Society

Saturday

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

Taki

To have and have not

New York My last week in the Bagel, and just as well. Things are heating up. Mind you, the last two weekends have been great. Noo Yawkers are very predictable, almost lemming-like. Come late May and June, everyone heads out of town, packing themselves into overloaded cars to travel on gridlocked highways to the Hamptons and down to the Jersey shore. Some even head for Connecticut and upstate New York, where poison ivy and lime disease are eagerly waiting for new city suckers. Never mind. It’s a well-known fact that the Bagel is never more pleasant than on the weekends, when the place slows down and relaxes. The streets are

Frank Keating

Day of the rabbits

For the first time I can remember I haven’t bothered a fig about England’s Test matches. I haven’t even cocked an ear towards the radio. Keith Miller said you shouldn’t take candy from kids, and Bangladesh’s so obvious wretchedness about being outclassed depressed everyone’s spirits. Or is it an ageing codger’s grumpiness? Bangladesh can only improve by playing the best. I did not remotely feel so cheerless about one-sided contests 23 years ago when I was enchanted to be in Colombo to see Sri Lanka’s very first Test and, although England won easily, it was heartwarming to welcome a new side into the fold. And it took Sri Lanka just

Mary Killen

Your Problems Solved | 11 June 2005

Dear Mary… Q. In the 28 May edition of The Spectator you state that ‘a rector enjoys superior rank to a vicar’. While this may be true in popular mythology, it is quite wrong as far as the Church of England is concerned. The different titles merely reflect the source of an incumbent’s income in the Middle Ages. A rector held glebe land sufficient to provide an independent income. A vicar was paid a stipend by someone else — most commonly a monastic foundation. A wealthy religious house might pay a vicar more than a rector could scrape together from personal farming or rents. Since the Reformation, there has been

Jaspistos

Cantrip

In Competition No. 2395 you were invited to write a rhymed witch’s spell to bring someone or something either good or ill. William Dalrymple in his excellent book From the Holy Mountain lists some quaint old Nestorian spells: ‘the anathema of the Angel Gabriel against the Evil Eye’, ‘a charm for binding the guns and engines of war’, ‘the charm for a cow which is excited towards her mistress’…. Although I invited benedictions as well as curses, curmudgeons that you are you didn’t offer a single one. Commendations to Basil Ransome-Davies and Noel Petty. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and Ralph Rochester, whose cantrip struck me as especially

Christopher Fildes

His hopes on the shelf, the PM discovers the dangers of making history poverty

The Prime Minister likes the idea of making poverty history. It gives him the chance to forget about Europe and think about Africa. Bob Geldof and his band can know that the lead singer of Ugly Rumours will be with them in the spirit, and so will any number of marginal voters who never warmed to Europe’s new currency and constitution in quite the same way. History itself may not be his strongest subject — only the other day he told us that the United States was the only country to have stood by us in 1940, a remarkable concatenation of errors of fact — and this would explain why

Julian Morris

Power to the African people

Julian Morris says that aid and ‘climate control’ will make poverty perpetual Nairobi can get quite chilly in July. Barely 50 miles from the equator, its 5,200ft elevation means that night temperatures sometimes drop to 50

Friday

Michael Vestey

Diary – 10 June 2005

You don’t have to love the budget airlines to find them useful for travelling in Europe. Since I belatedly discovered them I’ve become a habitué and fly to and from Italy several times a year. At first it was from Stansted to Rome Ciampino which receives Ryanair, easyJet and others, then Bristol which is closer. Recently Thomsonfly began cheap flights from our nearest airport, dear old Bournemouth International (as it grandly calls itself), to Pisa, and what an old-fashioned pleasure that is. The terminal is small and staffed by friendly people who’ve yet to become disillusioned by handling large numbers of travellers. The man checking our boarding passes actually wished

Saturday

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 4 June 2005

Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, on holiday in Italy, called for ‘time for reflection’ after the French referendum’s rejection of the proposed European constitution. ‘What emerges so strongly from the French referendum campaign,’ he said, ‘is this deep, profound, underlying anxiety that people in Europe have about how the economy in Europe faces up to the challenges of the modern world.’ Mr Bob Geldof announced five simultaneous free concerts on 2 July in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome and Philadelphia, in support of the Make Poverty History campaign (for fair trade and debt forgiveness) and as an encouragement to a scheme to get a million people to demonstrate in Edinburgh

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 4 June 2005

I wish I could share the widespread joy at the great European ‘No’. Yes, the word ‘No’ is good. Yes, I feel the normal human pleasure at the discomfiture of the politicians. I have enjoyed seeing Peter Mandelson trying to worm round the result and Neil Kinnock raging against his former friends on the French Left and Jean-Luc Dehaene telling France that it, not the EU, now has the problem, and the outside broadcast team sabotaging John Major, sounding like a Dalek on Valium, as he tries to tell us all over again about his wonderful ‘opt-out’ and the importance of ‘variable geometry’. But I fear there is very little