Society

Thursday

Raymond Keene

Missed chances

Magnus Carlsen has retained the World Championship but only after Sergei Karjakin, the challenger, missed some glorious opportunities. In game 9 Karjakin, already a point ahead in the match, built up a formidable attacking position, only to miss the coup juste at the critical moment.   Karjakin-Carlsen, New York (Game 9) 2016 (see diagram 1)   In the diagram position, Karjakin played 39 Bxf7+ which fizzled out to a draw after 39 … Kxf7 40 Qc4+ Kg7 41 d5 Nf5 42 Bc3+ Kf8 43 Bxa1 Nxh4+ 44 Qxh4 Qxd5 45 Qf6+ Qf7. What Karjakin missed was 39 Qb3 when all the variations work in his favour, e.g. 39 … Nf5

Raymond Keene

no. 438

White to play. This is from Carlsen–Karjakin, New York play-off (Game 4) 2016. What was Carlsen’s stunning move to retain the world title? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 10 January or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery.   Last week’s solution 1 Nf5 Last week’s winner Iain Chadwick, Walton, Cheshire

Peter Jones

From Socrates to Osborne

Ex-chancellor George Osborne is planning a book to be titled The Age of Unreason. He says that ‘it will be my attempt to understand why populist nationalism is on the rise in our western democracies’. An Athenian would have been most surprised by that title’s implications. If the ancient Greeks are famous for anything, it is for the invention of western ‘philosophy’. By that is usually meant the attempt to explain the world in humanly intelligible terms, i.e. by the exclusive use of reason and evidence, without calling in aid the supernatural. This sort of thinking, begun by eastern Greeks in the 7th century BC, reached something of an apogee

The Spectator

Letters | 5 January 2017

Yet another kind of snob Sir: May I offer another definition of a ‘snob’ to the one described by Bryan Appleyard (‘A different class of snob’, 31 December)? I have always believed that a snob is someone who has risen in the world and now looks down with disdain on those they have left behind. This is an altogether more cynical and divisive form of elitism than that of the serial narcissists Mr Appleyard describes in his article. In the United Kingdom the abolition of grammar schools and the incursion of cheap foreign labour have damaged the legitimate aspirations of those wishing to improve their lot in life, stalled social mobility, and

Taki

High life | 5 January 2017

Gstaad  New Year’s Eve was a Rhapsody in Blue, with a clarinet glissando that promised joys to come, and the Gershwin downbeat not registering until 6 a.m. The hangover was, of course, Karamazovian, but who the hell cares. I am finally solid again, and even the flu I caught on the trip over is on its last legs, lingering and as annoying as EU regulations, but no longer to be taken seriously. I had lots of close friends for dinner, but the new chalet was packed by the time I began slurring. Mind you, it’s during dreamlike moments such as those between midnight and dawn that wisdom strikes: there is

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 5 January 2017

On the Monday before Christmas, the black dog came around again and I couldn’t get out of bed. I lay all day staring at the wall. Depression has little to do with sadness, I think. It’s blankness. The same thing happened to me about 15 years ago. I was like a prize gonk for the four or five weeks it took for the Prozac to work, which it did, and since then I’ve managed to foster and sustain all the illusions I need to keep me buoyant. I couldn’t get out of bed on the Tuesday either. I was adrift in outer space. But I knew I must pick up

Melissa Kite

Real life | 5 January 2017

The most annoying thing about starting a new year is how long it takes for everyone to crank themselves back into action. I knew I wasn’t getting the real picture when I rang the taxman to say I would like to pay in instalments, and the chap on the other end of the line yawned and said: ‘Well, if you want to.’ ‘I’m not sure I want to,’ I said. ‘But I’m fairly sure I will have to. I mean, if I can’t pay it all in one lump sum before the deadline, I had better set up some kind of direct debit quickly, hadn’t I?’ He sighed heavily. ‘Mmm.

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 5 January 2017

The past year has been tumultuous, full of upheaval and tragedy, but my chickens have been spared it all. Indeed, their year has been unusually pleasant and peaceful. After years in which they have been regularly subjected to murderous assaults by foxes and dogs, they were finally fenced into a section of the garden that savage animals could not penetrate. In consequence, there has been a year of rare tranquillity in the chicken world. The worst that my little flock of six chickens has had to endure is the company of a guinea fowl, which I originally got because guinea fowl have a reputation for being good guard birds that

Robin Oakley

The turf | 5 January 2017

The biggest oohs and aahs on the entertainment scene this winter were nothing to do with the ‘He’s behind you …oh no he isn’t’ of pantomime. They were the collective gasps of astonishment from 21,000 spectators at Kempton Park on Boxing Day as Thistlecrack, a novice steeplechaser in only his fourth race over the big fences, took on two previous winners of the King George VI Chase and beat them hollow. He beat them not just because of the massive engine within his spectacular frame but thanks to the sheer majesty of his explosive jumping, often taking off far beyond the wings of the fences and soaring over them as

