We’ve got enough pollution around here already without Harold coming over with his fly open… peeing all over me. Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1965 The words ‘special’ and ‘relationship’ contain within them an endless multiplicity of meaning, all the more so, paradoxically, when they are deployed in combination. You may describe your relationship with another person
Wine has been collected since the late 17th century by everyone from Thomas Jefferson to Andrew Lloyd Webber. Not much has changed either, except the idea of wine as an investment – any suggestion that wine might be sold on for a profit, effectively creating a wine stock market, would in days gone by have
This is a good question and the knee-jerk reaction for those with plenty of money to spend would be to think of silly City bonuses and high-end, classed growth Bordeaux, beloved of the pin-striped fraternity. While this does have its attractions one would be wise to hold off until the highly acclaimed (and much hyped)
The philosopher David Selbourne says that Israel’s battle with Hezbollah is a microcosm of a worldwide struggle. While the West is in moral crisis, Islam is seizing its chance to become the Church Militant of the 21st century Truth is generally the first casualty in war. On the battlefields of the Middle East, especially when
Fifty years since Suez, and this week the cauldron boils over yet again. Some of the ingredients are different. Britain and France used force in a way they would not now dare. The United States in 1956 had the power to stop the crisis which it has now lost. Most Arabs today accept the existence
Washington It is not to be. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a more than passable classical pianist, had blocked time in her summer diary for a pleasant meeting with some of the 700 music students attending classes and performing at the Aspen Music Festival and School. President Bush has other ideas. Instead of the cool
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Norman Podhoretz, the distinguished American journalist and neoconservative godfather, penned a series of articles describing the attacks of 11 September 2001 as the opening shots of what he called ‘World War IV’. For Podhoretz, the more commonly used construct ‘global war on terror’ is too generic. Placing 9/11 in
Yo — Reader! How are ya doin’? Hot and bothered, I suspect; sticky and irritable. And no less so for having been addressed in such a manner, or for being reminded that this is how the leader of the free world addresses those who do his bidding, the lickspittle minions who bring him gifts of
‘I’m going to take my tie half-off,’ Sir Menzies Campbell announces. ‘Feel free to do so.’ It is a sweltering afternoon in his office, and there is no etiquette governing how men should strip off in such circumstances. I lower my tie knot an inch or so. He takes off his jacket. I follow suit.
The wealthy are now wealthier, more numerous and more socially mobile than at any time in history. But will Gordon Brown’s tax-and-spend policies put an end to this? For the rich and successful, these are the best of times. They are earning more than most had ever dreamt possible and are celebrated in popular culture
For all that was made of the ‘diversity’ of the French World Cup side, what was truly striking about the team that took to the field to face Italy in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium was its very lack of diversity. For all but three of the players who thundered on to the pitch to do battle
Am I about to become the ‘Spectator One’? Having cleared the first airport-style security check at the US Embassy on Upper Grosvenor Street, I reach a second perimeter inside the building itself. This time the X-ray machine picks up a mysterious electronic device inside my briefcase which turns out to be a mobile phone I
By allowing Russia to stage the summit we have accepted her as one of us, says Anne Applebaum. This G8 will give its tacit approval to the theft of private assets, the destruction of the rule of law and the violation of human rights For sale, the advertisement might read: One very large Russian energy
Brussels ‘I really like your magazine,’ says the president of the European Commission, welcoming The Spectator to the inner sanctum of his suite on the top floor of the Berlaymont building, the EC’s headquarters. Euro-schmooze? Of course. But, in the world of EU politics, it is progress of a kind. Imagine, say, Jacques Santer or
I must declare an interest: as a devotee of DC Comics’ Superman since early childhood, I am incontinently prepared in advance to enjoy every radio show, television series and film that features him. So before seeing this one, Superman Returns (which opens here on 14 July), I was ready to give it a good review,
When facing an audience of ambulance workers in a speech last Friday, Andrew Lansley had the ideal joke to warm them up. ‘People always imagine politicians are a bit brain dead,’ he said. ‘Well I am — and I have the MRI scan to prove it.’ He was being absolutely serious. In a freak medical
Philip Bobbitt, the acclaimed author of ‘The Shield of Achilles’, says that the attacks were the work of an ultra-modern movement — closer to Mastercard than the IRA in structure. The worst is not inevitable: but it is distinctly possible With terror, the murderous act itself is always nihilistic; it is the reaction that gives
Is it ethical to snoop around an Archbishop’s sitting-room? Surely, I decide, a gentle stroll around furniture is OK: past a gilt mirror and a large crucifix, past a picture book of the Jewish Haggadah and over to a baby grand tucked into the curve of a bay window. There are two piano pieces on
The Scotch First Minister, Jack McConnell, will doubtless be huddled before a television screen today, dressed in a Portugal football shirt and perhaps munching salted cod, out of respect. An awful lot of his compatriots will be doing the same thing: the Treaty of Windsor, signed with Portugal in 1386, may well be the longest
Allister Heath talks to a deputation of US police chiefs drafted in to help John Reid in his do-or-die battle to restore faith in the criminal justice system. Is this New Labour’s Dirty Harry moment? It was as if the two men had suddenly burst out of nowhere. ‘You’re coming with us,’ one of them