Uncategorized

Safety tech is killing motorsport

Finland has a population of only 5.5 million, but it leads the world in motorsport. It’s the crucible of racing greats Markku Alén, Timo Salonen, Ari Vatanen, Keke Rosberg, Hannu Mikkola, Juha Kankkunen, Tommi Mäkinen, Mika Häkkinen, Marcus Grönholm, Kimi Räikkönen, reigning World Rally champion Kalle Rovanperä and current Formula One driver Valtteri Bottas. Known collectively as the Flying Finns, the country can boast nine F1 drivers, 57 grand prix wins and four F1 world titles, 16 World Rally crowns, five Paris-Dakar wins, two Le Mans 24 Hours victories and a World Endurance GT champion. Could omnipresent driver aids and the green movement spell the end for the Flying Finns?

Why the Romans loved asparagus

It is said that asparagus was Emperor Augustus’s favourite food. And France is, despite its Gallic spasms, a fundamentally Roman civilisation. Ask nine out of ten Frenchmen if they will have asparagus on their Easter table and they will say ‘mais oui’. The crunchy, slightly bitter stalk has enthralled humans for millennia due to its strange flavour and supposed medicinal properties. Those proto-French Romans were huge fans of the plant. You may even learn an asparagus recipe or two from studying their methods. The French smother their asparagus spears in hollandaise or béarnaise sauce Most of the information on Roman cuisine comes from visual depictions found in frescoes and mosaics that depict

Cindy Yu

Sail the Nile in style

It’s hard to resist a bit of amateur sleuthing when you’re on a Nile cruise. As my boyfriend and I boarded the luxury liner Oberoi Zahra, we scrutinised the other passengers like Hercule Poirot might. Was the elegant Chinese-American businesswoman’s young companion her son or her lover? What resentments lay behind the silent mealtimes of the elderly British couple? Were the group of three young couples, who always had their meals together, really just friends? And who was staying in the best suite on the ship, equipped (we spied over the top deck) with a private hot tub? Is booze less haram than pork? Perhaps it brings in more tax revenues

An 18-1 tip for the Cheltenham Gold Cup

The Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup (3.30 p.m.) is the highlight of not just the final day of the Cheltenham Festival but this whole glorious week of racing. Yet, again, the Festival has been largely dominated by horses from the other side of the Irish Sea but I hope a British-trained horse will land the £350,00-plus first prize today. Despite winning twice at the Festival and landing last year’s Randox Grand National, CORACH RAMBLER remains a bit of a mystery in that we still don’t know how good he is at his very best. With his hold-up style, he never wins by more than he has to and he is always

Julie Burchill

Terfs are the new punks

‘PUNK’S NOT DEAD!’ I will sometimes write as a sign-off on emails to mates when I’ve said something particularly ‘bad’. It’s something of a joke with me; although I was around the scene early on (1976) and started my career off as a 17-year-old writing about punk, I didn’t much like it. I liked black music – disco, Motown, soul; I thought that most white music was just a nasty old racket. The establishment has moved from right to left but remains sexist, snobbish and racist But I do like the phrase, implying as it does a refusal to bow down to the establishment. Although we had a Labour government

I ❤️ the NHS

There is much to bemoan about the NHS, from the cruel entitlement of its junior doctors to its zest for hiring diversity and inclusion staff when many people can’t even see a GP. I have been a harsh and consistent critic for years. I don’t like the cultish, Big Brother vibes, the gawping black hole for funds that seem mismanaged, and I don’t like the socialism.  I had a caesarian section less than a fortnight ago. I’d have one again just for fun I still don’t like those things, but I have now seen the charm of the rackety NHS. Having a baby, I discovered the it’s generosity. I had

Game theories: is the head vs heart distinction real?

When you play a game – cards, backgammon, chess – should you listen to your head or your heart? Do you sit there coldly calculating the odds, or do you go with a hunch, gut instinct, your sixth sense? It’s a question I’m discussing with Marcus du Sautoy as we sit in the Beaumont Hotel in Mayfair, enjoying one of their regular games evenings. Even if our subconscious picks up on someone’s body language without us registering that that’s what we’ve done, it’s still reason Marcus laughs when I mention the head or heart choice. ‘Head, of course! I’m a mathematician.’ His latest book, Around the World in 80 Games

Four bets for day three of the Cheltenham

There are two competitive big races to look forward to on day three of the Cheltenham Festival: the Grade 1 Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle (3.30 p.m.) and the Grade 2 Ryanair Chase (2.50 p.m.) The former race is for experienced staying hurdlers over a trip of three miles and I am happy to have already taken on the warm favourite, Teahupoo, with a horse at a big price. I put up Home By The Lee at 28-1 before Christmas and he will line up much shorter today. At half time, it’s pretty much honours shared with the old enemy, the bookmakers I remain optimistic about his each way chances, especially

Parents won’t take Labour’s attack on private schools lying down

As citizens of an orderly state, we allow ourselves to be taxed. We fork out for council tax so that local services function. When it comes to income tax, some may grit their teeth, but we hope it gets funnelled towards the greater good. We accept, though perhaps dislike, ‘sin taxes’ on cigarettes and booze. We don’t pay VAT on virtuous things, such as books, private healthcare and opera tickets, because these should be available to the widest possible audience. This Very Annoying Tax will put a child’s French lessons on the same level as a packet of Benson & Hedges  Which brings me to school fees: what could be

