Society

Here we go again.  Another woman is facing a police investigation – and potentially, a jail sentence — because she wrote things online about sex, gender and a person who changed gender. So far, so familiar, but this tale has a significant feature. The woman is a journalist. A British police force is investigating a journalist over words that she published. Caroline Farrow, 44, is the subject of an investigation by Surrey Police over tweets she sent referring to the adult child of Susie Green, head of Mermaids, a charity concerned with transgender children. Farrow says the investigation arises because she ‘misgendered’ the child, who was born male but now identifies

The killing of 49 Muslim worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand, was a very modern massacre. Pacing through the Mosque, the terrorist live-streamed his killings in the style of Call of Duty, with a head-mounted camera that allowed his viewers to see the world from his deranged point of view. The terrorist was the most loathsome kind of attention seeker, and to give him attention is thus to encourage other pathologically pretentious men to ape his crimes. Still, there are aspects of this attack that should be noted. Whenever a shocking massacre happens, we see different yet similar responses from the left and right. When a jihadi is the perpetrator, lefties

The seed for this week’s task, to put your own spin on a weather forecast, came from the Master Singers’ take on a weather report, soothingly intoned in the style of an Anglican chant. But one competitor accompanied his entry with a note reminding me of that comic gem from the 1970s, courtesy of the Two Ronnies: ‘The sun will be killing ’em in Gillingham, it’ll be choking in Woking, dry in Rye and cool in Goole. And if you live in Lissingdown take an umbrella!’ The brief was deliberately open and it produced a pleasingly corpulent and diverse if somewhat gloomy postbag. An honourable mention goes to Brian Murdoch

As New Zealand comes to terms with the most deadly terrorist attack ever carried out on its soil, leaders from around the world will be asking their security advisors whether this marks the start of an escalation of right-wing threats and whether their current strategies for defeating this form of extremism are fit for purpose. It has been obvious for several years now that far-right extremism has been growing across western democracies with social media providing the means for a new global connectivity between far-right individuals and groups. In the past three years alone, the UK has experienced two terrorist attacks carried out by far-right extremists (the murder of Jo

Whether it’s Ariana Grande or something grand from Aïda, music is both inescapable in our society, and of incalculable value to it. This is the starting point of a new report from The Music Commission, set up by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, which offers a manifesto for ‘music learning’ and finding ways of ‘enabling all young people to make progress in their musical knowledge, understanding and skills.’ We lucky ones had parents who spent countless hours driving us from instrumental lesson to youth orchestra rehearsal, from music festival to summer course. But there are thousands upon thousands who are not so blessed, whether by time

The annual Varsity Match between Oxford and Cambridge ended in a surprisingly narrow victory for the dark blues. Their team was led by the former women’s world champion Hou Yifan from China, and the rating difference on virtually every board was massively in favour of Oxford. Cambridge put up a stout fight and it was only a series of misjudgments by Cambridge board six, Peter Finn, in the tense last game to finish, which converted a drawn match (or even a win for Cambridge) into a loss. This was one of those times when defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory.   Oxford 4½ Cambridge 3½   1 Hou