Society

Thursday

Dot Wordsworth

The curious language of Christmas carols

I could never understand as a little girl why we sang: ‘Away in a manger, no crib for a bed.’ I knew what a manger was, and I knew that people set up cribs at home and in churches with the Child Jesus in the manger and the animals, shepherds and all the trimmings. It turns out that I was right to be puzzled, for crib has the primary meaning of ‘a manger’, not ‘a baby’s cradle’. It’s a good old English word. Richard Rolle wrote in the 14th century of Jesus ‘born and laid in a crib between an ox and an ass’. The ox and the ass do

The Spectator

Spectator letters: RT replies, Bristol bristles, and Ross Clark doesn’t (yet) eat his hat

Moscow writing Sir: After months of lamentations from western politicians and officials about losing the ‘information war’ to Russia, a former executive editor of Radio Free Europe tries to paint everything Russia Today does in terms of a ‘propaganda’ campaign (‘Moscow calling’, 6 December). If RT is not inherently bad, it is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, says John O’Sullivan. Take the sectarian violence in Libya, and the Syrian rebel groups that have now become Isis. Russia Today was reporting on these issues years before anyone else cared to. According to O’Sullivan’s article, when we cover the hypocrisy of US or European policies it is simply to further RT’s pro-Russian,

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Charles Moore’s notes: A matched pair of popes, and a patronising judge

Pope Francis is favourably compared to Pope Benedict in the media. I hope it is not being slavishly papist to admire both of them. For Francis, the chalice is half-full. For Benedict, it was half-empty. But one attitude is not superior to the other. The Church needs both, like Christmas after Advent, Easter after Lent. Things are, in the Christian view, very bad, yet all shall be well. Put the two men together, and you have most of what you need. In paragraph 135 of his judgment in the Andrew Mitchell ‘Plebgate’ case, Mr Justice Mitting says that P.C. Rowland, the police officer whom Mr Mitchell was suing for libel, is ‘not the

The Spectator

Portrait of the year | 11 December 2014

January Floods covered 28,000 acres of the Somerset Levels. Ukip suspended an Oxfordshire councillor for saying floods were God’s punishment for legalising same-sex marriage. An Afghan was granted asylum because he had become an atheist. Fallujah fell to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis). Half a million fled fighting in South Sudan. Cannabis went on sale in Colorado. In Amsterdam, alcoholics were paid in beer to clear up litter. Jeremy Paxman shaved off his beard. February Floods grew worse in the West Country. The railway at Dawlish, Devon, was swept away. The Thames then flooded. Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, visited London to have tea with the

Doc

Anagram Pie Christmas double puzzle

A first prize of £100, three prizes of £25 and six further prizes of the Chambers Book of Great Speeches (hardback) will be awarded for the first correct solutions opened. The first four prizewinners will, in addition, each receive a bottle of champagne. Entries to: Christmas Crossword, The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP by 12 January.   Part 1: CAROL SINGING   The four 13-letter lights in each grid are paired together (always reading from the left-hand grid to the right-hand grid) to yield four quotations from three different Christmas carols and one seasonal song. Each clue is an anagram of its 26-letter solution.   1A    Not idle

Doc

To 2189: Offering

Answers to clues in italics — stramash (1A), pasteboard (33) and lineated (36) — are treated as in the ROMAN (15A) custom of SUOVETAURILIA (1D), involving the SACRIFICE (4A) of a sheep, a pig and an ox, to create entries defined by 32, 21 and 22.   First prize David Henderson, Almonte, Ontario Runners-up Chris James, Ruislip Manor; Roger Baresel, London SW7

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Treasure Island is a boys’ book. There’s no need for a feminist twist

When Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Treasure Island he declared triumphantly that if it wasn’t a winner with boys, then he didn’t know what boys were like. And it was indeed the perfect boys’ book; pirates, a map, treasure, a boy hero, black-hearted villains and gore. Perfect. It was, therefore, with mixed feelings that I sat through the National Theatre’s feminist take on Treasure Island last night. On the bright side, the set was phenomenal, a cavernous structure like a whale’s ribcage enclosing the action, with the ribs descending like some sort of swamp creature. In fact, Lizzie Clachan’s design – she had great fun with the rising central platform –  stole

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

In defence of the smug Cereal Café owners – and the mugs who eat there

There is a great deal of excitement around today about an interview that Channel 4 News did yesterday with some quite smug chaps who have set up something called a ‘Cereal Café’ in Brick Lane and are charging customers £3.20 for a bowl of Lucky Charms. To be honest, if I’d worked out a similar method of persuading mugs to give me their money, I’d be pretty smug, too. In fact, I suspect this is how the founders of Pret feel every time a fool like me spends £2.35 on a pot of porridge on the way into work, as I did this morning. Baroness Jenkin would be so disappointed.

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: Tatler’s editor asks how to cope with her new-found fame

From Kate Reardon, Tatler Q. I recently took part (some might say ‘starred’) in a highly acclaimed BBC2 fly-on-the-wall documentary series. I must admit I rather enjoyed being centre of attention, followed at all times by a production crew and constantly being asked my opinion on an exciting array of topics. How can I adjust back to real life with an absence of cameras and a sneaking suspicion that I may not be quite as fascinating as I thought? A. While the publicity is still cresting, why not hire an intern to film and interview you each day, then edit and post the results onto a YouTube channel? In this

The Spectator

The transvestite, the fat cyclist and the woman from Chest Monthly: writers’ tales of weird dates

Toby Young Status anxiety columnist About 15 years ago, when I was single and living in New York, I acquired what I can only describe as a stalker. A woman took exception to a newspaper article I’d written and started bombarding me with emails. For about a year, she sent me three or four emails a day, demanding a reply. In one of these emails she claimed to be a columnist for a magazine called Chest Monthly, and that piqued my interest. So I invited her on a date. We agreed to meet in a café and she was quite difficult to spot because, contrary to my fevered imaginings, she

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Why are there so many fat people in pictures of food banks?

