Society

Thursday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 16 March 2017

Q. Living in a large house in the country within striking distance of a motorway, we get a lot of people calling in on their way elsewhere. We love it. We are particularly glad to see one busy and successful friend who is often passing and also needs a bed. The problem is he is a commitment-phobe and leaves his plans until the very last minute. He lives alone and hasn’t any idea of how a large household is run and often won’t reveal whether he will make, say, Sunday lunch until 11 that morning — usually with a breezy ‘Don’t worry about me.’ Of course, he arrives at 12.30 and eats

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Norse code

Aquavit is a ‘uniquely Nordic–style’ restaurant in the St James’s Market development between Regent Street and the Haymarket. This development — a pleasingly neutral word — is seriously misnamed, for there is nothing of the market about St James’s Market which seems, rather, to have stripped itself of the ordinary bustle of life; it is a shell for a management consultancy that has landed on the already overpolished West End. With its cool stones, tinted window and alarming orange woods, it is, stylistically, a tribute to the international luxury hotel and, is, therefore, a place entirely devoid of culture. It is a glossy blank that harms — and charms —

Dot Wordsworth

Meet with

Don’t tell my husband, but I have been having doubts. (He never reads this column, so our secret is safe.) The doubt is about meet with. I always regarded it is a pleonasm, and a rebarbative one, being of American origin. Theresa May made a mark, one way or another, by meeting President Trump. She didn’t meet him by chance, she met with him (by appointment), as several British papers said, never mind the American ones. And she didn’t meet with him as one meets with a misfortune. Meet with and its ampler form meet up with are examples of the ‘phrasal verb’, a term that (though found here and

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 16 March 2017

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, decided to delay until later in the month the invoking of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to trigger the Brexit process, even though her power to do so had been confirmed by the passing of the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Act. The Commons had defeated two amendments added by the House of Lords: one concerning continuing rights of EU residents in Britain by 335 votes to 287; the other about Parliament having a meaningful vote on any Brexit deal by 331 to 286. The Lords quiesced once the Bill was sent back for their consideration. A great deal of attention was grabbed by

Lavatch

2301: Age of extremes

Eight unclued lights are of a kind; the remaining two complete four words from a quote, which is appropriately positioned and must be highlighted.   Across 12    Old noble returning 50 eggs (4) 13    See adult in Moroni, perhaps, as this? (8) 14    Confusion restrained in mediocre way to play (9) 15    Latin on air for listener? (5) 17    Material in small type (4) 20    Hen’s firm feature (6) 21    11 Genet novel, on reading Kindle again (8, hyphened) 22    A man in active duty expressed satisfaction (5) 26    Holy church holds ball, spinning music (7) 27    Foster daughter follows fairy (4) 29    God’s aching back (4) 31    Issue from

Will Brown

Put him down for Doon

A near-perfect rendition of Schubert’s ‘Impromptus’ rings out of the music room’s colonial-era windows, the sound carrying all through the school’s pristine grounds. Even in India, a country famed for its sharp inequalities, there are few places where privilege is so obvious. Set in the foothills of the Himalayas, the Doon School, a private boarding school for boys aged 12 to 18, is probably India’s most elite institution. A short walk away from the school’s main gate, children live in slums plagued by dengue fever. But here you’ll find a campus which last year won a Unesco award for cultural heritage conservation, one equipped with its very own hospital. Although

Robert Peal

Our island story is for everyone

Iam a teacher in a state secondary school in west London where the ethnic diversity of the pupils is remarkable. My current Year 9 class, for example, includes pupils with parents from Trinidad, Ireland, Turkey, French Guina, Algeria, Yemen, Italy, France, Bosnia, Albania, India, Germany, Iceland, Portugal, Zanzibar, Lebanon, America, and Spain. Over the past few decades, this ethnic diversity has been used as an argument against the teaching of national history. ‘What relevance do Boudicca and Benjamin Disraeli have to multi-ethnic pupils in modern Britain?’ it is asked. Well, quite a lot, I answer. So far this year, those Year 9 pupils have learnt about the birth of the

Lavatch

to 2298: NOИ

The unclued lights are titles of Russian novels minus their ‘and’ (И in Russian): 17 CRIME and 9 PUNISHMENT (Dostoevsky), 40 WAR and 34 PEACE (Tolstoy), 22 FATHERS and 8 SONS (Turgenev), and 10 THE MASTER and 11 MARGARITA (Bulgakov).   First prize Mrs G. Hancock, Thornbury, Bristol Runners-up Philip Dacre, York; Tom Richards, Wolfscastle, Pembrokeshire

Nick Hilton Nick Hilton

The Spectator podcast: Double trouble

On this week’s edition of The Spectator Podcast, we discuss Theresa May’s double bind in Edinburgh and Brussels, Milton’s cultural relevance in 2017, and the slaughter of Cypriot songbirds. First, Lara Prendergast spoke to James Forsyth about his cover piece in this week’s magazine. Have Theresa May’s negotations with the European Union been hamstrung by this latest intervention from Holyrood? And will she be able to find a version of Brexit that soothes the fears of pro-Remain Scots? Time will, of course, tell, but in the meantime James joins the podcast along with the Spectator’s Scotland Editor, Alex Massie. As James writes in his piece this week: “Theresa May is a cautious politician. She has risen to the

Sam Leith Sam Leith

Books Podcast: Michael Morpurgo

In this week’s books podcast we have an interview with the former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo in which he talks for the first time about his new project. Michael, in town for the London Book Fair, announces that he’s rewriting The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the point of view of Toto. He also talks about why children’s books need to be more adult, the wartime childhood that fuels his work, and why the movies ruined Robin Hood. We’re not in Kansas anymore… You can listen to our conversation here: And if you enjoyed that, do subscribe on iTunes for a new episode every Thursday.

