Society

Saturday

Toby Young Toby Young

Status Anxiety: My neighbour the vigilante

Sometimes, burglars really do mess with the Wrong Guy At 4.20 a.m. last Friday, my friend and neighbour was awoken by the sound of breaking glass. It was one of the panels in his front door and when the noise had died away he could make out the voices of two young men intent on entering his house. Lying next to him was his wife and, in adjacent bedrooms, their three young daughters. As he lay in bed wondering what to do, it occurred to him that the two men trying to break into his house had no reason to think it wasn’t occupied. On the contrary, his car was

Peter Jones

Ancient and modern | 6 August 2011

The closure of El Bulli, the world’s most highly rated restaurant, has been greeted with cries of anguish from the world’s foodies. Lament no more! Romans were in the joke food business long before El Bullshit. Around ad 65, as Nero was going more and more crackers, the great Roman satirist Petronius produced his Satyrica (a title encompassing both lechery and satire). What survives of it contains an account of a feast put on by one Trimalchio, an ex-slave made very, very good in property and now a multi-millionaire. The absurd Trimalchio naturally regards himself as the coolest man in town, and is especially proud of his cook. For dessert,

Taki

High life | 6 August 2011

Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the art of seduction On board S/Y Bushido The smell of pine wafting from the shore, the whitewashed and sun-bleached terracotta houses shimmering in the midday heat — both remind me of the simple island life during the good old days, before super yachts, oligarchs and the brain-jolting cacophony of modern music emanating from so-called clubs. I’m lying off the eastern side of the Peloponnese, far from the fleshpots of Spetse and Porto Heli, having done them all last week. And I finally have my mail and The Spectator and I am happy at last. But only for a minute. I read a New York rag that

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 6 August 2011

A new grandson, and a night in the pub Grandson number two was delivered by caesarean section last week. Nine pounds. A boy. Clynton. He was plain Clinton to start with, but one of their more sophisticated friends suggested the alternative spelling and the suggestion was taken up. Of course the older relatives are either horrified or derisive. Ridiculous, they say, all these silly new children’s names. The world’s gone mad. What’s wrong with a good old traditional English name, like Arthur or George? I’ve been pointing these reactionary spirits in the direction of our parish magazine. In the latest issue a correspondent listed some of the Christian names recorded

Melissa Kite

Real life | 6 August 2011

When the steroids stop All good things come to an end. I had to stop taking the steroids sooner or later or I would start to look like one of those sprinters of indeterminate gender. It was fun while it lasted, and came in really handy when my friend fixed me up on a dinner date with an older man. When the conversation hit a lull I mentioned that I was on prednisolone and we were away. You couldn’t shut us up. He had been on it for three months, because of a bladder operation, which rather trumped me, but it was still terribly jolly trading stories about side effects.

Robin Oakley

The turf | 6 August 2011

Qatar at Goodwood Goodwood works. No course in Britain looks prettier on a summer’s day. No course in Britain feeds the media better. Trainers agree that no one looks after 300-year-old turf better than Goodwood’s Clerk of the Course Seamus Buckley. And Goodwood always has an eye to tasteful innovation — the first course to have broadcast commentary back in the 1950s this year staged a celebrity ladies’ race which took racing on to the front pages when it was won by toothsome top model Edie Campbell. Spending the full week on the Sussex Downs this year presenting CNN’s welcome new international Winning Post programme gave me the chance to

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 6 August 2011

In the ‘peace camp’ in Parliament Square last week, a man sat with a placard which said ‘NORWAY Jew Mafia Job’. In the ‘peace camp’ in Parliament Square last week, a man sat with a placard which said ‘NORWAY Jew Mafia Job’. I wonder if police would have tolerated it if it had replaced the word ‘Jew’ with ‘black’, ‘gay’ or ‘Muslim’. But it would not surprise me if a large number of people have been persuaded that Jewish power somehow armed Anders Breivik and induced him to murder scores of Norwegian teenagers. True, there is nothing as old-fashioned as actual evidence of this, but so what? Just as Breivik

