Society

Thursday

Sam Holmes

The secrets of being a Christmas elf

I was 19 when I became a Hamleys elf. The closest thing I can compare it to is military service. Every elf was given a uniform and it was our responsibility to make sure it looked presentable. It was green and red, with matching shoes and hat, and striped tights that didn’t keep out the cold while we stood outside to welcome people in. Our timetable was extremely regimented: 09.00 hours: unlock front door. 12.00 hours: fake snow falls on Regent Street; appear delighted. 18.00 hours: check grotto for vomit. The only skills needed were punctuality, projection and the ability to seem happy even when freezing. There were long periods

The Spectator

Letters: Europe’s contribution to peace

Peace project Sir: It was heartening to read your editorial on the peace which has reigned in Europe since 1945, in which you paid justified tribute to those who sacrificed their lives in the two world wars (‘Why we remember’, 13 November). You emphasised how Nato and the UN have contributed to the maintenance of peace, but sadly you failed to mention the European project and the EU. The first president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, always insisted that the project of European integration, launched by Adenauer, Schuman and De Gasperi, was above all a ‘peace project’. That continues to be the view of today’s Commission president, Ursula

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Boris’s shambolic CBI speech, more Covid protests and Kyle Rittenhouse is cleared

Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, praised Peppa Pig in a speech to the Confederation of British Industry: ‘Who would’ve believed that a pig that looks like a hairdryer… has now been exported to 180 countries?’ Then he lost his place and said: ‘Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.’ Nineteen Conservative MPs voted against the government on a clause excluding means-tested council support payments from a new £86,000 lifetime limit on social care costs; it would mean a lost inheritance for heirs of people with assets worth no more than the limit. The writer J.K. Rowling was hounded by militant trans campaigners. ‘I’ve now received so many death threats I

Dot Wordsworth

Should we ramp down ramping down?

Language change outdoes nonsense, just as misbehaviour outdoes satire. In Through the Looking-Glass Alice mentions to the Gnat that, where she comes from, they have butterflies. ‘“Crawling at your feet,” the Gnat said, “you may observe a Bread-and-Butterfly. Its wings are thin slices of bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump of sugar. It lives on weak tea with cream in it.” “Supposing it couldn’t find any?” Alice asked. “Then it would die, of course,” the Gnat replied. “But that must happen very often,” Alice remarked thoughtfully. “It always happens,” said the Gnat.’ In April last year, I wrote, with regard to vaccination, about ramping

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

A small victory in a bad year: José Pizarro at the RA reviewed

Piccadilly is losing its patina of dirt, its cadaverous character. It is overpriced and over-renovated,a meeting place for luxury goods. Perhaps I cannot forgive it for not actually containing Dracula’s ‘malodorous’ house; but who has a resentment against a street except this column and Hillary Clinton, who set a terrorist attack here in her new novel State of Terror (written with Louise Penny), which describes her resentment towards Donald Trump through the prism of genre fiction? Piccadilly does, though, now have three excellent restaurants: HIDE; the Wolseley; and José Pizarro at the Royal Academy of Arts, which opened this summer. I am used to good art and bad food: one

Toby Young Toby Young

I’ve become a social pariah – just for having children

When Caroline and I got married in 2001, having four kids was not only fashionable, it was the socially responsible thing to do. Countries with declining populations like Japan were storing up problems for themselves, with labour shortages and tax shortfalls on the horizon — and Britain was at risk of going the same way. Having lots of kids was practically a duty if you were in a stable relationship and you both had postgraduate qualifications, as we did. Our offspring were likely to contribute more in taxes than they received in benefits, thereby offsetting the cost of the growing underclass. We were so convinced of our moral righteousness that

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Poor Ole wasn’t cut out for Man U

Manchester United have ended up with a temporary coach before they look for an interim manager. Haven’t we heard that before? Oh yes, a few years ago, shortly before Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was given the job. It sounds like United haven’t got a clue what they are doing. Which is a bit rum for a stock-market-listed club and one of the biggest brands in the world. Poor old Ole just wasn’t cut out to be an elite football manager. But could anyone cope with the presence of that choleric United legend, Sir Alex Ferguson, up in the stands shaking his head mournfully at some on-field idiocy before burying his head

