Society

Thursday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How can I check if my dentist uncle really meant to charge me?

Q. My uncle, who is a brilliant dentist, has looked after my teeth since I was little. He also sees my children and although he runs a private practice, he has never charged me at all. I am now pregnant with my third child and told him this on my last visit. I wonder if this could be the reason why I received a bill in the post for the consultation — my first ever. He has a new secretary. How can I find out whether the secretary has sent me the bill by mistake, or indeed whether my uncle has decided that he has to draw the line somewhere

Dot Wordsworth

Very bad poems on the Underground

My husband was surprised by quite a bit when we travelled by Underground in London the other day. Although he has a Nelson Mandela Memorial Freedom Pass, he seldom chooses to join us Morlocks down below. ‘Is this the work of a Chinaman?’ he asked, nodding towards a poster. ‘You mustn’t say “Chinaman”, dear,’ I said firmly. The poster showed people with vertical slits for eyes and no noses. They stood hunched in an Underground carriage, dressed in T-shirts, as if in a scene from some dystopian film like Idiocracy. Above the image, words were arranged in lines: ‘We really don’t mean to chide / But try to move along inside,

The Spectator

Where to open your brothel: an international comparison

The best places to open a brothel The Commons all-party group on prostitution has called for a Scandinavian-style law where selling sex would not be illegal but buying it would be. How does the world treat prostitution? — In a survey of 100 countries by the educational charity ProCon, 50 were judged to treat prostitution as illegal, 39 as legal, with the remaining 11 making it an offence in some instances. — Among the most liberal were Canada, where laws against brothel ownership and pimping were recently overturned by the supreme court, the Netherlands, Germany, New Zealand and Greece. — The most severe criminal sanctions were found in Iran, where

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 6 March 2014

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said Russia was to blame for ‘violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another country’ by invading Ukraine, so ‘we shall have to bring to bear diplomatic, political, economic and other pressures’. Britain, with Russia and the United States, is a signatory to the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, guaranteeing the ‘independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine’. Before flying to Kiev, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said: ‘The United Kingdom will join other G8 countries this week in suspending our co-operation under the G8, which Russia chairs this year.’ Later, an official was photographed holding a document that said that ‘the UK

Doc

2152: T20 – it’s just not cricket!

The unclued lights (and 4 Down + N) are of a kind and along with the suggestion given by the title, they indicate how all the solutions (clued and unclued) have to be adapted before being entered into the grid. Ignore two accents and one apostrophe.   Across   6    Carillon playing opening arrangement of 34 (4) 12    Reactin’ badly, for sure (7) 14    Spade I swapped for a weapon (6) 15    Facetious interjection of Turkish governor that’s worthless in Wick (7) 16    Tailless rodent, active at hollow (4) 20    Make a fool of old boy – dock a shilling (3) 22    Mild

Doc

to 2149: Super!

When preceded by GREAT, each unclued light yields a phrase listed in Brewer 19th edition.   First prize Mrs T. Vernalls, Thame, Oxfordshire Runners-up J. Anson, London SE5; A. Fabian, Dunsden, Oxfordshire

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Spectator Wine School: a roaring success

We’re half way through our first ever eight-week Spectator Wine School. And since I had no part in the planning of it, I don’t feel in the slightest bit embarrassed saying that it’s been a huge success. Indeed, if there’s a more congenial night-school than ours, learning about wine in the Spectator’s boardroom with some of the UK’s leading independent merchants, pray lead me to it. Our seven partners host one evening each and we’ve had James Franklin of Corney & Barrow teaching us how to taste; Adam Holden of Berrys’ on Burgundy; Esme Johnstone of FromVineyardsDirect on Bordeaux and Robert Boutflower of Tanners’ on Spain, Portugal and Italy. Yesterday,

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Was Mark Lawson bullied? Or was it just a matter of trying to improve Front Row?

I don’t really know Mark Lawson; I’ve bumped into him a couple of times and he once was the moderator or question master, I forget which, on some show I was on. What I mean is he is not in my circle of friends. As it happens I don’t really have a circle of friends. You can’t call ‘two’ a circle, can you? Anyway, Lawson has apparently been bumped off Radio Four’s pretty good arts programme, Front Row.  Or he has decided to leave, one of the two. Make your mind up here. Bullying? I wonder. I wonder if it was simply a case of trying, maybe occasionally with some

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: Ukraine special, with Matthew Parris, Anne Applebaum and John O’Sullivan

Should we leave Ukraine to the Russians? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Matthew Parris debates Anne Applebaum on whether the crisis should concern Britain and whether Vladimir Putin has valid reasons to intervening in Crimea. Would Putin have acted differently if Ukraine had NATO membership? What should America do now? And will the West’s behaviour so far embolden other dictators? John O’Sullivan also discusses his Spectator cover feature this week on why we shouldn’t be afraid of Putin. With a lack of actions from the West, is it game, set and match to Putin? Why is he perceived to be so strong? Is John Kerry a dying breed of Americans who really care about Europe?

