Society

Tuesday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Who is the bigger pillock: Alan Partridge or Steve Coogan?

Those of us who spent our teens quoting Alan Partridge owe a lot to Steve Coogan. He made my adolescence funnier, at any rate. Yet I know several people who imitated Partridge so much they got lost in character: it became difficult to know when they were being themselves. Funnily enough, the same applies to Coogan himself: in his interviews and ‘real’ TV shows, it is often impossible to distinguish between the famous actor and his even more famous creation. During his rants against the Murdoch Empire for Hacked Off, for instance, he could sound very Partridge-like. And his new Labour campaign ad is cheesier than the Partridge promo video for

John Raffles

Liver disease – another nail in the coffin of the Atkins Diet?

We had a health panic in the media at the weekend. ‘Killer disease on rise due to overeating,’ said the Sunday Times. ‘Most liver transplants by 2020 could be linked to over-eating, not alcohol’, chimed in The Observer. ‘Overeating sparks liver disease epidemic among Britons’, announced the Telegraph. Should we worry? Maybe. Dr Quentin Anstee, consultant hepatologist at Newcastle University – which is working on an EU-funded survey of liver disease – has found that 25 per cent of people ‘who are just a bit overweight’ suffer from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Previously it was believed that fat in the liver wasn’t harmful. Researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong are coming to

Cristina Odone

‘Don’t Google this’, the doctor told me when I got my daughter’s test results

‘Don’t Google this’, the doctor ordered. The command – with its authoritarian tone; implied threat (if I did, I’d find out something sinister); distrust in my ability to sift and understand information; suspicion of uncontrollable emotion – would have raised my hackles in any circumstances. As it was, I’d already been shocked by the GP’s telephone speculations and could not reply. The casual, unthinking cruelty of medical professionals is something I’d encountered before, in caring for my elderly parents. The media regularly uncover evidence of nurses chatting while their patients plead for help and hospital administrators pushing out the ‘bed-blocking’ elderly and infirm. But this time it hit me really hard. Because the doctor was talking about

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: American rights

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 8 May 1915: Last Saturday the American oil-tank vessel ‘Gulflight’ was torpedoed by a German submarine off Bishop’s Lighthouse. The captain died of shock and two seamen were drowned. Thus the critical event which the American Government foresaw has come to pass. On February 4th the American Government despatched a Note to the German Government on the German declaration that the British seas would in future be a war zone in which Allied merchantmen might be sunk without notice, and every neutral ship would run the gravest risk owing to the fact that she might be mistaken for a British vessel flying a

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Who bought CharlotteElizabethDiana.com – yesterday?

You have to hand it to the royals. The moment their baby is born, a commercial world will be in pursuit: a newborn needs her name protected. So Mr S would like to congratulate whoever hired the mysteriously-named Moniker Privacy Services (which says it “acts as an iron curtain between you and the outside world”) to make sure no one jumped with a baby website. The URL was booked yesterday, and little Charlotte Elizabeth Diana’s name was revealed to the world just after 3pm this afternoon. Make a note: next time the bookies are offering long odds on a baby name, check which URLs are being taken out by Moniker Privacy Services

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Bravery in the air

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 8 May 1915: The papers of last Saturday published a particularly vivid account by the Canadian Record Officer of the stand of Canadians at Ypres. Such heroism as is revealed in this narrative deserves even more than the tribute we paid to the Canadians last week, Their feat of arms will live for ever in military history. It was performed by men offered by lawyers, professors, and business men. We have since learned from a statement by General Hughes, the Canadian Minister of Militia, that the Canadian casualties exceeded six thousand. According to General Hughes’s account, late in the battle the Canadian Highlanders were

Sunday

Sebastian Payne

Election podcast special: four days to go

In today’s election special podcast, James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman and I attempt to explain why Ed Miliband unveiled a stone engraved with Labour’s six pledges today. Will anyone notice what the pledges are or just discuss the fact they are appearing on a giant stone? We also look at how the stage is set for a last minute Tory surge and why a deal between Labour and the Liberal Democrats is looking increasingly unlikely. You can subscribe to the View from 22 through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer or iPhone every week, or you can use the player below:

