Society

Saturday

Interconnect

Action stations

New Hampshire There’s a moment in the new Batman (reviewed elsewhere in these pages) that made my ears prick up almost as much as those on top of the dark knight’s cute little Bat-mask. Bruce Wayne has just bumped into his childhood sweetheart Rachel Dawes in the lobby of some Gotham City hotel. Unfortunately, he’s sopping wet, having been cavorting in the ornamental fountain with a couple of hot pieces of arm candy. Rachel is a crusading district attorney and Bruce can see she’s a bit disappointed to discover her old pal is now Paris Hilton in drag. So he attempts to assure her that deep down he still cares

Friday

Diary – 24 June 2005

Just as no man is a hero to his valet, no mother-in-law is a heroine to her son-in-law. Except mine, that is. Miloska Nott (bullet dodger, charity fundraiser, daffodil farmer) is a remarkable woman. In 1992 she started the Fund for Refugees in Slovenia of which I am now a trustee. In its typically confusing Balkan way, it now helps to rebuild the lives of the surviving Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) of Srebrenica, where Miloska has just built 25 houses, a school and a surgery. Wherever she goes, they hold up her picture and wave it as with an old-style communist leader. Let Bob Geldof strut his stuff over Africa, but

Saturday

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 18 June 2005

Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, flew to Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin, then to Berlin, Luxembourg and Paris, in preparation for the European Union meeting later this week. A bone of contention was Britain’s £3 billion rebate of its contributions to the EU budget, which President Jacques Chirac of France said Britain should give up as a ‘gesture of solidarity’. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany told Mr Blair that there was ‘no place for national egotism’. In talks with Mr Jean-Claude Juncker, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, which currently holds the EU presidency, Mr Blair declined a formal proposal to freeze the rebate between 2007 and 2013.

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 18 June 2005

What do we think of children? Boarding schools are out of fashion because they represent ‘delegated parenthood’ and we are taught to believe that we should be very ‘hands on’ with our children, and that everyone else’s hands are suspect. We are horribly mistrustful of Michael Jackson where our grandparents loved the equally strange J.M. Barrie. But probably never before in history have so many children seen so little of their parents. This is partly because so many (mainly fathers) are absent through divorce or separation, and partly because parents are now encouraged by public policy, social pressure, house prices and the tax system to work so hard. The phrase

The Spectator

Feedback | 18 June 2005

Let them smoke dope Eric Ellis is way way off in his piece (‘The whingers of Oz’, 11 June). Why are the Australians angry? I would think it’s because the 20-year sentence passed on Schapelle Corby for smuggling marijuana is savage. No doubt Eric Ellis has never smoked any marijuana, but it is a harmless and pleasant plant that, like a couple of cocktails, makes you feel relaxed and, unlike them, quiet. Why is the stuff still illegal? I assume it’s the power of the alcohol lobby (commerce being behind most things). Alcohol has damaged and killed friends of mine, but I’ve never known anyone harmed by the weed, whose

Simon Courtauld

Shop around

Salmo salar, the Atlantic salmon, is a most remarkable fish. Having gone to sea, where it has to run the gauntlet of modern deep-sea trawlers, it returns, a year or up to three years later, to the river of its birth to spawn. On the way it may fall prey to seals, to estuarial nets and to disease emanating from salmon farms. Once in the river it may have to leap up and over waterfalls (‘salar’ means the leaper) as it swims upstream, eating nothing until, having spawned, it dies in the river or returns to the sea. In this final phase of its life it is known as a

Deborah Ross

Restaurants | 18 June 2005

It’s my niece Daisy’s 16th birthday and after not quite having the courage to accept my initial gift offer, one I still think quite brilliant — that we go out and get her tattooed, possibly with ‘I hate dad’ on the knuckles of one hand and ‘I hate mum’ on the other, or even ‘I really hate mum’ just to really piss mum off — she suggests that I take her out to dinner and then put her into print. She would like to be in print, she says, although I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s so she can show all her friends during one of those rare instances when

Frank Keating

Blowers on song

It was good last week to catch up with Henry Blofeld, relishable old bean and Grub Street comrade from way back. To prime his loquacious enthusiasms for a long, hot (some hopes) summer at the Test Match Special microphone, over a couple of nights we clinked far too many into the bottle-bank hole marked ‘green’ and on Friday Henry wowed a rafter-packed throng in the local school hall with An Evening with Blowers. ‘My dear old things…’ his intimate fruitiness collectively greeted them, and we were putty for the next two hours and then queued well past closing-time at the book-signing session. A single Friday on, and yesterday Henry was

Mary Killen

Your Problems Solved | 18 June 2005

Dear Mary… Q. Let me offer a variant on your wet towel advice (21 May). My partner and I were married for more than 60 years between us, but not to each other, so we came to this new and lovely relationship with many years’ experience of how not to do things. It became apparent early on that I was now living with a habitual towel-dropper, which in the past would have caused friction. One lesson we have both learnt is to look for jolly opportunities to communicate feelings of love and care. Towel-dropping provided one. Our arrangement is that I insist on picking it up for her every day

Taki

Flying high

London ‘Where did it all go?’ asks Mark Steyn in the National Review, talking about airline service, or the lack of it, rather. Well, I read the piece before getting on a BA flight from the Bagel to London in order to prepare myself for the worst, and I had a very nice surprise as a result. Mind you, I had a first-class sleeper-bed and was lucky with my fellow passengers. Jeremiah O’Connor and his wife Joan are not your usual travellers. (Why, oh why, do slobs travel so much?) They were friendly, polite, quiet and had a sense of humour. I was obviously a little worse for wear when

