Society

Friday

Patrick Kidd

The trials and tribulations of a churchwarden

Missing: one king, answers to Balthazar. Wandered off last Epiphany with a French peasant girl who had a basket under each arm and an eye for wise men bearing gold and smellies. Could have returned to Babylon, more likely made for Lewisham. We will miss him at our church crib this year. While paintings of Jesus’s birth have been found in early Christian catacombs, the first live Nativity scene is said to have been created 800 years ago next Christmas by St Francis of Assisi as a visual aid for preaching. The idea spread, with statues replacing the living oxen, asses and shepherds. During the French Revolution, when churches were

Martin Rees

Space won’t offer an escape from Earth’s problems

Because I have the title Astronomer Royal, I’m often asked: ‘Did you do horoscopes for the Queen?’ Sadly, the answer’s ‘no’. I’m just an astronomer, not an astrologer. Scientists are poor forecasters – almost as poor as economists. But I fear I’ve become typecast as a doomster because I predict a bumpy ride through the next few decades.  We’re deep in the ‘anthropocene’. Humans are so numerous and so demanding of energy and resources that our collective footprint is changing the world’s climate, and despoiling the natural environment. Politicians like to focus on immediate threats, but they won’t prioritise measures needed to deal with long-term global issues – especially when

The Spectator

A Spectator Christmas poll: What gives you hope?

Volodymyr Zelensky   I am inspired by the Ukrainian people – a courageous, creative and strong people who united in one moment against the brutal and unjust Russian aggression. All Ukrainians today are warriors – those on the front line, volunteers, journalists, IT specialists, doctors, teachers, absolutely everyone. These are strong and courageous people who are fighting for their homeland, their country and their lives. And nothing can break them. Not bombs, not rocket strikes, not the lack of electricity, water and heat in their homes, nor other types of Russian terror. This nation delights and inspires me and gives me confidence in the victory of Ukraine. Richard Dawkins        Science gives

Sam Leith Sam Leith

‘Loss is a thing that we become’: Nick Cave on grief, faith and why he’s a conservative

Several hundred years ago, in the 2014 film 20,000 Days On Earth, Ray Winstone asked Nick Cave: ‘Do you want to reinvent yourself?’ Cave, looking out from his sunglasses, replied: ‘I can’t reinvent myself.’ ‘Do you wanna?’ ‘I don’t want to either. I think the rock star’s gotta be someone you can see from a distance. You can draw them in one line… They’ve got to be godlike. It’s all an invention. But it happened early on for me.’ On the handful of occasions over the years that I’ve seen Cave from a distance, he has been just that sort of figure – one a deft cartoonist would draw with

Andrew Watts

There’s nothing romantic about mistletoe

The line of trees beside the road into Tenbury Wells are bare of leaves at the beginning of December. But on their spindly branches are huge clumps of mistletoe, weighing them down like muffs on the skinny arms of dowagers. Most of the country’s mistletoe grows in a small area of England – Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, the counties around the Malvern Hills – but no one is quite sure why; it may be the number of orchards (mistletoe grows well on apple trees) or the climate of cold winters and warm summers. Pliny the Elder writes that the druids of Gaul held nothing more sacred than mistletoe Or it may

Dot Wordsworth

The worst words of 2022

‘Homer, the poet?’ asked my husband, puzzled, as he often is. He was responding to my scornful observation that the Cambridge Dictionary had chosen homer as its word of the year for 2022. The reason was merely that it had figured as the answer to a Wordle puzzle and many people did not know what it meant, so looked it up. The homer in question was presumed to be a home run in baseball. The poet would not qualify, being a proper name. He does however find a place in the Oxford English Dictionary under nod, since Homer nods became a proverb, taking its cue from the Ars Poetica of

Rory Sutherland and Slavoj Žižek

‘Universities shouldn’t be safe spaces’: Rory Sutherland and Slavoj Žižek on cancel culture, futurism and Hollywood Marxism 

