Society

Thursday

Dot Wordsworth

Greenland and India

‘Remember what the fellow said — it’s not a bally bit of use every prospect pleasing if man is vile,’ Bertie Wooster remarked. (In this case, the man was Aunt Agatha’s second husband.) Now Bertram was quite widely, if not exactly, versed in the gems of English literature, and older readers will, like Wodehouse’s, recognise the most quotable line from Bishop Heber’s celebrated hymn, ‘From Greenland’s icy mountains’. Language is not only vocabulary and syntax, but also shared references. Wodehouse’s joke works only if we share Bertie’s acquaintance with Heber’s lines. Heber had written them barely a century earlier, in a few minutes one night in 1819, as a hymn

Peter Jones

Beauty and the beasts | 3 August 2017

Doctors have analysed how the mucus of a certain type of slug gives it protection against its being levered off a surface. From this, they have developed a new water-based gel for surgical repairs and wound healing. Aristotle would have been punching the air, had he not been too busy inventing logic, literary critical theory and almost everything else — in this case, biology. In the introduction to his On the Parts of Animals, Aristotle (384-322 bc) contrasted the study of the heavens, which the ancients regarded as imperishable and eternal, with that of the earth. The former, he said, however scanty the evidence, gave most pleasure, in the same

A.N. Wilson

Diary – 3 August 2017

Diana Spencer has been dead for 20 years. I was a journalist on the Evening Standard in those days and she came to lunch at the newspaper a few months before she died. Apart from her blinding charm, and her overwhelming beauty, it was her perfect manners which were striking. She mastered a few details about anyone she met, so that they always felt she was interested in them. It is a great gift. I do not go in for meeting famous people, but that lunch was something very special. I went home in a blaze of love which has lasted to this hour. Conservative-minded people feared her because she

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 3 August 2017

Home Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, appeared to wrest control of plans for Brexit from cabinet rivals, while Theresa May, the Prime Minister, was in Italy and Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, was in Australia. Mr Hammond foresaw a ‘transitional deal’ ending by June 2022, when the next general election is due. He said it would be ‘some time before we are able to introduce full migration controls between the UK and the European Union’. Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary, insisted that the cabinet had not agreed to a three-year transition. Mr Johnson said he was unaware that Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, had announced a year-long inquiry

The Spectator

Crunch time

For anyone considering a career in economic forecasting, the Bank of England’s inflation report for August 2007 ought to be required reading. A graph illustrating its Monetary Policy Committee’s ‘best collective judgment’ of annual economic growth two years ahead is fixed around a central prediction of 2.5 per cent, with extreme boundaries of 0.8 per cent and 4.2 per cent. But after two years, economic growth was running at –5.6 per cent, and the economy had just completed its fifth consecutive quarter of negative growth. The finest minds of Threadneedle Street could not see two years ahead. In this case, the Bank of England could not even see a few

Columba

2321: Cleaner

One unclued light, defined by the title, is a word that can be divided into three words; each of these defines each of three of the other unclued lights.   Across 1    Unsteady in yard, thrust backward (5) 10    Mixture of metals in roof really worked (10, hyphened) 14    Check sun and tide (5) 15    Terms of reference put back (5) 16    Repeated eccentricity suppressed with removal of king (6) 22    Direction to release soft pedal set down in note (8, two words) 23    Denial? One among many concepts (7) 24    Call containing anonymous smear (4) 25    Robust address in hearing

Mark Piggott

Why do employers think they can treat potential employees so appallingly?

As a freelance journalist, when my main employer of four years called to say they were dispensing with my services without any prior warning, I was shocked but exhilarated. With my skills, I reasoned, it wouldn’t be long before I found a far more attractive job with better conditions and perhaps even holiday and perhaps even sick pay. Luckily our summer holiday in the US was all paid for; with money I’d put aside, I estimated I wouldn’t need to work full-time until September. As there was no particular rush, I spent a couple of weeks firing off CVs, not particularly expecting much of a response, but more to test

The Spectator

to 2318: Groundwork

SOIL (9) — cryptically indicated by ISLAND IN THE SUN (1A), the title of a SONG (40) recorded by HARRY BELAFONTE (43) — defines each of the other unclued lights.   First prize Mrs P. Newbury, Linlithgow, West Lothian Runners-up C. Elengorn, Enfield, Middlesex; Smithies, Vale, Guernsey

Nick Hilton Nick Hilton

In defence of Neymar’s transfer fee

A season ticket at the Parc des Princes, home to Paris Saint-Germain, will set you back somewhere between £336 and £2,116, with individual tickets ranging from £25 to over £100, depending on how good your eyesight is. But this is a small price to pay in order to watch footballing luminaries like Edinson Cavani, Ángel di María and Dani Alves light up a league that has long been the sickly cousin of the European superpowers. Indeed, if you’re a PSG fan, this cost will be nothing compared to the phenomenal resurrection, started in 2011, of a European superpower that appeared to be in terminal decline. PSG are on the verge

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Mark Carney’s gospel: give us an interest rate rise, Lord – but not yet

Is there anything more predictable than a Mark Carney press conference? The poor sod in Groundhog Day got to enjoy more variety and suspense. Explaining why, yet again, the Bank of England had decided not to raise interest rates, Governor Carney told us that rates could rise ‘faster than markets expect’. That wouldn’t be all that hard, given that markets have pretty well given up on Carney ever shifting rates. Maybe they believed him the first time, in June 2014, when he said that a rate rise could come ‘sooner than markets expect’. Maybe they were still inclined to take a little bit of notice in July 2015 when he

