Society

Friday

Helen Nugent

Price rises, BHS, current accounts and property

Bicycle prices could rise following the Brexit vote, because the cost of importing bikes from Asia has increased. The head of Halfords Jill McDonald said the retailer was in talks with its suppliers following the pound’s fall. ‘For bikes bought in Asia in US dollars, we are seeing prices beginning to move.’ According to The Guardian, McDonald also said Halfords, the UK’s biggest bike seller, was better positioned to tackle price rises than smaller businesses because 90 per cent of the bikes it sells are own labels. Evictions More than 100 households were evicted each day from their rented homes in England last year, according to figures from the Ministry of Justice. The BBC reports that

Steerpike Steerpike

Louise Mensch adds one more Twitter gaffe to her list

Here we go again. As the world mourns the death of Leonard Cohen — the great songwriter — at the age of 82, Louise Mensch has managed to add yet another Twitter gaffe to her ever-growing list. On hearing the news, the former Tory MP took to her social media to hail it as proof of America’s ‘enduring greatness’ unlike… Russia, which by comparison is ‘joyless’: Alas there is a snag with her latest piece of Putin-bashing — Leonard Cohen is actually Canadian. This is just one in a series of social media blunders: 2. Last year she attempted to demonstrate the ‘sewer that is Jeremy Corbyn’s support’ by pointing out that Twitter’s autocomplete

Thursday

Raymond Keene

Magnus vs Sergei

The World Championship in New York begins this week. In the run-up, the defending champion, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, has been the heavy favourite to retain his title against Sergei Karjakin, formerly representing the Ukraine but now playing for Russia. Their lifetime score at classical time limits, under which the New York contest will be conducted, is notably loaded in favour of the incumbent.   As a final preview, here is a win by Carlsen against the former champion Vladimir Kramnik. The notes are based on Cyrus Lakdawala’s in Carlsen: Move by Move (Everyman Chess), a useful compendium for those considering Christmas gifts for chess enthusiasts.   Kramnik-Carlsen: Wijk aan Zee 2008;

Raymond Keene

no. 434

White to play. This is a position from Carlsen-Shirov, Biel 2011. Can you spot Carlsen’s crushing blow? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 15 November 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 … g5 Last week’s winner Mark Nottingham, Ramsgate, Kent

Toby Young Toby Young

Oh, the shame of not being Pointless

I give an after-dinner speech occasionally called ‘Media Training for Dummies’. That may sound condescending, but the dummy in question is me. It’s a compendium of anecdotes about my disastrous media appearances, each more humiliating than the last. At some point I’m going to turn it into a PowerPoint presentation, interspersing the talk with clips so the audience can see that I’m not exaggerating. Until recently, my most embarrassing moment was in New York in 1995, when I took part in a spelling bee broadcast live on the radio. I was the first contestant and my word was ‘barrette’. I’d never encountered this before — it’s the American word for

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 10 November 2016

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said she still expected to start talks on leaving the EU as planned by the end of March, despite a High Court judgment that Parliament must decide on the invoking of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty that would set Brexit in train. Opinion was divided over whether the High Court had required an Act of Parliament or a vote on a resolution. The government appealed to the Supreme Court, which is to hear the case from 5 December. The judgment set off a confused game of hunt the issue. One issue was whether the press is allowed to be rude about judges. The Daily

Taki

High life | 10 November 2016

 New York Americans have been to the polls. Everything is over but the shouting — by the loser, that is: honest Hil. I predicted that the best Trump could have hoped for was winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral College but I got it wrong: the Donald has triumphed. An underfunded campaign — he spent barely half of what she did — with a skeletal crew and without the party’s full backing won out because not all of America agrees with the values of Jay Z, Beyoncé, Springsteen, Hollywood in general and gay marriage in particular. Trump appealed to those who have been snubbed, the great ignored. They

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 10 November 2016

I didn’t fancy the hotel breakfast, so I wandered into Arles old town looking for a café. The weather and the season had changed overnight. The day before had been hot, golden and still. This morning an icy wind was yanking the last of the dying leaves from the plane trees and my thin canvas jacket was no defence against it. Choosing a café at random on the Place du Forum, I pushed through the glass door and took a seat in the warmth of the café’s conservatory. Three other customers were inside, lingering over their coffee. I chose a bench seat, from where I could look south across the

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 10 November 2016

At the beginning of November 1980, one week before Ronald Reagan won a landslide victory in the presidential election, Henry Fairlie, then writing regularly for The Spectator from Washington, finally slid off the fence and made a firm prediction. ‘Jimmy Carter will be the next President of the United States,’ he wrote in the first sentence of his column. Carter, he went on, was ‘personally a not very agreeable man’ but had a more persuasive ‘political character’ than Reagan, so would win the election. Although a much-admired political commentator, who had made his name as a columnist at The Spectator in London, where he first gave the name ‘the Establishment’

Robin Oakley

Twelve to follow | 10 November 2016

When Theresa May came to power the Turf community was full of hope. Had she not been, if only briefly and in partnership, a racehorse-owner herself? Perhaps, then, she might revive the question Margaret Thatcher used to put to her ministers about any intended senior appointment in Whitehall: ‘One of us?’ Sadly, those early hopes are evaporating fast. It is not just that the pound’s collapse since she confirmed that Brexit means Brexit has given foreign owners a 20 per cent advantage at the bloodstock sales. It is fear of the government’s puritanical streak, a streak that has led to a new gambling review and the suggestion that ministers are

