Society

Friday

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Jude Law tutors Douglas Booth on the perils of being too good looking

With the Baftas taking place on Sunday, spare a thought for those thespians known for their good looks and not their acting ability. According to Douglas Booth, it’s a real problem. Things have got so bad for the dashing Riot Club actor that he recently sought out advice from Jude Law on how to stop his handsome appearance getting in the way of his career. ‘Jude said, “Don’t worry, they will be obsessed with it for a minute then they will forget about it”,’ Booth says in an interview with the Evening Standard. ‘Not that I’m comparing myself to them but Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp – all of these people

Steerpike Steerpike

Alan Rusbridger insists he will have no say on his successor at the Guardian

The FT’s Lucy Kellaway likened the sycophantic Twitter response from Guardian journalists to Alan Rusbridger’s resignation as their editor to the plot of Shakespeare’s King Lear. ‘I couldn’t help thinking of the warring sisters when I read the competing tweets from two of the most hotly tipped successors to Mr Rusbridger. First to declare her love for her departing editor was Janine Gibson. “Alan Rusbridger: Once in a generation editor; best boss ever; good at surprises,” she tweeted. Her rival for the top job, Katherine Viner, followed suit with her paean in 140 characters or fewer: “Alan Rusbridger — for 17 years my inspiring editor: never afraid, always pushing us to

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Do Yazidi slaves count for less than the Jordanian pilot?

There was a remarkable report on Channel 4 news last night around a film by Mehran Bozorgnia, which featured an interview with half a dozen young Yazidi women from the Iraqi village of Kucho. They were taken captive by Islamic State, but managed to escaped from their stronghold of Raqqa in Syria. It was horrible beyond words: one young woman taken as a sexual slave spoke of Isis fighters breaking the arms or fracturing the skulls of girls who refused to cooperate, of the shame of forced conversion, of the girls begging their captors to kill them. Her captor was an Australian Isis member; his Yazidi slaves were in addition to his wife.

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Tristram Hunt and nuns: an anti-Catholic snob lets his guard slip

Question Time last night. My colleague Cristina Odone of the Legatum Institute  is explaining that ‘some of the most inspiring teachers who taught me were not out of teacher training college… they taught real values’. And a snooty, taunting voice interrupts her. ‘But these were nuns. They were nuns, weren’t they?’ That word ‘nun’ was larded with contempt. The voice belonged to the Honourable Tristram Hunt, the square-jawed narcissist who serves Ed Miliband as shadow education secretary and cannot conceal his desire to succeed him. This is the same Dr Hunt who wants to clamp down on five-year-olds using the word ‘gay’ inappropriately. Presumably he’s also opposed, quite rightly, to talking

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Don’t worry Amanda Holden. Haters gonna hate women who don’t wear bras

Look, let me take you away for Isis and jets crashing into Taiwan and Cameron and Miliband. Let me direct you toward the real issues facing this country. The (former?) actress Amanda Holden, now a judge on the brilliant TV show ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, has been criticised for appearing in public without a bra. Apparently one can see her nipples. Is this right? Should she be condemned and even vilified? As ever, I am progressive on this issue. Why shouldn’t women be photographed without their bras? Are we in the middle ages? Don’t listen to them, Amanda – walk proud, free and braless.

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

To reform the NHS, use the politics of envy | 6 February 2015

‘Let’s make the rich pay more.’ Does that sound so right-wing? To me it has a positively socialist ring. It should appeal to egalitarians: to those who call themselves socially concerned and seek new ways to redistribute wealth. So why not apply it for the NHS? Let’s make the rich pay more for health care. I’m no health policy wonk. I chip in with just this one small suggestion, which is not really about market-based reform of our health service, but about how to sell the idea to a deeply reactionary electorate. The British are positively neuralgic on health. They shudder at the use of words like ‘profit’. Expressions such

