The unclued lights are types of CROSS. Solver were required to indicate clearly the FYLFOT at the centre of the grid. First prize M. Purdie, Ceres, Fife Runners-up Gerry Fairweather, Layer Marney, Essex; Hugh Thomas, Ixworth, Suffolk
It seems as if the author Jeanette Winterson might have a bit of a pest control problem. ‘Rabbit ate my parsley’, she tweeted, ‘I am eating the rabbit.’ Accompanied, of course, by step-by-step photos of said rabbit, from skinning to Aga. Fair enough, many might say. At least she was sensible enough to eat the rabbit that she killed (and she even gave the cat the innards. So in the process, she saved on one supermarket chicken, and one tin of Whiskas. Pretty good going, I’d say.) But she’s far from the only artist who has demonstrated a fondness for either killing animals, or for using them as artistic props. Hemingway
Generation Y – are they really a jilted generation, or do they have absolutely no reason to be complaining about their lot? This was the question posed at Tuesday night’s Spectator debate, with the motion: ‘Stop whining young people, you’ve never had it so good’, and chaired by Toby Young. It all kicked off with an introduction from Alan Warner, the investment director at Duncan Lawrie, who expressed his gratitude to Tony Blair for putting Islington – where Warner owned his first London home – on the map. It’s not just this generation who feels hard done by when it comes to property, he said. Every generation feels like it
Will computers make humans redundant? It might be the biggest question of our time. Last night Spectator Events, in partnership with Microsoft, hosted a panel discussion to answer the question ‘Will Artificial Intelligence put my job at risk?’ A fascinating and wide-ranging conversation about the technological revolution ensued. The Spectator’s chairman Andrew Neil was joined by Microsoft’s Laboratory Director Professor Andrew Blake, journalist Bryan Appleyard, the TUC’s Nicola Smith and Jamie Bartlett, Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos. Professor Andrew Blake, up first, sounded an evangelical note, emphasising the positives of technological change. A distinguished scientist himself, Blake argued that artificial intelligence is already transforming our lives — at
The social media exchanges of British jihadis in Syria and Iraq, as just revealed, are perfectly riveting, don’t you think? Fancy worrying about things like where to leave your luggage and internet connections when you’re a jihadi. There’s scope here for TripAdviser. But when it comes to jihadists from Britain, I’d rather like a bit more pertinent information about them than their currency exchange problems. I rather get the impression it’s BBC policy to describe the Brits fighting for ISIS and similar just as British citizens, or Britons, presumably on the basis that to describe them as being something like ‘of Pakistani/Nigerian/Syrian origin’ would invidiously distinguish between one citizen and
Did you threaten to overrule him, Paxman? Did you threaten to overrule your editor when he told you that he was going to let you finish your career in such an embarrassing fashion? Did you? Answer the question. Did you threaten to overrule him? Did you? DID YOU? You should have. A friend of mine admitted that he wept – wept! – as the credits rolled last night. I was split on the matter; weep or vomit, weep or vomit. If this had been a regular episode of Newsnight, Paxman would surely have been fired. The problem with last night is that it presumed that someone who is a genius
The last Labour government oversaw a major expansion of support for families, with new investment in childcare, tax credits, maternity leave and children’s centres. Despite this investment, the left still struggles to demonstrate its ‘pro-family’ credentials and to affirm its backing for parents and committed family relationships. Too often, this leaves us conceding important political territory, allowing the right to claim it understands families best. In a major new report, The Condition of Britain, IPPR argues that we need to show we back parents who are working hard to raise their children – including unequivocally supporting committed relationships. For most of us, family is what we care about most, the
It is a wicked thing to revel in someone else’s misery. Trouble is, occasionally it can’t be helped. So – bye, bye Spain! I think I would have traded England winning tonight (and therefore prolonging the agony) for Spain’s magnificently rapid exit from this world cup. Oh, Chile – you brave sons of Pinochet and Allende! Whichever you prefer – who cares? It is the more civilised parts of Latin America which have shone in this world cup – Chile themselves and Costa Rica. Brazil struggled and have been, uh, “fortunate”, Argentina looked distrait, Uruguay simply incompetent (though that opinion may need to be revised later); Mexico, the world’s great
Why do Iraq’s jihadists keep on coming back? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Freddy Gray (1 min, 29 sec) examine why groups such as ISIS have a habit of disappearing, losing their territorial gains and reappearing more deadly than ever. What can the West do, if anything, to combat the ISIS threat in Iraq? Are we going to see instability in the region for years? James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman (10 min, 29 sec) also look at the disappearance of hawks in Westminster and why Parliament is so reluctant to intervene in foreign lands. Does the ghost of Tony Blair and Iraq scare off MPs from voicing
A watch isn’t necessarily something that you think of as being a feat of engineering. But there is far more to a watch than meets the eye. Underneath its face, a vastly complicated machine is silently chugging away. In that way, Patek Philippe are very similar to their products; a simple Swiss brand on the surface, but with a rather more complicated back-story. The watchmakers appear, on initial inspection, to be a resolutely Swiss brand. They certainly sound it. But there is far more to the watchmaker’s origins. Antoni Patek In the early 1830s a Polish soldier named Antoni Patek arrived in Geneva, two years after leading an evacuation from
