Society

Saturday

Geoff Utley

Is ‘roid rage’ to blame for rugby’s decline?

Gavin Mortimer’s article on the decline in good behaviour among rugby players  suggests the possible influence of anabolic steroids in the game. I played league for my grammar school and then union for Sheffield University Medical School Rugby Club 2nd XV for a couple of years in the 1970s. Back then, I never saw any unbridled aggression, except on the field, as part of the game. Mortimer’s article states that some players’ aggression is now being taken off the field and on to the streets. There are examples here in the United States, where I now live, of police officers, soldiers and sportsmen becoming addicted to muscle enhancing medications, which help

Friday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The Trump-May press conference was a comic masterpiece

Donald Trump never fails to amuse. He is very, very funny. You can say that he should be no laughing matter – he’s the most powerful man in the world, his words and actions are deadly serious, and you’d probably be right. But then, I mean, just look at him — listen to him. He reduces world politics to an amazing farce, and it’s impossible not to slightly love him for it. What sane person could possibly watch today’s press conference with Theresa May and not crack up? It was a comic masterpiece. Take, for instance, when he described the relationship between Britain and France as ‘in terms of grade,

Thursday

Raymond Keene

Leningrad Lip | 12 July 2018

This description of Viktor Korchnoi was coined (an oblique reference to Muhammad Ali’s nickname of Louisville Lip) by Ian Ward of the Daily Telegraph during the Baguio City World Championship of 1978.   During the pre-Kasparov mid-1970s and early 1980s, world title chess was dominated by the three great matches between Viktor Korchnoi and Anatoly Karpov. During the second and longest of these, at Baguio in the Philippines, Korchnoi’s tendency to make outspoken remarks became more pronounced. There were moments when his outrageous comments came close to capsizing the match.   The drama is well captured by Genna Sosonko in his new book Evildoer, an ironic reference to the USSR’s

Raymond Keene

no. 514

Black to play. This is from Karpov-Korchnoi, Dortmund 1994. In this unusual position Karpov has two queens but Korchnoi’s forces coordinate much more efficiently. His next move led to a decisive material gain. Can you see it? Answers via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk by Tuesday 17 July. 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 Bxf6 Last week’s winner Stuart Perry, London SW4

The Spectator

Letters | 12 July 2018

Marriage proposal Sir: Matthew Parris’s proposal that marriage be abolished, and civil partnerships installed in its place, is absurd (‘The term “marriage” needs to be untangled’, 7 July). This would not simplify the ambiguous connotations that the word ‘marriage’ has come to hold; rather, it would diminish its importance at a time when it is greatly needed. Committed and legally recognised relationships are a salient component of a functioning society: providing a stable environment in which to raise children, and serve as a welcome source of privacy in an era where such a concept is scarce. However, the distinctive quality of matrimony — at least in a Christian sense —

Toby Young Toby Young

Fortnite’s fun, so it must be bad

It was only a matter of time. The headteacher of a primary school in Ilfracombe in Devon has banned ‘Flossing’, the dance craze linked to the video game Fortnite, on the grounds that it’s being used to ‘intimidate’ other children. ‘Fortnite is about mass killing of other human beings and being rewarded by a dance of celebration if you are successful,’ she told the Telegraph. This is the latest example of the moral panic surrounding Fortnite, a video game in which up to 100 players compete against each other, either individually or in ‘squads’, to see who can be the last man standing. So far this year, the National Crime

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 12 July 2018

Q. A long-standing friend has an admirer of some means. He has invited her to borrow his fully staffed and equipped yacht and entertain a selection of guests, including myself, while we sail around the Med. I’ve become somewhat addicted to luxury and I’ve been so looking forward to this for weeks. I imagined myself lying on a lounger throughout, but I’ve now heard of a late addition to the line-up. My friend has confused good with good value and has misguidedly invited a man who has been immensely helpful in a professional capacity to some of those who will be on board. But I’ve been in a group with

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

A smashing tea

Claridge’s is a toff sanctuary and one of the best hotels on earth. It specialises in its own myth, which is easy when Winston Churchill fell into a suite at the end of the war, and missed Dwight Eisenhower running the other way. Eisenhower was not afraid of the Axis, but the soft furnishings at Claridge’s felled him utterly and he fled to Kingston-upon-Thames like my mother did. The kings of Greece, Norway and Yugoslavia also spent the war at Claridge’s, in a sort of unlucky king convention. There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, that Yugoslav earth was laid under the Yugoslav queen’s bed, not because she was a vampire,

Dot Wordsworth

Turd

I have never lost my admiration for Boris Johnson’s summary of British ambitions over Brexit as ‘having our cake and eating it’. It taught a generation of EU bureaucrats an important English idiom. So it is with renewed admiration, if involuntary distaste, that I regard his success in reintroducing turd into polite conversation. It has been used openly on Radio 4 at breakfast-time, ever since Mr Johnson was reported to have remarked during the Chequers cabinet meeting (or kidnapping) that defending the Brexit plan would be like ‘polishing a turd’. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the proverb ‘You can’t polish a turd’, comparing it to ‘You can’t make a silk

