Society

Wednesday

Peter Jones

Peta, Lysistrata and the comedy of a sex strike

The German branch of the ‘green’ organisation Peta (‘People for the ethical treatment of animals’) is demanding that, until men stop eating meat – apparently they cause 41 per cent more pollution than female carnivores – women must deny them sex. The same sanction had its origin, of course, in Aristophanes’s comedy Lysistrata (411 bc), staged during the war between Athens and Sparta (431-404 bc), just after Athens had suffered a disastrous defeat in a failed attempt on Sicily. Naturally, an organisation like Peta might well think the play was in earnest. Was not Lysistrata proposing a noble, female-instigated sex-strike, by the women of both sides, to stop a war?

The Spectator

Who was the first monarch to live in Buckingham Palace?

Fit for a king King Charles III, it has been reported, is reluctant to move into Buckingham Palace. Who was the first monarch to live there? – The core of what is now the palace was built as a townhouse, Buckingham House, for the Duke of Buckingham in 1703 and purchased by George III as a home for Queen Charlotte and her children – while he lived at St James’s Palace. – His successor, George IV, started work on enlarging what by then was already called a palace, intending to use it for his own residence. He died before it was complete, however, as did William IV. William IV was

The Spectator

Letters: Britain needs the English National Ballet

Putin’s options Sir: I agree with Paul Wood that Vladimir Putin is on the back foot (‘Cornered’, 24 September). His actions, from partial mobilisation to nuclear threats to the rapid referenda in occupied Ukraine, indicate a psychopathic gambler who hopes that one last spin will turn Lady Fortune his way. However, there is a big gap between ‘losing’ and ‘lost’, and that is where the focus on the nuclear threat by the West is unhelpful and dangerous. As well as the partial mobilisation, Putin ordered in August a 10 per cent increase in the size of the military to more than a million combat troops. Combine this with the ‘economy

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Chancellor unveils his unBudget, Hilary Mantel dies and corgi prices soar

Home Kwasi Kwarteng, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, presented a far-reaching ‘fiscal event’ (ineligible to be called a Budget), said to have cut more tax than any measure since 1972. The markets’ immediate response was to sell pounds, and sterling fell to $1.07 (though the euro also continued in its own decline against the dollar and the Chinese yuan fell sharply). The Treasury defensively said it would publish proposals for dealing with its debt and the Bank of England said it would buy government bonds to help ‘restore orderly market conditions’. The IMF spoke out, inviting the government to ‘re-evaluate’ its tax changes. The unBudget had reduced the 45 per

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: children’s stories get the horror treatment

In Competition No. 3268, you were invited to recast an extract from children’s literature in the horror genre. In the forthcoming indie slasher film Winnie-the-Pooh: Bloody and Honey, the seed for this challenge, an unhinged Pooh and Piglet run amok in Hundred Acre Wood, indulging in some eye-gouging and decapitation before gorging themselves on honey. Shudder. I was pleased to see the Cat in the Hat –who has always sent shivers down my spine – pop up several times in the entry. Seuss channellers Chris O’Carroll and Brian Murdoch were unlucky losers, pipped to the post by those below who snaffle £25 each. ‘Nay matey,’ said he; ‘not marooned, but

The Spectator

2572: Blown up – Solution

As suggested by the quotation by John Donne around the perimeter, the other unclued lights were all kinds of trumpets. First prize Ellen Bedford, Sholing, SouthamptonRunners-up Brenda Widger, Bowdon, Cheshire; Martin Joyce, Cumbria

Pabulum

2575: Problem XIII

Singers will know that where ‘Q’ = ‘the number of’: Q34/22A x Q41/39/1D x Q3/8/38 = Q the 14. 41/39/1D is a 7D. 3/8/38 is four words in total. Across 1 Ship transported new preemies (11) 7 Salary drama lecturer forfeited (3) 11 Parrot crosses centre for orris plants (6) 13 A smart criminal and former scholar (7) 15 Hard-up duke ditched rotten rowing boat (5) 17 Smart subaltern’s snazzy sword guard (5) 18 Woman with floor-covering HM adopts (6) 19 Female Irish scholar (4) 21 Garish German brightened unknown Yankee (6) 23 Test out very good new tile (7) 29 Quiet old fellows gradually relax (4,3) 31 Judge with

Luke McShane

The Generation game.

The latest flashpoint in the Carlsen-Niemann saga took place in the sixth round of the preliminaries at the Julius Baer Generation Cup, one of the online events in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. Ten days earlier, 19-year-old Hans Niemann had beaten Magnus Carlsen over the board at the Sinquefield Cup. Carlsen’s shock withdrawal from that event got the rumour mill spinning, which only accelerated after Niemann’s admission that he had cheated online at ages 12 and 16, although he insisted that those incidents are behind him. In the Generation Cup, Carlsen made just one move against Niemann before resigning, clearly in protest. After the event Carlsen released a statement, making

Luke McShane

No. 722

Black to play and win. A variation from the game Aronian-Ivanchuk, Julius Baer Generation Cup, September 2022. Ivanchuk could have reached this position, where he can now win at least a knight by force. What should Black’s next move be? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 3 October. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1 Qa6! Then 1…Kxd2 2 Qh6#, or 1…cxd2 2 Qa1# or 1…Kb2 2 Nd3# Last week’s winner Tim Kruger, Aylesbury

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 1 October 2022

A beautiful Greek island; a warm sea; delicious al fresco dinners; and bridge from morning till night with Andrew Robson. Pure fantasy? Actually, it pretty much sums up my past week. I was lucky enough to be invited by Charlie and Carol Skinner to Paxos for seven days of rubber bridge, in honour of our friend Stuart Wheeler, who died two years ago. There were 12 of us, and the stakes were high (£20 per hundred). It is, of course, a huge privilege to play with Andrew, and we all love it. But it’s not without stress. When we partner him, we’re desperate not to let him down. The pressure