Tom Chivers

Bad news for the lazy – jogging isn’t actually bad for you

There’s nothing the health editors of the nation love more than a counter-intuitive story. We’ve been over the red-wine-is-good-for-you, chocolate-is-good-for-you ones before (which tend to fall at various points on the spectrum between ‘sort of true but misleading’ and ‘downright false’). But there is the reverse kind of stories, too: the ‘exercise is actually bad for you’ ones. The one that did the rounds this week was the news that ‘too much’ jogging is as bad for you as not doing any exercise at all. ‘The study, which examined hours of jogging, frequency, and the individual’s perception of pace, found that strenuous joggers were as likely to die as sedentary

Thursday

The Spectator

Spectator letters: Oxfam’s Ebola appeal; what Cumberbatch should have said; and why Prince Charles is right and wrong

In defence of Oxfam Sir: Mary Wakefield rightly praises Médecins sans Frontières but makes many misinformed claims about Oxfam and aid in general (31 January). Contrary to her suggestion, money donated to Oxfam and other charities’ emergency appeals must be spent solely on that crisis. This is stipulated by the Charity Commission and confirmed by our publicly available audited accounts. It is regrettably not possible for our website to provide a running commentary of developments in Liberia, but the British public can rest assured that their generous support is helping to save lives and to put lives back together. Indeed some of our funds in Liberia were spent on the

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 5 February 2015

There is something decidedly Groundhog Day about the international bridge calendar. The second weekend of January is TGR’s Auction Pairs and the last weekend is Iceland’s wildly popular four-day Pairs and Teams tournament.  Everything ticked along happily in the same vein as every other year. Two days of Pairs (in which we came nowhere) and then an unexpected but very welcome turn of events: we won the teams! I played with Artur Malinowski — Thor-Erik Hoftaniska and Thomas Charlsen our teammates. Here is Artur showing that great players rarely have to guess because they pay attention to every detail: Lots of people had lots of ideas on how to bid

Raymond Keene

Sixes and sevens

The veteran world championship contender, Victor Korchnoi, has accused the reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen of hypnotising his opponents. Plainly unimpressed by the overall quality of Carlsen’s play, the ever-controversial Korchnoi ascribes Carlsen’s successes to mental influence rather than superlative moves. In the past, similar accusations were levelled against Alekhine, when he beat Bogolyubov in 1934, and against Tal, when he won the Candidates tournament in 1959. Winning streaks often come in sixes and sevens. Fischer defeated Taimanov and Larsen by six to zero in each case, in his celebrated run in 1971. Meanwhile, Fabiano Caruana reeled off seven consecutive wins in St Louis last year, while at the recently concluded Tata Steel

Raymond Keene

No. 348

White to play. This position is a variation from Nakamura-Topalov, Gibraltar 2015. Topalov has already resigned this game as he had seen what was coming. What is White’s next move? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 10 February or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. The winner will be the first correct answer out of a hat, and each week I am offering a prize of £20. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery.   Last week’s solution 1 Qxd7 Last week’s winner Ray Fisher, Buxton, Derbyshire

Dot Wordsworth

Ha! vs Hahaha: the surprisingly subtle world of Twitter style

I don’t know if you tweet — No! Don’t turn over, I’m not going to get all techie. I do not tweet, but my husband does, voluminously. I won’t betray his rather strange handle and avatar. Those are technical terms, but they are not the main point I want to make now. The handle is the username, such as @DotWordsworth. That example is not me, but one of the four Twitter accounts apparently written by Dorothy Wordsworth. The one using my name declares in her online profile ‘My bowels very bad.’ Have I ever written that here? No. The avatar is the little picture of the user that appears at

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Rivea: a London annexe to the world’s maddest expensive restaurant

Rivea (stupid name) is in the bowels of Bulgari in Knightsbridge, a hotel which looks like a vast Virgin Upper Class lounge. It sits opposite One Hyde Park (stupid name), an apartment block which looks like a vast Virgin Upper Class lounge and which I am fairly certain appeared two weeks ago in a very silly television show called Silent Witness, in which a plutocrat was murdered with scented gas after being chased by the FSB. Was he Litvinenko, or Berezovsky, who I think was murdered for suggesting that Vladimir Putin is really Dobby the masochistic elf from Harry Potter? Who knows, but it is always gratifying when the BBC

