Society

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

Welles shocks a nation

It’s 70 years to the day since Orson Welles pulled one of the grandest media stunts in history.  His Mercury Theatre radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds was broadcast on 30 October, 1938, and – thanks largely to its faux-news bulletin construction – it convinced swathes of its listeners that an alien invasion was actually taking place (the main headline of the following day’s New York TImes: “Radio listeners in panic, taking war drama as fact”).  I’ve embedded the first ten minutes of the programme below, although you can download the whole thing here.  It’s a great listen, particularly with Halloween just around the corner…

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Ross and Brand shouldn’t distract us from the other news of the day

The whole row over Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross’s disgusting prank calls continues to dominate the headlines this morning. That prime political opportunist Jack Straw has now waded into the matter, dropping heavy hints that Jonathan Ross should be fired. Brand and Ross have created a good moment to bury bad news–normally the news that house prices have fallen 15 percent in the last years would be a huge story. But it is still worth coming back to the deeply unsatisfying Mais lecture delivered by the Chancellor last night. As Fraser noted, Darling declared the old fiscal rules inappropriate for the present last night without putting anything else in their

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

Ten films for Halloween

Ok, so Halloween isn’t until Friday. But I thought I’d post a list of favourite horror films now, so that – should you wish – you’ve got some chance to pick them up on DVD. Two things before I get onto the films. First, many of these aren’t actually scary. On the whole, I like my horror films from the 30s, 40s and 50s, when eeriness was the order of the day. And second: whilst I’d shy away from calling this a list of alternative horror classics – whether they’re “alternative” depends on the reader, not the choices – I have avoided the touchstones of screen horror. So there’s no room for Bride of Frankenstein (1931),

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

The Debbie Purdy question

Should Debbie Purdy’s husband be allowed to kill her? I’m keen to know what you think, because – for me – both instinct and reason say: no. Absolutely not. Debbie, who has a particularly nasty form of MS, is considering going to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland to be killed, but wants to be sure that her husband would not be prosecuted on his return. The High Court has just refused her a guarantee and I think they’re absolutely right. What does it say about the value of a human life if it’s ok to kill disabled people? What about suicidal depressives who may change their minds? Are they in

Peter Hoskin

Bluntness was the order of the day

PMQs today must have been a political version of that optical illusion where one person sees a young woman and the other an old woman. Fraser saw a pretty unimpressive David Cameron, whereas I thought it one of his very best performances.  And, if CoffeeHousers will indulge me, here’s why… My verdict sprang from what I saw as the main Tory goal today: to stop Brown’s “Borrowing is good” narrative taking root in the public consciousness. This is beyond crucial. After all, if Brown can successfully make that case then he’ll have largely won the economic argument for the next two years – during which borrowing will rise out of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Japan shows the limits of pump-priming

Hamish McRae is one of the few economic commentators to have come out of this crisis in credit. His column today on how to avoid the stagnation that has gripped the Japanese economy for the past twenty years is well worth reading. Here’s the key section but do read the whole piece: “During the early 1990s the country escaped recession, unlike for example the UK, but the economy was flat and when the recession did come, in 1997, it was a biggie. Then until a couple of years ago it was back to stagnation. So while cheap money will help, and some increase in government borrowing is inevitable, they will

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 29 October 2008

Welcome to this week’s PMQs live blog.  There’s plenty of stuff on the economy and for the Brown, Cameron and Clegg to debate – provided, of course, they don’t get mired in BrandRossgate.  Things will kick off at 1200 – you can watch proceedings here. 1200: Adrian Bailey delivers the first question: “What measures are the government taking to ensure that small businesses get the same degree of support that the banks have had.”  Perfect opportunity for Brown to mention his “discussions” with Sarkozy. 1205: Cameron now.  Punchy start: “If he wants to start supporting small businesses, he could cancel plans And onto the question: “Will the PM finally admit he has not abolished boom and

Christopher Caldwell

Obama is on course for victory. But he isn’t ready for the White House

Two Sundays ago, I was sitting in the café in the Borders on L Street in Washington, a table away from a couple of middle-aged black men who were discussing politics over cups of coffee and great piles of books. One of them, wearing a black T-shirt with a Union logo on it and the kind of motley pillbox hat that was popular during the Afrocentric clothing fad of the early 1990s, raised his voice. ‘If they steal it,’ he said, ‘brothers is gonna riot.’ The ‘they’ were Republicans. It was the presidential election and the diagnosis was unsurprising. The belief is widespread among Democrats of all hues, views and

Victoria Glendinning

Live and let die

The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, Volume 5, 1922-1923, edited by Vincent O’Sullivan and Margaret Scott; Death & the Author: How D.H. Lawrence Died and Was Remembered, by David Ellis The story of a life is also the story of a death, and one of the values of biography is that it enables us to die by proxy — a sort of rehearsal. Biographies of writers, says David Ellis in Death and the Author, are particularly apt, since writers often explore their feelings about dying and are people of ‘superactive consciousness’. As the author of Dying Game, the final volume of the Cambridge biography of Lawrence, Professor Ellis is an

