Society

Thursday

Aidan Hartley

The politics of glasses

Africa Orientale Italiana ‘Where did you get those glasses?’ a stylish Italian gentleman asked me, gesturing at the acetate L.G.R. frames I wear for my myopia. I said Nairobi. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘I make them.’ Luca Gnecchi Ruscone and I then had a conversation that brought back fond memories of adventures across the Horn of Africa, all focused through a history of spectacle lenses. Astigmatism and short sightedness has been with me since I was 13 in England, when I was forced to start wearing those heavy, black-rimmed NHS 524 specs. The singer Morrissey later made them seem cool, but I remember always taking them off to stumble blindly around

Bruce Anderson

Chilean wine is hard to beat

We were assembled to taste Chilean wines assisted by magnificent Scottish food, courtesy of the Scottish embassy in London, otherwise known as Boisdale. But there was a problem of etiquette. As we were dealing with Chilean matters, I thought that we should propose a toast to a great Chilean and a staunch ally of this country, General Pinochet, who saved his own nation from becoming another Cuba or a mess like the current Venezuela. The left will never forgive Pinochet or Kissinger for frustrating Marxist ruin My neighbour expressed doubt. Surely the general committed atrocities? I conceded that the overthrow of Allende was not bloodless. But the sort of men

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 23 November 2024

There can’t be a bridge tournament much more enjoyable than the one we have just played in Madeira. It starts with three days of Pairs (292 pairs registered) followed by three days of Teams (129). My teammates Thor Erik Hoftaniska and Christian Bakke came second in the Pairs but more was to come. We played 12 matches of eight boards each, and won 11 of them. That was enough to win the Teams trophy! I was playing with Thomas (Charlie) Charlsen who I knew had studied lots of suit combinations, but they almost never came up. Then, suddenly, this hand appears where for once, the right play in a suit

Dot Wordsworth

Is ‘Chinatown’ offensive?

I’ve heard people using back-to-back housing to mean terraces separated by back yards. But strictly, back-to-back houses are built against a party wall and face opposite ways. Byelaws after the passing of the Public Health Act 1875 prevented their continued construction. In Birmingham, four of the city’s former thousands of back-to-backs are preserved by the National Trust off Hurst Street, which runs through the middle of what this year was officially designated Chinatown. I was surprised by the renaming because parallel designations are regarded as offensive. ‘Formerly often with negative connotations of criminality,’ says the Oxford English Dictionary of Chinatown, ‘but now typically used with more positive connotations.’ So that’s

Luke McShane

Slow and steady

‘I kind of played old man’s chess in that game,’ said Magnus Carlsen, after winning a game against S.L. Narayanan, a top Indian grandmaster, at the Tata Steel Rapid in Kolkata last week. ‘No long variations, just positional chess.’ None of his moves would have come as a great surprise to his opponent, while Narayanan’s mistakes were inconspicuous. Yet Carlsen steadily assumed control of the game, consistently sensing the optimal places for his pieces. S.L. Narayanan-Magnus Carlsen Tata Steel Chess India Rapid, November 2024 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 O-O Be7 6 Qe2 6 Re1 is more common, and one standard continuation

Luke McShane

No. 828

Black to play. Erigaisi-Dubov, Tata Steel India Blitz, November 2024. Dubov chose Rg4-e4, overlooking a tactical shot that would have won the game. What was the winning move? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 25 November. 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 Be8! threatens 2 Qxb8#. If 1… Kxe8 2 Qc8# or 1… Qxe8 2 Nxe6# Last week’s winner Alan Ward, Burgess Hill, West Sussex

Victoria Lane

Spectator Competition: Suite memories

In Competition 3376, prompted by news that avocado bathrooms are back in vogue, you were invited to compose poems about interior decor trends of yesteryear. Reading them, bubble chairs and spider plants swam before my eyes. Jane Smillie’s list deserves a mention: Artex and lava lamps, bamboo and tie dye,Pop art and sideboards and stereo hi-fi,LP racks and shagpile and chakra batik,These are what passed for Seventies chic. As does David Blakey’s light verse: That rocket lamp’s no longer mine.I can’t remember what I did.But I’ve seen one for sale onlineFor almost seven hundred quid. There was a suggestion of Betjeman in many of the entries (‘Are the requisites all

La Jerezana

2681: ‘I see wets in disarray!’

