Society

Saturday

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody | 2 June 2007

MONDAY Jed away for three weeks on horseback safari in Botswana and nobody knows who’s in charge. Nigel says it’s The Three Georges, Poppy reckons it’s Mr Maude, Wonky Tom says we ought to ring Sam — she’s bound to know what to do (‘All right, my darlin’, getcha notebook out…’). We will have to muddle on. Tom and I are doing a Grammar Schools Rebels stock-take — we estimate it’s 98 per cent of MPs and peers, including all of front bench, plus entire voluntary party. Personally, I feel this is going to make it difficult to draw a line under things by sacking Mr Brady. Last thing Jed

Bryan Forbes

Diary – 2 June 2007

I don’t keep a diary any more, having decided that my past efforts contained too much that was either libellous or trite. However, leafing through a collection of oldies this week I noted one pertinent item, namely that when the National Insurance scheme was launched in July 1948, Bevan’s vision was greeted with mixed feelings by doctors and sections of the public, especially those he had designated as vermin. A sum of 4s 11d was docked from wage packets, of which only 81/2d went to the Health Service. In nine months, costs had already spiralled an extra £50 million from the original estimate of £176 million, prompting the BMA to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A tricky initial

We all know a friend with an embarrassing second initial but Barack Obama’s H is particularly problematic. Hussein isn’t the pollster approved middle name for a US presidential candidate but amazingly 57% of the electorate think that this will be a problem for him in the campaign, that’s 13% percentage points more than the number who fret about the quasi-dynastic nature of a Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton succession. This and many other fascinating polling numbers here, thanks to the Politico.

Tim Walker

‘I enjoy being an ousider’

At the Prince of Wales’s 50th birthday party at Buckingham Palace, Sir Geoffrey Cass, who was then the chairman of the Royal Shakespeare Company, presented Antony Sher to the Queen. ‘He is one of our leading actors, ma’am,’ Sir Geoffrey whispered into her ear. Her Majesty frowned, paused for a very long time and finally said, ‘Oh, are you?’ A string of words, mercifully unuttered, formed in Sher’s head. ‘No, of course not, Your Majesty, you’ve seen through me. I’m just a little gay Yid from somewhere called Sea Point on the other side of the world. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t know why I am. I am an

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

A VC won’t get you into Britain

Rifleman Tulbahadur Pun then seized the Bren gun, and firing from the hip as he went, continued the charge on this heavily bunkered position alone, in the face of the most shattering concentration of automatic fire, directed straight at him…. Despite …overwhelming odds, he reached the Red House and closed with the Japanese occupants. He killed three and put five more to flight and captured two light machineguns and much ammunition. He then gave accurate supporting fire from the bunker to the remainder of his platoon which enabled them to reach their objective.His outstanding courage and superb gallantry in the face of odds which meant almost certain death were most

Theodore Dalrymple

Global Warning

Not hell, but drunkenness, is other people. This insight was vouchsafed me in the London Underground the other evening. I had just passed a notice from the Mayor of London warning passengers to be careful after a few drinks. In the previous year, it said, two people had been killed and hundreds injured after a few drinks. I myself had had what I would call a few drinks, but I do not think I was in much danger. What the Mayor meant by a few drinks, of course, was the appalling uncontrolled drunkenness of the shameless young adults of all classes who so disfigure our capital city, many of whom

Paul Johnson

The young generation prefers to face life with their gloves off

I studied with interest the recent photo of Prince William and Prince Harry attending a military occasion in mufti. For officers in the Foot Guards and the Household Cavalry, the sartorial drill is, or used to be, strict. Here is my report on the two young men. Bowlers: all right but nothing spectacular. Harry’s better than William’s. Indeed, the latter’s, worn a bit fore and after, might have inspired his great-great-grandfather’s scathing comment: ‘Hello, William, goin’ rattin’?’ Dark suits: oh dear, and no weskits so far as I can see. Who’s your tailor, William? Oh yes? Change him. Tightly rolled umbrellas: just passable. Shoes: well, it’s a democratic age. But

Stephen Romer

No Interruptions

I cannot wholly decideabout my father’s resolve not to speak or seek out textsor make arrangements except perhaps to the pillowand the blankets. Was it for him, or for us,or was he ‘in denial’ when he preferred to drift and dozeto music or ambient conversation as if some unusual actwould make the thing too real? That adherence to routine,The Times and the radio, was it because the stream of timeremained too precious to interruptearly, as when he waited for the concert toendbefore unfolding himself from thecar?

Aidan Hartley

Flying high | 2 June 2007

Kenya I have hated flying since 1989, when I was in a Boeing 737 that crashed into an Ethiopian mountain, lost its wings and burst into flames. Surviving that one was followed by years of pre-check-in heavy drinking. As if that were not enough, I now suffer this wrenching guilt about all the carbon I emit on my frequent long-haul flights. And my recent journey home from Mongolia to Africa was a 48-hour nightmare. I felt like an astronaut. I departed Ulan Bator loaded with souvenirs: a horn and sinew bow with a 40-lb pull and six arrows, cashmere and camel hair, pebbles from the Gobi desert and a very

Simon Hoggart

Spectator Mini-Bar Offer | 2 June 2007

Fashions in wine change, like everything else, so it was inevitable that when New World wines swept all before them, Europe would learn to follow the trend. Which is why in southern France, northern Spain and northern Italy these days you find much more highly flavoured wines — ‘fruit bombs’, some cynics call them — though often still showing some of the strength and backbone that comes with a less evenly sunny climate. In the past, the subtlety could be more important than the flavour; now there’s a better balance. And in turn the New World has copied that. These wines, from Graham Mitchell Vintners, who specialise in high-class wines

