Society

Thursday

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Why women’s golf is better than men’s

In the exhilarating event of Somerset managing to sneak past Surrey and being on their way to claim their first county cricket championship since the Norman Conquest – or since Vic Marks was playing – they would owe one of their captains from long ago, an eccentric gentleman by the name of Jack Meyer, a big debt of gratitude. Without Meyer it is unlikely that Somerset would have snared Archie Vaughan, the 18-year-old son of Michael and the hero of Somerset’s nerve-racking win over Surrey, the defending champions, last week. The list of Millfield’s exceptional players, past and present, is eye- watering  Meyer, a firm believer in the power of

Sebastian Shakespeare

Can I find my tribe in Brighton?

Recently I lost my mother, my job and nearly my wife in quick succession (she was diagnosed with breast cancer). My son now needles me by asking what I do all day. ‘Son, I have seen things you wouldn’t believe. I have dark thoughts.’ That is what I want to say, but I don’t have the courage. It is hard to explain to an 11-year-old that the black dog can be as demanding as any full-time employer. Besides he wouldn’t get the Blade Runner reference. But his niggling question makes me realise I am a man in need of an alibi, or another alias. My old headmaster once described me

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: Should you flush the loo in the night when staying with friends?

Q. We live in an area with no mobile reception and trying to get hold of taxis for guests leaving late at night or early morning after a party is nerve-racking. We have only two local taxi firms, both of which stop working after 10 p.m. When taxis from outside the area try to find the house, the signal drops as they near and they can’t find us. What do you suggest?  – A.E., Pewsey A. Put a warning on your invitations that since taxis will be unable to find the house, guests should screenshot your enclosed map, send it as an aid to the taxi firm and agree a precise

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

As good as Noble Rot: Cloth reviewed

Cloth is opposite St Bartholomew the Great on Cloth Fair. People call this place Farringdon, but it isn’t really: it belongs to the teaching hospital and the meat market and William Wallace who died a famous death here and has only a little plaque in turn. Smithfield embraces the dead. Sherlock Holmes met Dr Watson here and, for BBC1, jumped off the roof of the hospital. If Cloth calls itself a ‘neighbourhood wine bar’, which sounds less threatening than ‘restaurant’, its true customers are the dead, and that is no criticism. The chips are marvellous, and this matters. I always judge a restaurant on the chips I am early, so

Melissa Kite

Have I met my riding friends?

The sound of the little cart on the lane came first and then the sight of the pony clip-clopping towards our gate. An old woman, as old as the hills, was sitting atop the cart jiggling the reins as she jogged the pony expertly down the road. An old woman, as old as the hills, was sitting atop the cart jiggling the reins as she jogged the pony down the road We waved her down to say hello, because we are always so delighted to see people with horses that we often run out to talk to them. On this occasion, as the weather-beaten old woman in scruffy clothes pulled

Robin Oakley

The inside track on racing syndicates

Billy Connolly once declared that Scotland had only two seasons: June and winter. Perversely, though, just as the northern swallows are setting their alarm clocks and checking departure times for Cape Town and Johannesburg, it has become the Oakley tradition to head for the Isle of Mull. In recent years the accompanying essentials, Mrs Oakley, a case of good wine, long wellies and a surf-addicted flat-coat retriever, have been supplemented by author Felix Francis sending me in late August his latest forthcoming ‘Dick Francis novel’.  When Motivator won in 2005 he had more owners than any Derby winner in history – 230 of them Racing’s continuance owes much to partnerships

Dot Wordsworth

The meaning of ‘moot’? It’s debatable

In Florence there was a stone on which Dante sat in the evenings, pondering and talking to acquaintances. One asked him: ‘Dante, what is your favourite food?’ He replied: ‘Eggs.’ The following year, the same celebrity-hunter found him in the same place and asked: ‘With what?’ Dante replied: ‘With salt.’ In the Piazza delle Pallottole in Florence skulks a lump of stone bearing a label declaring it the genuine Stone of Dante. It doesn’t look very comfortable but at least it explains the line in Browning’s ‘Old Pictures in Florence’ where he says: ‘This time we’ll shoot better game and bag ’em hot – / No mere display at the

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 21 September 2024

Have you ever made a bid based on the assumption that your partner has forgotten your system? It’s not as unreasonable as it might sound. Everyone forgets bits of their system now and again, and if a bid doesn’t make sense to you, that could well be why. Even so, it’s an uncomfortable dilemma: whether to assume your partner has erred and risk a very red face if they haven’t, or trust them at the risk of landing in a ridiculous contract. It’s a problem even top players sometimes face. During a recent Young Chelsea Super League match, the England international Stefano Tommasini and Sebastian Atisen, one of his regular

Olivia Potts Olivia Potts

Give vitello tonnato a chance

I am sure there are beloved British dishes that inspire horror in those from different cultures, that are truly unappealing to the uninitiated. I can quite imagine that the bright green eel-gravy that traditionally accompanies the East End pie and mash could be figuratively and literally hard to swallow for a visitor. Or that our predilection for Yorkshire puddings – glorified pancakes – on our very savoury roast dinners and a desire for strong cheese served with fruitcake make us seem as mad as a box of frogs. Vitello tonnato might be called the original surf and turf. But it can be a hard sell Which is why, despite the

Luke McShane

Problem solved

When I select puzzles to accompany this column, I stick to the plain vanilla. The stipulation must be short and sweet, and one move solutions must be accepted (though I like to include a few further words of explanation). Alas, a thousand such puzzles can never do justice to the wondrous ingenuity of chess composers. Longer mating problems and ‘studies’ (where the objective is to find a winning or drawing sequence) allow considerably more artistic scope. Then there are genres which maintain the rules of movement but subvert the players’ objectives. Those include helpmates (in which both sides choreograph their moves to engineer a checkmate) and selfmates (in which one

