Society

Thursday

29 Nov 2018

A great Venetian confection

Caffè Concerto is a chain of Italian cafés sprouting, lividly, across London and the world. There is one on Piccadilly, one on Regent Street, and one on the Haymarket. There is one in Birmingham, and one in Westfield. (The precise address is an ungaudy unit 2000a, but presumably it is hidden behind florist-ry). There is one in Qatar. There is one in Saudi Arabia. There isn’t one in Venice, although the website has a photograph of Venice. It’s too Venetian for Venice. The style is very Italian, in that it is a combination of great style and no style at all. (Not bad style. Just an absence, something forgotten or

Dot Wordsworth

Granular

‘Just two sugars,’ said my husband as I passed him his tea. He is cutting down. I doubt he would have a better understanding of the effects of sugar on him, or the effects of his character on his sugar intake, if he took a granular view of the granulated sugar he shovels into his cup. I can see why granular has become such a successful vogue term, since it opposes the unspecific or even creatively ambiguous language that plagues us, from Human Resources departments and, ahem, Brexit, that cursed sinkhole of sense. The hope is to tether inflated dirigibles of verbiage to fixed points. Normally now, granular simply means

Raymond Keene

Atticus

The Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot by Alexander Pope contains a memorable excoriation of his fellow wit and former friend Joseph Addison. When they fell out, Pope lampooned Addison as Atticus (Cicero’s Athenian correspondent) in The Epistle, the most telling phrase of which runs, ‘Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike.’ There could not be a better epithet to encapsulate the London World Championship, which finished this week. In previous articles I focused on missed wins in Game 1 (Magnus Carlsen) and Game 6 (Fabiano Caruana). This week: Caruana’s failures to strike in Game 8. Caruana-Carlsen: World Championship (Game 8), London 2018; Sicilian Defence 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4

The Spectator

no. 534

Black to play. This is a variation from Caruana-Carlsen, World Championship (Game 10), London 2018. The black queen is trapped but Carlsen had planned an ingenious counter. What is it? Answers via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk by Monday 3 December (please note early closing date). There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1 Re3 Last week’s winner Malcolm Burn, Tuffley, Gloucester

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 29 November 2018

Brexit Theresa May, the Prime Minister, seemed to succeed in uniting the country in opposition to the withdrawal agreement to which she and the leaders of the other 27 EU members had assented at a summit in Brussels. Sir Michael Fallon called it ‘the worst of all worlds’. The Prime Minister had ‘given up’, according to Arlene Foster, the leader of the DUP, which has propped up the government in parliament. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, said that Parliament would have ‘little choice’ but to reject the deal when MPs vote on it on 11 December, before a summit of European leaders on 13 December. Parliamentary arithmeticians counted 96 Conservative MPs

Toby Young

Truth, lies and trans rights

On 21 November, a debate took place in the House of Commons about proposals to reform the Gender Recognition Act to make it easier for transgender people to self-identify as men or women. Among the public, this is a widely discussed issue, with most echoing the concerns of feminists about the risks of allowing biological males to enter women’s changing rooms, etc. But until last week the issue hadn’t been debated in the Commons, partly because MPs who have reservations about changing the law are afraid to speak out. Sure enough, nearly all the backbench MPs who contributed to the debate toed the line of the trans-rights activists. The ex-lobby

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 29 November 2018

Q. May I pass on a tip to anyone facing large family house parties at Christmas? I always used to find Christmas exhausting as we are joined by approximately 14 children and grandchildren every year for lunch and dinner over five days. Last year, however, my son devised a rota system. He drew up the rota and paired up individuals so that each pair took on the full responsibility for a lunch or dinner, including menu planning, shopping, cooking and washing up. It was great fun and the element of competition meant that the standards were ridiculously high as well. — L.G., Fosbury, Wiltshire A. Thank you for sharing this

Flora Neville

The Isle of Grain

Perched on the edge of the Medway about 15 miles from Rochester is the Isle of Grain, a mass of wild marshes and pastures and great industrial infrastructure. Redshanks, curlews and egrets circle and dive around turbines, tunnels and tanks. The enormous chimney of the gas turbine power station stretches up into the enormous sky. In 1629, Thomas Johnson, the father of British botany, came to Grain and wrote of its bleakness. ‘Seeing nothing which could afford us any pleasure,’ he wrote, despairingly, ‘there was not a village near, nor the smoke of a chimney in sight, nor the barking of a dog, those usual signs of inhabitants, to raise

Michael Heath

The Battle for Britain – 29 November 2018

The Spectator

to 2384: bang!

Unclued lights, individually or as a pair (38/9), are FIREWORKS. First prize F. Whitehead, Harrogate, North Yorks Runners-up I. Livingston, Wilmslow, Cheshire; Elisabeth Johnson, Toronto, Canada

Mr Magoo

2387: On the spot

Two unclued lights give the name of a location and another a means of arrival and -departure. Other unclued lights give the names of the party arriving, including one who joins them at the location, and none who leave them there. The three instances of a certain letter appearing in the grid must be written in red, just as in the original. Across 14 Quantity of money in pit in ground, finally hidden (3) 16 Sheets of cloud — it’s holding sailor back (6) 17 Set out after most of crew assembles (5) 18 Cover for the faithful sailor after greeting judge (5) 20 Value in novel, lacking spirit