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 6 August 2011

This week’s Portrait of the week HOME William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said there was ‘not a remote possibility’ of using force against Syria, even with United Nations backing. The Commons defence committee said that cuts to the Armed Forces might prevent their doing whatever was needed after 2015. Mike Clasper, the chairman of HM Revenue & Customs, apologised for its poor performance last year in answering telephone calls and replying to letters. Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, said the government saved £3.75 billion from May 2010 to March 2011 by cutting the Civil Service and renegotiating contracts with suppliers. Lord McFall of Alcluith, in a report for the Workplace

Peter Hoskin

China bears down on the “debt-ridden” US

From esteemed economists to Ed Balls, everyone is wading into the Great Credit-Rating Debate today. But I doubt that anyone’s words will resonate so much as those of the official Chinese news agency, Xinhua. Through its editorials and reports, Beijing has become more and more strident about America’s debt problem over the past few weeks; yet today they go even further in making new demands of the White House. “The days when the debt-ridden Uncle Sam could leisurely squander unlimited overseas borrowing appeared to be numbered,” starts Xinhua’s latest editorial — and it doesn’t get any kinder from there. Here’s another choice passage, although I’d recommend that you read the

Peter Hoskin

Would the Darling Plan have satisfied the credit rating agencies?

Why have we retained our AAA credit rating despite, by S&P’s figures, suffering a larger debt-GDP ratio than America? The Taxpayers’ Alliance’s Matthew Sinclair answers the question in some detail here, but one passage from S&P’s own analysis stands out. They explain that: “When comparing the U.S. to sovereigns with ‘AAA’ long-term ratings that we view as relevant peers–Canada, France, Germany, and the U.K.–we also observe, based on our base case scenarios for each, that the trajectory of the U.S.’s net public debt is diverging from the others. Including the U.S., we estimate that these five sovereigns will have net general government debt to GDP ratios this year ranging from

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

America continues to unravel

The humbling of America — the cover theme of this week’s Spectator — continues with S&P stripping Uncle Sam of his AAA credit rating. The debt downgrade, it says, “reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.” In other words: Obama’s still addicted to debt, and it’s time to stop pretending that his government’s IOU notes rank among the safest investments on earth. Its analysis seems to be pretty much that made by Christopher Caldwell in his brilliant cover story. This move will, as today’s

Bruce Anderson

Politics: An economy killed with kindness

About ten thousand years ago, man learned to control fire. That was one of the most important events in pre-history: a crucial part of the transition from a humanoid past to a human future. But the flames were domesticated, not tamed. Ten millennia later, fire is still a killer and a destroyer. In our cities, the sirens of the fire engine are part of the symphony of daily life. For fire, read credit, a more recent development, but one which is the economic equivalent of fire. Without it and its handmaiden, paper money, humanity would be much less prosperous: governments, less powerful. So which is more destructive — fire which

Aidan Hartley

Drought didn’t cause Somalia’s famine

War did. And food aid may well make it worse It seems wicked to question charity appeals for starving people in the Horn of Africa. Hunger is a terrible way to go, as I discovered when I once asked a dying Somali near Mogadishu to tell me what he was feeling. He was just passing into that zombie-like state with staring eyes. He said how the first ache was replaced by burning thirst that never leaves you. Marasmus turns children into martian-headed skeletons. Kwashiorkor swells their bellies. Glossy black hair turns reddish. Teeth fall out and ulcers like gunshot wounds eat into the cheeks. Inside, the body cannibalises itself, eating

Melissa Kite

Does everything give you cancer?

