Society

Thursday

Mary Killen

What do you do about a friend who cannot make a request directly?

Q. I have a friend with multiple sclerosis. She lives alone in the countryside. There is no bus service and, due to her physical condition, she was disqualified from driving two years ago. I made my friend an open offer that should she need a lift, she should call me. Mostly I can oblige. But I failed to take account that my friend was raised never to make a direct request. Instead, if she needs a lift, she will manage the conversation until it is apparent that I should make the offer, which she will decline until, by a process of attrition, she accepts, sometimes with qualifications which mean I

Sebastian Faulks

Sebastian Faulks’s diary: My task for 2015 – get a job

Just back from Sri Lanka, a place I first went to in 1981. It was then a dreamy island. I remember giving the room boy who had brought my case to the bandicoot-infested bedroom in Colombo a few rupees, but he wasn’t interested. He just wanted to sit on the bed and talk — about London, England, cricket, life. Three decades and a civil war later, people are aware of money, there is bottled water, and a pot of tea doesn’t take half an hour to arrive. One thing that seems unchanged is the optimism of the people. The new president, Mr Sirisena, has promised an end to the corruption

Raymond Keene

Tradewise

The Tradewise Masters in Gibraltar has been won by the American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, with the British co-champion David Howell in clear second place. This is possibly a career best for Howell, whose forte turned out to be remarkable resilience in difficult endgames. Last week the puzzle showed Nakamura defeating the pre-tournament favourite and highest ranked competitor, Veselin Topalov. This week’s game from Gibraltar is a fine win by a grandmaster who was trained in the classical Soviet tradition.   Sutovsky-Spraggett: Tradewise Gibraltar Masters 2015; Centre Counter   1 e4 d5 Although the Centre Counter has notched some notable scalps, including that of Anatoly Karpov against Bent Larsen at Montreal

Raymond Keene

No. 349

White to play. This position is a variation from Bellin-Georgiadis, Gibraltar 2015. White has given up his queen. How does he now force checkmate? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 17 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 Rxe5 Last week’s winner R.F. Tindall, Great Shelford, Cambs

Taki

At 78 years of age, I can’t keep up with the young shuss-boomers any longer

Gstaad Once upon a time clergymen saw mountain peaks as natural steeples leading them ever closer to God. Doctors considered mountains the best medicine for tuberculosis, while explorers saw them as rocks never before touched by humans. I thought of those good people while T-barring up the Eggli in way below freezing conditions but in bright sunshine. For some strange reason, whenever I’m really cold I try to think of the German 6th Army trapped in Stalingrad, numbed in body and mind by the cold, while Hitler sat toasty warm back home and ordered them to fight to the death. After that, skiing in subzero weather is easy. Nowadays most

Jeremy Clarke

My grandson’s getting into the rugby: ‘Which one’s West Ham?’

My grandson and I had a lovely hour-long swim at the leisure centre. We had the learner pool to ourselves for the first half an hour, during which we threw and dived for our little weighted plastic sharks. Then a stocky man, tattooed like a Maori, and his little boy entered the pool. The little boy, Conrad, was in the same primary-school class as Oscar, so they teamed up and went away with the fairies together. They played a game in which they took turns to stand rigidly to attention at the pool’s edge, then topple forward, still rigid, face-down into the water. Result: eye-watering belly flops that weren’t as

Melissa Kite

Hallelujah! And the children of Vodafone did walk again in the light!

‘Hello, Vodafone customer s…, can I h…you?’ This is typical, I thought. I’m ringing to complain about them charging me £137.08 for one phone call to directory inquiries and I can’t even hear them properly because the mobile reception they provide me with is so rubbish. ‘Hello? Can you hear me?’ ‘Y… I can h… you fine!’ ‘Well, I can’t hear you very well. Wait a minute…’ I got up from my desk and went to the front of the house, near the street. ‘That might be better. Can you still hear me?’ ‘Yes, I c… … you fine!’ ‘Oh, never mind. Look, I want to ask you again about

Alexander Chancellor

How the driverless car will liberate us all (except smokers, of course)

I was listening to the radio the other morning to hear people complaining about the huge cuts in the number of traffic police patrolling English roads. This meant that drivers would disobey motoring laws with impunity, they said. They would babble away on their mobile phones, unfasten their seat belts, and generally break the rules of the road in the knowledge that they were most unlikely to get caught. The only things left for them to fear would be speed cameras. As a result, road deaths, of which there were already more than 1,700 in Britain last year, would go shooting up. A grim outlook indeed. But wait, there is

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 12 February 2015

Before returning to Australia about a decade ago, Michael Courtney spent several years playing high-stake rubber bridge in London. Those of us who occasionally kibitzed him will never forget his sheer brilliance at the table. Michael has the pleasingly shambolic look of a mad professor, and his imagination seems to operate in a different dimension: he always has his eye on the deceptive card, the one to throw his opponents off the scent. In the intervening years, he’s clearly lost none of his prowess: his team has just won the Australian trials. Hearing this news prompted his former wife Margaret — also a talented player — to post a message

The Spectator

In this election, won’t someone please weaponise defence?