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Where men with splendid hearts may go

From ‘Rupert Brooke’, The Spectator, 1 May 1915: TO all men there is attractiveness in the combination of the soldier and the poet, and perhaps the combination gives a more satisfying pleasure to the countrymen of Sir Philip Sidney than to any other race. This is the reason why thousands of Englishmen mourn for Rupert Brooke who never knew him, and possibly, till a few days ago, never heard of him. They read the brief details of his life and accomplishment, and at once their sorrow was real and, in a sense, personal. Rupert Brooke was distinctly one of the most promising of our poets. He had fire, imagination, a

Saturday

Alexander Chancellor

We are lucky that the royal baby won’t distort the democratic system

The Duchess of Cambridge has given birth to a baby girl. It is hardly a very exciting event. Babies are born all the time, and there are already quite enough descendants of the Queen to ensure the survival of the Windsor dynasty on the throne of the United Kingdom for a long time to come. Yet there are many people in this country for whom this commonplace event will be more thrilling than the forthcoming general election, even though it could presage the dismemberment of the country itself. The British monarchy continues to enjoy enormous popularity. There may be doubts about the suitability of Prince Charles to succeed to the throne,

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition: Nando’s with Chaucer (plus: what became of Belloc’s Lord Lundy?)

The title of a poem by Anthony Brode, ‘Breakfast with Gerard Manley Hopkins’, prompted me to invite verse submissions describing a meal with a well-known poet. Sylvia Fairley tucked, somewhat reluctantly, into albatross with Coleridge, D.A. Prince shared cocoa with Wendy Cope and Rob Stuart enjoyed a curry with Dante. Honourable mentions go to John M. Fotheringham, who wouldn’t recommend taking up an invitation to tea from Robert Burns; and to Brian Allgar for oysters with Lewis Carroll. Well done, all: it was a top-notch entry. The winners take £25. Frank McDonald nabs £30. Frank McDonald/Elizabeth Barrett Browning ‘How do you like your eggs?’ the waiter says And with a

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: The British Empire and the Muslim world

From ‘The Khalifate’, The Spectator, 1 May 1915: It seems that the Ottoman Empire is likely to crumble away, and in that event, whether it happens soon or late, the question of the Khalifate will cause many searchings of heart to the Mohammedan world. In an intimate and most important sense Britain is concerned in this matter. The spiritual security and satisfaction of Moslems vitally concern the British Empire. It is not only that we owe it to the innumerable Moslems under our rule that their wishes and susceptibilities should be strictly respected; the communion of feeling throughout Islam is so strong that the British Empire, as a great Mohammedan

Friday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Senior Tories to plot election response on Friday

Tory MPs will plot their party’s response to the election result and any likely coalition partnerships in a meeting next Friday, 8 May at 4pm, Coffee House has learned. The powerful executive of the 1922 Committee will meet that afternoon in order to prepare their demands for the Prime Minister and discuss any initial outlines of a coalition agreement between the Tories and the Lib Dems that have already been passed on to them. They will be preparing for a meeting of the full party on Monday, where they will set out their demands in full. We have known for some time what the demands of the Committee will be

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Landing at Gallipoli

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 1 May 1915: The accounts from the Dardanelles are distinctly encouraging. On Tuesday the British portion of the Expeditionary Force landed on the point of the Gallipoli Peninsula—i.e., on the European side—while the French landed an the Asian side, and have fought a battle on the plain of Troy or its neighbourhood, in which they have taken nearly two thousand prisoners. Our landing on and around the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula has been supplemented by a landing near Bulair, the narrowest part of the tongue of land which forms the European wall of the Dardanelles. If this landing at Bulair can he

