Society

Thursday

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 17 January 2013

I’m writing this on Monday morning and wow, what a weekend that was. The great and the good of the bridge world flocked to TGRs for its 4th Annual Auction Pairs. It’s the first time I’ve played in the event — and I felt like I’d died and gone to bridge heaven. Everywhere I looked there was a colossus of the game: Romania’s Bogdan Marina, France’s Paul Chemla, Icelanders Adalsteinn Jorgensen and Bjarni Einarsson, Zia Mahmood, Andrew Robson (or Lord Robbo as we call him since his New Year OBE for services to bridge)… In total, there were 70 pairs, and we were auctioned off for between £300 and £3,500,

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 17 January 2013

Q. I worked on the features desk of a newspaper for many years and had a desk in an office with dozens of colleagues around me every day. Now I freelance from home and do not meet any men — let alone other women. Mary, I do not fancy internet dating but what is your advice? — S.G., London W11 A. May I recommend combining your next holiday with a creative writing course? In this way you can kill three birds with one stone. You can get on with breaking the back of some non-commissioned writing you might be too lazy to do without a deadline; you can eat, drink,

Dot Wordsworth

Breaded cats

I don’t know whether people know what belling the cat means now. In an allusive language like ours, some references sink out of sight. But the old tale is that a council of mice resolved to hang a bell round a cat’s neck, to warn them of its approach. Which of them would have the temerity to hang the bell on the cat? The tale pre-dates Langland, who, in Piers Plowman in the 1370s, referred to the plan to get ‘a belle of brasse… And hangen it up-on the cattes hals’. (Hals is just an old word for ‘neck’, related to Latin collum, and our collar.) Langland doesn’t use the

Toby Young Toby Young

Real British education lives on in Kenya

Driving round Kenya, I’m constantly struck by the sheer number of schools. Every 500 yards there’s a hand-painted sign advertising the virtues of some ‘academy’ or other. The truly remarkable thing is that at least 10 per cent boast of teaching the ‘British curriculum’. The reason this is remarkable isn’t just because there’s no such thing as a ‘British curriculum’ and hasn’t been since responsibility for education policy was devolved to the UK’s regional parliaments. There’s an English National Curriculum that dates back to the last government, but it’s hardly the envy of the world. On the contrary, it’s a mishmash of New Labour gobbledegook about ‘skills’ and ‘diversity’ and

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 17 January 2013

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, brought forward his speech on new relations with the European Union from 22 January when it was realised that it was the 50th anniversary of the Elysée treaty between Germany and France. Britain went to war in Mali by sending two transport planes in support of the French invasion directed against Islamist groups. The rights of a British Airways employee, Nadia Eweida, had been violated by her being forbidden to wear a cross at work, the European Court of Human Rights ruled. But a marriage counsellor sacked for saying he might object to giving sex therapy advice to gay couples, a registrar who refused

Christopher Caldwell

Diary – 17 January 2013

Washington DC: My elegant and sociable mother-in-law received an email this week warning that, should she wander on to her balcony to smoke on Monday, somebody might shoot her. The Secret Service is eager that nothing should go awry when our president is inaugurated for his second term. The inaugural parade route stretches a dozen city blocks along Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol, where the president gets sworn in, to the White House. The route is lined with office buildings and museums. There are few apartments with a view of the street, and my mother-in-law lives in one of them. When my father-in-law was alive, they’d throw a big party on

The Spectator

Just the tickets

Kingsley Amis was never a fan of the Arts Council. Writing in this magazine almost 30 years ago, he described it as a ‘detestable and destructive body’ whose grants and bursaries ‘in effect pay producers, painters, writers and such in advance’. This, he wrote, ‘is a straight invitation to them to sod the public, whose ticket money they are no longer obliged to attract, and to seek the more immediate approval of their colleagues and friends instead.’ Thus state funding ends up strangling the very culture it purports to foster, leaving the country poorer artistically as well as financially. A valedictory speech delivered this week by Liz Forgan, the outgoing

The Spectator

Barometer | 17 January 2013

Equine dining Horsemeat was found in hamburgers sold by Tesco, among others. Why did eating horses become a taboo? — In the 8th century Pope Gregory III instructed St Boniface, missionary to Germany, to forbid the eating of horseflesh to those he converted to Christianity. — There has been no tradition of eating horsemeat in Britain, where ‘I could eat a horse’ is as an expression of desperate hunger. — Horsemeat has a slightly sweet taste, like a cross between beef and venison. — Abattoirs have become the principal means of disposal of unwanted horses in Ireland. They are also subject to seizure by local authorities, which sent 589 horses

Doc

2093: Leading lights | 17 January 2013

The unclued LIGHTS are LEADERS, verifiable under the entry for RULERS in Brewer. First prize Sandra Speak, Dursley, Glos Runners-up  P. and R. Dacre, York; Norma Jacobs, Linton, Wetherby

