Society

Thursday

Peter Jones

The curse of long life

A research professor has pointed out that lengthening human lifespan threatens to turn us into living zombies unless we can cure dementia. That would have come as no revelation to the ancients. They were well aware of the cognitive decline that set in at old age: but who did not want to be old? This provided an easy theme for the Roman satirist Juvenal. In his tenth satire (c. ad 120), known as ‘The Vanity of Human Wishes’ after Samuel Johnson’s imitation (1749), he mocked the false hopes raised by (among other things) a long life. The physical consequences were bad enough: wrinkled, baggy face, trembling limbs and voice, bald

Taki

High life | 14 March 2019

Gstaad   As Emperor Maximilian told his convulsed-by-tears servants as he was about to be executed by the Mexicans: ‘Who knew?’ Last week the owner of the Palace hotel in Gstaad rang me and asked me to join him for a drink with Akira Kitade, a Japanese author best known for Visas of Life and the Epic Journey about how the Jewish Sugihara survivors reached Japan and safety. Like most of his countrymen and women, Mr Kitade was extremely polite and shyly asked me to tell him all I knew about Nissim Segaloff, born between Bulgaria and Serbia before the turn of the last century and a survivor of the

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 14 March 2019

Does the BBC suppose that it will convert the public to a belief in equality if it does not, in its heart, believe in it itself? Unlike the genial guidance of wartime propaganda, this current stuff feels like snobbish contempt. Of course no one forces me to watch state television, and apart from snooker, darts, football or horse racing, I don’t. But the other day, I took a tray into the room where my mother sits slumped at an angle and the telly was on, and it was showing the terrier judging at Crufts. Crufts! Terriers! Wondering how this culturally questionable event has escaped the gimlet-eyed ideologues’ red pencil, I

Melissa Kite

Real life | 14 March 2019

My mother is a classy lady. I have always known this, but it still affected me in a way I can’t quite describe to see that her handbags have bags. I was helping to move the folks into their new home when I discovered this rather wonderful fact about my mother. Praise be, by the way. HS2 finally played along and the sale went through. We packed up the house in which my parents have lived for 50 years and on the morning of the move the builder boyfriend and I took the spaniels for our last ever walk in the fields at the back of my childhood home. The

Robin Oakley

The turf | 14 March 2019

Encountering a generous-hearted bookmaker is normally as rare an occurrence as finding a picture of the Duchess of Sussex without her hand on the Markle pregnancy bump. All credit, then, to Coral and Betfair and one or two others for their behaviour last Saturday. After a thrillingly close finish to the EBF Matchbook VIP Novices’ handicap hurdle at Sandown Park, the topweight One For Rosie, ridden by Sam Twiston-Davies, was declared the winner over the public-address system. Since I had backed him at 12–1, a certain amount of undignified jumping up and down ensued over which my racing companion was remarkably forbearing. But as I went to buy him a

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 14 March 2019

James Vogl excelled at poker and backgammon and thought, like many of us, that when he took up bridge about a dozen years ago, it wouldn’t be long before he excelled at that too. Always interested in the theoretical side of the game, he took as a mentor an American professional, Ron Von der Porten, known as VDP. Ron played rubber bridge in the low-stake game and regularly took the punters to the cleaners, pointing out all their mistakes along the way. They loved it! A few years after James started, VDP moved to Las Vegas but they continued practice sessions online. One day James called him and asked him

Toby Young Toby Young

Angry women who lead charmed lives

Scarcely a week passes without a privately educated young woman with a successful career in journalism publishing a book about how ‘oppressed’ women are. Names that spring to mind are Laurie Penny (Brighton College), Zoe Williams (Godolphin and Latymer), Laura Bates (King’s College), Afua Hirsch (Wimbledon High School) and Grace Blakeley (Lord Wandsworth College). Indeed, you’d be forgiven for thinking that in order to qualify as an ‘intersectional feminist’ and present yourself as a victim of ‘systemic inequality’ you need to be a member of the ruling class. One of the distinguishing characteristics of ‘social justice’ activists is that they tend to be rich, high-achieving young women who have been

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 14 March 2019

Q. When my mother was widowed ten years ago she decided to take in lodgers to pay the gardener’s bills and other outgoings of the large family house she had lived in for nearly 40 years. This was a great success, not least because it provided company at what was initially a very difficult time. My mother is charming, and some of these lodgers became rather attached to her. Now her financial situation has changed and she no longer takes lodgers but many of the former incumbents like to keep in regular contact and are in the habit of turning up unannounced, often with large families in tow. I suppose

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 14 March 2019

Home The government was defeated by 149 votes — 391 to 242 — on the EU withdrawal agreement presented by Theresa May, the Prime Minister. In a croaking voice she announced a free vote on leaving without a deal. Mrs May had come back from Strasbourg with two documents: a ‘joint instrument’, or interpretive tool agreed by Britain and the EU on the effect of the Irish backstop, and a 365-word ‘unilateral declaration’ by Britain, not agreed by the EU, asserting the right to take the persistence of the backstop to arbitration. The joint instrument said that the EU shared the UK’s aspirations for ‘alternative arrangements’ concerning the Irish border

