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Letters

Wednesday, 20th August 2008

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Bombast in Beijing

Sir: David Tang is right (Diary, 16 August) that Zhang Yimou, the choreographer of the Olympic ceremony, produced ‘maniacal... bombast...’. Mr Tang suggested Pyongyang as a model. But years ago Mr Zhang told me that he could get his films on screen in China, where they were hardly shown, if he made one like Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will about the 1936 Nazi Olympics.

Mr Tang mentions the ‘sleight of hand’ of the faked fireworks — which would have got a similarly faking athlete sent home. But that is only one example of the ceremonial Potemkin. The Chinese internet sites admitted everything, afterwards. There was the little girl singer, miming because according to a Politburo member the real singer wasn’t pretty enough; but Zhang Yimou said the little girl on our screens ‘sang pretty well’. The poor thing didn’t know until her father told her after the ceremony that she had been dubbed. There were the 55 ‘ethnic children’ — so described in the programme — who were all Hans, ethnic Chinese. A genuine Tibetan might have suddenly said or done something unpatriotic.

In the gymnastics, that cute little girl described as being 16 (she looked about 8) was last seen on an official Chinese website last year, described as 13. No need for Tessa Jowell, if she is still around, to ‘gush with praise’ for what she saw. There was plenty in Beijing for London to avoid in 2012.

Jonathan Mirsky
London W11

Compensation culture

Sir: The award of £4.5 million to the footballer Ben Collett mostly consists of lost potential earnings. Rod Liddle (Liddle Britain, 16 August) is worried not by the amount but by the fact that any compensation may have severe consequences for the game as a whole. Another way of looking at the matter is to consider that Mr Collett, who sounds like a refreshing change from the stereotype of the shallow, illiterate footballer, is now about to enter Leeds University, where new career opportunities will open on graduation.

Eventually Collett may find a lucrative city job and earn even more than he could have as a footballer. The injury could mean that he will end up financially better off, even without any compensation. Instead of receiving a payment, there could be an argument for him choosing to pay some money, perhaps to a sporting charity, if his future wealth exceeds that forecast by his legal team.

Laurence Kelvin
London W9

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Philip Priestley

September 19th, 2008 11:02am

I am surprised that the Spectator should have published a letter such as that recently (Letters: 23 August 2008) by Carola Sandbacka.

Every dictionary I have been able to consult defines 'invasion' as (some variation of) "the incursion of an army for conquest or plunder".

[Invasion is the generic term, denoting a forcible entrance into a foreign country. Incursion signifies a hasty and sudden invasion. Irruption denotes particularly violent invasion. Inroad is entry by some unusual way involving trespass and injury. Webster. http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=264700 ]

If that is not what happened in 1939, perhaps Carola would like to tell us where the fighting between Finland and the Soviet forces did take place.

My understanding - see, for example, http://home.wanadoo.nl/cclinks/abtf/russia~1.html - was that it took place in Finland, when Russian forces crossed the border into Finland on a massive (and clearly pre-planned) scale.

None of which goes to deny that the Soviets were fought to a standstill by the courageous Finns. There is undeniably some evidence, however, that the Finns might not, in fact, have been able to hold out much longer, but others will know better than I (Carola?).

Perhaps Dot Wordsworth could expound at greater length: does an invasion only become an invasion, like treason, if it is successful, or should we then fall back on another word, such as 'occupation' or, to use the Georgian/Sudetenland parallel, 'annexation' ?

A child of our time

From the economic and psychological bedlam of the global downturn has emerged a particularly dangerous false dichotomy: namely, that there is somehow a choice for ministers over the next few years between economic reconstruction and the repair of Britain’s broken society, and that the government (whether Labour or Conservative) must prioritise the former at the expense of the latter.

Diary

Anne Robinson

The daughter and I spent the last few days before the American election in Arizona.

Politics

Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson reviews the week in politics

The Spectator's Notes

Charles Moore

‘A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman’s famous “helicopter drop” of money.’ So said Ben Bernanke, now the chairman of the Fed, in a speech about how to ward off the ‘extremely small’ chance of deflation, which he delivered in 2002.

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody

Tamzin Lightwater

Tamzin Lightwater's unique take on the week

Letters

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Letters

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Letters

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Your chance to vote in the Spectator awards

James Forsyth

After a gripping week of political theatre in Manchester, James Forsyth invites readers to submit nominations for a new category in our Parliamentarian of the Year Awards: the prize for the Readers’ Representative