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 10 November 2016

The last three weekends have not been relaxing for those of us playing the Premier League, with all its attendant dreams of promotion and nightmares of relegation. Last year’s winners were relegated to division two and Alexander Allfrey’s excellent team won. Today’s hand features (immodestly) moi and came from the second weekend in Manchester: First the bidding: my 2♣ is game forcing but that doesn’t count for anything these days. David Price, playing for Mossop, stuck in 3♦ putting paid to my partner, Artur Malinowski, responding with the relay bid of 2♦. He passed, as double (from either of us) would be for penalties. Paul Hackett, East, raised to 4♦

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 10 November 2016

Q. A man I know (but not very well) has invited me and another girl to stay in a villa he’s been loaned. He says the only thing I’ll have to pay for is my flight but I suspect that though we’ll probably have picnics on the beach each day for lunch, we’ll go to expensive restaurants at night and split the bill three ways. I like them both, but they are spoilt while I’m an artist and just can’t spend what they can. It would be so uncool to start saying, ‘But I only had the salad and water and you’ve had the oysters and champagne blah.’ Nor would

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

The cheesecake of the apocalypse

Harry Morgan is a Jewish delicatessen and restaurant in the style of New York City on St John’s Wood High Street in north London. St John’s Wood is home to wealthy Muslims and Jews, who are attracted by a lone mosque, many synagogues and more cake shops than even the greediest hedge-funder could eat his swiftly receding feelings in. I am aware I sound like an estate agent. It is really a stage set for the inter-faith organisation the Imams and Rabbis Council of the United Kingdom, about which the joke is, although it isn’t very funny: the Jews pay for it all. I am also aware that I am

Dot Wordsworth

Hygge

‘If there’s one thing I can’t stand,’ said my husband, ‘it’s scented candles.’ Now, we have never knowingly harboured a scented candle in the house. He was merely rebelling against the notion of hygge, named by Collins’ dictionaries as one of the words — English words — of 2016. The motive for naming it may stem from the dictionary wars mounted by rival publishers’ marketing departments, but hygge is indeed everywhere, not least bookshops, where the Christmas shelves offer Hygge, The Book of Hygge, The Little Book of Hygge, How to Hygge, Keep Calm and Hygge, The Cosy Hygge Winter Colouring Book. I’ll stop there. What does it mean? ‘Cosiness’.

Melissa Kite

Real life | 10 November 2016

A wonderful email has arrived from Airbnb entitled ‘Discrimination and Belonging — What It Means For You’. Having tried to make sense of it, I feel it can mean only one thing with any certainty. And that is that the Airbnb party is over. The web business started by a whizz kid in his New York apartment is about to feed itself to the ravening equality agenda wolves. Sadly, the once proud Airbnb corporation has decided to launch ‘a comprehensive effort to fight bias and inequality in the Airbnb community’. With abject hand-wringing, it says it wants to make sure that any householder joining its site to host tourists in

Doc

2286: B

The unclued lights are of a kind. Ignore one grave accent.   Across   1    Hails a picador, awfully exciting (13) 11    Difficult child had fun playing close to school (7) 12    Father has undone Turk’s head (5) 14    As You Like It — a piece of theatre by Shakespeare (6, two words) 16    Peg checks printer’s error in ‘Home on the Range’ (5) 17    Singer in the nude. Get her off! (4) 20    Wonderful rest is disturbed when everyone comes back in (7) 21    French composer having his bird nicely cooked, for starters (7) 23    Almost rescue girl in open country (7) 24    Some cheap oil upset French soldier (5)

Mike Fotis

Being boring has shielded the insurance industry for far too long

The insurance industry is the boring uncle of the financial services family – a little drab and likely to be found in a basement listening to Daniel O’Donnell on a Saturday night. By contrast, banking conjures up colourful images of Wolf of Wall Street excess, which has helped to fuel a healthy dose of scrutiny. Being boring has shielded the insurance industry from its fair share of scrutiny for far too long. Issues have emerged that don’t receive the level of scrutiny they deserve. Readers of this article will be all too familiar with freefalling savings rates. It’s a bitter pill, but we’ve swallowed it. Meanwhile, car insurance is clearly an

Doc

to 2283: be damned

The unclued lights are PUBLISHING FIRMS. Our apologies for the omission of clue 42 Across. It went missing during the production stage. It should have read: 42 Enticing action Latino attains oddly (13)   First prize Jenny Gubb, Uffculme, Devon Runners-up Philip Berridge, Spalding, Lincolnshire; Mrs E. Knights, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire

Camilla Swift Camilla Swift

Why the John Lewis Christmas advert is a mess

It used to be the Coca Cola advert that signalled Christmas was on its way. Holidays were coming, and Coke would deliver joy to the world. These days, it’s the John Lewis advertisement that everyone looks forward to. There’s a running theme to these Christmas adverts. A schmaltzy song, a sickly sweet storyline (often with a few animals thrown in, just to make it that bit sweeter), and a happy, Christmassy ending. Hurrah!! This year’s, which was released today, is no different. Personally, though, I’d say that whoever came up with this advert needs a serious dose of reality – and quick. Of course it’s a lovely image; the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed foxes; the