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 27 November 2021

Succumbing to your emotions at the bridge table can be fatal. Whatever you’re feeling, get a grip! Easier said than done, of course. I’m usually pretty composed, but last week I felt an inexplicable sense of anxiety while playing on Jonathan Harris’s team. It’s always a privilege to be asked, and I felt acutely embarrassed that my underbidding led to two missed slams. I gave myself a stern talking-to afterwards, but what turned out to be a far better tonic was watching Marusa Gold — a regular on the team — display so beautifully the true importance of holding your nerve. She was South, North was her partner Todor Tiholov:

Robin Oakley

A feast of feelgood emotion

Ascot’s image is all champagne and fascinators, high society and high rollers. Said Art Buchwald: ‘Ascot is so exclusive that it is the only racecourse in the world where the horses own the people.’ But there is another Ascot — one entirely comfortable with tweeds, corduroys, cloth caps and woolly jumpers. It might not have been. Bernard Fitzalan-Howard, the 16th Duke of Norfolk and the Queen’s doughty representative at the course from 1945 to 1972, allegedly declared that jumping would be introduced at Ascot only over his dead body. Fortunately it didn’t require his early demise. There has been jump racing at Ascot since 1965 and I doubt you could

Melissa Kite

There is a new and deadly threat to the countryside

Surprise, surprise. The person who had the shield taken out of the street light so it shone back into my bedroom window was precisely the person it was always going to be. I wish the world would shock me more, but it seldom seems to. When the council told me someone had demanded the full glare of the bright white LED bulb be restored, I nursed a forlorn hope that it might not be the obvious suspect. Wouldn’t it be exciting, I thought, if someone other than a left-wing vegan interfered in my happiness? But it was not to be. Lefties love harsh light bulbs, even in rural areas. I

Taki

The Kushner conundrum

Gstaad I have two special girlfriends, Lynne and Fiona, the ladies who guard The Spectator’s entrance against the outraged #MeToo gels and woke lackeys who occasionally take umbrage against the poor little Greek boy’s scribbling. My guardian angels recently sent me some personal letters posted long ago, which I will eventually answer, especially one from Lady Mary Gaye Curzon, a very old friend, whose beautiful daughter Cressida — a Spectator Notebook contributor — dodged a bullet when Harry Halfwit went Hollywood. Although months in arrears, please accept my apologies, Helen Holland, Mary Ruskin and Anthony Johnson; such are the joys of the mail during and after a pandemic. Last week

Jeremy Clarke

The joy of French hospital food

After checking me in, the receptionist, who was wearing an overcoat, said: ‘There is no heating in the hotel. The unit is broken. But it is not cold today so you should be fine.’ Room 357 was cold. Hoping to raise the temperature by a degree, I filled the sink with hot water, turned on all the lights, and switched on the massive telly. It showed drug squad officers busting dealers in a poor northern French town. After combing through a suspect’s text messages, they bashed down his or her front door and arrested everybody and seized their drugs and cash. Most often it was hashish in small amounts and

La Jerezana

2534: Off-pitch

Eight unclued lights (four of two words) are of a kind.   Across 1 False prophet faces interjection, perhaps (12, three words) 10 Old soldier heartily opposes Prohibition (4) 12 Women perorate furiously about Welsh sustainable energy source (10, two words) 14 Spell first half of ‘exhume’ wrong (3) 15 Person rebuking extremely restive demonstrator (8) 19 Porky pianist regularly stays in bed (6, hyphened) 22 Such fish are briefly making comeback in channels (6) 24 Onions’ relative originally eaten on knife (5) 27 Playing reggae on street, daughter moved unsteadily (9) 29 Chauvinist dictator’s spirit and energy (5) 31 Mother of singer Grace Jones finally entering Assam? (6) 34

