The name Bernard Lewis provokes very different reactions in different people. For some he is the world’s foremost historian of Islam and the Middle East, the English academic who originally coined the term ‘clash of civilisations’ (as Samuel Huntingdon, who popularised it, freely acknowledged). For some he is a Princeton man, a neocon who celebrated
William Cook, a ‘closet Kraut’, grew up feeling ashamed of his country. This summer, during the World Cup, he finds that the stigma has finally lifted I’m standing in a noisy bar in south London, watching a World Cup match on a giant TV screen, hemmed in on all sides by happy, tipsy football fans.
‘Was it Vauvenargues or Chamfort,’ asks Pierre Costals in Henri de Montherlant’s novel Pity for Women, ‘who said that one must choose between loving women and understanding them?’ Most men would rather love women than understand them, and most women would rather be loved than understood. Women particularly resent men taking a scalpel to dissect,
I asked my local greengrocer for a couple of blood oranges last weekend. They were to go with an orange cake I’d baked for some left-wing friends who were coming over — a nice left-wing cake, I thought. No flour or butter in it (both right-wing ingredients, historically), just ground almonds, eggs, sugar and oranges.
There’s one subject that you don’t raise with David Cameron’s circle if you want the conversation to last: the election result. They don’t like to be reminded that they failed to win a majority. The Cameroons have been persuading themselves that coalition government is the best possible result. No. 10 has been dubbed ‘the love
Robert Chote’s Institute of Fiscal Studies is widely seen as the source of all wisdom on economic matters. So what did its director make of the Budget? Fraser Nelson asks him A British Budget is never over until Robert Chote has spoken. It’s unclear just when this was inserted into Britain’s unwritten constitution, but his
We like our little cottage in a pretty Wiltshire village on the River Kennet — and we just hope the village likes us. It’s hard to tell. ‘I see you’ve been doing a lot of work on the house. So, have you finally moved in or are you [slight pause, crinkle of nose] weekending?’ asked
This week marks the centenary of what might just be the greatest cricket match of all time: Fowler’s match, the epic battle between Eton and Harrow in 1910. This week marks the centenary of what might just be the greatest cricket match of all time: Fowler’s match, the epic battle between Eton and Harrow in
Years ago I used to spend one evening a month in some dank and frowzy local authority hall attempting to prevent crazed and scary lesbians from becoming my local MP or councillor. This was during my time as a Labour party activist in south London — and attendance at the staggeringly dull ward meetings was
Last weekend, on a windswept plain about ten miles south of Brussels, 3,000 grown men dressed up as soldiers to re-enact the Battle of Waterloo. Performed every five years, on the original battlefield, this noisy extravaganza attracts more than 50,000 visitors, and on Sunday I was one of them. It was an extraordinary experience, more
In the final interview before his death last week, Sebastian Horsley told Ed Howker about being ‘the high-priest of the dandy movement’, a heroin addict and a self-confessed fraud His artwork was described as ‘dreadful’, his poetry as ‘pointless’ and he was denied entry to the United States for what the authorities called ‘moral turpitude’.
At Tony Hayward’s inquisition in Washington last week, the hapless BP chief executive resisted the temptation to condemn his predecessor, Lord Browne of Madingley, by name. Instead, pressed repeatedly to explain why BP had breached safety regulations on over 700 occasions, Hayward described 2006 as the corporation’s worst year. That was John Browne’s last full
Charley Boorman is an ambassador for the American Express® Platinum Card and a Cardmember. Here he shares his experiences and the one thing to do in Paris. The French capital is a melting pot of cultural diversity and is jam-packed with things to do and see. It is little wonder then that 45 million people
V sad… No, it’s no good, I can’t talk like that. Only she can, which is why the retirement of Tamzin Lightwater is very sad because she is so much funnier than I could ever be. I know this because I once saw an irate posting on the internet under the heading ‘Who is Tamzin?’,
As the euro continues to dance on the brink of calamity, the people responsible for the deepening debacle have finally come up with a scheme that will save it once and for all. It’s a cunning plan that draws heavily on that old joke about a European heaven and hell. You’ll be familiar with it:
Max Hastings says that the stakes are high for Liam Fox’s strategic defence review: but we must maintain our current troop numbers and cut in other areas to pay for them Britain’s armed forces are entering a dangerous period of upheaval. The new government’s strategic defence review (SDR) will impose swingeing cuts, and the only
Even the French know the game is up, says Rod Liddle. What’s the point in us teaching their language when, in the end, it will be as obsolete as Cornish It’s a strange thing. Once they have been relieved of office, they start talking a modicum of sense. First we have Ed Balls suggesting that
This week, just as things were looking at their bleakest in Afghanistan — growing casualties and the damning report on the links between Taleban leaders and the Pakistani secret service — the Pentagon pulled a rare piece of good news out of the hat: Afghanistan, it turns out, is not only a poppy-growing paradise but
Andrew Gimson talks to Alistair Cooke, the godfather of the Cameroons, about Dave’s temperament and Hilton’s penchant for ponchos As David Cameron solicits approval for deep spending cuts, he has assured the public: ‘We’re not doing this because we want to, we’re not driven by some theory or ideology.’ Cameron remains very anxious not to
Charlotte Moore on her intrepid relative, who numbered many of the great Victorians — Rossetti, Gertrude Jekyll, George Eliot — among her closest friends ‘A young lady… blessed with large rations of tin, fat, enthusiasm, and golden hair, who thinks nothing of climbing up a mountain in breeches, or wading through a stream in none.’