Society
Wednesday
Can you spot the book title?
to 2436: The Devil’s Own
The unclued lights are all words derived from names in the work of Charles Dickens. First prize David Brewis, Windsor, Berks Runners-up F.A. Scott, Enfield, Middlesex; John Murray, Compton Chamberlayne, Wilts
Corbyn’s problem was not that the media hated him – but that he hated the media
On the morning of the election, we buried my lovely mum. I write this 24 hours later, now on a flight to the States, with the mud from her graveside still all over my shoes. This was just the ashes, because we had the funeral six weeks ago, but it was oddly fitting. The 1970 election was called a week before she married my father, who would go on to spend the bulk of his working life as a Tory MP, which meant they had to postpone their honeymoon and spend it canvassing the streets of Edinburgh instead. Four years later, the sudden second 1974 poll was held two days
Petronella Wyatt: The time I saw Boris cry
Boris Johnson is nothing like Churchill, a view with which my friend Andrew Roberts concurs. But in the 20-odd years I have known Boris, I have often been struck by his similarity to John Wilkes, 18th-century politician, journalist and catnip to women. A wit and a showman, Wilkes, who denounced European entanglements and championed the rights of the electorate over parliament, was the first politician to achieve celebrity status. One of Boris’s endearing traits is that he has never regarded himself as an enticing proposition in the looks department. Wilkes had a squint, but he said: ‘Give me half an hour to talk away my face and I can seduce
Andrew Marr: Twitter fooled everyone during this election
It’s an unfashionable thought, but having spent many hours in the university sports hall where constituency votes for Boris Johnson and John McDonnell were counted, I feel freshly in love with democracy. There they all were, local councillors and party workers from across the spectrum; campaigners pursuing personal crusades, from animal rights to the way fathers are treated by the courts; eccentrics dressed as Time Lords. In the hot throng, there were extremists and a few who seemed frankly mad. But most were genial, thoughtful, balanced people giving of their free time to make this a slightly better country. Stuck in Westminster during relentless parliamentary crises, it’s easy to lose
Joan Collins: I’m an actress, not an actor. And yes, it matters
I recently tried to put my profession down as ‘actress’ on Instagram, but the only option available from the drop-down menu was ‘actor’. Why? Actress is such a graceful word, so evocative of elegance, refinement and poise that the common and blunt ‘actor’ cannot possibly conjure. It’s even worse when we are referred to as ‘female actors’. How utterly contemptuous and disrespectful towards women. We have fought long and hard for equality only to be lumped in with the male appellative in the rat race of showbiz — some victory. Although many other actresses agree with me, it appears that the younger generation think my view is old-fashioned and ridiculous.
A.N. Wilson: The V&A’s Tristram Hunt is a modern Prince Albert
We don’t have Thanksgiving in Britain, but this does not stop us giving thanks and Christmas is a good time to do it. Last year, when I made a visit of farewell to the great medievalist Jeremy Catto, who was dying, his American partner of 57 years, John Wolfe, said that they always kept Thanksgiving. I asked Jeremy what he gave thanks for. ‘I give thanks that the Pilgrim Fathers left,’ was his characteristic reply. We fell to deploring the growth of modern puritanism in all its nauseating forms. Thanksgiving should glow in every English heart for the fact that Queen Victoria married Prince Albert and brought to this country
Michael Moorcock: I feel I’ve been cheated by the British state
Back to Texas to prepare for guests arriving for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Once again we left our Paris home not knowing whether we would return as citizens or aliens. As for so many others, the number of uncertainties introduced into our lives by Donald Trump and Brexit are legion. Reaching my 80th birthday I also feel a bit cheated. I religiously paid into social security for some 45 years, now to be told that, because I lived abroad for more than 12 years, I am no longer eligible to claim a UK pension or healthcare. Much as I continue to support the NHS, I doubt a private insurance company could
Anne Glenconner: My Christmas gift from Queen Mary
At the age of 87 I find myself not just a first-time author, but a bestseller. I’ve always told stories, but I never thought of writing them down until this past year. Once I got going I found I couldn’t stop, and Lady In Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown is the result. I’ve enjoyed promoting it as well. Seven decades ago I was a travelling salesman for my mother, who had started a pottery at Holkham Hall in north Norfolk. Off I used to go in my Mini Minor, staying in rundown hotels with all these travelling salesmen. I was the only woman and certainly
Lady Hale’s Christmas diary (as told to Quentin Letts)
They say I must retire next month when I turn 75. Irritating. I have been a member of the Supreme Court since 2009 but its president — a term I do like — only since 2017. There is still much to be done. Julian, my current spouse, indicates he has little desire to have me under his heels at home. I would merely get in the way of his dusting and the Tupperware parties he holds every month with other SW1 house-husbands. Jolyon Maugham QC — a slightly familiar young man, but I am told he has the right views — comes to see me. He proposes challenging the legality
