Society

Wednesday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes | 13 December 2017

The doctrine of progress implies that things get better. This is clearly true in terms of scientific knowledge, though not necessarily of how that scientific knowledge is applied. It has proved broadly true, in our lifetimes, about economic and political freedom, though not so decisively that we can all sit back and relax. Is it also true of virtue? We often praise ourselves for having cast aside prejudice, taboo, imperialism, sexism and so on, but can we truthfully say that we are, on average, morally better people than our ancestors? We might simply be blind to different things. It is not difficult to make a list of virtues that are

The Spectator

The Spectator’s Christmas appeal: donate internships, not money

Perhaps the most insightful piece of political analysis since the turn of the century came from the Queen in a speech to the United Nations a few years ago. She first addressed the UN in 1957 and returned in 2010 to reflect on what she had learned in the interim. She had seen prime ministers every week and dined with presidents from all over the world — but what struck her was how seldom their schemes translated into real progress. ‘Many sweeping advances have come about not because of governments, committee resolutions, or central directives,’ she pointed out, ‘but instead because millions of people around the world have wanted them.’

Lavatch

A beastly business

Three unclued lights form a nine-word quotation from a thematic work. Remaining unclued lights, including one hyphened, are five trios of words of a kind, each suggested by a thematic word from the same work. Three further thematic words need highlighting in the completed grid.   Across   17    Sports day around squad’s compound (7) 18    Commander seizes money, making nasal sound (4) 20    Secretion without difficulty in tropical trees (6) 21    The same papers this person returned (4) 22    Greek maiden sees chemical bases (7) 23    Turn around in Chinese hut (5) 24    Two places to save patriarch (5) 27    Troops manage show again (5) 28    Bring back green bit

The Spectator

to 2337: millefeuille

Links with NAPOLEON were his battles WAGRAM (10) MARENGO (14) JENA (36); card games BACCARAT (1A) PATIENCE (26) BRAG (30A); and gold coins DUCAT (16) EAGLE (22) BEZANT (30D). EBON (17) and AT PAR (35) made BONAPARTE. Millefeuille/Napoleon are cream cakes.   First prize Martin Dey, Hoylandswaine, S. Yorkshire Runners-up Miriam Moran, Pangbourne, Berkshire; Gerry Fairweather, Layer Marney, Essex

Ben Schott

Miscellaneous Notebook

I have, for utterly explicable reasons, not been asked to guest-edit Radio 4’s Today this Christmas. Had I, though, I would have revived an idea first suggested, I think, by Tony Benn. Everyone loves the Shipping Forecast. But the weather forecast? That’s a different kettle of Michael Fish. The weather is rarely read, it’s emoted. ‘I’m sorry to say it’s been a rainy old day!’ Or, ‘Brrrr, bit of a frost, do wrap up!’ So why not replace emotion with detachment? First we carve up the country into meteorologically logical areas — since it’s Radio 4, let’s use Roman names — and then apply maritime thinking inland. ‘And here is the weather

Christian Wolmar

Are driverless cars the future?

  Philip Hammond’s last Budget focused on driverless cars as an example of the brave new technological world. But should we believe the hype? The Spectator arranged for Christian Wolmar, author of a new book on the subject, to meet Rory Sutherland, vice-chairman of Ogilvy & Mather and The Spectator’s Wiki Man columnist, to talk about the future of driving and transport.   Wolmar: Let’s face it: we’re talking about a technology that will never happen. There may be some driverless cars going round Phoenix in a very limited way but the owners, Waymo, which is part of Google, are very secretive about precisely what they’re doing. The hype is being

Michael Lewis

America Notebook | 13 December 2017

At the end of each year I pull out most of the New Year’s resolutions I’ve ever made — I now have them going back nearly two decades. They make for curious reading: some years they seem less like an account of what I intend to do with my life than what I don’t. I never took voice lessons, or wrote an original song for the guitar given to me six years ago by my wife, or even learned how to play that guitar. I never learned Spanish, or how to cook. I didn’t write that book about Obama, or create a television drama about Wall Street, or swim a 50-metre

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

How can any intelligent person have faith?

Ten years ago, I had a strange debate about faith with a famous Jesuit and an agnostic psychoanalyst in a monastery on a cliff-top in Syria. At the time I thought I’d made some valuable additions to the discussion. The notes I took then record my own contributions with horrible precision. Looking back on it, I was just an observer. The main players were Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, an Italian priest who’d made his life in the Middle East, and Bernard S., a highly regarded Jungian analyst: neat, Swiss, troubled. The scene of this chat was Deir Mar Musa, a 6th-century monastery that Fr Paolo had restored, perched high on a

Quentin Letts

The Establishment of 2018: a guide

  Old establishment New establishment Order of the Garter BBC Sports Personality of the Year Parliament’s Woolsack The Supreme Court The Borgias Sir Nicholas Serota and friends William Rees-Mogg Owen Jones Jacob Bronowski Simon Cowell Ciggy soak and TV cook Fanny Cradock Clean-living (Deliciously) Ella Mills Shirley Williams Lily Allen MCC committee members BBC trustees Sid James Lord Sugar Oxbridge high-table dinners Institute for Government lunchtime talks Toad in the hole Sushi Richard Ingrams Guido Fawkes website Bishop of Sodor and Man Emma Thompson Young Conservatives Tinder The Astors The Kardashians The Dimblebys The Dimblebys Athenaeum Babington House BBC Facebook Morecambe and Wise Philip Hammond and John McDonnell Roast joints

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

‘And now for my next guest – Adolf Hitler!’

