Society

Thursday

Lucy Vickery

Henry James sells Heinz baked beans

In Competition No. 3201, a contest inspired by Salman ‘naughty but nice’ Rushdie, you were invited to submit advertising copy for the product of your choice in the style of a well-known author. In a huge and hotly contested entry, unlucky losers Bill Greenwell, Brian Murdoch, Ann Drysdale, Tom Adam and Nick MacKinnon were only narrowly outflanked by those below who take £25 each. Congratulations, all round. Once upon the throne I squatted, almost bursting a carotid Till my bowels were unclotted and my mind was free once more. Then I found the toilet paper smelled of germicidal vapour And, like a potato scraper, left my bottom rough and sore.

Luke McShane

No. 656

Black to play. Vocaturo–Gokerkan, May 2021. After a long defence, White’s last move 101 Nf1-e3 was a decisive error. Which move did Black play to wrap up the game? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 7 June. 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 g4! hxg4 2 h5! (or 1…gxh4 2 gxh5). Black’s king cannot stop both passed c and h pawns. Last week’s winner John Payne, Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire

Luke McShane

Hybrid chess

Chess was played by cable in the 19th century because… well, why not? And because everything old is new again, 2021 has brought us ‘Hybrid chess’, in which players play online, but congregate in hubs shared with other players under the supervision of an arbiter. This time, put it down to human frailty and our need to visit the loo. In a time when a smartphone will suggest moves to beat the world champion, competitive online chess relies on the watchful eye of a webcam to deter casual cheating when people play from home. For that reason, online games are overwhelmingly played at rapid and blitz time controls, because when

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 5 June 2021

It’s hard to think of anything more expensive at the bridge table than doubling the opponents and then watching them make because of your double. Oh, when will we learn to just sit back and take a small plus score? If the person you double also happens to be a world-class player, then you have to be prepared to swallow a pretty bitter pill. I was watching Thomas Bessis of France, playing a match with his father, Michel, and benefitting from a greedy and ill-chosen double. Bessis the younger was sitting South. He ended up in 4♥, rather excitedly doubled by West, and received the opening lead of the Ace

Aidan Hartley

Thirty years ago, I saw the rebels take Addis Ababa

Kenya The evening before the assault on Addis Ababa, my guide Girmay and I ventured into a complex stuffed with bombs, bullets and missiles that must have been booby-trapped. A few minutes into taking photos, I heard detonations, and a bunker on the hill above us exploded. We dashed away as the rumbles and bangs behind us gathered in fury and then the earth burst in an eruption of fire, sending a mushroom cloud into the sky. As we ran, rockets and shells rained down on all sides, shrapnel and earth bursting in plumes. We took cover in a dry riverbed and I worked my way through a packet of

Melissa Kite

Why I finally succumbed to my musclebound osteopath

‘You’ll come back when you’re in enough pain,’ said the osteopath as I walked out of his door. That was two years ago this week, so when I walked back through the door he raised his eyebrows and made a face. I had booked online as I lay shivering in bed with pain. Two years ago I ducked under a fence, my neck twanged and my head exploded. The GP saw me, doling out platitudes from ‘take paracetamol’ to ‘give it a few weeks’. After a few months, a friend recommended an osteo of some repute, but when I arrived at his surgery early and heard the bone-crunching sounds coming

Jeremy Clarke

The curse of surgical stockings

The porter rolled me off the trolley and on to the bed, wished me a good day and departed. My previous neighbour in the two-bedded ward — a frail, aloof, slow-moving African man — was gone. In his place was a visibly vigorous man of about my age with a charismatic, masculine face reminiscent of Anthony Quinn’s Zorba the Greek, except he had no front teeth. The wiry grey hair was closely scissored and he wore a sportive white polo shirt and black jog pants. Even in repose he looked dynamic. A nurse entered to take my readings. Now I must drink plenty of water, she said, to flush out

Steerpike Steerpike

Anglican bishop: ‘Never trust a Tory’

It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so mind-numbingly tedious. The Bishop of St Davids, the Right Reverend Dr Joanna Penberthy, has discovered Twitter. And we’ve discovered just what goes on inside the mind of a mid-ranking Anglican bore. It is, apparently, a rather angry place — not the quiet reflective serenity one might expect from a woman of God.  The bishop is a #FBPE Remainer headbanger who wants to #GTTO (get the Tories out). She is keen to let everyone knows that she ‘will forever remain a Welsh European’ and has been happily sharing nationalist propaganda — including comments by the SNP Covid adviser Devi Sridhar, erroneously claiming that the United Kingdom

Wednesday

Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes

What happens now that Rhodes didn’t fall?

Oriel College, Oxford’s decision to retain the statue of Cecil Rhodes has generated the usual voluminous fury. It has also shown it to be just that: noise. The university’s willingness to face down activists could mark a turning point in proving that when campaigners don’t get their way, the world continues to turn. This might sound obvious but it marks a welcome change to the often depressing cycle of inevitability of protest-social media storm-surrender. All too often, it seems power really does lie with the various campaign groups, charities, and commentators pushing for change. The fact that Rhodes hasn’t fallen, whatever you might think of the man himself, shows that it doesn’t. This is why they are activists

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Keir Starmer refuses to deny taking drugs at university

Keir Starmer’s appearance on Piers Morgan’s ‘Life Stories’ is a sign of desperation. The Labour leader knows he must do something about the dire situation his party is in, following the disastrous defeat at the Hartlepool by-election. One of the big criticisms levelled at Starmer is that he lacks charisma. His decision to agree to be interviewed by Morgan is an attempt to do something about that, by showing people the ‘real’ Starmer. Unfortunately, though, it seems there are some things that remain off limits, not least what Starmer the student got up to during his time at Leeds university.  Morgan quizzed Starmer at least ten times on whether the