Lucy Vickery

Short story | 2 June 2007

In Competition no. 2496 you were invited to submit a short story whose final line is ‘Sir, when I heard of him last he was running about town shooting cats.’ The challenge was to make this extract — from a passage in Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson about the Doctor’s beloved cat Hodge — follow on convincingly from the rest of the story rather than appearing to be tacked awkwardly on to the end. The standard was disappointing; a lot of entries stormed along promisingly only to falter badly at the final hurdle. Liz Childs played a blinder, though, and is a worthy recipient of the bonus fiver. I’m reliably

Frank Keating

Statuesque

Is any new sporting arena fit for purpose without a statue to adorn it? Critics of the apparently workaday new Wembley Stadium reckon the most striking thing about it is the towering bronze at its entrance by sculptor Philip Jackson of the straightbacked, relaxed good fellow, lamented Bobby Moore. Statues of sporting figures are suddenly all the rage. Forty years or so ago, when Bob was still captaining the England football team, I’d cover the rugby at Paris’s decrepit, fondly remembered Colombes (where they’d staged 1924’s Chariots of Fire Olympic Games) and, waiting for my ticket check, would always offer a sentimental nod towards the chunky four-square stone sculpture of

Friday

The Spectator

The new Paris

Paris Hilton’s coming incarceration and Lindsay Lohan’s trip to rehab creates an opening for a new party girl to keep the paparazzi employed though the summer, the red tops in copy and the rest of us entertained. New York Magazine have done us all a service by providing a guide to the runners and riders in the great It-girl steeplechase—and you’ll be glad to know that there’s plenty of  British representation. The Brit pack consists of Lily Allen who gets points for declaring that anyone who paid for Paris Hilton’s music album should be put down. Then there’s Rod Stewart’s daughter Kim, let’s ignore the fact that she’s technically an

The Spectator

Stating the obvious

Bewildered rage has greeted Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s announcement  that abortion is a bad thing and that Catholics should be against it.  He has been accused of using threatening and inflammatory language and of “punishing” pro-choice Catholic politicians by seeking to exclude them from the Church. He has done no such thing. In a sermon at St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, yesterday to mark the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act, the leader of Scotland’s Roman Catholics urged medical schools to teach that all human life deserves protection, and called on hospitals to end tests designed to target and kill the weak and infirm. He said that we should be ‘unwilling to

The Spectator

‘Im worried about Lesley’

Now that Big Brother’s returned for its summer run what does it tell us about the political mind of Britain? Leaders-and deputy leaders-come and go, manifestos get launched,opposition spokesmen are sacked and ministers do u-turns. But it’s the cultural mood which decides whether a party’s time is up or not. Brown’s arrival and Brady’s departure,Blears’s bid and Cooper’s HIPs (deceased) play into that mood and reflect the shifting scene. And reality tv really does tell us what television executives have decided about what the cultural stereotypes should be and how they perform on the scene. BB is a sophisticated show-artful of course in its manipulation of individual likes and dislikes among the contestants-but

Thursday

Matthew Dancona

Did the other guy just blink?

Well, well. As James posted earlier, the Tory Party has now admitted that it would consider the building of new grammar schools “on a case-by-case basis, if the demographics required it.” The apparently dramatic shift has been forced by Dominic Grieve, the MP for Beaconsfield and Shadow Attorney General, who wanted assurance that the supply of grammar school places in Buckinghamshire matched the needs of his local electorate. Hence, the spin doctors’ response: “Where there is a big population expansion in an area, we would try to maintain the proportion of pupils going to grammar schools. We would need new ones built because they can’t just go to more comprehensives.”

The Spectator

A grim reality

  Nothing better sums up everything that is wrong with this country and our culture than Big Brother. Yet, the public is still fascinated by it and the idea of having an all-female house has won the show acres of space in the red tops. This morning on the tube the majority of people in my carriage were all studying Metro’s form guide intently. After the whole Big Brother racism row, there was much hopeful talk about how we’d finally turn our backs on this vile concept. But 6 million people tuned in last night, only a million down on last year’s launch. Indeed, I suspect that if we had

The Spectator

Quitting on the NHS

It seems strange that Nice has agreed that the NHS should pay for Champix, the new anti-smoking drug, while at the same time refusing to endorse, for example, Aricept, Exelon and Reminyl for those in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and Avastin and Alimta for cancer. Cost-effective arguments don’t really wash — how does one cost the saving to the state of, for instance, a person with dementia being able to lead a relatively independent life and not having to rely on the state? If a 12-week course of Champix doesn’t work, will an addict be given a second chance, or a third or a fourth? 

The Spectator

The truth about dirty dancing

Stephen has a good post on really bad films. I have never understood the appeal of the dreadful Dirty Dancing, nor its passage into Rocky Horror-style cult status. So this Guardian piece about staying in Baby’s cabin is my idea of the naughty step times a thousand: a sort of cultural Guantanamo Bay. Will someone explain why this film is still allowed to be shown in public places, let alone to inspire holidays?    

Wednesday

The Spectator

Is this man the next Ronald Reagan?

The Republican presidential field just got even more crowded with the news that former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson is jumping in. You probably know Thomspon’s face, if not his name, as he’s been in a whole slew of movies including The Hunt for Red October, Die Hard 2 and In the Line of Fire. His backers think that his star role in the hit US legal drama Law and Order will propel him into the top tier of candidates—and they’re probably right. Thompson’s entry into the race is a function of dissatisfaction with the rest of the GOP field. Only three of the current crop are even plausibly electable: Rudy