not quite so secret.
I have been wondering how they have been coping in Covid. No handshakes presumably means no secret handshakes. How have they been able to recognise one another? Perhaps they have developed a secret elbow bump. Unless it has not been necessary.
What do you mean? Just that they appear to be trying to be less secret.
How so? Following on from a fly-on-a-Freemason’s-hall-wall TV documentary on Sky a couple of years ago, as well as allowing more and more visitors in for tours of their London headquarters in Covent Garden, they are now going one stage further along the path to modern openness (as well as some profitability, presumably). They are this week opening a gift shop.
No way. How do you know? Smoke signal? They issued a press release.
Where is the shop? In what used to be the drawing room of the art deco HQ building on Great Queen Street. The new shop has been created by the interior design company Lumsden, which also did the shops at the British Museum, Tate Modern and the National Theatre.
What will it sell? Guide to Establishing the New World Order? The Occult for Everyone? Well, you will be able to get the things you might need in meetings, such as white gloves and gavels, as well as ties bearing the square and compass logo. But there will also be a range of more general merchandise.
Such as? There will be scarves and jewellery for Mrs Mason, and postcards of famous Masons, including Winston Churchill and Rudyard Kipling. And teddy bears wearing adorable little Mason aprons.
Aww! So cute. Interesting that you mention Mrs Mason. So, presumably, in this new spirit of enlightenment and openness, women will now be accepted and welcome in the Freemasons? Absolutely! Just not in most of the chaps’ lodges. Women have a few of their own.
Other famous Masons, apart from Churchill and Kipling? So many. Arthur Conan Doyle, King Edward VIII, Joe Frazier, William Hogarth, Wellington, a lot of police and judges, several US presidents, Richard Pryor, Francis Mason …
Francis Mason, the American missionary and zoologist, was a Mason? He was.
Any famous women? Er, no. Not yet.
Do say: “Hi! Just these please. Do you accept Apple Pay?”
Don’t say: “Pssssst! Which way to the creepy initiation ceremony?”