Society

Pride comes before a fall

Hockey is one of those games, like lacrosse, that alters as it crosses the Atlantic. In Britain, if a man says he is a passionate hockey or lacrosse player, he may get a certain ‘Fnar fnar’ response. In North America by contrast, it would be most unwise to ‘Fnar fnar’ at your average hockey player. A good example comes in the form of Ivan Provorov. He is a big Russian-born ice-hockey player who currently plays for the Philadelphia Flyers in the National Hockey League. Not all readers will be following the NHL carefully, and I admit that I am teetering at the very edge of my knowledge as I type

Where do the Elgin marbles belong? 

Where should the Elgin marbles be on show? Their display in the Duveen gallery of the British Museum is not impressive. To put it crudely, a Greek temple consisted of a sturdy shoe box surrounded by columns. The purpose of the shoe box (cella) was two-fold: to support the massive weight of the roof, and to provide a secure house for the god, represented by a statue, to live in. People did enter to venerate the statue, but the focus of worship was the altar outside. The external view of the temple, then, was crucial. Visitors walking round the Parthenon saw 46 columns, around 34ft high, supporting a sequence of

Lionel Shriver

The war against words

The University of Washington technology department has banned the word ‘housekeeping’. Not because the ‘problematic’ noun is overtly ist (ableist, sexist, racist, ageist…; by now, you must know the ist list). No, because it ‘feels gendered’. Would that they’d simply banned housekeeping. I hate scrubbing the shower. This month, the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work proscribed the word ‘field’. ‘Field work’ might have unpleasant connotations for the descendants of slaves. (Sorry! Descendants of ‘enslaved people’. Nouns that reference persons – like, you know, ‘doctor’ – are reductive and dehumanising.) A ‘field of study’ is henceforth a ‘practicum’. Presumably we’ll now protect corn crops from ‘pasture mice’ and

Letters: Scotland’s gender law doesn’t add up

Scottish muddle Sir: The Scottish Sentencing Council guidelines, introduced last year, affirm research as showing that young people, defined in the guidelines as those up to 25 years of age, ‘are not fully developed and may not have attained full maturity’ (‘Gender wars’, 21 January). As a result they are seen as less able to exercise good judgment; are more vulnerable to external influences; may be less able to assess the implications of their decisions; and may take more risks. However, Scottish people nine years younger than that, faced with the complex experience of perceiving their bodily habitus to be at odds with their sense of their gender, are judged

Is sloppiness our new national vice?

The Germans have a word for it. When they wish to criticise their Austrian cousins’ alleged tendency towards carelessness and inefficiency they call it schlamperei. The rough equivalent in English is ‘sloppiness’ – and a flurry of current cases suggests that it may be Britain’s new national vice, too. How many times in recent years and months have we witnessed some public service official go before the cameras to express doubtless heartfelt – but utterly futile – apologies for failing to carry out their basic elementary duties? Failings that, all too often, have cost a human life. The latest example of sloppiness in public service is the tragic case of Zara Aleena, the young

Bridge | 28 January 2023

Susanna and I are very pleased to announce we have a Fan! His name is Tony Graham and he edits the newsletter for the Oban Bridge Club. In his email he says: ‘Of all the bridge columns I read weekly [insert all the top names], yours are the ones I enjoy the most and find most useful.’ As Susanna said: ‘Who is this marvellous man??’ Thank you, Tony. I hope you like today’s hand played by England International Ben Norton in TGR’s Superleague, which has just begun its new season: North’s 5♠ was a good, practical slam invitation, and Ben had an easy raise with both a control in the

A new star in the saddle

I can always tell when Mrs Oakley has walked our flatcoat retriever. On our next outing Damson nudges my pocket every 200 yards having been encouraged to consider completion of that distance sufficient accomplishment to be rewarded with a treat (although, truth be told, it is Mrs O. who deserves the treat for three-mile dog walks just two months after breaking her hip). Rewards were much harder-earned at Lingfield Park’s Winter Million meeting last Saturday on the all-weather polytrack surface. To my shame I had travelled there grudgingly: plan A had been to watch the mighty Energumene at Ascot, plan B to see if Bristol De Mai could do it

The rise of the johnny-come-lately anti-vaxxer

‘No way am I having it now,’ said a friend, as she insisted on discussing the latest scare stories. And she shook her head so violently that her long blonde hair was flung sideways across her face, and the resemblance to an anti-vaxxer in the throes of hysteria was extremely convincing. But then she regained her composure and said: ‘No. I’ve had my two jabs. That’s enough.’ ‘Hang on,’ I said, ‘so you are vaccinated?’ ‘Oh yes, but I’ve only had two. I’m not having any more.’ And she emphasised the ‘I’m’ with a smug look that said she was no fool, unlike others unspecified. This is what is happening

The joy of French hospital food

I woke up in the wake-up room (salle de réveil). The clock on the wall said half past ten. I’d been out for a couple of hours. What lifted me to the surface was the sound of the wake-up team persuading someone to wake up who was absolutely refusing to do so. The entreaties increased in volume and urgency. Then I heard a male voice say, in English: ‘Wake up please, Mr Clarke.’ I nodded my sleepy head to show him that I was already there. The voice then asked me in French whether I was in pain and I answered in French that I was not. After that I

