Society

Saturday

Roderick Conway-Morris

An ancient modernist

In 1944 an Allied bomb fell into the circular courtyard of the ancient Roman-inspired house that Andrea Mantegna had built for himself in Mantua, bouncing off its frescoed frieze. It failed to detonate. On 11 March of the same year, another landed on the Eremitani church in Padua, blowing the Ovetari chapel, whose walls were decorated with the precocious young Mantegna’s first fresco cycles, to smithereens. By then the only other surviving monumental work executed by the artist in Padua was the San Zeno altarpiece, destined from the beginning for Verona. It was delivered there on the eve of his departure for Mantua, where, from 1460 until his death in

Giannandrea Poesio

Soggy in the corps

There are many different ways to start a ballet season, but an artistically disjointed triple bill is not the ideal one. Even on paper the Royal Ballet’s opening programme for 2006/7 looks awkward, and the rationale behind joining Balanchine’s Violin Concerto (1972), Jirí Kyliàn’s Sinfonietta (1978) and Glen Tetley’s Voluntaries (1973) remains unclear. Little matters if each work boasts an important, non-dance-specific score — something that prompted the most welcome presence of Antonio Pappano in the pit. And little matters when each of the three works represents a significant moment in late 20th-century ballet history. But to come across as successfully woven, a mixed programme requires much stronger artistic, cultural

Allister Heath

‘Anti-Americanism is a form of fascism’

Narrow nationalism, hatred of Jews, and chauvinism find their meeting place in anti-Americanism, the acclaimed French thinker Bernard-Henri Lévy tells Allister Heath What is most unusual about Bernard-Henri Lévy is not that he wears his white shirts open almost all the way down to his bellybutton; one would expect little else of a French philosopher who grew up hooked on the deconstructionist theories of Jacques Derrida. Far more intriguing is that the top half of his shirts are entirely and deliberately devoid of buttons â” and have clearly been expensively and carefully tailored, manufacturing the ‘noble savage’ look for which he is renowned. Lévy â” or BHL as he is

Iain Johnstone

Keanu Reeves teaches Python magic

Some years ago I was writing a script with John Cleese in Los Angeles and we went for dinner at a buzzy brasserie called Chaya. When the waiter brought our steaks he also brought a $200 bottle of St Francis Cabernet Sauvignon. We hadn’t ordered it; the waiter said it was a gift from some anonymous diners. John suggested to the waiter that they come by our table as they were leaving the restaurant. It turned out to be Keanu Reeves and a couple of chums. They joined us for a drink and then the most remarkable thing happened: they started to re-enact scenes from Monty Python and the Holy

The Spectator

Make North Korea blink

The Korean nuclear crisis marks the bankruptcy of one style of post-Cold War diplomacy and should be the midwife of wholly new methods. It is not only essential that Pyongyang itself be punished for its flagrant act of provocation. The crisis must be resolved in such a way that no other rogue state is tempted to pursue the same reckless path. The eyes of Iran’s rulers are fixed on the Korean peninsula to see how much Kim Jong-Il is allowed to get away with. But other regimes with nuclear ambitions — Syria, Venezuela — are watching too. This is a test of the West’s resolve, and of the principles it

Frank Keating

Trailer trash

Football is intrusive, all right; but mightily persuasive as well. It is impossible to steer clear of football, but at the same time — I speak for myself — it is hard not to be fondly enamoured of it. For sure, there is no remote escape from both the obviously besotted obsessives who ration tightly every other game to dole out oceans of space for footy in the public prints, or the soccer-mad broadcast chiefs who schedule the airwaves. Commercial radio’s dedicated channel TalkSport does what it says on the tin — take it or leave it. Its BBC counterpart Five Live is meant to cover all news and current

Saturday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary… | 7 October 2006

Q. A few weeks ago we had a 25th wedding anniversary dance. Old and new friends came from far and wide. A clutch of beautiful presents was left for us in the hall, which we did not expect. One had an unsigned card (from a Dover Street Art Gallery). The present is the most stunning set of silver salad servers. I am in agony at being unable to thank the kind person who gave us these. Going through the guest list, I eliminated all those who gave presents with cards attached. Then I picked three particularly stylish girlfriends who were likely to have given such a present; I emailed them

