David Yelland, a former Sun editor turned a PR director, is today giving a lecture to Hacked Off’s parent group lamenting what he sees as the absence of proper press regulation. He was invited on the Today programme to talk about it, and they kindly invited me on afterwards. Here’s the audio: listen to ‘David Yelland: Journalism in the UK is ‘lions led by donkeys’’ on Audioboo
New York Nature is at her best right now, the leaves still holding, Central Park awash in golden browns and reds. I go there every morning, half a block away from home, and under a giant elm I put the creaky body through its paces. Twenty push-ups, 30 deep knee-bends, 25 kicks over a knee-high bar with each leg, and finish with 25 punches against a leaf for speed and accuracy. Then a quiet walk and back to the flat for breakfast and the papers. At six in the evening I walk to the dojo and mix it up rather hard with karate sensei Richard Amos and other black
Can it be that the one single agreeable thing about getting old is that one loses one’s pot paranoia? No. I thought I was going to get away with it, but here it came again like a creeping fog: the terrible introspection, the loss of identity, the psychic disintegration, the paranoid delusions. And here already, I noted, was the paralysing delusion that I am rooted to the spot and somehow tied to the company by a bond of loyalty, to the extent that even to uncross my legs and leave the beer-garden table would feel like a terrible betrayal. It’s horrible. I hate it. My immediate task was to try
Everything is a journey now, especially if it involves failure. The X Factor rejects, people having disasters as they build their own homes on Grand Designs, they’re all on a journey. ‘It’s been an incredible journey,’ they say, watery-eyed as they reflect on what is, in truth, a shameful mess of their own making. Very much in this vein, a new communication from Lambeth Council has come through my door explaining ‘the recycling journey’. Bear with me, because I want you to come on this journey in order to fully grasp the beautiful symmetry of what Lambeth has achieved. Imagine a flow chart made up of eight photographs. The first
Back home from a week in Italy, I almost feel that I haven’t left. For I go almost at once to Milton Keynes to see Donizetti’s quintessentially Italian opera, L’elisir d’amore. It is a superb, joyous production by the Glyndebourne Tour company, one of which any great international opera house would have been proud. And here it is being performed in Milton Keynes, not a town generally associated with cultural sophistication. But then ‘Das Land ohne Musik’, as England was once cruelly called by a German music scholar, is now awash with opera. It has been spread across the land by country opera festivals, springing up everywhere in imitation of
‘Yikes! I’ve been Grosvenored!’ This is a wail you will hear from time to time when a Declarer has been ‘had’ by the dreaded Grosvenor Gambit. It is explained in The Official Encyclopaedia of Bridge as follows: ‘A humorous psychological ploy described by Frederick Turner of Los Angeles in The Bridge World 1973. A defender deliberately makes an error, giving the Declarer an opportunity he refuses because he expects a rational defence. The hope is that the declaring side will be demoralised on later deals.’ In last weekend’s Tollemache Cup qualifier, the inter-county championships for teams of eight, Victor Silverstone, playing for Middlesex, gave us a perfect example of a
The long-discussed meeting between a group of climate scientists and Fellows of the Royal Society on the one side, and me and some colleagues from my think-tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation on the other, has now at last taken place. It was held behind closed doors in a committee room at the House of Lords, the secrecy — no press present — at the insistence of the Royal Society Fellows, an insistence I find puzzling given the clear public interest in the issue of climate change in general and climate change policy in particular. The origins go back almost a year, to a lecture by the president of the
Magnus Carlsen has become the 16th world chess champion, taking the title with three wins, seven draws and no losses, the most convincing win in a title match since Capablanca defeated Lasker in 1921. Norway’s Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, congratulated the new champion on live TV, Scandinavian Airlines decorated a plane in chessboard livery in Carlsen’s honour, while Norway in general erupted in wild jubilation. I left the match last week before games seven and eight, which resulted in steady draws, then in game 9, on the precipice of defeat, Anand went for the jugular. Anand-Carlsen; Chennai (Game 9) 2013 (diagram 1) In the above position, with chances
The grim tales of ‘modern slavery’ that are currently emerging across the UK make one wonder whether ancient Roman slavery was preferable. The fact that it was institutionalised means that it could, if you were lucky, be endurable. There was nothing secretive about slavery in Rome. It was felt to be part of the natural order of things — some people were ‘born’ to be slaves — and that was that. As ‘property’, without any legal status, a slave could be treated in any way his or her master liked: tortured, whipped or executed. Over time, however, some degree of legal protection was permitted. Nero ruled that slaves could bring
Scandal at the Co-op Sir: Martin Vander Weyer makes a good point. The Revd Paul Flowers may be a flawed individual, but he is not responsible for Co-op Bank’s woes (Any Other Business, 23 November). His appointment might be symptomatic of a complacency about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ banking that suited certain politicians, but surely now we need a full inquiry into the Lloyds takeover of HBOS and the Co-op takeover of Britannia. I would also like to see the terms compared to the Santander acquisition of Bradford & Bingley. The true scandal is the collusion of politicians, regulators and senior bankers. In the meantime, I hope Paul Flowers gets the
