Society

Saturday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 27 November 2004

There is no shortage of people who say that they are willing to break the hunting ban. Particularly the young, who have no responsibilities, and the old, who feel they have nothing to lose, declare themselves ready for prison, even for suicide. But supporters of rural liberty should beware of the great curse of English romantics — the love of the futile gesture. And those hunting people on the other side of the argument who fear that they can now be arrested for absolutely anything should also calm down. It is time to study the ‘best practice’ (good New Labour term, that) of non-violent conflict. Extraordinary that English people now

Simon Courtauld

Bream lover

A bass, I have always thought, is a bass, but these days it is called sea bass — quite redundantly, since freshwater bass are not known in Europe. The bream of the sea, on the other hand, should be distinguished from the freshwater fish of the same name which is related to carp. Instead, it is usually referred to only by its colour — black, red or gilthead; but if it is described simply as ‘sea bream’, which I have seen recently on an expensive London restaurant menu, make sure you know which one you are getting. In North America sea bream is called porgy, a name by which it

Taki

Sexual imperative

Back in London for a debate at the Intelligence Squared Forum on the motion that monogamy is bad for the soul. I am arguing against it, as well I should. Had I not wasted my life and time chasing women non-stop, I could have been a contender, a somebody. As the 20th century’s greatest philosopher, Groucho Marx, once said, ‘Some people claim that monogamous marriage interferes with romance. There’s no doubt about it. Anytime you have a romance, your wife is bound to interfere.’ Kidding aside, marriage does protect against feelings of loneliness. But that’s about all. Although I will argue for monogamy, I won’t believe a word I say.

Frank Keating

Salisbury tales

These days, I suppose, they would call it a gap year. In my case, it was nearer two. Idling around Africa with a rucksack, that is. Zimbabwe was called Southern Rhodesia then, and in 1961, in my early twenties, I chased a haughty blonde Virginia Veitch from London’s Earls Court, whose pa worked for Barclays in Harare (then Salisbury) and who, when I arrived with gormless grin — ‘Dwarling, ’tis me!’ — smartly sneered, ‘Get lost, punk.’ Africa was a large place to get lost in when you were a bum and broke. Nevertheless, between sweltering subbing shifts for the local Herald and sending back naive chancer’s dispatches on flimsy

Mary Killen

Your Problems Solved | 27 November 2004

Dear Mary… Q. Last week I went to a private view of Craigie Aitchison’s new pictures. I have always been a fan of his and having had a windfall I was looking forward to purchasing one of his compositions. I asked a gallery assistant for a price list — a reasonable request, one might think, but her response was, ‘We don’t do price lists. However, if you were interested in a particular picture we might be able to help.’ I was left feeling snubbed and so pursued the matter no further. How should I have replied? Name and address withheld A. You could have pulled a sympathetic face and said,

Michael Mcmahon

Religious conversions

With half the kingdom now designated by New Labour as a grey Lego baseboard to press soul-less plastic bricks into, there is an ever-growing demand for properties of age and character. Homes made from redundant churches or chapels are blessed with both. One of the prayers that used to be recited in the most ancient of them was ‘Domine, dilexi decorum domus tuae’: ‘I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of Thy house.’ It could be said by many house-hunters today. FPD Savills’ Cambridge office is selling one of the most striking examples of contemporary religious conversion: ‘A magnificent Grade II*-listed former parish church arranged in the traditional chancel and

Trevor Grove

Diary – 27 November 2004

Once a week I put on a suit and go along to the local courthouse, where I am elevated from plain Mister to Your Worship. This wonderfully inappropriate form of address is the only public reward for being one of the country’s 30,000 unpaid lay magistrates who deal with over 95 per cent of criminal cases in England and Wales. We are also entitled to put the letters JP after our names, for Justice of the Peace. But this is discouraged by the Lord Chancellor, as Charlie Falconer still titles himself, lest we be thought to be putting on airs. Sometimes magistrates must do things that stick in the throat

Peter Jones

Ancient & modern – 27 November 2004

Old age is in the news at the moment because people may not be financially prepared for retirement. But old age has much more interesting questions to consider, and none more interesting than its conclusion. The Roman philosopher-statesman Seneca (ad 1-65) makes some most interesting observations on the matter. Seneca, being a Stoic, takes the view that death is no evil, and therefore suicide is a rational act. ‘In my opinion, old age is not to be refused any more than it is to be craved,’ he argues. ‘It is very agreeable to enjoy one’s own company as long as possible, on condition that one has ensured it is worth

Jaspistos

Party lines

In Competition No. 2368 you were asked for a poem entitled ‘At a cocktail party’. This sprung from my rereading of Auden’s delightful but rarely anthologised poem ‘At the Party’. Interestingly, not one of you described an occasion that was obviously enjoyable. Among the prizewinners (who get £25 each) Tim Raikes is the only guest who doesn’t feel violently antisocial. Noel Petty takes the crate of Cobra Premium beer. ‘Noel, you must meet Hugo: Hugo sings.‘Noel plays viols, you know. Or is it lutes?‘Anyway, Hugo, one of those early things.’And off she trips to coin more attributes. Hugo and I exchange a wary smile,Then buckle down to milk our tenuous

Interconnect

Hot property

If you like looking down on your fellow men, take a trip to Gipsy Hill. So transfixed was I, on a recent visit, by its panoramic views over the City, Kent, Sussex and Surrey that I became embroiled in an uncomfortable exchange with a man in a stetson and a bootlace tie who accused me of staring at him as he walked up the hill. Once the domain of smugglers and highwaymen, the area got its name from a gypsy encampment buried deep in the Great North Wood, which stretched from Camberwell to Croydon until the early 19th century. Following the Enclosure Acts, the gypsies were driven out to allow

Christopher Fildes

A pack on your back — it’s the latest way to gum up the market in houses

Just what we need: a well-meant effort to gum up the market in houses. This market now seems to be gumming itself up, but never mind. A new Housing Act has been passed into law, and with it the concept of sellers’ packs. Anyone who wants to sell a house will have to put one of these packs together or, more precisely, to order one. They are supposed to contain all the information that a buyer of the house might want to have, and members of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors will be happy to provide them for anything up to £1,000. Who are these surveyors? Well, if you

Peter Oborne

What made Jack Straw tell the truth about the botched coup in Equatorial Guinea?

