Society

Thursday

Taki

High life | 26 October 2017

I hate to say this, but the quality of life in the Bagel has crashed in a Harvey Weinstein-like way. The city has always had a sort of rollercoaster feel, its ups and downs driven by Wall Street and budget cuts, but its present state is the worst I’ve experienced by far. When I first came to New York, it was the true centre of the world. It was after the war and Europe was in ruins. What glamour there was in the world resided in the city. People dressed to the nines, women wore hats and gloves, and manners were far more important than money. It was a feast

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 26 October 2017

Last May we had dinner with a comic who reads a lot and his wife. At one point, he told Catriona that he had just finished a novel that he had enjoyed more than anything he had read for a very long time and he would like to lend it to her. He disappeared into the house to fetch it, and returned empty-handed and cross. His wife confessed that she was reading it and hadn’t quite finished. His wife loves to watch telly more than read novels, so this was a surprise. And here she was refusing point-blank to give this one back because she hadn’t finished it. The comic

Melissa Kite

Real life | 26 October 2017

The Albanian builders have started a turf war in my kitchen. The hostilities broke out suddenly. One minute the builders were building and the plumber was plumbing and the next minute the builders were shouting at the plumber and the plumber was looking helplessly at me to intervene, only I couldn’t intervene because a) the builders were shouting in Albanian, and b) I would have no idea what they were on about if they were speaking English because it was something to do with the floor and the radiators and the gap for the patio doors in millimetres — about which I know precisely nothing. I’ve watched those Grand Designs

Robin Oakley

The turf | 26 October 2017

Racing’s finances depend on as many people as possible betting, so it seemed a touch ironic that Responsible Gambling Awareness Week coincided with Ascot’s glorious British Champions Day, a day that showcased almost everything good the sport has to offer. The Irish genius Aidan O’Brien duly equalled the world record of 25 Group One wins in a season with Hydrangea capturing the Fillies and Mares Stakes. The long-striding Cracksman’s demolition of the Champion Stakes field provided the first Group One victory in Europe by a horse sired by Frankel. Racing’s cheerleader Frankie Dettori celebrated with his trademark flying dismount from both Cracksman and the grey filly Persuasive, on whom he

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 26 October 2017

When I started playing bridge in earnest, the first tournament I entered was the EBU’s Autumn Congress, which back then was held in Bournemouth. Two days of pairs and one of teams. I had never had so much fun. Ofc I came nowhere in either event but the joy of playing all day and then sitting in the bar discussing the hands until much too late was my idea of heaven. It still is, actually. I couldn’t play last weekend but my old friend Jack Mizel, who hasn’t played at all for the past two years, came out of retirement to play the pairs with Brian Senior. Verdict: only slightly

Toby Young Toby Young

The tyranny of the bedtime story

All surveys carried out by retail businesses with a view to generating press coverage should be treated with extreme caution, but I cannot resist writing about one that has just been published by Furniture123.co.uk. The press release is headed ‘The Decline of the Bedtime Story’ and the key finding is that 64 per cent of parents do not regularly read a bedtime story to their children. Just 10 per cent say they do, while 6 per cent say they have never done it. Oh how I envy that 6 per cent! I am a member of the wretched 10 per cent who read to their children at night. Why wretched?

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 26 October 2017

Q. What is the etiquette of hospital visiting? A friend in his fifties is about to spend six weeks in a London hospital recovering from a heart operation. He will be in a private room. He is going to be fine but he will feel a bit fragile, so can you advise me how long I should stay, what I should bring, and, since I am one of his closest friends, whether I should organise a rota so that people don’t overlap? He is a very popular (and newly eligible) man, so he will have no shortage of visitors. — S.B., London W6 A. The classic gaffes to make when

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

The queen of hotels

Jean-Georges at the Connaught — formerly the Prince of Saxe-Coburg Hotel, but it was renamed during the first world war, at about the same time the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was deprived of his British peerages, which was one of the funnier events in the war — is the informal restaurant at the Connaught Hotel, and it opened this summer on the curve of Carlos Place, Mayfair. The Connaught is an English hotel with a German heart. It is therefore the hotel equivalent of our Queen, and the best hotel in the world. It is better than its sister Claridge’s, from which Dwight Eisenhower ran away in 1944. He

Dot Wordsworth

The | 26 October 2017

Veronica, who looks at Twitter, told me of an exchange she thought would interest me, about the use of the. She was right. The is one of my favourite words. The exchange concerned Sam Leith’s splendid new book, Write to the Point: How to be Clear, Correct and Persuasive on the Page. He begins one chapter thus: ‘In his The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897), Joseph Conrad…’. Should he have written that yoking of ‘his The’? A friend of Veronica’s recommended Kingsley Amis on the subject. In (his) The King’s English, Amis is characteristically forthright. ‘Kafka’s The Castle,’ he writes, ‘is the sort of thing that people never say but

