Society

Thursday

8 Dec 2016

Diary – 8 December 2016

Novelists can’t merely tell cracking tales. We’re supposed to save the world. At the University of Kent, a student implored me to inscribe The Mandibles with instructions for ‘how to keep this from happening’ — for the feverish young man now vowed to devote his life to preventing my new novel’s debt-fuelled near-future financial collapse. And I thought I was just doing a book signing. I wrote, ‘To keep this from happening, pay your bills. To cash in on this happening, get as deeply into debt as possible.’ The next student proffered a tiny spiral notebook, in which I was to jot ‘three things that are really important’. In desperation, I

The Spectator

Power and the people

When The Spectator was founded 188 years ago, it became part of what would now be described as a populist insurgency. An out-of-touch Westminster elite, we said, was speaking a different language to the rest of London, let alone the rest of the country. Too many ‘of the bons mots vented in the House of Commons appear stale and flat by the time they have travelled as far as Wellington Street’. This would be remedied, we argued, by extending the franchise and granting the vote to the emerging middle class. Our Tory critics said any step towards democracy — a word which then caused a shudder — would start a

The Spectator

Barometer | 8 December 2016

Forgotten anniversaries 2017 is the 100th anniversary of the Russian revolution. Other anniversaries: 50 years Radio 1; first North Sea gas pumped ashore in County Durham; first cash dispenser (at Barclays in Enfield) 100 years First international airmail service (between Brindisi in Italy and Valona, Albania); first use of air raid siren in UK; first sex education film (in the US) 200 years First municipal gasworks, Manchester; Fahrenheit scale; display of Elgin marbles at the British Museum 300 years First druid-revival ceremony, at Primrose Hill at the autumn equinox 400 years Britain’s first one-way street (Pudding Lane, in the City of London) Things to crow about Some things 2017 is

Columba

Festive features

99 (five words) and 20 (four words), whose 37 were 61 (two words) and 35D (two words), are seasonal 53 featuring the 78 whose name is formed by two unclued lights. Two unclued lights (of two words each) are the names of the 78’s 68D. In nine clues, cryptic indications omit reference to parts of answers; these parts must be highlighted, to reveal an item suggested by 99. Each of twelve Down clues consists of definitions of two words of different lengths. In seven cases the shorter word (produced when a letter 113 from the longer word) is the entry; in five cases the longer word (made by adding the

George Mcbride

How to beat the prison drugs epidemic

Pity the prisons minister, Sam Gyimah, who last week found himself explaining the term ‘potting’ to MPs on the justice select committee. For those unacquainted with the depraved state of our jails, let me save you the trouble of reading the exchange on Hansard: ‘potting’ is to throw faeces and/or urine over a prison officer. He didn’t get round to discussing the meaning of ‘mambulance’. But every day – with alarming frequency – sirens blare as an ambulance races to a prison to deal with another cardiac arrest, violent assault or attempted suicide of a prisoner, high on one of many drugs referred to as ‘spice’ or ‘black mamba’ (hence

Simon Kuper

Knowing the score

When I come home from work and stick my key in the door, there is a pitter-patter of tiny feet as my eight-year-old twin boys run up to me and shout: ‘Paris St-Germain won 3-1! First he scored, then he missed, then…’ They are suffering from a harmless case of sports geekery. I had it myself as a child, and have gone on to hold down a job, albeit in the dying industry of journalism. The only difference is that as a child I wasn’t encouraged to bore my dad with my findings, because helicopter parenting hadn’t been invented yet. A complicating factor in our family is that we live

Doc

to 2287: Quarry

Unclued lights are types of LIMESTONE. First prize Frances Whitehead, Harrogate, North Yorks Runners-up Margaret Almond, Sholing, Hants; P.D.H. Riddell, London SE23

Nick Hilton

The FA’s annus horribilis could be about to get a lot worse

Football is no stranger to scandal, but the scale of the sex abuse allegations now circling the beautiful game is something new. Over 350 incidences of sexual abuse have been reported in football’s sprawling academy system. Crewe Alexandra was the focal point of the initial allegations, but the net has widened rapidly – taking in the likes of Chelsea, Newcastle and now QPR. It’s no exaggeration to compare this scandal to Operation Yewtree. But it’s important, too, that the Football Association, which is conducting the probe into what has happened, learns its lessons from Yewtree. So far, the football world is making the right noises about facing up to what

Damian Thompson

The Pope’s bizarre rant about eating faeces makes me wonder if he should retire

Have you read what the Pope has just said about being sexually turned on by eating faeces? He wasn’t talking about himself, let me quickly add: just human beings in general. They make him sound more like a desperately tasteless stand-up comedian than the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church. I think the media have to be very clear, very transparent, and not fall into – no offence intended – the sickness of coprophilia, that is, always wanting to cover scandals, covering nasty things, even if they are true. And since people have a tendency towards the sickness of coprophagia, a lot of damage can be done. ‘No offence intended.’ That’s a nice touch,

Patrick West

The mystery of Kent’s disappearing Polish shops

Outside of London, the area in Britain that has seen the greatest settlement of eastern Europeans since 2004 has been Kent, for obvious geographical reasons. And to cater for their needs and provide creature comforts, a multitude of shops sprang up in the years that ensued. But a strange thing has started to happen here in east Kent: all the Polish and Baltic shops are starting to close down. This struck me during a visit to Canterbury last week, when I noticed that the premises of the ‘East European Food’ store in Burgate Lane has now been vacated and lays empty. This represents a trend. The Polka Shop in Bench

