Society

Thursday

Columba

2287: Quarry

In eight clues, cryptic indications omit reference to parts of answers; these parts must be highlighted, to reveal a word that defines each of the unclued lights. Two unclued lights consist of two words each.   Across 1    Quiet exercises by expert (5) 9    Locusts, very large, after jelly and syrup (10) 11    Free to return without a souvenir (5) 14    Sound during festival identified (5) 15    Varied like marks in rug (5) 16    Going out east, slow, short of oxygen (6) 21    Pacific island with prison mostly in concrete (8) 22    Excluded, king and earl sulk (7, two words) 24   

Ben Salisbury

How to minimise the impact of inheritance tax

It’s known colloquially as the death tax, and for good reason. Inheritance tax – the bane of modern life – dates back to 1894 when the Government introduced estate duty (a tax on the capital value of land) in a bid to raise money to pay off a multi-million pound deficit. Its 21st century incarnation includes a tax on property, money and other assets of someone who has passed away. The thing about inheritance tax (IHT) is this: no one really understands it, and the complexity is not helped by the Government’s constant tinkering around the edges. Put simply, everyone has a tax-free allowance, known as the ‘nil rate band’. The tax-free threshold

Columba

to 2284: Shocking!

In PYGMALION (21D), ELIZA (32) said NOT BLOODY LIKELY! (7A/9/12).  Synonyms were NEGATIVE (24), RARE (35), ODDS-ON (20). GB SHAW (in the second row) had to be shaded.   First prize Vincent Clark, Frant, East Sussex Runners-up Julie Sanders, Bishops Waltham, Hants; Kenneth Robb, Linlithgow, West Lothian

Katy Balls Katy Balls

International Men’s Day debate descends into battle of the sexes

Today the Commons played host to a battle of the sexes as MPs gathered for a bad-tempered debate to mark International Men’s Day, for the first time in its history. Philip Davies led the charge, following his campaign for the event to be given the same treatment as International Women’s Day. He called for more to be done regarding suicide rates and educational under-achievement among men and raised the issue of ‘the part-time gender pay gap’, which sees women paid 6 per cent more than men. ‘It is unlikely that men will get cervical cancer,’ Sir Paul Beresford observed, before arguing that boys ought to be given the HPV vaccination to

Helen Nugent

Whiplash claims, LISAs, buy-to-let and energy bills

Car insurance premiums for millions of motorists could fall by £40 a year following a government crackdown on fraudulent whiplash claims. Under Ministry of Justice proposals, whiplash injury payouts would be much more difficult to obtain, The Guardian reports. Insurers say the measures will end the UK’s status as the whiplash capital of the world. The proposals are intended to stamp out a ‘toxic’ compensation culture that has pushed up motor premiums, led to consumers being bombarded with nuisance text messages and calls, and put additional pressure on the NHS. Michael Lloyd, the AA’s director of insurance, said: ‘AA members are rightly concerned about the upward pressure on the cost of

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Letter from the Caribbean #2

Jonathan Ray gets his head around how to create the perfect rum cocktail. I’ve lost count of the number of different rum cocktails I’ve had over the last few days hopping round the islands of the Caribbean. Each cocktail consumed purely in the interests of research of course. I’ve had some classics; some twists on classics and several ‘signature’ or ‘house’ cocktails. Oh, and plenty of rum punches. I’d hate you to think that I’d been sitting idly by however and so I’m proud to report that one or two of the more tolerant barmen allowed me to create my own cocktails, some concoctions being rather more successful than others.

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Letter from the Caribbean #1

Jonathan Ray gets a taste for rum but knows when it’s time to stop. Excitement in the Caribbean concerning Prince Harry’s impending visit to the region is definitely rising. Flags and bunting are being hung left, right and centre and as I left Antigua airport this morning, en route to St. Kitts and Nevis, there was an honour guard of soldiers being put through their paces on the tarmac. Taking the proffered salute was a stout gentleman on a rather modest dais looking far from regal with his high-vis yellow jacket and clipboard. I think it’s fair to say that everyone still needs a bit more practice. But who cares?

The Spectator

Germany and the City

From ‘English versus German banking’, The Spectator, 18 November 1916: At the present moment a good many of us are in the mood to feel that we never wish to see any kind of German within our country again; but it is quite certain that this attitude of mind will not endure for ever, and it is equally certain that if we prevent German bankers from establishing themselves in London after the war they will take their business elsewhere, and to that extent London will lose its character as an international banking centre. Mr Pownall well expresses the main proposition: ‘It is the universality of London, its cosmopolitan composition, that creates

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Wine Club 19 November

One of FromVineyardsDirect’s finest ruses has been to obtain, quietly and discreetly, small amounts of surplus production from the most celebrated châteaux in all Bordeaux (and I mean the most celebrated) and to sell the wine on under their own labels at extremely reasonable prices. These ‘declassified’ wines (as they like to call them) are made from estate fruit with exactly the same care and attention that goes into the properties’ grands vins by the same winemaking teams. Understandably, FVD would rather I didn’t say exactly which estates they are, although you might find some clues below… The 2014 Margaux (1) is a gloriously, precociously, mouth-fillingly approachable charmer, a smooth,

Bruce Anderson

Autumn riches

A few days ago, on the Dorset/Somerset marches, autumn was still in orderly retreat. Although a pear tree’s leaves had turned sere and yellow, the last fruit was still peeping through. Across the lawn, a horse chestnut was undressing, festooning the lawn with bronze. Out of a cloudless sky, a mild seasonal sun blessed the scene with a gentle glow, as if it were pouring Sauternes. Along the Ladies’ Walk, the yellows and greens were reinforced by bushes in russet mantles and by the triumphant redness of acers and liquidambar. We could have almost been in the New England fall, at least for a few yards. Autumn, fall: the two

