Society

Thursday

Raymond Keene

no. 529

Black to play. This position is from Carlsen-Ding Liren, Porto Carras 2018. Black tried 1 … Nxg4 here but Carlsen eventually held on for a draw. What would have been a better way to try for an advantage? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 30 October or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk. 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 Nd6 Last week’s winner John McAleenan, Newry, Co. Down

Peter Jones

Doctors and death

The Royal College of Physicians has suggested that doctors should learn to talk to patients about death. But talk about what, precisely? The medical diagnosis? Matters spiritual? Philosophical? In a play about his fate, Prometheus, the mythical champion of mankind, said that he had benefited mortals by preventing them from foreseeing their death. Asked how, he replied ‘I lodged blind hopes in them’. This reflected a school of medical thought which took the view that offering the patient encouragement could prevent them ‘giving up on themselves’ and actually keep them alive. Not everyone took that approach. In a world where anyone could become a doctor (we hear of 18-year-olds starting

Taki

High life | 25 October 2018

New York   In the dark she still looks good. The mystery and magnetism linger until dawn, then you slowly see the lines and the harshness. As with a lady of the night who has smoked 10,000 cigarettes, the coming of the light is the enemy. New York ain’t what she used to be, that’s for sure. She’s a tired old place: upper-class vertical living has gone to seed and the fun honky-tonk side of the city has been gentrified and made boring. As mayor, Michael Bloomberg did his best to ruin the glamour of New York, allowing glass behemoths to bury the Chrysler building, one of the world’s monuments

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 25 October 2018

My reactionary first world war reading jag continues. The literature is vast, but so is my capacity and fascination. I began reading systematically, then went in search of thrills. Typing ‘my top ten first world war books’ into a search engine has also been a wonderfully fruitful source of leads. Space, and probably your boredom threshold, won’t allow me to list mine. I want to stick my neck out, however, and give a cheer for two books by liaison officers: one a Anglophile Frenchman liaising with the British, the other a Francophile Englishman liaising with the French. As one might imagine, both books are tragicomic. Emile Herzog was the son

Melissa Kite

Real life | 25 October 2018

Just when you thought there was nothing more for women of the left to nonsensically oppose, I bring you news of a baffling development. Female horse-riders of a liberal persuasion are burning their bridles. Yes, there’s a new craze among the lunatic fringe of the horse world whose members are casting their reins on to the muck heap. This trend is mainly confined to people who can’t ride very well and who are terrified of horses, making it extremely risky for all concerned. You would have thought nervous riders would put extra tackle on for more control but the happy-clappy hippy-dippies of the horse community — who also happen to

Robin Oakley

The turf | 25 October 2018

Watching whip-thin jockey George Baker, just short of six feet, greeting his mounts used to make me think of the weight-reducing regime described by the 1920s rider Jack Leach. The elegant Leach always dined well. Next day he would go jogging in three sets of underwear, four sweaters and a rubber suit before taking a Turkish bath. He took off extra weight so that at the track he could have a sandwich and a glass of champagne. ‘This made me feel like a new man, and if I had a few ounces to spare the new man got a glass too.’ Not quite how modern riders do it in these

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 25 October 2018

Vytas and Erikas Vainikonis, father and son bridge enthusiasts, are the generous hosts of one of the best five days of championship-level bridge in the calendar. Held in Vilnius (capital of Lithuania for my fellow geography dunces), it starts with 12 invited teams competing for the highly prestigious Vilnius Cup and follows on with the Pairs and Teams Grand Prix of Poland. One hundred and thirty pairs and 50 teams competed in these tournaments and attracted multiple world and European champions as well as regular bridge nutters like me and my friend Jonathan Harris. Of course, there was endless chat and analysing of hands and all their complexities. Today’s offering

Dot Wordsworth

Istanbul Polis

My husband, who fancies himself as something of a classicist, was delighted to see the Turkish investigators of the Khashoggi horror in Istanbul with ‘Polis’ on their T-shirts. Against the odds of Ottoman rule and the Turkish cultural initiatives of Ataturk, this Greek word for a city society, polis, still designates the guardians of civic peace. The borrowed word was all the more striking as the police were acting in Istanbul, the name of which derived from the Greek phrase eis ten polin, to the city. Where are you going? Eis ten polin, which by the 16th century had become Istanbul. A Turkish folk etymology derives the name from Islam bol,

Miriam Gross

Diary – 25 October 2018

Eight years ago, in the course of doing some research into literacy teaching in London, I visited many primary schools. One thing that struck me — and I didn’t of course mention it in the pamphlet I wrote on the subject — was how many primary school teachers were severely obese. One isn’t supposed even to notice it. But it’s been worrying me ever since. Obesity inevitably involves lower energy levels, less mobility, reduced staying power — all weaknesses which, however talented a teacher may be, are likely to impair his or her ability to cope with young children. What’s more, teachers are role models. I feel great sympathy for

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 25 October 2018

Q. My wife and I have been married for 50 years. The marriage is basically sound but she has recently developed a new maddening habit when we entertain. She waits until I am in the middle of an anecdote or story and then starts proffering plates of vegetables or more wine — this when everyone has already got well-filled glasses and everything on their plate they could possibly want. And of course they then have to say ‘No thank you’. These actions seem timed to sabotage my performances. When I take it up with her she always insists she is just being polite to our guests. — Name and address

