Society Archives

Thursday

11 Dec 2014

How to pick the perfect present

I had always attributed it to bad luck in the genetic lottery. I am three-eighths Welsh and a quarter Scottish, which is a rotten mixture: part Cavalier, part Roundhead. This means that every pleasurable experience I have in life is coloured by Calvinist guilt: in the remote likelihood that I were ever to find myself sitting in the grotto in the Playboy Mansion, my Welsh part would enjoy it while the Scottish part would be worrying about how much it cost to heat. But it seems this guilt problem is nothing to do with my ethnicity: no human brain is remotely monolithic, but a bundle of conflicting modules cobbled together

Christopher Howse

Christmas Quiz | 11 December 2014

So they say In 2014, who was quoted as saying: 1. ‘There is no status for the partner of a head of state, and there has never been one.’ 2. ‘He’s there to serve a very important ceremonial function as David Cameron’s lapdog-cum-prophylactic protection device.’ 3. ‘Money is no object in this relief effort.’ 4. ‘I smoked pot as a kid. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.’ 5. ‘If Jesus Christ was alive today, I cannot see him, as the Christian person that he was and the great person that he was, saying this could not happen.’ 6. ‘Rush, O Muslims, to your state, because hijrah to

Bruce Anderson

Cognac and the Viking connection in la France profonde

The chestnut trees were still resplendent in yellow leaf along the banks of a misty autumn river on its glide through woodlands, pasture, comfortable towns — and vineyards. This was the Charente. Eighty years ago, before the lorry became dominant, it would not have been so peaceful. In those days, barges laden with barrels of Cognac made their way along this river to the coast to be shipped all over the world. Wine has been grown in Cognac for centuries and exported since the Middle Ages. But it was always inferior to the products of Bordeaux, to the south-west. Even so, its acidity and low alcohol content made it ideal

Andrew Petrie

The Northern Lights

Getting here took a long time. First a flight to Seattle, then a connection to Fairbanks, followed by a coach to Coldfoot Camp and a final stage by minibus. It’s long after midnight and I’m shivering outside a snow-covered lodge in Wiseman, Alaska (population: 14), two hours north of the Arctic Circle, wrenching my tripod so the camera points straight upwards and trying like a fool to capture what essentially cannot be captured. I’m looking at the Northern Lights. The aurora borealis, the result of electrically charged particles causing havoc in the upper atmosphere, is the reason I’m here in America’s biggest state. For months I’ve been consulting the University

Aidan Hartley

I cannot imagine living in a world without lions

Laikipia We are privileged to live with lions on the farm. We hear them most nights. We encounter them frequently. Out walking last month, I sensed four lions the instant before I saw them. Adrenaline raised a mane of goose bumps from my skull to my thighs. I should have shouted and advanced on them and certainly not run away. Instead I became rooted to the spot, hypnotised by their great yellow eyes. After seconds they timidly slunk off — in Kenya’s recorded history honey bees have killed more people than lions have — leaving me to feel neither scared, nor relieved, but thrilled. Sixty years ago Elspeth Huxley wrote

The Spectator

The answers | 11 December 2014

So they say 1. President François Hollande of France 2. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, of Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister 3. David Cameron, the Prime Minister, during the winter floods 4. President Barack Obama of the United States 5. Sir Elton John, on gay marriage for clergy 6. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as self-proclaimed caliph 7. Baroness Warsi, when she had resigned 8. The late President Ronald Reagan in a newly discovered recording of a telephone call to Margaret Thatcher after the United States had invaded Grenada 9. Ed Miliband 10. Philae, the lander on comet 67P (according to its Twitter account) Talking telephone numbers 1. Bananas 2.

Lucy Vickery

Season’s greetings | 11 December 2014

In Competition No. 2877 you were invited to submit a Christmas round robin as it might have been written by a well-known fictional character. Most of the entries were bursting with forced jocularity, but Basil Ransome-Davies, with an unusually frank Jeeves, neatly subverts the round-robin tradition of presenting a relentlessly positive face to the world. Meanwhile, John Samson’s Phileas Fogg takes holiday bragging to a whole new level, thereby earning the festive fiver. His fellow winners take £25. Happy Christmas, one and all! Where have all the days gone? I know where 80 went! But lost count of number of ships, trains and wind-powered sledges(!) I’ve taken this year.

Wednesday

10 Dec 2014

Isabel Hardman

Who privatised Hinchingbrooke hospital? And does it matter?

When it comes to rows about the NHS, these days it doesn’t rain, it pours. In fact, fights between the parties about who cares more/privatised the most are turning into a weather bomb, such is their frequency. Today Nick Clegg turned up to Prime Minister’s Questions determined to highlight Labour hypocrisy on the health service, and he managed to shoehorn it in to an answer to Harriet Harman’s question about people trusting the Lib Dems (or not). The Lib Dem leader said: ‘In fact, the Shadow Health Secretary, sitting there demurely, is the only man in England who has ever privatised an NHS hospital, and they dare to lecture us.

Steerpike

GQ Editor reveals that Tony Blair was awarded gong for services to Wendi Deng

To Quaglino’s for the GQ Christmas lunch, where editor Dylan Jones was in a revelatory mood. Lifting the lid on his magazine’s controversial decision to award Tony Blair the Philanthropist of the Year gong at their Man of the Year awards this year, Jones recalled being quizzed about it in New York shortly after the September ceremony. Avid Murdoch watchers suggested to him that they GQ only dished out the gong due to Blair’s well-publicised (how to put it) friendship with Wendy Deng. Actually I think we did’, quipped Jones. The crowd – including Tinie Tempah, Rob Brydon, Tracey Emin and David Gandy — was described by one speaker as

Bruce Anderson

Yes, torture can be justified. Here’s why

Torture is repulsive. Even on the scaffold or in front of a firing squad, a man can meet death with dignity. The torturer sets out to strip his victim of dignity, to break him, to violate not only his body but also his soul. In England, torture was outlawed in 1660, and for most of the past 350 years, that seemed to be a final verdict. Torture had been a barbarous relic of the dark ages. Anyone who suggested that it might still have a role would have been laughed to scorn; no doubt he would also have been in favour of burning witches. If only it were still that

Steerpike

Where were you when Rusbridger quit?