Slavoj Žižek is a philosopher and cultural theorist. Rory Sutherland is The Spectator’s Wiki Man. We arranged for them to have a chat. They spoke for more than four hours about identity politics, Elon Musk, Hollywood, free speech and more. Introductions & ‘luxury beliefs’ Rory Sutherland: I’m recording this on a Meta Portal moving camera, which no one seems to have bought, because I assume nobody wants Mark Zuckerberg spying on them in their living room. I don’t mind though: no one wants to spy on an overweight 57-year-old advertising executive. Slavoj Žižek: I know what you mean. Perhaps we should do this interview naked from the waist down! By

Juliet Nicolson

My memories of Raymond Briggs

I really loved Raymond Briggs. I first met him in 1976, before his mega-fame had arrived. I was working in the publicity department of Raymond’s publishers, Hamish Hamilton, and every so often he would trundle a wheelie suitcase into the office containing the painted boards of artwork for his latest cartoon story. His visits were a joy because he was so funny, but also tricky because unlike every other author under our promotional care, Raymond considered the less media attention he received to be the better. He referred to us as ‘blooming publicity women’ and we had to beg him to agree to talk to eager interviewers, and to submit

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 17 December 2022

This is (unbelievably) my last column of 2022 and I thought I’d give you my team’s highs and lows for the year. Highs would be winning England’s Premier League, closely followed by coming second in the World Bridge Tour’s final in Copenhagen; and you don’t get much lower than being beaten in the first round of the Gold Cup when you are the holders and seeded number one. Or being 36 up with eight to play and losing by one IMP. Here’s how it’s done: West led the ◆King, covered in dummy and ruffed by East, who cashed a top Club and switched to a Heart. I needed to dispose

Robin Oakley

Farewell to the greatest ever jockey

In racing’s record books 2022 will be remembered especially for Alpinista’s Arc de Triomphe and Baaeed’s all-round brilliance. But it was the year, too, in which we lost the sport’s most popular owner, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, and the greatest ever jockey, Lester Piggott. His figures still astound. Lester won 30 British Classics including an unrivalled nine Derbies. His 116 winners at Royal Ascot included 11 in the Gold Cup and in all he won 4,493 Flat races. Nobody but Lester could have beaten Rheingold in the Derby as he did on Roberto. But what I will always remember was his victory in the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Mile. Five years

Aidan Hartley

In praise of missionaries

Kenya Tonj is a war-battered settlement on a river that eventually feeds into the White Nile, in South Sudan. When they are not feuding over livestock, Dinkas from remote cattle camps, dressed in garish jalabiyas, saunter down the dusty main street. For months at a time, tropical deluges turn the surrounding mud hamlets into islands, clogged with papyrus, buzzing with insects and isolated from the world. Last year, Dr Ben Roberts, an eye doctor from Alabama who works as a medical missionary in Africa, arrived in Tonj to perform cataract operations on hundreds of local people, restoring sight to those who live in darkness. News of Dr Roberts’s miracles reached

Melissa Kite

Confessions of a conspiracy theorist

‘You’re one of them anti-vaxxers,’ said the brusque northerner who was seated opposite me at a friend’s supper party. ‘Why do you think I got Covid and was really ill even though I’m up to date on my jabs?’ And he fixed me with a murderous stare. I said: ‘I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick.’ Next to me, the builder boyfriend was wearing his glassy-eyed look of panic. We can feel a dinner-party vaccination lynching coming a mile off. But this was peculiarly alarming. The last time I saw this fellow he had been fuming with me for not having the jab. Barely a year later,

Jeremy Clarke

The naked truth about cannabis farming

Then dear old Dolly drove down from Essex to pay her respects. It was a brave effort because she hasn’t been anywhere for years and only once before to France, in the 1970s to pick grapes. She arrived at midday and immediately piled into the wine. The day was pleasantly warm enough to sit outside on the terrace. I started her off on a Louis Latour Domaine de Valmoissine pinot noir and asked her what she thought of it. ‘It’s a nightingale by still water, Jel,’ she said, knocking it back in one. Dolly is exactly the sort of person advertisers are targeting when they add a click button peremptorily

