Society

Saturday

The Spectator

The McCain comeback

This week was meant to be all about the entry of Fred Thompson, the politician turned actor who’s being presented as the new Reagan, into the Republican race. But Thompson has turned out to be a disappointment. His speeches have been underwhelming and the crowds small. Instead, the candidate taking the plaudits this week has been John McCain. McCain, the one-time frontrunner, saw his campaign derailed earlier this year by internal divisions and the unpopularity of his position on immigration with the Republican base. But there are signs that McCain is set for comeback. He was, by general consensus, the winner of this week’s Republican debate. Iraq is now working

The Spectator

The McCann saga

In the acres of news print devoted to the McCanns this morning, Andrew Pierce’s Telegraph column (a must-read on Saturdays) offers the best analysis. Andrew points out the sheer scale of what is at stake. If either or both of the McCanns are charged and convicted – and they deny any form of wrongdoing – “will we ever be able to trust human nature again?” Spot on. And – like any good columnist – Andrew has the guts to admit the misgivings many have felt about the McCanns in the past months, but have been too nervous to express. Whatever you think about the case (and “think” rather than “know”

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

This is a true Catholic revolution

Next Friday, 14 September, the worldwide restrictions on the celebration of the ancient Latin liturgy of the Catholic Church will be swept away. With a stroke of his pen, Pope Benedict XVI has ended a 40-year campaign to eradicate the Tridentine Mass, whose solemn rubrics are regarded with contempt by liberal bishops. In doing so, he has indicated that the entire worship of the Church — which has become tired and dreary since the Second Vatican Council — is on the brink of reformation. This is an exciting time to be a Catholic. Unless, that is, you are a diehard ‘go-ahead’ 1970s trendy, in which case you are probably hoping

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

Clarissa Dixon Wright: ‘I was healed by a holy relic’

I’m tempted, just for a second, to feel sorry for Clarissa Dickson Wright. There she is, with her back to me, 15 feet away, at a table in Valvona & Crolla — a refined little deli/café full of focaccia and Parmigiano Reggiano tucked in beside the lager shops on Edinburgh’s Leith Walk. There she sits, waiting for me: the last of the Two Fat Ladies, all alone: no fat husband to cook cakes for, no fat children to lick the icing from the bowl. I’ve read her memoirs, so I know that she’s been through the mill: alcoholism, homelessness, the death by drink of the love of her life. But

Matthew Dancona

A chat with the man who invented the internet

Imagine actually meeting Thomas Edison, or the Wright Brothers, or Newton, or Archimedes, or whichever Sumerian it was who invented the wheel in the fifth millennium bc. That, when you think about it, is what it’s like to have a conversation with Vint Cerf. Few people in the history of humanity can say with confidence that they invented or discovered something that has changed the trajectory of the species, but this genial Connecticut-born 64-year-old is among their number. Cerf is none other than the joint Father of the Internet (Robert E. Kahn being the other proud parent), which means that if you are reading this article on the Spectator website,

Frank Keating

Five tournaments that shook the rugby world

Twenty teams turn up for rugby union’s World Cup but, realistically, less than half a dozen can ever possibly win it — the heavyweight trio from the southern seas, New Zealand, South Africa or Australia and, from the north, 2007’s hosts France and, in any given year, one of the four from the British Isles. Twenty teams turn up for rugby union’s World Cup but, realistically, less than half a dozen can ever possibly win it — the heavyweight trio from the southern seas, New Zealand, South Africa or Australia and, from the north, 2007’s hosts France and, in any given year, one of the four from the British Isles.

