Society

Saturday

20 Oct 2007

Serge Toujours

Sweet, sweet piece on the great Serge Gainsbourg in Vanity Fair. Jane Birkin describes their daily routine in the 1970s as follows: they woke up at three in the afternoon; she picked up the children at school and took them to the park, brought them home for a children’s dinner, the au pair would give them a bath, and when the children went to bed she and Serge would kiss them good night and go out on the town. They’d come back “with the dustman,” wait until the children woke up at 7:30, then go to sleep. Their alcohol-fueled nights would often turn, as Jane puts it, “barmy.” Once, at

Alex Massie

Who dares say the Japanese are odd?

The New York Times’ Martin Fackler has your most entertaining story of the day. Magnificent stuff, and oddly charming too: On a narrow Tokyo street, near a beef bowl restaurant and a pachinko parlor, Aya Tsukioka demonstrated new clothing designs that she hopes will ease Japan’s growing fears of crime. Deftly, Ms. Tsukioka, a 29-year-old experimental fashion designer, lifted a flap on her skirt to reveal a large sheet of cloth printed in bright red with a soft drink logo partly visible. By holding the sheet open and stepping to the side of the road, she showed how a woman walking alone could elude pursuers — by disguising herself as

James Forsyth

A moral nation?

Under the arresting headline “Wanted: a national culture”, The Times carries an extract from the Chief Rabbi’s new book. Here’s the key section of Jonathan Sack’s argument: “In 1961, suicide ceased to be a crime. This might seem a minor and obviously humane measure, but it was the beginning of the end of England as a Christian country; that is, one in which Christian ethics was reflected in law. It was a prelude to other and more significant reforms. In 1967 abortion was legalised, as was homosexual behaviour. Collectively these changes represented a decisive move away from the idea that society had, or was entitled to have, a moral code

Tamzin Lightwater

Notting Hill Nobody | 20 October 2007

Sunday Bonjour, mes amis! Am in Paris for Compassionate Conservative hen weekend! All the girls from the office are here giving Abby from Dave’s team a Right-Of-Centre-Yet-Modern send-off. Staying in what Poppy describes as a dump, but is actually a boho chic boutique hotel (I checked the brochure). We were going to stay at a place called the George but it flooded, or something. Every time we drive down the Champs Elysées everyone sighs, and says, ‘Ah, the George sank’. V odd. Also, what is ‘Urmeez’ — and what does it have to do with scarves? Anyway, big party tonight. We are dressing up as blue bunny girls and going

Hugo Rifkind

By the time they stop being mad, politicians are the right age for the House

This is a column about the reform of the House of Lords. I have a hunch it might not look like one, probably until pretty much the end, but that is what it is. Try to remember this if, at times, it appears to be about something else. ‘They should just clone ministers,’ says the Hugh Abbott character in The Thick Of It (2005), ‘so we’re born at 55 with no past and no flats and no genitals.’ How dated that seems, already. Flats, pasts and genitals remain problematic, true enough, but 55 has become unacceptably ancient. What is a suitable age, these days, for a senior MP? Fortyish? David

Martin Jacomb

Northern Rock: a day to remember

It was not an iceberg that caused the crash of Northern Rock and fortunately there was no loss of life; but it will be remembered, like the sinking of the Titanic, for years to come. None of us had seen queues of worried depositors outside bank branches before. We can remember it happening in It’s a Wonderful Life, but this was real life; and the pictures went round the world. The affair must have damaged the Bank of England’s standing among other central banks. People say it is the first such event since Overend, Gurney in 1866. Although there have been numerous bank failures since then, none has involved queues

Judi Bevan

‘Emotions are key. It’s not just about sandwiches’

A tiny door marked ‘Pret a Manger Academy’ in the back wall of Victoria station leads up two narrow flights of metal stairs to a warm, colourful room where rock music is playing softly. Strangely shaped leather chairs scattered with fluffy cushions give the faint air of a bordello. This is the headquarters of Pret a Manger, the sandwich chain which owns 164 shops in Britain, and others in New York, Hong Kong and Singapore. So far, so surreal. Julian Metcalfe, the co-founder of the sandwich chain, appears almost in a puff of smoke. An arresting presence, he would make a good wizard. He’s dressed in a tailored slate-blue jacket