Damn and blast. I was quite keen on becoming the Conservative candidate for Hammersmith, but the timing isn’t going to work. My hope was that the local association would delay advertising for a candidate until next year, at which point I would have thrown my hat into the ring. Unfortunately, they’re keen to get someone in place straightaway and I have too much on my plate at present. That sounds like an excuse, but it isn’t. If the Conservative candidate in Hammersmith is to have any hope of overturning Andrew Slaughter’s 3,500 majority, he or she must devote themselves body and soul to the fight. Slaughter has no life outside
White to play. This position is a variation from Anand-Carlsen, Chennai (Game 9). White is on the verge of delivering checkmate but the Black b-pawn is about to promote. White needs an accurate move here. What is it? Answers to me at The Spectator by Monday 2 December 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 … Ne5 Last week’s winner Jeff Aronson, Oxford
Q. My egregious mother-in-law turns 80 this December. She is not short of a bob but for one of my birthdays (the big one) she sent me a card with the equivalent of A$20 (£12). This is normally what your children receive from their grandparents, not what a mature adult expects. I normally do not send her anything for her birthday but what would be the best way to make a point for her 80th? Send her a card with the same amount of money? Or could you propose an alternative strategy to show her that her gesture was, to say the least, the action of a stingy and parsimonious
Third-class thinking A report by the Institute of Economic Affairs recommended standing-room-only third-class carriages as an alternative to longer trains and platforms. What was third-class rail travel originally like? — Until the 1844 Railway Act third-class travel generally meant an open carriage with holes drilled in the floor to let the rainwater out. The Act demanded that all carriages conveying humans be covered. Seats were usually provided. — In 1872 the Midland Railway became to first company to abolish second class, by removing leather seat backs from second-class carriages and adding leather upholstery to the seats of third-class carriages. Of human bondage Three women were found apparently living in slavery
One Canada Square was the original glass house in east London’s Gotham City, a thrilling tower with a flashing pyramid on that part of the Thames that looks like a despairing U-bend. The Daily Telegraph used to live here, on floors 11 and 12, when I was a gossip columnist; there was no floor 13, architects being afraid of beauty, and also of witches. I love Canary Wharf, and One Canada Square in particular; I always wonder — will it ever be an ancient building? Or will the flood waters overwhelm it? It is like midtown Manhattan, but less substantial, and twice as lost. It is the second tallest building
‘Here,’ said my husband, chucking a folded-back copy of the Daily Telegraph to me, ‘this’ll interest you.’ For once he was right. It was a reader’s letter. ‘My distress at the Paul Flowers debacle (I am a Methodist) has been increased by the BBC and others referring to “the Reverend Flowers”,’ wrote Lesley Barnes of Henfield, West Sussex. ‘As your paper, at least, is aware, this man is the Revd Paul Flowers or Mr Flowers, but never Revd Flowers. Even our Eton-educated Prime Minister seems not to know this.’ It distressed me too. Even George Parker of the Financial Times was at it on Radio 4. Where have these people
Home Alex Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland, outlined Scottish National Party plans for independence, which included keeping the pound and armed forces of 15,000, replacing the BBC with the Scottish Broadcasting Service and introducing random breath tests. The Ministry of Defence said it would investigate claims that in 1972 an Army plainclothes undercover unit shot dead people in Northern Ireland unconnected with paramilitary activity. A bomb containing 132lbs of home-made explosives failed to go off properly in a car parked at Victoria Square in central Belfast. Rape at the hands of under-age perpetrators is seen as ‘normal and inevitable’ among children in some areas, according to the Office of
Fanciful predictions of all the deaths that will result from climate change, decades into the future, are regularly thrown into public debate. Less attention has been given to a real statistic from the here and now, released by the Office of National Statistics this week, which shows the effects of one of the policies designed to tackle climate change: high energy prices. It emerged this week that there were 31,000 ‘excess’ deaths in England and Wales last winter, almost a third more than the previous year. Almost all were, in effect, British pensioners who died of the cold. It’s odd: Britain is a rich country with a massive welfare state
The unclued lights (all but two of two words) are of a kind, listed in Chambers 2011. Elsewhere, ignore one accent. Across 1 Race to leave car in protected area (12, two words) 10 Regular car rides to Irish peninsula (4) 12 Able to include one opposing support (10) 14 Everything’s satisfactory returning the acacia (3) 17 Pillar of Hercules unknown in Gaelic Scotland, on reflection (5) 18 Reversion to type in songbird, head to tail (7) 22 Phoenician goddess is with husband, 28 (6) 24 Bird in river and lough (5) 29 Diminutive confection without number, it may
