Society

Saturday

6 Sep 2008

Alex James

Slow Life | 6 September 2008

Brad, who has been my constant companion for the last couple of months, was just starting to appreciate the strange power of television. The terrible authority, the ridiculous effects of time on the small screen had taken a while to become apparent. By the time the first show went out, we’d already been filming for a month, shadowed by camera crews, asking us to say things again, do things again, explain how we felt about this, that and the other, and after the first episode he was a bit ruffled. ‘I can’t believe it! Four weeks of cameras and microphones and I was only on screen for three seconds! What

Jeremy Clarke

Low Life | 6 September 2008

I’m down in the bar underneath the stand at half time and everyone’s exceedingly jolly. The team isn’t playing badly for a change. At least we’re trying. Plus, we’ve got a new bloke who can actually pitch over an accurate corner kick. And the sun’s shining. The police run a tight ship at football matches these days. We aren’t allowed to stand up during the game, or smoke, or consume alcohol. And we have to watch what we say or sing because certain subjects are strictly off-limits. Shirt-sleeved policemen sitting in a control room closely monitor our behaviour on CCTV screens. They are assisted in this task by hundreds of

Taki

High Life | 6 September 2008

Gstaad ‘Goblins and devils have long vanished from the Alps, and so many years have passed without any well-authenticated account of a discovery of a dragon that dragons too may be considered to have migrated.’ So the Alpine Club was informed in May 1877 by Mr Henry Gotch, the secre-tary, and the news set off great celebrations among sporty but superstitious Englishmen. The golden age of mountaineering, as it was then known, began in 1854 and ended with a bang around 1865, the year five Englishmen fell to their death climbing the Matterhorn. Among the dead was Lord Francis Douglas, whose older brother went after Oscar Wilde some 30 years

Robin Oakley

The Turf | 6 September 2008

The one advantage of missing last Saturday’s race day at Sandown, thanks to being encased at the time in a throbbing MRI scanner at St Thomas’s Hospital, was the chance of going Sunday racing instead at Folkestone. Posh it may not be. Trainer George Margarson and I were probably two of only ten people on the track wearing ties around the tree-shaded paddock. But Folkestone knows how to do family fun. There were rugs on the lawn around the goldfish pond, and those who weren’t simultaneously ferrying three gargantuan burgers back to their companions were queueing for the ice-cream van. Everyone seemed to be there with children. And it was

Toby Young

Status Anxiety | 6 September 2008

In the current issue of Empire there is a piece by Bob Weide, the director of How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, in which he says that the reason I was banned from the set of the film is because Kirsten Dunst insisted on it. I was not aware of this until now, but I can’t say I’m surprised. On my first visit to the set, I went bounding up to Kirsten and said, ‘So, have you fallen in love with me yet?’ She had been cast as the female lead in the film and what I meant was, ‘Has the character you’re playing fallen in love with the

Peter Jones

Ancient and Modern – 6 September 2008

Apparently some scientists believe that the patterns in which bumblebees search for food — ‘geographic profiling’ is the technical term — could help detectives hunt down serial killers. The ancients would not have been surprised. It is largely to Virgil in the final book of his ‘farming-manual’ Georgics (c. 29 bc) that we owe our understanding of the extent to which the ancients saw in bees a model for human life. ‘I will set out in order for your admiration,’ Virgil explains, ‘the spectacle of a tiny world, with its great-hearted leaders, its customs and pursuits, its people and battles.’ It is as if bees alone shared in the divine

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 6 September 2008

Q. I have lived in Indochina for more than six years but I am still invited to various society weddings, exhibition openings, concerts and parties in London. Here in Cochinchina plenipotentiaries are kind enough to include me to garden parties on their national days and receptions when they have visiting dignitaries. Even my host government extends its welcome on occasion. My problem is, how to display these invitations in a house without fireplaces and therefore without mantelpieces? One doesn’t want it assumed that one has become a social pariah just because one lives overseas and it would be a shame if visiting friends failed to realise that I am a

