Society

Saturday

25 Nov 2006

Ignore your conscience: big oil still beats green power

If you are the kind of person who believes the things the City says, you might by now be almost convinced that we don’t really need oil any more. If you are the kind of person who believes the things the City says, you might by now be almost convinced that we don’t really need oil any more. Within seconds of the publication of the Stern report every analyst in town had become an expert on green energy, and investors were being advised to put their money in everything from wind, solar and wave power to fuel cells and biomass electricity plants, all of which were being put about as

Frank Keating

Testing times | 25 November 2006

How goes it at the Gabba? We shall know by now how the first Ashes Test is panning out. Have radio’s pre-dawn choruses from Brisbane already been ruining your days? Or making them brighter? Was it a dramatic start on Thursday? Who leapt headlong from the traps? Have England kept their nerve? Are the Aussies showing their age? Or their innate, dismissive swagger? Down the years, England have made a habit of messing up in the opening Ashes Test down under; surely they haven’t done it again, have they? I winced at Mike Atherton’s ruefully sarky reply early this week when he was asked what he would do if he

Paul Johnson

A writer plays hookey with a magic paintbox

At a time when I should be writing my book on human monsters — goaded on by the many ingenious suggestions from readers of this column — I have actually been painting. There are many reasons for this disgraceful irresponsibility. First, the delicious autumn weather and the tremendous rainbow of colours it has coaxed out of the generous earth. The greenies who accuse us of destroying our planet are too young to remember the Novembers of my youth, when blankets of fog, greenish-grey and poisonous, descended in early November and often clung to southeast England for weeks at a time, stretching from Berkshire to Essex, and particularly virulent in London

The Spectator

Parliamentarian of the Year | 25 November 2006

The 23rd annual Threadneedle/ Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year lunch took place last Thursday at Claridge’s. The prizes were presented by the Rt Hon. David Cameron MP, Leader of the Opposition. Welcoming Mr Cameron, Matthew d’Ancona, the editor of The Spectator, observed that, in less than a year as Conservative leader, he had dislodged Beckham as the most popular Dave in the country, shown his fellow Tories that a glacier is not just a kind of mint, and taught the political world that green is more than the colour of envy. NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR Julia Goldsworthy MP The judges faced a difficult task selecting one MP from the intake

Jaspistos

Pagan prayer

In Competition No. 2470 you were invited to offer a votive poem to a pre-Christian deity.Venus, take my votive glass:Since I am not what I was,What from this day I shall be,Venus, let me never see. Matthew Prior’s 18th-century prayer by a fading beauty is hard to beat, but Ezra Pound comes close with his unexpectedly charming poem, ‘The Lake Isle’ (is he having a go at Yeats?), which opens: O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop… The Golden Calf rewards its worshippers as follows: £25 each to five of the prizewinners printed below, and £30 to Virginia

Neil Barnett

‘Remember Trotsky!’

Neil Barnett recalls his encounters with the poisoned spy who has had the bearing of a marked man for years. The Russian intelligence services, Litvinenko told him, are purely political organisations, whose only purpose is to shore up Putin’s power The hotel off a main square in a central European capital was a seedy, low-budget place. When I asked the receptionist for Alexander Litvinenko in room 38, she looked at me blankly, then after some rooting around said, ‘We only have a Mr Jones in room 38.’ It was Litvinenko, of course, employing one of his endless ruses designed to throw off his former FSB (Federal Security Service) comrades who

Rod Liddle

The BA row is about fair play

First it was peanuts; now Jesus Christ has been banished from the cabins of British Airways aeroplanes. What will be next to fall victim to the apparently arbitrary scythe of censorship of the BA executives? The airline — which once enraged Margaret Thatcher by replacing the Union flag on the tail fins of its fleet with representations of radical mullahs invoking intifada, single mums taking smack, colourful gypsies and homosexuals, or something — has aroused British public opprobrium once again. It has decided that one of its employees, Nadia Eweida, must not be allowed to wear a crucifix advertising her love of Jesus Christ while she is at work. Nadia,