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

In defence of Naomi Osaka

‘Kawaisou’ or ‘wagamama’ (poor thing or spoiled brat)? That’s the question Japanese tennis fans have been asking ever since world number two Naomi Osaka quit the French Open, having refused to fulfil her post-match press conference obligations. The tennis superstar cited mental health problems for her reluctance to be quizzed by journalists, after which she was censored sharply, and handed a $15,000 (£11,000) fine. She was told to comply, but has chosen not to, packing her bags and leaving instead.  Osaka has said that she suffers ‘bouts of depression’ and has confessed to a chronic shyness that prompts her to wear headphones to shut out the world whenever she is at a tournament.

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is climate change really causing hundreds of UK deaths?

Given the power that the daily statistics of Covid deaths have exerted over us this year, it was only a matter of time before we started being bamboozled with terrifying figures of the estimated death toll from climate change. Sure enough, the latest issue of Nature Climate Change contains a widely-reported paper by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Bern, which attempts to quantify the death toll from higher global temperatures. The scientists ran a simulation which they claim predicted what the weather would have been like in recent years had it not been for man-made climate change. They then reached the conclusion that

Monday

Tom Slater Tom Slater

Why can’t King’s College academics cope with a photo of Prince Philip?

Librarians aren’t known for causing trouble. But at our elite universities, in the grip of an increasingly unhinged culture of offence-taking, it doesn’t take much to cause trouble nowadays. This is the news that a library director at King’s College London has been forced to make a grovelling apology for emailing around a photo of Prince Philip. Hot on the heels of that student at Abertay being investigated for saying women have vaginas, this one is right up there with the most absurd campus stories to date. In a bulletin marking the Duke of Edinburgh’s death, Joleen Clarke, associate director of the university’s libraries, sent a photo of Philip and

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Why should Dr Christian Jessen’s fans pay his legal bill?

Wasn’t the whole point of crowdfunding supposed to be about enabling community and artistic projects to take place? That was how I remember it being sold to us, at any rate. But no, I got it wrong. It turns out that the real point of it is to help celebrities pay their legal bills.  Dr Christian Jessen, who appears on a Channel 4 show called Embarrassing Bodies, has been ordered by a Belfast court to pay £125,000 in libel damages to former Northern Irish first minister Arlene Foster for tweeting the false allegation that she was having an extra-marital affair. It is believed that legal costs could add a further

Saturday

Joanna Williams

The problem with Prince Harry’s mental health drive

Has Prince Harry ever had a thought and not made it public? Are there feelings or emotions he has experienced but kept to himself? The latest episode of The Me You Can’t See, the Duke’s documentary series exploring mental health and emotional well-being, aired this week. Loyal viewers were rewarded with a bonus ‘town hall conversation’ show in which Harry and his co-host and producer, Oprah Winfrey, were reunited with advisors and participants from the series.  The premise of the programmes, drummed home once again in the town hall special, is that having ‘a me we can’t see’ is bad for our mental health. Full emotional disclosure is open, honest,

Lisa Bjurwald

Lisa Bjurwald, Douglas Murray and Stuart Jeffries

29 min listen

On this week’s episode, Lisa Bjurwald reports on the Swedish monarchy going woke (01:20); Douglas Murray argues that the culture wars fit the UK even less well than the US (07:00); and Stuart Jeffries interviews the world’s first AI artist. Also on the podcast: a complaints letter to the Times after their March 2020 story that Carrie Symonds and Boris Johnson were considering giving their dog up for adoption. The letter, though never sent, was revealed on Friday.

Leo McKinstry

Is awarding medals to Bomber Command heroes a wise idea?

Will the heroic members of Bomber Command, who played such a vital role for Britain during the Second World War, finally get the recognition they deserve? In recent years, there has been growing pressure on Whitehall to strike a campaign medal for the RAF crews who fought during the conflict, thereby giving them the special recognition they were denied in 1946. But even if it is done with the best of intentions, is a unique award for these men – who were undoubtedly heroes – really such a wise idea, or could it set a difficult precedent? The drive to award medals was given a new impetus last week when 99-year-old George ‘Johnny’

Friday

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

How Biden’s cardinals are trying to shut down free discussion

16 min listen

America’s Catholic bishops are furiously divided among themselves this week, after a liberal faction led by the Biden loyalists Cardinals Cupich of Chicago and Wilton Gregory of Washington tried to stop them discussing the question of whether the radically pro-choice president of the United States should be allowed to receive Holy Communion. The US conference of bishops is scheduled to address the whole question of the Eucharist at its meeting next month. The plan is to prepare a document that will finally decide whether American bishops will enforce the Vatican’s ban on actively pro-abortion Catholics receiving the sacrament while in a state of ‘grave sin’, as the Church puts it.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Did NHS discharges ‘seed’ Covid into care homes? A look at the data

Did Matt Hancock’s negligence lead to Covid seeding into care homes because patients were not tested before being discharged? This was one of Dominic Cummings’s more potent charges  and it brings back memories for me because I spent a chunk of last summer looking into this. In my line of work, the success rate for stories is quite low: investigate five avenues and you’re likely to find four dead ends. So you end up with a lot of data and research that’s never used, because the original premise doesn’t hold up. I was (and remain) critical of much of government policy on Covid response: it seemed horribly plausible to me that panicked NHS