Doc

2096: New World Symphony

The unclued lights (two of two words and the remainder when paired) are of a specific kind.   Across 1 Kind, like 7A (11, hyphened) 7 Well-spaced to start with (3) 13 Mate with old cattle causing fuss (7) 15 Singer losing nothing in outskirts of Mellieha – here! (5) 17 Money expended swapping model railway components (6) 18 This setter considers cross (5) 20 Changing stance, performs (6) 22 Campoli’s sauce (7) 27 Cut fruit and drink (not hot) for bird (7) 29 Divers trousers for eccentrics (5) 30 Old quote for bit of gravel in garden path (6) 34 Ungenerous chap takes pound from girl (6) 36 Organised

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Hillary Clinton 2016? If she wants it, then yes. – Spectator Blogs

Yes, yes, yes, speculating about the 2016 Presidential election before Barack Obama has even begun his second term is a silly business. But so what? Silly things can be fun things. So Jonathan Bernstein attempts to answer a good question: if Hillary runs, would she knock most of her erstwhile rivals out of the race before the contest even reaches Iowa? His answer is sensible: maybe. But I think I’d be a little more certain than that and rate it probably. In 2000, after all, Bill Bradley was the only candidate to challenge Al Gore’s inheritance and Bradley’s campaign never looked like prevailing. Now Hillary isn’t quite as obviously “next

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Barack Obama’s Gun Control Measures: Harmless but Ineffective – Spectator Blogs

Barack Obama’s response to the horror of Sandy Hook was entirely predictable, largely unobjectionable and most unlikely to make much of a difference to very much at all. Politics as usual, then. If the President had the air of a man dusting off a long-closed folder marked “Standard Democratic proposals for gun control” then, well, that’s because that’s pretty much what he was doing. Perhaps there was a sheepish air to his performance too, the look of a man who would have liked to do this long ago but lacked the opportunity – or desire – to risk venturing into this field. Nevertheless, none of the gun-measures Obama announced yesterday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tim Loughton vs the Department for Education

In a week where the inner workings of Whitehall have rarely been out of the news, Tim Loughton’s evidence to the Education Select Committee has made a particular splash. As Isabel reported yesterday, Loughton criticised the way the department was run and claimed that the children and families agenda ‘was a declining priority’ in his time there and had been ‘greatly downgraded since the reshuffle.’ Inside the Department of Education, there’s real irritation at Loughton’s comments. One senior Department for Education source launched the following broadside: ‘Tim Loughton opposed transparency on child protection and sided with those all over the country who want to maintain a culture of secrecy. He

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22: Obama, the Pacific president

On this week’s View from 22 podcast, the Spectator’s assistant editor Freddy Gray discusses his cover feature on Barack Obama, who he argues is becoming the pacific-centric president. Although America has given us the impression they are angry with a potential EU withdrawal, Freddy concludes that Uncle Sam is just not that into us. When did this new attitude start emerging? And would it be any different under a Mitt Romney administration? James Forsyth also provides an update on David Cameron’s rapidly-approaching EU speech and asks whether the whole thing is a year too late. Will all the Tory party troubles be forgotten and will the speech be it be

Michael Henderson

Tom Courtenay vs fame

‘You can’t talk about what might have been,’ says Tom Courtenay, reflecting on an acting career that blazed like a meteor the moment he left drama school and is now in its sixth decade. ‘The things you might have done, the films you might have made. I just didn’t feel comfortable with the world of international cinema. I saw a bit of it, the so-called hellraising and what have you, and realised it wasn’t for me’. Not talking about the things he chose not to do doesn’t mean there is nothing to talk about. A trim 75, Courtenay has enjoyed a life blessed with good things, from the day he

Carol Sarler

The mother myth

Here she comes again. Back at the top of the news, draped in the robes of the righteous, embraced by those who sanctify all things traditional: the ‘full-time mother’. As usual, she is the undeserved victim of something or other; in this instance, it’s the incoherent shake-up of the child benefit system, leading to headlines declaring that ‘full-time mothers are being penalised’, followed by an implacable wistfulness that war is once again waged against the finer values of a finer past, when women dedicated their whole lives to their children. The trouble with this lament, much as I hate to spoil the Hovis commercial, is that they did nothing of

Bruce Anderson

Off the wagon

Like half of London, I gave the new year a surly greeting. It was time to diet. There are two sorts of diets. First, the ones that may work for girls. Breakfast, part of a lettuce leaf. Lunch, the leftovers from breakfast. Supper, some cottage cheese with watercress. Second, boys’ diets, which all concentrate on avoiding carbohydrate. That is not easy. We all enjoy sinking our gnashers in a warm bread roll, liberally buttered, and good pasta is a culinary glory. That said, il faut souffrir pour être beau — and at least with a high-protein diet you can have something to eat. There is a downside. The boys’ regimes

Simon Hoggart

January Mini-bar

Some people think that Southwold, that tranquil seaside town in Suffolk, is hopelessly middle class. So what? I love it. I like staying in the Swan hotel, with its great gilt swan on the outside, eating from the adventurous menu in the Crown, walking on the eccentric pier, admiring the strand of beach huts, and I really enjoy going to the Adnams Cellar and Kitchen Shop, one of those stores where you want to buy everything. Especially the wine. Adnams’ choices match, I believe, the tastes of Spectator readers, being full-flavoured while subtle, piquant yet satisfying, altogether delicious. To draw you in, they have knocked a generous tenner off the