Alex Massie

Biden Brings It

Joe Biden is good and Conor Friedersdorf is right: “Victories won on style are pyrrhic for political parties, and poison for a nation. Because sooner or later, substance always matters.“ This is true. The Palin Punt is, in some ways, outrageous. In others it’s designed to appeal to a somewhat adolescent view of politics. That’s not necessarily the worst thing in the world; but nor is it enough. I understand why they want to hide Palin away for a week, so she can hit the books. But sooner or later she’s gotta come out. (It’s possible to like Palin – or the idea of Palin – personally, appreciate the stylistic

Fraser Nelson

The British reaction to Sarah Palin

I’m back in Britain now, and had not prepared myself for the reaction to Sarah Palin. The Guardian has a piece softly sneering at her Christianity (Headline: “This person loves Jesus”) and questioning her experience. In America, the feminists have kept quiet, knowing they can’t question her experience and not Obama’s. Why demand that a woman going for VP needs a longer CV than a man going for the presidency? By the end of her first day as Mayor of Wasilla she had more executive experience than Barack Obama or Joe Biden put together. Yet here, the gloves are off. I’ve just listened to Any Questions with women getting stuck

James Forsyth

A warning shot across Gordon’s bow

In the last week there have been several stories about how Stephen Carter, the PM’s chief strategist, is to be demoted or moved; Brown can hardly bear to look at him any more according to one source. But Patrick Wintour’s piece in The Guardian today suggests that Carter isn’t planning on going quietly. Wintour reports that Carter has apparently also lost the confidence of Jeremy Heywood, the permanent secretary at Number Ten. Yet, Carter isn’t intending to resign. Friends of Carter tell Wintour that: “He is far more effective and intelligent than the people in No 10 briefing against him. He is also a very resilient guy and is not

Rory Sutherland

The Wiki Man | 6 September 2008

A friend of mine, a professor at an Ivy League university, specialises in research into transgenic mice, learning how DNA modifications affect intelligence and memory. A few years ago, after some genetic tinkering, he created a batch of mice of quite spectacular dimwittedness. They were useless in the maze, ditzily wandering about with no sense of spatial awareness and incapable of finding the cheese after repeated attempts. This wasn’t the only interesting thing about these mice. Every one of them had a most unusual pigmentation, at least for mice: they were blond. This was huge. ‘You’ve found the blond gene — phone the Sun!’ ‘Um, I was thinking more in

James Young

Competition | 6 September 2008

In Competition No 2560 you were invited to describe a visit to Glyndebourne or Glastonbury in the style of an author of your choice. But first a memo from Doctor Johnson re. his recent Competition 2558 (Harmless drudgery) in which he let through a contribution that confused a ‘roadie’ with a ‘groupie’. To the lady who drew his attention to the error, he apologises unreservedly and adds, as is his wont, an explanation for allowing the wrong definition: ‘Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.’ Back to the current Comp: this was another big field and of a high standard, especially the Glastonbury offerings. Lots of entries were good enough for the winners’

Rod Liddle

What possessed McCain to take a punt on Palin?

Rod Liddle says that the appointment of an inexperienced, gun-toting formerbeauty queen as his running mate may well be John McCain’s undoing Ah, just when you pro-Republican monkeys were beginning to think that John McCain was looking a pretty good bet, he goes and chooses a backwoods polar-bear-strangling Britney Spears manqué as a running mate — a woman who appears to believe that the earth was created precisely 4,004 years ago and who, in earlier times, found the Republican Party inclined at far too shallow an angle to the right. A sort of Alaskan version of Pauline Hanson, except with a better embonpoint. These desolate wide open spaces full of