Eight unclued lights are of a kind. Across 5               Al Gore eats by the truckload (6) 9               Dim and confused, fell in and died (3-7) 14            Boxer from Hayle is oddly knocked out (3) 16            Case of invertebrate found in hydrochloric acid (6) 17            March with nudists’ leader in buff (5) 18            Tramp about with stupid person (5) 20            Induced naked coward to take up arms (2,2,3) 22            Passionate female parted, leaving son (7) 24            Just cooked books after bad deal with European (2,5) 25            Horse wearing bridle is a runner (5) 26            Am not ultimately lofty in any way (2,3) 31            Boozer with vacuous air and extremely dubious guts (7) 33           

The Spectator

2678: Winning words – solution

The unclued lights are four female winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature. First prize Angela Robinson, Brighton, East Sussex Runners-up Elizabeth Knights, Walton Highway, Wisbech; Andrew Vernalls, Milton Common, Thame, Oxon

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

The true meaning of free speech

Right after Donald Trump’s landslide, I opined on YouTube that this turning point could sound the death knell for Woke World – an observation that decayed to hoary cliché within hours. I also supposed that Trump’s triumph might signal to the UK that all that diversity, equality and inclusion/systemic racism guff is totally yesterday – in the hopes that even if Brits don’t care about fairness, rationality and reason, they might at least be horrified by appearing passé. For police to pursue citizens for ‘non-crimes’ is a little like bin men coming to your house to pick up ‘non-rubbish’ I regret not getting that cheerful forecast in print, because I

Harry Mount

The Roman roots of the Dulwich Wood Penis Gang

If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise… in Dulwich Wood – a charming fragment of the medieval Great North Wood in south London – the self-dubbed ‘Penis Gang’ have been at work. The gang have been daubing huge penises, in red, black and green, on ancient tree trunks and branches. Sophia Money-Coutts, author and etiquette expert of our times, recently discovered the drawings as she walked her dog, Dennis, in the woods. We prudish 21st-century westerners struggle to understand how relaxed the Romans were about genitalia It’s all disgusting, of course. But the dog walkers of Dulwich can comfort themselves with the fact

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Farmers aren’t miners

A parallel is being drawn between the Tories and the miners in the 1980s and Labour and the farmers today. On the left, there is an implied element of revenge: you screwed our people, so we’ll screw yours. It is true that the miners’ marches in London 40 years ago had much the same earthy atmosphere of ‘real people’ confronting authority as did the farmers’ rally this week. But in the end the comparison does not work. For the Conservatives, the miners themselves were not the enemy. The problem was the vast cost of uneconomic pits to the taxpayer and the declared determination of the NUM leader, Arthur Scargill, to

The Spectator

Rachel Reeves can still repair the damage done to farming

The Chancellor of the Exchequer found time this week to edit her own page on the social media site LinkedIn. She had, it appeared, fallen into error by saying that she had worked as an economist for the Bank of Scotland. Her role had in fact been humbler. No one should be criticised for seeking to correct a mistake. There is no fault in acknowledging that your claims to economic authority were exaggerated, and no shame in embracing humility. Which is why Rachel Reeves should apologise again – without further delay – to Britain’s farmers. For the grotesque, unjust and vindictive tax assault she has launched on the nation’s food

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Rising inflation, electric car targets and a tax on flatulent livestock

Home Thousands of farmers protested in Westminster against inheritance tax on farms. Tesco, Amazon, Greggs and 76 other chains belonging to the British Retail Consortium said that costs introduced by October’s Budget ‘will make job losses inevitable and higher prices a certainty’. The annual rate of inflation rose to 2.3 per cent from 1.7 a month earlier. The British economy grew by 0.1 per cent in the third quarter, but shrank during September; in the second quarter it had grown by 0.5 per cent. Beth, the Queen’s Jack Russell, died. An additional 50,000 pensioners will live in relative poverty next year as a result of cuts to the winter fuel