Taki

High life | 12 July 2018

What a week this has been! What a great mood I’m in! Why, it’s almost like being in bed… with Georgie Wells. (Details will follow, but don’t let me mislead you. I didn’t even get to first base.) It began the day before those amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesties were celebrated, with a speech I gave before the nicest and brightest group of men you’d ever wish to meet, none of whom go to places like Gstaad or are seen in places like the Eagle. Afterwards my mate Tim Hanbury and I went hunting for women at 5 Hertford Street and ended up paralytic instead. On 4

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 12 July 2018

I flew from Marseille to Gatwick, rode the Gatwick Express to Victoria, and walked down the thoroughfare of Victoria Street eating a Marks & Spencer egg and tomato sandwich. In Victoria Street, I bought a shirt, pattern of flying ducks, from the House of Fraser selected menswear sale, to replace the sweat-soaked one I was wearing. Then I cut through the passage leading to Palmer Street and dropped in for an unpremeditated haircut at the Pall Mall barbershop. The chap who cut my hair was lively and talkative. Where had I come from today? France, I said. France? He didn’t like France. He’d tried it a few times but France

Melissa Kite

Real life | 12 July 2018

This was going to be about how a major phone company surprised me by delivering a fantastic service. I was quite excited because secretly I have always wanted to be forced to admit that in spite of my rock bottom expectations, all is right with the world. It began when I went into the Carphone Warehouse to buy a new iPhone, something I had dreaded and put off for so long that my old iPhone was held together with gaffer tape. I sat down with a nice chap and told him I wanted a phone exactly like my old one, because I’m weird. He said they no longer did 64

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 12 July 2018

Home Boris Johnson resigned as Foreign Secretary the day after David Davis resigned as Brexit Secretary, both in reaction to a government plan for Brexit agreed by the cabinet after being held incommunicado at Chequers for 12 hours, their mobile phones confiscated. At Chequers, Mr Johnson was reported to have said: ‘Anyone defending the proposal we have just agreed will find it like trying to polish a turd.’ In his resignation letter he said that the Brexit ‘dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt’, adding: ‘We are truly headed for the status of a colony.’ Dominic Raab, the housing minister, replaced Mr Davis; Kit Malthouse replaced Mr Raab. Jeremy Hunt,

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 12 July 2018

I have a horrible feeling my column this week is going to read like a mutual-back-scratch. In the last issue, Janet wrote about my team winning the Hubert Phillips Trophy (which gave my ego as much of a boost as winning the thing itself). Now her team has gone and won the ‘Patton Lavazza’ at the Summer Bridge Festival of Biarritz — so it’s my turn to congratulate her.   The coastal town of Biarritz hosts one of the most popular events on the international bridge calendar. Quite apart from the stunning James Bond-location and the huge number of players who take part (including several jet-setting bridge stars), it offers

Pabulum

2367: When pigs fly

Five unclued lights form a quotation from a work concerning the 18 of 19, 15A and 23. The 18’s name will appear in the completed grid and must be shaded.   Across 4    Placidity of English queen nearing Ross and Cromarty town (9) 9    Dumb mimickings parish rioters bandied (10) 11    Old statesman from Burundi following woman around (5) 12    Fishy young goddess snubbed arriviste (7) 14    Refined gent eats over in the same place (5) 16    Classy hawk takes kip in Kelso (6) 21    People and prophet largely like a bunch of grapes (8) 22    What stimulates enthusiasm? (7) 24    Related little ladies stripped (4) 25    Mood of Loretta

The Spectator

to 2364: Frolicsome Threesome

WEIN (2D) suggests 21, 35 and 37 (German wines); WEIB suggests 10, 25 and 42 (Germanic female names); GESANG suggests 14, 27 and 31 (German-speaking composers of sung works). STRAUSS, highlighted, composed the waltz Wein, Weib und Gesang.   First prize P.G. Hampton, Wimborne, Dorset Runners-up Roy Robinson, Sheffield; Jenny Mitchell, Croscombe, Somerset

Sunder Katwala

How football united a nation

England did not expect. That was the key to this summer’s World Cup. Last night’s defeat by Croatia was a gut-wrenching disappointment. Yet four weeks ago, any England fan told that the World Cup run would end in extra-time in the semi-finals would have jumped at the prospect. On and off the pitch, it has been a summer that has changed how we think about England. Is football just sport? Yes. But sport can do things that nothing else can. Nations are imagined communities of millions where we share something with people we do not know. There are few other things than sport that thirty million of us can share that captures

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Why England’s part-time fans will be hurting the most

My lovely, wonderful wife was disconsolate. She went to bed, desolated. This is the problem with people who tune in for six matches every four years. They can’t believe defeat. If she came to Millwall a little more often she would become inured. By a little more often I meant “ever”. Defeat hurts more when you think it can’t happen. I think that’s how twenty million Brits were today. After they’d thrown the beer around for a bit, when reality set in. They can’t believe it. And so it becomes a national tragedy, when really it’s just another game of football lost. The trouble with tragedies is they prevent you

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

We don’t know where Brexiteers are going now. And neither do they

In happier days when Britain was not on the brink of disintegration, David Davis told me a story about the 19th century French politician Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin. Little did I suspect that soon he would be living it. The Francophiles among you will recall the apocryphal tale of Ledru-Rollin enjoying his lunch at a Parisian café when a revolutionary crowd stormed past. Ledru-Rollin leapt from his seat and cried “There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.” Where were they going? He did not know. What was his plan? He did not have one. True believers in Brexit are revolting, and not without cause. They