The Spectator

Change must still be the message

The great paradox of the Tory party is that its predicament in recent years reflects not failure, but success. For 18 years it was in government, for 11 of them under one of the most influential prime ministers in history. The Conservatives dominated the 20th century: Austen Chamberlain and William Hague were the only two party leaders in those triumphant 100 years not to reach No. 10. So it is scarcely surprising that the Tory movement, in its DNA, believes the default position in this country to be a Conservative government. But David Cameron’s great insight has been to grasp that the so-called ‘pendulum’ of politics will not necessarily swing

Paul Johnson

When the skies darken, the glow of gold is always welcome

‘When markets are unsteady and investors are nervous, you can’t beat gold.’ That was my grandfather’s saying, common enough, I daresay, in late Victorian Manchester. Jimmy Goldsmith was another believer. ‘You know what the Aztecs called it,’ he would say with relish, ‘they had a special word for it — the excrement of the gods.’ Jimmy was a great buyer of gold, especially towards the end of his life. He bought bullion — gold bars — and would inspect them in the bank vault where they were kept. ‘Like visiting Fort Knox,’ he’d say. He also bought shares in gold mines, the simplest way to invest in gold. But he

Simon Hoggart

SEPTEMBER WINE CLUB

Southwold has just been voted the finest seaside resort in Britain, and it’s easy to see why.  Southwold has just been voted the finest seaside resort in Britain, and it’s easy to see why. Even in the rain last month people looked cheerful, and in the bustling dining-room of the Crown you’d imagine that the drizzle outside was a splendid excuse for more hearty trenchering. I was on my annual visit to Adnams, best known as a brewer but also one of our most adventurous wine merchants. If you find yourself in Southwold, you should drop in to their wine cellar and kitchen store; the kitchen gadgets actually work, and

Lucy Vickery

Lawrence of Ambridge

In Competition No. 2510 you were asked to submit a scene from The Archers written in the style of D.H. Lawrence. Entries were thin on the ground this week. Perhaps you just couldn’t face Lawrence and his much-mocked florid excesses — or maybe it was The Archers that put you off. Fewer didn’t mean worse, though, and there were some fine Lawrentian flourishes. Alanna Blake exploits parallels between Clarrie Grundy’s current tight-lipped disapproval of William’s new girlfriend Nic, and Paul Morel’s mother’s smouldering resentment towards Miriam Leivers in Sons and Lovers. A normally affable Eddie metamorphoses into the volatile and violent Walter Morel. Bill Greenwell mines the rich comic potential

Frank Keating

Do or die

The knives are glinting. The tabloids’ art desks stand ready to superimpose the turnip’s head. Should England’s footballers fail to win the two home matches, against Israel on Saturday and Russia on Wednesday, they are surely doomed to elimination from next summer’s European Championship finals, and their hapless manager Steve McClaren to redundancy and character assassination by a thousand cuts. As his teams have hobbled from one qualifying disappointment to another, there has always been the hope — presumption even — that when the endgame was called this autumn a fit and settled team would be in place handsomely to dismiss the doubters and bin their sarcastic jibes. After all,

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Weird and vengeful

Southwark Playhouse has moved. Its new home is a warren of arcades carved out of the massive viaduct that carries commuter trains into London Bridge station. Its latest show is a ‘promenade performance’ about Peter Abelard, the thinker and cleric, and Eloise, the thinker and sex bomb. ‘Promenade’ means the audience don’t just sit there being entertained, they have to work. We gathered in a damp dark hall at the start of the show while the cast of black-robed monks milled about muttering ominously. We were split into small groups and herded into a vestry where we each received a hooded cloak and a belt of cord. Togged up, we

Kate Chisholm

Lights under bushels

Here’s a question for all of you who can claim to be (or would wish to be) English. When was the last time you sold yourself short, modestly claiming, ‘Oh, it’s nothing really. I just botched it together in a rush’? Or, ‘I’m sure I know nothing about politics,’ when in reality you’re an avid reader of Fraser Nelson’s column? Or to a climate-change fanatic, ‘What was that? I didn’t understand what you said,’ when you’ve got a degree in environmental science? In recent years, we’ve been told such self-deprecation is bad for us and we need to go into therapy to retune our responses. But no longer. Or so