Columba

2333: Unchangeable

One unclued light is a three-word phrase indicating the way in which each of the answers to clues in italics must be entered in the grid. Definitions of resulting entries are supplied by unclued lights.   Across 1    Fissure filled with new toxic substance 12    See a signal, admitting hesitation, only returning for electronic device (10, two words) 13    Nymph’s love declared (5) 14    Habitual response in part I concealed 15    Correct about actress Welch producing crazed effect (10) 16    Fatigue involved in feverish attack (7, hyphened) 22    Come into trendy hotel with revolutionary flag (7) 23    Artist, minor, lacking power (4) 24

Linden Kemkaran

Critics of grammar schools are wrong

Bright but poor kids have been failed for decades. Since the abolition of grammar school expansion some forty years ago, an educational bottleneck has been created, through which children from disadvantaged backgrounds cannot squeeze. State primary schools are banned from teaching how to pass the 11-Plus test, leading to the creation of an incredibly unfair system. Full disclosure; I live in Kent (grammar school territory) and both my kids were tutored and sat the test: one failed, one passed, no big deal either way as I too had failed the 11-Plus (and the world kept turning). A private tutor was essential if my kids were to stand a chance of understanding the

James Landale

Greece Notebook | 26 October 2017

I have come to Greece in search of sanity over Brexit. Ostensibly it is a symposium to discuss relations between Britain and Greece. But it is also an excuse to step away from the minutiae of the negotiations to think about the future of Europe. It was from Greece, of course, that our continent derived its name — from the mythological Europa who was ravished by Zeus and bore a future king of Crete. One contributor notes dryly that Greece is also not a bad place to think about the rise and fall of empires, the follies of politicians, the failings of institutions and what happens to elites when they

Carey Layton

A model life

This season, as London fashion week was starting, Vogue posted a video following the new model of the moment Kaia Gerber (who is Cindy Crawford’s daughter). It was so far from the reality of being a model that I almost couldn’t watch it: Kaia walking for all the top designers in her very first season; Kaia entering her ‘home for the week’ (a hotel room bigger than my apartment); Kaia being driven everywhere in a Mercedes SUV; Kaia and her friends jumping around on her massive bed, clad head to toe in Chanel and ordering room service… When I first started modelling I expected it to be just like that.

The Spectator

to 2330: IMAGE

The poem ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’ (originally ‘XXII’) by William Carlos Williams is considered perhaps the foremost example of IMAGISM.   First prize M. & M. Taylor, Waterthorpe, Sheffield Runners-up Bill Stewart, Leicester; Rupert Miles, Bisley, Gloucestershire

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Theresa May can’t just expect employers to solve the mental health crisis

Theresa May made mental health one of her key policy issues when she became Prime Minister, and it was supposed to be a key part of her relaunch after the snap election too. So far, though, the Prime Minister has done a fair bit of talking, and not a huge amount of doing. The big mental health launch in January involved very little money and a lot of worthy words about lifting the stigma. Worthy words are handy, given some people do still encounter a great deal of stigma when they are mental, rather than physically, ill. But the thing about being Prime Minister is that you can do a

Nick Hilton Nick Hilton

The Spectator Podcast: Save the children!

On this week’s episode we look at whether the kids are alright or if we need to talk about their generation. We also ask whether Philip Hammond’s cautious approach is suited to the present economy, and consider why the best minds of a generation were lost to trash TV. First, with Scotland outlawing smacking and safe spaces coddling students, it sometimes seems like the sharp edges of childhood have been sanded down. That’s why our children are so unhappy, writes Rod Liddle in the magazine this week. But do kids really need to be exposed to the world? Or are there good reasons why we don’t let 9-year-olds ride alone

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Rio Tinto’s colossal corporate cock-up

Another week, another blue-chip in the dock. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has brought fraud charges against London-based mining giant Rio Tinto and two former executives in relation to an ill-starred coal venture in Mozambique. Whatever its legalities, this was a colossal corporate cock-up. In 2010, Rio paid $3.7 billion for Riversdale, an Australian company that controlled large coal deposits in the Tete region of Mozambique. The plan was to send coal by barge 400 miles down the Zambezi river to the coast, for shipping to Chinese power stations. But the coal reserves proved disappointing, while the Mozambique government refused to permit the barge operation and a rail link

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Wine Club 28 October

Esme Johnstone, of FromVineyardsDirect.com, has done it again. He’s managed to snaffle some cracking ‘defrocked’ clarets (and one Sauternes) from some of Bordeaux’s finest estates and is offering them here at remarkably keen prices. These wines are from the same vineyards and same winemaking teams that produce the estates’ fabled grands vins (which sadly I’m unable to name but can give clues to) and boast impeccable pedigrees. I strongly recommend you get stuck in. We’ve offered the 2014 Pauillac (1) before, that first allocation being snapped up by thirsty readers in a trice. No surprise there, given the wine’s provenance, coming as it does from the leading and foremost icon

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Death hovers over the scrum

Rugby’s autumn internationals are almost upon us and dark thoughts hover over lovers of the sport. One day soon a professional rugby player will die playing the game. The players are fitter, bigger, stronger, faster and too powerful and it is no longer a 15-man game. It is a 23-man game: more than half the team gets replaced so the intensity and impact never subsides. Rule changes around the breakdown to encourage attack have had the opposite effect, meaning that defences line up across the pitch, no space is created and every game is 80 minutes of unsustainable collisions. Seasons go on longer, players get no rest and they keep