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody | 7 October 2006

SATURDAY Phonecalls to Dorset police: 235. Nights without sleep: 3. Double espressos: 25. Where is Dave’s pass?!!?!? We applied two months ago for-heaven’s-to-Betsy-Duncan-Smith’s-sake. Chief constable most unhelpful. ‘How do we know your so-called Mr Cameron’s not an al-Qa’eda sleeper cell, eh? Eh?’ Why would they do this? Am starting to feel nervous. I mean, how well do we really know Dave? Nigel says this is the caffeine talking. But, seriously, you can’t be too careful, can you?   SUNDAY It’s here! DD rang the chief constable and threatened to ‘give him an interview without biscuits’ (?). Now it’s just 3,000 other members of the party, including yours truly, who have

Jeremy Paxman

Diary – 7 October 2006

I embarked upon my new book, On Royalty, because, as a republican, I was genuinely baffled by the devotion monarchies seem to inspire. Yet the more I looked into it, the less there seemed to be to the republican cause: monarchy may be antique and democratically indefensible, but it becomes hard to see what would be gained by destroying it. What I had failed properly to clock, though, is the extent of personal dislike for Prince Charles. The Great Boiled Egg Controversy â” a matter which occupies an entire three sentences of the book, and which I described as ‘so preposterously extravagant as to be unbelievable’ â” only took off

Taki

Party time

The trouble with throwing a party is it only lasts for a few hours. Compared with the time and effort it takes to organise, it seems, well, a waste of time. John Aspinall spent months preparing the extravagances he used to stage at Howletts and Port Lympne, his perfect Palladian structure near Canterbury. At one of his parties, the staircase was festooned with dwarfs, while acrobats and wild animals roamed around the rooms. I remember playing chemmy next to Tina Onassis, or Blandford, as she then was, and a large tiger making an entrance and sniffing the green felt table. Tina fled to the loo. I was too embarrassed to

Simon Courtauld

A little snack

The countryside writer Ian Niall, a columnist in these pages some 50 years ago, told in his classic work, The Poacher’s Handbook, of one of the fraternity known as Black Bill who had an affection for partridges and could never bring himself to kill them. ‘The partridge is the one bird I don’t touch,’ says the sentimental old poacher, expressing his contempt for those to whom it is ‘just a little snack on a plate with gravy runnin’ round it’. One can understand Black Bill’s feelings as he listens to and watches a partridge collecting its family together, huddling in a furrow when danger threatens. Yet those of us who

The Spectator

Letters to the Editor | 7 October 2006

Special relationship spatsFrom Stephen GraubardSir: The interview with Senator John McCain (‘David Cameron has what it takes to succeed’, 30 September) is both informative and interesting but I’d like to correct McCain on two points. The Senator’s thought that the ‘special relationship’ has existed for 200 years conveniently obliterates memories of the War of 1812 and the Civil War, when Lincoln worried greatly about the UK’s policies, not to mention serious transatlantic differences during the time of Salisbury, David Lloyd George and Neville Chamberlain. As for the proposition that Cameron is a ‘Tory JFK’ — that is almost as bizarre as the notion, once expressed by too ardent Republicans faithful

Charles Moore Charles Moore

A voice crying in the wilderness

Richard Dawkins is an evangelical. The cover of this book, with its red explosion and large writing, reminds one of those popular volumes by Protestant pastors which purport to prove that JESUS IS ALIVE. Dawkins has all the fervour and anger of such persons, and their well-meaning puzzlement that so many cannot see what to them is so blindingly obvious. ‘Can’t you see’, yells Dawkins, ‘JESUS IS DEAD?’ As the more zealous evangelicals sometimes take refuge in statistics — ‘Last year, 13,732 people in the State of Oklahoma were healed of cancer by accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour’ — so does Dawkins. He tells us that

