Society

Thursday

Melissa Kite

Confessions of an insurance junkie

Never add up your insurance premiums. I just did and the annual cost of all of them came to more than the cost of most man-made or natural disasters. That means there really isn’t any point to any of them, statistically speaking. The problem is I’m an insurance junkie. I’m a born cynic, a pessimist, a worrier. Someone only has to ask if I have ever thought what would happen if… (insert improbable but horrendous mishap: the dog ingesting a rare kind of lungworm, Russian separatists misfiring a rocket at eastern Ukraine that lands on my roof) …and I’m ready to sign on the dotted line of any kind of

Alexander Chancellor

The elderly are society’s new baddies

The gulf in understanding between the old and the young has widened with the news that the young are beginning to turn teetotal. If there was one thing that the old thought they knew about the young, it was that they drank too much. British youth led the world in its enthusiasm for alcohol. Our cities swarmed with loutish binge drinkers. Yet now, all of a sudden, we learn that abstinence is becoming fashionable. The number of people under 25 who don’t touch a drop has increased by 40 per cent in eight years. More than a quarter of people in this age group now don’t drink anything at all.

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How can I stop my elderly host making the bed?

Q. I have regularly stayed with a hospitable friend in London but now hesitate to invite myself. She is seventy-something with a bad back and no help but always provides me with an immaculately presented bed and refuses to let me help with its preparation and dismantling. I bring presents but feel these are small succour set against the physical work my visits subject her to. What do you suggest? — O.G., Bourton-on-the-Water A. You might offer to keep, by agreement, a discreet parcel of two single sheets and pillowcases in a cupboard at your friend’s house. In such a sheath, you can slide into any ready-made bed which it

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Rowleys is Did Mummy Love Me Really? food – and it’s perfect

I think Rowley’s is the perfect restaurant; but I am really a gay man. Rowley’s is at 113 Jermyn Street (the Tesco end). It was made in homage to the Wall’s sausage and ice-cream fortune, although it opened in 1976, after the Wall’s sausage and ice-cream company (I call it that because it sounds magical) was sold to Unilever (less magical). So it is quite a late homage. The Wall’s sausage and ice-cream fortune, how I love to type the words; did you know that Mr Wall moved into ice-cream so as not to sack staff in the summer months, when no one — except me and George IV —

Robin Oakley

Why Mark and Sara Bradstock have only 12 horses is a mystery to me

Some mysteries will never be solved, like why planes and boats disappear in the Bermuda Triangle, cats always land on their feet and why Mrs Oakley can always find a parking space plumb outside a restaurant when I am lucky to squeeze in 400 yards away. Add one more conundrum: why are there only 12 horses in the successful racing stable run by Mark and Sara Bradstock? Since 1994 they have trained in Captain Tim Forster’s old yard opposite the church in Letcombe Bassett. On the skyline above their glorious gallops are tree clumps planted by the Captain to celebrate his Grand National successes. Their home is in a row

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 19 February 2015

Couples that play together stay together is not a mantra you hear too often in the bridge world. Indeed most couples who play together come closer to murder than to renewing their vows. The shaking head of the male. The withering comments. The relentless hand-hogging. Even demure little me has thought about whether a life sentence would be preferable to another board. But over the past few years an interesting phenomenon has occurred. Roy Welland and Sabine Auken got together, and formed a formidable partnership at the table too. They are the current European Open champions, play on Germany’s national team and have won countless major tournaments. Clearly, ‘What do

Dot Wordsworth

Dodginess from Tacitus to Ed Miliband

‘I hate Jammie Dodgers,’ said my husband staring disdainfully at a biscuit kindly tucked into his coffee saucer at an after-church gathering. I’m glad only I heard. But the fact is that we British generally admire dodgers. Dickens came up with a fine sobriquet when he gave John Dawkins the nickname the Artful Dodger. As in real life, he was often referred to simply as the Artful. Artful of course meant ‘cunning’ or ‘deceitful’ — high praise. Earlier in the story, Mr Bumble had called Oliver Twist ‘artful and designing’, admittedly not in praise. And in The Pickwick Papers, the novel before Oliver Twist, Sam Weller calls a trick played

Virginia Ironside

Virginia Ironside’s diary: Fifty Shades is a story of redemption (but I still won’t watch it)

All this fuss about Fifty Shades of Grey! I wonder how many people have actually read all three books? Sado-masochism is only half the story. When you’ve waded through the entire oeuvre, if such appalling writing can be dignified with that term, you discover that the whole story is one of redemption. The ostensibly wicked, but aptly named, Christian is actually a tormented man who was cruelly abused by his mother and re-enacts this cruelty towards his lovers. But with a good woman (and a baby), pervy dungeons vanish and love conquers all. Pure Mills & Boon. These days I don’t go to films. I watch the trailers instead and

The Spectator

Let Greece leave the eurozone

To listen to Greek government ministers addressing the outside world during their breaks from negotiations with eurozone leaders this week, it would be easy to form the impression that Greece had a mighty economy upon which all other eurozone countries were pathetically dependent. ‘Europe is going through the difficult process of understanding that Greece has a new government committed to changing a programme that has failed in the eyes of everyone who doesn’t have a vested interest,’ said finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. The reality is that Greece is the dependent country, propped up by its creditors, and it is Greek government ministers who are having trouble in understanding the situation

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 19 February 2015

Home The annual rate of inflation fell to 0.3 per cent as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (or to 1.1 per cent by the Retail Prices Index). The Bank of England predicted a touch of deflation in the spring. Unemployment fell by 97,000 to 1.86 million in the last quarter of 2014. The FTSE share index rose to 6,914.62, close to its record of 6,930.2 on 30 December 1999. In a lecture at King’s College London, Sir John Sawers, who was until November head of MI6, said: ‘The Ukraine crisis is no longer just about Ukraine. It’s now a much bigger, more dangerous crisis, between Russia and western countries.’ Sex-and-relationships

