Society

Thursday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: how can I help pay for an expensive lunch without seeming rude?

Q. My husband and I (both in our eighties) recently visited a carpet shop with a view to replacing the stair carpet in our four-storey house. The salesman showed us various carpets and we discussed their relative merits. When I asked him how hard-wearing a particular carpet was, he looked at us carefully and said: ‘Well, it is not going to need to be very long-lasting is it?’ We were a bit surprised and will be taking our business elsewhere. But can you suggest how we might have been able to indicate to him politely that this particular form of words was unlikely to secure a sale? – R.H., Cheltenham

Robin Oakley

Amo Racing’s Flat supremacy

You don’t often walk into a racing yard and find the trainer engrossed with two owners –apropos of horse names – discussing the role in the French Revolution of Count Mirabeau,  but Dominic Ffrench Davis is a rounded man. When I first met Dominic 25 years ago he was a young start-up trainer who’d had to wait a year for a couple of winners. But these days he is being noticed for more than just the unusual moniker (worked into the family line by a female forbear with a touch of grandeur who didn’t fancy being just another Davis). Top trainers argue that they would rather have four £50,000 horses

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

‘Vital but fraying’: Five Guys reviewed

Five Guys is a burger house from Arlington, Virginia, based on the premise that if you can serve a drink, cut a fringe, or make a hamburger, you will always make money in America. Thirty years and 1,700 restaurants later, it sits on Coventry Street off Piccadilly, soaking up the alcohol of a thousand British stomachs. If central London is a strip-lit bin alley between palaces, this is its restaurant: vital but fraying. I am here because I will not eat at McDonald’s, even when I am sad. I do not think my McDonald’s burger is all from the same cow, and this disturbs me: I can eat one cow happily,

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 04 May 2024

Whenever we play a team’s tournament, fielded by sponsors, the sponsor (given choice) makes a beeline for me and I understand why. They probably think they will be shark fodder against a very aggressive pair of Internationals and will be swallowed whole. One Sponsor told her teammate to try and arrange for me to play against her or she would sit out the match. But it doesn’t always work to their advantage! It’s difficult to explain why playing against strong opposition is, in many ways, easier than playing poor opponents. Strong players always have a logical reason for their actions, while weaker ones are more random. Take this hand from

Dot Wordsworth

Can MPs really defect? 

‘He did it years before William Donaldson did The Henry Root Letters,’ said my husband querulously, as though I had accused him on peak-time television of saying the opposite. The ‘he’ in question was Humphry Berkeley, who as a Cambridge undergraduate just after the second world war pursued an elaborate hoax by assuming the identity of a fictional public school headmaster, Rochester Sneath, to write embarrassing letters to the famous, eliciting risible replies. The collection was not published until 1974. The Henry Root Letters were published in 1980. Berkeley wrote another book about leaving the Conservatives and joining Labour, published in 1972. It was called Crossing the Floor. The title

Olivia Potts Olivia Potts

How to make ham and parsley sauce

Poor old parsley sauce. As someone who writes regularly about old-fashioned food, it often feels that we are living through a golden revival of vintage dishes. You can’t move for cookbook concepts pinned on comfort and nostalgia, or restaurants attempting to take the diner on some kind of Proustian journey. Whether it’s nursery food, school dinners, classical bistro French cooking, hyper-regional food, or the polarising ‘reinvention’ of any of the above, old-fashioned ingredients are in vogue again. In trendy restaurants menus are littered with rabbit, offal, marmalade, boozy prunes; with steamed suet puddings (sweet and savoury), duck à l’orange, prawn cocktails, rice pudding, hand-raised pies… Ten years ago, devilled eggs

