Society

Monday

Ariane Sherine

Sorry, but so-called ‘racist’ jokes are funny

There is a massive stench of hypocrisy in public life. We do and say things in private that we would castigate others for doing in public, possibly the best example of this being jokes about race. Nearly all of us will have told a so-called racist joke in private that we ‘wouldn’t get away with’ posting on social media. I’m not talking about Bernard Manning-type bigotry, but everyday one-liners like ‘Why are Asian people so rubbish at football? Because every time they get a corner, they build a shop.’ I’m an Asian person and this is not remotely offensive. On the contrary, it celebrates our entrepreneurial spirit, while accurately acknowledging

Sunday

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Lariam and my six months of madness

I once went mad in Africa and it was no fun at all. I was snorkelling off the coast of Zanzibar and I dived a little too deep, and something in the middle of my head went click. And then I came up and fell on to a boat that took me back to the paradise sands, and when I got there I couldn’t walk straight and everything started to fall apart. In fairness, that might not have been madness. That might have just been a problem with my inner ear. At the time, though, it was all bundled together. I’d been sub-Saharan for about nine months by this point,

Saturday

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: can I have been drinking with Jeffrey Bernard?

The latest challenge, to submit a poem about sharing a drink with a famous writer, was inspired by the poetry collection that made Wendy Cope’s name. I suspected this might be a popular one and so it proved. I was spoilt for choice winner-wise, so heartfelt commiserations to the many who came within a whisker of making the final cut, especially Alan Millard, Martin Parker, Roger Theobald, Chris O’Carroll and Siriol Troup. The entries that survived the painful and protracted cull are printed below and earn their authors £25 each. Bill Greenwell pockets £30. Bill Greenwell I’m sitting sipping cider with Bill Bryson, And listening to his monologues take wing:

Andreas Campomar

Why Juan Villoro is the best football writer you’ve never heard of | 28 May 2016

Football, unlike cricket, has for the most part been ill served by its writers. For every Brian Glanville and Ian Hamilton (the latter having employed his critical authority to become a first-rate reader of the game), the purveyors of hackneyed analysis are legion. In recent years there has been a propensity to celebrate tactics and formation (i.e. pedantry) over poetry. Latin Americans, however, have always fared slightly better with their writers — as they do with their players — who tend not to make the distinction between literature and sports writing. Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa, both Nobel laureates, took to writing about the game early on in

Mick Hume

No, thank you, Officer, I will not think before I speak

As my daughter was preparing for her AS level exam on 1984 this week, George Orwell’s dystopian classic loomed back into a news headline: ‘We are not the Thought Police, Chief Constable Tells Government’. Leicestershire chief constable Simon Cole, who’s in charge of the anti-radicalisation Prevent programme, told the press that the Government’s new counter-extremist and safeguarding bill risked asking the police to dictate “what people can and cannot say”. The top cop was adamant that “We absolutely don’t want to be the thought police.” Well, (to borrow from another literary classic, Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop): Up to a point, Lord Copper. The police may feel uncomfortable about being tasked with

Friday

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

What’s the point of The Templeton Prize? After going to last night’s ceremony, I’m not sure

The Templeton Prize is known to lots of people from Richard Dawkins’ intemperate denunciation of it in The God Delusion in which it features as the unspeakable temptation for scientists to do business with the God lobby. But having been to the ceremony last night in which it was awarded to the former Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks – who, unusually for a winner, featured, mike in hand, in a performance of a hymn to celebrate Israel by the Shabbaton choir – I’m still at a bit of a loss as to what it’s about. The billing is that it ‘honours a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to

Conal Gregory

Is your garden protected from thieves and extreme weather? Probably not

Gardening is the nation’s favourite hobby, contributing £9 billion to the economy annually. Just looking at the numbers of people who attend flower shows and garden centres, it’s clear to see that it’s big business. As Chelsea ends and Harlow Carr, Hampton Court and Wisley follow, even the TV programmes have trouble keeping up. A well-maintained and attractive garden can boost a property’s value by 10 to 15 per cent, according to Knight Frank estate agents. In the UK, 93 per cent of the population have an outdoor space or grow plants. Over the years, garden owners can spend thousands of pounds but many may not realise the increasing value

Steerpike Steerpike

Food advice from the Guardian: don’t eat octopus… they have more genes than you

Last year the Guardian‘s food police deemed HP sauce to be the condiment of ‘the establishment’, barbecues to be borderline racist and roast dinners to be tinged with ‘received memories of oppression and an enslaved work force’. Now they have a new enemy in their sights — octopus. Yes, a writer by the name of Elle Hunt makes the argument that humans shouldn’t eat octopus because… they have more genes than you do: ‘They may be delicious and sure, there are lots of them, but next time you’re chomping down on your barbecued octopus, just remember they were the first intelligent beings on Earth and have more genes than you do.’

