Society

Wednesday

18 Jan 2023

Peter Jones

What the Romans would have made of ChatGPT

Google provides information easily, which the ancients did as best they could. But what would they have made of ChatGPT? Ancient education drew on information about the past to help deal with the problems of the present. Take the Romans. Future statesmen were taught to scour sources – both myth and history – for learning military strategy as well as how to win political and legal arguments. The cultural elite (poets) learnt the basics of poetry – i.e. verse composition – at school and then ransacked the masterpieces of ancient Greek literature to hone their skills. But that was a long and arduous process, and Google-like reference works eased the

Melinda Hughes

The dumbing-down of BBC Radio 3

In March, Alan Davey will step down as the controller of BBC Radio 3. His role over the past eight years has been huge. Not only has he overseen programming and strategy for Radio 3 and BBC orchestras, but he has also championed access to contemporary music and focused on forgotten past composers, many of whom are female. All very impressive. But there’s no escaping the fact that under his watch there has been a general dumbing-down of programming. Each year, the BBC Proms finds a new way to diversify its output, from proms based around video games, to rap, to an ‘Ibiza-style’ dance party. Even more egregiously, two years

Scarlett Maguire

The art of darts

I don’t watch television, which – given I’m a TV producer – is a little unusual. I suppose, just as professional chefs so often confess to living off cheese toasties, there is little joy to be had in bringing the office home. I make only one exception: the darts, which I am confident in saying is television in its purest and highest form. What makes it so compelling is that it is, fundamentally, a character-driven sport. The players choose their own walk-on songs, outfits and nicknames. And while not every player will go the full Peter ‘Snakebite’ Wright (who coordinates wacky outfits with his multi-coloured mohawk for every game), many

The Spectator

How many people are injured by dogs?

Duke out Will the Duke and Duchess of Sussex be invited to Charles III’s coronation? The royal family faced a similarly tricky decision over the Duke of Windsor, the former Edward VIII, at Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. Documents released by the National Archives in 2007 reveal that the matter was handled by the Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, who contacted the Duke in November 1952 and ‘advised’ him not to attend, adding that the Prime Minister would tell the press that ‘it would not be consistent with usage for coronation to be attended by any former ruler’. That such advice was necessary suggests that the Duke might have been

Owen Matthews

Boris Bondarev: Why more Russians aren’t defecting

Boris Bondarev’s Twitter profile sums up his past, present and future in three short phrases: ‘Russian diplomat in exile. Stop the war. The old lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ – a quote from Wilfred Owen’s 1918 denunciation of patriotic hypocrisy. Shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, 42-year-old Bondarev quit his job as an arms control expert at Russia’s diplomatic mission to Geneva in protest. None of his colleagues in Geneva, or anywhere else, followed suit (at least not publicly). Does that make Bondarev the only Russian diplomat with a conscience? ‘It’s not about conscience,’ Bondarev tells me by Zoom from an undisclosed Swiss location where he now

Ross Clark

The strikes have lost their power

The dead went unburied and the rubbish piled high in Leicester Square. Then a suntanned Jim Callaghan arrived back at Heathrow from a summit in Guadeloupe to tell reporters, in words fairly paraphrased in the Sun headline: ‘Crisis. What crisis?’ The Prime Minister said that he didn’t think the rest of the world, looking at Britain, would see a country going down the tube. The folklore of the Winter of Discontent in 1978-79 is ingrained in the nation’s collective memory. It was the final act of a miserable decade of three-day working weeks and power cuts. Some are suggesting that we are facing a second Winter of Discontent. Certainly, look

Mary Wakefield

Your child isn’t trans, she’s just a tomboy

When the mist lifts and we can see clearly the carnage caused by the trans madness, and we blink and wonder what in God’s name we did to our kids, I hope we recognise the true heroes of the saga. By this I don’t mean the Jordan Peterson types or even J.K. Rowling, so much as the parents who somehow found the courage to stand up to their own children. Any child who makes the fashionable decision to identify as another gender is instantly surrounded by a supportive gang of fellow trans travellers – a ‘glitter family’, they call themselves – who’ll insist that it’s ‘literally dangerous’ for them to