Friday

5 Sep 2008

Alex Massie

McCain and Churchill

In the comments to the previous post, Toby writes, astutely: As with Churchill, he [McCain] hankers after the Empire he knew in his youth. He feels uneasy about the falloff of his country from former greatness. But he is now closer to the Churchill of 1950 than 1940, and the American people are more in the mood the British electorate were in 1945. Dang, I wish I had thought to write that. It’s true that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t over, but one senses that the public has tired of them and wishes they were and that, as in 1945, there’s a thirst for a new beginning. Obama’s

Alex Massie

Cowgirl Sarah

Virginia Postrel recalls visiting the National Cowgirl Museum and seeing an aspect of American history that helps explain Sarah Palin’s appeal: The Cowgirl Museum showcased women of no-nonsense character, pioneer (and pioneering) achievement, physical daring, and unapologetic femininity. Full of inspiring role models, the museum presented a piece of feminist history that gets left out of the city-oriented accounts most of us learn… This all came back to me when I heard Sarah Palin’s convention speech and thought about how so many smart–but parochially “cosmopolitan”–miss the enormous appeal of her persona. She may have wrangled fish rather than cattle, but she shares the cowgirl tradition. I think this both smart

James Forsyth

Palin Polling

The new ABC poll, conducted yesterday so after Palin’s speech, is a mixed bag for the McCain campaign. On the one hand, less than half of voters—42 percent to be precise—think that Palin has the right experience to serve as president. On the other, Obama’s numbers on this aren’t much better; in a pre-convention ABC poll only 50 percent said that Obama had the experience he needed on this front, 47 percent thought he didn’t. It is strategically imperative for the McCain campaign to drive up Palin’s ready to be president numbers. Not only because considering McCain’s age and health issues these numbers could be a drag on the ticket

The Spectator

The week that was | 5 September 2008

Here are some of the posts made over the past week on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson reports for Americano from the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-Saint Paul. He gives his take on Sarah Palin’s speech here, and on John McCain’s speech here. Also on Americano, James Forsyth suggests that McCain has to sell himself as a reformer. Dominic Grieve gives his answers to CoffeeHousers’ questions. James Forsyth wonders whether the Brown-Miliband truce will hold until after conference, and claims that things just keep getting worse for Labour. Peter Hoskin reports on Charles Clarke’s latest outburst against Gordon Brown, and notes how the media have registered a vote of no confidence. Daniel Korski outlines

Peter Hoskin

An Olympic let-down?

A couple of days ago, I wrote that – given the massive costs attached to the 2012 Games – taxpayers will want to see that the Government’s promise to deliver a lasting “Olympics legacy” isn’t an empty one. Well, if a survey on the matter by Opinion Research is anything to go by, then there’s not much confidence on that front. A third of respondents think that the Olympics will deliver no significant, long-term benefits, and that the money should be spent on other public services. And only 12 percent of people believe the Olympics will come in on budget, or within ten percent of budget. The public mood is understandable

Sean Martin

Poverty of aspiration; not poverty of talent

One of the major educational challenges facing us today is ensuring talented pupils receive the same opportunity to excel. Today’s publication of a Warwick University study shows that low teacher expectations have meant Black Caribbean pupils are less likely to be entered for higher tier testing, apparently highlighting the “institutional racism” in schooling. This attitude ignores the real reason why disadvantaged pupils often don’t reach their educational potential: the poverty of aspiration and information in comprehensive schools. Research from the Sutton Trust has shown that many comprehensive pupils academic progression is marred by a lack of knowledge of various aspects of university entrance. They support their case with some devastating

James Forsyth

The Brownites really can’t play the expectations game

The Brown re-launch is falling flat because all the ideas in it were previewed over the summer, meaning that their announcement does little for Brown’s prospects. Indeed, in some cases it does positive harm as the actual policy is less bold than the one that was floated. Now, this has happened for a reason—the ideas were leaked to show Labour MPs tempted by Miliband’s so-called vision for the future that Brown still had some shots left in his locker. But this short-term manoeuvre has harmed Labour’s prospect of a revival in the medium term. It seems the same thing is going on with Brown’s conference speech. Ben Brogan blogs today