Alan Rusbridger’s announcement that he will stand down in summer 2015 as Guardian editor after 20 years has fired the starting gun on one very long succession battle. Current online boss Janine Gibson is a firm favourite with Kath Viner the struggling US editor not far behind. Other wannabes include Jonathan Freedland – the newly anointed head of comment – Emily Wilson from Guardian Oz and Deputy Editor Paul Johnson, if he is interested. Mr S would tip Political Editor Patrick Wintour, a journalist with a solid pedigree, as the dark horse. Former deputy editor Ian Katz would have once upon a time been top of this list, but his departure to

Fraser Nelson

Jeremy Vine and the truth about government spending

Those who complain about the BBC (myself included) usually only refer to a small part of a massive and divergent operation. Nicky Campbell on Radio 5 is just superb – not a hint of bias in any of his breakfast show. Jeremy Vine, too, is pretty fair and balanced. He has just ran a report on the truth about public spending, asking if we are being deceived about debt. I was invited on to talk about it, as was Sir Simon Jenkins (who wrote about spending in the Guardian here). Our exchange, and the BBC package, can be heard here. listen to ‘Fraser Nelson and Simon Jenkins discuss the deficit’ on

The Spectator

Toby Young and Taki reveal their strangest date

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

The Bird-Bolter plot thickens…

It’s a good name, Roger Bird, isn’t it? The story, or non-story, develops apace. Read Steerpike here for the details of the text messages sent by Natasha Bolter to Mr Bird and which suggest to me a degree of, um, complicity, y’know? Newsnight carried it as their second story last night: Yoda was wreathed in sanctimony, talking about the terribly difficult time the poor woman must be enduring – and then they had an exclusive interview with Bolter, done by Wes Mantooth, or someone. Trouble is Wes recorded the interview before they knew the details of the text messages and Yoda mentioned only the least incriminating ones. Hey ho.

Isabel Hardman

Are poor people really having to bury their loved ones in the back garden?

One of the most striking stories in today’s papers – and on the front of one of them – is the claim made by Labour’s Emma Lewell-Buck that people on low-incomes are struggling so much with the cost of funerals that they are having to resort to burying them in their back gardens. Lewell-Buck was introducing a well-intentioned bill on the cost of funerals, which has been rising above inflation for a good long while. She told MPs: ‘People are also turning to alternatives to the traditional funeral. Some are holding do-it-yourself funerals, and even having to bury relatives in their back garden. A number of companies are offering cut-price

Dennis Sewell

Has Ofsted’s Michael Wilshaw really gone rogue?

Another preview from the Spectator Christmas special: Dennis Sewell looks at Ofsted and argues that the Chief Inspector of Schools must revamp his power-crazed organisation. Subscribe for just £73 for a whole year — including full print and digital access, as well as a £20 John Lewis voucher. 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

Pippa Middleton

Pippa Middleton: truffle hunting, cowboy dancing and, yes, Kim Kardashian’s bottom

In The Spectator’s Christmas special, hitting the streets tomorrow, Pippa Middleton writes about truffle hunting, cowboy dancing in Wyoming and — as the Daily Mail has been quick to point out – Kim Kardashian’s bottom. Subscribe for just £73 — including a year’s full print and digital access and a free bottle of champagne. 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

Alex Massie

The CIA’s torture regime shames the United States. It will not be forgotten

We knew and we knew years ago. Anyone who has been paying attention has known for a long time that the CIA committed appalling acts of brutality in the years after 9/11. Anyone who paid attention has also long known that the agency’s torture regime – not too strong a way of putting it – produced very little in the way of useful intelligence. It was sadism masquerading as detective work; depravity disguising impotence and, in the end, the kind of programme that shames a nation. There are still some people who think it fine and dandy, still some people who think it’s a lot of fuss over not very much.

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Blood and water

From News of the Week, The Spectator, 12 December 1914: An incident connected with the naval action off the Falkland Islands which has touched us deeply, and which we are sure will touch the whole of our countrymen, has been the chorus of delight—no other phrase will do—with which the victory has been received in America. Blood may be thicker than water, but salt water and blood mixed, where the English-speaking race is concerned, carry all before them. Though the Americans on the business side of their beads are rightly determined to maintain a strict neutrality, that neutrality cannot resist the strain of a sea fight. There is something in that

Monday

8 Dec 2014

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Revenge on the seas

From News of the Week, The Spectator, 12 December 1914: The week has been a week of good news. Last in order but first in importance comes the naval victory off the Falkland Islands. No summary of this news can better the Admiralty’s own report, which is splendid in its terseness and reticence:— “At 7.30 a.m. on December 8th, the Scharnhorst,‘Gneisenau,’ ‘Nürnberg,’ ‘Leipzig,‘ and ‘Dresden’ were sighted near the Falkland Islands by a British Squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir Frederick Sturdee. An action followed, in the course of which the ‘Scharnhorst,’ flying the flag of Admiral Graf von Spee, the ‘Gneisenau,’ and the ‘Leipzig’ were sunk. The ‘Dresden’ and the `Nurnberg’