Were you aware that the famous actor Andy Garcia was born with a foetus growing out of his left shoulder? It was removed from him when he was a toddler. I had not known this and I am unhappy that some sort of conspiracy, some wall of silence, was constructed to keep this news from the paying public. I watched The Untouchables in blissful ignorance of the fact; had I known I would have picketed the cinema. Come clean about the dead foetus, Garcia! I am aware of the foetus business now only because I stumbled across an excellent website entitled ‘25 Celebrities With Hideous Physical Deformities’, and Garcia was

Dennis Sewell

Has the Chief Inspector of Schools really gone rogue?

What’s up with Sir Michael Wilshaw? The chief schools inspector was once seen as a pillar of common sense and an enthusiastic partner of Michael Gove in pragmatic schools reform. Now, he stands accused of trying to enforce a particularly toxic form of political correctness as his inspectors mark down a succession of rural English schools for being insufficiently multicultural — or as some newspapers inevitably framed it, for being ‘too white’. Some critics go further and say that Ofsted suppresses as much good teaching as it fosters and is now poised to present young people with a warped version of our national values. Sir Michael, in other words, stands

Sinclair McKay

Alan Turing’s last victory

‘So were you levitating with rage by the end?’ I asked her. She — a veteran of Bletchley Park — and I were discussing The Imitation Game, the new film about the mathematician and code–breaker Alan Turing, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch and a host of historical inaccuracies. But she remained sanguine: ‘Not at all, I really enjoyed it a lot. A little dramatic licence here and there, but that’s what you get with films.’ Indeed. Still, the film didn’t take the biggest dramatic liberty of them all, thank goodness — that of suggesting that Bletchley’s triumphs were entirely down to the Americans. This claim — blood still boils at the mere

The Spectator

From the archives | 11 December 2014

From ‘The Vantage Point of Peace’, a leading article in the Spectator of 26 December 1914: We are not going to write a Christmas article on palm boughs and olive branches and the Angel of Peace. Not only is there no peace in sight for the world at the moment, but any talk of peace before our enemies are beaten, or even half beaten, and while their ambition, their hatred, and, if you will, their folly are at full blaze, could only tend to prolong the war. What we and our allies have got to let the world know just now is that, in General Grant’s words, altered to suit the season, we

Douglas Murray

Why are we abandoning the Middle East’s Christians to Isis?

She took the call herself the night the Islamic State came into Mosul. ‘Convert or leave or you’ll be killed,’ she was told. The callers, identifying themselves as Isis members, knew the household was Christian because her husband worked as a priest in the city. They fled that night. Like many of their Christian neighbours they sought refuge in the monastery of St Matthew. But Isis took that over, tore down the Cross, smashed all Cross-decorated windows, used it for their own prayers and flew their black flag on top of the church. Across what was Nineveh, Iraq’s Christians spent this year fleeing from village to village, hoping to find

Edie Campbell

Edie Campbell’s catwalk notes: the joys of the hunt ball, and mystery of Grozny fashion week

It seems as though I have just been on some grand tour of the absurd. It helps that I work in fashion, quite possibly the most absurd of all industries. And the most magnificent display of this absurdity has reached London: the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. Planes have touched down and disgorged their precious cargo, the ‘Angels’ (they’re more than just models, remember), who bounced onto British soil, all glossy and shiny and pristine. And where were they heading? To the unsexiest of all venues — Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre, home to those other stalwarts of glamour, the Ideal Home Show and the Professional Lighting and Sound Association Trade Fair.

Pippa Middleton

Pippa Middleton on wine, fishing and Kim Kardashian

A few days ago I went truffle hunting in Piedmont. It’s been a bumper year for white truffles in northern Italy — the best ever, according to some experts — thanks to climate change and an exceptionally wet summer. My guide was a brilliantly sharp-eyed Italian, Mario, whose dog Rex did the snuffling. Mario told me that dogs are better trufflers than pigs because pigs often eat the truffles before you can get your hands on them. We (or rather Rex) found two, and I have been devouring truffle since I returned; I’ve had it with scrambled eggs, mashed potato, pasta and even just straight onto toast. I didn’t think

Alexander Smith

Alexander McCall Smith’s notebook: America vs my diet

The trouble with going on an American book tour is that I know it’s going to play havoc with my diet. People on diets can very quickly become diet bores, but I am unrepentant: I know the calorie content of most things and, for instance, how long it takes to burn off a croissant. Not that I eat croissants any more, of course. (We dieters can be tremendously smug.) America is a challenge, though, because all their food is injected with corn syrup. In Denver I was once served an omelette that had been dusted, in cold sobriety, with icing sugar. But it’s not just icing sugar that is a

Valérie Trierweiler

Valérie Trierweiler’s notebook: Christmas as a singleton

Christmas will be a very warm occasion for me. I’ll be spending it with the Massonneaus — my family — as I do every year. It will be five brothers and sisters, gathered around our mother in our childhood home, a council house that, for us, felt like a palace when we first moved in. As always, our mother will try very hard for everything to be perfect, from the meal to the mountains of presents. With 12 grandchildren, who are all at an age to bring around a special someone or a ‘fiancée’, it usually becomes quite boisterous. However, this will also be my first Christmas for a very