Society

Thursday

Stephen Bayley

The 747 was the last moment of romance in air travel

I felt a genuine pang when British Airways announced that it was retiring its fleet of Boeing 747s, the largest remaining in the world. But the jumbo’s final approach to the elephants’ graveyard in the sky was a long time coming. In the US, United and Delta retired their 747s three years ago. With a mixture of frugality and sentimentality, BA kept them long after new technologies and new demographics made their huge capacity redundant. But the 747 was and remains a favourite of pilots and passengers. It was a friendly machine. Half a century after its first commercial flight, we can see, elegiacally, that it was the end of

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Young people have never paid attention to the BBC

In January, the director-general of the BBC, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, announced that the corporation intended to shift away from making programmes enjoyed by older members of the public to concentrate on the ‘lives and passions’ of young people, in particular 16- to 30-year-olds. Of course Hall was not the first BBC employee to take an obsessive interest in young people, and nor was his mantra anything other than the norm in a country where older people, who are comparatively well off, pay their taxes, commit little crime, consume like crazy and indeed pay the licence fee, are held in a certain contempt. A month before Hall made his statement,

Madeline Grant

How Covid has changed the dating game

Just before lockdown began, Matt Hancock and Dr Jenny Harries presented the nation’s daters with a stark dilemma. Non-cohabiting couples, they advised, should either move in together for the duration or stay physically apart. Couples who barely knew each other’s surnames were catapulted into levels of intimacy that would normally have evolved over years and the enforced lovebirds were soon living like old-style pensioners, spending every moment in each other’s company, arguing over hand sanitiser brands and giving one another dodgy haircuts. For the large pool of existing singletons, the picture was radically different. Gone was the usual flurry of social engagements, and even the possibility of meeting someone at

Peter Hitchens

Why should I have to wear a face mask to give blood?

Any day now I shall be frogmarched, or at least very firmly escorted, out of a blood donor centre in London. I know this is going to happen because I made the appointment weeks ago and I intend to keep it. But when I signed up to donate my pint of blood to the public good, I was not required to wear a muzzle during my donation. Now I am. I do not intend to do so. I find the idea of donning one of these face-nappies physically repulsive, and dislike the mouthless, submissive appearance they create in all their wearers. I also believe them to be futile. I know

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is the demise of polar bears being exaggerated?

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could debate climate change for five minutes without hearing about polar bears or being subjected to footage of them perched precariously on a melting ice floe? But that is a little too much to expect. Polar bears have become the pin-ups of climate change, the poor creatures who are supposed to jolt us out of thinking about abstract concepts and make us weep that our own selfishness is condemning these magnificent animals to a painful and hungry end. Needless to say, the Guardian and BBC jumped on the opportunity for more polar bear coverage when a paper appeared in the journal Nature Climate Change,

Taki

In memory of the man who never slept

The enforced boredom of lockdown has been replaced by a feeling of loss. My nephew by marriage, Hansie Schoenburg, died aged 33 from a brain tumour, and then there was the death of my close friend Shahriar Bakhtiar, aged 72. Hansie was tall, blond, a Yale grad, and extremely handsome. Recently married, he died surrounded by his family. He was very close to both my children. Shahriar was the Persian Boy who, as a slender, bright-eyed six-year-old with not a word of English, was dispatched from Persia to an English school known for its cold rooms and strict rules. The Persian Boy learned early to do without parents. The bitter

Jeremy Clarke

Jam and Opium on the Somme

Phone calls aside, the only human contact I had on my ten-day Somme battlefield tour was with the lady who ran the bed and breakfast establishment. My bed was on the upper storey of a disused light railway station in a clearing in a beech wood. Madame lived with her husband in a modern bungalow 100 yards down the line, but came along each morning to cook my bacon and eggs. The greater part of her clientele consists of British Great War buffs. But Covid-19 had kept them away and I had the breakfast table, the old station and indeed the Somme battlefield entirely to myself. The dining room was

Melissa Kite

You wait ages for an ambulance, then five come along at once

‘I need an ambulance!’ yelled the builder boyfriend into his mobile phone as the cyclist lay bleeding from a head wound. ‘What’s that, luvvie, you want to order a chicken dhansak? You mustn’t bother the emergency services with that sort of thing, dear, it’s very inconvenient and could cost lives…’ This was a sarcastic approximation of what the ambulance service operator said to the BB, which he paraphrased with much artistic licence when he relayed it to me an hour later. I was at home when I got a text message from him to say that a couple of cyclists had trespassed on to the farm where he keeps his

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 25 July 2020

Gunnar Hallberg moved to England from Sweden 25 years ago to play professional bridge, and made such a success of it he never went back. Now, at 75, he remains a hero to many younger players, not just because of his outstanding talent, but also because of his passion for sharing his knowledge and helping them improve. Indeed, he seems as happy partnering a 13-year-old at his local club as he does winning yet another medal on the international stage. Last week, I came across a fascinating interview with Gunnar on a new online bridge channel, Tricks of the Trade. He describes a couple of his favourite hands, including this

Luke McShane

The maestro

‘Had I not become a composer, I would have wanted to be a chess player, but a high-level one, someone competing for the world title.’ So said Ennio Morricone, who died earlier this month at the age of 91. Looking back on a lifetime of work, you don’t doubt that he could have done it. The Italian ‘maestro’ was best known for his transcendent film scores; the coyote howl theme from Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, came to symbolise the Italian Western genre. Less well-known is that Morricone composed ‘Inno degli scacchisti’ (‘Chess players’ anthem’) for the Turin Olympiad in 2006. He was, in fact, a