Alexandra Shulman

Tennis is sexy again

For 50 years, I’ve avoided wearing anything resembling formal tennis kit but in a rather lame way, I’ve been seduced by the current tenniscore fashion movement. Although tennis is my only sport, I’ve never owned whites, but a rather fabulous white – actually ecru – tennis ‘skort’ has arrived in the post. I only just prevented myself from adding a V-neck white sweater with navy trim to the order. Now I’ve just got to get on the court for the first time this year and stop with the shopping. Sadly, there is absolutely no resemblance at all between how I look in this hybrid of shorts and skirt to the

Sean Thomas

Paris, city of blight

You know that feeling when you haven’t seen someone for several years and when you do, you really notice the changes? Generally it is a melancholy moment: you spot the extra wrinkles, the added pounds. Occasionally it can be positive: gym-toned physique, amusing new green-and-orange hair. Lots of us had these moments as we emerged, blinking and bewildered, from the bunker of Covid. I’ve just had this same experience, but with a city. Paris. The French capital is a place that I know well. I must have visited a dozen times over the decades. I’ve seen the Louvre Pyramid go up, I’ve seen Notre-Dame go down in flames (on TV,

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Migration reality is biting in Ireland

Iwas trying to work out which event gave me a greater sense of euphoria and contentment – the fall of Humza Yousaf or the birth of my daughter – when suddenly the Irish got themselves into a most terrible paddy and easily eclipsed both for sheer, untrammelled glee. This is turning into a very good year, although I daresay my permasmirk will be wiped clean towards the end of it. It is rare in politics for policies to have such an immediate effect that one can justifiably say: ‘See? Told you.’ But that is what has happened with the Rwanda stuff. Those who have argued that sending illegal asylum seekers

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week: Yousaf resigns, Charles resumes duties and Poulter joins Labour

Home Humza Yousaf resigned as the First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National party, posts he had held since the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon last year. He had precipitated confidence votes by terminating an arrangement with the seven Scottish Green MSPs. Royal Mail stopped imposing £5 penalties on letters with stamps deemed to be counterfeit after suspicions that China had produced many. Nigel Railton, the former chief executive of the Lottery operator Camelot, was appointed interim chairman of the Post Office. The Abu Dhabi-backed investment fund RedBird IMI abandoned its attempt to buy the Telegraph and The Spectator, which will now be up for sale. The King

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Europe has no answer to its immigration problem

Pulling off the rhetorical trick that Brexit would undermine the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement, Michel Barnier, the EU negotiator, said in 2018 that the agreement meant removing borders not only from maps, ‘but also in minds’. Even a single CCTV camera on the North-South roads was considered a threat to the peace process. Now it turns out, which is grimly amusing, that the Irish government has not banished the border from its mind. The Republic is upset that asylum seekers are crossing the border that it does not believe in, fleeing the threat of deportation to Rwanda from the United Kingdom. It talks of sending them back, ignoring a

Luke McShane

Chess on the telly

What is it like to play chess? Once in a while, I try to convey the atmosphere of a competitive chess tournament to someone who has never witnessed it. I liken it to sitting an exam, in that it lasts for hours and makes your brain hurt; at least everyone can relate to that. But that fails to explain why you would want to do it. So I also mention the thrill of a mental cage-fight, which resonates with some while horrifying others, and then I sow confusion by adding that the game is deeply beautiful. Here’s hoping that Chess Masters, an eight-episode series to be broadcast on BBC2 next

Luke McShane

No. 799

Black to play. Adorjan-Lobron, the Master Game Final, London 1982. White’s far advanced b-pawn looks likely to win the game, but Lobron’s next move turned the tables. What did he play? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 6 May. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1 Bc6!, e.g. 1…Kxc6 2 Qe6# or 1…exf6 2 Qxf6# or 1…e5 2 Qd7# or 1…e6 2 Qc5# Last week’s winner Michael Blott, Fulbourn, Cambridge