Allister Heath

Darling must scrap his tax attack on entrepreneurs

Gordon Brown can’t stop himself from meddling, even with his own good ideas. Soon after he moved into No 11 Downing Street, he introduced one of the best pro-growth capital gains tax regimes in the world. Last week his Chancellor Alistair Darling, with Brown grinning approval beside him, undid much of that good work in one fell swoop. Their primary target was the City’s private equity industry; but their destructive 80 per cent tax hike will also ensnare farmers, entrepreneurs, small companies quoted on the Aim market, life assurance companies, 1.7 million employees who participate in company share schemes, business angels and venture capital funds, to name but a few.

Martin Vander Weyer

Piggy in the middle between the grain speculators and the supermarkets

The concentrated aroma of — how shall I put it — deep piggy doo-doo that wafts through your car window as you motor up the A1 through North Yorkshire is, in normal times, nothing more nor less than the smell of money. So I was taken aback to hear a farmer from that part of the county declare that if prices carry on the way they’re going, ‘it’ll be time to shoot the pigs’. We will hear shortly from Merryn Somerset Webb, in our Investment column, about how to make money in ‘soft commodities’ — in which dabbling by you and me does no harm if it boosts farmers’ income

Fraser Nelson

Once again, Europe threatens to devour another British PM

In British politics, the Europe question always comes to embody the problems that a Prime Minister faces. So Gordon Brown will fly back from Lisbon with a treaty that emphasises that he is scared of putting things to the country and that he spins just as much as his predecessor ever did. With the ratification process expected to run for six months, Mr. Brown faces prolonged trouble over this document and maybe even his first large scale Labour rebellion. Only last month, the European Union Reform Treaty seemed to pose little problem for Gordon Brown. He had enough political capital to sign and dispose of this unwanted inheritance from Tony

Matthew Dancona

Brick Lane’s queen strikes gold on the silver screen

Four years ago I published a book set in the East End, about a troubled young woman who lives and works in the vibrant multiethnic community of Bethnal Green. It was fun to write, and reasonably well-reviewed. But just before publication I turned around and saw a magnificent tidal wave filling the literary horizon, and approaching fast. ‘Another book about the East End,’ I thought to myself. ‘Wow, that looks rather impressive. I wonder what it is? . . . Glug. Glug. Glug.’ The tidal wave was a debut novel of stunning confidence and elegance called Brick Lane and, four years on, I am sitting in a Dulwich bistro with

Piers Paul-Read

The Muslims’ letter to the Pope is not all it seems

The Muslims’ letter to the Pope is not all it seems At first sight the letter from 138 prominent Muslim scholars and imams to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders published last week, ‘A Common Word Between Us and You’, is a welcome statement of a number of obvious truths — that Christianity and Islam worship one God; that both religions enjoin truth, justice and love of neighbour; and that if these two great monotheistic religions fight one another, then there is little chance of peace in the world. The letter, issued by the Royal Aaal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Jordan, had among its signatories grand muftis

Norman Stone

What has this ‘genocide’ to do with Congress?

Istanbul Two elderly shoe-shiners were shouting with rage outside my local in Istanbul. The subject was America, and they ranted on and on — first about the disaster in Iraq, then about the stirring up of the Kurds, and then about the latest effort in Congress to ‘recognise the Armenian genocide’. What is so very strange about all of this is that American relations with Turkey have generally been very good. In a sense, modern Turkey belongs with Germany and Japan as the most successful creation of the United States after the second world war. In any year, there are 25,000 Turks at American universities, some of them sprigs of