Fraser Nelson

How to survive the 11-plus interview: a parent’s guide

Newcomers to England who start a family are often slow to realise that one of the biggest factors in the Game of Life here starts with the 11-plus exam. If your children are at a school where anyone is sitting such exams, you may find – as I did – that your children want to have a go. You then realise, as Alan Bennett put it in The History Boys, that ‘the boys and girls against whom your child is to compete have been groomed like thoroughbreds for this one particular race’. And after the exam comes the interview. Another race. As a parent, this process is hateful. The idea

John Connolly

The remarkable example of the JCB Academy

If you’re into diggers, the JCB world headquarters must look a bit like paradise. The factory sits in the rolling green hills of the Staffordshire countryside, bordered by three lakes and its own golf course. As you drive there you pass a giant spider-like sculpture made entirely out of digger claws, and inside the building, stuffed with bright-yellow tractors, there is a JCB museum featuring the first cab to have an in-built kettle. At the end of the tour you can buy JCB scented candles, JCB cut-glass crystal and JCB jumpers from the JCB gift shop. The most interesting thing JCB stamps its name on, though, is actually round the

The elite coach taking school football to a new level

On a wet and windy afternoon at Repton School, technical director of football Luke Webb is putting his first team through their paces. At first glance this training session looks much the same as any other, but I soon start to spot some subtle yet significant differences in his approach. Webb keeps his distance, there’s no shouting from the touchline, yet all his players seem to know exactly what to do. They start off with close passing drills, then move into small-sided games, and finish with an exercise designed to hone the low driven cross – a delivery all defenders dread. Webb teaches players to play with freedom, to be

Lara Prendergast

The day my self-defence classes paid off

Marlborough College has developed something of a reputation for churning out wives for the great and the good. It is wrong, though, to assume the place operates like a ‘girls in pearls’ finishing school, where everyone practises their deportment or learns how to arrange flowers, while waiting for their prince to arrive. Instead, Marlborough girls leave school knowing how to build a fire, camp on a hillside and fire a gun. CCF is popular. I have happy memories of mock exercises on Salisbury Plain. Equally happy are memories of our self-defence lesson, which was given to girls in Upper Sixth. We learned how to deliver a blow to the nose

What is the secret of Millfield’s sporting excellence?

There’s one safe bet at any Olympic Games: there will always be a generous handful of Millfield alumni on Team GB. At Tokyo there were 13 Old Millfieldians (OMs); in the previous Games in Rio there were eight; four years before that, on home turf, there were nine (two of whom won gold). In 2016 the tally of OMs at the Games was higher than Pakistan’s entire delegation. In 2012 they won the same number of gold medals as Canada. What is Millfield’s secret? How did this independent boarding and day school, tucked away in an unfashionable corner of Somerset, far from the Notting Hill brigade, become a sporting powerhouse?

Why are all female teachers called Miss?

You could be forgiven for thinking you’d inadvertently turned back the clock. Cross the threshold into the majority of British schools and what appears to confront you is a workforce of unmarried women. Surely it’s 1904 not 2024, and teaching is still a spinster’s business? For, in the average 21st-century school, each and every woman teacher – married, unmarried, divorced, celibate, cat-loving, asexual or simply overworked – is addressed by her pupils as ‘Miss’. The problem comes when ‘Miss’ is more than linguistic laziness. Could it in fact imply contempt? I’m not talking about ‘Miss’ as a regrettable replacement for a name, as in ‘I asked Miss for some lined

How to make the new natural history GCSE worthwhile

Teaching for a new GCSE in natural history looks likely to begin next year. It’s part of the Department for Education’s ‘flagship sustainability and climate change strategy’. Apparently this subject is intended to teach pupils ‘how to keep the world safe’. Baroness Floella Benjamin, for instance, suggests it will show them how they can ‘save the world from catastrophe’. Paying attention to non-human life might cure some teenagers of their unhealthy obsession with selfies However well-meant such declarations may be, natural history is in fact about identifying and studying plants and animals, not fretting about ‘the plight of our planet’ and ‘how to rescue it’. Worried about what teenagers would

Are school reunions really that bad?

Outside a visit to the dentist, there are few things in life as unappealing as a school reunion. That’s particularly the case when it marks an anniversary with a big number attached. In our case, 30 years. On the face of it, it’s a micro-disaster in the making. The plan is to take a hundred or so men and women – many of whom are deep in the grip, knowingly or otherwise, of a mid-life crisis – wrench them away from their daily lives and transport them back to the boarding school where they were all teenagers together. You then throw in a free bar and disco – and let

Let children learn our best verse

My daughter is in Year 1 at our local C of E school and my son will start Reception this autumn. I grew up in America, so my children’s introduction to the British primary education system is mine too. I was pleased to learn that my daughter spent her first term studying the Battle of Hastings, which was taught with fitting seriousness and detail. It is local history to us – Battle is just 15 minutes down the road – and the children were encouraged to imagine our local scenery and surrounding villages as they would have been a thousand years ago. I am baffled that the same rigour does

School portraits: snapshots of four notable schools

Queen Ethelburga’s, York Set in 220 acres of beautiful countryside between Harrogate and York, Queen Ethelburga’s College is an award-winning day and boarding school that welcomes girls and boys aged from three months to 19 years and boarders from Year 3. It is known for its high-ranking academic performance. College, one of its two senior schools, placed second nationally last year for A-levels and 18th for all-round academic performance. The other senior school, Faculty, which offers more ‘creative and vocational subjects’, climbed several places to third in the north for A-levels and seventh for overall performance. The college places emphasis on growing pupils into resilient, caring and confident adults. It