Saturday

18 Nov 2006

Mary Killen

Dear Mary… | 18 November 2006

Q. For over 23 years I have rented a beat on a South Ayrshire river. For the last six years the proprietor’s wife has cooked for my party, and her food is delicious. Since the beginning of this arrangement I have paid her a fixed sum without an invoice. This year, to my surprise, at the end of the week, her husband handed me a letter itemising the cooking costs with a hefty 30 per cent increase in the price. There was no prior notification of this increase, but I paid the account. The proprietor and his wife have become good friends, and I do not wish to upset them.

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody | 18 November 2006

MONDAY Fab write-ups of our top secret meeting with unions. (Another great U-turn!) Of course, what we couldn’t reveal is how embarrassing it was when they told Dave how fantastic he is. It was bordering on creepy. The guy from the Long List of Letters which have something to do with manual labour asked him to autograph his son’s hooded sweatshirt. ‘He’ll laugh his head off when he sees this.’ Honestly, how gauche! Couldn’t he have waited till the end and asked us to send him one like everyone else? Was a bit odd having all those lefties round. Lot of faffing trying to work out what to give them

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 18 November 2006

The current row about how Oxford University should be governed illustrates two problems of our culture. The first is about how institutions work. The modernisers want organisations to work more purposefully, and they are right. But the traditionalists are suspicious of reforms which separate the people who know about the content of their institution from those who run it, and they are right too. Thus, it may well be true that hospitals should be more efficient, but they have not become more so now that doctors can be ordered around by non-medical managers. In the case of universities, their oligarchic and diffused form of authority (not to mention endemic pettiness

Alistair Horne

Diary – 18 November 2006

In tandem with Asa Briggs, I am speaking at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center atop Boston University. This is a truly remarkable institution, yet, even in Boston, Mass., surprisingly few people know about it. Gotlieb himself was an extraordinary man; a Rhodes scholar, he began by collecting British archives over 40 years ago — then discovered that no one had ever shown an interest in Hollywood memorabilia. He cornered the market. Asa and I are transferring all our papers to it, in my case 150 boxes dating back to the 1950s. In some quarters there is protest at British papers finding their way to the US, but as Asa

Taki

Feeling pain

New York My love for Ashley Judd has gone the way of Iraq. Remember a couple of years ago, when a friend of mine offered to take me backstage to meet her and I got cold feet? I have just read an interview she gave, and I thank God for my cold tootsies. Here’s the beautiful Ashley on life in general and Indian brothels in particular: I spend time talking about how women’s reproductive health is the nexus of eradicating a lot of inequality…I’m able to maintain healthy boundaries, to hold space with exploited people with more integrity…I feel pain about poverty. When I go to a brothel, I feel

Robin Oakley

Golden age

When I’m good I’m very good, but when I’m bad I’m better In a Cary Grant film in which she effectively played herself, Mae West declared, ‘When I’m good I’m very good, but when I’m bad I’m better.’ Exotic Dancer, the six-year-old trained by Jonjo O’Neill who runs in the familiar pink silks of Sir Robert Ogden, can be good, and he can be an absolute stinker. Five days before the Paddy Power Gold Cup he ran second of three at lowly Carlisle, beaten by 28 lengths after effectively downing tools when asked for an effort. Champion jockey Tony McCoy, by all accounts, was pretty grumpy when his retaining stable

The Spectator

Letters to the Editor | 18 November 2006

Saddam’s ‘parody’ of a trial From Sir Jonah Walker-Smith Sir: When I read the title to Alasdair Palmer’s article, ‘Saddam’s trial shouldn’t be fair’ (11 November), I assumed that it was written with tongue in cheek. By the time I reached the penultimate sentence — ‘the trials of genocidal killers are not, and should never be, fair’ — I realised, to my surprise, that he was in earnest. Doubtless Saddam Hussein is as guilty as sin of the crime with which he has been charged and convicted. So was Milosevic. So was Goering. But Milosevic and Goering received fair trials. Saddam did not. Alasdair Palmer understates the case when he

