Society

Thursday

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

The Covid pantomime at my father’s memorial

This last weekend I attended the memorial service for my father, who died in July. This isn’t a bid for sympathy. Everyone’s father dies; most of us expect to suffer our bereavements in private; you didn’t know him. But in a larger sense, this is a bid for sympathy. That is, sympathy for us all. Beforehand, Riverside Church — a grand, storied edifice on Manhattan’s Upper West Side — had sent out an email circular to prospective attendees. Perhaps recipients might have anticipated a ministerial reaching out: ‘We treasured Dr Shriver’s membership of our congregation, and Riverside’s clerics wish to convey our sorrow at your loss. We regard his passing

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

The life of an ambassador’s wife

‘One day,’ she writes, ‘we had the Minister for Northern Ireland for the night. He arrived wearing a kilt, which must have made the evening memorable for our German guests.’ Writing here (I should explain) is the widow of Sir Julian Bullard, then ambassador in Bonn, the West German capital. ‘Harry [the butler] beckoned to me and whispered “Come and see his bed”… so I followed Harry upstairs. The bed was neatly turned down. Tucked in, with only their heads showing, was a line of stuffed animals.’ The pair are surprised by the minister himself, nipping back to fetch papers. ‘He introduced each animal to me in turn. “Never travel

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The war against intelligence

Two weeks have passed and somehow James Conway is still in a job. He is the director of the English Touring Opera, despite having fired 14 of its musicians because they were born with the wrong colour of skin. These middle- to late-career musicians were presented with a letter from James informing them that henceforth the ETO was no place for goddam honkys. Well, OK, it didn’t quite say that — it thanked them for their excellent work and told them they were out on their ears because Conway wanted to make the orchestra more ethnically diverse. The ETO claimed they had carried out this cracker pogrom at the behest

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The legacy of Stephen Toope

Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, has begun this academic year by announcing it will be his last in the post. Professor Toope says, no doubt truthfully, that he wants to see more of his Canadian family, dissevered from him by Covid. But I think it reasonable to relate his departure to wider issues. When he arrived in 2017, the ‘Golden Era’ of UK/Chinese relations still, in theory, existed. Cambridge uncritically welcomed Chinese government and business participation. In 2019, speaking in China, Professor Toope hailed the China Development Forum’s ‘Greater Opening Up for Win-Win Cooperation’ and praised President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative. A preface composed in his name

The Spectator

2522: A trifle – solution

Unclued lights were synonyms of NOTHING. ‘A trifle’ is one definition of nothing given in Chambers. First prize James Knox, Beaconsfield Runners-up Phillip Wickens, Horsham; David Morgan, Gilesgate, Durham City

Cheesecracker

2525: Prime Times

Elements of four symmetrically disposed unclued lights confirm the 5 Down. Enumerations indicate lengths of clues’ ‘full’ solutions.   Across 1 People are pruning every European tree (6) 6 Cook cut gooey rock cake (7) 11 Bishop leaving foundation unaltered (4, two words) 12 Skywriting? (9, two words) 14 Radical Left holds back boy (5) 15 Distort lower grades by class (6) 16 One very leggy girl weed picked up (9) 19 Obtain unlimited happiness (6) 21 Senseless how love ends (5) 22 Baby’s back, bound for Glasgow (4) 24 Harbours shelled on a key date (6) 25 Return right away for departure (6) 31 Ditch outcome of good joke?

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: ‘Why must it always be tomato soup?’

In Competition No. 3217, you were invited to supply a poem that begins or ends with the line ‘Why must it always be tomato soup?’. In Katherine Mansfield’s short story ‘Bliss’, Eddie Warren, a poet, quotes this ‘incredibly beautiful line’ of poetry, which, it turns out, inspired an incredibly witty and well-made entry. Well done, all, and £20 to the winners. ‘Why must it always be tomato soup?’ said Andy. ‘It’s high time I made a change, I’ll start to paint a comprehensive group of every flavour in the Campbell’s range.’   He painted chicken, mushroom and split pea with turkey noodle, pepper-pot and bean, clam chowder, consommé and celery,

Luke McShane

No. 672

Black to play. J. Polgar — Gaprindashvili, Novi Sad Olympiad 1990. Gaprindashvili’s next move prompted immediate resignation. What did she play? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by 27 September. 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 Qf6! blocks the f-pawn, so Bh6 and Qg7# is unstoppable. e.g. 1…Qxa2 2 Bh6 Qa5+ 3 Kd1 Qa4+ 4 Kc1 Qa1+ 5 Kc2 Qa4+ 6 Kb1 wins. Last week’s winner Richard Craven, Bristol

Luke McShane

Nona vs Netflix

Last year’s Netflix mini-series The Queen’s Gambit hit all the right notes. For the neophytes, it was quirky and intriguing. For those already smitten with the game, it was a rare joy to see that chess-wise, they mostly got the details right. Mostly. One awkward exception was the portrayal of Nona Gaprindashvili, the contemporary women’s World Champion, who held the title from 1962 to 1978. Now 80, she is suing Netflix, claiming false light invasion of privacy and defamation and seeking damages of ‘at least $5 million’. The point of controversy occurs in the final episode, when the heroine Beth Harmon is playing at an elite tournament in Moscow. The

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 25 September 2021

The first serious F2F bridge tournament we have played for almost two years was the Premier League last weekend. Whatever anyone says, live playing is a totally different game. The atmosphere was bubbling with excitement as the post mortems outside unravelled the tricky hands. The beginner’s mantra, which holds true at any level, is count your tricks in No Trump and count your losers in a suit contract. But sometimes the losers seem to float around and swap places with each other, as on this hand from the first weekend played by my teammate Espen Erichsen. West led the ◆Q, taken by South. Declarer could see two losers in Hearts,

Melissa Kite

Are the builder boyfriend and I falling apart?

