Top dogs
Sir: I very much enjoyed the excerpts from Dean Spanley (The Spectator’s Notes, 8 January). Hitherto my favourite depiction of the canine mindset had come from Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome:
Montmorency’s ambition in life is to get in the way and be sworn at. If he can squirm in anywhere where he particularly is not wanted, and be a perfect nuisance, and make people mad, and have things thrown at his head, then he feels his day has not been wasted.
Anyone who has ever attempted to shift a beloved pet from underfoot while cooking is surely familiar with such an attitude.
I am sure other readers will have their own favourites.
Kate Baxter
Etchingham, East Sussex
Sir: Charles Moore’s enjoyment of Lord Dunsany’s book Dean Spanley might be increased even more by watching the ‘utterly original’ DVD. Although Peter O’Toole is rated as the star of the film, Sam Neil’s dogged portrayal of the canine-deluded clergyman is unforgettable and as barking mad as one could imagine.
Robert Vincent Wildhern, Hampshire
A long, withdrawing roar
Sir: In seeking to convict me of a ‘howling error’, Nick Spencer (Letters, 8 January), misrepresents my position. I did indeed argue that astronomy and geology had undermined Christianity, but I was not basing that claim on the faith-versus-science debates in the 19th century. My point is broader and simpler. At the end of the middle ages, an educated Christian would have believed that God had created the Heavens and the Earth in order to provide a moral playing-field for mankind. Over the next few centuries, astronomy and geology subverted those simplicities. Although it would be impossible to establish a quantitative relationship between the rise of science and the erosion of faith, the causal connection is self-evident. It helps to explain the decline of Christian certainties and the erosion of intellectual self-confidence: the melancholy, long withdrawal in which theological authority and teleological conviction have been replaced by a blancmange of pantheism, political sentimentality and ersatz mysticism.
Mr Spencer had no need to offer a serious readership distant glimpses of the obvious, by reminding us that from Newton onwards, innumerable modern scientists have sought to justify the ways of science to God. That is well known. It is also irrelevant. Whatever those scientists believed, their disciplines have encouraged unbelief.
Bruce Anderson, London SW1
Auld lang syne
Sir: I fear that Hugo Rifkind is exhibiting one of the classic signs of the Scotsman who has been absent from his native land for a prolonged period in his account of the Scottish new year (1 January). The reality is far more mundane than Hugo suggests. I have the advantage over him of having spent every one of my 63 new years in Scotland and have seen the holiday change out of recognition in that time. In my childhood it was a very significant occasion (Christmas day at that time was a working day for many) and much thought and preparation went into the planning of the new year party. What probably most changed it was that old villain television, and the tendency in more prosperous times for the occasion to degenerate into an excuse for even greater alcohol consumption than normal. My impression now is that many people do not really bother much with it apart from staying up long enough to see in the new year and give themselves the chance to criticise the television programmes. Much as it may pain many Scotsmen to admit it, Christmas is now a far more significant holiday here.
James E. Marr Bearsden, Glasgow
Passion for paint
Sir: I thought Andrew Lambirth’s short review of Cate Haste’s Sheila Fell: A Passion for Paint (Books, 8 January) was rather grudging in its appreciation of the author’s difficult task. Haste has produced a highly readable biography, not a turgid art-historical monograph. People who like Sheila Fell’s paintings would probably prefer that. It would be sad if the rather nitpicking criticisms of typos and production faults which bulk so large in the review (most of which are the publisher’s fault, not the author’s) put people off reading it.
Nicholas Coulson, London SW3
The Bastards of Norfolk
Sir: I was much amused to note James Delingpole’s reference in his television column (Arts, 11 December) to the 1842 map showing ‘Bastardy in England and Wales’ by county and his observation that ‘Norfolk had the most’.
In Norfolk’s defence I would like to point out that in our online database of family crests, www.myfamilysilver.com, we have five families by the name of Bastard, only one of which is from Norfolk — compared with three families of that name who were prominent in Devon.
The fifth Bastard family does not have a recorded geographical link, but it is striking that its crest is an arm wielding a dagger — seemingly in the act of stabbing someone or something. I feel sure that this must be the family from which the fictitious MP Alan B’Stard is descended.
I can’t imagine why this name appears to have died out in the 20th century.
Stephen Marsh
Via email
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