Society

Wednesday

Christopher Booker

No better way to turn 70 than in the Darjeeling hills

Forty years ago I met a leading industrialist who had just returned from a visit to India, very depressed. He could see no future for a people who seemed to him fatalistically resigned to antimaterialism, mass poverty and the backward, corrupt, bureaucratically hamstrung state of their economy. ‘The problem with India,’ he said despairingly, ‘is the problem of want creation.’ If he could return to India today, he would rub his eyes in disbelief. From the ubiquitous roadside hoardings proclaiming ‘Making a billion dreams come true’ to the shiny new shopping malls and business parks springing up round every city, the world has rarely seen such an explosion of ‘want

Marianne Macdonald

The wages of beauty are loneliness

I am always struck, interviewing the planet’s most beautiful women, by the disconnection between their difficult love lives and dazzling looks. Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey, Elle Macpherson, Helena Christensen, Emmanuelle Béart, Inés Sastre, Diane Kruger, Sienna Miller — in my decade as an interviewer I have met dozens of these stars and supermodels, and almost invariably they are single or struggling with divorce or some dubious relationship. These women can often seem to have everything — stunning looks, amazing figures, to-die-for wardrobes, killer charm, fame, money — except happiness with men. It is a small, unacknowledged tragedy that I discussed with the supermodel Helena Christensen, who knew all about it.

Jervoise Andreyev

A very vicious circle

This book is startling, original, enormously disturbing, horribly unscientific but compelling. Did you know that Dachau housed the world’s first and largest organic garden, established to produce various foods, including honey, for the German elite? Or that to find a ‘healthier cigarette’, 12 billion were manufactured using asbestos filters? Production stopped because the filters removed too much of the taste, not because of increased delivery of cancer-causing agents to the body. And who says history doesn’t repeat itself? In the UK, the care of the elderly infirm has long been dumped on local authorities and this government now plans to restrict specialist help for patients with chronic diseases. It is

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The heart of Obama’s appeal: symbolism

As Jason Zengerle says, this sort of thing trumps anything the “Wife of a Man from Hope” can produce. Even cynics and Kennedy-haters are permitted to smile at this. Speaking at Ted Kennedy’s endorsement palooza yesterday Obama told this story: It’s about whether we’re going to seize this moment to write the next great American story. So someday we can tell our children that this was the time when we healed our nation. This was the time when we repaired our world. And this was the time when we renewed the America that has led generations of weary travelers from all over the world to find opportunity, and liberty, and

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Department of Unfortunate Friends

An endorsement Obama could have done without. He better hope McCain wins the GOP nomination because any other Republican candidate will be happy to use this to argue that Obama is the terrorists’ friend. More than 80 volunteer lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees today endorsed Illinois Senator Barack Obama’s presidential bid. The attorneys said in a joint statement that they believed Obama was the best choice to roll back the Bush-Cheney administration’s detention policies in the war on terrorism and thereby to “restore the rule of law, demonstrate our commitment to human rights, and repair our reputation in the world community.” The attorneys are representing the detainees in habeas corpus

Peter Hoskin

Bomb plots & snail mail

I’ve been tipped off to the following Press Association story, and figured it would make for a perfect end-of-the-working-day respite from MPs and their expenses.  Do make sure to read to the last paragraph – that’s where the punch-line is, so to speak: Man jailed for Tesco blackmail plot Press Association Monday January 28, 2008 12:48 PM A former tax inspector has been jailed for six years for a £1 million blackmail plot against supermarket chain Tesco. Philip McHugh, of Milton Avenue, Clitheroe, Lancashire, sent 76 letters threatening to bomb Tesco stores across Britain last summer. The 52-year-old also threatened to contaminate Tesco products if they refused to comply with his demand for

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The State of Bush’s legacy

There could be no keener testament to George W. Bush’s lame duck status than the fact that the morning shows here in America this morning are more interested in the Florida primary than the State of the Union. When not even the president’s annual address to both branches of Congress can drive the news agenda then the president has lost even the power of the bully pulpit. It is to Bush’s credit that he did not attempt to assert his relevance through a series of dramatic statements. Instead, he concentrated on inching his agenda forward. He also deserves praise for his defence of free trade despite the increasingly protectionist mood

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

No dithering Dave – axe Conway

We know that Team Cameron are keen readers of CoffeeHouse – and if so, our comment board has some free advice for them. Sack Conway. Remove the whip. De-select him. Give him the Howard Flight treatment. Flog him to the LibDems.  His “unreserved” apology was for “administrative oversight”. As Quentin Letts says, is that what they call it nowadays? Sure, some of this punishment can’t be meted out from the centre – but there are ways and means. This is an issue with deep resonance with the public. Hain’s declarations may be a bit complex, but the public recognise a nose in the trough when they see one.  I praised Cameron for his

Matthew Dancona

Amis dissects the modern order

There is an important interview with Martin Amis by Johann Hari in today’s Independent. Read it and make your own mind up: it is a serious piece, and Johann has the intellectual firepower to take on the great novelist. They spar over demographic change, the proper limits of state retaliation to terrorist atrocity and the origins of al Qaeda (US foreign policy, or subterranean psychosis?). Unlike most interviews, it is a proper conversation, edgy without being confrontational. Not surprisingly, I agree with Amis on the elemental scale of the Islamist threat, and applaud his refusal to explain it away as the product of Western policy errors. But I am dismayed

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Adam Gilchrist

So farewell, Adam Gilchrist. Norm marks his retirement with all the right links: You may not know him from Adam, but I have to mark the retirement from Test cricket of one of the greats of the game. In the Adelaide Test, just concluded, he passed Mark Boucher to go to the top of the table for the most Test dismissals by a wicket-keeper. Soon afterwards he annouced that he was calling it a day. What a day it has been. Two of its highlights I saw with my own eyes: his 152 at Edgbaston in 2001 – during this innings he shared a partnership of 63 with Glenn McGrath,

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Have the Tories lost the moral high ground?