Piers Morgan

Get ready for Elon Musk’s sex robots

My old mucker Donald Trump’s return to the White House has predictably sent the woke brigade into hysteria. From posting demented videos and shaving their heads to banning Trump supporters from having sex with them, it’s been a masterclass in the sore loser mentality they profess to despise so much in him. The Guardian is suffering a particularly embarrassing outbreak of PTSD (post-Trump-success distress). The editor’s email offer of support therapy to traumatised staff made me laugh out loud, as did the paper joining the liberal exodus from Elon Musk’s X in an equally comical fit of pique. But to be fair to the kale-munching wastrels, it can’t be easy

Wednesday

Sean Rayment

Anti-personnel mines will be very useful for Ukraine

The decision by the Biden administration to supply Ukraine with thousands of anti-personnel mines will, I imagine, be greeted with unalloyed joy within Kyiv’s corridors of military power. The US has provided Ukraine with anti-tank mines throughout its war with Russia, but the addition of anti-personnel mines is aimed at blunting the advance of Russian ground troops in the east, and in the Russian region of Kursk where Ukrainian forces are fighting to cling onto the ground they captured earlier this year.  Anti-personnel mines are weapons of the utmost cynicism – they work on the premise that wounded soldiers cause more problems for an enemy than dead ones Anti-personnel mines are

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Jeremy Clarkson’s time has come

It’s a reasonable bet that if Jeremy Clarkson stood for prime minister tomorrow, he’d win by a country mile. Some might even crown him the next sovereign. At the farmers’ protest in Westminster yesterday, Clarkson dominated the coverage, overshadowing even the other luminaries in attendance. Like Trump, Clarkson has name recognition, independence, and a flair for media Several high-profile Conservatives were present, including Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel, and Robert Jenrick, alongside Nigel Farage in bespoke country-gent attire and Richard Tice from Reform. Yet they were all eclipsed by a shambling, frail figure in a moth-eaten pea coat, faded jeans, and a beanie hat: Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson, looking every inch as

Alexander Larman

What on earth is Jaguar thinking?

Along with Aston Martin and Rolls Royce, Jaguar is, for most people, one of the great British blue chip motoring brands. When Inspector Morse drove around the not-so-mean streets of Oxford in his burgundy Jaguar Mark II, the implicit association between the terribly English detective and the quintessentially stylish car was one that lingered on in viewers’ minds far beyond the show. Jaguar has always been that rare company that has conveyed an innate sense of style and class throughout its century-long existence. So why, exactly, have they decided to torpedo their hard-won reputation in such a perplexingly unforced fashion? Jaguar has decided to change its name to ‘JaGUar’ Jaguar

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

Let’s banish Band Aid

There’s no need to be afraid, but 40 years since the advent of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ by Band Aid there is a dispute raging about the commemorations. There is to be an ‘ultimate’ version of this haunting ditty – haunting in the Borley Rectory sense – in which vocals from across each of the four versions of the star-spangled roundelay are combined, including those of the sadly deceased. For me, the release of Band Aid was the day the music died Perhaps inevitably, given the fraught cultural world we now live in, even at the frothiest end, ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ has sparked rancour this time around.

Tuesday

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Joe Biden has put Ukraine in an impossible position

This week, Joe Biden lifted one of the many restraints placed on Ukraine in its war with Russia. The outgoing US president has allowed Kyiv to use long-range US-made ATACMS missiles in the Russian region of Kursk, a part of which is currently held by Ukraine. Last night, Kyiv used these missiles to strike a large Russian weapons depot in the Bryansk region neighbouring Kursk, suggesting Ukraine will also be able to use ATACMS on other Russian border regions. Biden’s move is mainly intended to ‘send a message’ to North Korea – which has sent 10,000 troops to aid Russia – and to thwart the Kremlin campaign to force Ukraine out of