Society

Thursday

Debbie Hayton

In defence of the LGB Alliance

They gathered at a secret location under the cover of darkness. Total confidentiality had been maintained, even between friends who embraced each other as they arrived to discuss gay rights. But this was not some socially conservative society under the thumb of a repressive regime. Nor was it a secret society in Victorian London. It was London in 2019. Discretion had been essential because when homosexual people declare themselves to be attracted to the same sex, as opposed to the same gender, they risk being attacked and shamed as transphobic bigots. The caution was wise; the fall-out following the inaugural meeting of the LGB Alliance last week has been unforgiving.

Melissa Kite

Real life – 31 October 2019

Sitting on the train to Surrey, I was halfway home and texted the builder boyfriend to say when I would be at the station. But instead of texting me back to say he would be there, the BB messaged to inform me that I had driven my car into town. ‘What are you doing on the train?’ he asked. I texted back to say I didn’t know. The car was parked in Clapham. I leapt up as the train was pulling into Surbiton. I threw myself off, and ran up the steps and over to the opposite platform where a train to Waterloo was just arriving. I sat on this

Mark Mason

The unlikely beauty of urinals

In 1966, just as he was becoming famous, Michael Caine met John Wayne. The Holly-wood veteran offered him some advice: ‘Never wear suede shoes.’ The explanation? ‘One day, you’ll be taking a pee, and the guy next to you will say “Michael Caine!” and he’ll turn and piss all over your shoes.’ Urinals are tricky places. Women seem to think they’re temples of laddishness, all footy banter and lewd jokes. A few men are like that, the sort who stand with their free palm planted high on the wall (God knows why). But most of us find the whole thing rather awkward. The broadcaster Mark Chapman once stood next to

The Spectator

to 2429: Homo

The unclued lights are linked with MAN (at 7A). AXE and AGE were also allowed at 40A. Thanks to various people for pointing this out.   First prize John Pugh, Cardiff Runners-up John Foster, Yearsley, York; Cathy Staveley, London SW15

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Wine Club 2 November

Our second offer from Naked Wines, the iconoclastic online merchant that funds selected winemakers via so-called angels — wine lovers who pay a sub for distribution to said vignerons in return for fine vino. Since there’s no marketing, advertising, agents, wholesalers etc, RRPs are said to be as low as possible. I’m not entirely convinced that this is the case, but I do vouch for the quality of the following wines, all of which I much enjoyed and which we are offering at prices below even those that the angels pay, thus truly as low as possible. The 2016 Simpsons of Barham Court ‘Beora’ (1) is a cracking English fizz.

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Jonathan Ray reviews our recent Spectator Winemaker’s lunch with Nicolas Bureau of Glenelly Estate

The lunch sold out almost the minute it was advertised and it was an expectant and – let’s be frank – thirsty bunch of Spectator readers that gathered ever-promptly in the boardroom last week to meet Nicolas Bureau from Glenelly Estate in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Nick is not only the export director of Glenelly but also the grandson of the estate’s founder, the formidable and greatly celebrated May de Lencquesaing, the 94 year-old former owner of Ch. Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande in Bordeaux and one-time Decanter magazine Woman of the Year. Guests tucked into some 2018 Glenelly Glass Collection Unoaked Chardonnay as Nick told us that in the 1990s his

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Seven things we’ve learned from the rugby World Cup

New Zealanders can teach the world a lot about sportsmanship. Steve Hansen after last Saturday’s All Blacks defeat by England in the World Cup semi-final showed the uncomplaining loser can be just as impressive as the triumphant winner. As he put it: ‘Winning’s easy…[but] when you lose… you have to show humility, do it gracefully and be honest about it. Sometimes you have to bite down on your gumshield and suck it up.’ The Springboks have put rugby back several decades. Big, beastly, and brutal, they made the first half of their semi-final with Wales almost unwatchable. Afterwards the Wales hierarchy talked about losing the ‘arm-wrestle’: but why are Wales

Douglas Murray

How I was ambushed by Nick Robinson

Ah, the BBC. There’s really nothing like it is there? This morning I had the pleasure of appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. I know what you’re already thinking: ‘You fool, you fool – it’s a trap’. But I was phoned last night and asked if I would come on this morning to discuss Barack Obama’s recent remarks against ‘wokeness’. At some inconvenience to myself I rearranged my schedule, got up early and headed to the BBC. Only to discover that I was today’s BBC effort at replaying the recent Rod Liddle – Emily Maitlis exchange.  I was on with a professor of grievance studies from Birmingham City University

Aidan Hartley

The man with the inside story on Tiny Rowland

Kenya   At his house on Kenya’s coast our neighbour Paul Spicer kept a photograph of himself as quite a young man stepping out with his boss Tiny Rowland, our founding President Jomo Kenyatta and 1970s MI6 chief Sir John Ogilvy Rennie (known as ‘C’). In the image they are all sharply dressed — by perhaps the same Savile Row tailor Tiny acquired to pamper his friends — and they look like the kings of the world. Edward Heath called Tiny the unacceptable face of capitalism — but I always admired the Lonrho boss and Paul was for many years his right-hand man. Naturally when you have been so successful

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Toxic regulations, not the fire brigade, are to blame for the Grenfell deaths

It has been bizarre to hear the London Fire Brigade taking the brunt of the blame for the deaths of 72 people at Grenfell Tower. Its commissioner Dany Cotton certainly deserves condemnation for persisting in telling residents to stay put when it ought to have been clear early on that fire was engulfing the building and it needed to be evacuated. Her suggestion that she ‘wouldn’t change anything we did on the night’ — in spite of the role her advice played in boosting the death toll — compounds her errors. Yet by the time the fire service arrived, tragedy was already assured. To pin the blame on Ms Cotton,

