Society

Saturday

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody | 21 April 2007

MONDAY V annoyed. Am I the only one around here who hasn’t been offered a job at Google? Not a single phone call from a headhunter in the whole time I’ve been working my little Dolce & Gabbana boots off for the good of Modern Conservatism. The whole of CCHQ is downing tools and scuttling off to make megabucks in the private sector. Nigel says it’s the Brain Drain he’s been warning about since Jed issued a memo telling everyone that working on Project Dave was reward enough in itself and ‘let’s hear no more off-message nonsense about pay and conditions. We’ve all had to make sacrifices. And don’t forget:

Oscar Humphries

Diary – 21 April 2007

The smoking ban approaches with terrifying speed. I fear that all my righteous indignation, my libertarian instinct, is merely the frightened whimper of an addict whose last crutch is being kicked away by the men in grey suits. When I drank — and I drank a lot — I couldn’t imagine a life for myself in which I wasn’t drinking. When I eventually stopped, nearly four years ago, the reality of life without debts to bars, being slapped by women I was sure I’d never met, and a perpetual hangover was so pleasant that I wondered why I hadn’t stopped sooner. I want to stop smoking so should be grateful

The Spectator

Letters to the Editor | 21 April 2007

US and them Sir: David Selbourne seems to suffer from tunnel vision in his analysis of failing US imperial ambitions (‘No more Pax Americana’, 14 April). He seems to believe that Islamism is its undoing and makes no mention of nationalism — a far more potent force. American imperialism is being resisted in Latin America as well as in the Middle East, and the common thread is nationalism, not Islamism. Paranoia about Islam is as widespread throughout the West as it once was about communism, but viewing either of these phenomena as monolithic is much too simplistic. The vast majority of Muslims around the world are concerned with local problems

Matthew Lynn

The brothers are back — and they’re setting the agenda

Even allowing for retro-chic, there were some things from the 1970s that most of us assumed were never coming back: cheese-and-wine parties, lime-green bathroom suites, and trade unions setting industrial policy. The little cubes of cheese and the green baths look safely forgotten. But the brothers? They’re back. In the past few months, trade unions have been making the running on issues ranging from the role of private equity to the responsibility of manufacturers to keep their factories in Britain. Led mainly by the GMB and the Transport & General Workers, the unions have developed a stunt-happy, web-friendly, celebrity-savvy campaigning style that has left the overpaid suits of City PR

Joanna Pitman

A frenzy for Chinese art

The great China investment boom has many facets. A fortnight ago at a Sotheby’s sale in Hong Kong of Chinese works of art, wealthy mainland collectors and their representatives became so excitable during the bidding that along with the rest of the audience they ended up splurging almost £30 million. Historical works of art from the Qianlong Reign attracted particular attention: one of the highlights of the sale was an ‘Extraordinary Group of Seven Jade Imperial Archer’s Rings’ along with its original cinnabar box and cover, which sold for just over £3 million. ‘The Qianlong emperor (1736–1795) was something of a Renaissance man,’ says Henry Howard-Sneyd, managing director of Sotheby’s

Jules Evans

The only Western oligarch in Moscow

Stephen Jennings is very tall — about six feet seven. He wraps his body into contortions to fit his limbs into his chair in his central Moscow office. He would certainly suffer in Aeroflot’s economy class —  but luckily he has his own jet. He’s also a towering figure in Russian business. His investment bank, Renaissance Capital, is worth up to £3 billion, and he owns roughly 80 per cent of it. He is, says another Moscow banker, ‘the only foreign oligarch in Russia’. This 47-year-old Kiwi hasn’t just had a front-row seat in the turbulent changes of the last 15 years of Russian business and politics. He’s played a

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

The house may be a bargain — but how about the Chippendale to go with it?