My sweet, generous friend Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer was born on 31 January 1923, and as his 100th birthday approaches there is a major revival of interest among those who can still read. Norman died in 2007, aged 84, and his first-born son Michael, a talented film director who has since become my closest friend, came over to my house in a slightly shocked state. I was his father’s friend and admirer, so we sat down and drank the day and night away. A review of the most recent Mailer biography – a hatchet job by a Brit, Richard Bradford – states that Norman could not walk his dog without getting into a fight. Funny what

Isabel Hardman

Mental health care is the next big scandal brewing in the NHS

Beth Matthews saved lives with her brutally honest, often shockingly graphic, posts about surviving a suicide attempt. She was an extraordinary young woman, whose blogs and social media threads often reached other unwell people at the darkest moments in their lives. She met the police officer who had held her hand after her own suicide attempt, shared X-rays of her shattered pelvis and told her followers that suicide was not the answer. Yet that was how Beth died in March 2022. An inquest this week concluded that neglect by the Priory Hospital Cheadle Royal contributed to her suicide. Beth had ordered poison from Russia, which she had opened near staff,

Erdogan’s plan for war, and peace

There are ‘global issues that we both have on our plates’, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said, mysteriously, when he met with his Turkish counterpart last week. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, standing by Blinken’s side, thought the same. ‘We will focus on areas of partnership in bilateral and regional issues.’ Diplomacy as usual, then. Behind the boring platitudes lies a serious rift between Turkey and the United States. In late December, Syrian and Turkish defence ministers met in Moscow in the first proper meeting between the two governments in a decade. There are plans for another meeting between foreign ministers that could lead to a direct meeting between Turkey’s

Steerpike

Is it time for Nadhim Zahawi to come clean?

It’s a new day and once again the news is dominated by Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs. Rishi Sunak has asked his independent ethics advisor (all politicians need outside advice when it comes to ethics, after all) to launch an investigation into Zahawi after the Tory chairman admitted making a ‘careless and not deliberate’ tax error. That ethics probe doesn’t appear to have stopped the awkward questions, however. Crime minister Chris Philp appeared on the Today programme this morning; after being grilled about Zahawi’s conduct, he told presenter Mishal Husain: ‘I don’t know precisely what form that carelessness took – neither do you’. The Tory chairman has released a rather paltry

Gavin Mortimer

How did this killer asylum seeker hoodwink the authorities?

In 2018, a 16-year-old boy called Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai shot dead two men in Serbia with a burst of eighteen bullets from a Kalashnikov automatic rifle. Four years later he murdered again – inflicting a fatal stab wound on 21-year-old Thomas Roberts. Roberts, whose ambition was to join the Royal Marines, was killed because he had tried to break up an argument between Abdulrahimzai and another man on a street in Bournemouth.  Abdulrahimzai was yesterday found guilty of murder. During the trial, consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Gauruv Malhan said the defendant exhibited characteristics consistent with borderline personality disorder. After the verdict, Abdulrahimzai was described by the Crown Prosecution Service as a ‘violent

Gareth Roberts

We don’t need a ‘diverse’ coronation

Refugees and the NHS, we are told, will be at the heart of King Charles’s ‘diverse’ coronation in May. You’d think that a thousand-year-old institution tasked with steering clear of controversy might seek to avoid such hot potatoes. But there is nothing unexpected about this royal foray into politics. LGBTQ+ groups will perform at ‘a star-studded concert at Windsor Castle’ as part of the celebrations marking His Majesty’s accession to the throne. A royal source told the Daily Telegraph the coronation ‘needed to be “majestic” but “inclusive” to reflect a diverse modern Britain’.  Unfortunately, this sounds like another example of the utterly banal EDI (equality, diversity, inclusion) events we’ve become

Bjorn Lomborg: climate change alarmism and the true cost of net zero

55 min listen

Winston speaks with sceptical environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg, author of the book False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts The Poor, And Fails To Fix The Planet. They discuss climate change and climate change policy. Lomborg explains how net zero and the Paris agreement will do more harm than good and suggests some alternative sustainable development goals which would balance environmental protection with human prosperity.

Cindy Yu

Covid’s legacy: how will China remember the pandemic?

48 min listen

Three years ago, as people across China welcomed the Year of the Rat, a new virus was taking hold in Wuhan. In London, the conversation at my family’s New Year dinner was dominated by the latest updates, how many masks and hand sanitisers we’d ordered.  Mercifully, Covid didn’t come up at all as we welcomed the Year of the Rabbit this weekend, though my family in China are still recovering from their recent infections. The zero Covid phase of the pandemic is well and truly over. So what better time to reflect on the rollercoaster of the last three years? In exchange for controlling the virus, China’s borders were shut

East Asia’s mask obsession is a catastrophe the West must avoid

In the Red Square Rooftop Vodka Bar of the sleekly towering Novotel Hotel, on soi 4, Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok, it feels like the last three harrowing years never really happened.  By day the sunny rooftop poolside is strewn with happy Europeans, Americans, Brazilians, Indians, consuming excellent wagyu burgers and freely flowing margaritas. As the sun sets, it gets even better, because dusk is the best time of day in Bangkok: the city revives from its sunstruck torpor, the girls in their dancing skirts alight from the Skytrain, the hawkers sell mango, durian, papaya, sliced fresh for twenty baht. The lights of the skyscrapers glisten like looted jewels. Gin tinkles in