Aidan Hartley

Wild life | 17 November 2016

 Aero Club of East Africa   The world looked so clean and untroubled during the flight in Bob’s light aircraft to George’s memorial at the Aero Club of East Africa. It was a relief to get away from the farm for a few hours. On 27 October a mob of 300 Samburu warriors armed with spears and knives cut down our boundary fences and invaded with 10,000 cattle. Since then they’ve hurled javelins and rocks at us, flattened pastures to dust, destroyed 15 kilometres of fencing, smashed windows, demolished huts, robbed what they could, cut water pipes, broken machinery and threatened our staff with murder until half of them ran

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

How the left wastes its energy

There are only three infallible rules in advertising. Be distinctive. Make a lot of noise. And try to feature a cute animal somewhere. Had Donald Trump followed my advice and bought a springer spaniel he would have won California. For a man with such tiny hands to be elected to the world’s highest office, I think we can all agree, is a tragic loss to proctology. But it is also a remarkable lesson in how to play the media. Hillary had $2 billion to spend; what Trump miraculously found was that with each outburst of political Tourette’s, he got more airtime than her, and for free. So eager were the mainstream

Camilla Swift Camilla Swift

National Hunt racing

‘A more thrilling, uplifting, glorious way of living has yet to be invented,’ the jockey John Francome said of National Hunt racing. Watching last weekend’s action from Cheltenham racecourse, it was easy to see what he meant. Now is when the National Hunt — or jump — season really gets under way. The summer months are about flat racing, although these days flat racing goes on through the winter, too. There are now six all-weather racetracks in the UK; the latest, Newcastle, opened earlier this year. Of course, it’s not quite the same (floodlights are no replacement for long summer evenings), but it does enable flat horses, trainers and jockeys

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

In Trump’s Texas, the oil men awaken to hope of new prosperity

 Houston, Texas It’s hard to find anyone in polite society here who admits to having voted for Trump, even among the oil men. But 4.7 million Texans did so, giving him 53 per cent of the popular vote. In redneck rural counties the Donald carried four fifths of the ballot, but Hillary Clinton was ahead in urban Houston, whose citizens pride themselves on good relations between white, black and Latino communities and on the welcome they offer to newcomers — including, a decade ago, a quarter of a million refugees from hurricane-hit New Orleans. But still this is predominantly an oil town, and an industry that has suffered losses and slashed

James Delingpole James Delingpole

The moral arc of the universe bends towards me

So I made £250 betting on Trump to win the presidency. It would have been more, except that every time I got close to topping up my stake, this boring, mimsy, responsible voice in my head kept saying: ‘Now, now James. Don’t be silly. All your sensible friends who know much, much more than you do about politics have been telling you that President Trump just isn’t going to happen.’ One of them was m’learned colleague Toby Young. Until recently we used to do a podcast together. Because it was partly aimed at a US audience, we’d usually chat about the presidential race and I’d go into my crazy spiel

Ariane Sherine

The perfect mismatch

“Is she really going out with him?’ asks the old Joe Jackson song about a mixed-attractiveness couple. ‘They say that looks don’t count for much — there goes your proof.’ High society used to abound with couples in which the woman was far more beautiful than the man. But while we can still point to famous aesthetically mismatched partners (pudgy Trump and pulchritudinous Melania anyone?), the mating patterns of the young now mean we are witnessing the death of the mixed-attractiveness couple. This is thanks to the way millennials fall in love — more often than not, online. They flick through potential matches on sites such as Match.com and MySingleFriend

Lucy Vickery

I quit

In Competition No. 2974 you were invited to submit a resignation letter from God.   Despite mankind’s attempts to kill Him off, God has continued to bounce back. ‘The Almighty,’ as Terry Eagleton puts it in his book Culture and the Death of God, ‘has proved remarkably difficult to dispose of.’ But what if He decided one day that He’d had just about enough of us all (Gexit, as Ken Stevens termed it)?   Now seems as likely a time as any, so it’s over to you. The winners take £25 each. Over the years, the human race has been taking part in a momentous democratic process. It is right

Wednesday

Helen Nugent

Black Friday: do your homework before hitting the shops

There are some American imports for which we should be thankful. Not Donald Trump, obviously. Other things, though – the motor car, baseball, Dolly Parton, chewing gum, and, erm, crayons. On the other hand, there are a number of US products we could do without. I’m thinking here of evangelical preachers, sub-prime mortgages and Spam. Then there’s Black Friday. While this day of frenzied shopping has been part of the American calendar for decades, it’s a recent UK import. Always falling on the day after Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday of November – so the 25th for us Brits), Black Friday’s hype spirals year after year. Shops promote it heavily, claiming that

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Stop Funding Hate: a nasty, elitist campaign for press censorship

Intolerance wears a progressive mask in the 21st century. Students hound political undesirables off campus in the name of ‘protecting diversity’. Adverts are banned from the London Underground in the name of women’s rights. Rappers and other hotheads are barred from Britain on the basis that their utterances are ‘not conducive’ to our good, progressive way of life. And now assorted leftists and tweeters are seeking to punish tabloid newspapers, to starve them of big revenue, in the name of promoting tolerance. Yes, intolerance – in this case of the redtop press and its right to say what it wants – is tolerance. Stop Funding Hate is a new campaign