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Women are becoming more and more infantile. It’s time to grow up, girls

I consider myself such an extreme feminist that I make Germaine Greer look like Greer Garson. (Ask your gran.) But this doesn’t mean that I have to believe women are superior to men in every way. Yes, we violently attack, sexually assault and feel the need to commit murder far less than they do. But when it comes to the little things, there are many ways in which manning up would make women better. Maturity is one of them. We are told from the get-go that females ‘mature’ far earlier than males. It’s weird that feminists go along with this, because it’s one of the main justifications for adult men

Thursday

Prue Leith

Diary – 26 May 2016

Why do we assume all doctors are good? We don’t think there are no bad cooks or bad plumbers. But everyone thinks their surgeon is the best in the world. Recommended to one such, I booked an appointment. He rattled off his spiel about the pros and cons of surgery, physio or jabs for a bad shoulder, while looking at the ceiling and at his watch. He waved away my scan: ‘I never look at those. Just heaving oceans of muscle. They all look the same.’ He favoured surgery, but I asked for a jab. It hurt like hell and made no difference. So I went to another ‘top of his

The Spectator

Barometer | 26 May 2016

A man in full A relic said to contain a fragment of St Thomas à Becket’s elbow arrived from Hungary for a tour of London and Kent. Where to go to see some of his other bits: — St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic church, Burgate Canterbury: fragments of vestment, bone and finger are in a glass case above the altar. — Church of St Maria Maggiore, Rome: shirt and fragments of bone and brain. — Most of him was interred in Canterbury cathedral until the shrine was destroyed by Henry VIII in the 1530s. Bones and a skull were discovered in Canterbury cathedral in 1888, but a later study concluded the

Raymond Keene

Garry’s comeback

To great surprise, the former world champion Garry Kasparov staged a brief comeback when he participated in a blitz tournament held to celebrate the close of this year’s US Championship. His opponents were the top three from the championship and an 18-round competition resulted in the following scores: Nakamura 11, So 10, Kasparov 9½ and Caruana 5½.   It is astounding that at the age of 53, with no tournament practice whatsoever for some time, Kasparov can hold his own with the young tigers of the contemporary chess scene. Indeed, had he converted two winning positions against Wesley So, he would have emerged as the clear victor. Instead, in both

Raymond Keene

No. 410

Black to play. This position is from So-Nakamura, Ultimate Blitz Challenge, Saint Louis 2016. How did Black make a key breakthrough while also winning material? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 31 May or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. 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 Qxh7+ Last week’s winner Tim Leeney, Hartfield, East Sussex

The Spectator

Losing faith

A landmark in national life has just been passed. For the first time in recorded history, those declaring themselves to have no religion have exceeded the number of Christians in Britain. Some 44 per cent of us regard ourselves as Christian, 8 per cent follow another religion and 48 per cent follow none. The decline of Christianity is perhaps the biggest single change in Britain over the past century. For some time, it has been a stretch to describe Britain as a Christian country. We can more accurately be described now as a secular nation with fading Christian institutions. There is nothing new in the decline of the church, but until

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 26 May 2016

Home The government published a Treasury analysis warning that an exit from the EU would plunge Britain into a year-long recession and could cost 820,000 jobs. David Cameron, the Prime Minister, speaking with George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, at B&Q’s head office in Hampshire, said that leaving ‘would be like surviving a fall then running straight back to the cliff edge. It is the self-destruct option.’ Downing Street said that leaving the EU would make an average holiday for four people to the EU £230 more expensive. Gillian Duffy of Rochdale, the nemesis of Gordon Brown, the former Labour leader, spoke in favour of the Leave campaign. Ed

Taki

High life | 26 May 2016

New York Let’s face it, sleaze is to professional party-givers what jail is to a burglar, an occupational hazard. I’ve been reading about parties in Cannes, described in glowing terms by stars-in-their eyes hacks who should, but do not, know any better. Well, dear readers of The Spectator, I’m afraid I’ve been there, done it all, and believe you me, squalor is the operative word. Obscene publicity-seekers posing as role models, sartorial decay, and a chronic inability to keep their clothes on is the order of the day. Cannes used to be fun, during the 1950s. Eden-Roc, the restaurant and swimming-pool of the Hotel du Cap, was terra incognita to

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 26 May 2016

We cleared the kitchen table for a game of pick-up sticks. Remember them? Thirty long, thin bamboo sticks, their differing values painted on them in red, blue or yellow stripes? You bunch them in your fist and let them collapse in a heap on the table and then the players extract one at a time from the pile without disturbing any of the others? The game is still being sold in Oxfam shops for 99 pence a set under the rubric ‘Those Were the Days’. The kitchen table is circular. Four of us, representing four generations — me, my son, my grandson and my mother — are playing. I let

Melissa Kite

Real life | 26 May 2016

After a tense two week stand-off, the Balham Airbnb Crisis has been resolved. My upstairs neighbour and I have drawn back from the brink. He has agreed to let me station bed and breakfast guests in my main bedroom. I have agreed to pay slightly higher building insurance contributions. By the time we signed the new direct debit forms, we had brought Balham to the brink of world war three. The biggest irony is, now it’s all sorted, I’m not so sure I want to do Airbnb. I’m not sure my nerves will stand it. My latest guest, a girl from Taiwan, arrived on Sunday afternoon when I was out

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 26 May 2016

When your mind suddenly goes wonky, you may be the one person who doesn’t realise that there is something wrong with it. That’s what happened a month ago when I was on a country holiday in Tuscany with my wife. It was lovely weather, and lunch had been laid out of doors. I had cooked a sea bass and was feeling rather pleased with myself. We were both happy, and things could hardly have been better. But everything began to go wrong when my wife decided to ask if I could pass her a knife. A knife? I didn’t know what a knife was. I had never heard of such

Robin Oakley

Numbers game

‘After a few decades of marriage a man ought to be able to recognise his own wife,’ Mrs Oakley observed a little tartly last Saturday when I picked her up post-Goodwood from Reading station after patrolling the concourse for 15 minutes. But if a woman buys herself a beanie to keep out the rain and buries herself behind A Month in the Country in the station café’s furthest corner he might be excused. Well, I thought so anyway. It has been excuses all round this week with three of our Twelve to Follow running unplaced while Brando, She Is No Lady and Mecca’s Angel all occupied the dreaded second place.