Society

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

In this week’s Books Podcast I’m talking to the behavioural geneticist Robert Plomin about his new book Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are, in which he argues that it’s not only height and weight and skin colour that are heritable, but intelligence, TV-watching habits and likelihood of getting divorced. I asked him about the risks he takes publishing this book, the political third rail of race and eugenics, and what his discoveries mean for the future of our data and for medical care. You can read Kathryn Paige Harden’s review of Blueprint, meanwhile, in this week’s magazine.

Savers who are looking for a fixed return on their cash but who don’t want to invest over the longer term will be pleased by latest research conducted by moneyfacts.co.uk, which shows a vast improvement to rates offered on one-year fixed bonds in the last two years. Here are some of the best bonds on the market right now.

In this week’s Spectator USA Life ’n’ Arts podcast, I’m casting the pod with David Pryce-Jones. Novelist, correspondent, historian, editor at National Review and, most recently, author of the autobiography and family history Fault Lines, Pryce-Jones has the longest association with the Spectator of any Life ’n’ Arts podcaster yet. In 1963, Pryce-Jones began his literary journey to the status of national treasure on both sides of the Pond by becoming books’ editor of our London mothership. ‘My past seems unbelievable. I can’t explain it to myself, let alone anyone else,’ Pryce-Jones says. Now into his ninth decade, he is a living history of modern letters, and a key witness

The performance poet Megan Beech was so incensed by the abuse heaped by Twitter trolls on her idol Mary Beard that she wrote a poem called ‘When I Grow Up I Want to Be Mary Beard’ (‘an academic and a classy lady to boot’). With this in mind, I invited you to provide a poem with the same title but substituting your own choice for Professor Beard. Another classicist, the esteemed Peter Jones, was the object of W.J. Webster’s affection. Otherwise it was an eclectic entry that ranged from the Dalai Lama to Donald Trump. Commendations to Alan Millard, Douglas G. Brown and Paul Carpenter, who wants to be Rod

Recently, Fraser Nelson, Editor of the Spectator, hosted a roundtable lunch in the boardroom at 22 Old Queen Street, in association with Prudential. On the agenda was the question: ‘In our ageing society, can we afford retirement?’ In attendance were Fraser Nelson; Will Heaven, the Spectator’s Managing Editor; Elliott Mears, the company’s Head of Partnerships; and the following guests: Guy Opperman, Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion; Matt Cavanagh, Director of Group Government Relations, Prudential; Michelle Cracknell, Chief Executive, The Pensions Advisory Service; Huw Evans, Director General, Association of British Insurers; Tim Fassam, Director of UK Public Affairs, Prudential; Alan Mak MP; Will Sandbrook, Executive Director, NEST Insight; Tim Sharp,

The Evans Gambit was invented by a British naval officer of the early part of the 19th century, Captain W.D. Evans, who invented a form of ship’s lighting which was given an award by the Tsar of Russia. Captain Evans’s gambit is highly suitable at club and county level and in the 19th century it captured the scalps of many great masters, including Johannes Zukertort and Adolf Anderssen. For the latter, see this week’s game. In modern chess it has been employed by Garry Kasparov, and even Viswanathan Anand and world champion Magnus Carlsen have fallen victim to its intricacies.   The Evans has recently received a boost from MEGA, the Make the