Taki

Taki’s recipe for the survival of the Greek nation

The good news is that a Greek suppository is about to relieve the EU’s economic constipation. The bad is that there’s a Castro in our midst posing — just as Fidel did 56 years ago — as a democratically elected populist. Back then it was Uncle Sam who was the bogyman. Now it’s the EU. Back then the Soviet Bear came to Fidel’s rescue. Now it’s Putin. Personally, I’d take Vlad over the faceless unelected Brussels gang anytime. The problem is Tsipras, a vulgar-sounding name if ever there was one. Add to it the fact that he has two sons, one named after Che Guevara, the other after Carlos, the

Robin Oakley

This autobiography written by a horse that is not as offputting as it sounds

Banks only lend money to those who can prove they don’t need it and it has not been a happy few months for racing with one trainer after another giving up the unequal struggle and shutting the stable doors. The only thing that could make it worse for many small yards is an election victory in May for the Greens: they have vowed, if they win power, to outlaw zoos and circuses and a ban on horseracing clearly would not be far behind. I have had my problems too. Gremlins from outer space this week seized control of my laptop and have locked away my racing notes behind an immovable

Jeremy Clarke

My initiation into the fellowship of wine (I swallowed)

This month’s wine club lecture was on red burgundy. The members were settling themselves at two large tables when I arrived, about ten to each one. I took an empty seat at the table farthest from the door and looked diffidently around, hoping to meet a welcoming eye. Not one. Presumably members were tired of sharing the mysteries of their deity with people who came only once, and they had evolved a wait-and-see policy. Everyone had brought their own wine glass. There were glasses of every size and shape. Most had a notebook and biro also at the ready. The woman sitting directly opposite me now spoke to me accusingly.

Melissa Kite

118 000 is, I now realise, the number of the beast

‘Orange 1-1-8 thousand how may I help you?’ said the cheerful voice. Carefree as you like, I asked for the number for Sky customer services to report my parents’ broken digibox. This was back on Christmas eve morning. I had been walking the dog around Kenilworth Castle when my dad rang in a panic saying the Sky box had broken, and, well, we had rather hoped to watch some television over Christmas. So I took it upon myself to sit in my car and make a phone call to sort it out. But when I searched Sky’s website on my iPhone I could not find a number for customer services.

Toby Young Toby Young

Like Arthur Daley playing Garry Kasparov: why I won’t miss Harry Redknapp

I can’t say I’m surprised by the departure of Harry Redknapp. Since I started supporting Queens Park Rangers in 2008 we’ve gone through seven managers — 13 if you count the caretakers. Indeed, it’s a miracle he’s lasted this long. The club was relegated during his first term in charge and we only returned to the Premier League thanks to a last-minute goal by Bobby Zamora in the play-off final against Derby at the end of last season. I was at that match and Derby were easily the better side. If Harry had been sensible, he would have announced his retirement after that game and gone out on a high.

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How can I stop my neighbour pacing the ceiling?

Q. The woman who lives above me has insomnia and walks around all night. I’m also disturbed by her rather noisy cat, which seems to be constantly jumping around. Together they are keeping me awake and my work is suffering. But we are in a small house converted into two flats and I don’t wish to make an enemy of my only neighbour. How can I tactfully ask her at least to stop walking around so much in the night without infringing her freedom to roam? — M.R.-H., London W12 A. You can’t ask her without infringing it. Instead, write in the most friendly way to apologise in advance for

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 5 February 2015

Home MPs voted by 382 to 128 to make Britain the only country to allow genetic modification of embryos to prevent mitochondrial flaws: this could be done by the removal of the nucleus of a donor’s fertilised ovum and its replacement by the nucleus of two parents’ fertilised ovum, thus giving a child three parents. William Hague, the Leader of the House, outlined his plan for resolving the West Lothian question: ‘Before a Bill or parts of a Bill affecting only England was put to its final vote in the House of Commons, the English MPs would meet separately in what would be called the English Grand Committee and decide