After the landowner told us to be out in three weeks, then admitted we had three months to move our horses under the terms of our lease, the search began. We set about putting my house on the market and looking for a place with a few acres, but it was soon clear we were not going to find anything in budget. With the clock ticking on our notice period at the farm we’ve been renting, we had to look for livery for the horses. The timing could hardly be worse. Vacancies don’t tend to come up as winter approaches. But I always find the Good Lord provides when your

Taki

I was the next Truman Capote

It’s nice to be back in London, and Glebe Place is a delight. Mind you, it’s not the mansion I was expecting, just a very nice mews house on a very quiet part of the street away from the King’s Road. The noise of the city gets on my nerves, which means that I’ve lived on an island, and among cows, for too long. Alexandra seems to like London more than I do nowadays, and that’s a switch if ever there was one. Knightsbridge was home for 40-odd years, but the wife hated it. Writing about one’s wife is a bit like kissing your sister and all that, but ensconced

Jeremy Clarke

Why I’m touchy about being asked what I do for a living

In former times I had acquaintances of long standing, or even friends, who never once asked what I did for a job and neither did I ask them. In the new equitable era I seem to be always introduced to people who badly want to know before proceeding. Here’s how it goes. We are introduced. We exchange platitudes. I am difficult to place on the social scale, it’s true. The accent, for one thing. The question is shamelessly put just after the off: ‘So what do you do?’ (I complained about it to my American friend Vernon. That’s nothing, he said. In the United States they ask you how much

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Eco-warrior storms off morning television

For a movement dedicated to dramatically reducing the world’s CO2 emissions, Britain’s eco-warriors certainly produce a lot of hot air. That at least appeared to be the case when Liam Norton of Insulate Britain appeared on Good Morning Britain today. Norton was on the show to explain why his fellow activists were currently blockading the M25 – a stunt which prevented a woman reaching a hospital before she was paralysed – as part of their campaign to get the government to insulate everyone’s homes. The argument quickly became heated after Norton was asked – considering the immense inconvenience his eco-stunts were causing – if he had actually bothered to insulate

Monday

Douglas Murray

Farewell to Cambridge’s disastrous Vice-Chancellor

So farewell then, Stephen Toope. The undistinguished Canadian lawyer who has spent recent years trying to run Cambridge University into the ground has just sent an announcement to all faculty, alumni and students. In it he informs them that he has decided to step down from his position as Vice-Chancellor at the end of this academic year. The reason he gives is that he has decided to spend more time with his family. You do not have to read between the lines to realise that Toope is leaving because his brief tenure at Cambridge has been an unmitigated disaster, a fact that has become increasingly clear. Among the highlights of his career

Friday

Debbie Hayton

Are children capable of making life-changing decisions?

Keira Bell is a name that will be remembered. Like Victoria Gillick before her, she argued in the High Court that minors could not consent to certain medical treatment. But that is where their paths differ. In 1983, Gillick lost when the High Court ruled that girls under 16 could be prescribed birth control without parental consent. Bell on the other hand had been a patient of the Tavistock and Portman, the NHS trust that operates paediatric gender services in England. She now regrets her transition and says that the clinic should have challenged her more rather than offering her puberty blockers and testosterone. Her legal case against the clinic was

Thursday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Jess Brammar isn’t the problem

We need to talk about Jess Brammar. No, not the fact that Ms Brammar has landed the plum job of executive editor of the BBC’s news channels, despite cries of opposition from various Tories who insisted that Brexit-bashing Brammar is too politically partisan for such a position. My view is that it should be up to the Beeb who it employs, and politicians and their advisers should keep their beaks out of broadcasting. Rather, Jess Brammar represents a wider problem. It’s the fact that so much of the cultural elite is hostile to Brexit, which, lest we forget, is the most popular political idea in living memory in this country.

Joanna Williams

Is Harry and Meghan’s Time profile a parody?

Of course the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are named in Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2021. And of course their listing, which makes the publication’s front cover, is accompanied by a lavish citation and photos of the pair put together by Hollywood A-list stylists. Did we really expect anything less? Time truly has it all. First there are the photos. The couple are groomed beyond the imagining of mere mortals, their clothes carefully co-ordinated. They are artistically positioned in order to comprise both a beautiful image and a political statement. Yes, indeed! These are no ordinary celebrity snaps. They are Harry and Meghan’s meaningful portraits. The cover shot

The Spectator

The case for an asylum amnesty

Many feared mass unemployment as a fallout from Covid-19. Instead, we have ended up with the opposite problem: a labour shortage. The lack of lorry drivers has led to some items missing from supermarkets. Pubs, restaurants and many other businesses are struggling to re-open as completely as they would like for want of adequate staff. As Matthew Lynn says in his article, the labour shortage has already had a positive effect on workers’ wages. The situation also presents a rare opportunity for long-overdue reforms elsewhere — particularly when it comes to processing asylum seekers. For years, there was public concern that there were far more immigrants coming to work in