Society

Thursday

Jeremy Clarke

“She’s so materialistic, she likes me to slap her bum with my chequebook”

On eBay car auctions one often reads of all sorts of reasons for cars being sold: birth, death, marriage, divorce, promotion, emigration. But rarely is the car an unwanted gift. Terry124 stated that he was selling his Mercedes E320 CDI estate because it was ‘a Christmas present for the missis, but she hated it’.  After years of scrutinising eBay car ads, I like to think I can distinguish between sellers who have a basic respect for the truth and those who habitually palter with it. But with this one I couldn’t decide. It had a ring of truth, certainly, and it ended on a touchingly plaintive note with: ‘I’m an

Melissa Kite

My Volvo has turned into a monster

The Volvo has turned into a monster. It always did have a mind of its own. Fellow owners warned me when I got it that the sensors are incredibly sensitive. It is always faking injury. I had only had it a few weeks when the warning light flashed and demanded a transmission service. In the interests of good relations — and also because I bought it from a dealer who was raided by police and trading standards a week later — I thought I would show willing. But a few days after the mechanic changed the transmission oil, we were driving along and the light flashed: ‘Transmission Service Required!’ I

Alexander Chancellor

Compassion is fashionable again. Thank the Pope

There was something poignant about the decision of L’Wren Scott, Mick Jagger’s American girlfriend, who committed suicide in New York last month, to leave everything she had to him in her will. Maybe it was out of gratitude for his help in keeping her foundering fashion business afloat; or maybe it was just a mark of her devotion to the man she referred to in the will as ‘my Michael Philip Jagger’. But whatever her motive, it was a decision very much against the spirit of the times, one that will further widen the gap between rich and poor by adding property worth £5.5 million to Jagger’s already estimated personal

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 10 April 2014

The news that two German doctors have been found guilty of cheating at the world bridge championships in Bali last year — by dint of some well-timed coughs — has made headlines around the world. In fact, no one on the international bridge scene is too surprised: Michael Elinescu (61) and Entscho Wladow (71) have had a reputation for cheating for some time. I played against them at the European championships in 2011, and have never forgotten my partner David Gold whispering in my ear: ‘It’s the German doctors, hold your cards up!’ I must say, they seemed very pleasant to me — and I can’t bring myself to feel

Toby Young Toby Young

The books I couldn’t get written

There’s nothing quite so burdensome as having a book to write. Maybe it’s not so bad when it’s your first book, but after that it’s a terrible chore. The publishing industry doesn’t help by paying authors up front. The temptation to pocket the advance and not deliver the manuscript is overwhelming. Believe me, when Douglas Adams said he liked the whooshing noise that deadlines make as they go by, he was speaking for all of us. I signed up to write a book for Viking, part of the Penguin group, five years ago. Called Fully Comprehensive, it was going to be one part polemic about the shortcomings of Britain’s state

Jan Moir

Jan Moir’s diary

Sunday afternoon brings the bomb squad to South Kensington. From my third-floor window, I see them fan out through the garden square, scrutinising leaf and bud, lamppost and compost bin. Drains are peered into, postboxes eyed suspiciously. Although Windsor Castle is 23 miles to the west, the Queen’s state banquet for the Irish President Michael D. Higgins has brought them here. A high-ranking contingent of Irish banquet-goers are staying at a nearby hotel. Including, local rumour has it, Martin McGuinness himself. In their smart blue caps and hi-vis vests, the cops rifle through camellia bushes with the diligence of devoted horticulturists. If the irony of their situation affects them, it

Dot Wordsworth

Ping – a silly word with a heroic history

In the search for the remains of flight MH370, a pulse signal was detected beneath the ocean. The BBC called it a ‘ping’, in inverted commas on its website and with the spoken equivalent in broadcasts, as if ping were too demotic to be used with due respect. Ping seems joky only because its origin is imitative. In naval slang, the operator of an Asdic echo-sounder in the second world war was known as a ping-man or ping-jockey (by analogy with disc-jockey, first heard in 1941). Asdic is an acronym coined in 1939 from ‘Allied submarine detection investigation committee’. (The word acronym appeared in English in 1940 to mean a

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 10 April 2014

Home Maria Miller resigned as Culture Secretary after a week of being the centre of a game of hunt-the-issue. She had paid back expenses, but only the £5,800 requested by the Commons standards committee, not the £45,000 suggested by the parliamentary commissioner for standards; she had apologised in the Commons, but her apology lasted only 32 seconds; her special advisers were accused of putting pressure on the Daily Telegraph not to report on her expenses embarrassment because she had power over newspaper regulation; the chairman of the 1922 Committee called the scandal ‘toxic’. Mrs Miller told her constituents: ‘I am devastated.’ Teesside Crown Court heard that John Darwin, who faked

