The Spectator's Notes

10 January 2009

Charles Moore's reflections on the week

Driving through a neighbouring village, I noticed a billboard which said: ‘Brede Scouts Carol Concert Success’. The headline gave complete pleasure. First, because it was nice to know that Brede Scouts exist and had a carol concert. Second, it was good to hear that the concert was a success. Third, the headline perfectly summed up why local papers are different from — and more liked — than national ones. The poor Scouts could organise successful carol concerts until the crack of doom and national newspapers would never show the slightest interest, though they (we, I should say) would love a thoroughly disastrous one. But local papers understand that the good bits of most people’s lives are composed of such small successes, and so they report them with enthusiasm.

No one was sharper than the late editor of this paper, Frank Johnson, at satirising our left-wing intelligentsia, but he was always notably respectful about the work of Harold Pinter. Frank was brought up in the East End in roughly the era when Pinter knew it. Pinter, he maintained, was ‘the Chekhov of the working classes’. As an epitaph, that is even better than ‘the master of silence’.

Who would have thought that the Roman Catholic Church — in England and Wales at least — would have abolished the Twelve Days of Christmas? Yet it is so. As this column has complained before, the decision by the Catholic bishops to reduce the number of holy days of obligation (days when the faithful must attend Mass) has undermined the observance of important feasts. This is particularly so because, instead of simply removing the obligation but continuing the celebration, the authorities have moved the observance of the feast to the nearest Sunday. In the case of the Feast of the Epiphany, this means, this year, that there were only Ten Days of Christmas. No lords-a-leaping or ladies dancing; and Magi, presumably, arriving late.

‘Force yourself to be spontaneous’ is the dizzying paradox offered by the Style section of the Sunday Times telling you how to avoid ageing in 2009. I can think of nothing sadder than grey-haired women and balding men sitting in their cars before a party, rehearsing the spontaneity which they think will be demanded of them.

Best sight of 2009 so far — foxhounds, in brilliant sunshine, slithering across a frozen dyke in pursuit of their ‘trail’.

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wayne metcalfe

January 8th, 2009 11:17pm Report this comment

Hi charles, I have started a campaign of my own, My facebook group against the tv licence has now reached over 250,000 members, could you give it a plug please - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28406901260

also the site with the petition is here - http://www.onebillionpageviews.org/guestbook/index.php

best regards wayne

David Lindsay

January 9th, 2009 4:06pm Report this comment

Unable to attend the Extraordinary Form on Tuesday, I missed the Epiphany for the first time in my life, even though I did not become a Catholic until two thirds of the way through my BA.

There are, however, those in England who will still be keeping it on the same day as the Pope.

In the Church of England.

Quite a senior member of which recently asked me in all seriousness whether or not we were still keeping Christmas Day on 25th December rather than moving it to the nearest Sunday.

This borderline schismatic act by the "Catholic" Bishops' Conference of England and Wales must be reversed immediately.

And the Epiphany should be made a public holiday in place of the pointless celebration of a mere change in the date (which happens every day), with the New Year's Eve revelries transferred back to Twelfth Night, which is too long after Christmas for the whole country to shut down between the two.