Debbie Hayton

The shame of Sussex police

Just what is happening at Sussex police? Yesterday, the police force issued a grim press release: ‘Woman convicted of historic offences against children in Sussex’. But the woman in question was, in fact, not a woman at all: it was Sally Ann Dixon, born John Stephen Dixon, a paedophile who was jailed for abusing several children between the ages of six and 15. When outraged women called out the police for this confusing statement, the response was swift:  ‘Hi, Sussex police do not tolerate any hateful comments towards their gender identity regardless of crimes committed. This is irrelevant to the crime that has been committed and investigated’ Whatever changes might have been made to Dixon’s

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France’s centrists look petty after their charity football boycott

There should be a charity football match this evening in Paris between a team of MPs and an XI made up of former footballers, such as World Cup winner Christian Karembeu and the ex-Arsenal star Robert Pires. All proceeds – estimated to be around €35,000 (£32,000) – will go to a charity that protects children from online abuse. But on Tuesday evening several left-wing MPs withdrew because they couldn’t bring themselves to play in a team that, for the first time since the side was formed in 2014, contained some players from Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. In statements issued by the Greens, Socialist party and La France Insoumise, they claimed

Robin Ashenden

Do Russia’s conscripts deserve our sympathy?

Russia’s new crop of conscripts are a desperate, dejected bunch. A photograph showing an Orthodox priest blessing these men as they headed off to fight from the settlement of Bataysk in the Rostov region summed up their hopelessness. The names of such little known Russian localities must – to an English reader – all merge into one. They are simply over there, in Russia, where the suffering it has inflicted on a neighbouring country has finally come back to haunt it. But I know where Bataysk is very well. It is a dull suburb of Rostov-on-Don, a city where I lived for four years – a kind of nothing village of one-storey villas,

Tuesday

Lawrence Goldman

The problem with Cambridge University’s slavery report

It’s perfectly legitimate for Cambridge University to seek to understand its history, warts and all. But the University’s final report of its ‘Legacies of Enslavement Advisory Group’, established in 2019 to investigate the university’s historic links with slavery, is short on facts and long on opinions. It also fails to consider Cambridge’s links with the noble cause of anti-slavery. It is hardly surprising that Cambridge should have been associated with slavery. The Atlantic slave trade and West Indian slavery were integral to the British empire between the late sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet the report tells us that no ‘Cambridge institutions directly owned any plantations that exploited enslaved people’.  Instead, the Advisory

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

The Catholic Church is falling apart at the seams

20 min listen

This headline may seem sensational, but the evidence is overwhelming. The Catholic Church is experiencing a bewildering range of crises, some of them long-term and familiar, such as demographic collapse and the continuing scandal of sex abuse. Others are being manufactured by a Pope who is allowing a faction of Catholic boomers to push an incoherent ‘New Age’ agenda. Whether Francis truly supports their ideas is anyone’s guess – but he’s increasingly willing to spout their inanities. On Saturday the Pope’s official Twitter account told the faithful:‘The plant paradigm takes a different approach to earth and environment. Plants cooperate with all the surroundings [sic] environment; even when they compete, they

James Snell

Iran’s ‘kamikaze’ drones take to the skies above Ukraine

Ukraine is awash with foreign-made weapons, something that is true of both sides. While Ukraine uses American-made rocket systems, French, German and British artillery pieces, and anti-tank weaponry from across the globe, Russia is resorting to foreign suppliers of its own. This means artillery shells from North Korea and, increasingly, drones from Iran. Russia relying on these countries has produced a lot of mockery, some of it justified. Why would a country which claims to be winning its war, with an economy unaffected by sanctions, request resupply from North Korea – a nation whose entire economy is the size of an American city? But on drones, at least, the Russian

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

The British Social Attitudes survey misunderstands social attitudes

‘I’m not sure I even know what woke means,’ tweeted barrister Chris Daw at the weekend, ‘but if it’s just treating all people fairly, and with kindness and dignity, it doesn’t seem so bad.’ This is the perfect example of the faux-naïf, head shaking sadly, cosy boast – well, when you get right down to it, isn’t my political ideology just being nice? No, Chris. Let me clear this up for you right now. No. You are thinking of the mixture of residual Christianity and social liberalism that, for better or worse depending on taste (and I was quite fond of it generally) dominated Western discourse for much of the

Monday

Winston Marshall

Jordan Peterson: The Book of Revelation, Ronaldo and the role of the artist

117 min listen

Winston speaks with best-selling author, clinical psychologist and leading public intellectual Dr Jordan Peterson. They discuss the role of artists in society and the state of the arts today. What is so original about Dr Peterson’s work? How hopeful is he for universities? Is it the duty of the privileged to serve the oppressed? And, among other things… Ronaldo, the Book of Revelation, the New Atheists, the Queen’s personality traits and how the energy crisis will end in apocalypse.

Sam Leith Sam Leith

In praise of the speeding crackdown

We all needed a laugh, what with the pound tanking and inflation running away, my old pal Kwasi delivering a Budget, probably for a bet, like Milton Friedman’s last cheese-dream, and the threat of nuclear annihilation starting to seem like a welcome turn up for the books. Said laugh has just been obligingly provided by the Metropolitan Police. They have just, without broadcasting the fact, decided to enforce the speed limit with the tiniest bit more rigour – and as a result, they’ve nicked more than two and a half times as many people for speeding in the first six months of this year than they did in the last