This Derek Conway expenses scam is one of the most outrageous I’ve heard in some time. He bunged his son £1,000-a-month of taxpayers’ money on the basis that he was doing research. And as the Standards and Privileges Committee said, there was zero independent evidence of any work done – or any commissioned. A total of £40,000 of our money beefed up the Conway family finances as young Freddie Conway studied full-time at Newcastle University doing his “research”. His stash included “four one-off bonuses” (wonderful oxymoron) totalling £10,000 and he’s been ordered to repay £13,200. Now, this isn’t the same as £103,000 of Peter Hain’s undeclared donations. But something tells

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The speech of 2008

It has been called the speech of the 2008 – and it’s only January. But here on YouTube is William Hague at the Lisbon Treaty debate last Monday. People pay £25,000 to hear Hague on such form. Yours for free – click below:

Peter Hoskin

A decade of disappointment over welfare reform

On the day that Gordon Brown’s set to back a raft of new welfare proposals, Melanie Phillips launches an incisive attack on the Government’s past attempts at reform in this area: “Today is supposed to prove that the pure flame of Blairism has been re-lit in Downing Street with the publication of the Government’s latest wheeze for reforming welfare According to some breathless advance spinning, this will resurrect a “radical” Blairite plan produced last year by the banker David Freud for contracting out welfare delivery to the private and voluntary sectors, proposals that were reputedly squashed by the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown … … But delivery is merely the end of the process.

Sunday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Some people’s votes are worth more than other people’s…

Barack Obama wins big in South Carolina. But here’s what National Review’s David Freddoso has to say: He was clobbered with white men and white women. He came in third among both groups. Obama showed in Iowa and New Hampshire that he can win white votes. But the exit polls suggest that this victory in South Carolina is about race, plain and simple. UPDATE: That is to say, except among the youngest voters (who backed Obama first regardless of race). Well. I thought black people’s votes counted too. But apparently not if a victory on such a crushing scale can be so easily discounted.  The numbers suggest Obama won 80%

Peter Hoskin

The democratisation of culture 

Another interview caught my eye in today’s Observer – this one with the new Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham.  In it, Burnham outlines his plans to inject ‘punter power’ into the top sports and culture organisations across the land: “I’m a big believer that those who invest passion, energy and commitment in an organisation, whether that’s their football club or local museum, should help run it.  It’s a good principle to have artists and practitioners on the boards of arts organisations and to have representatives of supporters in the boardroom at every football club.” He also discusses the introduction of “free weeks”, during which tickets for performing arts events would be distributed to members of the

Saturday

Alex James

Staying cool | 26 January 2008

I was outside the Wolseley smoking after dinner, just lighting up my second and peacefully contemplating the relative merits of banana splits and chocolats liègeois. It was raining in fine speckles, not enough to spoil things, just enough to add a glamorising shiny glow to the brightly lit business end of Piccadilly. I was in a good spot. The whole situation was perfect. There were no further requirements. Then a Bentley drew up and a doorman practically fell over in his rush to cover the area around the opening rear door with a huge umbrella. Bob Geldof sprang nimbly out, smiling, brushed the umbrella aside and sashayed across the pavement

Jeremy Clarke

Secrets and lies

Jeremy Clarke reports on his low life The Methodist church hall could have been a bit warmer. I chose a seat at the end of the row. Because I’d been kept awake for most of the previous night by rats scratching in the attic, I felt slightly more paranoid than usual. Scratch, scratch, scratch: whatever it was the rats were doing up there they were very determined about it. I’d lain awake staring up at the ceiling torn between indignation and profound admiration for the work ethic. About a dozen had turned up on a wild night to hear ex-MI5 agent David Shayler promote his 9/11 Truth campaign. According to Mr

Taki

Serbian siren

Gstaad I’ve been watching the Australian Tennis Open on the telly and boring myself to sleep. The modern game is too one-dimensional, the players too predictable. The pumping of the fist after a winner is now de rigueur, as is the tapping of the ball five, ten, in the case of Nadal 16 times before serving. And the rallies are much too long.The only relief from the utter boredom is Ana Ivanovic, probably the prettiest young woman ever to play on the circuit. She has beautiful green hooded eyes, high Slavic cheekbones and a figure which is feminine and to die for. Long before my time, Gussie Moran was the

Marcus Du-Sautoy

Diary – 26 January 2008

It’s said that vampires suffer from a syndrome called arithmomania or an obsessive love of counting, so much so that to escape a vampire you just need to throw loads of cloves of garlic on the floor and the vampire can’t resist counting them, allowing you to make a hasty exit. It was this obsession with counting that inspired my favourite Muppet character, the vampire Count von Count. But I’m actually not in Transylvania to track down vampires but another local inhabitant who was obsessed with mathematics: János Bolyai. At the age of 21 this brilliant mathematician discovered that Euclid’s geometry was not the only possible geometry. He constructed a