Society

Saturday

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

How to fix orphanages

Kigali, Rwanda Madame B has dressed up for our visit. She’s sitting on a bench with her back to the orphanage wall, talking about just how much she loves each child, but it’s her get-up that’s most impressive: black silk dress, hair done, make-up just so; finger and toenails painted hot pink, each with an elegant white scalloped edge. Everything else here, at the Mpore Pefa home for children, is muted: grey walls, grey kids, blurred by dirt. Those toes are an anomaly. ‘My husband and I started this home after the war,’ Madame B is saying. ‘Since he died, it is so difficult.’ Her eyes slide from left to

Victoria Lane

A life in letters

Diana Athill, now nearly 94, lives in what must be the nicest retirement home in London, a large red brick house at the top of Highgate village, run by a charitable trust and populated by former writers and doctors and psychiatrists. On this unseasonably warm day she has on a flowing Kenyan kaftan — the residents’ summer clothes get packed away in autumn to make space, and she is worried about what to wear if the heatwave continues. A strong, boxer’s face, direct blue eyes. She aims a hearing aid at her ear, it whistles briefly, and away we go. Her latest book (see review, p. 38) is a kind

Bruce Anderson

Drink: Champagne Conservatism

Puritanism is like sea water. When it meets resistance at one point, it promptly finds another route. I came to that conclusion during the Tory conference in Manchester. If you passed a couple of Tory representatives, they might well be discussing community. Every ‘community’, every diversity, that you could think of was in view, plus the ones which the Cameroons have invented. These days, the Tory tribe looks like the entrance queue to the Coliseum, under a late and decadent emperor. Whether this is a good thing or a bad one, it does not signify the universal prevalence of permissiveness. Over the weekend, a photographer snatched a shot of the

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

The Wiki Man: Evolution and the airline seat

How can something as complicated as a human eye possibly arise through a process of natural selection — through trial and error? Most people will have asked themselves this question at some point in their lives, but without bothering to find out the answer. A pity, since the stage-by-stage explanation of how the eye might have evolved is fascinating. The story begins when organisms develop cells that are sensitive to sunlight. In time, these may develop to a level of sensitivity where they can detect movement. The next stage is for these cells to form themselves into a convex or concave shape to add an extra degree of directional information

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

The leprechaun factor

Riots at theatres, commonplace before the Great War, have mysteriously gone out of fashion. J.M. Synge’s classic, The Playboy of the Western World, was disrupted many times during its opening week in 1907 by Dubliners who objected to its portrayal of the rural poor in the west of Ireland. Strange that, feigning outrage on behalf of an alien caste. It’s like insider trading with an ethical twist. You borrow someone else’s moral identity and sell it at a value which has been inflated by your act of adoption. Even today this peculiar mechanism keeps the grievance industry going. The protesters in Dublin, many belonging to Sinn Fein, gave up when

Friday

Peter Robins

Local interest | 7 October 2011

A former postman has stripped naked and superglued himself to a desk at the Job Centre in Bridlington, in protest at being refused disability benefit. (Yorkshire Post) Police stations in Leicestershire have been ordered to take down their flagpoles as a cost-saving measure. They will share a single mobile flagpole instead. (Leicester Mercury) A curry house in St Leonards Street, Edinburgh, was reprimanded over its “world’s hottest chilli” competition by the Scottish Ambulance Service after two participants had to be taken to hospital. One – the eventual runner-up – was taken to hospital twice. The restaurant plans to hold an eating contest again next year, but with kormas. (Edinburgh Evening

Daniel Korski

Commercial quandary

Britain’s diplomacy needs to help British business. The Prime Minister made this clear soon after the coalition was formed and William Hague has followed up, reorganising the Foreign Office and putting commercial diplomacy at the top of the agenda. To some, this risked making diplomats into salesmen and there was even dark talk of “mercantilism”. Both criticisms were far off the mark – there is nothing mercantilist in trying to help British businesses. A year in, however, the policy is facing a number of other, more fundamental challenges. First, the government’s main vehicle for this policy – well-publicised, prime minister-led trade delegations – has faced criticism from a number of

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Case for Compromising

My friend Will Wilkinson, mischievous and provocative as ever, reacts to the Steve Jobs mania in a typically interesting way: Ever since Jobs stepped down as Apple CEO, the video of his 2005 graduation address at Stanford has been in wide circulation and has been unavoidable since yesterday. It’s a nice enough sermon. It’s the usual litany of American banalities about being yourself and chasing your dreams and never ever ever settling for anything less than a universe bent and hammered into the shape dictated by your utterly unique authentic will. It’s more or less the message the lithesome young contestants of “So You Think You Can Dance?” weekly impart

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Where Form Met Function

Aesthetics matter. Form matters. Form matters even more when it enables function. In this respect Apple and Steve Jobs really did help create modern computing. Nevertheless, as Kevin Drum explains here there were very good reasons why PCs trounced Apple in the computer business (I write this as someone who loves my Mac). In time, however, we’ll probably look back on the development of personal computing as a messy, collaborative affair in which many companies played important roles. They all helped “change the world”. As Tim Berners Lee puts it, Jobs’ most important insight was: [T]o insist that computers could be usable rather than totally infuriating! Steve was a champion

Thursday

The Spectator

We need your vote | 6 October 2011

It’s that time of the year again. The nights are drawing in and the Spectator is choosing its parliamentarian of the year. As in previous years, we’re asking you to vote for a readers’ representative. So, which politician has excelled in the noble art of politics in the last twelve months? Think carefully, there must be someone who has dazzled with a moment’s oratory, campaigned fearlessly on a matter of principle or merely just represented their local interest with absolute fidelity. To make your nomination, click here and justify your choice in no more than 200 words. We’ll publish a selection of entries in the magazine in the coming weeks, and