Matthew Lynn

Why Google has already passed its peak

If you happened to be scripting a James Bond movie and were looking for a role model for a fabulously sinister corporation, there can be little doubt where you would look for inspiration today. Gold no longer matters to the global economy, oil is running out, and old-style media magnates are too busy fretting about tumbling circulations to threaten the free world. Right now, only one company has the right combination of fabulous wealth, hidden power, global reach and slightly crazed megalomania that made Ian Fleming’s villains so memorable. It is, of course, Google. Since it was founded in September 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the California-based search

Joanna Pitman

Bear market strategies

Ever thought of investing in teddy bears? Before you collapse in a fit of laughter, consider the fortunate person who found a large Steiff teddy bear abandoned in a skip and took it to Christie’s, where it sold for over £7,000. Or the person who sold a Steiff ‘teddy girl’ to the Yoshihiro Sekiguchi Museum in Japan for £110,000. Or the collector who succumbed to the fascination of a Steiff hot-water-bottle teddy bear made in 1907 and spent £33,000 on it. A surprising number of people invest in teddy bears. The managing director of one UK auction house has bought a collectible teddy bear for each of his grandchildren. These

The Spectator

The substance of optimism

Those Tories coming to David Cameron’s first conference as party leader in search of detailed policies were always going to be disappointed. It is only ten months since Mr Cameron took the helm. Tony Blair’s first ten months as Labour leader were dominated by an internal party struggle over Clause 4. And one would have been hard pushed to gain a clear impression of what Britain would be like under Margaret Thatcher in her first ten months as Leader of the Opposition between February and November 1975 — a period during which she campaigned vigorously for a Yes vote in the EEC referendum. What Mr Cameron’s critics had every right

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Slaughter in Pennsylvania

Rod Liddle says that a society brutalised by violent imagery and the death penalty  has learned to expect such horrors as the bloodbath in the schoolhouse It was what the psychiatric services, with commendable understatement, often call a ‘special’ murder: obscure in its motive, repugnant in its selection of vulnerable and powerless victims, excessively brutal in its denouement. Charles C. Roberts, a milkman, marched into the West Nickel Mines Amish School in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, at 10.30 a.m. with a nine-millimetre automatic pistol, two shotguns, a stun gun, two knives, two cans of gunpowder and buckets containing both plastic restraints and KY Jelly, a sexual lubricant. Roberts, who was not

Jaspistos

Zeugmatic

In Competition No. 2463 you were invited to incorporate in a piece of plausible prose examples of the following terms: oxymoron, personification, simile, hyperbole, archaism, periphrasis, solecism, paronomasia, alliteration, epizeuxis. My apologies for having misspelt ‘paronomasia’ in setting the comp. At least it gave Mike Lunan the chance to launch a mocking epizeuxis combined with alliteration at me: ‘Paranomasia, paranomasia? You stupid son of a simpleton, it’s not spelt like that.’ Five of you misread the instructions and incorporated the terms themselves instead of examples of them, with very strange results. My favourite bad pun was Philippa Mellon’s ‘After all this deep art it was time to depart’ and the

Frank Keating

Hove has it again

Football’s overblown autumn overtures have been interesting enough, I suppose; and the rugger buggers have been lining up their wicked big hits for the upcoming long stretch of mud and gloom and gloaming. The domestic cricket season was not done and dusted till the final match and at once, next day, publication of the first-class averages officially pronounced finis to a mediocre summer. Five overseas batsmen — Jaques, Yousuf, Lehmann, Ackerman and Flower — came between the two forgotten English veterans who stood in the list at first (Ramprakash, 2,278 runs at 103.54) and seventh (Crawley, 1,737 at 66.80). Neither of those prolific stalwarts of the county grind were remotely

Saturday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary… | 30 September 2006

Q. One of my neighbours displays the most extraordinary behaviour when I go to dinner. When the guests arrive they are not offered a drink, even a soft one, for at least 15 minutes. He then pours one bottle of wine into tiny glasses. He later replenishes his own glass at the expense of his guests’. The other night, no wine whatsoever was offered with our first course. Later, a small amount of red appeared, in a decanter. There were no refills until the very end of the meal, when he poured himself, and one other male, a full glass. This has happened so often in the last 20 years