Jason Goodwin

In the footsteps of Herodotus

The Man who Invented History, by Justin Marozzi When Kristin Scott Thomas told a saucy tale out of Herodotus in the film of The English Patient, sales of The Histories shot up 450 per cent, according to Justin Marozzi, who has taken the seemingly inevitable step of travelling around the Herodotean world in the footsteps of the Father of History. Marozzi bubbles with enthusiasm for the man who was, he says, also the first travel writer, the first prose stylist, the first anthropologist, foreign correspondent, ‘an aspiring geographer, a budding moralist, a skilful dramatist, a high-spirited explorer and an inveterate storyteller’. It’s not an easy act to follow, but Marozzi

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Lead us not into temptation

Blowing Whistles Leicester Square Theatre Faces in the Crowd Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court Oh, what a gay play. The exhibitionist bravado of gay culture, its carnival antics and exuberant self-sufficiency convince us straight folk that we have nothing more to learn about this colourful subterranean neverland. Matthew Todd’s comedy is packed with welcome surprises. It opens with a pair of London swingers, Nigel and Jamie, awaiting a 17-year-old blind date trawled from an internet site. The boy turns out to be a blond-ringleted chav from Croydon, whose angelic looks and towerblock insouciance immediately confound their expectations. He’s bisexual, for one thing. ‘I like c**t,’ he tells the ogling queens.

Sinclair McKay

A quantum of respect for the forgotten master

Double-dealing female agents. Secret ciphers. Car chases. Now that we have all ingested rather more than a quantum of publicity for Ian Fleming’s gaudy fictions, it might be time for the true inventor of the modern spy novel — and the original purveyor of the above-named elements — to take his bow. The name was Le Queux. William Le Queux. He is almost totally forgotten now. But between the 1890s and the 1920s, he was one of Britain’s most phenomenally popular authors. In the dying days of Victoria’s reign, right up past the first world war, Le Queux turned out countless thrillers that gave us all the familiar leitmotifs of

David Tang

Kabul Notebook

The grandson of the King told my wife and me at dinner that we were ‘the only two tourists in Kabul’! In fact, we nearly did not arrive because on the eve of our flight, the aid-worker Gayle Williams was shot dead by the Taleban in broad daylight. The incident made world headlines and the Afghan capital suddenly more dangerous. I was at a shoot and all my fellow guns thought I would be mad to go. But I also knew that I would go mad if I did not. For assurance, I telephoned the inimitable Rory Stewart on the ground. He was too polite to insist on our visit,

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The real lesson is: the public don’t like Jonathan Ross or Russell Brand

Rod Liddle says that the row over their radio ‘prank’ has exposed the fact that these two smug, overpaid performers aren’t really that popular. There are no fans to defend them There’s this new deal being offered by the telephone inquiry service 118 118. If you answer a question correctly, you get to ask as many questions as you want all day, free of charge, and they will answer them. The test question they asked me was: ‘What pop star was born in Finchley on January 21, 1971?’ The answer, obviously, is Emma Bunton, also known as Baby Spice. I got a message of congratulations from 118 118 and the

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Twenty/20 Virus

Regular readers may have noticed – but not necessarily been disheartened by – the absence of much cricket-related commentary here. There are a couple of reasons for its absence. First, I’ve been reading a lot in preparation for what I hope may become a longer-term project. Secondly, so much of the news these days is sufficiently depressing as to make one think that the game – that is to say, the game one knows and loves – is scarcely worth the candle. And yet, despite this, there are occasional sparks of light. Consider the comments of Darren Ganga, for instance. The West Indian is no-one’s idea of a titan, but

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The McCain campaign’s final week gets off to a bad start

Mike Allen reports that in conversation with him “a top McCain adviser one-ups the priceless “diva” description [of Palin], calling her “a whack job.” Now, this is—to put it mildly—unhelpful. The idea of Palin ‘going rogue’ is catnip to the press and this quote will dominate at least the first news cycle of the day. The McCain campaign is down in every key battleground state with a week to go. They are going to have to turn in one of the great final week performances in campaign history to turn this round. They cannot afford to lose news cycles to distractions like this. Instead, they need to remind the electorate

Matthew Dancona

Congratulations, Dr Maths

Sometimes Oxford, that much-maligned national institution, so often associated only with Brideshead and the Bullingdon, really gets it right. When I was a young Fellow at All Souls, there was one other member of college – not Isaiah Berlin – who liked the Happy Mondays and New Order, and his name was Marcus du Sautoy. I nicknamed him Dr Maths. He was a young mathematician whose references were almost too good to believe. He dressed like a student, had changeable hair colour, was a great cook, loved music and Arsenal, and spent his evening at theatre workshops. He was also, without a shadow of a doubt, the cleverest person I

James Forsyth James Forsyth

What public service does Russell Brand’s show perform? 

Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross deserve all the opprobrium being poured on them over their phone calls to Andrew Sachs boasting about Brand’s relationship with Sachs’ granddaughter. Their behaviour was as pathetic as it was boorish. But there is a broader point here, what on earth is the public service justification for Brand’s show? Brand and Ross were providing precisely the kind of lowest common-denominator humour that advocates of the licence fee tell us would dominate the airwaves without public subsidy. Leaving aside the offensiveness of their calls to Sachs, there really does seem to be no justification for having the licence fee support the base comedy that Brand and