Daniel Johnson

The faith and the fury: my father Paul Johnson

Paul Johnson – who was a columnist for The Spectator from 1981 to 2009, and who died last week – did not merely write history: he helped to make it. His first book, The Suez War, published in 1957 with an introduction by Nye Bevan, documented the evidence that eventually led to the resignation of the Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden. In Buckingham Palace six decades later, Prince William startled him by asking about Suez. Afterwards my father asked: ‘Who was that well-informed young man?’ A demonstration against the government over Suez was also the occasion for him to get back together with the brilliant and beautiful Marigold Hunt, whom

Susan Hill

The joy of a modern house

We have been in our new home for four months and although getting here was hell, the living is almost heaven. I am rather surprised to be in a modern house after 40 years of living in ones built centuries ago. How would I feel without any nooks and crannies, twisting staircases, elm floors and beams, not to mention the Aga? Well, how do I now feel without the draughts, rattling windows, uneven floorboards and energy bills the size of the national debt that come with every old house, plus the responsibility of too much land? We have only moved five north Norfolk miles but into another world, nearer the

Douglas Murray

If not Biden, who?

Monday was Martin Luther King Jr Day in the United States. And this year it was most memorable for two events. The first was the unveiling in Boston of a new sculptural tribute to the civil rights hero. Unfortunately, depending on the position from which you view this inept work of public art, it resembles either a man holding his head in despair or some people holding aloft a giant turd. The second incident was Joe Biden doing what he does best. The President was careful not to politicise the day – apart from attacking the Republicans. But during his remarks he also noted that it was the birthday of

Martin Vander Weyer

What Boris Johnson should do next

If you were rich, foreign and globally mobile, would you choose to move to the UK? The trend, it turns out, is the other way: according to migration consultants Henley & Partners, we’ve seen a net outflow of 12,000 millionaires since 2017, with 1,500 departures last year. And it’s pretty obvious why. If tax is your top concern, a tightening of non-dom rules and the near-certain prospect of a Keir Starmer government abolishing non-dom status altogether would loom large. If you’re Asian, you may think Australia looks more welcoming. If you’re European and offended by Brexit, you might prefer Ireland or fashionable Portugal. But actually we’d be mad not to

Andrew Tettenborn

Penny Mordaunt is wrong to lecture the Church of England on gay marriage

On Sunday, the Leader of the House Penny Mordaunt wrote an open letter to the Bishop of Portsmouth (where her constituency is). In it she called on him to vote to ‘back reform’ and, as demanded by a coterie of radical bishops, change forever the Anglican stance on same-sex marriage. Today the Church of England has partially rejected that demand, and will not allow clergy to conduct same-sex ceremonies, although it is proposing to allow ‘prayers’ and ‘blessings’ for same-sex couples in civil partnerships. Mordaunt’s intervention was perfectly legitimate, you might think. What’s wrong with a democratic representative pressing for her constituents to have the ‘right to have their relationships solemnised in

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 21 January 2023

How often do you reach for the double card? Perhaps you’re a bit of a wimp like me. I’ve lost count of the times my inner voice has urged: ‘Double, Double!’ – a bit like the witches in Macbeth – only for me to ignore it and meekly pass. It’s pure fear of being wrong: there’s only one thing worse than seeing your opponents’ smug faces when they score up a doubled overtrick or two – and that’s seeing your partner’s face. But as Zia once said, if every contract you double goes down, you’re not doubling enough. Be brave – even if you’re only doubling on a hunch, or

Aidan Hartley

My nonagenarian father-in-law has embraced East Africa

Kenya My father-in-law Gerry Taylor is 91 and walks daily on our Kenya ranch among herds of buffalo, giraffe and zebras. A few days ago he inadvertently came within 20 feet of an elephant and the both of them pretended not to see each other. He says he enjoys highland Kenya for its open spaces and endless horizons, the sense of freedom which, he points out, cannot be found in a row of English houses. Late in his life, East Africa has been his compensation for the India he lost as a youth. Born in Calcutta, Gerry was the son of a British Army officer who worked on India’s railways.

