Society

Thursday

Joan Collins

Joan Collins’s Diary: Springtime in the City of Angels

Ahh! Spring has sprung at last! Or has it? Leaving a warm and sunlit London last month we expected balmy weather in Los Angeles but the skies were grey and murky and, like Lena Horne sang in ‘The Lady is a Tramp’: I hate California, it’s cold and it’s damp. It’s necessary to dress in three layers in the City of Angels. It can be seriously frosty in the early morning, when the movers and shakers don their sweats and pant down the boulevards of Sunset and Beverly. By mid-afternoon, however, it’s boiling and everyone strips to sleeveless. Not that Los Angelinos are big in the sartorial stakes. Whenever Percy

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 24 April 2014

It’s no coincidence that many card players excel at both bridge and poker. The poker legend Gus Hansen plays a mean game of bridge and regularly turns up at tournaments. The American bridge star Steve Weinstein is also a poker pro who goes by the name of ‘Thorladen’. The attributes needed for both games are remarkably similar: a knowledge of probability, an ability to ‘read’ people, an outstanding memory, the confidence to bluff, the ruthlessness to go for blood…But I’m pleased to report that Weinstein believes what I’ve long suspected: that bridge is the  more skilful and difficult game. ‘You can’t be a prodigy in bridge like you can in

Toby Young Toby Young

Yes, Britain is a Christian country

I can’t say it was a great surprise to read a letter from a group of well-known authors, academics, comedians and politicians in the Telegraph earlier this week complaining about David Cameron’s description of Britain as a ‘Christian country’. As a general rule, any acknowledgment of Britain’s Christian heritage has members of the liberal intelligentsia reaching for their keyboards and angrily typing out words like ‘sectarian’, ‘alienation’ and ‘division’. As Harry Cole argued in a blog post for The Spectator, the evidence that Britain is a Christian country is overwhelming. We have an established church, our head of state is also the defender of the faith and 59 per cent

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: Do I grass on my son’s schoolfriend?

Q. My son was invited, both verbally and via Facebook, to a schoolfriend’s 16th birthday party. However, when I met the girl’s parents at school and thanked them they said, ‘Oh, doesn’t he know he’s been culled?’ They said they had to be away during that exeat, so they’d told the girl to cull the numbers right back and just have a dinner for ten with takeaway pizzas and Netflix. Now my son says the girl has told everyone (150 people) to come anyway. She says it’s the only date everyone’s free before exams start and it will ‘ruin her life’ if she can’t have it. Besides the parents won’t

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 24 April 2014

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, appeared in public with George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer — the first time they had been photographed as a couple for four years — to draw attention to infrastructure projects. Mr Cameron mentioned in an article for the Church Times that Britain is a Christian country, which made 55 celebrity atheists write to the Daily Telegraph to deny it. A new Family Court came into being, committed to resolving within 26 weeks cases about the care of children, rather than the average of 56 weeks recorded in 2011. Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat pensions minister, said that the government could help people

Dot Wordsworth

Dot Wordsworth: What is an astel?

Dear old Ian Hislop was pottering around North Petherton, Somerset, on television, to talk about the Alfred Jewel, found nearby (where the king burnt the cakes) in 1693 by a labourer digging for peat. Since then, learned men have made foolish pronouncements on the jewel — as in a game of charades when the guesser says ‘pot’ and ‘a toe’, but can’t get potato. The ninth-century Alfred Jewel, a favourite exhibit in the Ashmolean, is a tear-shaped piece of rock crystal, two and half inches long, covering an enamel figure holding two scepters. Round the edge, gold letters spell out: Aelfred mec heht gewyrcan — ‘Alfred had me made’. Alfred

The Spectator

How to lose Scotland

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_24_April_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Alex Massie explain why we need more optimism in Scotland and Westminster” startat=1538] Listen [/audioplayer]For centuries, the possibility of Scottish independence seemed so remote as to be laughable. Until recently the nationalists seemed quixotic, rather than menacing. Now, however, we are facing the very real prospect of a ‘yes’ vote in the Scottish referendum in September, which would in all probability result in the resignation of David Cameron as Prime Minister. An ICM survey published at the weekend found that 48 per cent of voters who have made up their minds intend to vote for separation. The stakes are terribly high. There is much debate

Firefly

2159: Wine, Woman and Song

Nine unclued lights are linked in three different ways (three lights to each) to a tenth, which solvers should highlight. All may be verified in Chambers.   Across   5    Wet month unproductive (6) 10    In the open, fish got cleverly hidden (10, three words) 12    Atom bombs are nuclear without exception (6, three words) 17    Trifled foolishly? (7) 18    Request provided for a time obliquely in Scotland (7) 20    In part of swine’s face, note a drop of white (8) 25    Look round Spain for a house (3) 26    Prelates leaving a cathedral en masse? (7) 28    Second petition secures a red dress (7, hyphened) 29    Say Gabon is

Firefly

to 2156: Shoreline

The perimeter is occupied by seven SANDPIPERS.   First prize Tim Hanks, Douglas, Isle of Man Runners-up Hilda Ball, Belfast; B. Taylor, Little Lever, Bolton

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Premiership football is repulsive in every respect

Praise where it’s due. This opening to Russell Brand’s Guardian column about David Moyes is very good: “(His) face has now experienced the fate for which it looks like it was designed. The deep grooves of grief in his brow, his sunken, woeful eyes and dry parched lips, a perspicacious sculpture carved in anticipation of this slap of indignity.” Very nice. I’ve written about the Moyes business this week for the magazine. I do think it is hilarious the speed with which all the football writers have moved from describing the bloke as the best young manager this country has ever seen to “disastrous” and “not up to the job”

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Red hair is having a renaissance

Much like supporting Millwall or contracting Parkinson’s Disease, red hair has traditionally been seen by the prejudiced as an affliction worth avoiding. The biographies of Mary Magdalene, Van Gogh and Sylvia Plath will confirm this. Rod Liddle sticks it to the gingers in his column this week: ‘I took my youngest son to a football match on Easter Monday. It used to be something I wryly called a ‘treat’ when the kids were younger, but we usually lost in such depressing circumstances each time that I would then feel the need to give them another treat immediately afterwards, to alleviate the misery. Bowling or pizza or something. Not any more.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

What does new Number 10 hire mean for stop-and-search reform?