Lucy Vickery

Reunion blues

In Competition 2837 you were invited to submit a poem on the horrors of a reunion dinner. In days gone by, the allure of school reunions lay in the opportunity they offered to see — and assess — former classmates in their adult incarnations. But in an age of social media no one really loses touch and that element of mystery is all but gone. We’ve seen the pictures and read the status updates. Albert Black, Rob Stuart and Peter Goulding are highly commended. The winners take £25 each. The extra fiver belongs to Alan Millard. ‘Good evening, sir, wind down the window please, Perhaps you’d like to tell me

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

March Wine Club – FromVineyardsDirect

What I most admire about FromVineyardsDirect (apart from the quality and quirkiness of their wines and the ease of ordering) is the brevity of their list. There’s no messing about with any unnecessary padding; no wines bought simply to fill a gap because a particular grape, region or producer is under-represented. Every bottle stands on its merits and although the list does inevitably grow a little every year, it is pretty much cut to the bone. As FVD’s co-founder Esme Johnstone (who has decent form in the trade, having also set up Majestic) says, ‘Why have 20 different and — in some cases — indifferent Chablis when all you need

Tom Raworth

Crowd Hunters of Images

remains are handled in a culturally sensitive and religiously appropriate manner presence without value is perceived as occupation today we have commonality of parts void between lethality and inaction marketing ability in current-trend perception

Wednesday

Andrew Green

The BBC’s immigration scare story

The BBC’s enthusiasm for anything that might undermine the Government’s immigration policy was demonstrated yet again by the excitable tone of last night’s Newsnight report (above). The thrust of the item was that a key element of the government’s case for restricting immigration had been undermined by a report written by Home Office officials but allegedly supressed by Number 10. As usual, the context was entirely absent. The original report quoted by the Home Secretary was by the Migration Advisory Committee who have a very high reputation in these matters.  They were the first to put a number on the extent of displacement but, like all other researchers, they faced

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Alex Salmond’s taxing realism: Scotland cannot afford socialist dreams

Alex Salmond ventured south last night to lecture inform the citizens of what he termed Britain’s ‘Dark Star’ of his latest plans. You can read his New Statesman lecture here. The most telling moment of the evening came, however, when George Eaton asked if Salmond favoured raising taxes on the wealthiest Scots. Specifically, did he find the notion of raising the top rate of income tax to 50 per cent attractive? No. Or as the First Minister put it: ‘We don’t have proposals for changing taxation. We certainly are not going to put ourselves at a tax disadvantage with the rest of the UK.’ It’s not quite read my lips, no

Tuesday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Ten handy phrases for bluffing your way through the Ukraine crisis

First published in 2014, this bluffer’s guide may still help you feel like Chatham House’s finest at your next dinner party… We’re all journalists now, apparently, so when a major foreign policy crisis comes along it is important to be prepared. Everyone must learn the art of winging it as the big news breaks. That’s not easy these days. What with Wikipedia on every mobile phone, our understanding of international relations can be called into question at any moment. So here, as a beginner’s guide, are ten handy phrases for bluffing your way through a conversation about the situation in Ukraine: ‘It’s simplistic to think in terms of east versus west

Camilla Swift Camilla Swift

When it comes to working dogs, sometimes tail docking is the kindest option

Imagine you’re a dog with a long, silky tail that you like to wag. The problem is, you spend your days running across moorland, through prickly undergrowth, which makes your tail hurt and bleed. Might you wish that someone had made it a little bit shorter when you were a puppy? Many people – and especially those with working dogs – argue that docking is by far the kindest option. This is why it is odd that Scotland is the only country in the UK with a complete ban on tail docking. England, Wales and Northern Ireland all have exemptions for working dogs, as long as they are docked when

Elizabeth Truss

The coalition has stabilised childcare costs – so why do headlines suggest they’re rising?

You may have heard about the Family and Childcare Trust’s survey today, about the costs of childcare. You wouldn’t know it from the headlines but it actually found that in England, costs have fallen for the first time since the survey started 12 years ago. The figures in the report show that, after inflation, the cost of nurseries fell by two per cent, the cost of after-school clubs fell by five per cent, and the cost of a child-minder’s after-school pickup fell by a full 13 per cent. There is now mounting evidence that childcare costs have at last stabilised after more than a decade of rising prices. The health

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Ipsa’s costly pursuit of one MP undermines its purpose

Ipsa, never popular with MPs anyway, has done itself a disservice with its pursuit of Conservative MP Stewart Jackson over its demand that he hand over £54,000 to the expenses watchdog to reflect the increased value of his property that he had claimed mortgage interest support for. On Friday, Jackson, who had refused to pay, revealed that Ipsa had dropped the case after an independent valuer said there had been no rise in his property’s value. Jackson said: ‘The application of commonsense and some compromise on Ipsa’s part may have resolved the dispute much more expeditiously and without the cost to the taxpayer of more than £25,000 in legal fees,

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Why shouldn’t people have a flutter on the Pistorius trial?

You can bet on all manner of scummy things on Paddy Power: when Fergie and Andrew will remarry; how Julian Assange will leave the Ecuadorian embassy (odds for him leaving in a diplomatic bag are currently 20/1). Now you can also bet on the outcome of the Pistorius trial. I’ve got a fiver on the Blade Runner getting off. I jest. But given the extensive coverage lavished on the trial so far, is it any wonder that people are starting to have a flutter. The scrutiny has been astonishing – with live television and radio broadcasts available for anyone who cares. South Africa even has a 24-hour TV channel devoted to coverage