Luke McShane

No. 819

Le-Sindarov, Budapest Olympiad, September 2024. White’s next move induced immediate resignation. What did he play? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 23 September. 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 Qf6+! Qxf6 2 Re8+ Qf8 3 Rxf8# Last week’s winner Mark Lunt, Manchester

Victoria Lane

Spectator Competition: Our kid

In Competition 3367 you were invited to write a formal poem about the Brothers Gallagher (Noel and Liam). This comp was set before we had quite reached Oasis saturation point; possibly we’re beyond that now. There were more entries than usual and they were roughly equally split between those that expressed great joy at the reunion and those that weren’t even remotely bothered. A shout-out to Brian Murdoch, Bob Newman and Edmund Carver – and the winners below get £25. When minstrel knyghtes forst gan maken melodye, Two brother knyghtes, each of grete envyé, Sire Noel, eldeste, meek, a gentil knyghte, Sire Liam, yonge, a cur who loved a fyghte,

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Keir Starmer’s free clothes, Huw Edwards sentenced and Tupperware faces bankruptcy

Home Sir Keir Starmer met Giorgia Meloni, the Prime Minister of Italy, in Rome and said that sending funds to Tunisia and Libya ‘appears to have had quite a profound effect’ in cutting the number of migrants arriving in Italy. In the seven days to 16 September, 1,158 migrants arrived in England in small boats; eight drowned off France. Sir Keir made a late declaration of gifts from Lord Alli, a Labour donor, including clothes for Lady Starmer. David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, defended the practice, saying that prime ministers ‘do rely on donations, political donations, so they can look their best’. Sir Keir’s hair was observed to be greyer

La Jerezana

2672: Seamless schemes

The eight unclued lights are of a kind. Across 1               One slandering and misrepresenting our claimant (11) 7               Purpose of Maoism oddly forgotten (3) 11            Trees concealing old furrow (6) 13            Bitterness of soldier on the radio (7) 15            Signature is tamper-proof, to some extent (5) 17            Sturdy or, conversely, broken? (6) 18            French here about to turn more frosty (5) 20            Tension of female teacher leaving motorway (6) 21            Initially sickened by green gunk (5) 29            Delete article in Irish Gaelic (5) 30            Giving up golf, glass worker becomes less active (6) 34            Paced mostly unforested grassland (6) 36            Camp joke about university lecturer (5) 37            Rattle Kurt Waldheim?

Maureen Lipman

I’m engaged!

I slept only between the hours of 5 and 6 a.m, thanks to self-induced terror tactics. My son Adam stayed over, having offered to accompany me for my angiogram – or ‘the procedure’. He kindly moved my old Honda Jazz round the corner and parked his car in my space overnight. The procedure revealed that a) I am impossible to sedate – I once told a full joke under anaesthetic; b) I am neurotic; and c) I didn’t, after all, need a stent. So why was I so breathless? Could it be because, at three score and ten… er… plus eight, I find myself in love? Prescription: I must walk

The Spectator

2669: Partners in Crime – solution

The unclued lights are the surnames of the ‘Queens of Crime’ and of their famous detectives: 1A/16, 19/15, 29/32 and 38/42. First prize G.R. Snailham, Windsor Runners-up Bill Ellison, Caversham, Reading; John and Di Lee, Axminster, Devon

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The tyranny of lawyers

Ihave spent most of the morning trying to convince people online that Huw Edwards’s conviction does not mean that all, or even a majority, of Welsh people are sexually attracted to children. ‘We thought it was just sheep. It isn’t,’ one furious interlocuter named only as ‘Ned’ posted with what I assume he thought was bitter irony. Another mentioned that Edwards’s supposed ‘friend’, from whom he procured the disgusting photographs, was also Welsh and that there had been recent, very serious paedophilia cases in both Swansea and Cardiff crown courts. The big lie is that our courts are above the fray and never beholden to the ephemeral influence of politics

The Spectator

Labour vs labour: how can the government claim to be promoting growth?

Growth, growth, growth: that was what Keir Starmer told us would be his government’s priority in his first press conference as Prime Minister. Nearly three months on, as the Labour party heads into its first conference in power for 15 years, it is becoming ever harder to reconcile Starmer’s promise with the policies that his government seems determined to deliver. With junior doctors voting to accept a 22 per cent pay rise, yet another group of public sector workers has been lavished with financial reward without any obligation to accept or implement more productive working practices. The NHS is in the midst of a pay bonanza at a time when

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Do you have a ‘story’?

As someone who worked full time in the office for 24 years and has now worked full time from home for nearly 21 – always, in both periods, on the staff – I can see both sides of the argument. But I do think the sequence matters. I would have had no idea how to work for my employers if I had begun at home. Indeed, the entire concept of a newspaper then – and even, to a large extent, now – depends on its collective capacity to find, write and edit news fast. Much of that stimulus comes from being in the same building. On Monday, Andy Jassy, the

Wednesday

Alexander Larman

Prince Andrew will struggle to recover from A Very Royal Scandal

Sensational dramas about the Duke of York are rather like London buses: you wait five years for one, and then two come along at once. Amazon Prime’s three-part series, A Very Royal Scandal, which focuses on the notorious Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew, is released tomorrow. The show follows the perspective of both the journalist Emily Maitlis (Ruth Wilson) and, more surprisingly, Andrew himself, in another of the ever-chameleonic Michael Sheen’s superb performances. A Very Royal Scandal follows Netflix’s depiction of the interview, Scoop, which was released earlier this year. A Very Royal Scandal takes a more considered approach, daring to hint that Andrew was actively bad Whether the royals