Society

Saturday

7 Jul 2012

Spectator’s Notes

The Governor of the Bank of England raised his legendary eyebrow and Barclays tried to singe it. If there was any doubt about the badness of Barclays’ behaviour in the Libor-rigging scandal, it is surely removed by the way Barclays has dealt with its denouement. Bob Diamond and co claimed they had no part in rigging, and yet they released the October 2008 letter written by Mr Diamond purporting to show that Paul Tucker, the deputy governor of the Bank, was giving them permission to rig. If it does show that, they are liars. If it does not — as three official investigations have already concluded — then they are

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 7 July 2012

Q. An old friend invited me to have dinner with him in London. We had just sat down when a couple he knew walked into the restaurant. They were slightly drunk and noisy and very excited to see him and made quite a fuss around our table so other diners started to look over. My friend felt he had no option but to suggest the waiter pull up another table and the couple sit down and join us. Afterwards we both felt sorry we had not been able to chat to each other. How, without seeming unfriendly, could he have tactfully encouraged them to move on? — A.B., Great Dunmow

Jesse Norman

Diary – 7 July 2012

House of Lords reform is like a dose of the clap: it may feel good at the time, but the result is an unending pain in the proverbials. I can’t, er, speak from personal experience, but even the briefest glance at the government’s plans to elect the Lords makes the point. The new bill comes to the Commons next week, for what promises to be a stormy debate. It’s a disastrous hotchpotch which will create a free-floating class of electorally empowered senators on 15-year terms, with no constituencies and no possibility of re-election to discipline them. Even Lord Strathclyde, Leader in the Lords, has admitted that the new senators will

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 7 July 2012

Home Bob Diamond resigned as chief executive of Barclays a day after he said he wasn’t resigning. Marcus Agius resigned as chairman of Barclays, and a day later was appointed ‘full-time chairman’ to seek a replacement for Mr Diamond. The imbroglio followed a £290 million fine (£59.5 million by the British Financial Services Authority and the rest by American authorities) for Barclays’ having filed false information on its borrowings in connection with the setting of the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor). Barclays said that, in a telephone call in 2008, Paul Tucker, the deputy governor of the Bank of England, had passed on to Mr Diamond queries from Whitehall about

Melissa Kite

Real life | 7 July 2012

‘Police Notice,’ said the police notice nailed up on a fence post at the entrance to the common land where I ride my horses. ‘It has become apparent that activities of an unacceptable nature are taking place in this area, together with offences of litter and criminal damage.’ At first I thought they were talking about Iranian New Year. Nothing wrong with Iranian New Year per se, of course, but this year they decided to hold it in Surrey and the celebrations all but brought the area to a standstill. I had never seen so many BMW saloons doing three-point turns in one narrow country lane. The fabulously dressed and

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 7 July 2012

For a moment I thought it odd that Sam Leith should use the word ballsy of Lillian Hellman in reviewing her biography here a couple of weeks ago. Then I thought, hang on, one never hears the word used of men. Sarah Crompton, writing in the Telegraph recently, noticed something similar, listing other words used only about women: feisty, bubbly, bolshie, hysterical, emotional, irrational and bitchy. In the same paper Ed Cumming added another woman-only adjective in his description of a character in Prisoners’ Wives: ‘blowsy, ballsy Francesca’. Another paper previewed an episode of Silk in which ‘ballsy new QC Martha (Maxine Peake)’ appeared. So it goes on. Earlier this

The Spectator

Letters | 7 July 2012

China and Tibet Sir: Clarissa Tan poses the question: ‘What happens to people who do not have the joy of being Chinese?’ (‘China’s civilising mission’, 30 June). China’s handling of Tibet provides the answer. After 60 years of occupation, torture, intimidation and repression continue unabated. Tibetans are now doing the only thing they can to draw attention to their plight — setting themselves on fire. If conditions are so desperate that, against all the precepts of Buddhist teachings on nonviolence and the sanctity of human life, citizens are driven to taking their own lives through self immolation, it hardly supports China’s claim to represent a ‘civilising mission’. In contrast, the

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 7 July 2012

As Susanna reported last week, England’s amazing Ladies Team took Gold in the European Championships having led virtually from the first board. It was Nicola Smith’s seventh title, moving her into third place on the all-time list and a fourth title for Sally Brock and Heather Dhondy. Special mention must go to the ‘youngsters’ — Susan Stockdale and Fiona Brown, who won their first title and led the Butler with an astonishing performance. A great team and a great result. Today’s hand had an interesting twist. It was played by the young Bulgarian Julian Stefanov who came up with a rather clever ruse to try and guarantee his contract —

Raymond Keene

Puzzle no. 225

White to play. This position is from Jones-Simutowe, Cape Town 2009. White’s next caused Black’s instant resignation. What did he play? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 10 July 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… Nxf4 Last week’s winner Dave Forbes, Ellon, Aberdeenshire

Roger Alton

Winning Windsor

If ever I feel my zest for racing flagging, a day at Windsor soon sorts things out. The Thameside track, even more fun if you go there by boat, is one of the friendliest I know. Families picnic on the grass between the parade ring and the winner’s enclosure, the jazz bands stroll between the champagne and Pimm’s bars and, rarity of rarities on most racecourses, you can even find somewhere to sit down, a true mercy for those of us with occasionally dodgy backs. If you back Richard Hannon’s horses through the card, too, you can usually guarantee a winner. The fast-food outlets are the freshest you will find,

