Society

Thursday

30 Sep 2021

The cult of Irn Bru

There aren’t many countries where Coca-Cola isn’t the most popular drink. Scotland is one of them. And unlike some of the others — such as North Korea or Cuba — it’s not because Coke isn’t sold. It’s because of the popularity of Irn Bru, Scotland’s ‘other national drink’. Few soft drinks have such a devoted following as Irn Bru. It has inspired tattoos, poetry (‘a drop ae yer liquid gold’) and — in true Scottish style — its own batter. Why is it so popular? It helps that it is an excellent hangover cure, but it has something else going for it — a sense of fun. Irn Bru is

The Spectator

2523: Monstrous regiment – solution

The unclued Across lights can be preceded by MISS and the unclued Down lights. MRS 2/15D is the pair. First prize Suzanne Cumming, Plymouth Runners-up Stephen Rice, London SW1; Barbara Butterworth, Princes Risborough, Bucks

Jeremy Clarke

Sally Rooney on steroids

To lessen the side effects of chemotherapy I am prescribed a corticosteroid. I take a whopping dose around the treatment dates and a maintenance dose the rest of the time. The physical side effects of prednisolone are sweating, insomnia, a gargantuan appetite and a moon face. The mental effects are similar to those of decent coke: an afflatus of delightedness and collected wits spoiled by an indiscriminating faith in the truth of my own thoughts, and an overwhelming and grandiose desire to express these marvellous thoughts verbally to other people. Grandiosity in an invalid is not a good look. But people excuse it. Acquaintances who I haven’t seen for a

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competitions winners: W.S. Gilbert makes a ham sandwich

In Competition No. 3218, you were invited to supply a recipe as it might have been written by the author of your choice. I tip my hat to Mark Crick’s Kafka’s Soup, which gave me the idea for this excellent challenge. In it you’ll find such delights as John Steinbeck’s mushroom risotto, Virginia Woolf’s clafoutis grand mère and cheese on toast à la Harold Pinter. Nick MacKinnon, Moray McGowan and G.M. Southgate were worthy runners-up in an exceptional field. The six who made the final cut earn £25 each. Take plump apples of beech-leaf green, ripened in a cuckoo-calling summer. Score a line around their bounteous girths. Plunge a silver

Doc

2526: Everybody out!

The unclued lights (individually or as two pairs), one of three words and three of two words, can be preceded by the same word. All can be confirmed in Brewer and/or Chambers. Elsewhere, ignore one circumflex. Across 1 Day after RAF and army manoeuvres in a rural setting (8) 11 9 comperes going around being always there (12) 14 Train pass daughter lost (7) 16 Nothing odd, sailboats are plenty (4, two words) 17 Way round Germany and coastal French area (5) 18 Broken maypole without a use (6) 22 Councillor points to model on feature of battlement (8) 23 Island garden transformed area (7) 24 Shows with radio critiques?

Luke McShane

No. 673

White to play. This was a variation which could arise in the game R. Pert–M. Parligras, Manx Liberty Masters 2021. Here, White has a surprising way to conclude the game. What is the winning move? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 4 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…Rc3! wins, e.g. 2 bxc3 Bxc6+ 3 Kg1 Rg8+ 4 Kf2 Rg2+ Last week’s winner Petra Krautwasser, Tübingen, Germany

Luke McShane

The Manx Liberty Masters

I sat on the plane to the Isle of Man, leafing through a copy of Nigel Short’s new book, Winning. Since I was about to play a chess tournament, you would imagine that Short’s analysis of eight memorable tournament victories contained insights for my own campaign. Strange to say, that thought hardly crossed my mind. I was on my way to the Manx Liberty Masters, a ten-player all-play-all tournament, held in elegant surroundings in the town hall of the capital, Douglas. Dietmar Kolbus, who also captains the Manx Liberty team in the Four Nations Chess League, took on the demanding dual role of being a player and organiser. In doing

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 02 October 2021

Online bridge has been a lifeline for many players these past 18 months. But not everyone wanted to try it. Now that clubs have reopened, I keep hearing the refrain: ‘Sorry, partner, I’m very rusty.’ It’s true — playing bridge after a long absence isn’t like getting back on a bicycle. You don’t forget how to play, of course, but you become less sharp; the muscles of the brain used for bridge go flabby. I feel it happening after a mere two weeks away, so I can imagine how daunting it is to play for the first time since lockdown. One aspect of the game that doesn’t suffer through lack

Robin Oakley

The making of a racehorse trainer

My best fun, through ten years reporting European politics for CNN, was bumping around the Continent with sparky young producers and the cream of international cameramen. Among the shooters was Woj, a pony-tailed Pole with a sardonic sense of humour and so unpronounceable a surname that when we were late joining a flight an airport announcer demanded: ‘Mr R. Oakley and Mr… Mr… Mr Oakley’s companion must go immediately to Gate 23.’ Todd was the only person I ever met who drank Coca-Cola with breakfast. Scotty had his hair parted by a sniper’s bullet in Iraq and lived to tell the tale. Darren was a film director manqué who framed

Melissa Kite

In praise of bots

British Gas finally agreed to service my boiler, for no reason I could make out other than the boiler wasn’t new any more. All the while it was new, they refused to go anywhere near it. The majestic Worcester Bosch was installed four years ago as I began my renovations, egged on by the builder boyfriend’s bold assurances about the king of combination boilers. When I rang and asked to take out a Homecare agreement on it, I was expecting them to jump at the chance of what would surely be money for old rope. It was hardly going to break down any time soon, or ever, according to the

Stephen Daisley

As COP26 looms, Glasgow is facing a waste crisis

In just a few weeks, Glasgow will be the focus of the world’s attention for the COP26 summit. For the Prime Minister, however, two major embarrassments await. Firstly, an environmental conference aimed at weaning the developed world off fossil fuels looks set to take place in the middle of a British energy crisis. Secondly, Glasgow — whose council is now run by the SNP for the first time — is a city in crisis where streets are overflowing with rubbish. Pavements strewn with household waste are a common sight. Residents routinely post images on social media of the city centre and its outer-lying suburbs covered in detritus. Glasgow’s bin men

Mary Wakefield

How would making misogyny a hate crime have saved Sarah Everard?