Nick Hilton Nick Hilton

The Spectator Podcast: Riot chic

On this week’s episode, we talk about “riot chic”, the problem with electric cars, and how women’s sport won our hearts. Is rioting becoming fashionable? That’s what Cosmo Landesman thinks, in the week after Dalston was rocked by unrest. He believes that the middle classes are swarming to these disturbances to express some apolitical anger – so is he right? Cosmo joins the podcast along with Tom Gash, author of Criminal: The Truth About Why People Do Bad Things. As Cosmo writes: “The riot chic crowd seek the euphoric rush that comes from combining violence with the feeling that you’re being virtuous. After all, you’re barbecuing someone’s car or throwing a bottle

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Bank of England: inflation blip is ‘entirely’ temporary

Although Mark Carney has earned a reputation for doom-mongering over Brexit, today’s Bank of England press conference wasn’t all doom and gloom. While the bank voted – at six votes to two – to keep interest rates at 0.25pc (see the leader in this week’s issue of The Spectator for why this isn’t such a great idea), its Inflation Report did bear better-than-expected news. On inflation, Carney said it was expected to peak at 3pc in October from its current rate of 2.6pc. However, this rise is ‘entirely’ temporary, and the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (which aims to keep inflation at 2pc) expects real wage growth to return soon as earnings growth

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Italy’s patience with the migrant charities is wearing thin

What to do about the charities who send boats to bring asylum seekers to the Italian coast? Save the Children and seven others have been doing this for some time now, to the alarm of the Italian government. It suspects that some NGOs are colluding with the people-traffickers, and undermining attempts by the government to shut down a business that has already led to 2,200 deaths this year alone. Nicholas Farrell looked at this in a recent cover story for The Spectator. The NGOs say they are saving lives – which is of course true. But the question is whether, by helping the people traffickers in the final leg of

Cosmo Landesman

Riot chic

Last weekend, I got into a conversation with the son of an old friend. He’s a nice middle-class boy, mid-twenties, who plays in a band and has lots of tats and piercings. We got into a conversation about summer festivals. I was telling him about a wonderful one I’d been to — the Curious Arts Festival — and then I asked him, ‘You been to anything exciting?’ ‘Yeah,’ he said with a grin, ‘I went to a riot in east London.’ The riot, I discovered, had been a protest for Rashan Charles, a 20-year-old black man from east London who died after being chased and apprehended by a police officer

Simon Barnes

Girl power | 3 August 2017

England won the cricket World Cup for the fourth time. Huzzah! England reached the semi-finals of the European football championship. Huzzah again! Or you can, as some have preferred, say well, it’s not really England, is it? It’s England women — and that’s not the same thing at all. Ten points for observation, eh? I remember when I first noticed. But there’s less power, less speed and it’s altogether less thrilling a spectacle than the men’s versions, they say. Anya Shrubsole, the demon fast bowler who secured the win for England by taking six wickets in the final, only bowls at 70 mph; she’d be cannon fodder in a men’s

Jenny McCartney Jenny McCartney

Civilised air travel? Pigs might fly

Does anyone actually enjoy flying     any more? I know I don’t. I realised recently, while anxiously repacking my tiny carry-on case with its cache of toiletries dribbled into miniature bottles, that travelling with an airline now feels a bit like going on holiday with a friend who — just beneath the surface — actually hates you. With every trip, it seems, airlines grow angrier and stingier, stripping away any remaining perks and then making us stump up to buy them all back. Their profits have grown fat on the commerce of small differentiations, micro-transactions around fragile scraps of sanity and time. On the budget airline easyJet, for example, you are

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Wine Club 5 August

Having just finished researching a book on champagne and sparkling wine (out in October since you ask), I’ve been awash with fizz. There must have been 150 bottles cluttering my office at one point — I couldn’t even reach the telly to watch the cricket. I began to get the sweats whenever I heard a cork pop and for a nasty moment thought I’d never be able to stare a bottle of bubbles in the face again. Happily, thanks in part to the scrumptious Le Colture Rosé Vino Spumante Brut NV (1) which arrived from Corney & Barrow just as I was about to panic, I’m now firmly on the

Roger Alton Roger Alton

England’s new heroes were real Test Match specials

The weather forecast last Saturday promised 100 per cent likelihood of rain. I like that formulation: it doesn’t leave much wiggle room. And so it turned out as I pitched up at the Oval just as the players trooped off in the wet. Even so, at the halfway stage, there was still a 100 per cent likelihood of an England victory; 250 odd runs ahead, nine wickets remaining, and a fragile South African batting side. This has been an odd series: three intensely uncompetitive matches but some thrilling Test cricket. England may have stumbled upon the best side for the Ashes and that tricky first morning in Brisbane. Of the

Christopher Winn

The Surrey hills

I live in the oldest village in England. How come? Well, in a field below the big house, there is a Mesolithic pit dwelling dating back some 10,000 years. This is the oldest known man-made dwelling in England — at least according to Dr Louis Leakey, who excavated it and wrote about it in The Spectator in December 1950. Prehistoric man instinctively knew that the Surrey Hills are a wonderful place in which to live. Today, I suspect most people see them as a slightly blurry backdrop to the annual RideLondon-Surrey cycle infestation. I see them as a hidden gem. Surrey is England’s most wooded county and if you drive