Daniel Korski

Tsar Putin III defines himself

Vladimir Putin, in the manner of a modern day Tsar, has launched a series of initiatives to mark his march back to the Kremlin. His most eye-catching proposal is to form a Eurasian Union, a Moscow-controlled EU for the post-Soviet space. Writing in Today’s Times (£), Russia’s strongman explains the benefits: a union would aid greater economic integration in the region and it would place a regional bloc on the other side of the negotiating table from the European Union. But, what are Putin’s real aims, beyond laying out an agenda for his presidential term? Steps could be taken to integrate the post-Soviet region; but, without domestic reforms in Russia,

Jonathan Jones

Palin and Rubio say no to 2012 bids

It’s been quite a week for Republicans deciding they’re not interested in entering the White House in 2013. First, Christie closed the door on a presidential bid on Tuesday. Last night, Sarah Palin followed suit, saying: “After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for President of the United States… My decision is based upon a review of what common sense Conservatives and Independents have accomplished, especially over the last year. I believe that at this time I can be more effective in a decisive role to help elect other true public servants to office – from the nation’s

Clarissa Tan

Another round of Easing

So the Bank of England has pulled the lever on a second round of Quantitative Easing. Apparently sluggish economic growth, plus more ominous signs from the eurozone, have persuaded the central bank it can’t wait any longer to print more money. But given the evidence from QE1 – only a small boost to GDP accompanied by extra inflation – it’s a big gamble. Mervyn King & the rest of the Monetary Policy Committee clearly believe that more money in the system is what’s needed to kick-start growth. But even they admit that QE1 didn’t live up to expectations, so why should QE2? In the meantime, quantitative easing as an instrument

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Cult of Jobs

The immediate beatification of Steve Jobs, the visionary Apple chief who has been killed by pancreatic cancer aged 56, fulfills all the criteria for mass delusion and is evidence of some kind of quasi-religious quackery. The Book of Jobs, indeed. Sky News report that Apple-obsessives are “flocking” to Apple stores, presumably to “pay tribute” to the man behind the iBook, iPod, IPhone and iPad. Here again we may pause and wonder at the Mania of Crowds. There are live-blogs and vigils and everyone is iSad and all the rest of it. Strewth! To say this does not diminish Mr Jobs’ achievements. It merely asks that we keep them in some

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Should’ve gone to…

I’m sorry, this isn’t a proper post. I’ll do one of those later. It’s just that this bit of one of the posts on the Dr Liddle’s Casebook thread made me laugh so much I can’t type straight. “Also should have contacted Moorfields Eye Hospital on the different reasons for having to wear glasses.”

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Sarah Palin Aborts Kamikaze Mission

Six months ago I’d have said Sarah Palin was more likely to run for the Presidency in 2012 than pass on the chance. But as the summer turned to autumn it became ever clearer that time was running-out and that her moment of superstardom was waning. Her decision not to run is no longer the surprise it would once have been. All that’s left is the celebrity and the money and while there’ll still be plenty of the latter the former quality may have a shorter half-life than she suspects.  The more important news today may prove to be Marco Rubio’s suggestion* that he does not desire the Vice-Presidency. As

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Gove: the Tories are the party of state schooling

Apologies for my recent, extended absence, CoffeeHousers — Vietnam and my immune system just didn’t get on. But I’m back now, and firmly embedded in Manchester, where Michael Gove has just given his address to the Tory conference. Although, I must say, “address” doesn’t really cover it. This was more a political variety show, short on new policy (because Gove’s existing policy is going quite well enough, thank you very much), and big on spectacle and optimism. It started off with a video conversation between Gove and David Cameron, who was in a local school that is on the verge of becoming an academy. There was nothing surprising in what

Andrew Neil

The full story on NHS spending

I make no apologies for returning to government spending on health. The Tory promise in the election to ring-fence health spending and increase it in real terms every year even during a period of public spending cuts was distinctive and much-touted during the 2010 election campaign. A quick recap: during my extended interview with Health Secretary Andrew Lansley which went out live on the BBC News Channel on Sunday evening, I suggested that higher inflation than anticipated when the health spending promise was given would make it more difficult to meet the Tory promise of real annual rises. Indeed I put to him a projection for real health spending which

Jonathan Jones

May’s cat story is nonsense

If Theresa May took Ken Clarke up on his wager that no one has avoided deportation because they had a cat, as May claimed in her speech earlier, she should pay up. According to the Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow, a spokesman for the Judicial Office has explained: ‘This was a case in which the Home Office conceded that they had mistakenly failed to apply their own policy – applying at that time to that appellant – for dealing with unmarried partners of people settled in the UK. That was the basis for the decision to uphold the original tribunaldecision – the cat had nothing to do with the decision.’ This is

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

A short note on the wall lizard

I saw a lizard on Monday, by my backdoor, in the pile of mouldering leaves which I’ve left untouched because the young frogs and toads seem to like it so much. I lifted up a log to see how these creatures were getting on, in the manner of a benevolent deity, and a tiny lizard scampered away for cover. It was a Common Lizard, I think; too small and right-wing looking to be a Sand Lizard. Later in the day I read up a bit more about lizards in the Guardian’s “Specieswatch” column, which I always enjoy because it is usually free of the bien pensant whining which afflicts most