Society

Thursday

Neil Obrien

The Independent–surely shome mistake?

With wearying predictability The Independent splashes today on “10 Myths about the Reform Treaty” – and prints a rebuttal of those eurosceptic “myths” on page three. They looked curiously familiar to me.  And then I figured out why.  The piece is an almost word-for-word reprint of a Foreign Office briefing note – but without any attribution that that is the source. Have a look at this thing, circulated by the FCO which Open Europe obtained a copy of. And then read the Indie piece. They are almost exactly the same. (Rather like the relationship between the “new” treaty and the re rejected constitution, you might say…) Perhaps you thought the idea

James Forsyth James Forsyth

They haven’t gone away

David Ignatius’s column today on the dangers of a nuclear attack by al Qaeda is absolutely essential reading. Ignatius, who is neither a scaremonger nor a shrill but an experienced journalist with incomparable intelligence sources, lays out the reasons to worry about what al Qaeda has up its sleeve. Perhaps, the greatest puzzle of the last six years is why al Qaeda stood down a cyanide attack on the New York subway. Ignatius reports that Zawahiri told the “plotters to stand down because ‘we have something better in mind.’” Certainly, one of the reasons why the United States hasn’t been attacked since 9/11 is that al Qaeda would like to

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Any port in a storm: or more odd reasons for forgetting the Armenians again.

Amidst suggestions that Nancy Pelosi will in fact put the Armenian Genocide resolution in her pocket, it’s been quite something to see so many self-styled liberals shake their heads and mutter that, you know, while we feel for the poor Armenians – and please, don’t for a moment doubt the seriousness of our compassion – that feeling does extend to doing anything other than cave to Turkey’ desire to muddy historical waters that are plenty clear enough (and have been for 90 years) to most reasonable observers. Still, it must be reassuring to be told, We’d like to help, we really would, but it’s just too difficult. For some reason

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Marie Antoinette: Under-Rated!

Foreign Policy’s Blake Hounshell deplores knee-jerk contrarianism and lists 10 Contrarian Arguments He Never Wants to Hear. Among them: Let Them Eat Cake: How a Delicious Dessert Could Save the World’s Poor. This seems unfair. Marie Antoinette’s famous advice was, if memory serves, given out of compassion and understanding, not aristocratic contempt for the urban poor. As I say, if my recollection is correct  -perhaps readers can help? – it was occasioned by protests over the shortage – and hence increasing price – of bread in Paris. That being so, she said, perhaps the people might consider changing their diet until the price of bread returned to a more comfortable

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot* (I think)

Rugby World Cup blogging: well, that was a disappointing weekend wasn’t it? For the second tournament in a row both semi-finals went the way I didn’t want them so. Such is life. So England vs South Africa it is. Both semi-finals demonstrated that it is easier to win games form a defensive posture than was the case even four years ago. The balance between defence and attack, out of kilter for much of the last decade, has been restored. One could add France’s victory over New Zealand and Scotland’s at home to England in 2006 as other examples of this trend. On the whole this is healthy for the game.

Sunday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Scotland 3 Ukraine 1

“For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Some good news from Iraq

The military progress of the surge in Iraq continues to be encouraging. As The Washington Post notes today, In September, Iraqi civilian deaths were down 52 percent from August and 77 percent from September 2006, according to the Web site icasualties.org. The Iraqi Health Ministry and the Associated Press reported similar results. U.S. soldiers killed in action numbered 43 — down 43 percent from August and 64 percent from May, which had the highest monthly figure so far this year. The American combat death total was the lowest since July 2006 and was one of the five lowest monthly counts since the insurgency in Iraq took off in April 2004. 

Saturday

Alex James

Art is the drug

The invitation to the Frieze Art Fair was a bigger parcel than anything that arrived on my birthday. It looked like a kind of ambassadorial visa package to a higher realm, and spa. Art invitations now outweigh fashion invitations. I mean they weigh more. The events grow ever more lavish as the art bubble perpetuates and stretches and puffs itself wider. There is more money flying around in the art world than there is flying around in space, the whole of the rest of the universe beyond the planet: perhaps as a species we’re still looking vainly in mirrors when we should be looking in telescopes. The Frieze invitation didn’t

Jeremy Clarke

All creatures great and small

The Reverend Nicola Hunt of St Peter’s, Ugborough, welcomed us to the St Francis of Assisi Day animal service. Yes, she had seen the Vicar of Dibley episode in which there had been an amusing portrayal of an animal service. Looking around the congregation, we hadn’t brought quite the wide variety of animals that the people of Dibley had taken to church, which was perhaps just as well, she said. Nevertheless, she was very glad to see that we had a lovely donkey here with us today. We turned around in our seats and beamed our best Anglican smile of welcome at the donkey in the back row. George and

Taki

Broken streak

New York Ain’t that a bitch! What else can one say? The way I figure it, it was 357 columns without a miss for the first seven years, then, after a Pentonville break, 1,275 straight until last week. The lawyers broke my streak, but then they would. And in my 30th year, too. Well, what the hell, all good things come to an end, but at least only Claus von Bulow rang to inquire whether I had dropped dead. Actually, I ran the offending piece on my website, www.takimag.com, so it did see the light of day, and 100,000 visitors got to read it, so there. What’s interesting is how