Raymond Keene

Chess: Famous Five

This year’s British Chess Championship will be held from Sunday 22 July to Saturday 4 August 2012 at the Parks Leisure Centre, Howdon Road, North Shields, NE29 6TL (information can be found at www.britishchesschampionships.co.uk). Compared with last year’s star-studded field, this year lacks the defending champion Michael Adams and Nigel Short, who was only defeated in the tie-break in 2011. So far, five grandmasters have indicated that they will play. The favourites are Gawain Jones and David Howell (see this week’s game and position) while stiff opposition will be provided by Stephen Gordon, Simon Williams and that indefatigable virtuoso of the endgame Keith Arkell. The championship does not consist solely

The Spectator

Barometer | 7 July 2012

Lost and found A team from St Andrews University has published its attempts to map the remains of Doggerland, an area of land and later an island in the North Sea which disappeared around 5,500 bc as a result of rising sea levels after the last ice age. Some other possible lost lands: — Atlantis. According to Plato, it was a naval power close to the pillars of Hercules at the western end of the Mediterranean that sank in a day and a night in c. 9,600 bc after a failed attempt to conquer Athens. — Mu. Invented by a Victorian writer, Augustus Le Plongeon, who claimed to have gleaned

Doc

Crossword 2067 solution

The across unclued lights are MORRIS marques and the down unclued lights are AUSTIN ones. The title is an anagram of AUSTIN and MORRIS. (Bullnose at 26 Down was a Morris marque, hence the wording in the clue — ‘misplaced’ as a Down solution instead of Across.) First prize Chris Butler, Borough Green, Kent Runners-up Elvira Reuben, New Barnet, Herts; Mrs J Smith, King’s Lynn

Doc

Crossword 2070: Nothing special

The unclued lights (three of two words), individually or ‘19D’, are of a kind, represented in Brewer. Ignore all accents. Across 1 Buy a shirt? It’d be wrong for such appearance (12, two words) 10 Not supporting one with sex appeal, on reflection (4) 14 Material salesman (3) 15 Reserve cold sheets for Neapolitan, say (8, two words) 17 Backs over half of 27, maybe (5) 18 Munched like a medal winner (7) 19 Type of hospital I can be seen in (6) 22 Goddess at one time seen in motorists’ club (6) 24 A while with one alluring woman

The Spectator

Bookbenchers: Douglas Alexander MP

After a brief hiatus, the Spectator’s Bookbenchers interview recommences this week. Over at the books blog, Douglas Alexander MP, the shadow foreign secretary, tells us what he plans to read his children over the summer, as well what he hopes to read for himself. He says: ‘My mother, who herself was born in China — the daughter of Scottish medical missionaries — just leant me a book called Through Earth Wind and Fire which is a history of the Scottish missionaries in China which I hope will help fill in some of the gaps in my family history.’ You can read his answers in full.

Lucy Vickery

Competition: Country music

In Competition No. 2753 you were invited to submit a new national anthem for Greece. The entry was split between those who present Greece’s woes as being mostly self-inflicted and a more sympathetic bunch, who acknowledge the wider forces that may have helped to bring this once great nation to its knees. Both camps are represented in the winning line-up. W.J. Webster takes the bonus fiver. His fellow winners pocket £25 each. Hellas! Hellas! All Hellenes cry ‘Hellas!’ Our great descent is known to all Who’ve heard of Europe’s story, From giants too many to recall Who laid our claim to glory. Here history first got its name, We gave

Bruce Anderson

The morality of lunch

We were discussing the economic arguments of the early 1980s when I had a Proustian madeleine moment. I remembered my first White Lady. It must have been in late 1981. In those days, God help me, I was a self-proclaimed Tory Wet, agreeing with Ian Gilmour that we were heading straight for the rocks. Ian Gow, the most Thatcherite of the Thatcherites, the greatest of all PPSs, an altogether wonderful fellow, summoned me to dinner at the Cavalry Club in an attempt to recall me to the paths of righteousness. To dry out Wets, Ian believed in homeopathic medicine. We started with a White Lady: my first. And another one.

Rory Sutherland

The tangled truth

There is a kind of mercantile speculation which ascribes every action to interest and considers interest as only another name for pecuniary advantage. But the boundless variety of human affections is not to be thus easily circumscribed. This is from a sermon by Samuel Johnson. I can’t find the date, but suspect he is having an early pop at Adam Smith, whom he met only once (they didn’t hit it off). Around a hundred years later, here’s Friedrich Hayek, accepting the Nobel prize for economics. It seems to me that this failure of the economists to guide policy more successfully is closely connected with their propensity to imitate as closely

Jrh Mcewen

Joining the conspiracy

You just can’t win with a conspiracy theorist. For him or her, the long-established association of conspiracy theory with paranoia goes to show that there is a secret plot to conceal the truth and discredit truth-tellers. However, as Joseph Heller put it, ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.’ And, in any case, perhaps the sanest response to the prevailing conditions is paranoia. Look at the news. There’s the bankers, of course, conniving to rip us off. But even doctors are at it too. GlaxoSmithKline has just been fined $3 billion for convincing them to prescribe inappropriate medicine. Yes, these are indeed high days for conspiracy theories. The

Anthony Horowitz

Kindles for kids

‘How do we get children reading?’ the minister asked me, just a week after Michael Gove had got them reciting poetry, more or less by making it illegal for them not to. This was his number two, Nick Gibb, who had invited me to the Ministry of Education for a 40-minute chat. I’m not sure how impressed he was with my thoughts as I’ve heard nothing since, so it seems fair enough to share them with Spectator readers. Who knows? Maybe Mr Gibb is one of them. Politicians have a way of paying lip service to the subject of illiteracy because it is one of those issues that couldn’t be