Jaspistos

Clever-boots

In Competition No. 2396 you were invited to supply a description of a sporting event by an intellectually pretentious journo. ‘Khan the high priest fast uniting greatness and wealth in holy boxing matrimony’ — Owen Slot in the Times. But Gerard Benson has capped my example with a magnificent piece of tosh by Robbie Hudson in last month’s TLS: ‘Football is both an international language with local dialects and an open-ended narrative offering endless opportunities for self-definition.’ Tell that to Beckham! The rot set in in the Fifties when Professor Ayer started to support Spurs. Did you know that Italo Svevo was a keen fan of Charlton Athletic? The prizewinners,

Theodore Dalrymple

Second opinion | 18 June 2005

I went to a different prison last week, in an ancient market town, to see a man about an arson. He had set fire to a house with four of his friends — or should I say former friends (his subsequent apologies not having been accepted by them) — in it. He said that he had been under a lot of pressure lately, ever since he had discovered that his ex, the mother of his two children, was injecting herself with heroin in front of them. So was their latest stepfather, her current boyfriend. ‘What has that to do with setting fire to the house?’ I asked. He answered much

Christopher Fildes

The CAP doesn’t fit, so we won’t wear it — a family row clears the air

Nothing clears the air like a really good family row. Funerals can bring them on. Cousins and aunts, wives and husbands, even, say what they have long since thought and then think of something else to say. What with the nasty accident to Europe’s constitution, and the dawning recognition that the single currency may follow it, everyone can be drawn into the argument. Predictably, Jacques and Tony are blaming each other. It’s your fault, says Jacques, you and your precious rebate — we’ll soon fix that now. Oh, yes, Tony tells him, and what about your greedy farmers? That’s where the money goes. Cut back on the Common Agricultural Policy

The Spectator

Nationalising children

When Ruth Kelly became Education Secretary last December, one of her female colleagues, angry at having been passed over for promotion, denounced her as a ‘cow’ who insisted on skipping Commons debates in order to spend time with her young children. In fact, in her dedication to family life, Ms Kelly seemed a refreshing change from the archetypal Blair Babe who views motherhood as a kind of lazy option for those women who lack the talent to run a small government department. But perhaps the strain of rushing home every evening to read Topsy and Tim is proving too much. This week Ruth Kelly announced that she wishes schools to

Friday

Elisabeth Anderson

Diary – 17 June 2005

Just back from a weekend in Venice, where I attended the 51st Biennale, along with what seemed like tens of thousands of others. I arrived in the city tired and late at night, so it wasn’t until the following morning that I realised I had been sharing a room with a skeleton. Really. I had been billeted with an eccentric artist; the skeleton was purely for reference. At the Biennale two years ago it was so hot that people were fainting into the canals. This year the weather was perfect: bright blue skies with warm sun. In the Giardini I clambered over upside-down beer bottles in Belgium’s pavilion, kicked small

Saturday

Dot Wordsworth

Mind Your Language | 11 June 2005

‘Have you noticed,’ asked Kim Fletcher, a man, at a party to launch his brilliant new Journalist’s Handbook, ‘how people say testament when they mean testimony?’ I couldn’t quite say I had, yet a nagging feeling in my brain suggested he was on to something, so I looked through the newspapers to examine their testimony. Testimony is straightforwardly used in the ordinary courtroom way for ‘giving evidence’. This can be extended to a solemn statement such as a ‘series of miracle “testimonies”’ mentioned by the Scottish Daily Record recently. Testimonial usually refers to football matches that raise money for superannuated players and the like, as benefit nights once did for

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 11 June 2005

Mr Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, speaking in the Commons about the promised Bill to hold a referendum on the European constitution, said, ‘Until the consequences of France and the Netherlands being unable to ratify the Treaty are clarified, it would not in our judgment now be sensible to set a date for a second reading.’ But he added, ‘It remains our view that it represents a sensible new set of rules for the enlarged EU.’ Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said, ‘I’m not saying I’ve suddenly woken up and decided the constitution is the wrong thing for Europe to do. It’s a perfectly sensible way forward.’ He then

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 11 June 2005

It is proverbial that the British press is disgusting and contemptible, but would we ever have got ourselves into the extraordinary situation of our Continental counterparts? In France, no national newspaper, except for the Communist L’Humanité, called for a ‘No’ vote in the referendum on the European constitution. The nearest any major Dutch paper came was the Telegraaf (no relation), which asked its readers what they thought and featured their strong ‘No’ on its front page. All the others said ‘Yes’. We hear a great deal about political parties getting out of touch with voters, but doesn’t the same apply to newspapers and their readers? Is no penalty ever paid?

The Spectator

Feedback | 11 June 2005

Good value Ross Clark says that NHS Trusts are ‘stuffed with local worthies drawing generous salaries and pensions’. I object. Like all other non-executive directors of NHS Trusts, I received last year just over £6,500, and no pension whatever, for my part-time work (‘The worst of both worlds’, 4 June). As a daily rate this works out as a fraction of what I could be earning in my (non-medical) profession. Chairmen, who are non-executive, receive, I think, around £20,000 for what is nigh-on a full-time job. I don’t think the most aggressive critic of the present system could describe this as generous. I certainly feel, anyway, that I offer better

Interconnect

Winning in style

Normally in racing you place the successful horse’s connections in the winner’s enclosure. After Motivator won this year’s Vodafone Derby at Epsom, it was a case of finding the winner’s enclosure amid the connections, the 230 members of the Royal Ascot Racing Club. I have not seen the Flat racing crowd in a happier mood for a decade. Forget the crisis in racing’s finances, the long-hovering cloud of still unresolved corruption allegations, the potential penury of the British Horseracing Board. When a horse wins a race as majestically and as stylishly as Motivator won this year’s Derby, it lifts us all out of the rut. Motivator came into the race