Over on Americano, I’ve just posted some thoughts on when Hillary might decide to drop out and how the Obama campaign practises the ‘old politics’ even while denouncing it. There’s also reaction to Obama saying that McCain would be a better president than Bush.
In Bucharest recently I encountered some Romanian proverbs. ‘Always eat the end of the bread: your mother-in-law will love you,’ said one. And, more to my liking: ‘Always empty the last drops out of a bottle into your glass: people will like you.’ Sometimes people in racing, facing the strains for our pleasure, find themselves tilting the bottle a little too often. It was sad for Timmy Murphy, for example, after his skilful, patient Grand National-winning ride on Comply or Die that his triumph was clouded by most commentators presenting it as a redemption from the months he spent in prison back in 2002 after drunken behaviour aboard an airliner.
New York Their memorials were held five days apart, each in one of Manhattan’s most hallowed venues, each one attended by more than 2,000 worshipping fans, both attracting A-list mourners as well as the poor and the humble. William Buckley and Norman Mailer had great send-offs, the former, as a devout Catholic, in St Patrick’s Cathedral, on Fifth Avenue, natch; the latter, as a non-practising Jew who called himself an atheist, in Carnegie Hall, where art and imagination have flourished for decades. As both men had been mentors of mine, their families kindly sent reserved-seat tickets, but it was not to be. Death unites the fallen and abjures snobbery and
Kate Moss was due to walk out of the door and into the arrivals lounge at Terminal 5 at any moment, the photographer said. He was ready with his camera and scanning the emerging passengers with a practised eye. He could tell that these people coming out now were just off the LA flight, he said. Kate Moss should be among them. How could he tell they had come from LA? I said. Easy, he said. Look at all the designer suitcases. I decided to hang around and see what Kate looks like in real life. I like Kate Moss. Not that I know her, of course. But I take
Leaving the continental land mass behind at Cap de la Hague on a clear day, it’s as if you could throw your voice across the Channel. An off-the-shelf, common-as-muck 285 horsepower Lycoming engine mocks the narrow stretch of water, the world’s busiest shipping lane, the blue ribbon of the cocoon that has preserved us for a thousand years, pickled in salt water. Just ten minutes over that water in a cheap aeroplane to leave the nearest part of the rest of the world behind. No one born and raised in England could behold those monumental cliffs at Dover from a light aircraft without being moved to tears. I swear. They
What are the limits of our obligations as members of society? Should we intervene when we witness a violent crime taking place? Do those of us with large families to support get a free pass? Or should we disregard our personal circumstances and simply apply the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would be done by? Most of us like to think we would do the right thing, but few of us know how we would actually react in a situation like this. It is a test none of us wish to take. A couple of months ago, I was watching Newsnight in the sitting-room of my house in
Ad libs Sir: Rory Sutherland provides at least one reason why admen shouldn’t be allowed to run the show (‘Mad Men are taking over the world’, 12 April): they believe too strongly that all behaviour boils down to choice and not constraint. They work in contexts where the choices of people are flexible, trivial and differ little in terms of personal cost, such as buying a bag of oven chips. This is not the norm in policy questions. Most people cannot choose the time they go to work or drop their children off at school, so trying to persuade them to drive an hour later is rather naive. Economists are
Q. Whenever I have my friends round for dinner, someone’s mobile phone will always ring and they will always answer it at the table. When I extend my next invitation, how do I request that they turn their phones off on arrival? I do find such behaviour at the dinner table unacceptable but many treat their phones as a natural extension of their arms. K.T., Chesterfield A. Disarm guests by letting them see themselves as victims of mobile culture rather than heroes of it. As they arrive greet them warmly saying you have so looked forward to seeing them and giving them a break from their hectic schedules. Then add,
Monday Big panic. Some of our candidates in marginal seats have been ringing up asking why they can’t find any nice piccies of Dave standing next to a flag which they can use in their leaflets for St George’s Day. Jed says we’re to tell everyone that there are such pictures, they’ve just gone missing. On no account are we to tell anyone about The Flag Rule. As I had completely forgotten about it, I had to ask Wonky Tom what it was I was supposed not to be telling anyone. Thankfully, he remembered. It’s nearly as complicated as The Tie Guidelines. Roughly speaking — red, white and blue bad,
Peter Jones investigates whether the Olympic Games have always been political. The sight of Chinese thugs invading the streets of our capital in the name of the Olympic Holy Flame Protection Unit (OHFPU — most people’s thoughts exactly) should banish once and for all the idea that the Olympic Games are not ‘political’. Since the Olympic Games do not do God either, the idea that the flame is ‘holy’ is also rather rich, especially coming from China. The ancient Greeks did do god in a big way at the Olympic Games, since the Games were held in honour of Zeus, god of Olympus (not that Mount Olympus was anywhere near the site). Zeus,
The story of Vladimir Putin and Alina Kabayeva, the 24 year old gymnast turned MP, is bizarre. On Thursday, the newspaper Moskovsky Korrespondent alleged that Putin was to leave his wife, who he has been married to since before Miss Kbayeva was born, to marry the gymnast. On Friday, Putin denied the story, the editor of the newspaper resigned and the owner issued a retraction and insisted that he had had no knowledge of the story before publication. By Friday night, publication of the Moskovsky Korrespondent had been suspended. But the paper’s staff stand by the story while Putin’s denial includes this odd aside: “In other such publications other successful,