Victoria Lane

Spectator Competition: Nursery crimes

Comp. 3347 invited you to write a hard-boiled nursery rhyme. This inevitably led many to think of Humpty Dumpty, hence his multiple appearances (the consensus is he didn’t fall, he was pushed). Philip Marlowe was smouldered at by various femmes fatales including Little Bo Peep and Miss Muffet. A special mention goes to David Silverman’s scandi-noir Måry Had a Little Lamb/Five Little Ducks: ‘D.I. Lund surveyed Nyhavn from the discomfort of an Ektorp chair. One candle lit the gloom, which was decidedly un-hyggelig.’ Some strayed from the brief enjoyably. The winners, printed below, get £25 each. There was no ducking it: I had to go down to the woods today

Doc

2652: A and M

The unclued Across lights are of a kind, as are the related unclued Down lights. The yellow and red squares, when read in order row by row, confirm the theme.         Across    1    Feel rip-off by stewards providing obligatory features on board (4,10) 11    Section of grammar review of Aeneid (three chapters) (9) 17    Pulling evenly, stripped part of a bone (5) 20    Vintage model – it crashed (3-4) 21    Daub top layers of special paint on gatehouse (7) 24    Threaten to drive around small state (7) 25    Learn about description of organ (5) 26    Passions and fashions! (5) 28    Small middle-distance runners are happy folk (7) 31   

The Spectator

2649: Shut up shop – solution

The unclued lights, with the pairs at 1D/18, 17/6A and 26D/5, are stores which are no longer trading. First prize George Kingston, Sutton under Brailes, Oxon Runners-up Mrs J. Smith, Beeston, Kings Lynn, Norfolk; C. Stafford and F. Daniels, Cremorne, NSW, Australia

Wednesday

Jason M. Brodsky

The Gaza student protestors have emboldened America’s enemies

For the past few weeks, protests have rocked college campuses across the United States over Israel’s war against Hamas. Last night, police raided Columbia University to remove students occupying one of its buildings, while violence has broken out between protesting groups at UCLA in California. It is only when Israel is defending itself against rapists and murderers that there is this degree of frenzied hysteria across universities The pro-Palestine demonstrators portray themselves as defenders of human rights and social justice – viewing Israel through the warped lens of anti-colonialism and intersectionality. But in reality they have been amplifying the messaging of US-sanctioned terrorist organisations like Hamas. These entities have the blood of Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians on

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

What should we make of Russell Brand’s baptism?

Could Russell Brand, who has just been baptised, become a significant Christian figure? I suppose he could become a sort of British televangelist, God help us. But significant in a good way? It’s not impossible: he’s sharp and charismatic, and taps in to a major English spiritual tradition. But it’s not likely either: our culture needs figures who model wise restraint rather than juvenile hedonism, and Brand can’t entirely undo his image. Brand can probably never lose the aura of sleazy preening libertine Brand issued a video after being baptised in the Thames on Sunday, in which he said he had found his ‘path’ and was left feeling ‘incredibly blessed’ and

Tuesday

Alexander Larman

The reassuring return of King Charles

Illness, like death, is society’s greatest leveller, and so the news that the King had been affected by cancer led to an outpouring of sympathy and compassion that few other circumstances might prompt. Since he came forward earlier this year to share his diagnosis, Charles – sometimes seen as a remote and inaccessible figure, especially when Prince of Wales – has acquired a universality and straightforwardness that may have been present before, but was largely concealed beneath protocol and a quick temper. Now, he has acquired the common touch. It was this accessibility that was on full display today as he visited the Macmillan Cancer Centre at University College Hospital.

James Kirkup James Kirkup

Why are police officers slow to respond to domestic abuse call-outs?

Popping out to buy milk the other night, I saw how women die. My nearest local shop in south-west London, the place I go for last-minute and forgotten groceries, is an M&S at a petrol station. It sells fuel, overpriced food and coffee. It’s open late. As I queued to pay for my semi-skimmed just before 7 p.m., I noticed a couple of police constables – one male, one female – waiting for coffee. Their marked car was parked outside, though not at a pump; they’d evidently stopped just for the coffee. Did the time it takes to get a coffee, pick a snack, and pay for it cost a woman