Robin Oakley

Ask the expert

He may, unusually, have a Cambridge economics degree but nobody in racing looks the part better than John Gosden. The panama or brown trilby according to the weather. The upright physical presence of a man you could easily imagine as a battalion commander. The crinkle of experience about eyes which have studied the racing scene from the inside at his father Towser’s Lewes yard, in Caracas, Venezuela, on America’s West Coast and at Manton. The calm confidence exuding from the man who learnt his trade at the feet of masters like Vincent O’Brien at Ballydoyle and Noel Murless in Newmarket, which is once again Gosden’s home base. Listen to John

Mary Killen

Your problems solved | 13 October 2007

Q. I have started to commute to London and although I do not travel in every day I find myself constantly wearing the wrong kit in the wrong place. A Barbour looks dreadful in London — equally a Crombie or a Chesterfield looks somehow provocative at Westbury station. I can’t be expected to carry two coats at all times. How do other commuters solve this conundrum? M.C., Somerset A. Head for Cordings at 19 Piccadilly, London W1 (www.cordings.co.uk). Your particular needs will be met by a classic ‘covert coat’ (£425) suitable for wear in both country and town and favoured by social types as diverse as the late Lord Deedes,

Toby Young Toby Young

The angst of grown-up social life is as nothing compared to children’s parties

Toby Young on the social pitfalls of your child’s birthday party I suppose it had to happen. There comes a time in every father’s life when his son’s social activity begins to eclipse his own. I used to find it amusing when Ludo received a stiffy in the morning post. ‘What is it now?’ I’d say, waving the letter about in mock indignation. ‘Another garden party at Buckingham Palace?’ These days, I sneak downstairs before he gets up and root about in the pile of invitations on the doormat, trying to find one that isn’t addressed to him. It wouldn’t be so bad, but the little bugger is only two-and-a-half. The

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 13 October 2007

A mondegreen is a term for a misheard word or phrase from a poem, song or piece of prose. It derives from a couplet in an old ballad, ‘They hae slain the Earl Murray/ And laid him on the green’, with the last line misheard as ‘And Lady Mondegreen’. Mondegreen was coined in Harper’s Magazine by Sylvia Wright in 1954. I’ve just been leafing through a collection of mondegreens and malapropisms by Martin Toseland in The Ants Are My Friends (Portico Books, £9.99) The title refers to a mishearing of the Bob Dylan lyric ‘the answer my friend’ (is blowing in the wind). Mr Toseland also includes eggcorns. This neologism

Deborah Ross

Restaurants | 13 October 2007

Now, let me see if I can get this right. My sister’s husband has a brother who has a friend who is friends with a couple in Zimbabwe who read The Spectator and are ‘very big fans’ of mine. I think that’s it. Anyway, might I email them, just to say ‘hello’? They’d be really chuffed. So I email and say, naturally, that should they ever find themselves in London they should get in touch and we’ll go out to lunch and, blow me, if they don’t then turn up in London (on holiday) saying: ‘Well . . . ?’ It’s not them who worry me. I’m sure they are

Bella Pollen

The age of beige

Bella Pollen on Jaeger’s ‘new’ look: old-fashioned tailoring made sexy With so many things in the world designed to make you angry, it seems pointless to get worked up about a colour, but I can’t help it — I have a thing about beige. It conjures up support tights for Scottish pensioners, ankle bandages and cheap hotel lobbies. Granted, French and Italians manage to look all exquisite and Louis Vuittonesque in it. However, your average Englishwoman dressed in beige more resembles something rolled in breadcrumbs, or worse — embalmed. But colour isn’t my only prejudice. I don’t just loathe beige. I fear it. I fear it in the same way

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes | 13 October 2007

Damocles was the courtier who told Dionysius the tyrant that his happiness was complete. Dionysius ordered Damocles to his banquet and sat him under a sword suspended by a single hair for the whole of dinner. I hope David Cameron is doing the same to any adviser who shows Damoclean tendencies. It is absolutely true that the Tories have done well, and that their leader has done better than any of them. This is the first time since John Major won the election of 1992 that any Tory leader has passed the second big test in his role (the first being to become leader at all). But almost all the

Joanna Shields

Diary – 13 October 2007

An internet executive taking to the streets of London without a BlackBerry is about as rare a sight as the Circle Line working normally. But sometimes you have to let go of the familiar to discover important home truths. So it was that at the end of the week the entire staff of Bebo’s headquarters in London was ordered to down tools, put on T-shirts emblazoned with the company logo and embark on a scavenger hunt across the capital. Away from the business of writing code and building a social network, we actually managed to bump into our social network in person. It’s an extraordinary feeling to be mobbed by

Mark Daniell

World Cup Vodoo

Mark Daniell previews the Rugby World Cup semi-finals. Mark Daniell Chaos theory states that because of its incomprehensibly complex structure, the universe and everything in it is unpredictable.  Established in the twentieth century, the idea is accepted as ‘good enough for now’ by most budding astrophysicists, and lately it would seem by most rugby fans too. The theory suggests that the tiniest influence, so easily overlooked at source, can have a monumental effect somewhere else, and is most famously illustrated by the Butterfly Effect: a butterfly flapping its wings in London may cause a hurricane in Mexico. (Interestingly, the inverse effect has yet to be studied, but it has been