Society

Saturday

Edie G-Lush

It’s dotcom boom-time again — but can Soho really be the new Silicon Valley?

The heady days of 1999 are back. Once again it’s fashionable to work for an internet start-up, even more so if you’re a part of the so-called ‘Web 2.0’ bonanza. (For those who may worry that they’ve missed some kind of software update, Web 2.0 refers to second-generation internet developments based around user-generated content and social networks, such as YouTube and Wikipedia.) Hopeful entrepreneurs are chasing venture capital money with the dream of becoming the next Skype or Google. There are differences, however. Europe — and specifically London — seems to have a more pronounced buzz than in the first boom, yet there’s also a definite recognition that another bubble

Clarissa Tan

The visit

I wish to write about a place of which I know everything yet nothing, where everything is familiar yet strange, a place where I feel I go too often, but never quite enough. This place is the same for everyone, only different. It is called, of course, Home — not the Home where you now live, but the Home where you were born and in which all things must start. I used to live in Kuala Lumpur. That is, until I was 15 and my mother rode the Ekspres Rakyat with me to Singapore, where I was to continue my studies. ‘Be careful,’ were her last words to me as

Lucy Vickery

Lipogram

In competition No. 2492 you were invited to write a piece of prose entitled ‘Irritable Vowel Syndrome’, without using the letter ‘u’. This assignment should have been a piece of cake. After all, the wild and woolly Frenchman Georges Perec wrote a whopping 300-page novel, La Disparition, without using a single ‘e’. What’s more, Gilbert Adair translated it into ‘e’-free English — an heroic feat. There was no getting away from Nancy Mitford this week, who popped up in lots of entries, including that of bonus-fiver recipient W.J. Webster. The other winners, printed below, net £25 apiece. ‘Open wide and say “Ah”.’‘I don’t have a problem with my R’s, Doctor.

Simon Hoggart

Spectator Mini-Bar Offer | 5 May 2007

Order you wines online. Stone, Vine and Sun, a modestly sized operation near Winchester, keeps winning awards as the best independent wine merchant, and I’m not surprised. There’s a nimbleness to these smaller companies; chaps (or chapesses) whizz off to investigate some little half-hidden vineyard, and because they need less stock than the giants, they can snaffle undiscovered treasures without the fear of running out during the life of the list. And it helps having people who really know their wine and can sniff a bargain like a pig finding truffles. This month’s Mini-bar contains four of their best parcels. Three come from southern France which, as I have often

Frank Keating

Good Arthur Milton

In those fresh, expectant springtimes of long ago, the last week of April was the very quintessence of the changeover — the week he would have bid adieu to the raucous wintery fever-pitch of Highbury and its stately marble halls, sling his football boots into his London landlady’s cupboard, and whistle chirpily down to Paddington and the train back to Temple Meads, home, and the mellow warm westerlies of a pastoral Gloucestershire summer. Although the news was a dreadful shock, it was touchingly apt, somehow, that it was in the telling last week of April in which good Arthur Milton died. Next birthday would have been his 80th. He embodied that

Friday

The Spectator

It’s a Facebook world we’re living in

A couple of months ago I had never heard of Facebook. Now, I place internal bets with myself at every social gathering I go to about how long it will be before someone mentions it. My boyfriend and I had a dinner party on Wednesday which managed to run to almost forty minutes (surely a record) before a fellow guest brought it up; last night my cocktail date had been going for about forty seconds before the dreaded thing reared its ugly head. ‘He’s going away this weekend with his new girlfriend!’ My friend Chloe wailed as she stormed into Soho House. ‘His new GIRLFRIEND! How can he have a

The Spectator

Sarkozy’s lead widens

To shift focus in our election coverage to across the Channel, Nicolas Sarkozy’s lead is widening. Two new polls out today put him at 54% and 54.5% respectively, a comfortable lead over Ségolène Royal. Also, it looks like the debate was more of a win for Sarkozy than most commentators thought. A post-debate survey found that viewers took Sarkozy to be the more credible candidate by the whooping great margin of 51% to 31%. Sarkozy’ll be further encouraged by the fact that 51% of Bayrou backers who tuned in thought he’d make a good president compared to only 22% for Royal. Her aggressive tactics also seem to have backfired, with

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

In the pub, awaiting developments

I’m not quite on the BBC election panel – I’ve had better luck. I’m down the boozer: the St Stephens Tavern with Emily Maitlis and a wide array of pundits. They’ll come to us every now and again as we give our considered opinion on how there are no meaningful results expected until about 3am. Michael Portillo and LibDem Mark Oaten being made up now (you’d be amazed to see how long it takes to apply foundation to Oaten’s slaphead). Something tells me it’s going to be a long night.

Thursday

The Spectator

Comment Away

We’ve had had some problems earlier today with the comments but that’s now fixed–apologies if you tried to post earlier. So please do fire away, just click on the comment button to do so.

