Society

Thursday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 16 July 2015

Q. At a recent literary festival I attended a talk with a high-profile octogenarian writer. I had already bought her book, so I obediently queued with the others lining up to get it signed. When I reached the writer, she was exchanging a few polite words with me while signing her book (I know several members of her family) when suddenly we were interrupted by another woman coming in from the side, barging the queue and not even holding a copy of the book. She was clearly determined to show everyone that she knew the writer socially and didn’t seem to realise that her behaviour was vulgar and out of

Melvyn Bragg

Diary – 16 July 2015

I witnessed what was almost a violent fight to the death on Hampstead Heath the other morning. Broad flawless sunlight, the serenity of one of London’s greatest lungs and then, from the little pond opposite the mixed bathing pond, screams. A swan, its neck arched like a bow, yellow beak wide open, was shielding four cygnets from the splashy persistence of a determined mongrel. The swan struck, the mongrel dodged the blow. The swan swivelled and followed the attacker into the shallows, but the dog still ducked and taunted the swan. A frantic owner ran along the bank fruitlessly calling out the dog’s name. Someone — me I’m afraid —

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 16 July 2015

Home The government postponed a Commons vote on relaxing the Hunting Act in England and Wales after the Scottish National Party said it would oppose the changes. Scottish police admitted that a crashed car off the M9, reported to them on a Sunday, was not examined until the Wednesday, when one of the two passengers inside it was still alive. She died three days later. A case of H7N7 bird flu was found at a poultry farm near Preston, Lancashire, where 170,000 chickens were slaughtered. British people were being urged by the Foreign Office to leave Tunisia because ‘a further terrorist attack is highly likely’. Up to 5,000 were flown

Dot Wordsworth

Bugs

If my husband were an insect it might well be a bug — a squat creature imbibing nutriment in liquid form. I had not taken much notice of bugs in an otherwise full life, and am surprised to learn there are nearly 2,000 species of British bugs. The point I should like to make is that the language that any one person speaks is not up to the job of labelling many things. Only a minority of those 2,000 bugs have common names. Some are named after their food (such as the box bug, which used to live only on Box Hill eating box trees, but has now taken to plums

Dumpynose

2220: Poem II

Unclued lights (two hyphened) are words (all but one of which are in ODQ) from a poem whose title appears in the completed grid. Two clued lights combine to give the poet’s surname and must be shaded.   Across   1    Brass hat beginning to eat brassica (4) 9    Gem from ring put on partner (4) 11    Break commandment, shattering true ideals (10) 13    Mademoiselle’s protest (4) 15    Clouds covering Dutch centres (6) 17    City guides in conversation (5) 18    Frost’s poems? (5) 20    Mantle’s everything one crony cherishes (7) 21    Killing time, polecats mauled mollusc (7) 24    Crest of bird part adrift (5) 25    Tower bedroom of good height

Dumpynose

To 2217: Poem

The poem was Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats. 1A, 16, 21A, 30, 38, 8, 13, 27, 29 and 35 all appear in it. A GRECIAN URN appears diagonally from 9. STEAK (39) was to be shaded. First prize Sid Field, Stockton-on-Tees Runners-up M. O’Hanlon, North Berwick, Scotland; Hugh Schofield, Paris

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: working with al-Qa’eda and the rise of Jeremy Corbyn

How has al-Qa’eda become the ‘moderate’ option in the Middle East? On the latest View from 22 podcast, Ahmed Rashid and Douglas Murray discuss this week’s Spectator cover feature on how a fear of Isis is leading Arab states to support the lesser of two evils. Is working with al-Qa’eda offshoots the only choice for Western countries? How significant was the decision not to bomb Syria in fighting Isis? And how does the new deal with Iran affect the West’s efforts? James Forsyth and George Eaton also discuss the momentum behind Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign to be Labour leader. Are some in the parliamentary Labour party regretting ‘loaning’ Corbyn MPs to put him on the ballot paper? How has his presence affected what the other candidates are doing? And

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Scout’s honour

From ‘Education and Honour’, The Spectator, 17 July 1915: Under a voluntary system—which indeed takes off the lid, as General Baden-Powell would say—service rendered to the country depends entirely upon a man’s own feelings as to what he ought to do. In other words, his service will be in proportion to his recognition of personal obligation—in proportion to his honour. In what are called the upper classes the war has shown this sense of honour to be extremely high. The young man who has been to a Public School or to one of the Universities and who remains at home without adequate excuse doing nothing is so rare as to be

Bruce Anderson

Banking on wine

Great matters were trembling in the balance. The prime minister needed cash to achieve his objective and as Parliament was not sitting to vote for supply, there would have to be a loan. The PM summoned his cabinet colleagues to seek their agreement. His private secretary waited outside the cabinet room. Suddenly the door half-opened. Instead of the agreed signal, the prime minister himself said ‘Yes’. The official raced off to New Court, to see the Baron Rothschild. ‘The prime minister wants to borrow £4 million.’ ‘When?’ ‘Tomorrow.’ Rothschild picked up a muscatel grape and, after ejecting the skin, ate it. ‘What is the security?’ ‘The British government.’ ‘You can

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

The presentation of choice

The appallingly bad photograph below was taken on my mobile phone about 15 years ago. It shows the menu layout from the Lisbon restaurant Chapito. I have never seen any other restaurant adopt such an ingenious format. You are given five set menus to choose from (white, yellow, orange, red and green) with a suggested wine for each. But you are perfectly free to substitute any dish from any other menu, or omit a course if you want. It is a brilliant example of what is sometimes called ‘choice architecture’. This format makes it easier to choose what to eat. But it also helps you make a better choice. You