Dot Wordsworth

Coloured

‘The term coloured, is an outdated, offensive and revealing choice of words,’ tweeted Diane Abbott last week in response to Amber Rudd having remarked on the radio with regard to verbal abuse: ‘And it’s worst of all if you’re a coloured woman. I know that Diane Abbott gets a huge amount of abuse, and I think that’s something we need to continue to call out.’ Rudd rapidly apologised: ‘Mortified at my clumsy language and sorry to Diane Abbott.’ It is funny to think that if Rudd had said woman of colour she’d have been immune to criticism. But she tripped over a shibboleth. The Oxford English Dictionary abides by strict neutrality

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 14 March 2019

I had forgotten, until I checked this week, that Mrs May timed the general election of June 2017 in order to have a mandate for the Brexit negotiations. They began ten days after the nation voted. She conveyed no sense, at the time, of how the election result had changed her situation. In her beginning is her end. Political leadership requires imagination. She has never displayed any. Why, for example, did she fly to Strasbourg on Monday night? She made the same mistake in December 2017 when she took a dawn flight to Brussels after making a hash of the Irish problem. The point of dramatically winging your way out of the

George Osborne

Diary – 14 March 2019

The best thing about the Evening Standard going to print at lunchtime is that we can be first to a story. The worst thing is that we can get that story wrong. On Monday, our splash headline about the Prime Minister and her Brexit deal was ‘Outnumbered. Outflanked. Out of time’. I thought we’d called it right. On Tuesday, I woke up to the headlines ‘May claims victory’ and wondered. Then Geoffrey Cox spoke and sank her premiership. Later that day he told the Commons it was highly unlikely David Cameron would ever have made him his attorney general. Geoffrey, you’re right. As this is The Spectator, we should talk

Mr Magoo

2399: Lines of work

Eight unclued entries (two of two words, one hyphened) form a folk rhyme used as the basis for the first lines of a work whose title is the other unclued entry (hyphened). Its author (5 cells) must be highlighted. Elsewhere, ignore two or three apostrophes and an accent.   Across 1    Needing complex course, my job’s on the line  (12, hyphened) 10    Seaman jailed by extremely benign officer (4) 12    Suspect fresh angle will show solar phenomenon (10, two words) 14    Quadruped found in centre of cowboy’s rope (3) 15    More than one ancient stole prayer books (8) 17    Is consecrating old priest leaving marks? (5) 19    Pirate chief in

Spectator Money

Best Buys: Variable cash ISAs

If you don’t want your money to be locked away for a set amount of time, or to make additional deposits, then a variable rate easy access ISA is probably your best bet. Here are some of the best on the market right now, from data supplied by moneyfacts.co.uk.

Samuel Leach

Top tips for when you’re learning to trade

Trading the stock or forex markets can seem like a panacea for all your problems; you can set your own hours, work from wherever you like and theoretically make as much money as you want. However, it’s important that you understand the reality of the risks involved, have realistic and attainable goals in mind, and develop a clear plan of action for when you’re starting out. By following these tips, you can avoid unnecessary financial risk and let your money work for you. Start with achievable goals There is a steep learning curve involved and new traders often underestimate how difficult it is to be successful. Don’t leave your job

Fiona Lensvelt

A modern mysticism

I first met a tarot reader in a hotel lobby in central London on my birthday four years ago. I was a book critic at the time and was aware that the cards had inspired writers from W.B. Yeats to T.S. Eliot and Italo Calvino — perhaps there’s a novel in this, I thought. This was serious research. I was less interested in my destiny than I was in the way tarot worked. That was just as well because no sooner had I sat down than my reader piped up: ‘This has been an especially trying time for you and I’m afraid that it isn’t going to get easier.’ She

Sophia Waugh

Out in the cold

Children have a right to an education. This has been written into English law since the Forster Education Act of 1870, which began the process of making education compulsory for children aged between five and 13, and no one in their right mind would oppose that statement. So when the number of permanent exclusions from schools is on the rise, the reasons behind this should be examined carefully. A child excluded from school is not accessing education, and therefore their rights have been violated. But is it really that simple? A breakdown of the groups most often excluded does not bring up many surprises. In nearly half the cases, exclusions

The Spectator

to 2396: Reader …,

Unclued lights were husbands (40A) of Jane Austen’s heroines.   First prize Alison Hinder, Sholing, Southampton Runners-up Janet Dibley, Polegate, East Sussex; C.G. Millin, Ramleaze, Wiltshire

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

A dose of understanding

What a baffling group of people anti-vaxxers are. They rail against one of the miracles of modern medicine, peddling scare stories about vaccines which had nearly eradicated many deadly childhood illnesses in the developed world. Baffling, of course, is too soft a word for many: they’re dangerous, because their anti-science views don’t just put their own children at risk, but wider society. The uptake of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine in Britain is at 87.5 per cent. This sounds a lot, but isn’t close to the 95 per cent threshold that the World Health Organisation (WHO) says will ensure ‘herd immunity’ — which is when a disease cannot spread