Society Archives

Saturday

7 Jul 2018

The great thing about the World Cup is you don’t even have to watch it to enjoy it

Even though I don’t watch much football I love the World Cup because it’s my passport to total freedom. I can nip off to the pub, slob indoors on a sunny Sunday afternoon, leave supper before we’ve finished eating, let alone before the dishes are done. And where normally that kind of behaviour would at the very least get me a dirty look, during World Cup season it actually gets me brownie points. Why? Because it’s a sign that I’m being a Good Dad. It worked in the old days with the Rat. And now it works with Boy. Mothers are absolutely potty for their sons and will look fondly

Friday

6 Jul 2018

Damian Thompson

An atheist goes on a Christian pilgrimage. What’s the point?

The young writer Guy Stagg threw in his job a few years ago to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem via Rome – choosing a hazardous medieval route across the Alps. It nearly killed him: at one stage, trying to cross a broken bridge in Switzerland, he ended up partially submerged in the water, held up only by his rucksack. His new book The Crossway grippingly describes his solitary journey. He was a pilgrim, not just a traveller, he insists – despite still being an atheist at the end of it. On this week’s Holy Smoke podcast, Guy explains why that makes sense to him. And I also take the opportunity

Fraser Nelson

Sweden vs England: the agony of the Nelson household

At 3pm tomorrow, a thin blue line will be drawn across my living room. My wife will be supporting her motherland, Sweden. I’ll be rooting for my adopted country, England. We’ll have food and drink from both countries on either side – but the question is who gets custody of the kids for those 90 minutes. It’s a harder question than I had thought. Alex, 10, and Dominic, 8, are – in my opinion – as English as Y-fronts and Tizer. Born and bred. They go to an English state primary school, have English friends, but they don’t seem at all torn about wanting England to lose. So I thought

Melanie McDonagh

The Church of England is wrong to rethink confession

God knows one tries, but there are times when it’s difficult to take the Church of England entirely seriously. And the news that it is considering doing away with the seal of confession, whereby clergy are absolutely prohibited from disclosing the sins penitents bring to them in confession, is just such an occasion, even if the proposal gets nowhere. In the run-up to the General Synod (you did realise it’s happening today, didn’t you?), the bishop at Lambeth, the Rt Rev Tim Thornton, reported that there were “differences of view about the retention or abolition of the Seal” among bishops. It was raised as an issue by the church’s Independent

Thursday

5 Jul 2018

The Spectator

Barometer | 5 July 2018

Trapped Twelve Thai boys and their football coach were found in a cave ten days after being trapped by rising water. It may be months before they can be brought to the surface. — The longest anyone has been trapped underground and then rescued is 69 days, after the San José mine in Chile collapsed in 2010. The 33 miners were rescued via a shaft drilled to 2,257ft below the surface. — Less fortunate was Floyd Collins, a caver trapped 55ft below ground in Crystal Cave, Kentucky, in January 1925. He survived 14 days, but died around three days before a rescue shaft reached him. Bouncy castles A four-year-old girl died after

Dominic Lawson

Diary – 5 July 2018

Happy 190th birthday, dear Spectator. And in what fine health you are, at such an advanced age. This was hardly inevitable when I joined the magazine, as deputy editor, in 1987. It was just about to mark its 160th year of unbroken losses, a corporate world record which I don’t see being matched by any other business. It was around the second year of my editorship that it began to make a profit. The then chief executive, Luis Dominguez, declared to an amazed board that this unprecedented achievement should be revealed to the world, in the form of a press release. To his evident consternation, I urged them not to

Raymond Keene

We still have Paris

The second leg of this year’s Grand Tour was contested in Paris, almost immediately after Leuven. For Paris, Anish Giri was replaced by the former world champion Vladimir Kramnik, increasing the overall strength of the competition. Final results and top prizes in Paris were as follows: Hikaru Nakamura 13 ($37,500), Sergei Karjakin 10 ($25,000), Wesley So 8 ($20,000), Lev Aronian 7 ($15,000). The overall standings after completion of the first two elements of the circuit are: Wesley So 21, Hikaru Nakamura 20, Sergei Karjakin 19 and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 15. It can be seen once again that the world title challenger, Fabiano Caruana (who has a total of just four points in

Raymond Keene

no. 513

White to play. This is from Nakamura-Kramnik, Paris Blitz 2018. The third victim of Nakamura’s hypnotism was Vladimir Kramnik who, in a more or less balanced position, has just played his rook to d7. Why was this a horrible mistake? Answers via email to victoria@spectator.-co.uk by Tuesday 10 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 Qxg7+ Last week’s winner John Samson, Edinburgh

Dot Wordsworth

Ideation

‘Suicide!’ yelled my husband, while performing an inappropriate mime of a hangman’s noose. That was his reply when I asked him what ideation suggested to him. Unknown to him, ideation has, since my husband’s day, made an unlikely leap from psychiatry to management theory. ‘Management gurus,’ wrote Arwa Mahdawi in the Guardian, ‘seem inordinately obsessed with free office pizza and open-plan offices where people can bump into each other for out-of-the-box ideation opportunities.’ Ideation only means coming up with ideas. While that is essential to any business, this technical-sounding term has been recruited to the task of making it seem that coming up with ideas is scientific and susceptible to

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 5 July 2018

Home In an attempt to distract the nation from the toothache of Brexit, the government announced a £4.5 million scheme to encourage homosexuals to hold hands; a law would be considered to ban corrective therapy, which Penny Mordaunt, the Equalities Minister, said could involve rape. A man known as Nick, whose true name is withheld for legal reasons, who alleged there was a paedophile ring at Westminster, was charged with perverting the course of justice. Labour restored the whip to Jared O’Mara, the MP for Sheffield Hallam, from whom it had been suspended in October. Gavin Williamson, the Defence Secretary, was interrupted during a statement to the Commons by the