Christopher Hope

The auditor general and Saudi arms deals

To date there have been no indications of ministerial disquiet with Sir John Bourn, Britain’s comptroller and auditor general. Ministers speak of him in glowing terms, insisting that he is the embodiment of rectitude. Conservative front-bench spokesmen take the same favourable view. This is very striking in view of the stream of revelations concerning this guardian of our public finances. Embarrassing details emerged last week, courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act, concerning Sir John’s personal extravagance. To put it mildly, they showed that he does not manifest the same hair-shirt attitude to taxpayers’ money that his National Audit Office demands of other public bodies. It is not so much

Theodore Dalrymple

Global warning | 20 October 2007

People have only to talk for a short time for it to become obvious that the greatest of human rights is not freedom of opinion, but freedom from opinion. It is a mercy that there are so many languages that one does not understand. While in Venice recently I joined a queue for an exhibition in the Doge’s Palace. It was very long, and the conversation behind me obtruded itself upon my consciousness. It was between a middle-aged couple, formerly of Detroit, Michigan, but now of Sarasota, Florida (out of the frying pan into the warm bath, as it were) and a young Canadian woman, the large number of whose

Rod Liddle

Why living near my old friend Michael Gove can seriously damage your health

People living within a 25-mile radius of Michael Gove, MP, are more likely to die of cirrhosis of the liver and alcohol-related tumours than anywhere else in the country. There is a direct correlation between (fairly) close proximity to Michael and very high levels of alcohol consumption. A study carried out by researchers from the Liverpool John Moores University discovered that five of Britain’s most alcohol-saturated areas were congregated around Michael’s constituency in Surrey Heath. The only one that wasn’t nearby was Harrogate, in North Yorkshire — and just a cursory check through the clippings shows that Michael delivered a speech there to the Chartered Institute of Housing, in which

Lucy Vickery

Pseuds’ corner

Who has not stared blankly at a bewildering installation and wondered what the blazes it was all about? Given that ideas are so fundamental to this sort of art, what we clueless punters need is clarification, not obfuscation. Which makes it all the more annoying when critics write in what seems to be a willfully abstruse way. The topic obviously struck a chord. There were some hilariously impenetrable entries and commendations go to Bill Greenwell and David Blaber. John O’Byrne invited failure and, in an act of subversion (and because it’s good), I have included him among the winners below, who get £25 each. Simon Machin pockets this week’s bonus

Frank Keating

Down under and out

By nice fluke, there has been a heady clash of cultures over the past few days, with comparisons anything but invidious. The intriguing bundle of important international football matches has converged precisely with both rugby league’s grand final and the closing stages of rugby union’s World Cup in France. The ubiquitous radio phone-ins and the letters pages of the public prints have been enthused with discussion on each code’s relative merits, particularly on the simplicity or otherwise of the respective rules and the discipline, chivalry and civility of the players. The pros and cons, the cut and thrust of the polemic in many cases has led to penitent crossover and

Simon Hoggart

Spectator mini-bar offer | 20 October 2007

This is our last mini-bar before we start to get ready for Christmas. I have chosen four medium-priced but excellent wines to see you through to the serious festive season. They come from another of our favourite merchants, Tanners of Shrewsbury. One of the attractive features of the wine trade is the way that people who work for different companies usually get on terrifically well. In fact, six of the leading companies co-operate as The Bunch, and together hold a couple of serious tastings in London every year. These are unmissable events, and the most recent is where I tasted some of the wines in this, I hope engaging, offer.

Lloyd Evans

Less is more | 20 October 2007

Theatre: Shadowlands; Cat’s-Paw; Glengarry Glen Ross Repressed Brits are on parade in Shadowlands. Author C.S. Lewis is portrayed as an emotional cripple who can’t bring himself to articulate his love for Joy Gresham, a sassy, super-intelligent American poet. Charles Dance is perfectly cast in the weird role of Lewis. With his stately, ruminative face and his air of embarrassment barely mastered, he looks like a befuddled giraffe performing good works in Africa. His eyes are just right too. Their expressive, pink-rimmed moistness makes him look as if he stopped weeping about ten minutes ago. And there’s great chemistry between him and Janie Dee as the besotted, endlessly patient Joy. William