Helen Nugent

Waiting for the delivery that never comes? You’re not alone

Unless you work from home or are blessed with an understanding employer who offers flexible hours, waiting in for a delivery can feel like a sojourn to the seventh circle of hell. ‘Your delivery slot is 8am to 10am,’ intones the recorded voice. But you don’t believe a word of it. In fact, you know they’re lying, much in the same way you know the taxi driver isn’t ‘just around the corner’. No, he’s five miles away and has yet to break into third gear. So it comes as little surprise to learn that people whose delivery is late, turns up broken or doesn’t arrive at all spend on average

Helen Nugent

Housing, Brexit, savings and tax

There’s a slew of housing news this morning including new research from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. It predicts that the housing market will make a slow start in 2017 due to a lack of homes for sale. According to Rics, property transactions have slowed since the spring and although there is a chance they may gather pace in the new year, any rise would be ‘modest’. Meanwhile, The Guardian reports on the collapse of the capital’s luxury housing market. It cites LCP, a property investment firm, which claims that, thanks to six months of Brexit uncertainty and tax changes, buyers from both Britain and abroad have been deterred from

Max Hastings

Red with the people’s blood

Few 20th-century historians doubted that the 1917 Russian revolution was one of the most influential events of their time, indeed of all time. As the centenary commemoration approaches, however, it seems remarkable how far and how fast the ideology that inspired Lenin and millions of his worldwide followers has receded in significance. Many are the imperfections of capitalism, but almost nobody outside Jeremy Corbyn’s office any longer supposes that communism, least of all the old Soviet brand, offers a credible alternative. This would amaze our grandparents’ generation on both sides of the struggle. The novels of C.P. Snow are indifferent fiction but intriguing middle-class social history. During the interwar era,

Martin Vander Weyer

Whatever happened to Sir George? A festive finale for an eventful year

Many (well, several) of you asked me what happened to George, the supermarket chairman who was the anti-hero of my Christmas fable last year. So I tracked him down, somewhere in the provinces, to bring you another episode… ‘Five minutes, Sir George,’ said a young man in black. ‘New boobs OK?’ George nodded, adjusted his embonpoint, and looked at himself in the full-length mirror. How the hell had it come to this? Actually 2016 had begun well. Readers may recall last December’s ‘Free Turkey’ incident, in which a boardroom invasion by carol-singing Santas, led by George’s student son Simon, coerced the supermarket group into giving Christmas fare to the poor

Gary Bell Qc

Season’s beatings

My colleagues at the commercial and chancery bar are all at their chalets in Gstaad, funded by the endless fees from Jarndyce and Jarndyce, and the family bar are out en famille in Mustique, awaiting the festive fallout — there’s something about turkey, port and the Queen’s Speech that pulls marriages apart like a pound-shop cracker, and divorce doesn’t come cheap. But for we poor criminal hacks, it’s business as usual: crime never sleeps, and never less so than when Santa Claus is coming to town. As a junior barrister I made out like a bandit. Booze flows, blood follows; office parties are a magnet to drug dealers keen to

Mark Forsyth

The invention of Santa

Santa Claus ate Father Christmas. It happened quite suddenly. Well, it took about a decade, but that’s suddenly in cultural terms. Over the course of the 1870s the venerable British figure of Father Christmas was consumed by an American interloper. Father Christmas (first recorded in the 14th century) was the English personification of Christmas. Just as Jack Frost is a personification of the cold and the Easter Bunny is a rabbitification of Easter, so Father Christmas stood for Christmas. He was an old man (because Christmas was ancient) and he was plump (because Christmas was a feast). But Father Christmas did not give presents, did not come down the chimney,

Hugo Rifkind

How to put a positive spin on the bizarre events of this year

This is going to be a positive, optimistic column. I promise. Because, look, let’s be honest, I’ve been a bit moany this year, haven’t I? Which may, I suspect, have been a bit misleading. Read me here, or indeed anywhere, and I suspect you could come away thinking I’ve spent the last 12 months, or at least the last six, lying awake, staring at my expensive north London Farrow & Ball ceiling, weeping sad, shuddering, self-indulgent tears at a world moving beyond my ken. I know, I know. I do go on. Whereas actually, it hasn’t really been like that. For one thing, the bedroom ceiling is just white, so

James Delingpole

Don’t try to be liked, and buy your steak at Aldi – the lessons I’ve learned in 2016

Merry Christmas everyone. Here are some things I learned — or relearned — in 2016. 1. That which does not kill you makes you still alive. It’s weird to think that less than 12 months ago I was in hospital, dosed up with morphine, battered and bruised with a broken clavicle, numerous cracked ribs and a pulmonary embolism which can actually kill you, don’t you know. And now it’s as if the whole thing never happened. Well, apart from the hideous titanium plate, like a giant centipede, which I can still feel all stiff across my collar bone. And the bastard hunting ban my family has imposed on me…

The Spectator

Faith in the trenches

From a letter published under the heading ‘The religion of the ordinary soldier’, The Spectator, 23 December 1916: During a discharge of gas at the beginning of July along our front, one of the cylinders was displaced by the near bursting of an enemy shell. It turned the nozzle round, and the gas began to pour into our own trench. One of my lads, who was acting as orderly, heard from the communication trench that something was happening and ran into the front line… He ran forward unprotected, tugged at the cylinder, and pointed its nozzle outwards again before he fell unconscious. He died a few minutes afterwards. Those who saw

Matthew Parris

The one thing that really gets better with age

On the London Underground last week the carriage was crowded. No seat. No problem. I’m only 67 and content to stand. But a younger man offered his seat, and, having some way to travel and a book to read, I accepted with the appropriate grunt and nod of gratitude. Later, approaching my station, I noticed he was still there. Should I thank him properly before alighting? But he was in another part of the carriage. It might look silly to elbow my way over. Let it pass. Then a voice in my head spoke, a voice that over the decades has become so familiar. Don’t misunderstand me: this was not