Jack Straw, though by no means a distinguished foreign secretary, nevertheless possesses animal cunning. He is an acknowledged master of dissimulation, contrivance, machination, manoeuvre, evasion, guile, trickery, craft, diversion, disguise, distortion, persiflage, falsehood, deception, sophistry, stealth, artifice, sharp practice, underhand dealing, sleight of hand, subterfuge, prevarication and every other stratagem of concealment and deceit. Occasionally, however, the Foreign Secretary is capable of candour. This was the case with his parliamentary answer to Michael Ancram, the shadow foreign secretary, two weeks ago. Ancram wearily asked Jack Straw when the British government first knew of the botched coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea last March. A characteristically long space of time elapsed before

Roger Scruton

Know your place

There can be no true society — and no social mobility — without hierarchy, says Roger Scruton The recent memo purloined from Prince Charles made the accurate observation that ‘child-centred’ education, by encouraging false expectations and discouraging effort, seriously hampers the one who receives it. University teachers know this, since they have to deal with the products of an education which puts self-esteem before real achievement. Despite the plethora of As and Bs gained through dumbed-down examinations in dumbed-down subjects, young people tend to enter university without the skills required for real study. The likelihood that an incoming undergraduate can read a book or write an essay diminishes from year

Interconnect

Dumbing down: the proof

As a service to Spectator readers who still have any doubts about the decline in educational standards, we are printing these exam papers taken by 11-year-olds applying for places to King Edward’s School in Birmingham in 1898. ENGLISH GRAMMAR 1. Write out in your best handwriting:— ‘O Mary, go and call the cattle home,And call the cattle home,And call the cattle home,Across the sands o’ Dee.’The western wind was wild and dank with foam,And all alone went she. The western tide crept up along the sand,And o’er and o’er the sand,And round and round the sand,As far as eye could see.The rolling mist came down and hid the land —And

Saturday

Dot Wordsworth

Mind Your Language | 20 November 2004

BBC television is devoting a frenzied week to a children’s knockout spelling competition. Goodness knows, spelling needs attention, if Veronica’s vagaries are anything to go by. But even where words are spelt correctly, there is the difficulty of their pronunciation. ‘What about Julia?’ said my husband, trying to be ‘helpful’. I couldn’t think there was much doubt about the name’s pronunciation, but it turned out that he was talking about Herrick’s poem, with its couplet, ‘Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows/ That liquefaction of her clothes.’ The OED, 100 years ago, described that pronunciation of clothes, without sounding the th, as careless or vulgar. It admitted that in all English

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 20 November 2004

A white paper proposed a ban on smoking in restaurants and pubs that serve hot food. It also proposed the banning of television advertisements for ‘unhealthy’ food before 9 p.m., but this would be ‘ineffective and disproportionate’ according to the television regulators, Ofcom. The Hunting Bill was amended in the Lords to restore the government’s original provisions for the licensing of hunts; when it returned to the Commons the amended Bill was defeated by 321 to 204. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said in a speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in London that Europe and America must co-operate to find peace in the Middle East: ‘It is not

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 20 November 2004

Although hunt supporters are right to point out that people of all classes hunt, Labour MPs are equally right to see their ban on hunting, now at last being enacted, as a great blow against the upper classes. Very occasionally, you meet an upper-class person who is against hunting, but this is usually because of being made to do it by disliked parents, practically never because he or she considers it cruel. As for actually banning it, that way of thinking — passing laws just because you don’t like something — is foreign to the upper-class mind (perhaps instinct would be a better word). Hunting is close to the heart

The Spectator

Feedback | 20 November 2004

Oborne off target Peter Oborne seems to have spent too long in his stuffy London office and has developed a conspiracy theory too far concerning rural sports. He makes a number of unsupported assumptions in his comment on the Hunting Bill (Politics, 13 November). Perhaps he needs to get out more. BASC remains steadfastly opposed to the Hunting Bill, and has supported the Countryside Alliance through its legal protests in the run-up to the Bill. Tens of thousands of BASC members attended the marches in London and I have spoken at a number of rallies including one in Parliament Square and the recent demonstration in Brighton. We have privately and

Taki

Terror tactics

New York With the exception of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg — whose circle of defenders and sympathisers have just come together at the Museum of Jewish Heritage here for a new documentary celebrating their martyrdom — there is no greater Cold War icon than Alger Hiss, the patrician, high-ranking state department official who passed government secrets to the Soviet Union. Hiss was exposed 60 years ago and did time for his crimes. The Left, however, always insisted he was framed despite the overwhelming evidence of his guilt. I sat next to Hiss once during a Spectator lunch and caught him red-handed telling a whopper about Bill Buckley and myself. As

Deborah Ross

Restaurants

Alas, half-term is over, my son is back at school, and I have the house back to myself during the day. Oh, how I miss him, or would do if I wasn’t so thrilled to get rid of the pesky old so-and-so. Oh dear, school today, I said on the first morning while pushing him out of the door, double-locking it from the inside and drawing the bolt. I did think about quickly moving while somehow forgetting to leave a forwarding address but then realised it would mean packing and that would be too boring for words. Still, it’s not as if I can forget him entirely during the day,