Helen Nugent

The retreat on National Insurance will do little to bolster the confidence of the self-employed

U-turn, flip-flop, whatever you want to call it, there’s no getting away from the fact that Philip Hammond’s policy reversal on National Insurance is hugely embarrassing both for him and the government. Just one week after the Chancellor reneged on a manifesto promise not to raise taxes, he bowed to pressure and announced that the hike in National Insurance Contributions (NICs) for the self-employed would not go ahead. According to The Telegraph, Theresa May told Hammond that ‘we are reversing this – I don’t care how bad it is for you’. The news comes as welcome relief for millions of self-employed who were facing an increase in Class 4 NICs.

Laura Whitcombe

How to get the best deal on your travel money

It’s one month until Easter and if you’re planning to make the most of the long weekend or the school holidays with a trip abroad be sure to also make the most of your travel money purchase. The fall in the value of sterling since the Brexit vote last June has made foreign holidays more expensive. The price of February half-term ski breaks was up nearly 12 per cent on average, according to M&S Bank. And while £1 would have got you €1.27 a year ago through the currency exchange and money transfer website xe.com, yesterday that had fallen to just €1.14 – a reduction of more than 10 per

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Britain’s medieval libel laws should be kept away from Twitter

It is testament to the chilling effect of libel law on public discussion that I feel nervous about the sentences I’m about to write. The libel ruling against Katie Hopkins is obscene. The punishment of her to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds for making a mistake on Twitter is disgusting. To punish an individual under England’s foul, antiquated libel laws is more objectionable than anything that individual could have said. This case should repel anyone who believes in liberty. This is the case of Jack Monroe, food blogger and the only working-class person in Britain the Guardian likes, suing Katie Hopkins, a foghorn made flesh. The details

Qanta Ahmed Qanta Ahmed

Uncover her face

I was raised as an observant Muslim in a British family. Women, I was taught, determine their own conduct — including their ‘veiling’. We’d cover our hair only if we freely chose to do so. That’s why I’m baffled by the notion that all good Muslim women should cover their hair or face. My entire family are puzzled by it too, as are millions like us. Not until recent years has the idea taken root that Muslim women are obliged by their faith to wear a veil. It’s a sign, I think, not of assertive Islam, but of what happens when Islamists are tolerated by a western culture that’s absurdly

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Was it football or just mutimillionaires cheating?

Few sporting events in history have been greeted with such swivel-eyed, table-pounding hysteria as Barcelona’s comeback to overturn a 4-0 deficit against poor Paris St-Germain in the Champions League. Brilliant though it was, was it football or just another exercise in multimillionaires cheating? Luis Suárez clearly dived for the fifth goal, and should have been sent off. The sixth was arguably offside too. Either way, a video replay would have changed one or both goals and justice would have been done. Cricket, tennis, rugby, athletics all have technology to prevent this sort of thing; why not football? The excuse is that it would hold things up and yes, we all

Lucy Vickery

Gettysburg revisited

In Competition No. 2989 you were invited to submit a version of the Gettysburg Address as it might have been given by a prominent figure on the world stage. As space is tight, I pause only to commend Frank Upton and Paul Carpenter before handing you over to Messrs Blair, Trump and Wilson, with Charles I bringing up the rear. The winners take £30 each.   Many years ago my forefathers made it possible for me to address you here on this memorable site and I am honoured to speak for them and for all future generations. Wars come and go but people like me, dedicated to running a nation,

The Spectator

Disaster in the Dardanelles

From ‘The Dardanelles report’, 17 March 1917: The plan of the government in the case of the Dardanelles Expedition had the worst fault which any naval or military plan, or naval and military plan combined, can have. It had no real objective… or rather, to put it in another way, it only had a vague and general objective, not one which was clear and specific and could be carried through by a series of definite acts… To say vaguely that Constantinople was its objective was nonsense. A tourist, a mere sightseer, might have Constantinople as his objective, but not a fleet or an army, or even a commercial traveller.

Boyd Tonkin

Why Milton still matters

Just 350 years ago, in April 1667, John Milton sold all rights to Paradise Lost to the printer Samuel Simmons — for £5, with another £5 due once Simmons had the first run of 1,300 copies off his hands. That sounds like a bargain for the 12-book epic poem of Satan’s war with Heaven, Eve’s ‘fatal trespass’ and the expulsion from Eden that soon became a monumental pillar of the literary canon. Samuel Johnson — who as a Tory deplored Milton’s revolutionary politics — placed it first (for design) and second (for execution) ‘among the productions of the human mind’. Some readers, though, have always found it dear at any

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Ersatz erudition

Harry Potter, who uses the stage name Daniel Radcliffe, is a producer’s delight. By now it’s becoming clear that the four-eyed wizard lacks distinction as an actor. He’s not a comedian, certainly not a leading man or a heart-throb, and he hasn’t the ugliness or eccentricity to be a villain. But this Polyfilla quality means he can be dropped into anything without harming the fabric. His presence in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead — a difficult and at times flimsy exhibition of varsity wit — is an insurance policy that will guarantee brisk business at the box office. He and his co-star Joshua McGuire play Hamlet’s faithless schoolfriends, who pootle