As James revealed on Coffee House earlier, Max Chambers will take over from Patrick Rock on the home affairs brief in the Number 10 policy unit. One thing that will be particularly interesting to watch is whether Chambers’ appointment leads to a shift in Number 10’s stance on stop-and-search. Rock had been one of the key figures blocking Theresa May’s reforms to the power for the police, for fear that it would make the Tories appear soft on crime. So will the new adviser be more amenable to change? I am told that Chambers is open to ideas on reform of stop-and-search and is keen to see more evidence of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Exclusive: Max Chambers to join No.10 policy unit

I understand that Max Chambers of Policy Exchange will soon join the Number 10 policy unit. Chambers will take on the home affairs brief that has been vacant since Patrick Rock’s resignation in February; Rock quit shortly before being arrested over an alleged offence related to child abuse images. At Policy Exchange, Chambers has advocated devolving more powers to Police and Crime Commissioners and building bigger, more modern prisons. He is the latest figure from Policy Exchange to be recruited to the Number 10 policy unit; Alex Morton joined to cover housing in December of last year. With Neil O’Brien, the former director of Policy Exchange, advising George Osborne and

Digby Warde-Aldam

Martin Amis may be a pompous arse, but he’s our pompous arse

Was it Tibor Fischer’s hatchet job on Yellow Dog? Was it the fallout from the  Islamophobia row? Was it getting his teeth fixed? Who knows, but at some point in the last decade or so, Martin Amis fell out of fashion – hard. It’s closer to croquet than football, I grant you, but slagging him off is now a national sport. Reading his books in public has become a bourgeois taboo. Flicking through one of his essay collections on the bus the other day, it didn’t take me long to figure out why my neighbour was eyeing me like I was a sex offender. The insults that get thrown his

Steerpike Steerpike

RIP Mark Shand

Mr S was saddened to hear of the untimely death of Mark Shand, the Duchess of Cornwall’s brother. He was a kind and witty man: a natural bon viveur. Parties for his charity, Elephant Family, which campaigned to protect the habitats of the endangered Asian elephant, were always splendid affairs. Shand’s vivacity and generosity came to the fore and partygoers gave generously. Mr S remembers one bash at Lakshmi Mittal’s gaffe. Lalit Modi, Vijay Mallya, Michiel Mol, Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, Joanna Lumley, Sarah Ferguson and countless faceless financiers were dolling out cash like nobody’s business. London society has lost one of its most dashing players. And the Indian elephant

Steerpike Steerpike

Russell Brand cannot let BBC row slide

Russell Brand won’t let go of his row with the BBC. He popped up as the mystery guest at Letters Live (a spin off from the wonderful Twitter account @LettersOfNote, where assorted luvvies read great letters from the past). Inevitably, Brand screwed up his reading. He tried to rescue the situation by quipping: ‘Is this like when I broke the BBC?’ This was met by assorted groans and the odd clap. Brand’s references to his suspension and departure from the BBC over the ‘Sachs-gate’ affair in 2008 are getting very tiresome indeed. Mr S was under the impression that Brand was busy plotting a revolution.

Bruce Anderson

A toast to Le Roi Jen Quinze

There ought to be a new literary award: the antisocial book of the year. A dozen years ago, Claire Tomalin’s Pepys would have won the laurels by a country mile. That Christmas, everyone seemed to have been given a copy, and normally healthy eaters would arise from the lunch table after only three hours, desperate to return to Pepys. It was impossible to raise a four for bridge. Although John Campbell’s biography of Roy Jenkins is not quite so compulsive, it would take this year’s prize. Inter alia, Mr Campbell solves one of the small historical mysteries of our time. Denis Healey has always insisted that Roy was a closet

William Cook

Notes on… Eastern Germany

Ever since the Berlin Wall came down, I’ve been pottering around eastern Germany, where my father’s family came from, and fled from at the end of the second world war. I thought my interest would fade as my father’s fatherland was absorbed by the Bundesrepublik — but for me, this strange hinterland grows more intriguing with each passing year. Take the historic heartland of Hitler’s Reich, subject it to 45 years of communism and then 25 years of capitalism. What do you end up with? A mad mishmash of past and present, the last century laid bare. Naturally, the former GDR isn’t uniformly pretty (indeed, large swaths of it are

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

What do you get if you cross a suitcase with rollerblades?

A 14-year-old at an American school recently caused a stir when he claimed that the US government could save over $400 million annually on the cost of printer ink if the default printer font were switched from Times New Roman to Garamond. Major effects can often be achieved by relatively trivial improvements. One of the things I have always hated about the European passport (apart from the word ‘European’, obviously) is the fact that the pages and the cover are all the same size. How much shorter would all immigration queues be were the photograph page just an eighth of an inch narrower than other pages, so the damned thing