Harry Mount

Greece Notebook

At the weekend, I tried — and failed — to get some money out of an empty cashpoint near Omonia Square. The Eurobank cashpoint was covered in fresh anti-German graffiti: ‘No to the new German fascism,’ it read in Greek, ‘No to the “dosilogous”.’ That’s the Greek for Nazi collaborators in the war. For any cashpoint users who couldn’t speak Greek, the graffiti artist helpfully added, in English, GERMANY= 卐. If the new, German-led EU austerity package goes ahead, the swastikas will keep spreading through Athens. I felt sorry for a German family eating ice cream in the deserted Estia café in Plaka. The couple, with four strapping children and

Aidan Hartley

Wild life | 16 July 2015

Laikipia A quarter of a century ago I met two young South African men who had ridden their ponies 1,700 miles from the Kalahari desert to Kenya. They were on their way to Sudan. They carried all their needs on their tough Botswana cattle station ponies, with one spare horse following behind. Their saddlebags were filled mainly with horse feed. Their only clothes were shorts, flip-flops, bush shirts, one blanket and one coat each. This was from the time before mobile phones. In the year it had taken them to reach Kenya they had spent perhaps £150. Along the road they gladly accepted the kindness of strangers for a beer,

James Delingpole James Delingpole

Ten resolutions that should make my next 50 years pass more smoothly

Very soon now I shall reach my half-century. I would have preferred to keep the horror a secret but there’s no point. My stock-in-trade as a me-journalist is: everything — good and bad. Also, I have a Wikipedia entry and, perhaps worse, a Facebook page which announces to the world how old you are — and you wake up to find hundreds of people you scarcely know wishing you Happy Birthday, and you’re expected to be gracious about it: like, thanks for reminding me, you’re too kind. Anyway, I thought that now I’m old and wise I’d make some resolutions. Perhaps they’ll help the next 50 years to pass more

Mark Greaves

God’s new business plan

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/workingwithal-qa-eda/media.mp3″ title=”Mark Greaves discusses the Church of England’s plans for growth” startat=1513] Listen [/audioplayer]A new mood has taken hold of Lambeth Palace. Officials call it urgency; critics say it is panic. The Church of England, the thinking goes, is about to shrink rapidly, even vanish in some areas, unless urgent action is taken. This action, laid out in a flurry of high-level reports, amounts to the biggest institutional shake-up since the 1990s. Red tape is to be cut, processes streamlined, resources optimised. Targets have been set. The Church is ill — and business management is going to cure it. Reformers say they are only removing obstacles that hinder the

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Who dares lies

Sir Christopher Lee, who died last month aged 93, knew how to play a part. One of the consummate actors of his generation, whose career spanned nearly seven decades, his versatility on stage and screen was legendary. At first glance his military career during the second world war was similarly versatile. According to some reports and obituaries in the days after his death, Lee served in the Special Air Service (SAS), Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) and Special Operations Executive (SOE). In reality he served in none. He was attached to the SAS and SOE as an RAF liaison officer at various times between 1943 and 1945, but he did

The Spectator

Answering the call of duty

From ‘Education and Honour’, The Spectator, 17 July 1915: The young man who has been to a Public School or to one of the Universities and who remains at home without adequate excuse doing nothing is so rare as to be very conspicuous. In other classes it is otherwise. Among the so-called lowest class men have responded pretty freely to the call. The so-called lower middle class, though in this there are of course brilliant exceptions, has perhaps answered less freely than any other class. In this class may be found, we fancy, most of the smug complacency which assumes that the fighting has necessarily to be done by other

Lucy Vickery

Poetry in motion | 16 July 2015

In Competition No. 2906 you were invited to write a poem about an encounter in an airport. Craig Raine’s poem ‘Gatwick’ caused a right old kerfuffle when it was published recently in the London Review of Books. The Twitter bullies came out in force to broadcast their disgust at an elderly poet sharing his lustful thoughts about young women. I liked Fiona Pitt-Kethley’s entry, which had a warning for lecherous poets in airports: ‘We’ll see whose arse is large next time he comes/ To my desk in the airport. I’ve got chums/ With latex gloves and penetrating ways,/ Prepared to hold and search for many days.’ Honourable mentions also go

Wednesday

John O'Neill

Is the jobs miracle over?

No self-congratulatory tweets from George Osborne this morning: The UK has seen its first quarter-on-quarter rise in unemployment for two years, figures released by the ONS show. The number of people in employment fell by 67,000 in the three months from May to March, and the number who are unemployed rose by 15,000. The unemployment rate rose from 5.5 to 5.6 per cent. So – is this the end of the recovery? Well hang on. This is one fall, so it’s a bit soon to ridicule David Cameron’s target of 2m more jobs over this parliament. After all, nobody forecast that there would be 2m jobs created over the last

Sebastian Payne

The Tories are coming across as the reasonable ones with the new trade union legislation

Who is being more rational in the dispute over new striking laws: the government or the union barons? With just under a week to go until the summer recess, the government will begin fulfilling another manifesto commitment by introducing new legislation to the Commons today that will reform striking rules. The Trades Union Bill will require a 50 per cent turn out for ballots on industrial action and in core public services (schools, health, transport and fire services), 40 per cent of those who are eligible to vote will need to back a strike. While the unions may see this as 1980s-esque battle to the death, the government is arguing