Society

Thursday

Jeremy Clarke

We’ve gone from summer to winter in the course of an afternoon

Wearing shorts last week in a mid-October heatwave, having worn shorts continuously since March, Les Murray’s poem ‘The Dream of Wearing Shorts Forever’ seemed achievable. Would we still be in shorts on Christmas Day, I wondered? Better still, no socks? I recently met an English chap who stated in all seriousness that his main reason for emigrating to the South of France was to stop wearing socks and he hadn’t put a sock on for 30 years. But at the exact moment when the dream of wearing shorts forever looked possible, it was winter. As I put it to the woman in the boulangerie the next morning: ‘Yesterday afternoon I

Melissa Kite

My confusing life on the border of Tiers 1 and 2

As I scoffed down a fabulous supper in a candlelit room full of ecstatic diners, it struck me that this was what the Jazz Age must have felt like. This was a night out at what can only be described as a speakeasy, complete with live music from a crooner serenading us from a safe distance, beyond the spatter range. The mood among the merrymakers was very much one of living for today, for tomorrow we may be either dead of Covid (unlikely) or fined for breaking draconian bans on everything, everywhere (highly likely). Are the police to raid the homes of people in Tier 1 to make sure no

Dot Wordsworth

The real problem with the Fatima advert

An advertisement from GCHQ provoked angry comment because it seemed to suggest that some ballet dancers would be better working with computers, or as it put it: ‘Fatima’s next job could be in cyber.’ The angry brigade said that ballet dancers should not have to give up their art. I suspect too an element of hatred of the state’s security apparatus. No doubt the advert gave the dancer the name ‘Fatima’ hoping to attract people of a Muslim background (Fatima being Mohammed’s daughter). The man who took the original photograph expressed outrage. The woman depicted, from Atlanta, Georgia, is called Desire’e Kelley, who apparently uses an apostrophe in her first

Lawrence Osborne

Violence has long flowed under Bangkok’s surface

Three years ago I sat down to write a novel set in my adopted home city. Placing its claustrophobic action in the near future, I had no trouble imagining my mostly foreign characters haplessly trapped inside a decaying high-rise apartment complex and surrounded by political upheaval. Thailand has endured more military coups since 1945 than any nation on Earth, and I myself have lived through two, in 2006 and 2014, while the violent uprising of 2010 occurred while I was far away in New York. They are peculiar coups by world standards. Two Turkish friends who visited in 2014 were disgusted by the lack of tear gas and fatalities inflicted

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The long winter – why Covid restrictions could last until April

Not much makes sense during a pandemic but in recent weeks the Covid puzzle has become a deeper mystery. When local lockdowns failed, the solution was to try even more of them. Manchester was put into Tier 3 restrictions when its Covid cases were falling; now there’s talk of a Tier 4. Confirmed infections are nowhere near the 50,000 a day that Boris Johnson’s scientific advisers warned about last month – but the panic now seems far greater. The fear, of course, comes from what officials think will happen next. We’re told that the Prime Minister fears a second wave larger than the first, but we’re not really told why. Decisions

Allison Pearson Allison Pearson

Mark Drakeford has made Wales a laughing stock

Imagine a country where you’re allowed to buy vodka and cigarettes but not baby clothes, because they are ‘non-essential’. A place where supermarkets can sell you socks but, mysteriously, neither tights nor lightbulbs. All right, you may plunge to your death down a dimly lit staircase in Pontarddulais, but at least you didn’t get that terrible Covid. Often the butt of ignorant jokes, my homeland Wales is now quite rightly a laughing stock. Supermarkets have been allowed to remain open during the 17-day ‘firebreak’ — or Llockdown as it could more honestly be described. But Welsh Labour, led by First Minister Mark Drakeford, has banned them from selling household goods,

