Society

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Bounders in clubland

I have been remiss, gentle reader, in failing to post another corker from The Daily Telegraph’s obituary pages. Lord Michael Pratt, who has died aged 61, will be remembered as one of the last Wodehouseian figures to inhabit London’s clubland and as a much travelled author who pined for the days of Empire; he will also be remembered as an unabashed snob and social interloper on a grand scale. Pratt would arrive at country houses announcing that he was en route to another castle or (even larger) stately home, and was intending to stay for only one night. Quite often the “night” would turn into weeks, and sometimes months. Although

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Grand Trunk Road to end all trunk roads

From the Department of Why Didn’t I Think of That*: London to Sydney? Sure. London to Sydney by bus? Sign me up (cash and 12 weeks free time permitting, admittedly). What next? Tierra del Feugo to Alaska along the non-existent NAFTA superhighway? Cairo to the Cape? Well, why not? *Partly, you dolt, because you don’t know how to drive. True.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Are you smarter than a Harvard student? Probably…

God knows how reliable this sort of sillyness really is (not very, probably) but: Students at many of the country’s most prestigious colleges and universities are graduating with less knowledge of American history, government, and economics than they had as incoming freshmen, with Harvard University seniors scoring a “D+” average on a 60-question multiple-choice exam about civic literacy. According to a report released yesterday by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the average college senior at the 50 colleges and universities polled did not earn a passing grade. You can take the test yourself here. I confess I did so with much trepidation. It turns out that I don’t know much about

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Crawford Massive

George W Bush invited some friendlies to the White House this afternoon for a friendly little chat.  K-Lo was there to gush: Asked what traits people should look for in choosing a President, George Bush responded immediately: “Be comfortable with your family. Work hard to make sure there is love in the White House.” He went on to talk about how a president needs to have “rock solid” principles and warned that D.C. is a town where they will be constantly challenged. “If your principles ever get eroded, I don’t know how you will look in the mirror.”He also said it was important to “soak in the beauty and greatness

Tuesday

The Spectator

What to read in The New York Times

As Clive noted earlier, the whole of the New York Times will be free online from midnight tonight. I’d thoroughly recommend that you take the opportunity to start reading David Brooks, his column runs on Tuesday and Fridays.  As well as being America’s most perceptive conservative commentator, Brooks writes absolutely fascinating stuff about the brain. Here’s something from this Friday’s column on the declining importance of IQ: “One of the classic findings of [how IQ can be affected by the social environment] was made by H.M. Skeels back in the 1930s. He studied mentally retarded orphans who were put in foster homes. After four years, their I.Q.’s diverged an amazing 50

The Spectator

Is Bush senior sending a message on behalf of his son?

An intriguing development in the US presidential race, Bush senior just came very close to endorsing John McCain. McCain is currently on a ‘No Surrender’ tour designed to reenergise his candidacy based on his staunch support and advocacy for a strategy that might actually succeed in Iraq. At a stop in South Carolina, the McCain team unveiled an effusive video message from Bush 41. Now, they were quick to clarify that this was not a formal endorsement. But both sides must have known that this video would set tongues wagging, especially as the Romney campaign appeared to have been courting the wider Bush clan, and the fact that it was unveiled in South

Monday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

How we got into the current mess

As David Cameron prepares to speak, I would like to helpfully outline five components behind the mess we see today. 1. Bungling central bankers: As I blogged earlier, the Bank of England refused to support banks with the zero-penalty lending rates offered in every other major world economy. There’s a strong case for such discipline, but I believe a stronger one for keeping liquidity moving if there’s a risk of a run on the banks.  2. Dozy regulators: The FSA hasn’t kept pace with the UK’s fast-evolving banking sector. Northern Rock had stood out a mile as the most highly leveraged bank in Europe, yet the FSA didn’t see any problems. The

Saturday

Jenny Scott

Diary – 15 September 2007

We took Alastair on holiday with us this year. Listened to his version of the Blair years in the car all the way to Biarritz — it was either him or French pop music. We took Alastair on holiday with us this year. Listened to his version of the Blair years in the car all the way to Biarritz — it was either him or French pop music. And no, unlike the average Travelodge customer, we didn’t leave him in the nearest service station for someone else to enjoy (is it just me, or does he have a crush on Bill Clinton?) Anyway, he was soon forgotten as we cycled

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody | 15 September 2007

Monday Dave has moved into the building! He and his staff left the Commons office on Friday night and set up camp in The Thatcher Room! That ought to put paid to the silly people saying Dave doesn’t respect Lady T. I went for a little peep earlier and he’s got piles of clever books. Inside Her Pretty Little Head: A New Theory of Female Motivation and What it Means for Markets sounds interesting. Bit concerned about The Low Carbon Diet. Are we going to have to eat CO2 now? Do I, as a Modern Compassionate Conservative, have to swallow my own footprint? Oddly, someone seems to have taken The

The Spectator

Letters | 15 September 2007

Lift sanctions on Iran Sir: The resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis is breathtakingly simple, were sanity to prevail (‘Iran will be next’, 8 September). Iran does not need an atom bomb to attain the status of a regional superpower: the size of her population and territory, her vast natural resources, her access to the Caspian Sea and dominance of the Persian Gulf confer that status upon her. If the sanctions imposed by the Americans and the Security Council were to be lifted and, simultaneously, Iran agreed to an international inspection of her nuclear installations, Iran’s moribund economy would be revived at the same time that fears about her nuclear

