Society

From The Spectator, 21 November 1914: Both at home and abroad this war has already caused us to wonder whether we wake or dream, so different in many respects are the events from the anticipations. To begin with, there is a matter in which the Spectator has a particular reason for being sensible of the topsy-turviness of the war—the treatment of the voluntary and compulsory principles. We have written on this subject in another article, but may allow ourselves to dwell again on the paradox. For years we have been preaching the necessity of compulsory military training, and here we are to-day exhausting every expedient and ransacking our imagination in

The call for scenes describing a well-known character from children’s literature past grappling with a 21st-century problem drew an entry full of wit and variety. Pamela Dow reimagined Louisa May Alcott’s girls posting selfies and practising mindfulness, while Harriet Elvin’s Eeyore longed for someone to invent anti-social media, and Adrian Fry provided a thoroughly 21st-century exchange between William and Violet-Elizabeth Bott: ‘“William thexted me. And I thexted him. We’re going to thext and thext until we’re…” “Thick.” William concluded, self-pityingly.’ Commendations to Paul Wheeler for his portrait of Paddington Bear falling foul of immigration and to Josh Ekroy. The bonus fiver goes to G.M. Davis’s ‘Jabberwocky’ reworked for the digital

Thanks to Fleming’s discovery of penicillin in 1928, antibiotics put an end to a world where people died from the most innocuous infection. But they’re no longer the panacea they once were because resistance is growing. Here are a few useful facts about penicillin and its pals: 1. Half of all antibiotics are given to animals We associate these bacteria-killing drugs with human use, but antibiotics are widely used to treat food-producing animals like chickens and pigs. Often livestock are being dosed with the same antibiotics as we take. This is contributing to antibiotic resistance in humans. 2. The last new antibiotic was discovered in the 1980s From 1940 to