Society

Saturday

Marcus Berkmann

Introducing The Spectator Book of Wit, Humour and Mischief

Even now, I’m not sure I can believe it has actually happened. The Spectator Book of Wit, Humour and Mischief was conceived, possibly over lunch, as a belated follow-up to Christopher Howse’s 1990 volume The Wit Of The Spectator, and as the first of a putative series of themed books using the vast and rarely tapped resource of the Spectator archive. My friend and publisher Richard Beswick and I pitched the idea to the magazine’s seniors, and they embraced it with enthusiasm. They gave me the run of the website and the digitised archive, but being the sort of person who writes for The Spectator, I favoured a more old-fashioned

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

The revolt against ‘liberalism’ is shortsighted

There are two articles in yesterday’s Guardian that are critical of something called ‘liberalism’. Giles Fraser vents his irritation at an advertisement for a hotel chain, aimed the global business elite. It celebrates the idea of the individual’s freedom from boundaries, constraints – be a ‘beautiful nomad’ it urges. This epitomises the worst sort of ‘liberalism’, he says. And Martin Kettle suggests that we are seeing the demise, or at least the failure, of the two versions of liberalism that have dominated national life for decades: the social liberalism of the 60s and economic liberalism of the 80s. Brexit was in part a protest against both, he says. He namechecks the

Friday

Bernard Ginns

Is donating to large charities a waste of money?

At the height of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the dead and dying lined the streets, locals too scared to remove the bodies or aid the stricken for fear of contracting the virus. Entire communities were wiped out as aid organisations came under fire for lacking a sense of urgency in the face of this humanitarian crisis. Meanwhile, in the comfort and safety of London, the individual in charge of a leading international charity responding to the crisis was telling the readers of a luxury magazine about his ideal weekend in the capital. This person revealed a fondness for Mediterranean food at fashionably authentic little eateries, exotic cocktails at

Thursday

Raymond Keene

Chinese puzzle

As I write, the final results of the Baku Olympiad are still not in. England are fighting for a possible medal position. The highlight so far was our 3-1 victory against the defending gold medallists, China. The most spectacular game was Nigel Short’s complicated victory, which I analyse this week.   Li Chao-Short: Baku Olympiad 2016; Nimzo-Indian Defence   1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Bb4 4 Nf3 b6 5 e3 Bb7 6 Bd3 0-0 Viable alternatives are 6 … Ne4 and 6 … c5. 7 Bd2 d5 8 cxd5 exd5 9 0-0 Nbd7 10 Rc1 a6 11 Ne5 Re8 I have some experience of this variation. In the game

Raymond Keene

no. 426

White to play. This position is a variation from Li Chao-Short, Baku Olympiad 2016. White has various ways to win but can you find the most direct and astonishing conclusion? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 20 September 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 d8Q+ Last week’s winner Colin Harris, Old Portsmouth, Hants

Peter Jones

Plato on grammar schools

Theresa May wants to use grammar schools to create a meritocratic, ‘socially mobile’ society at a cost of £50 million. But that raises the question: merit in what, precisely? In his Republic, Plato envisaged Socrates wondering how society was created, with a view to determining how best to establish a just one. Socrates suggested that society originated out of universal needs which individuals could not necessarily satisfy themselves. Food, shelter and clothing were the most basic ones, demanding therefore farmers, builders and weavers; and since everyone had different aptitudes, workers best served the whole community by sticking to their last. Then again, the farmer needed his plough, the builder his

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Not much to smile about

CBeebies Land is a small dystopia inside Alton Towers, a theme park where people sometimes get their legs chopped off by a rollercoaster called The Smiler. There is a gothic mansion by Augustus Pugin, the Nietzsche of cushions, which has been allowed to fall into ruin, because it is less important than the Runaway Mine Train and a ‘ride’ covered in plastic frogs. It broods like Manderley; around it, people play with water cannon and eat sugar until their eyes are dead. I was going to suggest that parliament convene at Alton Towers while the Palace of Westminster is repaired, so they could feel the Pugin; but they might be

Toby Young Toby Young

Are grammar schools more meritocratic?

‘It is highly unlikely the Prime Minister has read the book,’ my father harrumphed, commenting on the appropriation of the word ‘meritocracy’, which he invented to describe a dystopian society of the future in The Rise of the Meritocracy. That comment appeared in a 2001 article for the Guardian and the Prime Minister in question was Tony Blair, but I expect my late father would have been equally unhappy about Theresa May’s misuse of it in her education speech last week. In fact, he probably would have been even more cross because the book, which was published in 1958, was a thinly veiled attack on grammar schools. Like his close

Dot Wordsworth

Va-t’en, Satan

What do you say to someone who is killing you? It is seldom possible to decide in advance. We are told that Fr Jacques Hamel, aged 85, murdered while saying Mass at Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray on 26 July, said, as his killers brought him to his knees to cut his throat: ‘Va-t’en, Satan.’ It is a reasonable thing to say, not necessarily identifying the attackers with Satan, just indicating that he is at work in the actions of the moment. Fr Hamel’s death reminded me strongly of that of St Thomas Becket at the hands of fellow Normans in 1170. Language had due importance on that occasion. Reginald FitzUrse, on breaking into the

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 15 September 2016

Q. At a recent party I was delighted to find my hosts had put me next to one of their most high-profile guests. We had never met before but they knew how much I had to say to this excellent woman. I was consequently dismayed when she failed to — or rather, was unable to — turn. Her first interlocutor, a somewhat physically overbearing character, talked to her with almost pathological intensity throughout all the courses. The dinner came to an end and she and I had been unable to exchange one word. We had been 20 tables of ten. Had one of our hosts been at our table he