Melissa Kite

Our toxic relationship with the NHS

The nurse fixed me with a disapproving stare: ‘Why is there such a gap between these prescriptions?’ I had gone for a blood pressure check so I could get my HRT, but when she looked at my notes she could see that they last prescribed it years ago. In return for countless thousands of pounds of national insurance my parents got my mother’s phone charged The honest answer to her question was simple: ‘Because you were working from home.’ For this was the nurse who, when I last tried to get HRT from an NHS GP, was WFH. During lockdown, I was told to buy a blood pressure machine online

Jeremy Clarke

The atmosphere of the surgical unit was that of a cocktail party half an hour in

Standing at the door was a hospital porter. He was resting an elbow on the back of a heavily padded wheelchair. A strapping lad, wholly masculine, a credit to us all. He regarded me levelly with a sort of Byronic boredom. I was fetching in a paper shower cap, paper gown, knee-length stockingettes and paper socks inside claret slippers decorated with the West Ham football club logo of crossed riveting hammers. The slippers – a Christmas present – arrested his survey. ‘West Ham,’ he said. ‘We sold you Payet.’ ‘You did,’ I said. ‘Fat and moody, but what a player.’ At La Timone hospital in Marseille everybody supports Olympique de

Christopher Snowdon

Is sharing cake in the office really like passive smoking?

‘If nobody brought in cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes in the day, but because people do bring cakes in, I eat them.’ Who is this co-worker from hell? Who is this whining, snivelling infant demanding that the rest of the world forfeits small pleasures because she has no self-control? It is none other than the head of the Food Standards Agency, Susan Jebb, who is in the Times today comparing cakes to passive smoking. The full quote reads: ‘We all like to think we’re rational, intelligent, educated people who make informed choices the whole time and we undervalue the impact of the environment… If nobody brought in cakes

Taki

What Harry could learn from King Constantine of Greece

Shot in the once upon a time city of dreams, now one of nightmares, the sweeping solipsism expressed made paranoia a kind of totalising faith. Behind the nauseating self-promotion, a so-called prince and his Hollywood diva hogged the headlines. Far, far east lay a dead man, one who had absolutely nothing in common with the self-absorbed, egotistical and narcissistic Englishman. On the contrary, King Constantine II went to meet his maker the same way he had lived his 82 years: uncomplaining, dignified and deserving of much more than he ever received from his people. I write this with a heavy heart because I’ve been a friend of the dead king

The Spectator

Christmas crossword solution | Birthday Boy

Two unclued lights are a title (three words) and its creator (two words). Remaining unclued lights are four names and eight titles (either singly or paired, including two each of two, three and four words and one of five words), each name being associated with two of the titles. The theme word connecting them all must be highlighted in the grid. Further prizes of Eliot’s Book of Bookish Lists by Henry Eliot (Penguin) go to the following. The first four winners each also win a bottle of champagne. The solution is on p35. The winners First prize Susanna Heywood-Lonsdale, Inverness Runners-up John Tyson, Gloucester; Rebecca Bull, Cardiff; Rob Hardcastle, Harrogate Further runners-up

Svitlana Morenets

Ukraine’s interior minister dies in helicopter crash

Denys Monastyrsky, Ukraine’s interior minister was amongst 17 people killed in a helicopter crash in the outskirts of Kyiv this morning. He was heading out of the city with colleagues when his helicopter crashed near a nursery in Brovary. Four children, who were on the ground, are also reported to be amongst the dead with 11 others being treated in hospital. So far 25 people have been reported injured. Monastyrsky, 42, was travelling with Yevhen Yenin, his first deputy, and Yuriy Lubkovich, State Secretary and six others. All are reported dead. They were in a Super Puma helicopter belonging to the State Emergency Service. Monastyrsky’s team were flying to visit