Moore problems
Sir: Many years ago a colleague warned me that I was so impossibly uncool that one day I was bound to become hip. Has this moment arrived? Charles Moore (Notes, 23 August) informs me that there is a ‘currently fashionable conservatism’ which is ‘militantly against Ukraine’. By this he presumably means not regarding Ukraine as a sort of lovely Narnia, full of birdsong, democracy and honesty, which – as it happens – it isn’t. Even so, I wonder where this ‘fashionable conservatism’ is to be found? After more than a decade of suggesting the Ukraine issue is not as simple as many believe, I have – as far as I know – failed to change a single mind. The fact that I’ve visited the region and know a bit about its history has been a positive disadvantage, as is so often the case in modern British debate.
I also note that Charles accepts ‘one should not project the entire second world war on to now’, and then promptly does. Or at least he thinks he does. In today’s Britain, confused ignorance of events in eastern Europe since 1989 is matched only by deep misunderstanding of the Munich era. I used to wonder how nice, intelligent people (such as Charles) repeatedly got this country into stupid, lengthy wars which predictably damaged us. I don’t wonder any more.
Peter Hitchens
London W8
Frightful shower
Sir: The paucity of baths in hotels and ‘refreshed’ accommodation, as lamented by Charles Moore (Notes, 23 August), is a misery. As a landscape painter, after toiling outside all day the idea of a hot, relaxing bath – vs a shower – and a pint of Guinness keeps me going. I travel far and wide and this is my only criterion.
Josephine Trotter,
Hook Norton, Oxon
Stocking up
Sir: Much has been written about the national problem of shoplifting, including Lionel Shriver’s article (‘My shoplifting shame’, 23 August). As long as the punishment is non-existent or absurdly inadequate, the activity will continue and probably increase. Shriver dismisses public shaming as a deterrent. However, let’s try bringing back the public stocks at virtually no financial cost; hurling rotten eggs, tomatoes etc. in very public locations just might have a positive impact on the villains.
Andrew Ashenden
Cambridge
Out of it
Sir: James Heale’s article on a political sea change appears spot-on (Politics, 23 August). It was Attlee after the war, Thatcher in 1980s, Blair in the late 1990s. Each leader captured with the zeitgeist.
Nigel Farage has the same shrewd ability to identify what concerns a large part of the electorate. If he can outflank the Tories, create a strong internal party constitution, keep gaining media attention and mobilise a disgruntled silent majority, the 2030s could see Farageism at work.
There’s a shift towards the right in Europe. We should assume Reform UK will continue its rise, aided by Kemi Badenoch’s failure to cut through to the average voter. This sea change could create a tsunami of problems for the Tories, who at this rate risk being annihilated in 2029.
Henry Bateson
Whittingham, Northumberland
Legless
Sir: William Pecover enquires as to the worth of The Eel’s Foot in the game of Pub Legs (Letters, 23 August). Strict application of the rules – essential in avoiding family disputes – supplies the answer: a foot does not have legs, so nul points.
Jeremy Stocker
Willoughby, Warwickshir
Transported by music
Sir: It was enlightening to read Richard Bratby on the cultural impact of railways (Arts, 16 August). However, his analysis of Joseph Roth’s musical experience of the Austro-Hungarian railways omits mention of Johann Strauss II’s engaging polka ‘Vergnügungszug’ – ‘Pleasure Train’ – which celebrated the opening of the Austrian Southern Railway. The polka memorably imitates the train’s bells and chuffing progress through the countryside – and it has continued to feature in the Vienna Philharmonic’s new year concerts. Readers would do well to seek out this gem, especially in the 200th anniversary of Strauss’s birth.
Darius Latham-Koenig
London SW1
Lives on the line
Sir: Marian Waters, who recalled how she’d pass railway journeys imagining she was foxhunting alongside the train (Letters, 23 August), may be delighted with this. It appeared in staff copies of GWR timetables until nationalisation in 1948: ‘Every care must be taken to avoid running over packs of hounds which, during the hunting season, may cross the line.’
David Pearson
Haworth, West Yorkshire
Creature discomforts
Sir: Seldom have I experienced such fellow-feeling for a politician as on reading in Mark Mason’s ‘Notes on… bank holidays’ (23 August) how Sir John Lubbock’s newly acquired pair of ferrets scared his fellow train passengers and, when put into his briefcase, ate his parliamentary papers. My own ferret, purchased in a moment’s weakness at my ten-year-old daughter’s insistence, chased the cat around the sitting room before Tigress leapt on to the window sill; savaged me every time I opened its cage to feed it; and kept me awake all night trying to gnaw through the wood. I returned it to the farm whence I bought it within a week, my daughter (and Tigress) happy with the pair of white mice I bought instead.
Tom Stubbs
Surbiton, Surrey
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