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

My Covid risk assessment

Classes of people at moderate risk from Covid-19. Addenda to current NHS guidelines. Those at risk from coronavirus now include people who: • Are 70 or older. • Have a lung condition that’s not severe (such as asthma, COPD, emphysema or bronchitis). • Have heart disease (such as heart failure). • Have diabetes. • Are a London property owner, or buy-to-let landlord. You’re at particularly high risk from Covid if you’re an epidemiologist in an open marriage • Are running a university as a highly lucrative property and real-estate business (with a small pedagogical business attached); i.e. 90 per cent of higher education. You’re now just the Open University with

Bruce Anderson

A toast to Tim Beardson

I am in an Eliot mood, not a Keatsian one. ‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ is a surprisingly… mellow poem. There must have been a brief ceasefire between poor Keats and the advancing forces of premature mortality. But I have just heard of the appallingly premature death — by today’s standards — of a fascinating fellow. So it is more a matter of ‘Under the brown fog of a winter dawn… I had not thought death had undone so many’. At 69, Tim Beardson died of the ultimate effect of a tick bite, which compounds the sadness. At the beginning of the 1970s, he read history at the House.

Gus Carter Gus Carter

The haunting stories of Britain’s ‘bog bodies’

Some believe that All Hallows’ Eve is adopted from a much older Celtic holiday, Samhain, that marked the change from harvest’s living richness to the darkness of winter. In its modern guise, Halloween still retains something of that pagan philosophy — a time when the borders between the living and the spirit world are supposed to be at their weakest. For our pre-Christian ancestors, this sense of the in-between was felt not only in the mulchy decay of autumn but also in the land around them. Bogs were an in-between space for Iron Age Europeans. They thought that these muted open wetlands, with their sodden pools of still black water,

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

The magic of cinema isn’t just about film

Cinema is fading. Borat went straight to Amazon Prime, where he is smaller, and Bond 25 — no time to die eh? — is delayed until next year. In response Cineworld has ‘temporarily’ closed its cinemas and the smaller film houses are struggling. Millennials and Generation Z don’t mind, but I am no such creature: I was an usherette at Options in Kingston-upon-Thames in 1990. Do they know that cinema remains, despite its best efforts, the most inspiring kind of mass culture? Dreams mean nothing to the gilded and interesting: they do not need them. But I, an ordinary suburban child, did need cinema, specifically Options, which is now an

The Spectator

2478: Namesakes – solution

The lyrics of the perimetric I’M POPEYE THE SAILOR MAN and FALLING IN LOVE AGAIN were written by Sammy Lerner, while the lyricist of THE RAIN IN SPAIN and I TALK TO THE TREES (3D/16) was Alan Jay Lerner. LERNER (in the tenth row) was to be shaded. First prize Ann Holme, Salisbury, WiltshireRunners-up Nicholas Grogan, Purley, SurreyAini Zvirgzdins, Duncan, BC, Canada

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The morality of free school meals

The main problem with the government giving in over free school meals during the holidays — other than that it is immoral and unconservative, neither of which have been bars to Conservative policy-making in the past — is that it is a hostage to fortune. What if, next week, another highly paid professional footballer — Tottenham’s Harry Winks, for example, or Liverpool’s Joe Gomez — decides that the nation’s children should also be given by the taxpayer elevenses and high tea? Such a campaign would generate enormous traction, especially among the affluent. Newspapers would feel unable to resist. Come on, Prime Minister, how can you deny a starving child his

Lucy Vickery

‘Today we have naming of tiers…’: poems about coronavirus messaging

In Competition No. 3172 you were invited to submit a poem about the government’s coronavirus messaging. Many of you, nudged no doubt by the title of the challenge, went for Milne pastiche. Take a bow, Martin Brinkworth: ‘When R was 1/ It had just begun…’; Brian Murdoch: ‘Boris Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, when he became PM…; and Sylvia Fairley: ‘Hush! Hush! Whisper your fears,/ Boris Johnson is planning his tiers…’. I also liked Emma Teichmann’s natty twist on ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’: ‘Rishi’s in the counting house/ Printing heaps of money,/ BoJo’s in the dog house —/ He’s no longer very funny…’ And Janine Beacham’s villanelle captured well the