Mr Magoo

2199: TV Comedy

Fourteen solutions begin with the same letter as their clues. These letters in order are the initial letters of the twelve words of a 2014 quotation and the two initials of its author. The unclued lights reveal this quotation in full and the author’s name.   Across   1    This reflex conceals what ends up making sense (5) 4    Chief of Staff was holding a staff lacking coloured symbols (9) 11    I present pupil with close to perfect score (5) 14    Double crossing Romeo mixed substance (5) 15    Musical has no use for song (5) 16    Try admitting sport is most honourable (6) 21    Sari when recycled? (8) 22    Alternative

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Identity politics has created an army of vicious, narcissistic cowards

Has there ever been a more petulant mob of moaners than that which is currently hurling abuse at Peter Tatchell? On Twitter, which is where these people live, self-styled queers and gender-benders are insulting and even threatening to kill Tatchell, the man whose risk-taking and street-fighting over 40-odd years helped to secure their liberation, to create a society in which they could live and speak freely. And how do they repay him? By tweeting their fantasises about him being murdered for being a ‘fucking parasite’. Tatchell’s crime in the eyes of the PC thought police was to have signed a letter in the Observer calling for greater free speech in

Anne Applebaum

How Vladimir Putin is waging war on the West – and winning

Last month, the speaker of the Russian parliament solemnly instructed his foreign affairs committee to launch a historical investigation: was West Germany’s ‘annexation’ of East Germany really legal? Should it be condemned? Ought it to be reversed? Last week, the Russian foreign minister, speaking at a security conference in Munich, hinted that he might have similar doubts. ‘Germany’s reunification was conducted without any referendum,’ he declared, ominously. At this, the normally staid audience burst out laughing. The Germans in the room found the Russian statements particularly hilarious. Undo German unification? Why, that would require undoing the whole post-Cold War settlement! Which is indeed a very amusing notion — unless you

Mr Magoo

To 2196: Diverse

The quotation around the perimeter is from 25 — varieties of French cheese are highlighted.   First prize Hugh Aplin, London SW19 Runners-up Alexia Dobbs, London SW1; Trevor Evans, Drulingen, France

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Policymakers must address high male suicide rates

It’s pretty tough to find good news in suicide statistics, but today’s figures for 2013 are particularly grim reading. The number of suicides increased from 2012, and the male suicide rate is now at its highest since 2001. The male rate of suicide has increased significantly since 2007, where it stood at 16.6 deaths per 100,000 population, to 19.0 deaths per 100,000 as the graph below shows: [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/yGG0M/index.html”] It used to be the case that young men were the most likely to kill themselves, but the highest suicide rate in the UK is now for men aged 45 to 59, at 25.1 deaths per 100,000. This is the highest for

Robin Simcox

What are we willing to do to make our intelligence agencies’ job easier?

Ottawa. Sydney. Paris. Copenhagen. Four major Western cities attacked in five months by Islamist terrorists and all committed by perpetrators with lengthy histories of criminal activity. When the next terrorist attack occurs, there will be those that demand to know why intelligence agencies failed to watch the perpetrators closely enough (as was the case with the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby). However, should we not also ask what we, as a society, are willing to do to make our intelligence agencies’ job easier? Consider the current debate surrounding communications data (the who, when, where, and how of a communication, but not the what – i.e. the content). Access to communications

Steerpike Steerpike

Clash of the Titans: Rod Liddle calls Piers Morgan a halfwit

Piers Morgan’s claim in the Daily Mail that the Prime Minister of Israel’s reaction to the  terror attacks in Denmark ‘is a disgrace’ has caught the attention of Mr S’s colleague Rod Liddle. Liddle writes in defence of Benjamin Netanyahu in this week’s Spectator, arguing that Netanyahu’s offer of Israeli sanctuary to Jews should not be ridiculed. He also finds time to level a few insults at Morgan, whose face apparently ‘resembles a puckered anus’. ‘The bien-pensant attacks on Netanyahu were epitomised by the idiotic Piers Morgan, writing in the Daily Mail. I suppose one should not be surprised about what emanates from a man with a face which so closely resembles a

Kate Maltby Kate Maltby

Like Isis, Thomas More believed passionately in burning people alive

Next week, in the final episode of the BBC’s Wolf Hall, we’ll see Anne Boleyn face death by beheading. But if you watched last night’s episode, you’ll know – accurately – that in her final months, she grew to fear something far worse, death by burning. It was a real option, offered to Henry VIII’s discretion after her conviction for adultery. And she wasn’t the only queen threatened with this fate; in 1546, traditionalist Stephen Gardiner (played in Wolf Hall with pantomime villainy by Mark Gatiss), attempted to persuade Henry to order the arrest of his ultra-Protestant sixth wife, Katherine Parr, on heresy charges that would have carried the same penalty. I saw

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: Putin’s war on the West and the disappearing Lib Dems

Is Vladimir Putin drawing a new Iron Curtain over Europe? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Anne Applebaum and Ben Judah discuss the new Spectator cover feature on whether Putin’s is winning his war on the West. Is Putin worried about the strength Western liberal democracies or the power of the European Union? How does his influence extend into Britain, France and Poland? And how much important is Ukraine as a battle line between the Putin and the West? James Forysth and Isabel Hardman discuss whether the Liberal Democrats are scared of the upcoming election As the election campaign ramps up, the minor party of this government is nowhere to be seen. Are they being