‘I aspire to write for posterity’: An interview with Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard is Britain’s — perhaps the world’s — leading playwright. Born Tomas Straussler in Zlin, Czechoslovakia, in 1937, his family left as the German army moved in. The Strausslers were Jewish. In adulthood he learned that all four of his grandparents were killed by the Nazis. His father was killed by the Japanese on a boat out of Singapore as he tried to rejoin his wife and two sons. In India his mother married again, to an English Army man who gave his stepchildren his surname. Stoppard has lifted the lid on his early life only once before, in a piece for Talk magazine in 1999. He remarked
Boris’s Britain: How the PM intends to deliver for his new friends in the North
The era of uncertainty has ended. Boris Johnson’s decisive victory has not only broken the Brexit deadlock created by Theresa May’s disastrous 2017 campaign, but also turned the page on almost a decade of weak government. The previous three general elections have all resulted in constrained prime ministers. First, David Cameron was forced to govern in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Then, in 2015, his slim majority left him dependent on Tories who would be on the other side from him in the EU referendum he had had to promise. The May debacle left her at the mercy of — and defeated by — her own warring factions. But now
Words to live by from Saint John Henry Newman
On 13 October, John Henry Newman, a distinguished and distinctive Englishman, was officially declared a Saint. A well-known saying of his is: ‘To live is to change; to be perfect is to change often.’ How did that work in his life and, to a lesser extent, how has it worked in mine? In 1833, Newman was desperate to get back to England from a trip to Italy, including to Rome, for which he acquired a deep dislike. He had his plans ready, among them a determination to lead the Church of England in a profound renewal. But he fell ill and then, heading for Marseilles, his ship was becalmed in
The best Christmas gift you can give yourself is to learn some poetry by heart
Every Christmas I find I am living in the past. I blame my father. He was born in 1910 — before radio, before TV, before cinema had sound, so he and his siblings made their own entertainment at Christmas. He brought up his children to do the same, which is why my unfortunate offspring have a Christmas that’s essentially a century out of date. There are three elements at its heart: board games that end in rows, parlour games that end in tears, and party pieces performed around the Christmas tree. I owe my very existence to my father’s love of board games. As a boy, his favourite was a
Ricky Gervais: why I’ll never apologise for my jokes
There’s a moment in Ricky Gervais’s 2018 Netflix stand-up show Humanity when he talks about buying a first-class air ticket, only to be informed that nuts would not be served on board due to a fellow passenger’s serious allergy. ‘I was fuming,’ he says. ‘If being near a nut kills you, do we really want that in the gene pool? I’ve never wanted nuts more. I felt that she was infringing on my human right to eat nuts.’ A member of the public tweeted him directly to complain after hearing him tell this story on The Tonight Show, but instead of apologising Ricky wrote a routine about it. As he
Islam’s reformation: an Arab-Israeli alliance is taking shape in the Middle East
When Benjamin Netanyahu visited Oman in 2018 in a gesture of goodwill to Israel’s neighbours, the welcome was not universal. For an Israeli Prime Minister to be warmly greeted in a proud Arab state was, for some, far too much. The Omani foreign minister, Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, was asked on Al Jazeera why the visit had been allowed. The reply went viral: ‘Why not? Is it forbidden to us? Israel is a nation among the nations of the Middle East. We should embark on a new journey for the future.’ A new narrative is emerging in the Middle East. New maps of the Muslim mind are being drawn
This year, I’m performing all 32 of Beethoven’s sonatas. Here’s why
For the past several decades, little in my life as a professional pianist has been as constant as my relationship with Beethoven. It has been intense, immersive, impassioned, hugely demanding and hugely enriching. In the current season, though, it has become something it never was before: exclusive. Let me explain. Like any serious piano student, I first began to work on one of Beethoven’s piano sonatas around the age of ten. From that point on, the work has never stopped. Beethoven’s music, in addition to its mastery, beauty and spirituality, has a force of personality perhaps unequalled by any other artist’s work in any medium or any era. For decades,
I was born to be a pantomime Dame (oh yes I was!)
‘Flamenco, lambada/ But hip hop is harder/ We moonwalk the foxtrot/ Then polka the salsa…’ I’m sure you know those lines from the Spice Girls’ anthem ‘Spice Up Your Life’, which happens to be the biggest song-and-dance number in this year’s Jack and the Beanstalk pantomime at Helmsley Arts Centre in North Yorkshire. It’s also a spotlight moment for the Dame, who’s required to wiggle extravagantly downstage then pirouette for the next line — ‘Shake it, shake it, shake it’ — and do just that. I’m told it’s called twerking. And yes, the Dame is me, your veteran weekly business columnist. How did I get here? You may well ask.
History may hold the secrets of statecraft – but not the secrets of business leadership
‘How can one person lead one hundred?’ That was one of the questions in my Cambridge entrance exams back in 1981, and although I can’t now recall whether I tried to answer it in the three hours we were given, it has fascinated me ever since. So when I was given the splendid opportunity of delivering nine Lehrman Institute lectures on military history at the New-York Historical Society three years ago, I used them to try to answer it, at least in terms of war leadership. What became apparent was what a total waste of time and effort most of the modern ‘leadership skills’ industry is whenever it tries to