Spring sunshine encourages us all to browse estate agents’ windows. This week’s featured property, Dumfries House, looks at first glance like a rare example of value for money in an overheated market. This exquisite mid-18th-century mansion designed by Robert and John Adam comes with 1,940 acres — yet for the same price, £6.75 million, from the same agent, Savills, you could buy nothing more than a five-bedroomed townhouse with a 30ft garden in Pelham Crescent, South Kensington. There are, however, some drawbacks to Dumfries House, leaving aside the obvious one that it’s nowhere near Dumfries, so your removal van may never find it. The estate is in fact in east

Michael Gove

Winning the Cold War

John O’Sullivan has done much more with this book than provide three potted biographies; he has laid out a compelling account of how the Cold War was won, furnished us with a manual of political leadership and told us the inner secrets of a love story. At the heart of this story of the Eighties, a decade O’Sullivan rightly champions, is the remarkable relationship between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. The strength of their bond was at the time regarded as semi-scandalous, a betrayal by the British Prime Minister of her first loyalty, to her country, in favour of a wild ideological fling. For those of us who were undergraduates

Toby Young Toby Young

Nothing to declare but his genius

Poor Colin Wilson. Has there ever been such a spectacular decline in an author’s fortunes? His first book, The Outsider (1956), was an overnight sensation. Hailed as a literary breakthrough by Philip Toynbee and Cyril Connolly, it earned him £20,000 in its first year of publication — the equivalent of £1 million in today’s money. ‘I have just met my first genius,’ declared Daniel Farson in the Daily Mail. ‘His name is Colin Wilson.’ He was only 24 at the time and, on the back of such fawning attention, seemed destined for a long and distinguished career. In fact, Wilson fell from grace within a year. To a large extent,

Patrick Carnegy

Shakespeare on the line

The RSC’s Complete Works Festival ‘Completism’ has become a bit of a mania in the arts world, but there’s no question that Michael Boyd has left a distinguished mark on the RSC with his Complete Works Festival. It began a year ago with Romeo and Juliet and concludes with Ian McKellen in the title role of Trevor Nunn’s staging of King Lear. The bloggers are raving, but plaudits from professional scribblers will have to wait until the end of May. As the world knows, Goneril fell off her bike and the RSC won’t expose Lear to the press until she’s back on it again. Jolly tough on the valiant understudy,

Anne Applebaum

Putin will stop at nothing

Anne Applebaum says that dissidents against the authoritarian regime, many of them in London, are raising the stakes. The President’s response is to get even tougher — and to target Britain in his new propaganda war About two years ago, Mikhail Kasyanov, ex-prime minister of Russia, made a private visit to Washington. Off the record, he told a handful of journalists that he was disturbed by the authoritarianism of President Putin. Then, in maybe a dozen or so more ‘off the record’ meetings, he told more journalists, several politicians and a lot of other people in Washington that he was disturbed by the authoritarianism of President Putin. In other words,

Matt Frei

‘Dusty Bibles, Dirty Thoughts’

Matt Frei reports from the scene of the US campus  killings, listens to the survivors and concludes that  the only question worth asking is: where next? Blacksburg, Virginia The last school shooting I covered also happened in the morning. It was October 2006 and a middle-aged milkman finished his night shift, got a few hours’ sleep, kissed his wife and children and then walked into an Amish village school half a mile away in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It was a glorious late summer day. Armed with ropes, rubber gloves and gaffer tape, he let the boys go and tied the girls together. He then shot ten of them execution-style. Five died.

