Society

This week’s column should be guest-written by Hillary Clinton, who has shown herself a master at sinking the knife into Barack Obama’s all-too-yielding flesh. But at home we can learn valuable lessons in wielding the knife from our own politicians. The knife itself is not, sadly, a glorious child of Britishness. The first knives made of metal appear to have been fashioned by brutes living in Mesopotamia and Egypt, though both regions of course would eventually fly the imperial Union Jack. Before the Industrial Revolution, high-quality knives were made of carbon steel, easy to sharpen but prone to rust and to discolour in contact with acidic food. The Industrial Revolution

Experiments don’t always come off. Like the train company trying out new safety glass for drivers’ cabins. It adapted technology from an aviation manufacturer which had developed new cockpit protection against bird strikes. But when the bird projectiles were launched the mocked-up train windows shattered and the dummy driver was decapitated. In dismay, it messaged the results to the aviation specialists. Only to receive in reply the terse message: ‘Try defrosting the chickens first.’ So no experiments, then, in selecting this year’s Twelve to Follow for the Flat. It is the usual mix of racecourse observation, the gleam in a few trainers’ eyes, and a long flight with the invaluable