The Spectator: May 21, 2011
Competition
Lucy Vickery presents this week’s Competition In Competition No. 2696 you were invited to submit a dialogue in verse between two body parts, composed on the occasion of a hangover.… Read more
21 May 2011
Q. May I pass on a tip to readers? Three of my sons are revising for exams at the moment, all in the face of the usual sorts of distractions… Read more
The nature of evil
Simon Baron-Cohen has spent 30 years researching the way our brains work. His study of autism led to The Essential Difference, which asked, ‘Are you an empathiser or a systemiser?’… Read more
Ransacking the world
Something in the air is arousing an interest in collectors and collections — both private and public — of which the success of The Hare with Amber Eyes and The… Read more
How do we get to Denmark?
Francis Fukuyama is rare amongst scholars in being unafraid to ask large questions. He first achieved fame, if not notoriety, by his thesis that, with the collapse of communism, we… Read more
Dreaming of cowsheds
In 1999, Adam Nicolson published a very good book called Perch Hill: A New Life, about his escape from London and a break-down, after his divorce and a nasty mugging,… Read more
A conflict of loyalty
What was life like in Hitler’s Germany? This question has long fascinated authors and readers alike, as books like Alone in Berlin, The Boy with the Striped Pyjamas and The… Read more
The way to dusty death
Beryl Bainbridge’s last novel is a haunting echo of her own final years, according to A. N. Wilson Some writers die years before bodily demise. They lose their grip. In… Read more
Bookends: The voice of the lobster
In existence for over 250 millions years, lobsters come in two distinct varieties, ‘clawed and clawless’. Human predators tend to the flawed and clueless as they overfish and — since… Read more
Any other business
Another tale of the Great Seducer and my tip for the woman to succeed him When I was young I knew a man whose opening gambit with any pretty girl… Read more
INVESTMENT SPECIAL: Anything but gilts
In search of the next ‘trade of the decade’ Imagine you were sitting in St Paul’s at the 1981 royal wedding, waiting for the mismatched bridal couple to arrive and… Read more
INVESTMENT SPECIAL: Nature’s risks and rewards
A beginner’s guide to investing in commodities The arrival on the London Stock Exchange of the Swiss-based mining and commodities behemoth Glencore, valued at £40 billion, has provided a rare… Read more
INVESTMENT SPECIAL: Grey rights
Like sinister Siamese twins, the words ‘pension’ and ‘scandal’ seem to have become joined at the hip. So perhaps it is no surprise that some very good news — perhaps… Read more
INVESTMENT SPECIAL: The trend is your friend
In the 1983 comedy Trading Places, two unscrupulous commodity brokers wagered that they could take a vagrant off the street and turn him into a successful trader. The film was… Read more
Big Brother Beeb
For the past few weeks, unnoticed by all but the most sharp-eyed critics, BBC1 has been running a Celebrate Communitarianism season. The first programmes were: Envy of the World!!!, in… Read more
Object lesson
What are we supposed to make of those odd pictures of Osama bin Laden sitting crouched in a dingy, undecorated concrete room watching something blurred on a small TV screen?… Read more
Latest blogs
- PM avoids knee-jerk response to Woolwich attack Isabel Hardman
- David Cameron’s statement on the Woolwich attack The Spectator
- The words ‘terrorist attack’ only dignify the barbarism Rod Liddle
- The View from 22 — Osborne’s property bubble, the ongoing Tory wars and Google’s taxing issue Sebastian Payne
- Woolwich eyewitness: one of the men fired a gun, but it backfired and he lost his finger Fraser Nelson
- Kindling by the pool – the changing face of holiday reading Mark Mason
- Woolwich attack: the aftermath James Forsyth