Taki

High life | 15 September 2016

I’m jittery and fragile but free of plaster and in the dojo, slowly turning lean and muscular. Never listen to your doctor is my message. Instead of two months in a cast I spent only five weeks, and I’ve just finished a brutal three-day course of karate with both the leg and elbow still intact. Yippee! The message was loud and clear. If you’re drinking vodka at 4.30 a.m., don’t lean backwards while sitting on a ledge. When the doctors sew you up and place you in a cast, don’t listen to them; take it off early. You have nothing to lose but the plaster. And the moment you’re free,

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 15 September 2016

Last week in Ladakh I went panting from one Buddhist monastery to another. Culturally, racially and historically, Ladakh is Tibetan, and the type of Buddhism practised there is Tibetan Buddhism. With a knowledgable local guide we visited the great Ladakhi monasteries at Basgo, Likir, Thikse, Alchi and Lamayuru. At each one we climbed the steps, took off our shoes and paid our respects in the inner temples. Once our eyes had become accustomed to the dark, we examined the carved, gaudily painted statues of Buddhas, deities, personifications, guardian spirits, Bodhisattvas and whatnot that we found within. The guide conscientiously explained these representations’ various functions and positions within the Buddhist cosmology.

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 15 September 2016

It’s been a very patriotic weekend, ablaze with Union flags. In London there was the Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, and in South Northamptonshire there was the ninth annual ‘Village at War’ festival at Stoke Bruerne on the Grand Union Canal. I watched the first event on television but attended the second in person, because Stoke Bruerne is where I spend my weekends. These events, of course, were rather different in scale, but both evoked times of Britain’s greater glory and both took place under the shadow of the Brexit referendum in June. My own vote was in favour of remaining in the European Union,

Robin Oakley

The turf | 15 September 2016

Say what you like about the St Leger — and I like it a lot — Doncaster’s finale to the British Classics rarely fails to provide a story. In 2012 it was Camelot’s narrow failure to become the first Triple Crown winner of the 2,000 Guineas, the Derby and the Leger since Nijinsky in 1970. Last year the filly Simple Verse was disqualified after being first past the post and then reinstated. This year it was both the dramatic tumble of the odds-on favourite Idaho mid-race and the last-gasp victory of Harbour Law, trainer Laura Mongan’s first-ever entry in a Classic. As one who has long argued that only ridiculous

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 15 September 2016

The 15th World Bridge Games (formerly known as the Olympiad) began on 3 September in Wroclaw, and is providing more thrills than Captain Poldark’s ever-disappearing shirt, which I fear is in danger of being written out altogether. In the Open section, three groups of 17 teams played a full round robin within their group, the top five in each qualifying for the playoffs. Today’s hand features the marginally less ripped (but shirts intact) bridge giants Poland’s Michal Klukowski, the youngest ever Open world champion, and Geir Helgemo for Monaco, widely considered the best player in the world, pitted against each other in an extremely delicate 3NT. Surprisingly, they both made

A.N. Wilson

Diary – 15 September 2016

The borderline between fact and fiction becomes ever hazier, I find. Last February, Daisy Goodwin — the author of the brilliant new Victoria drama on ITV — took me to an aircraft hangar near Leeds. Cold fog hugged the tarmac and grass outside. We stepped over cables and squeezed past screens. A ringletted woman in a severe dress of the 1830s passed us and said, ‘Guten Morgen!’ As we spoke, our breath made clouds in the freezing Yorkshire air. Wasn’t that the Baroness Lehzen, Queen Victoria’s governess, whom we just passed? A moment later, as the dream continued, we saw the Queen’s mother, the Duchess of Kent, another German lady.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 15 September 2016

Home Schools in England would have the right to select pupils by ability, under plans outlined by Theresa May, the Prime Minister. New grammar schools would take quotas of poor pupils or help run other schools, a Green Paper proposed. ‘We already have selection in our school system — and it’s selection by house price, selection by wealth. That is simply unfair,’ Mrs May said in a speech. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools, said the idea that poor children would benefit from a return of grammar schools was ‘tosh’. Oversubscribed Catholic schools which wished to expand would be able to choose all their additional pupils on grounds

The Spectator

Defending Dave’s legacy

It is too early to tell what sort of Prime Minister Theresa May will turn out to be, but we already know who she does not wish to be. From the moment that she arrived in Downing Street she has been inclined to define herself as the Conservative antithesis of David Cameron. She has developed a code for it, saying she’s for ‘the many, not the privileged few’ — as if she is still seeking to portray the Tories as a Nasty Party that must wash away the memory of its old leader. David Cameron got the message and resigned this week: next, he’ll be airbrushed out of No. 10’s

Melissa Kite

Real life | 15 September 2016

‘This is the last straw. Never again,’ I thought, as I sat in the carpark of a Little Waitrose eating a chicken mayonnaise salad with my bare hands. I always say this and I always come back for more. I tell myself I can handle it. If only I shop differently it won’t hurt. I’ll buy own brand. I’ll resist the three for twos. I’ll make it work. I have to. I love it. I can’t live without it. I have to find a way… No, no. I must leave. I cannot go on like this. And I pull myself together. But after a few weeks’ shopping in some sensible

Mr Magoo

2278: Will alterations

Across clues contain a definition and a jumble of the answer. In each row of the grid, a Shakespearean character is hiding, disguised by one letter. In one instance, the character does not occupy a whole entry — and in that instance the character is also hiding in the previous row. The disguises add up to a relevant occasion, and must be highlighted. Elsewhere, ignore an accent.   Across 1    Lear misread old poets (6) 7    Tybalt’s a rock (6) 12    Four men Diana dressed similarly (9) 13    Cordelia clipped hairs (5) 15    Elegiac Katherine decapitated (9) 16    Goneril hates meatloaf (6) 20    Autolycus, traditionally one associated with trifles?