Melanie Phillips makes three allegations about the UK Drug Policy Commission in her 22 May Spectator Blog, “Britain’s Drug Wars”. First is that we are a “bunch of self appointed busybodies of no status or authority whatsoever”. As a charity we may be self-appointed but a quick look at our web-site would have shown that our Commissioners are people of significant stature and reputation in their respective fields. Second is that we are “intent on bringing about the legalisation of drugs”. This is an absolute travesty and a wilful misrepresentation of our work which is aimed at supporting a more informed public and political debate about addressing issues of drug policy
My article last week (‘Mad Men are taking over the world’) led me to be accused of elitism by one of the magazine’s online readers. What riled him was my suggestion that, rather than spending £6 billion on speeding up the Eurostar journey by an hour, it might have been better to spend a few million quid providing WiFi to the passengers, allowing them to make better use of their time on the train. I was told that this was typical of the ‘businessman’s arrogant assumption that only business passengers mattered’ — and what about people who wanted to go to Paris for leisure? In reply I said this chap
Political wisdom coming from Robert Mugabe is hard to swallow. Nonetheless, I think the leathery old butcher might be on to something. ‘Gordon Brown,’ he said last week, ‘is a tiny dot on this world.’ From some people, that might be mere insult. Yet, when foul Bob describes Gordon Brown as a dot on the face of this world, one cannot help but consider that other unexpected dot, on the face of Robert Mugabe. Is it a moustache, do you think? I’m not sure. Ask many professed Africa experts about Robert Mugabe’s moustache, and about half of them will say, ‘He hasn’t got a moustache, are you thinking of Daniel
On 19 February 2005 The Spectator’s cover bore the arresting headline: ‘Goodbye England’, and the sombre silhouette of a lone huntsman. The issue attracted much attention, capturing, as it did, the sense of something ancestral and precious being needlessly slaughtered, as hunting with hounds finally became a criminal act. This was a feeling that spread far beyond the hunts themselves: a fear that New Labour’s bizarre fixation with a single pursuit symbolised what Roger Scruton so eloquently describes in his book England: An Elegy as ‘the forbidding of England’: the repudiation of its particular institutions, emblems and customs, usually by municipal authorities and liberal elites. Much has changed in the
Blairism may have had its day on this side of the Channel, but Bernard-Henri Lévy says that the English Third Way should be a model to his Gallic comrades French Socialists are extraordinary. For the past ten years, they have made ‘Blairism’ their foil, even declaring that it embodies exactly what the Left — and in particular, their Left — must not be. They see in Blairism the quasi-diabolical incarnation of the betrayal of the very ideals they claim to embody. They disavow former English Prime Minister Tony Blair and call his domestic policies ‘Thatcherism with a human face’. They insult his foreign policy, which they believe was driven by
In Competition No. 2540 you were invited to take a historical event and submit a newspaper leader on it in the style of either the Guardian, the Daily Mail or the Sun. There are some richly comic examples of the art of red-top headline writing in John Perry’s and Neil Roberts’s Hold Ye Front Page, a Sun-style romp through two millennia of history which features some spectacular punning. Highlights include: ‘Nazi Piece of Work’; ‘The Joy of Six’ (Henry VIII); ‘Napoleon Blown Apart’; and ‘You Canute be Serious’. And as far as share of entry was concerned it was the Sun wot won it, outnumbering the Mail and Guardian by
I’m just back from the United States where the local wine is ridiculously expensive, apart from the ridiculously cheap, and you wouldn’t want to drink an awful lot of that, since Diet Coke may be more subtle. I’m just back from the United States where the local wine is ridiculously expensive, apart from the ridiculously cheap, and you wouldn’t want to drink an awful lot of that, since Diet Coke may be more subtle. The best Californian wine is superb, and priced to match. At the huge California tasting in London I tried a Cabernet Sauvignon which I thought first-rate. I asked the price. ‘Around 90 of your British pounds,’
In Bruges 18, Nationwide This film is about two Irish hitmen, Ken and Ray, who are forced to take a sort of minibreak in Bruges (hence the title; hence why this film isn’t, say, In Milton Keynes) on the instruction of their boss, Harry, who wants them to lie low for a while. The film is written and directed by Martin McDonagh, the celebrated playwright famed for The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Pillowman, but I don’t know. In Bruges has some cracking lines in it, a cracking performance from Brendan Gleeson as Ken, and some very funny, provocative jokes, but I still don’t know. Ken and Ray are utterly
Oliver Tate, the hero of Submarine (Hamish Hamilton, £16.99), is a monologophobic parthenologist. Roughly translated, this means he is interested in finding new words to describe what it’s like being a virginal 14-year-old in Swansea. So is Joe Dunthorne, whose first novel this is, and both he and Oliver are extremely good at what they set out to do. Dunthorne’s success is rooted in his star’s: Oliver is surely the most charming adolescent borderline sociopath since Martin Amis lit up The Rachel Papers with Charles Highway. This is the sort of teenager whose determination to help others overcome their distressing limitations is matched only by his blindness to how unwelcome