Having thoroughly enjoyed Graham Norton’s recent forensic cross-examination of Hillary Clinton on BBC1, I’m thrilled that the corporation intends to use Graham for yet further heavyweight political interviews. Here’s an exclusive preview of one coming up soon: GN: ‘Halllllllo! How lovely to see you all! I hope you’ve been behaving yourselves. [Audience titters.] Well, do we have a feast for you this evening — so let’s get started. My first guest needs no introduction. Probably the most famous man from the 20th century — ladies and gentleman, please welcome, Adolf Hitler!’ [Hitler makes his entrance, waves, shakes Graham’s hand and sits down next to him. Audience cheers wildly.] GN: ‘It

Robert Tombs

Right side of history

How nice it would be, in this season of good cheer, to find something hopeful to say. Being a historian, I shall try: history often helps us to see our problems in proportion. But let us grit our teeth and begin with the depressing news. Worst is the sudden emergence — or re-emergence? — of an unusually angry division within our politics and society. A large part of the political class, and seemingly a sizeable proportion of the country’s educated elite, have distanced themselves from the majority of the country. Never in modern times has there been such an overt and even contemptuous attempt to deny the legitimacy of a

Mary Killen

How to date without getting sued

For the young heterosexual Spectator male, the dating world is beset with perplexities. It was all so different in his father’s era, when making a pass was not seen by women as harassment or assault but as par for the course on the romance-seeking circuit. Lunging for kisses without invitation and even pressing girls against a wall were the normal codes of conduct until 2000. The perma-passion of the dance floor, where women and men moved in rhythm, held in each other’s arms, allowed for swifter interpretations and conclusions than any other flirting method. Indeed, some men were even taught by their mothers that it was ‘rude not to have

Prue Leith

Winter Notebook | 13 December 2017

Edinburgh is a peach of a city, is it not? Last week, I walked up to the castle on a crisp and sunny morning. Crossing high above the railway line, I watched the trains slink out of Waverley station and snake along the valley floor, a giant Hornby set beneath my feet. The path to the castle is tarmacked and rough, but still slippery with morning frost, so I tread carefully as I follow the zigzag to stand under the castle walls at the top. A young man next to me breathes: ‘Awesome, man.’ Absolutely. And the more so when you think the volcanic plug on which the castle stands

Allan Mallinson

Wise old war horse

It is always a delight to drive the country roads of Hampshire to see the man known throughout the army simply as ‘Dwin’ — Field Marshal Lord Bramall. Until quite recently, I was always greeted at the door in person by the last of the Chiefs of the Defence Staff (CDS) who had really seen war — in France and Germany — but today I am met by Paula, his dedicated carer. ‘Can’t get up so easily these days,’ he says as I ‘salute’ on entering his little study. ‘Have a chair — the Eton one or the Rifles,’ he adds, nodding to the cushions bearing the arms of the

Carola Binney Carola Binney

Christmas in China

If you think capitalism has blinged up Christmas, you should see what the Communists are doing to it. At this time of year, Chinese cities are dressed up like one big Oxford Street, but with lights that put London’s in the shade. Christmas Eve has become the biggest shopping day of the year. At the school where I taught last year, every classroom had at least three Christmas trees: one outside the door, one inside the door and one at the back. Tinsel ran up staircases, fake snow adorned all the windows. The Chinese have even developed their own Christmas traditions: revellers give each other elaborately packaged apples, and Father

The Spectator

Have you heard a convincing ghost story?

  Anthony Horowitz   Novelist   I have never really believed in ghosts, but I actually had a personal experience which I still find hard to explain. I was walking beside the river Kwai in Thailand with my wife. We had been told that a steam train travelled across the famous bridge once a week as a memorial to the POWs who had died — and we were keen to photograph it. So we were shocked when, quite suddenly, we heard it approaching, an hour earlier than had been expected. We both heard it quite clearly; the heavy panting of the locomotive, the rattle of the wheels. Very quickly, we

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Mockery is good for the monarchy

Isn’t Meghan fabulous? Hasn’t she totally brought the monarchy into the 21st century? Doesn’t she make Kate look like such a square? We were so bored of Sloaney English roses, weren’t we? Meghan Markle is widely considered to be the best thing to have happened to the royal family — and Britain — in a long time. The newspapers are ecstatic, and not just the patriotic ones. There will be pictures, pictures and more pictures to come. Or fake pictures, if that’s what sells. The Sunday Sport recently ‘discovered’ a fake topless picture of Prince Harry’s squeeze, stuck it on the front page and ran with the headline ‘Harry’s Meghan

Douglas Murray

Madness on parade

As Kim Jong-un might blow up the world next year, if not this, and people are forever trying to work out what is going on in his country, perhaps it is worth describing a military parade I attended in Pyongyang a few years back. The occasion was the centenary of the birth of the current Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, the founder of the Marxist monarchy who, despite his death more than two decades ago, remains Eternal Leader of the nation. Other attendees included some flotsam and jetsam of the Cold War, a reunion of the Axis of Evil and representatives from various other rogue states and immiserated nations. Presuming it

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

A purity test for artists is the end of art

However we keep ourselves amused over the holidays this year, two sources of entertainment are off the docket. Amid the deluge of sexual misconduct allegations last month, the BBC dropped an Agatha Christie drama from its Christmas line-up after one of the actors, Ed Westwick, was accused of rape and sexual assault — which Westwick denies, slathering a layer of irony on the mystery’s title: Ordeal by Innocence. Mere hours before the scheduled premiere, the distributor of I Love You, Daddy refused to release the film, in anticipation of an ugly big reveal in the New York Times. The movie’s star, director, producer and writer, Louis C.K., now admits to