Aidan Hartley

Bread and circuses

Beijing I am in Beijing making a film about the Olympic city with an ex-Lancashire police constable named Andrew. We spend our days aimlessly zooming around vast building sites. Most of the skyscrapers are covered with what resembles sanitary tiling. I feel we are trapped in a giant bathroom, with all the humans being flushed down eight-lane highways. As with the big red bungalows of the Forbidden City, what hits you about new Beijing is not architectural skill but the sheer scale, the purpose of which is to make you feel like a termite. ‘What stories do you think we should cover?’ I asked the press officer at the Olympic

Molly Guinness

A choice of first novels | 8 September 2007

Giles Wareing, a freelance journalist, is days away from his 40th birthday, pretty sure he has gout and otherwise minding — well, monitoring is perhaps more accurate — his own business, typing ‘Giles Wareing funny/brilliant/clever’ into search engines. When a perverse impulse leads him to try some less flattering adjectives he discovers the Haters: ‘A lifetime of inchoate paranoia gelled.’ On a specially dedicated chat site every article he writes is held up to scorn and ridicule and, worse still, psychological analysis. This is enough to accelerate anyone’s midlife crisis, and Wareing’s progresses with delightful precipitation. As his paranoia worsens, so do his friends, and although it occurs to him

Friday

The Spectator

Is Osama bin Laden not in Pakistan or Afghanistan after all?

This new bin Laden video might provide vital clues at to where the al Qaeda leader is hiding. One thing that is notable about it is that his beard is black in the advanced still that has been released, rather than white-flecked as it was back in 2004. Now it is unlikely that bin Laden can get supplies of Just for Men on the run and Dick Clarke, the US’s former terrorism czar, is speculating that it might actually be a false beard. Clark thinks that this suggests bin Laden might be living somewhere where beards are unusual such as the Philippines or Indonesia. It would be a sweet irony if

The Spectator

The Iraq mission cannot afford more careless talk

Next week’s testimony from General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker to Congress on Iraq will give us the best idea yet of how the surge is progressing. To date, the signs are encouraging: to cut sectarian killings in Baghdad in half is a real achievement and begins to provide the conditions in which a political solution to Iraq’s problems can be found. Yet, proponents of the surge have to be careful that the enthusiasm surrounding it doesn’t begin to resemble the predictions of a cakewalk that preceded the invasion. If it does, the inevitable setbacks that the surge will face will become an argument for withdrawing immediately, a course that would

The Spectator

bin Laden’s message

The claim that Osama bin Laden will issue a new broadcast message on the sixth anniversary of September 11 on Tuesday illustrates the fundamental difference between the two sides in the war on terror. Even if it does not materialise, the prospect of the tape has grabbed global attention: we shall be holding our breath until the 11th to see if he will say anything and, if he does, whether it ratchets up the al Qaeda message. Second, this brilliant and brilliantly simple piece of stage management counters any amount of Western reassurance that al Qaeda does not really exist, but is actually a disaggregated group of quite different local

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Throw like a girl? You probably needed an elder brother or two…

Era Klein flags up this decade-old James Fallowes piece as his “paragraph of the day”. Fallowes is addressing the vexed, nay controversial subject of why some people – especially women! – throw “like a girl”: If you are right-handed, pick up a ball with your left hand and throw it. Unless you are ambidextrous or have some other odd advantage, you will throw it “like a girl.” The problem is not that your left shoulder is hinged strangely or that you don’t know what a good throw looks like. It is that you have not spent time training your leg, hip, shoulder, and arm muscles on that side to work

The Spectator

The BBC’s climate change u-turn

The BBC’s decision to cancel its plans for a day-long special on climate change is fascinating. Earlier this year, I took part in a seminar at Television Centre led off by Al Gore, who delivered the slide show now immortalised in An Inconvenient Truth. The former Vice-President then disappeared, partly, it emerged, because he will not share a platform with Bjorn Lomborg, the environmentalist who has cast doubt on some of the more dramatic claims made by the green lobby. Ian McEwan, Zac Goldsmith and I all made contributions to the debate – my own point being that the BBC should not exclude those who dissented from the now-orthodox position