Robin Oakley

Nowhere does racing quite like Cheltenham, even behind closed doors

With or without the crowds, nowhere does racing like Cheltenham. The four winners, including her first Group One shared equally by Hollie Doyle with her housemate Tom Marquand (an item since Pony Club days) made it a Flat finale to remember on Ascot’s Champions Day a week before. They are not just two prodigiously talented riders but the sort of level-headed couple you would want living next door to you. But in the jumping game, every obstacle crossed adds to the drama, the less frantic pace enables every observer to appreciate unfolding tactics and the horses are often around long enough to be as well known as their riders. Jumping

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Why I’m ducking the Rashford debate

Moments arrive when it becomes clear you’re losing the zeitgeist. Whatever might be the spirit of the era, you don’t get it any more. For me such a moment occurred last week as I followed news and commentary about the footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaign for meal vouchers for disadvantaged children during the school holidays. A Nottinghamshire Conservative MP, Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw), had spoken in the Commons debate. ‘Where is the slick PR campaign encouraging absent parents to take some responsibility for their children?’ he asked. ‘I do not believe in nationalising children.’ ‘Brilliant!’ I thought. And well put. Of course I don’t believe that all children who go hungry do

Wednesday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Have parts of South Africa achieved herd immunity?

In Britain this week we have had scientists at Imperial College warning that levels of antibodies in the population are dropping away fast, with only 4.4 per cent of the population showing them in September – far short of the 60 to 70 per cent government scientists believe is required for the epidemic to die away thanks to herd immunity. But it is a different story in South Africa, where two of the country’s leading virologists believe that parts of the country have achieved herd immunity. Speaking to Sky news, Marvin Hsiao of the University of Cape Town, said he couldn’t explain why infections in South Africa – which was

Lavatch

2481: Octet

19 across (two words) is commonly associated with an octet. Each member of the octet defines one further unclued light. Across 11 Masseur also kneaded old reptiles (11)12 Country’s northern frogs, newts etc with no acid measure (7)13 Tease one brunette, vacuous crone (6)16 Very great network’s backing Sturgeon (7)17 Personify old emperor and knight, judge admits (9)18 Stare at faceless spectre (4)21 Metal wires from Scot’s very regal people (7)25 German scientist and short German painter (6)26 Certain to take oral exam almost last (7)27 Memo about area with e.g. castles they will inherit (12, hyphened)30 Return of Spanish tennis player a long way off (4)31 Comic novelist cups

Ross Clark Ross Clark

What we still don’t know about the second wave

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) has warned the government that the second wave of Covid-19 could be more deadly than the first, but may be spread over a greater period. Downing Street is now reportedly working on the assumption that deaths will peak at a lower level than in the spring (when they topped just over 1,000 a day) but will continue in the hundreds for far longer, possibly even for months throughout the winter. More than 25,000 are predicted to be in hospital by the end of November — higher than the spring peak.  Sage’s workings for this projection have not been shared, but it is likely

Tuesday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Prince Harry needs to stop lecturing us

Prince Harry has seen the light. His awokening is complete. Yesterday, in a video chat hosted by GQ magazine, he confessed to the sin of ‘unconscious bias’ and instructed the rest of us — the unwoke throng — to ‘educate yourself’. And there you have it: this duke, sixth in line to the British throne, is now indistinguishable from those irritating campus activists who scream ‘EDUCATE YOURSELF’ at anyone who has the temerity to demur from their worldview. Harry was having a chat with Patrick Hutchinson, the personal trainer who was photographed carrying a counter-protester to safety during clashes with BLM activists over the summer. Harry trotted out all the woke

Mark Piggott

Why is the free school meals debate so toxic?

My childhood in 1980s West Yorkshire wasn’t a clichéd mash-up of a Hovis commercial and Kes. For most of my youth we had an indoor toilet, for instance, and though we lived in a cramped terraced house it wasn’t a back-to-back – which meant we could hang our washing in the back alley rather than out front. I did conform to stereotype in one sense, though: until the age of 14 I was on free school meals. I still remember how at my comprehensive school we had to line up separately on one side of the corridor. Unfairly, our dinner tickets had a special mark so that unlike the ‘other