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Things best left unsaid

The Business section of this week’s Spectator includes a fascinating interview with Sir Michael Bishop, founder-boss of the airline BMI. The interview is, in two respects, an example of the kind of civility and discretion that many readers, having just heard or read the story of Lord Browne’s sad downfall, may feel has disappeared from modern journalism. First, our interview was conducted a few days before BMI’s formal annual profit announcement: Sir Michael could not give any hint of the actual profit figure (other than that it would demonstrate positive progress) and Judi could not press him to say more; it would have been a flagrant breach of corporate etiquette

Stuart Reid

What a repulsive lot we have become

It is greatly to Jonathan Aitken’s credit that he has come to the aid of Lord Browne in today’s Guardian. It is also greatly to the credit of the Guardian that it commissioned the piece. Aitken does not offer false comfort (he commends “wintry realism” to Browne) and he does not make light of perjury, saying that his own conviction, following his difficulties with the Guardian, was “fair and just”. He does, however, provide a welcome relief from the knee-jerk defences of Browne inspired by homophilia and the vengeful attacks inspired by an almost Islamist love of “justice” — ie, punishment. The tabloids grow fat by selling hate, lust, fear,

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

The little shall inherit the earth

Has anybody noticed that slowly, slowly, (little by little) short people are taking over the world? They took Hollywood many decades ago, beetling their way into the limelight with their bulging eyes and cuban heels. Then they quietly assumed the moral and spiritual high ground, with the truly minuscule Saint Mother Teresa and Gandhi. These days they’re after political power. There used to be a ban on very short people becoming famous politicians — they were there, in the background, but like rats or baby pigeons, they never dared show themselves in public. But now there’s that charismatic little titch Sarkozy set to become President of France and the pint-sized

Rachel Johnson

I fell for Piers

I think I have fallen victim to a cunning and captious new publishing ploy to get hopelessly vain creatures like me, who love seeing their names in print, to buy books. Let me explain. Back in mid-April sometime I was reading a review by Lynn Barber of Piers Morgan’s new autobiography – the second in about three years – when my eye rested on my own name. My stomach did a nervous flutter. How on earth did this get here?  “One day Piers receives a phone call from Rachel Johnson (sister of Boris),” writes Lynn, “who tells him she is writing an article called “Does size matter?” They chat about it for

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Sarko clears the last hurdle

Nicolas Sarkozy survived last night’s French presidential debate. Opinion seems divided on who actually won but Sarko didn’t throw it away, as many feared he would, by flying off the handle. Ségolène Royal kept trying to rile him, to get him to display the side of his personality that scares so many voters yet Sarkozy stayed studiously calm. He even got in a shot at Royal for being too quick to anger. The result: a draw–which is almost certainly good enough for Sarkozy who is up by about 4 points in every poll. What struck me most, though, were the viewing figures: 20 million plus for a two and a half

Wednesday

Matthew Dancona

Britain, my Britain

Why do the Scottish elections make me uneasy? Because the performance of the SNP, which is certain to be strong, is bound to stir up a reciprocal nationalism south of the border. England’s moment is undoubtedly drawing closer. And I am not sure that is such a good thing. In his masterly book, England: An Elegy, Roger Scruton describes a country that is, above all else, a home, defined by what he calls “enchantment”, expressed in ritual, culture and the laws which are a gift of the land rather than a mere compilation of decrees. Scruton’s England is restrained, eccentric, civilised: it is an appealing and dignified place. But it

Sarah Standing

Londoners: The country’s personal shoppers

The entire Kate Moss Topshop collection has ended up on ebay. This morning I noticed there are over 5,000 items for sale. It seems London-based fashionistas just act as personal shoppers for the rest of the country who (understandably) can’t be bothered to join the scrum.

Saturday

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody | 28 April 2007

MONDAY Phew! We’re back to just the one good-looking, charismatic David. All I can say is thank goodness for that! My mental health will be all the better for it and no doubt poor Mr Miliband’s will be, too. What a kerfuffle! He can bang on about his ‘I can’ philosophy all he likes, but when it comes right down to it he just so obviously jolly well can’t. Still, at least the soon-to-be-disbanded ‘Kill Mil’ unit has been useful. Am off there now to change into my Kate Moss for Topshop off-the-(left)-shoulder cocktail dress, ready for swanky Policy Exchange five-year anniversary celebration tonight at the Four Seasons. Everyone who

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 28 April 2007

‘A conflict of interest’ is now almost the worst thing known to modern theories of governance. It is considered disgraceful, for example, that the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, who is a government minister and was made a peer by Tony Blair, will be the man who decides whether or not there should be prosecutions in the ‘cash-for-peerages’ affair. But it is a strange fact that attempts to sort out such conflicts can make matters worse. Who can doubt, for example, that the Church of England is so scrupulously moderate because it knows that its position as the established Church conflicts with modern ideas of freedom of thought, not to mention the

Rachel Johnson

Diary – 28 April 2007

In thick of whistlestop tour of the US to promote Notting Hell, so the dateline above this diary should read ‘New York, Dallas, Washington D.C, Chicago, Denver, L.A, San Francisco’ which would be a first — for me, anyway. In the taxi to the airport, I compare schedules with the novelist and leggy beauty Santa Montefiore (also touring some cities with me promoting her book The Gypsy Madonna, on our Great British Blondes roadshow. I love it!). I leaf through the bumf and then decide it hasn’t been put together by my fab team at Touchstone Fireside of Simon and Schuster without a map (NY–Dallas–DC??), but by a sadist. There