I’m not sure very many of our politicians, the London Mayor or even the Met can really be said to care about the death of Sabina Nessa, the poor young school-teacher murdered in London nearly a fortnight ago. If you claim to care about the victim of a terrible crime, if you’re going to grandstand and say ‘something must be done’, you have to care about what actually happened to her. The circumstances matter — else how can you try to prevent it happening again? ‘Say her name’, they all intone, before using that same name as a sort of springboard from which they can leap on to their own

Jeremy Paxman

There’s one upside to having Parkinson’s disease

I am just back from my final salmon fishing trip of the year. I have never had a worse season and have hardly cast a line. This autumn’s almost unprecedented sunshine has been terrible for fishing; the river Tweed had been reduced to a dribble, through which even Alex Salmond could easily lead an invasion force from Scotland to England while wearing a three-piece suit. I returned to find a letter from Salmon & Trout Conservation lying on the mat. It is bizarre that the only friends these fish have are those who want to stick a hook in them. The chief executive sounded at his wits’ end as he

Ysenda Maxtone Graham

The time is up for long films

‘Programme starts at 3.45, so the film will start at 4.15, and it’s two hours and 43 minutes long, so we’d be out just before 7 p.m.’ This is the No Time to Die calculation, and I think many of us are doing it and wondering: ‘Can I face it?’ A dark afternoon spent in a state of total surrender to the longueurs imposed on us by a self-indulgent director? Thirsty from too much popcorn, leg muscles seizing up, not allowed to look at your phone, pressure on the bladder, Daniel Craig never smiling and the end nowhere near in sight? After a year and a half of becoming accustomed

Kate Andrews

Running on empty: the government is out of fuel – and ideas

The Prime Minister is thought to thrive on chaos. If so, then he should be in his element. Wholesale gas prices have risen sixfold, winter heating bills are set to be the highest on record. Millions of people across the country are wondering what they might have to forgo to pay for heat. Supermarkets are warning of food shortages. There are 100,000 missing HGV drivers. The army has been called in to help, but has only 150 tanker drivers available. Queues for petrol jam the roads, and medics can’t get to work. The Prime Minister might thrive on chaos, but Tory members do not. ‘Tory grassroots are furious,’ says one

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How do I get rid of my terrible cleaner?

Q. I have recently become a widow. Since my son is away at university, I had the idea of charging a modest rate to informally rent out his bedroom to friends and friends of friends who happen to need a bed in the city for a night. I include dinner and breakfast in the rate but can still make a much-needed profit. My problem is that some charming friends of friends have booked in twice and want to make it a regular thing, but they insist on taking me out for a slap-up dinner at a smart restaurant in lieu of the small payment. I don’t think they are remotely

Charles Moore

In defence of Angela Rayner

On the one occasion when I spent any time with Angela Rayner, she was funny, direct and friendly. We were both on the BBC’s Any Questions? in Alan Partridge territory and dined together beforehand with Sir Vince Cable. She got through a whole evening without identifying me, either privately or on air, as one of ‘a bunch of scum, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, absolute pile of banana republic, Etonian piece of scum’ (her chosen words at this week’s party conference fringe meeting). True, I am neither a government minister nor a Conservative (in the Lords I sit as ‘non-affiliated’), but she probably felt I was that sort of person. So, now

Jacqueline Wilson

Why I became a writer

Whenever I give talks to children about my books they always ask who inspired me to be a writer. I don’t really think anyone did. I was playing complicated imaginary games inside my head before I could read, and as soon as I could write I filled many Woolworths notebooks with my wobbly printing. But if pressed, I say that E. Nesbit might well have been an inspiration. I loved her books as a child and treasured a biography about her when I was struggling to earn my living as a writer. It was a relief to know that she too had to resort to writing little magazine stories while

Dot Wordsworth

We are in a perfect storm of perfect storms

When my husband’s whisky glass fell off the little table next to his chair on to next door’s cat, which was on an unauthorised visit, provoking it to make a speedy exit, en route scratching the postman, who had for a change that afternoon rung the bell to deliver a parcel instead of putting a little card through the door saying we were out, it was, my husband averred, a perfect storm. He really meant he had fallen asleep and let his copy of The Spectator fall. We are in a perfect storm of perfect storms. ‘A perfect storm has arisen due to a combination of factors relating to Brexit

Tanya Gold

The real Greek: Lemonia reviewed

Lemonia lives in the old Chalk Farm Tavern in Primrose Hill, which is better known as the set of Paddington. It is not surrounded by fields filled with duellists under a hill of primroses these days, but it is still vast, pale and beautiful: a survivor in the sprawl. There has been a tavern on this site for so long — it was first recorded in 1678 when a corpse was carried to it — that it is possible John Keats drank here. I hope so. It is not a beaker of the warm south – it is slightly too near Camden and its stink of pigeon and bleach for