Luke McShane

No. 614

White to play. Stefano Tatai–Spyridon Skembris, Budva Zonal 1981. Morricone’s teacher found a delightful conclusion to this attack. What was his next move? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 27 July. 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 Rb8+! Rxb8 (or 1…Bxb8 2 Rxa8 and 3 Rxb8 mate) 2 Rh1! and 3 Rh8 mate. Not 1 Rh1 0-0-0!, or 1 Rxa7 Rd8!Last week’s winner Mohammed Amin, Whalley Range, Manchester

Doc

2467: Girl talk

Ten of the eleven unclued lights are of a kind and consist of singleton of two words, three pairs and a trio. The eleventh unclued is thematic when paired with an anagram of the five highlighted red letters. Elsewhere, ignore an apostrophe and an accent. Across 4 Talked of mark on potato magazine (9)11 Little girl, outside in the morning, is wandering (5)14 Fabric — some linen? — on inventory (5)15 One clad in extra silk (5)16 Service of diplomat in Serbia (6)21 Difficult situation having coarse flax by joint (8)22 Descent, using a rope, perhaps, taking time (7)24 Still one that’s in the Skoda range (4)25 Beastly noise a

Dot Wordsworth

The Chancellor’s strange connection to cancel culture

The cancel culture wants to obliterate people who do, or more often say, the wrong thing (for example, that there are such things as women) or even pronounce a taboo word. Taboo words have long been with us. The taboo word fuck was not even included in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Yet today the dictionary prints far worse words. Anyway, there is a curious connection between cancel culture and Rishi Sunak. In the 19th century, railway tickets were cancelled by clipping; indeed a scissor-like punch was known as a pair of ticket cancels. Postage stamps, the other glories of the Victorian era, were cancelled, often with

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: Where should we seat wedding guests who hold unfashionable views?

Q. Our daughter is going ahead with her wedding despite the restriction on guest numbers. Although it is a relief not to have to worry about (and pay for) the 150 people originally expected, another problem arises when the numbers are so limited that guests cannot get away from each other. We want to have five tables of six at the reception, but many of our older guests hold unfashionable views and would be incapable of self-censorship. Looking at all possible variants of the seating plan, I can see no way of sidestepping some incendiary juxtapositions. Some of the young guests are especially intolerant of diversity of opinions, and I

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Vaccine hopes, the Russia report and a knighthood for Captain Tom

Home A coronavirus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, tested on 1,077 people, was found to induce antibodies and T-cells that could fight the virus. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said he hoped for a ‘significant return to normality from November, at the earliest, possibly in time for Christmas’. At the beginning of the week, Sunday 19 July, total deaths from Covid-19 stood at 45,273, with a seven-day average of 68 deaths a day. But Professor Carl Heneghan of Oxford University discovered that anyone who had tested positive for coronavirus but died later of another cause was included in the Public Health England figures. The Queen knighted Captain Sir

Michael Palin

Will masks mean the end of smiling at strangers?

I’ve been a regular runner for 40 years, pounding my way across Hampstead Heath to Kenwood House and back. This year, thanks to a combination of heart surgery and coronavirus, I’ve become a walker, and my perspective has changed. Walking is a genial activity, requiring you to open yourself up to the world around you. Running is the opposite, a private battle with personal pain. You can see it etched on runners’ faces. They don’t smile until it’s over. I don’t think I shall take it up again. The pain of running once conditioned my life. Now I’m a walker it’s a great relief to experience, and convey, pleasure. One

The Spectator

How many people would refuse a Covid vaccine?

Worth a shot? How worried should we be about people refusing to have a Covid-19 vaccine if one is developed? In a YouGov poll for the Centre for Countering Digital Hate this week, 6% said they would definitely refuse a vaccination, a further 10% said they would probably refuse and a further 15% said they weren’t sure. A better guide, perhaps, is how many allow their children to be vaccinated. According to government statistics, the rate of vaccination among children varies from 86.5% for the MMR2 vaccination at five years to 94.2% for the DTaP/IPV/Hib at two years. Poor third The rapper Kanye West launched his campaign for the US

Toby Young Toby Young

My plans for a Covid inquiry

The public inquiry into the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis has already started. Not the official one, which won’t get under way until next year, but the unofficial ones. First out of the gate was the Sunday Times on 24 May, followed by the New Statesman and, last week, the Financial Times. In addition, there will be ‘inquiries’ by other newspapers and magazines, parliamentary select committees, television and radio programmes, think tanks and universities, scientific and medical journals. Few will be able to resist blaming the UK’s higher-than-average death toll on the government’s failure to lock down earlier. That’s been the verdict of those that have been published so

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

In an age of science, why are face masks a matter of opinion?

In 1846 Vienna, as across much of the world, a relatively new disease called puerperal (or ‘childbed’) fever had reached epidemic proportions in the local maternity hospital. Death rates of mothers and babies after childbirth were averaging 10 per cent, sometimes twice that. Across the western world millions were dying, the rate reaching 40 per cent in some hospitals. A Hungarian doctor in Vienna’s hospital, Dr Ignaz Semmelweis, began to wonder whether the problem might be something on the hands of doctors who’d been conducting post mortem examinations on the fever’s victims. He suggested handwashing with a chlorine solution. It worked. Deaths plummeted. But Vienna’s medical community would have none