Society

Thursday

13 Feb 2014

The martyrdom of Mark Steyn

When I first read, many months ago, that the notorious US climate scientist Michael Mann was suing the notorious right-wing bastard Mark Steyn for defamation, I admit that I felt a little piqued. Obviously a libel trial is not something any sane person would wish to court; and naturally I’m a massive fan of Steyn’s. Nevertheless, after all the work I’ve dedicated over the years to goading Mann, I found it a bit bloody annoying that Steyn — a relative latecomer to the climate change debate — should have been the one who ended up stealing all my courtroom glory. What made me doubly jealous was that this was a

Rod Liddle

We buy dogs to reflect ourselves. So who’s buying all these killer pitbulls?

I’ve called the doggie hospital three times now to find out how Jessie’s getting on. She’s just come round, at the time of writing. I think it’s partly guilt which makes me keep ringing up: we’re paying to have her ovaries ripped out with a small hook-like device, which seems to me a betrayal of the trust shown in us by the dog. She thought she was just going for a quick ride in the car and clearly didn’t understand why everyone was being so nice to her, so solicitous. Seven months old and, before her first season, she is being deprived of the undoubted pleasures of being on heat.

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes: What shall we call the Country Formerly Known as Britain?

Last week, David Cameron said that we have ‘seven months to save the most extraordinary country in history’. He meant the United Kingdom. It was a powerful speech, part of a welcome and overdue campaign to make us all think about what is at stake in the referendum on Scottish independence. It seems strange to argue that the loss of less than 10 per cent of the population would bring this country to an end, and yet I do really suspect it might be so. Mr Cameron did not touch on the question of what the nation, minus Scotland, might be called, perhaps because he does not know and is fearful

White Dee

White Dee’s diary: From Benefits Street to Downing Street?

There’s no reason why you should have heard of me. No reason why you would have watched a Channel 4 television series called Benefits Street — with a title like that, I’d have changed channel if it came on my telly. But they didn’t tell us the title when they wanted to spend 18 months filming on our street. For reasons I can’t pretend to understand, five million people tuned in. It’s supposed to be the biggest hit Channel 4 have had since The Snowman. A fairly normal bunch of people — myself, Fungi, Black Dee, Becky and Mark — have become reality TV stars. It’s like Big Brother, except

The Spectator

Britain needs small government, not weak government. That means strong flood defences

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_13_February_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Christopher Booker discusses the failures behind the floods” startat=61] Listen [/audioplayer]There is nothing inevitable about the by now familiar sight of residents being towed away from flooded homes, of shops and businesses submerged, and all the misery and economic turmoil which follows. A short hop across the North Sea is a country which has been having much the same weather as we have recently and has even more low-lying land vulnerable to flooding. Yet there has been a remarkable lack of footage of Dutch homeowners being forced to gather their possessions and flee their homes. Why? After a devastating storm surge in 1953, the Dutch made huge investments

Jonathan Ray

The Marche

When I first visited the Marche a dozen years ago, folk who knew about such things tapped their noses and confidently predicted that it was to be Italy’s ‘next big thing’. The British would tire of Tuscany and Umbria, they said, and would head in Boden-clad hordes further east. They said exactly the same thing when I returned five years later and yet again more recently. The invasion has yet to happen. Few of the top travel companies push or promote the Marche and the Brits have stayed wedded to Chiantishire. I really can’t understand why. After all, the Marche has everything that Tuscany and Umbria have. There are handsome

Mark Palmer

Warning: upspeak can wreck your career

A few weeks ago, I accompanied my daughter to an Open Day at Roehampton College, where she is hoping to start a teacher training course in September. I enjoyed it — and was impressed by the broad mix of motivated young men and women who, if all goes well, will soon be teaching the next generation of primary school children. Towards the end of the afternoon, the co-ordinator said she wanted to offer a few tips about the interview process that would begin once all the applications have been submitted. It turned out she had only one main tip: avoid upspeak. She stressed the point vigorously. Indeed, her message for

Cosmo Landesman

I’m nearly 60. I’m still interested in sex. Is that a problem?

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_13_February_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Cosmo Landesman and Mary Wakefield discuss what defines a ‘dirty old man'” startat=683] Listen [/audioplayer] The other day I casually remarked to my ex-wife that our son’s new teacher is ‘really hot’. She gave me a look of disgust, shook her head and said, ‘You dirty old man!’ It’s not the first time I’ve been called that, and usually I just keep smiling and stay silent. But this time I bridled. Recently, in two separate courtrooms, both Dave Lee Travis and Bill Roache had been denounced as ’dirty old men’. OK, I confess: maybe I did emit a ‘phwhoar!’ or two too many for my ex’s taste —

Clarissa Tan

Britain has many major problems – racism isn’t one of them

I am a banana. In Singapore, where I used to live, this needs no explanation — it means I’m yellow on the outside but white on the inside, someone who looks ethnically Chinese but whose way of thinking is ‘western’. There are bananas all over Asia, and I daresay the world. We are better versed in Shakespeare than Confucius, our Mandarin is appalling, and we often have pretentious Anglo or American accents. Then there are people who are ‘ching-chong’, a reference to anyone who enjoys the kitschy bling of stereotypically Chinese things, sans irony — they like paving their entire garden with cement, for example, or driving a huge Mercedes,

Alain De Botton

Why I’ve started my own Mail Online

There are good reasons for serious people to despair of the news. A minor country singer dies, and the BBC gives him the front page. An actor dies and every channel mourns him as if a president had expired. There’s one final fact that particularly sticks in the throat of serious news people: the most followed news website in the English language, by an enormous factor, is the Mail Online, purveyor of a stream of appalling ‘human interest’ stories of the lowest kind. The clear temptation is to withdraw into the bunker and lament the decadence of a ruined age. This would be a big mistake. We can face the

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: What do I do now I haven’t sent a thank-you letter?