Taki

Why going to church beats going to a nightclub

Gstaad It’s nice to be back in good old Helvetia again, but as the holiest of holy days approaches I cannot help but think of my friend Jeremy Clarke and his struggles. Philosophers, starting with the Greeks, have dealt with life’s problems yet not one of them has been able to pin down Man’s ultimate defeat: death. The one who did manage it was no philosopher. He was a simple carpenter, and his take on death has given more comfort and hope to us mortals than all the eggheads put together. Nowadays we have doubters who see us believers as Dark Ages ignoramuses. You know the kind I’m talking about

Mark Solomons

Operation Turtle Dove: can these birds be saved?

With the exception of turkeys and geese, turtle doves are perhaps the birds most associated with this time of year. They are, of course, the second gift in The 12 Days of Christmas and they also feature in the nativity story – in the Gospel of Luke, a pair of turtle doves are sacrificed at the temple at Jesus’s circumcision. From Roman mythology through to Vaughan Williams, turtle doves have long been symbols of love and devotion in western culture. According to Shakespeare, ‘a pair of loving turtle doves… could not live asunder day or night’. Yet sadly the chances of seeing a pair today are dwindling. Since 1966, Britain’s

Mary Killen

Dear Mary, from Richard Madeley: How do I stop people mistaking me for Nigel Havers?

From Julian Fellowes Q. Whenever anyone asks me how to get a project off the ground, I say that getting a film made is pretty hard. So often the response is: ‘But you did it!’ The argument is a tough one to refute, as the implication is that clearly I myself am not possessed of any ability or talent, and so I back away, apologetic and, to be honest, slightly humiliated. What would you suggest? A. Englishmen like yourself have been bred to be self-deprecating – but there’s no need to overdo it. You might reply: ‘Yes, you’re quite right – even I managed it. And if you keep on persevering you’ll

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

Why work is no longer working

It is often said that Rishi Sunak has no idea what it is like to survive on a low income but this failing is hardly confined to the über-rich: in reality, few people above median income really know what it’s like to be skint. People may think back to leaner years but, even then, if a few relatives or good friends had some cash to spare, it’s not the same. ‘But you’ll never get it right/ ’ Cause when you’re laid in bed at night/ Watching roaches climb the wall/ If you called your dad he could stop it all,’ as Jarvis Cocker has it. There are many other predicaments

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

The Viktor Bout hostage swap is a victory for the Kremlin

After a quiet swap in the United Arab Emirates, the American basketball star Brittney Griner is out of a Russian prison while the Russian arms dealer and presumed intelligence asset Viktor Bout is out of a US one. A little glimmer of humanity amidst Cold War 2.0, or a dangerous hostage exchange with Moscow getting the best of the deal? Sadly, this is more the latter. Viktor Bout, a former Soviet army officer and alleged military intelligence asset, emerged as both an arms dealer and a gonzo cargo agent in the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. His fleet of ex-Soviet aircraft and pilots were notorious for

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

What Rowan Williams gets wrong about democracy

Rowan Williams used his Reith lecture on religious liberty to make a plea to religious believers: don’t be afraid of being an awkward misfit. The former Archbishop of Canterbury called on believers to challenge the social consensus – even on contentious issues like gay marriage. His view is that religion is not a private affair, but impinges on public life. It does so, he said this week, in ways that the liberal order will find annoying, even disruptive. Believers appeal to transcendent truths beyond the ‘prevailing social consensus’, according to Williams. As a result, he said, they are rightly wary of an order whose only basis is human law, which

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Why the French don’t all love Mbappé like Macron

Emmanuel Macron is confident France will beat England in Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final. In an interview with a radio station, the president of the Republic declared that he doesn’t ‘really have any doubts about the fact that we’re going to win’. Macron is not known for his lack of self-belief but for once his bravado is justified: France are the reigning world champions, and in Kylian Mbappé they have the best player in the world.   The Parisian is a phenomenon, the scorer of five goals in four games so far at this tournament, and in netting twice in the last 16 win over Poland Mbappé surpassed the great Pele