Rachel Johnson

Rachel Johnson: everyone in my family is getting quince paste for Christmas

Brrring! Freddy Gray of this parish is on the blower. ‘How about a piece for this week saying he’s won, I’ve lost, let’s Get Brexit Done, that sort of thing,’ he pitched. ‘Sorry Freddy, can’t talk, am making membrillo,’ I snapped as I gazed down into my second batch of chopped quinces, vanilla, lemon and sugar — which were rendering down in my magic machine to be set into claggy slabs of mahogany fruit fudge — while snorting the heady, tangy fumes as if they were mummy’s special marching powders. ‘You what?’ I explained in brief what membrillo was (quince paste, made from the bulging, knobbly, hard yellow fruit and

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

Does this make your brain tingle? The rapid rise of ASMR

I once had a flatmate called Tom, who behaved very oddly when our cleaner came round. On mornings when she was due he’d become strangely excited, like a man waiting for a date, though Madge (70) seemed an unlikely target. I would leave the flat so that Madge could get on with it, but Tom would insist on staying. He’d settle himself into an armchair, close his eyes and sit there, still as a toad, as she hoovered and dusted around him. Eventually I asked him about it, and he confessed. Listening to Madge, he said, ‘makes my brain feel nice’. As he explained it, the sounds of cleaning, sweeping

James Delingpole James Delingpole

I’m taking inspiration from an ancient Athenian

How sorry I felt for the poor man who died this week stuck up a 290ft chimney in Carlisle despite desperate attempts — helicopter; cherry-picker — by the emergency services to rescue him. We’re so used to the idea that no matter how precarious or remote our plight — be it stranded kids deep inside a flooded cave in Thailand or tourists who’ve had their feet bitten off while snorkelling in Australia’s Whitsundays — those amazing emergency services will get us to safety in the end. It comes as quite a shock to be reminded that survival isn’t always inevitable. But is this a sign, I wonder, that we’ve all become a

Lucy Vickery

Much have I travelled

In Competition No. 3122, to mark the demise of the 178-year-old travel company, you were invited to submit a poem about Thomas Cook. The firm may have hit the buffers, but many entries featured its eponymous founder’s original offering — railway travel and Temperance tours — which would be just the job in our clean-living, climate-change-challenged times.   In a large and excellent crop, the six below stood out and earn their authors £25.   James Cook explored, and met the end Lèse-majesté procures, But Thomas Cook began the trend For organising tours.   He was dynamic, fired with hope, And thus the business boomed, Though nonetheless its moral scope

Wednesday

James McSweeney

Halloween and the horror of ableism

All Hallows’ Eve is almost upon us and busy-bodies everywhere are sharpening their knives ahead of the inevitable annual costume scandal. For ordinary party-goers, there is reason to be fearful. Pick the wrong outfit and the consequences – getting fired, kicked out of university, ending up on the front page of a national newspaper – might be with you for the rest of your life.  Thankfully, the National Union of Students has stepped in to help. Urging every reveller to ‘check and double-check their costume’, the NUS has published an updated set of guidelines on how to be woke-macabre. ‘Halloween should be fun and most of us love it’, says the NUS.

Sam Leith Sam Leith

The Books Podcast: the tragic self-destruction of the House of York

In this week’s Spectator Books, I’m talking to the award-winning historian Thomas Penn about his new book The Brothers York: An English Tragedy — in which he argues that the ‘Wars of the Roses’ weren’t determined by a struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster so much as by the catastrophic white-on-white conflict that cause the House of York to implode. He tells the story of three brothers — Edward IV; George, Duke of Clarence; and Richard III — and their extraordinary and ultimately disastrous relationship. How did Tudor history — including, of course, Shakespeare — distort the real story of those years? Who really drowned the Duke of Clarence in that butt of wine? And did

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Is your Halloween costume woke?

Halloween used to be easy. It was a fancy-dress party: you could wear whatever you liked. The idea was to have fun. As teens, my friends and I would dress up as ghouls, spiders or witches, with cones of black paper on our heads. When we became more mature, Halloween turned into a tarty affair. We thought this seemed authentic, somehow all-American. Our costumes became flimsier and more flammable. One girlfriend made a habit of always going dressed as ‘sexy cat’. Inevitably, somebody would dress as a zombie Princess Diana or Amy Winehouse, or another celebrity who had died unpleasantly. The more risqué the better. I was once served a

Monday

Luke de Pulford

Anglia Ruskin University strips Junius Ho of his honorary degree

In The Idea of a University John Henry Newman argued that the purpose of higher education was ‘to open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enable it to know, and to digest, master, rule, and use its knowledge, to give it power over its own faculties.’ I often wonder what he would make of modern campus culture. No-platforming. Tearing down statues. Fostering victim culture. Right-on academics so adorned with the Emperor’s New Clothes that they are unable to distinguish the work of their peers from parody. Degree titles so niche that they have the future employment benefit of a semester of all-night sessions on the After Shock. It can’t get worse,

Qanta Ahmed Qanta Ahmed

The terrifying reaction to a panel debate on Islamophobia | 28 October 2019

Have you ever wondered why so few moderate Muslim voices are heard in the public debate? I used to, until I started to defend my faith against its extremist defamers. I then found out that any Muslim who ventures into this arena to stand up against hardliners is subject to fierce and immediate character assassination. The process is exposed in a Civitas pamphlet, out this month, entitled ‘The No True Muslim’ fallacy. It provides examples of the attempts to silence people like Sara Khan and Fiyaz Mughal by those who have appointed themselves as Islam’s spokesmen. But I can offer another example: the reaction to a recent event at the last