Interconnect

The Cape of good wines

As part of a six-month tour of the main wine-producing countries of the world, the author stopped long enough in South Africa to discover the hidden treasures of Hamilton Russell Standing on Cap Agulhas gazing at the ocean, aware of the fact that we were on the very tip of Africa, it seemed unlikely that we would find anywhere quite as beautiful again. We had driven to this remote spot and walked through budding fynbos, the gorgeous display of nature’s wild flowers unique to the Cape. And yet the drive from that windswept corner of South Africa towards Hermanus on minor roads proved to be equally spectacular. Hermanus is synonymous

Simon Nixon

The City’s new boom market: philanthropy

As we approach the festive season, spare a thought for the children of billionaires. These are joyless times for those holding out for an inheritance. As they climb aboard the private jet that will whisk them off to the yacht where a team of chefs will prepare their Christmas dinner, many will be wondering if Daddy has already cooked their goose. The super-rich are slaves to fashion. And the latest fashion is giving it away. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the world’s wealthiest men, started the trend by pledging to give away around $30 billion each. Now multi-millionaires everywhere are desperate to offload their excess zillions before it has time

Paul Johnson

A wood is the one fixed point in a changing world

‘Can’t see the wood for the trees’ is an old saying and a true one, not only metaphorically but literally. Nature students often look carefully at trees and know a lot about them. But they don’t notice the wood, and know nothing about its life and history. Since I began drawing trees with close attention I have tried not to fall into this error and have begun to study individual woods. In west Somerset, I have three particular favourites. One, near the sea at West Quantoxhead, is creepily dark and spooky, ogreish, though you sometimes see a superb red deer peering at you through the gloom. This is a babes-in-the-wood

The Spectator

To govern is not to legislate

When Her Majesty The Queen delivered her first speech to mark the opening of Parliament after the election of Tony Blair, she said, ‘My government intends to govern for the benefit of the whole nation.’ New Labour apparatchiks hugged themselves with glee, considering it a great victory that the monarch should read out such an archetypal Blairite soundbite. But who’s laughing now? The Queen’s Speech on Wednesday was the last of the Blair era, but certainly not Her Majesty’s final State Opening. Mr Blair is the tenth Prime Minister to have served the Queen, and for all the mischievous pleasure of his acolytes nine years ago, it is his time

Jaspistos

Paracrostic

In Competition No. 2469 you were invited to supply a poem in which the initial letters of each line, read down the page, reproduce the first line.Another comp that was last set nearly 30 years ago, when it was won by J. Crooks with the intriguing key line, ‘Moguls at the BBC’. This time round many of the key lines had a topographical slant. Examples were ‘Liverpool Central’, ‘The midges on Mull’, ‘On Morecambe sands’ and ‘Street maps reveal’. Two delightful openings were ‘A camel, please!’ (Piers Geddes) and Laura Garratt’s Pepysian ‘And so he went to bed’. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus fiver goes,

Frank Keating

Sixty-six and all that

A perennial sucker for feature films with sporting references, I suppose I’ll drag myself to Sixty Six, in spite of the verdict by the Spec’s Deborah Ross that, for all its occasional charm, it is ‘a comedy without any good jokes which takes itself too seriously’. It concerns a Jewish family’s dilemma, particularly 12-year-old Bernie’s, when the date of his bar mitzvah coincides with the England football team winning through to the 1966 World Cup final. The reasonable idea has Ross longingly sighing, ‘Where is Jack Rosenthal when you really need him?’ The late Rosenthal, of course, was a luminously original television (etcetera) playwright in the vanished, lamented days of