Society

Thursday

Robin Oakley

Christmas reading for racing folk

‘Hang on a minute—he’s a bit wobbly,’ trainer Oliver Sherwood told photographers imploring him to stand with his winner when Many Clouds won this year’s Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury. Truth be told, Many Clouds’s popular trainer was wobbly too, understandably emotional after a victory which reminded many that a trainer whose string of Cheltenham Festival victories were a year or two back can still produce big race winners when he has the horse. The after-race moments were a reminder, too, of the warmth and generosity of the jumping scene. As I was shaking the tearful Oliver’s hand in congratulation, he was hugged vigorously by Sarah Hobbs, wife of Philip

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 11 December 2014

Pierre Zimmermann, captain of the hugely successful Monaco team, plays with Franck Multon and they are probably the best sponsor/professional partnership in the world. Franck occasionally partners a somewhat less gifted lady who, after he opened a minor, bid 3NT. He put dummy down and left the table. When he returned, she had gone one down and he informed her that her bidding was totally wrong and that if she ever bid 3NT over his suit opening again he would leave and not return! Sometime later she was playing with another world-class partner who, when she opened 1♦, immediately jumped to 3NT. ‘You should NEVER make that bid,’ she admonished

Mary Killen

Dear Mary solves problems for Jim Broadbent, N.M. Gwynne, Jesse Norman and others

Once again Mary has invited some of her favourite figures in the public eye to submit personal queries for her attention. From Jesse Norman MP Q. We’ve been having a little local difficulty at work with one or two colleagues who vigorously assert their loyalty to the organisation, but then go and join a would-be competitor. It’s not that this is bad for morale; on the contrary. But it confuses some of our customers. Your advice would be most welcome. A. Take the tip of a top industrialist who never tried to refuse a resignation: congratulate the deserter effusively on his decision and declare publicly that he and his new

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

The most preposterous restaurant to have opened in London this year

Somerset House, a handsome Georgian palace on the Thames, was once the office of the Inland Revenue, and the courtyard was a car park, but that particular hell is over. Instead there is Skate at Somerset House with Fortnum & Mason, which is a purple-lit skating rink next to a ‘pop-up’ shop or ‘Christmas arcade’. This, because all PR copywriters think they write for Jennifer’s Diary in 1952, is apparently ‘the most chic and complete Christmas experience in London this season’. I doubt it. There is, for instance, no sign of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, Father Christmas, or rogue elves, although there is a ‘twinkling 40ft Christmas tree hand-picked from the

Toby Young Toby Young

What will it take to live up to my father’s Great Life?

I received a phone call the other day that I wasn’t expecting. It was a BBC producer calling about a Radio 4 series called Great Lives, presented by Matthew Parris. Each week, a distinguished guest is asked to nominate someone they believe is truly deserving of the title ‘Great Life’ and then they come on the radio to discuss that person, along with an ‘expert’. I got rather excited as she was explaining this. Had someone really nominated me? When she told me the name of the guest I was even more thrilled — Brian Eno, the founder of Roxy Music. ‘The rock legend?’ I said. ‘That’s awfully flattering.’ ‘Yes,

William Cook

Fortune tellers, pound shops and Orville: why I love Blackpool

‘Jesus is the light of the world,’ reads the sign outside Blackpool’s Central Methodist Church, but all along the promenade the lights are going out. I’d returned to my favourite seaside resort to catch the end of the Illuminations, an annual attraction that brings several million visitors here every year. Since 1879, this vast canopy of fairy lights has stretched Blackpool’s summer season into autumn, flooding the seafront with ‘artificial sunshine’. But even Blackpool, with all its razzamatazz, can’t turn winter into summertime. From the Central Pier to the South Pier, the Illuminations are now all dormant. Only a modest cluster remains, between the Tower and the North Pier. It

The Spectator

100 years of Pyrex, processed cheese and nudes in movies

Marking a century Some things which celebrate their 100th birthday in 2015: 3-D films The first was shown at the Astor Theater in New York on 10 June, featuring the Niagara Falls. Nude scenes in films Audrey Munson played an artist’s model in Inspiration, a film by George Foster Platt released by the Mutual Film Corporation on 18 November 1915. It didn’t lead to a long career. By 1920 she was selling kitchen goods door-to-door. The following year she tried to take her life and in 1931 was consigned to a psychiatric hospital where she spent the rest of her life before dying, aged 104, in 1996. Pyrex, which was

Peter Jones

How the Romans taught Latin (N.M. Gwynne would not approve)

Barely a week passes without someone complaining about the teaching of English or foreign languages, usually because it involves too much, or too little, grammar. The ancients also had to face the problem. Clearly, non-Romans who wanted a career in Roman high society, the courts, civil administration or the army needed to learn Latin. So they did, and by the 2nd century AD, the Greek essayist Plutarch was able to say that almost all men used Latin. Certainly, as the Vindolanda tablets demonstrate, the Latin of the Germanic officer Cerealis was very respectable. But Romans also admired Greek culture enormously, and Latin literature drank deeply at its well (the statesman Cicero could

Joan Collins

Joan Collins’s diary: The joy of fake Christmas trees

Every year Christmas comes earlier and earlier in America. Cards, baubles and imitation trees were being sold in the big department stores in August, and the street decorations have been up in Beverly Hills since well before Halloween. From late October onwards, it’s the season of dressing up and showing off in downtown LA. Street parades are all the rage and hundreds of thousands of people saunter around in costumes, some gorgeous, most grotesque. Infants and children are usually done up as baby chicks or bunnies, which is inoffensive — but some adults go beyond the boundary of what is acceptable. On Santa Monica Boulevard I saw one inordinately fat

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