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 5 January 2017

Simon Gillis’s team has had a very successful year. They won the Gold Cup (for the second time), they joined the Premier League in the second division and got promoted, and they won the team’s event in the 2015 London Year End congress. This year the congress went slightly askew for him. His 16-year-old son Theo has taken up bridge and is clearly a natural. Playing with Liam Sanderson, Heather Bakhshi’s son and also very talented, they did quite a lot better than Simon and Norwegian International Eric Saelensminde in the Open Pairs; so much so that Simon’s other regular partner, Espen Erichsen, now calls him the second best player

Toby Young Toby Young

Why meritocrats are the new aristocrats

After Sir Stafford Northcote and Sir Charles Trevelyan completed their report on civil service reform in 1854, in which they made the controversial recommendation that recruitment should be based on a competitive exam, the government carried out what today would be called a consultation. Among the more interesting objections was the view that the reforms would make the civil service less democratically accountable. This argument was summarised by Helen Andrews, an Australian policy wonk, in a fascinating essay entitled ‘The New Ruling Class’ published last summer: ‘Civil servants who felt they owed their jobs to no one and nothing but their own merit would be independent, which was also to

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 5 January 2017

Q. I have bought a second-floor flat which comes with a bow-shaped balcony which overlooks a communal garden. My problem is that I will want to go on to the balcony to smoke but I won’t want my neighbours to see me doing this. Nor will I want them to be able to see who is standing on the balcony smoking with me. Solution? — Name withheld, London W11 A. Why not take a tip from the late Lucian Freud? When the reclusive painter had his own bow-shaped balcony, he concealed his doings from neighbours with a 7ft high wall of tightly packed Chinese bamboo. This device allowed Freud to

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Garden variety

Margot is an Italian restaurant on Great Queen Street in the still interesting part of Covent Garden. The uninteresting part is the piazza, once the first classical square in London but now a shopping district so devoted to famous brands that it is essentially Westfield in WC2, and WC2 has no need of it, already having a superior culture of its own. Even so, I expect some day to find St Paul’s church a smouldering pile of ash waiting for an Audi concession. Margot used to be Moti Mahal, an unlamented Indian restaurant next to Freemasons’ Hall, which posed as MI5 in Spooks, a BBC drama in which a one-nation

Dot Wordsworth

Americanisms

Here are eight invasive Americanisms to continue annoying us in 2017. Running for office. Liz Kendall was ‘running for the party leadership last year’, the Times said. In Britain she should have been standing. Standing in line. A mother was ‘standing in line at the Post Office to collect her benefits’, said the Daily Mail. British people queue. Commit to. Plenty has been committed to the flames, to memory or to prison. Giving an undertaking was to commit yourself. The OED found the first example of committing to a relationship in 1987. Advocate for: the return of an old construction. ‘I am not advocating for the Dissenters,’ wrote Daniel Defoe.

Harry Mount

Diary – 5 January 2017

On New Year’s Day I went for a swim off Broad Haven beach in Pembrokeshire. The water was 10.3ºC: pretty good agony, but not as bad as the cold on the soles of my feet as I changed on the icy sand. Cold-water swimming is on the up — 700 people took part in the Boxing Day swim in nearby Tenby, the most in its 46-year history. I can see the attraction. A freezing sea is a tremendous hangover cure. Once back indoors you glow as the blood, which rushes to the core of your body to prevent heat loss underwater, races back to your skin. A cold swim is

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 5 January 2017

Home Sir Ivan Rogers, Britain’s ambassador to the EU, resigned; he had been expected to play an important part in talks on Brexit. In a lengthy email to staff he said: ‘Free trade does not just happen when it is not thwarted by authorities.’ He referred to ‘ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking’ and noted that we do not know the ‘negotiating objectives for the UK’s relationship with the EU’. Southern railways advised hundreds of thousands of commuters not to try to travel during a three-day strike by train drivers, due to begin on Monday. China began a direct freight rail service to Barking in London. Len McCluskey, the head of

Mr Magoo

2291: Seriously?

In ten clues, the wordplay omits one of the letters of the solution. These letters in the grid, read row by row, complete the missing two words of an 11-word quotation (in the ODQ) given by five unclued entries. The other unclued entries give the name of the speaker. If these same letters in the grid are read column by column, they give a relevant location.   Across 1    Miracle-worker likely to conceal end of trick (5) 10    Amazing bird played with niece (10) 11    I go in with my partner more exposed (6) 12    Number Ten haggled with Germany (7) 15    Angola imports my fruit (5) 16    Bieber talked oddly

Mr Magoo

to 2289: I don’t believe it!

The unclued lights are expressions meaning NEVER (3A, 4D+43A, 21D+14D, 37A+1D and 37A+15D).   First prize Hilary James, London W5 Runners-up David Henderson, Almonte, Ontario; A.H. Harker, Oxford

Rachel Cunliffe

Politics can be sexist, but Arlene Foster was wrong to play the misogyny card

Let’s say you’re a rising minister put in charge of the department for enterprise. You have the great idea to incentivise businesses to invest in low-carbon energy by offering a subsidy for renewable fuel used. Unfortunately, something goes wrong in the planning or execution of the scheme, with the result that claimants are paid more for low-carbon fuel than the amount the fuel actually cost them. Market forces kick in, businesses use as much fuel as possible to gain the maximum profit, the fancy renewable energy scheme ends up £490 million over budget. The opposition, the media, and most importantly the public are understandably very upset, and call for you