I’m sick of being scared by scientific studies Tall women are more likely to get cancer. As research findings go, this has to be among the most randomly vindictive scientific conclusions ever to spill out of a university research department into a screaming newspaper headline, and lord knows there have been a few. Women who breastfeed are less likely to have heart attacks or strokes. Women who don’t breastfeed are more likely to abuse children. Women who are stressed are more likely to have children with asthma (how stressful a piece of knowledge is that?). Men who are circumcised are more likely to suffer erectile problems. Children born to men

Lucy Vickery

Competition | 6 August 2011

‘To ______, or not to ______, that is the question…’ In Competition No. 2707 you were invited to fill in the blanks and continue for up to a further 15 lines. The challenge elicited a topical response from many competitors — ‘to hack or not to hack…’ agonised George Simmers — and dilemmas of the digital age loomed large too: ‘To tweet or not to tweet… Can fourteen times ten characters ever tell a tale…’ (Jenny Lowe). Tim Raikes, Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead and Elizabeth Bullen were unlucky losers. The winners, printed below, get £25 each. The extra fiver is D.A. Prince’s. To drink or not to drink: that is the question.

Andrew J. Bacevich

How good a general was David Petraeus?

Neoconservatives have constructed dangerous illusions around David Petraeus’s strictly limited successes History has not dealt kindly with American generals of late. Remember when ‘Stormin’’ Norman Schwarzkopf ranked as one of the great captains of the ages? When members of Congress talked of promoting General Colin Powell to five-star rank, hitherto reserved for the likes of Marshall and Eisenhower? When bombing the Serbs into submission elevated General Wesley Clark to the status of a would-be presidential candidate? Or when Tommy Franks travelled the world giving speeches at $50,000 a pop to explain how he had liberated Afghanistan and Iraq? More recently still, remember when journalists fell in love with Stanley McChrystal,

Christopher Ward

My grandfather, the Titanic’s violinist

When he died, the White Star Line sent a bill for his uniform There can be few better places to consider the irony of the phrase ‘the good old days’ than Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I went last week to visit the grave of my grandfather, a 21-year-old violinist in the band of the White Star liner Titanic. More than 120 passengers and crew are buried here, 40 of them still unidentified as we approach the centenary of Titanic’s sinking. The body of Jock Hume, my grandfather, was one of 190 recovered by the cable ship Mackay-Bennett and brought back to Halifax (more than a thousand

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Spectator Sport | 6 August 2011

So how was it for you, The Most Extraordinary Test Match Ever? Keen readers may have noticed this column two weeks ago was in raptures over the extraordinary batting, keeping and leadership skills of the Indian captain, M.S. Dhoni. Well that went very well, didn’t it? Bad luck if you were left holding the fort in the August exodus, catching glimpses of scores on mobile phones and TV screens and asking yourself what on earth was Bell doing back at the crease? And does that really say England are on 500 for seven? And who’s that on 90 — Tim Bresnan?? Hard to do anything but stop and gawp. My

James Delingpole James Delingpole

We’re destroying our countryside – and for what?

By the time you read this I’ll be in the place that makes me happier than anywhere else in the world: a section of the Wye valley in beautiful mid-Wales, where I’ll spend every day paddling in streams and plunging in mill ponds and playing cockie-ollie in the bracken and wandering across the sunlit uplands, drinking in perhaps the finest view God ever created — the one across the Golden Valley towards the Black Mountains, and beyond that to the Brecon Beacons. By the time you read this I’ll be in the place that makes me happier than anywhere else in the world: a section of the Wye valley in

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Any other business | 6 August 2011

The greatest nation? This debt fiasco makes Washington look like a parish council I love America, and if you look at my Wikipedia entry — which I have neither the vanity nor the knowhow to bother to edit — you might suspect that I’ve been brainwashed to say so, because I am ‘a leading figure within the British-American Project’. I am indeed active in that excellent networking organisation, which has never been anything like the sinister Reaganite propaganda vehicle that Pilgerists and Guardianistas imagine it to be. And it has given me valuable insights into the national characters of movers and shakers from both sides of the pond who form