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 25 October 2018

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, found herself in another crisis over Brexit. Backbenchers whispered that 48 letters were being collected to present to the chairman of the 1922 Committee to trigger a vote of confidence. What annoyed some of her own MPs was a scheme (intended to make less likely the imposition of a backstop agreement over the Irish border) to extend by up to a year the Brexit implementation period that was supposed to end on 31 December 2020. During an emergency cabinet conference-call, Esther McVey, the Work and Pensions Secretary, was said to have told Mrs May that she was ‘devastated’ by the provision. An unnamed Conservative

Lavatch

2382: A pointed remark

Three unclued lights make up a nine-word quotation. Remaining unclued lights are of a kind.   Across 1    Norway blocking the euro perhaps till now (8) 8    Excuse one departing French city (4) 12    Bill the Spanish for Jew’s harp? (5) 14    Break dance, say, to get going again (7) 17    Hospital’s moved organ in the body (5) 18    Hold off from rating and mark (7) 22    Makes leaves from aloes fit in stew (8) 23    Fool’s tucked into smooth vegetable fibre (7) 24    Box’s function to store crown (6) 25    English lover rejected coat (6) 27    Special ship’s aerodynamic device (7) 29    Argument about curiously older etymology (8) 33   

Toby Young Toby Young

Science is on the side of the trans activists

Some interesting scientific research on gender differences was published last week. Two social scientists studied the preferences of 80,000 people in 76 countries to determine whether there’s a link between the attitudes of men and women to risk-taking, patience, altruism, trust and so on, and how advanced a country is in terms of economic development and gender equality. If gender is a social construct, as many feminists claim, you’d expect men and women’s preferences to be more divergent in places like Pakistan, Malaysia and Nigeria, where gender roles are quite traditional and women have fewer economic opportunities, than in the Nordic countries. However, the opposite is true. The researchers discovered

Olga Fitzroy

What the Government can learn from Piers Morgan’s ‘papoosegate’

When Piers Morgan called Daniel Craig an #emasculatedbond for carrying his daughter in a baby carrier, Twitter responded in the best way possible. Apart from feminists scoffing (and yes, I was one of them), dads from all walks of life tweeted pictures of themselves with babies in carriers. Society has shifted, but Piers didn’t get the memo. What has this got to do with government? Plenty, actually. On Father’s Day this year, the TUC released figures showing that every year, 100,000 self-employed new dads don’t get a single day of paid paternity or shared parental leave. While on the one hand we have a £3 million government advertising campaign encouraging

Spectator Money

Correcting the FTSE

The FTSE100 fell by more than 10%, which is generally regarded as a ‘correction’. How does that compare with other ones recently? Dec 1999–March 2003 -49.6% Oct 2007–March 2009 -47.5% April 2010–June 2010 -16.1% Feb 2011–Sept 2011 -16.7% March 2012–May 2012 -11.8% April 2015-Feb 2016 -21.9%

Dea Birkett

Balancing act

In a British circus, you will no longer find big cats, dancing bears or sea lions balancing on balls. Anne, the last elephant, paraded around the ring for the final time almost a decade ago, after a circus career lasting more than 50 years. The only wild animals that continue to perform under the big top are a fox, three camels, three raccoons, four zebra, half a dozen reindeer, a zebu, and a macaw called Rio. This menagerie travels with two small family–run traditional circuses, Circus Mondao and Peter Jolly’s Circus. Almost a million pounds have been spent on each animal, trying to get them banned from performing. The mighty Royal

The Spectator

to 2379: Shocking

The word is ‘pink’. Definitions of the eight headwords are: CARNATION (9), STAB (43), CHAFFINCH (22D), SMALL SAILING SHIP (41/1A/13), YELLOW LAKE PIGMENT (11/45/14), BLINK (40), SMALL (41) and SAMLET (8). PINK (in the eighth column) was to be shaded.   First prize Mrs C.J. Stekly, Guernsey Runners-up Philip Dacre, York; Nick Hussey, Overton, Hants

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

What can Monday’s Budget do to make business feel better?

‘Uncertainty is draining investment from the UK, with Brexit having a negative impact on eight in ten businesses,’ says Carolyn Fairbairn of the CBI. OK, let’s pause for a chorus of ‘She would say that, wouldn’t she?’ But even if we shade off for ‘scaremongering’, her survey (of 236 firms) is bleak: ‘44 per cent of businesses with contingency plans intend to stockpile goods… 30 per cent intend to relocate production and services overseas… 15 per cent intend to move jobs…’ And I’ve seen no rival surveys that contradict the gist of it. So what can Monday’s Budget do to make business feel better? Suggestions abound, and Chancellor Hammond is

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

Why a four-day working week isn’t such a bad idea

Most people were scandalised by John McDonnell’s proposal to promote a four-day working week. But before we get incensed about giving people more leisure during their working life, we need to ask another question. If it really is so vital to the economy that people spend more time at work, then why does the government spend £41 billion every year (a third of the cost of the NHS) providing tax relief on pension contributions? This merely encourages older and more experienced employees to leave the workforce several years earlier than necessary. Remember, five years needlessly spent in retirement is 20 years that could have been spent enjoying a working life