Jaws proves the power of a snappy headline

Brace yourselves. Jaws, Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece of a blockbuster, turns 50 next month, an anniversary that will doubtless be marked by prolonged reminiscences involving not only mechanical sharks – the three designed by Robert Mattey, who also made the the giant squid in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, didn’t work until two-thirds of the film had been shot – but also the long-seated fears of people like me, who spent every childhood visit to the seaside refusing to go into water deeper than three inches. Even now, I begin flailing about, should any bladderwrack unexpectedly graze my ankles.

Jaws nerds are legion; I’m not sure I can add anything new to the mix. But having watched a forthcoming National Geographic documentary about the movie that was for a while the highest-grossing in history, I’m reminded once again of the vital importance of titles. Peter Benchley, who wrote the best-selling novel on which the film is based, struggled to find the right one: a notebook exists in which his many misfires – Stillness in the Water, Leviathan Rising – are all listed. Only at the last minute did he come up with Jaws, and the rest – open wide! – is history.

RIP Leonard Lauder, son of Estée and the man who turned her cosmetics business into a multibillion dollar empire. Famously, it was also Lauder who came up with the “lipstick index”, a theory which posits that as economies turn down, sales of the scarlet stuff inevitably rise – a morale booster for women who have less cash to spend.

Apart from during Covid, when mouths were covered with masks, Lauder’s theory has always held true. Churchill, knowing its power, kept lipstick off the ration during the war; sales also rose after 9/11 and the recession of the early 2000s. For my part, it’s suddenly everything. There’s no point in buying a new dress when you rarely leave the house, and a holiday is only a dream for the future. But lipstick remains a boon even when you’re desperately ill. In the last month, I’ve bought three shades, each one designed to match the silk scarves I must now wear on my poor, balding little head.

I must admit that my delight at the news that the new head of MI6 is a woman called, rather wonderfully, Blaise Metreweli, was only in part down to feminism. Far more thrilling for me was the revelation that as a child she was fascinated by her brother’s copy of Usborne’s The KnowHow Book of Spycraft, a book that led her to experiment with dead drops with her friends (a dead drop is when classified information is passed between individuals via a secret location).

Within seconds of reading this, I was messaging my little brother. Vindication at last! The KnowHow Book of Spycraft, co-written by the mysterious Falcon Travis and illustrated by the great Colin King, was our bible when we were young. We took its advice on invisible ink and convincing disguises with utmost seriousness; once we’d read it, no neighbour was safe from our fully-logged suspicions.

My brother, though, seemed less surprised than me that this slim volume had led Metreweli to the top of the Secret Intelligence Service. First published in 1975, it’s still in print today – a longevity for which parents like him must take some of the credit. Having bought a copy for his daughter, Florence (also Metreweli’s middle name), he now expects equally great things of her: a cloak, a dagger, the ability to hide an encrypted scroll of paper in the heel of her shoe.

Photograph by Peacock/Universal Pictures via AP