Q. Over New Year I stayed with a man who combines being a generous and exciting host with a punctilious need for swift, hand-written appreciation. I had every intention of writing as soon as I got home, but my parents said an email wouldn’t do. However, since we were collected from the airport I didn’t have the address and postcode (he lives abroad); also, I didn’t know what his correct title was for the envelope, and I didn’t know what stamp to put on. Then, when I finally had the information, I was told, ‘He gets even more enraged by late letters than by no letters at all.’ I am sure

Raymond Keene

Georgics

George Osborne is a supporter of chess. During the award ceremony at 11 Downing St for last year’s London Candidates’ tournament, he told me that as a teenager he attended the Kasparov v. Karpov world championship at London’s Park Lane Hotel in 1986, which I assisted in organising. Appropriately, the Tory party chairman Sir Jeremy Hanley had persuaded Margaret Thatcher to open the championship. ‘Why on earth should I want to open a chess match?’ she asked. ‘Because,’ Sir Jeremy replied, ‘they are crazy about chess in the USSR and you will be on the front pages of all their papers the day after.’ ‘So how can I resist?’ came

Raymond Keene

no. 301

White to play. This position is from Carlsen-Caruana, Zurich 2014. White’s pin against the black rook and the passed pawn on d7 are the key components of his winning combination. What did he play? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 18 February or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. The winner will be the first correct answer out of a hat, and each week I shall be offering a prize of £20. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1 Qh5 Last week’s winner Mark Lunt, Hong Kong

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: as the waters continue to rise

Home Floods grew worse in the West Country. The village of Moorland, Somerset, was abandoned. Then the Thames flooded, from above Oxford to Teddington. Eventually, David Cameron, the Prime Minister, declared from Downing Street: ‘Money is no object in this relief effort.’ Some 1,600 troops were deployed. By midweek 1,000 houses had been evacuated. A storm had broken the rail line from Cornwall at Dawlish, which would take months to mend, as would the broken line from Barmouth to Criccieth. Landslides closed lines between Tonbridge and Hastings, between Machynlleth and Welshpool, and from Portsmouth via Eastleigh. Villagers at Wraysbury, Berkshire, complained of looting of abandoned houses. Eric Pickles, the Communities

The Spectator

Barometer: The kamikaze pilot who retired after three missions

A kamikaze pilot at 80 The Japanese city of Minami-Kyushu was attacked for wanting to add the letters of 1,036 kamikaze pilots who died on suicide missions in the second world war to a UN archive. Not all kamikaze pilots died, and a few are still alive. — Shigeyoshi Hamazono, who is now in his eighties, achieved the unique distinction of surviving three kamikaze missions. — In the first two he developed technical problems with his plane and turned back. This did not lead to court-martial but to his being sent on a third mission. — On this occasion he was intercepted by US fighters before he could find his

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 13 February 2014

A couple of Sundays ago, in London, Zia Mahmood and Demetri Marchessini held the first ever ‘Goulash Individual’ tournament. ‘Goulash’ deals involve wild distributions of suits — and the day was bizarre and fun in equal measure. Several superstars flew in to play, including 86-year-old Benito Garozzo, 13 times world champion, and 28-year-old Marion Michielsen, arguably today’s best female player. Everyone partnered everyone for two boards; on this deal, my great pal Neil Mendoza got to play with Zia — but not altogether successfully: North’s spectacular opening was passed round to Zia (West), who made a ‘Lightner’ double, asking for a ruff. Had Neil (East) been sure that’s what

Dot Wordsworth

A learned poet’s mystifying mistakes

I enjoy Poetry Please, but was shouting mildly at the wireless the other day when a northern woman poet was using the whining intonation that some seem to think the proper voice in which to recite verse. So I was glad that Bernard O’Donoghue came on, with an accent formed by a childhood in Co. Cork. His poem ‘Gerund’ was about an only child who ‘grew up in a county council cottage by the roadside’ but was allowed to go on to secondary education (as many in Ireland then did not) because of his intelligence. At school, the poem says: ‘When Joe Garvey asked/ “What part of speech is desperandum?”,/

Doc

2149: Super!

Each of the unclued lights (one of two words and one of three) can be preceded by the same word which solvers must state when submitting their entry. All resulting phrases are verifiable in Brewer 19th edition. Across 1 Detached from musical backed by censor (8) 6 Thoroughfares more important than Norfolk waterways, apparently (6, hyphened) 11 Copy of period furniture with small repeat and gold backing (5) 14 Overtake again taking time out from meals (6) 16 Public showing Eastern cross by river (4) 17 Cake with bit of icing authorised at first for Athenian assembly (8) 21 They give out decorations without bits of ice (8)

Fraser Nelson

Sales of The Spectator: 2013 H2

It’s that time of year again, where The Spectator‘s circulation figures are out – and our success continues. In October, I announced that we had more than one million unique visitors in a month. This week, we passed the 1.3 million mark with more than 3.2 million pageviews — something even I didn’t expect. Here’s how our analytics look: Interestingly, a quarter of our traffic now comes through social media. Another 26 per cent is from search engines, up from 20 per cent last year. Google, Twitter, Facebook and Flipboard are fast becoming the new newsagent – people can browse headlines, click what they like and discover for themselves that The

The Spectator