Society

Thursday

Alexander Chancellor

Excited by finding fairy eggs

One ‘bridge too far’ should have been enough, but it looks to me as if Michael Gove has already embarked on a second one with his new plan to tackle obesity in schools. Despite having been forced to drop his cherished proposal for an ‘English baccalaureate’, the Education Secretary is reported to be preparing to tell young schoolchildren what they are allowed to eat and what they aren’t, and to compel them to take lessons in cookery. The resistance, I predict, will be at least as formidable as that of the teachers and civil servants who sank the baccalaureate project. For without resorting to totalitarian measures, it is almost impossible

Robin Oakley

Profit and loss | 14 February 2013

In his days as Foreign Secretary Robin Cook once told me that every politician should have a spell as a racing tipster to teach him humility — he tried it for the Glasgow Herald. I am not sure it worked the full miracle in his case, but racing is a true leveller with triumph and disaster as closely interlocked as the English and Irish scrums through their 80 minutes of mud-wrestling last weekend. On Monday last week, the most exciting hurdler in training, J.P. McManus’s Darlan, trained by Nicky Henderson, came to the final obstacle at Doncaster full of running. One mis-step and the ante-post favourite for the Champion Hurdle

The Spectator

Barometer | 14 February 2013

Takes all sports The government is to introduce a new strategy for sport in schools. To what educational ends can sport be used? — ‘Using Sport to Tackle Youth Crime’ US qualification for the over-14s — ‘Maths Through Sport — boost your pupils’ maths levels through physical activity and sport’. Active Learning Programme — ‘Using sport for drug-use prevention’ Paper by United Nations’ Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention — ‘Women Win spotlights the harmful traditional practice of female genital mutilation (cutting) and how the strategy of using sport can play a powerful role in shifting cultural practices’. — ‘Harnessing the popularity of sport to run HIV prevention programmes’ Washington-based Grassroot

Raymond Keene

Francophilia

Any book by the erudite Steve Giddins is an event and he has now produced a valuable guide to the popular Winawer Variation of the French Defence, championed by the eponymous Simon Winawer, as well as  Nimzowitsch, Botvinnik, Petrosian and Korchnoi. The Winawer gives up the bishop pair early on in most lines, seeking to exploit the doubled white c-file pawns which frequently arise. It is a line for those who prefer the counter attack rather than equalising defence. Interestingly, the computer has proved a great friend to the Winawer, since Black’s strategy often hangs by a complex tactical thread, which computer analysis can justify. This theme comes across strongly

Raymond Keene

No. 253

White to play. This position is from  Hartston-Portisch, Nice  1974. Can you spot White’s most accurate continuation of the  attack? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 19 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 Nxe5 (planning 1 … dxe5 2 Qe2) Last week’s winner Catherine Ellis, Durham

William Dalrymple

Diary – 14 February 2013

The Jaipur Literature Festival, which I help to direct, has in just six years grown like some monster from an Indian epic. Each year it doubles in size and we struggle to keep up with the vast crowds who come to hear our authors speak. We’ve also inspired nearly 40 daughter-festivals across South Asia. The great Bombay poet Javed Akhtar aired a theory about why the region has suddenly taken to literature like this: ‘We abandoned language and arts in the last 40 years,’ he said. ‘We wanted cars and fridges. Now today’s generation takes them for granted. They want something else. They want arts and literature.’ ‘Everywhere sales of

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 14 February 2013

Pope Benedict is stepping down for conscientious reasons about which he will have thought deeply. But I still fear that his decision is a mistake. First, its manner was unfortunate. An institution like the Catholic Church should avoid unnecessary shocks. It seems that the main people involved were told only on Sunday, and presented with a fait accompli. The news was announced the following day. Obviously, secrecy was important, but in a monarchical system, such a change is momentous and its consequences need to be thought through by the closest counsellors. The orthodoxy has grown up that the long physical decline of Pope John Paul II was a disaster which

Toby Young Toby Young

The indiscreet charm of Julie Burchill

One of the downsides of getting older is witnessing your friends and acquaintances being honoured in various ways. I don’t just mean knighthoods and peerages, I also mind the little things — an entry in Who’s Who, for instance, or an honorary degree from a red-brick university. It’s reached such a point that I daresay I’ll feel a pang of envy when I see their obituaries in the Times. ‘That should be me taking up all those column inches, not them,’ I’ll think, before realising what I’m wishing for. So you can imagine how I felt when I heard that Julie Burchill was going to be on Desert Island Discs.