Thursday

Taki

High life | 30 April 2015

Talk about how the mighty have fallen. Time magazine was for the better part of the 20th century the model for American newsweeklies. Its style of epigrammatic terseness and punchy prose became known as ‘Timespeak’, the compact format an invention of its founder, Henry Luce. Luce (‘Harry’ to friends and family) was the son of a missionary and was born in China. He was devout, brainy, single-minded and convinced that America was a miracle conceived by the Almighty. In a British boarding school in Shandong, Harry was mercilessly flogged for his insistence, at times, on speaking to God directly, but he also became proficient in French, Latin, Greek, history and

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 30 April 2015

Two stylists work at this deeply rural French ladies’ hairdresser. Christelle is a gorgeous 17-year-old point-of-lay pullet, so lithe and well made I want to weep. Sylvette, the owner, though knocking on a bit, is a man-eater on the rampage. I had my old barnet thatched here for the first time about two months ago. Christelle scissored and shaved my hair with a cut-throat razor for the best part of an hour and I came out of there mentally deranged but with the best haircut I’d ever had. Later that day I found in my jacket pocket a torn-off piece of card with Sylvette’s name and phone number written on

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 30 April 2015

When I first started playing bridge, about 15 years ago, I ‘trained’ at TGR’s rubber bridge club, which was located in a dingy basement in Bayswater Road. I didn’t notice the dinge — I felt intoxicated just walking in there knowing I would get a game. In those days we could smoke in the back room, Richard Selway was the loveable host with the sharpest wit around, and there was a big game going every day for a minimum of £50 a hundred. About eight years ago, we moved to the New Cavendish Club, smoking was banned, Richard died and the big game decreased to £30 a hundred. Now we

Melissa Kite

Real life | 30 April 2015

‘I suppose,’ said my dad philosophically, ‘I could always vote Green.’ ‘Oh, for goodness sake! Not you as well!’ I screamed, as the entire restaurant looked round to see what manner of family crisis was brewing at our table. ‘Look, dad, it’s very simple. Do you agree with 60 per cent income tax?’ ‘Of course not,’ said dad, a look of deep concern on his face. ‘Well then. Enough of this “ooh, the Greens are harmless, aren’t they? They like animals and trees and they don’t have any particular views about anything important one way or the other so they wouldn’t make much difference.”’ Stop! The Greens are harmless the

Robin Oakley

The real McCoy | 30 April 2015

At Sandown Park last Saturday an era ended. Twenty thousand of us turned up to cheer on Tony McCoy as he took his last two mounts and collected his 20th trophy as champion jumps rider. We cheered, we clapped, we decided there was nothing to be ashamed of about a certain moistness of eye, noting that even the ultimate iron man himself wept a tear or two as he rode back on the third-placed Box Office. Over the past 20 years, the riding of racehorses has become ever more professional, but not once during that period has anybody else been champion jockey over jumps. For once the old cliché works:

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 30 April 2015

I remember the first time that someone stood up and offered me a seat on the London Underground. It was in 2002, when I was 62 years old, and rather a pretty girl whom I had been quietly admiring through the crush on the Piccadilly Line suddenly rose to her feet and beckoned me to take her place. I was so shocked that I responded most ungraciously. I just shook my head in irritation and signalled to her to sit down again. For, notwithstanding the fact that my hair had long ago turned white, it was the first time I had realised that I actually looked old. From then on,

Toby Young Toby Young

Reuniondues

A couple of weeks ago I returned to my old Oxford college for a ‘gaudy’ — posh, Oxford-speak for a reunion. This one was for those of us who came up to Brasenose in 1983, 1984 and 1985. That group includes the Prime Minister but, not surprisingly, he wasn’t there. I imagine he didn’t want to risk being photographed at a black-tie dinner with a bunch of his Oxford pals in the middle of a general election campaign — or maybe he just finds these occasions a bit of a bore. When I attended my first gaudy about 15 years ago, I assumed that the only people who’d bother to