Britain is forfeiting its position on the world stage. With no national debate, we are surrendering our claim to be a major player in international affairs and undermining the Atlantic alliance that has kept Britain and Europe secure for 65 years. In these circumstances, it is easy to understand why Barack Obama has felt obliged to warn David Cameron of the damage he would be doing to the special relationship and to Nato if he failed to commit Britain to spending the bare minimum on defence. The Prime Minister has given several spending pledges — on education, health and overseas aid — so his silence on defence speaks volumes. It

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 12 February 2015

Home Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, told Parliament that Britain reserved the right to supply arms to Ukraine, as ‘We could not allow the Ukrainian armed forces to collapse.’ The Prince of Wales, embarking on a six-day tour of the Middle East, said on Radio 2 that he ‘particularly wanted to show solidarity really, deep concern for what so many of the Eastern Christian churches are going through in the Middle East’. John Longworth, the head of British Chambers of Commerce, called for a referendum on membership of the European Union to be held in 2016, a year earlier than David Cameron, the Prime Minister, has promised, in order to

Toby Young Toby Young

Immigration, not money, will improve Scotland’s most deprived schools

I suppose we should be thankful that Nicola Sturgeon has acknowledged there’s a problem with Scotland’s public education system, even if she’s hit upon the wrong solution. Earlier this week, the First Minister announced that the Scottish -government would be trying out its version of ‘the London challenge’, a programme carried out by the last government, to address the chronic underachievement of Scotland’s most deprived children. In the past, the SNP has deflected criticisms of its education record by pointing out that Scottish 15-year-olds did marginally better than their English counterparts in the 2012 Pisa tests. But the difference between the two groups is minuscule and both have declined dramatically

Dot Wordsworth

That annoying ‘likely’ is more old-fashioned than American

What, asks Christian Major of Bromley, Kent, do I think of ‘this new, I assume American, fad for using the word likely as an adverb’, as in the great Taki’s remark that Alan Turing ‘likely won the war’ (Spectator, Letters, 31 January)? Well, I would most likely not use it in exactly that way, although you’ll have noticed that I have just done so slightly differently. The adverbial usage to which the Kentish Mr Major refers is now more likely to be heard on the lips of Americans and Scots, but it is hardly a fad, since it dates from at least as far back as the 14th century. In

Columba

2198: Tuck in

Each of sixteen clues contains one misprinted letter in the definition part. Corrections of misprints spell the name (three words) of a 1A, contents of which are given by five unclued lights (including two as a pair). The 1A’s name also describes the location in the grid of its contents in relation to two other unclued lights.   Across   5    Turn reptile around in silence (6) 9    Changed vote around end of transmission (10, three words) 14    Board beginning without director (3) 16    Free love stopped by force (6) 17    One in new question referring to magic square (5) 20    Showy woman once

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Sales of The Spectator: 2014 H2

The Spectator’s sales figures are out today, and our rise continues. The website’s traffic is up a remarkable 50 per cent year-on-year to 1.8 million monthly unique users and over 4.5 million pageviews. But the rise in digital is not coming at the expense of print sales, which are also rising – our sales in the UK are up 4pc over the last year – which, in a market down 4pc, is not bad going. Our print subscriptions stand at a five-year high and are rising all the time. So reports about the death of print have been exaggerated. A print magazine has inimitable advantages – you can’t curl up in the bath

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

From Umbrella Man to the Coughing Major, the truth is often very strange

Are you sitting comfortably and wearing your tinfoil hat? If so, open YouTube and watch a full-screen version of the Zapruder film, in particular the section after frame 215 where the presidential limousine passes behind the Stemmons Freeway sign. What you will see, partly obscured by the sign, is a man’s opened umbrella 30 feet from the presidential car when the first shot is fired. Yet it hadn’t rained in Dallas since early morning; Dealey Plaza was bathed in sunshine. As you can imagine, many conspiracy theories formed around ‘Umbrella Man’ — who also appears in still photographs of the scene. Some theorised that the umbrella canopy concealed a gun

Columba

To 2195: In question

Material from superfluous words in clues gives ‘fingers on buzzers’ (describing 2/20 and 8/33), ‘your starter for ten’ (indicating 31, which is defined by 24) and ‘have to hurry you’ — all PHRASES (4D) used by BAMBER GASCOIGNE when he presented University Challenge. 24 January 2015 was his 80th birthday.   First prize Hilda Ball, Belfast Runners-up Jacqui Sohn, Gorleston-on-Sea, Norfolk; Wilf Lewsey, East Leake, Loughborough

Dolly Alderton

Not ready for real love? Tinder is the one for you

There was once a time when finding a twenty-something on a dating site was as rare as finding a pensioner in a branch of a Hollywood Bowl. Having an online dating profile was a last-ditch attempt at love reserved only for those intent on finding a long-term partner. Match.com, E Harmony, Guardian Soulmates; the clue was in the name. An earnest, humourless amalgamation of abstract nouns promising everlasting love. They were websites that boasted of their high marriage rates and whose users all listed ‘the great outdoors’ as a hobby. Dating sites were not entered into lightly. Then, in 2013, an app called Tinder was launched and a back door

Genevieve Maitland Hudson

It’s hard to judge a charity’s performance by its emotional rhetoric

Questions about whether a particular charity fulfils its aims are being asked with increasing frequency these days, and quite right too. It’s no longer enough for a charity to have good intentions. They need to show that they’re putting those intentions to some sort of use because money is tight and need is high. There is an important point here about how we judge the kinds of services that are delivered by charities. The general assumption is that it is rather hard to judge how a charity performs. There is an absence of standardised and comparable measurement, and the evidence from evaluations is of poor quality. Some charities go so far as