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Kate was too posh for William

Rod Liddle says that young princes in their twenties will always prefer a peroxide blonde  with a non-U name to a fragrant, well-spoken English rose This has been a difficult week. I am still trying to come to terms with the fact that I was responsible for the traumatic break-up between Prince William and Kate Middleton. It is a terrible thing to have on one’s conscience, the dashing of young love and the hope and expectation of a nation. It’s not, of course, that I’ve been spotted dancing the night away and canoodling in Chinawhite with Kate, or Wills for that matter. I’ve never, ever, pawed a royal or a

Simon Hoggart

April Wine Club

Order your wines by email. Summer is almost upon us. Ah, the cancerous barbecue smoke drifting from next door’s garden, the stinking, sweaty trains and buses, the yobs with stomachs spilling over their shorts, the never-ending football season. Sorry, didn’t mean that. It was very negative. What I meant to remind you of was the murmur of bees, the hum of gentle alfresco conversation in the sunshine, picnics under the dappled light of an apple tree, the scent of flowers and newly cut grass as dusk begins to fall. That’s what this offer is about. These are wines for summer, wines for those lovely days when you can eat every

Lucy Vickery

Fast living

In Competition No. 2490 you were invited to give an account of the life of a historical figure condensed into seven days. The assignment was inspired by a 19th-century nursery rhyme which tells the bleak tale of Solomon Grundy, who was born on a Monday and apparently dead by Sunday. It struck terror into me as a child, having the tone of a cautionary tale but giving no discernible clue as to what SG might have done to deserve such a grim fate. Of course I know now that it’s a riddle, stupid. The standard was exceptionally high, and it was a struggle to whittle it down to just six.

Frank Keating

The road to Athens

Chelsea vs Manchester United: the long-running grudge which has defined English football’s Premiership for most of the winter (and last) could yet be extended to a fevered and passionate play-off decider in Athens on 23 May in the European Cup final itself. Travel agents are rubbing their hands and, doubtless, Greek policemen are anxiously fondling their truncheons and assessing the overtime rates. Mind you, the swish, steamy Athenian arena that night could just as edgily be staging a less insular feud, but one which could well have a sharper, more international focus: Liverpool vs Milan. Whatever, we shall see what we shall see: avert your eyes now or, at least,

Saturday

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody | 14 April 2007

Monday Am going to get to the bottom of this Miliband unit if it’s the last thing I do. There’s something shifty about it, mark my words, although initial investigations are inconclusive. Kept eye on Poppy and James, and when they disappeared off to one of their ‘Special Meetings’ I followed them, crouching behind recycling bins — which, thankfully, are now located throughout the office at a distance of every four paces for the convenience of all staff and in the interests of future generations. They went into a room marked ‘Clearance Level Black Special’ (DD really takes this room-labelling business seriously). Stood outside for ages and couldn’t hear a

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 14 April 2007

Hitler said, ‘I know my enemies. I met them at Munich. They are little worms.’ He turned out to be wrong, thank goodness, but the impression that his enemies gave him emboldened him for war. The Iranians must now think that we, the British, are little worms; and on the basis of our conduct in the last ten days, they would be right. They are emboldened too: no sooner had they let our captives go than they proudly announced their membership of the nuclear club. Here are some reasons why the fiasco of the ‘Shatt-al-Arab 15’ is even worse than the critics have said. 1. Comradeship. The Sunday Times quoted

Michael White

Diary – 14 April 2007

St Ives, Cornwall Emailing a friend in Boston, I reported that winter had been so benign in southern England this year that it was bound to snow in Cornwall at Easter. Not so. I write just after dawn as a fishing boat chugs across the tranquil bay in bright sunshine. The week’s weather promises to be as near perfect as any since my siblings and I first started our annual family reunion in rented cottages here in 1983. Wonderful. And the Sloop Inn (‘circa 1305’) has now installed a wireless connection for the laptop. *** Not all is calm. This region is steeped in military history, but its media seems

Mary Killen

Dear Mary… | 14 April 2007

Q. Please can you advise me? I am a bachelor living on my own and I have my shirts ironed by a very nice lady in the village. She does a great job, but I am getting increasingly annoyed as she leaves my shirts hanging in the kitchen and then proceeds to cook a roast dinner (or similar) before I can pick them up. She is incredibly friendly but very thin-skinned. How can I subtly suggest that she stores them somewhere else so I don’t smell of roast lamb when I wear my clothes? I did think about providing clothes covers but fear this might not have the desired effect,