Tickets
‘To hell and back? Standard off-peak return, any time or season?’
The Spectator
Thursday
Bishop 4
‘Of course, she won’t be paid as much as a male bishop.’
Greeks
‘The Greeks have a word for it.’
Archers 2
‘Not now — it’s The Archers.’
Cows
‘This is on my list of places to see before you die.’
Vicar 7
‘Oh dear! The vicar’s been radicalised.’
Pavement
‘Great app! It shows you the pavement ahead, so you can see where you’re going.’
Spectator letters: Degrees, dishwashers, and charity catfights
What’s a degree worth? Sir: Mark Mason’s article (‘Uni’s out’, 24 January) hits the nail on the head. A brief addendum: it is generally stated that graduates earn more over a lifetime than non-graduates — obviously a selling point to would-be students. This claim may be true in a very crude sense, but is meaningless without certain
Female bishops are very, very old news
Female bishops The Reverend Libby Lane was ordained as Bishop of Stockport, the Church of England’s first female bishop. — By the time the first 32 female C of E vicars were ordained in 1994, the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts had had a female bishop, Barbara Harris, for five years. — Yet the first Anglican
Calling the Green party socialist is an insult to socialists
The Green party has been likened to a watermelon: green on the outside and red on the inside. But that is to do a huge injustice to generations of socialists and communists. Misguided though they were in many of their ideas, nobody could accuse them of actively seeking to make society poorer. That, however, is
Portrait of the week | 29 January 2015
Home Party leaders mercilessly launched 100 days of campaigning before the general election on 7 May. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, said he would reduce the annual maximum household receipt of welfare to £23,000 from the current limit of £26,000. Ed Miliband announced a ten-year plan for the National Health Service, but Alan Milburn, a
Books and arts – 29 January 2015
The Spectator at war: What is wrong with Germany?
From ‘What is Wrong With Germany?‘, The Spectator, 30 January 1915: If the inquiry is to be pushed to the ultimate point, what is wrong with the Germans is their dreadful, their slavish devotion to Logic— to the “Absolute” and to Abstractions. When Englishmen create an Abstraction they do not call upon all mankind to
From the archives | 29 January 2015
From ‘Reprisals’, The Spectator, 30 January 1915: There has been a tendency among some newspapers, and perhaps still more among private persons, to demand that the murder of non-combatants on the East Coast by German ships of war and Zeppelins should be visited with reprisals. ‘Murder is murder,’ they say in so many words, and
Wednesday
The Spectator at war: Crime and punishment
From ‘Reprisals’, The Spectator, 30 January 1915 THERE has been a tendency among some newspapers, and perhaps still more among private persons, to demand that the murder of non-combatants on the East Coast by German ships of war and Zeppelins should be visited with reprisals. “Murder is murder,” they say in so many words, and
Saturday
How the Spectator congratulated a 25-year-old journalist called Winston Churchill
In 1899, Churchill headed to South Africa as a journalist for the Morning Post to cover the Boer War. He was captured in an ambush of an armored train but escaped with £75 and four slabs of chocolate in his pocket in hopes of finding the Delagoa Bay Railway. This from our archives, 30 December 1899 (link here).
‘We live as free men, speak as free men, walk as free men because a man called Winston Churchill lived’
This is the Spectator’s leader from 22 January 1965. Two days later, on 24 January, Winston Churchill died: Since the first news was given of his grave illness, the attention of the world has been concentrated on a quiet house in Hyde Park Gate. Old men and children, friends and strangers, came to pay homage
Friday
The Spectator at war: Keeping the country sweet
From ‘Economic Quackery’, The Spectator, 23 January 1915: Ever since the war began there has been a tendency to rely upon the Government, instead of relying upon ourselves and upon the operation of economic laws. The political mischief resulting is the establishment of what is virtually an un-controlled Cabinet autocracy. The economic mischief, though it
Thursday
Beard
‘OK, gentlemen, enough beard envy.’
Trojan Horse
‘Isn’t that nice? It’s a gift from the Jehovah’s Witnesses to apologise for being so annoying and pushy earlier today.’