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: ‘O scintillate, bright orb celestial! Gleam’ (‘Twinkle, twinkle, Little Star’)

In Competition No. 3226, you were invited to rewrite, in pompous and prolix style, any well-known simple poem. The seed for this pleasingly popular challenge was a recasting of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’, attributed to John Raymond Carson, which begins: ‘Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific…’ Star performers, in a most excellent and enjoyable entry, include AdrianFry’s Larkin: Jointly and severally, your begetters rudely discombobulate your psycho-social equilibrium.Though an unintentional by-product of their actions, it is nevertheless so… And Janine Beacham’s Williams: I have succumbed to those purple-sheened orbs, Pomona’s amethyst treats… Iain Morley and John MacRitchie also shone, but the winners, below, net £25 each. Oh scintillate, bright orb celestial! Gleam, Alpha

Luke McShane

No. 681

White to play. Erigaisi–Liem, Tata Steel Rapid, 2021. Here 1 Rxf6? Qd1+ sees White getting mated on the back rank. The 18-year-old Indian grand-master found a much stronger move. What did he play? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 29 November. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address. Last week’s solution 1 Bg5! g1=Q 2 Bd2+ Kb6 3 Be3+ Qxe3 4 Nd5+ wins the queen Last week’s winner Boris Alperowicz, South Nutfield, Surrey

Luke McShane

The world championship

‘Time to say Dubai,’ tweeted Magnus Carlsen, like some wry Bond villain, when he learned that the Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi would be his next challenger for the world championship title. Hosted at the Dubai Expo, battle will commence on Friday 26 November. Carlsen wrested the title from Viswanathan Anand in 2013, and since then has defended his title against Anand (again), Sergey Karjakin and Fabiano Caruana. But the Norwegian downplayed his match experience in appraising his prospects against the new challenger: ‘My biggest advantage is that I am better at chess.’ Still, world championship matches have an intensity all of their own, in which nerves and stamina are as indispensable

Wednesday

Kit Wilson

The rise of the neoclassical reactionaries

A strange new ideology has been growing over the last few years, you might have noticed — amid the day-to-day chaos — the slow, proto-planet-like formation. Currently, it has no name, nor an obvious leader. Its many thousands of proponents do not even seem, yet, to consider each other fellow-travellers. But to the onlooker, they’re clearly marching the same steps to the same tune. We might call it neoclassical reactionism. The central refrain is a familiar one: the modern world is ugly, decadent, sick. But rather than seeking refuge in religion or racial politics, neoclassical reactionaries hark back to Ancient Greece and Rome — in particular, to supposedly lost values like

The Spectator

2531: Villainy – solution

The unclued lights are VILLAINS encountered by James Bond. First prize Ian Skillen, Cambuslang, Glasgow Runners-up Liz Knights, Walton Highway, Cambs; Keith Williams, Kings Worthy, Winchester, Hants

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Liz Kendall to be first MP to have a child through surrogacy

Labour frontbencher Liz Kendall is expecting a baby through a surrogate, making her the first MP to have a child through surrogacy. Kendall tells me that she and her partner are expecting the baby in January after a lengthy and painful fertility battle. She says: ‘We have been through a lot to get here but it really is happening now, and we’ve been telling people this week.’ During the couple’s attempts to conceive, Kendall suffered two miscarriages and needed surgery after both. Last month she also spoke in a parliamentary debate about the ‘debilitating’ symptoms of the menopause that she had been experiencing over the past year. She won praise

Tuesday

Gus Carter Gus Carter

It’s Harry, not Meghan, who’s the real problem

Who or what drove Harry and Meghan to leave the royal bosom for the land of slebs on the other side of the Atlantic? That’s one of the central questions of a new two-part documentary, The Princes and the Press, that aired on the BBC last night. The obvious suspect is the dreaded British media — barging, intrusive, xenophobic — riddled with prejudice, we’re told, against a mixed-race American in the monarchy. But the jostling between royal households seems equally responsible. After the early days of Hazza and Megz, a clear jealousy from some of William and Kate’s people began to seep into the media. The younger brother and his