The Spectator

Bonfire of the Establishment

In September 1955 The Spectator’s political commentator, Henry Fairlie, coined a term to describe the way in which Britain works which has been used ever since. The ‘Establishment’, he said, was the real mechanism through which power was exercised in this country. The elites of the business, political and media worlds wielded power via a ‘matrix of official and social relations’, which varied from the banks to the director-general of the BBC to ‘divinities’ such as Violet Bonham Carter (Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury). The social and economic upheavals of the following decades only caused this Establishment to regenerate. But it has never faced an existential threat — until now. The Establishment

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 14 February 2013

Q.  My husband, aged 56, mutters constantly that he is not well.  He has a variety of symptoms and I suspect hypochondria, yet he will not put his mind (or mine) at rest by making an appointment with a doctor.  How can I make this happen? — A.O.T., London SW11 A. The way to make men go to the doctor is with a white lie, told for their own good. Tell them the surgery has rung, asking them to make an appointment for a check-up. This jolts them into action. By the time they have arrived in the consulting room, they are less concerned with whether their wife has tricked

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 14 February 2013

Home Findus frozen beef lasagne was found to be 100 per cent horsemeat, and Tesco frozen ‘Everyday Value’ spaghetti bolognese 60 per cent horse. French suppliers blamed a Romanian abattoir. Waitrose withdrew frozen beef meatballs in which pork was thought to be present. Owen Paterson, the environment secretary, told the food industry to publish soon the results of their own testing of meat products. He then flew to Brussels for talks. Police raided a slaughterhouse in West Yorkshire that the Food Standards Agency believed had supplied horse carcasses to a meat company at Aberystwyth. Dr Mark Woolfe, formerly a scientist with the Food Standards Agency, said that the import of

Dot Wordsworth

Electrification of the ring fence

At the age of 55, Gervase Markham set off to walk from London to Berwick without using any bridge or boat, and without swimming, but relying only on a staff to help him leap. That was in 1622. When he returned, with a certificate from the mayor of Berwick, many of his friends — 39 of them — refused to pay up on the wagers they had laid. I mention Markham because he is the first person known to have used the term ring fence. Last week George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, aged 41, said he was going to electrify the ring fence. He has not yet made

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 14 February 2013

I feel that we in the bridge community (is there one? Am I in it?) haven’t made enough of a song-and-dance about Andrew Robson being awarded an OBE in the Queen’s new year’s honours list. It’s been nearly 20 years since a bridge player was honoured in this way (the last was Nicola Smith in 1995), and it’s richly deserved: Andrew has done more than anyone in this country to promote the game. In fact, his club in Parson’s Green is the only place I feel completely confident in sending people who want to learn. Bridge players can be a pretty rude and intimidating lot, but Andrew has instilled a

Columba

2100: Mask

Each of eighteen clues contains one misprinted letter in the definition part. Corrections of misprints spell a four-word phrase which alludes to the unclued lights, indicating the position of one of them in relation to the others. One unclued light is  hyphened; elsewhere, ignore an accent.   Across 1 Neat section, last of four in colour (6) 7 Hypersensitive airman carrying hat (6) 13 Money returned one hour before denial (5) 15 Offhand treatment of urban movie lacking love (9, two words) 16 Sties left covered with rubbish (6) 22 Rudiment in article with new angle (6) 24 See star prepared by right to be champion (8) 28 Moth down

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Sales of The Spectator: 2012 H2

The Spectator’s sales figures are out today, and I thought Coffee Housers may be interested to know how things are going here in 22 Old Queen Street. It’s a tough time for print. Newsweek has now gone off to a digital afterlife and even The New Yorker is down 17 per cent on newsstand. As more readers change their habits – on Kindle and iPad – the Spectator has been changing too. The below chart shows how we’re getting on: The bit in blueshows the print sales, taken from our ABC certificates over the years. It does not include copies given away free, which I’ve never quite seen the point of.

Columba

2097: spaced

1D, 2 40, 12 and 15 36 are PERSONAE (43) that have been adopted by DAVID BOWIE.  Unchecked letters of unclued lights are supplied by the thematically allusive astronaut writer, piano guy spelt by extra letters in clues. First prize Simon Harris, London SE21 Runners-up Trevor Evans, Drulingen, France; Kevin Ward, Quorn, Leicestershire

Dan Byles

The UK needs a serious debate on shale gas

Arguments over the potential development of UK shale gas resources are too often characterised by rhetoric and hyperbole on both sides. Some of the wilder claims need to be challenged and we need to separate the facts from the ill-informed speculation. That is why I am one of a cross-party group of MPs and Peers who have come together to set up the new APPG. Members include MPs who are in favour of developing a domestic shale gas industry, MPs who are opposed, and MPs who simply want to better understand the truth. The intention is to cut through the rhetoric and get to the facts. Much of the excitement

Douglas Murray

An interview with Lars Hedegaard

A couple of days ago I managed to interview Lars Hedegaard – the Danish journalist currently at an undisclosed location under police protection after an assassination attempt at his home in Copenhagen. The results are in this week’s magazine. Lars was his usual calm, eloquent and forthright self. If anybody thought they could silence him, they’ve got another thing coming.