Mary Killen

Your problems solved | 5 July 2018

Q. I’ve accepted an invitation to stay in a small house party in France. My host hasn’t mentioned who else is coming. He is an old friend but he has a number of other male friends, each representing a different facet of his personality. My worry is that, should I arrive to find one of his rather boorish friends there, then my own, very subtle relationship with our host could be rendered surplus to requirements. I could make the analogy of light vs heavy artillery. What should I do if so?— Name and address withheld A. Turn both possible outcomes to your advantage. Should you arrive to find a boor

Toby Young

Oh, the insane world of identity politics

According to a poll of 538 experts on women’s issues, the United States is one of the ten most dangerous countries in the world for women. Admittedly, America is ranked tenth, but it’s still considered more dangerous than 183 other countries, including Iran, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, the Central African Republic, Bangladesh and Myanmar. That’s quite a claim when you bear in mind that Iranian women caught not wearing a full hijab are routinely sentenced to 74 lashes, that an estimated 94 per cent of women in Sierra Leone have had their genitals mutilated, and that thousands of Rohingya women and girls have been raped by Myanmar’s soldiers and militiamen

Taki

High life | 5 July 2018

Oh, to be in England, and almost die of heat after the Austrian Alps. Yes, Sarah Sands was right in her Speccie diary about last week being a great week of summer parties in London, but the really good ones are still to come. This weekend both Blenheim Palace and Badminton House play host to great balls. I only mention them because there are only two English dukes whom I acknowledge, Beaufort and Marlborough, because I knew both men when they were in their teens. There has been some grumbling about the fact that neither house would give in and change the date, but I’m fine with that. Two simultaneous

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 5 July 2018

At 7 p.m., panting, I knocked on the door of room 201 of the Hotel InterContinental, Marseille, expecting it to be opened by Patrick Woodroffe, the man who has splendidly lit Rolling Stones gigs for the past 33 years, who would, I believed, hand over two tickets. With any luck, and on the strength of our slender acquaintance, I hoped these tickets would be upgraded to seats a little closer to the action than the ones we had paid quite enough for. Eventually, the door was opened instead by a timid woman wearing a hijab. She blinked at the words ‘Rolling Stones’ but they meant nothing to her. We ran

Melissa Kite

Real life | 5 July 2018

Opening a button of my shirt to get the horse lorry through its MOT is the sort of thing I like to kid myself about. I know I’m not really getting a lorry through its MOT by unbuttoning my shirt, but at my age it makes me feel good to think that I might. So I put on this tight gingham number, one less button done up than usual, denim shorts and a Stetson cowboy hat I bought in Bozeman, Montana, and I drove my lorry to its MOT retest on a stinking hot day looking like a poor man’s Shania Twain because I had it in my mind that

Robin Oakley

The turf | 5 July 2018

Let’s get the crowing over first. The returns from our Twelve to Follow over jumps last season were somewhere well south of disappointing but for those who kept faith the Flat season is bringing handsome recompense. Almost immediately, Hugo Palmer’s Labrega won at Haydock at 9–2. Then, in the very first race at Royal Ascot, the Queen Anne Stakes, Eve Johnson-Houghton’s Accidental Agent flew home under Charles Bishop, named as the jockey to follow this season at a whopping 33–1. ‘Stand by for a shower,’ said the emotional trainer after landing not only her first Royal Ascot winner but also her first Group One. Accidental Agent was named after Eve’s

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 5 July 2018

The Hubert Phillips is a knockout tournament unlike any other. First it is mixed — there has to be at least one male and one female playing at all times. Second, the scoring is total points (honours count). And lastly everyone plays a set with each of his/her teammates. Rubber bridge, in effect. This year’s final was between Susanna’s team (captained by Paula Leslie) and Brian Senior’s. Brian’s squad — four internationals — were probably favourites, and not just because they knocked us out! Susanna was playing with lovely Graham Orsmond when they bid and made slam on this hand. It doesn’t require any fancy squeezes or coups but it

The Spectator

To convey intelligence

In the basement of The Spectator office, there is a 12-volume version of the paper in its original incarnation. That journal, started in 1711 by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, lasted barely two years. But collections of its essays could be found in almost every educated household for generations after. The first Spectator was seen as an example of something extraordinary: a journal full of humour, wit and civilised discussion at a time when Britain was being torn apart by partisanship and war. It was a freak of its time. On 6 July 1828, a Dundonian printer named Robert Rintoul relaunched The Spectator. He had the good sense to adopt

Columba

2366: The square

Three items (one consisting of three words, and two consisting of four words each) read clockwise round the perimeter. Part of their source’s name is given by a light clued without definition; the rest (two words, rendering the 13 in 30) is concealed in one row and should be highlighted. Ignore an accent. Letters in corner squares and those adjacent to them could make SHORTER STUDY. Across 11 Ordinary church long ago (5, two words) 12 Actually, left out, back in tent (4) 14 Concession by queen for singers (7) 15 Suffering, receiving mixture of nectar and medicinal substance (10) 17 Ghastly, stupid man,

Lucy Deedes

Being the perfect guest

Come to our house in France, say generous friends, come to Italy, come fishing. ‘How wonderful, what shall we bring?’ Nothing, they reply. They are lying, obviously. Bring cash, a thoughtful present for the house — pillowcases, new books — and your biggest smile. You don’t want the hosts rolling their eyes and punching the air when you drive away down that olive grove. The thing is, it’s not a hotel. There are people who can be a little peremptory with their friends’ staff. There is no point during the day or night when the dishwasher won’t need emptying and the cook will be delighted if you do that —