Alex Massie

The moment Theresa May sealed our Brexit fate

Theresa May is in Scotland today which is one way of ascertaining the depth of the hole in which she finds herself. One day, prime ministerial visits to Scotland – or, indeed, to Northern Ireland or Wales – will cease to be considered newsworthy events in their own right. Until such time as they are not rarities, however, they are doomed to be seen as gestures. A whistle-stop tour of the United Kingdom’s northern and western extremities is not enough, no matter how much the Prime Minister might enjoy a day or two away from the Westminster snake-pit. This visit, like so many others, will be an occasion for saying

Matt Kilcoyne

Remaining in the EU would come at a big price for Britain

We’re familiar with the warnings about the cost of Brexit. The ‘People’s Vote’ campaign released an estimate yesterday suggesting that Theresa May’s deal will leave the UK £100bn worse off a year. Tomorrow, the Treasury will unveil its forecasts of the economic impact of Brexit. But what about the price of staying put in the EU? Whatever those clamouring for a ‘People’s Vote’ might claim, no Brexit does have a cost. Firstly, the price in terms of political capital will be significant. What does going back on the referendum result say to the 17.4million voters who voted Leave? What about the damage done to trust in our institutions and our

Douglas Murray

The ‘Islamophobia’ problem

This is a good time to bury bad news. And sure enough it turns out that a cross-party group of MPs and peers that includes the failed MP Baroness Warsi has chosen this moment to try to persuade the government to adopt their own definition of ‘Islamophobia’. Long-time readers will know that I have no sympathy for this term. The most succinct summary of the problem is often erroneously attributed to the late Christopher Hitchens. It is that, Islamophobia is ‘a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.’ That ‘Islamophobia’ was created by fascists is provable: the term was conjured up and pumped into the international

Rod Liddle

Why sex is welcome in Derby Cathedral, but the Holy Bible isn’t

Nic Roeg’s art-house thriller from 1973 Don’t Look Now was most famous, or infamous, for its lengthy and explicit sex scene. I think it’s fair to say that the lugubrious (and in 1973 near ubiquitous) Donald Sutherland gave Julie Christie a very thorough seeing-to, involving the first act of cunnilingus in a mainstream movie. Even after being trimmed a little it still received an X rating, but did well enough at the box office. It was shown again quite recently — in Derby Cathedral, for reasons which quite elude me. In its unedited form. The dean of the cathedral, Stephen Hance, observed that the film would not be showing God

Mark Palmer

Home truths | 29 November 2018

King’s Cross station at 10.30 p.m. is not a happy place. Most commuters have long returned to their centrally heated homes, leaving the concourse free for the homeless to roam randomly in search of a few coins from stragglers. I was there to catch a late train to Potters Bar last week and almost missed my Cambridge–bound service due to the numerous men and women who approached and asked for money. Some looked dishevelled, disturbed, miserable; others were polite and seemed resigned to rejection. I keep thinking about one man in particular. He said he was an ex-soldier — a ‘veteran of conflict’, as he put it — and that

Roger Alton

Cricket’s new radio stars

‘And I need a wee,’ said the former England fast–bowling legend Darren Gough, as tension built up during the Sri Lankans’ thrilling last–wicket stand against England in the third Test in Colombo. Not something you would normally expect to hear in cricket commentary, but this was the new kid on the block, the invigorating Talksport, and Gough is one of its stars. He has long been a consummate broadcaster, as well of course as the taker of a Test hat trick (against the Aussies), and the winner of the Strictly glitterball. Not much wrong with that CV. The BBC had things its own way for so long it just didn’t

James Forsyth

What if she loses?

We are heading into uncharted waters. The great hope of No. 10 and cabinet loyalists was that once Theresa May’s Brexit plan was an international agreement, the debate would change. It wouldn’t just be the Prime Minister’s plan, but a deal between Britain and 27 other countries. They thought that this would imbue it with greater authority; that the House of Commons would embrace the deal on offer rather than opting for further uncertainty. But that hasn’t happened. Opposition to May’s deal has hardened since Sunday’s summit. Five days of debate will now take place in the Commons and there is painfully little support for May’s plan. There is so

Lucy Vickery

Bad romance

In Competition No. 3076 you were invited to submit seriously misguided love poems. You seemed to embrace this task especially wholeheartedly, and I admired your powers of invention in finding so many ways of making my toes curl. Even Brexit got a look-in: ‘Let me be your Brexit backstop/ I will never set you free…’ (Ian Barker). Dishonourable mentions go to Hamish Wilson and David Shields. The winners take £25 each. The extra fiver is Brian Murdoch’s. Let me compare thee to this bag of chips, For you are as desirable. They taste Just slightly salty, like a woman’s lips And steam invitingly, fresh, hot, and chaste. In shape each

Martin Vander Weyer

How a betting business saved Stoke-on-Trent

I wrote last week of my fear that we’ll never ‘take back control of our fish’, as Brexiteers ardently wish, because the rights of UK fishermen — whose diminished industry contributes less than half a per cent of GDP — will be too easy to give away in the next negotiating phase. Sure enough, last Sunday’s Brussels summit to approve the withdrawal agreement produced an explicit warning from President Emmanuel Macron that unless the UK allows continuing access into its waters for EU (meaning specifically French) fishing boats, he may veto a wider trade deal, which means the hated ‘backstop’ would come into force instead. That’s quite a threat, reflecting