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_19_June_2014.mp3″ title=”Paul Staines from Guido Fawkes and Evan Harris of Hacked Off debating Steve Coogan’s involvement with Index” startat=1508] Listen [/audioplayer]I have looked everywhere. I have Googled, and asked around. But I can find no evidence that Steve Coogan has ever taken the trouble to defend freedom of speech at home or abroad. I promised myself I would never again mock ‘luvvies’ in politics after I saw Tim Minchin, Dave Gorman, Robin Ince and Dara Ó Briain give up their time to help Index on Censorship’s campaign against Britain’s repressive libel laws. Steve Coogan did not stand alongside them. I have heard Sir Ian McKellen and Sienna Miller protest
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_19_June_2014.mp3″ title=”Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Freddy Gray discuss ISIS, Iraq and pop-up terrorism” startat=49] Listen [/audioplayer]Jihadist banners flying. Victorious extremists on camera slapping and then executing dehydrated and pleading Shia members of the Iraqi security forces. Dark reports of mass slaughter. City charters released in captured territory heralding the implementation of an extreme version of Islamic law. We’ve seen it all before, but it remains shocking — and the latest advance by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is arguably the most disturbing development in Iraq’s already horrifying recent history. ISIS has surprised everyone by seizing a number of cities, but its success also raises the question: how
But why did the food [in England] stay so bad after refrigerated ships, frozen foods and eventually air-freight deliveries of fresh fish and vegetables had become available? … The answer is surely that by the time it became possible for urban Britons to eat decently, they no longer knew the difference. [Since] your typical Englishman, circa, say, 1975, had never had a really good meal, he didn’t demand one. And because consumers didn’t demand good food, they didn’t get it. Even then there were surely some people who would have liked better, just not enough to provide a critical mass. The history of English food suggests that… a free-market economy
The test of a truly great city is reinvention. Does it have the courage to change? London holds a PhD in meta-morphosis — just look at the buildings it converts into hotels. Hazlitt’s in Soho is named after William, whose house it once was. Round the corner, the Courthouse occupies what used to be Great Marlborough Street Magistrates’ Court, where Michael Caine was ordered to pay palimony, Oscar Wilde foolishly sued for libel and I was done for busking. (I keep meaning to go back and have dinner on the exact same spot.) Bow Street Magistrates’ Court is also being converted — four of the hotel’s bedrooms will occupy the
Glenmorangie is the most accessible of malt whiskies. It is a gentle, almost feminine creature, with hints of spring flowers, chardonnay, eine kleine nachtmusik, wholly different from the lowering malts of the Outer Isles. With them, there is no question of hints, let alone Mozart. A blast of peat and iodine arrives to the skirl of the pipes: a mighty dram worthy of the sea-girt rocks among which it was cradled. Both have their place. I recently helped a friend polish off his last bottle of ’63 Glenmorangie. It had gained in depth, strength and subtlety. Should you possess any, our bottle was showing no scintilla of senescence. Its owner
Taki What a pity this competition is not open to members of the fairer sex. Marie Christine of Kent would make an ideal winner. Among the men, of course, we have an embarrassment of riches. Tony Blair, John Bercow, Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross, A.A. Gill, Charles Saatchi, I could go on until the next millennium. However agonising it was to pick the cad of all cads, do step forward Matthew Freud, a man I’m fortunate to say I have never met but have heard and read enough about to convince me he’s the one. In his never-ending quest for power, riches and fame, Freud has managed to reach the depths of
Few people, don’t you find, are as irritating as those who define themselves as Spiritual But Not Religious? There was a riveting piece in the Sunday Times ‘Style’ magazine last week about them, featuring people who were both fabulously stylish and spiritual. Among the names checked was a shop called Celestine Eleven (‘when you buy a new dress, you’re buying into a beautiful piece of energy’) and a website called Numinous (motto: ‘material girl, mystical world’). So, you can be spiritual and design-conscious, as in Pamela Love’s pentagram ring, £1,500. What this Gwyneth Paltrow-style combination of spirituality and consumerism involves, apart from the absence of any kind of discernible doctrine,
‘There’s a dark cloud rising from the desert floor/ I packed my bags and I’m heading straight into the storm/ Gonna be a twister to blow everything down/ That ain’t got the faith to stand its ground!’ How I used to enjoy singing these ominous lyrics to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Promised Land’ as I got ready to go to Israel! But when you’re going there on easyJet, the words lose their self-dramatising sting somewhat. After decades of having to schlep all the way to Heathrow and undergo a somewhat shamefully enjoyable grilling from the sexy El Al staff who moved along the line making you step into a corner with them
‘Iraq turmoil sends crude oil prices to nine-month high’ is the sort of headline that used to send shivers down economists’ spines, especially if it appeared on the same page as ‘Europe faces gas shortage as Russia cuts Ukraine supply’. How worried should we be at the current turn of events in the energy world? Since Iraq’s new insurgency kicked off, the price of a barrel of Brent Crude has blipped from $105 to $115 — nothing to panic about — but the more pessimistic analysts are talking of a further $30 rise if Iraqi oil flows of 3.6 million barrels a day (representing about 4 per cent of global
In Competition No. 2852 you were invited to step into the shoes of a well-known writer of your choice and submit a poem or piece of prose in praise or defence of something you would not expect them to champion. You were on top form this week. Martin Parker reveals a lighter side of Leonard Cohen with a nice twist on ‘Bird on a Wire’, while Alanna Blake’s Wordsworth has a soft spot for wind farms. Ernest Hemingway comes out for the League Against Cruel Sports and against sobriety. And J. Seery’s Barbara Cartland shows her true Marxist colours (‘There is no phrase in English more sensuous than “dialectical materialism”’).