Clarke Hayes

Fare’s fair

There’s a fair glut of food festivals going on all across the country in the coming weeks, reflecting — and rightly so — the harvest. There’s a fair glut of food festivals going on all across the country in the coming weeks, reflecting — and rightly so — the harvest. But how retro is that? Fantastic! Even better, to my mind, is that it proves that our collective mindset has changed dramatically — we are growing ever prouder of our food and its local provenance, willing even to think that British might really be best. That in itself is cause for celebration. My local is the second annual Hastings Seafood

Samson Spanier

In search of perfection

The 4th Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792) gave his name to the snack of meat encased between two slabs of bread. The story goes that it was designed so that it could be eaten at the gaming table without hands getting greasy. Like all myths that stick around, this one convinces because it captures its subject. A sandwich should be of high quality, fit for an aristocrat if not for a king. And it should be simple. Excellent ingredients are vital, and the pursuit of them has sent me running away from motorway service stations and high-street chains. As for snack trolleys on trains, let’s not even go there. Dispel from

Rebecca Jed

A British revival

There was an episode in the latest series of The Apprentice in which a bungling ex-army man was commissioned with selling the best of British produce in a French market. He chose to represent his country with huge quantities of ear-and-sphincter sausages and factory cheddar, made a big loss, and was fired from the show. There really was no excuse. British cheeses have come an enormously long way in the last decade or so, as a quick peer into one of the Neal’s Yard shops reveals. In 1989 the Department of Agriculture was all set to ban unpasteurised cheese amid listeria panic. The Specialist Cheesemakers’ Association was set up in

Interconnect

Don’t follow the herd

Ten days ago I went to one of London’s finest restaurants, the Lahore in Whitechapel. The place was packed with hundreds of eager punters. Ten days ago I went to one of London’s finest restaurants, the Lahore in Whitechapel. The place was packed with hundreds of eager punters. There were bankers from the City, large families of Asians, Essex chavs. We were served plate after plate, piled high with spiced fodder from a kitchen with a glass façade enabling you to see the troops of cooks preparing kebabs piled on coals, hundreds of pieces of dough turning into breads in a brick oven, and huge vats of bubbling chicken and

Interconnect

This lethal golden elixir

It used to be the taste of shame. Something that could induce nightmare Proustian flashbacks to teenage years of furtive pub trips and buying jumbo supermarket two-litre bottles. Never go back! And yet we all apparently have: this alcoholic madeleine is cider, and it appears that everyone loves it now, unreservedly, without any embarrassment. But this lethal golden elixir has evolved a little from the days when it was something to be drunk in parks, by the swings. Now it comes in all varieties, and vintages, and prices, in bottles with pretty labels, and is there to be found in smart gastro-pubs and at swanky dinner parties. Look at Waitrose,

Toby Young Toby Young

I was so good at talking up Shepherd’s Bush that I can’t afford to live there now

I first bought a flat in Shepherd’s Bush in 1991 and I’ve never missed an opportunity to tell the world just how marvellous it is. The shops, the streets, the people — it really is a showcase for Britain’s multicultural society. You couldn’t ask for a more vibrant and lively neighbourhood. My intention, obviously, has been to boost property values in the area so I can afford to move somewhere else. Almost anywhere in west London would be preferable — Olympia, Baron’s Court, Queens Park — but Notting Hill would be my first choice. If only I could bring local property prices into line with most other west London neighbourhoods,

Interconnect

Spoiled for choice

Was last weekend the most stirringly chock-full and eventful ever in sports broadcasting history? BBC Radio 5 heroically, breathlessly, covered the lot. Television viewers possessing the full works — satellite, terrestrial and all the trimmings — must have been frenziedly fingering their remote dibber like demented teenage girls texting myriad mates on their mobiles. For an all-embracing sports nut, Saturday teatime threw up an almost impossible challenge of choices: where did you begin with at the five o’clock kick-off — England football’s utterly crucial match at Wembley on BBC1, or gallant Northern Ireland in Latvia on Sky Sports? Or England rugby’s opening defence of their World Cup against USA in

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 15 September 2007

During the summer I worked in my step-father’s office. I discovered that while he is generally well liked his (25) employees do have one gripe. Q. During the summer I worked in my step-father’s office. I discovered that while he is generally well liked his (25) employees do have one gripe. At Christmas he always arranges for each one of them to receive a present of a hamper of ‘luxury’ foods. These, apparently, often contain items such as olive paste, wild boar sausages, crystallised fruit and stem ginger which the recipients are none too keen on. One employee told me they have Googled the cost of these hampers and, frankly,

Roy Hattersley

Junior leaders

I should not have been surprised to discover that The Spectator has a profound influence on village life — a happy state of affairs which was illustrated last Friday evening immediately before the start of our junior fell races. I should not have been surprised to discover that The Spectator has a profound influence on village life — a happy state of affairs which was illustrated last Friday evening immediately before the start of our junior fell races. As the young contestants were lining up, I was handed a box and a sealed envelope. The box contained a revolver and inside the envelope there was a note about how the

Jeremy Clarke

Sparks flying

She lay on her side and watched the people coming and going from the tented stalls and music stages. I lay on my back beside her and stared up at the billowing ceiling. We’d arrived at the Ragged Hedge Fair, put up the tent, had a series of unbelievably petty squabbles in the process, and were now paralysed by apathy. We lay in our tent, barely speaking, until it was dark. The Ragged Hedge Fair, held in the Cotswolds each summer, is one of a growing number of small ‘green’ summer festivals springing up to cater for those disillusioned by the squalor, commercialism and criminality at Glastonbury. Power is supplied