Dumpynose

2157: Song X

Round the perimeter clockwise from 1 run six lights of a kind (7,9,10,9,9,8): if the grid were a 13/12, they might collectively suggest the title of a song famously 22 19 years ago. Corner letters are held in STRONG REGARD. A relevant name (5) will appear in the completed grid and must be shaded. Elsewhere, ignore an apostrophe.   Across   9    More tea or coffee? (5) 10    Soccer tactic went awry in no-score draw (6, hyphened) 11    A Spring Sunday: time ducks returned (7) 15    Gosh! It’s somebody on 70 curatives (10) 16    Aunt Sally? (8, two words) 20    I write sermon outside brothel (7) 21    Excellent force rejects

Dumpynose

to 2154: Clickety click

The MUSICAL (33) BARON (29) Lloyd-Webber’s BIRTHDAY (40) was on 22nd March; he was 66 (hence the title). His works include EVITA (16A), MEMORY (24) and ANY DREAM WILL DO (1D). WELL-BRED BOY (7/22A) is an anagram of LLOYD-WEBBER.   First prize Christina March, Windsor Runners-up Dr Simon Shaw, Goosnargh, Lancs; Emma Staveley, London SW15

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Women should not fight on the frontline

Writing in the Spectator Diary some time ago, the evergreen Peregrine Worsthorne, observed that one of the things about getting on was that you ended up forgetting the reason why you believed things and ended up having to think things out all over again. I know what he means. A little while ago I was invited to be interviewed on Sky about my opposition to women having close combat roles in the Army. And you know how it is; you’re busy beforehand, you don’t have the chance to do research, you don’t have time to look up your original thoughts on the subject. And it dawned on me en route

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: Can William Shakespeare save the union, plus Maria Miller’s resignation

Did William Shakespeare invent Britain and can he save it? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Fraser Nelson debates this week’s Spectator cover feature with the SNP’s Westminster leader Angus Robertson. Do the English and Scots have many cultural values in common? Are there any other countries contemplating splitting up who are so similar? Is there a political disconnect between the two countries, or is the ‘No’ campaign simply losing the debate? James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman also discuss Maria Miller’s resignation and what it means for David Cameron. Was she pushed out of her job or did she jump? Has the Prime Minister’s reputation and judgment been damaged

Chris Deerin

Scots and English are the same people, with different accents. Why pretend otherwise?

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_10_April_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and Angus Robertson debate Scottish independence” startat=32] Listen [/audioplayer]Sometimes it is easy to understand why countries break up. Some founder on the rocks of their internal contradictions. Others are historical conveniences that have simply run their course. Czechoslovakia was an artificial construct, a country with two languages and cultures, which split soon after the Iron Curtain fell. The division of Cyprus in 1974 marked the end of the fraternity between the island’s Turks and Greeks. The partition of India was driven by trouble between its Hindus and Muslims. It’s a constant, often tragic theme in history — people decide that what divides them is stronger than what

Bruce Anderson

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at Bordeaux’s misfortune

The en primeur tastings have been taking place in Bordeaux, and the mood has oscillated from despair to defiance. It is like Boxer’s trip to the knackers’ in Animal Farm: one would need a heart of stone not to laugh. The greediest winemakers in the world had a terrible 2013, and there was a degree of hostility towards the British press, some of whom were accused of gloating. Surely not. The house of Pontet-Canet was said to be especially thin-skinned. Thirty years ago, it was a modest little fifth growth; I remember using it as a table wine in a Washington hotel. Now, it has soared in reputation and in

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

I’m sick of weak women being praised as ‘strong’

When I heard that the television pundit and all-round nepot Kelly Osbourne had gone into ‘food rehab’ upon gaining weight, I fair choked on my cronut. Crumbs! Is there any pleasure, weakness or habit that isn’t pathologised these days, even stuffing oneself out of sheer molten gluttony? I read on; incredibly, people were praising ‘strong’ Kelly and ‘brave’ Kelly. I made a memo to myself to mention to the svelte checkout girl at my local Tesco how brave and strong I was next time she raised an eyebrow at the amount of sweets and crisps I was giving a good home to. Every woman seems to be strong and brave

James Kirchick

How fascist is Ukraine’s Svoboda?

 Kiev Ihor Miroshnychenko, a parliamentarian from Ukraine’s ultra-nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party, is an ‘emotional’ man. That is the word that he and his colleagues use to describe his raiding the headquarters of the country’s state television broadcaster last month. Accompanied by five other Svoboda bully boys, Miroshnyschenko berated and beat the station director before forcing him to sign a resignation letter. So proud were they of this deed that one of the Svoboda members videotaped the whole confrontation and posted it on YouTube. The proximate cause of Miroshnychenko’s anger was the station’s transmission of a Russian news channel broadcast of a victory concert in Red Square celebrating Moscow’s annexation of

Emily Rhodes

Book clubs

Everyone knows somebody who belongs to a book club. From informal gatherings of bookish friends in living rooms and cafés to ticketed events organised by newspapers, publishers and hubs like the Southbank Centre, and including rather more off-piste groups such as my own walking book club on Hampstead Heath, book clubs have become an integral part of our cultural landscape. At first glance it’s somewhat puzzling as to why they’ve become such a phenomenon. Surely it is surprising that readers, whom one assumes to be on the more introverted side of the spectrum — content to retire with a book of an evening rather than paint the town red —