Pet
‘I love him as a pet — I’m just saying he is rather high-maintenance.’
The Spectator
Thursday
Bath 4
‘If anyone calls, I’m in the bath.’
Tesco 3
‘Uh oh, looks like their creative accounting has crept into their special offers.’
Taxman
Gone Girl
‘We had a blazing row about Gone Girl, then she just disappeared.’
Cow 3
‘Do you have to do that in public?’
Midwife
Ukip 7
Penguin 2
‘Well, I think we can rule out bipolar.’
Boots
‘These boots on the ground aren’t much of a threat, are they?’
Seaworld
‘I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it, sir. We should be more specifi c that it’s not a sight-recovery experience.’
Spectator letters: St Augustine and Louise Mensch, war votes and flannel
Faith and flexibility Sir: What a contrast in your two articles on religion last week: one liberal atheist parent (Claire Stevens) concerned about her son’s turn to conservative Islam, and one conservative Catholic (Louise Mensch) determined that her children understand her unbending fidelity to the tradition. Ms Mensch’s problem is endemic throughout the western church,
Dealing with trolls the Swedish way
How to deal with a troll In Scandinavian mythology, trolls were shady creatures who lived below ground and varied in size from giants (in Iceland) to dwarfs (in Sweden). They snatched infants and replaced them with baby trolls, or ‘changelings’, in an attempt to improve their breeding stock. They could, however, be tackled: — By
There is a way to beat Ebola (and we’re already doing it)
There is something depressing about the fact that it has taken a sick Spanish nurse to put Ebola back on the front pages. Since the summer, some 3,400 West Africans have died, but interest in the story here had waned. So long as the disease did not make the nine-mile leap across the Straits of
Portrait of the week | 9 October 2014
Home Alan Henning, 47, a British volunteer aid worker taken captive in Syria by Islamic State, was murdered, and footage of his death, which included an appearance by a man with an English accent nicknamed Jihadi John, was posted online. David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said: ‘We will do all we can to hunt down
Books and arts – 9 October 2014
Podcast: police phone hacking, Lib Dem tactics and vicious dogs
In this week’s issue, Fraser Nelson and Nick Cohen examine how police are using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) to run wild in the public’s mobile phone records. Like many curtailments of British liberties, this started off in the name of fighting terrorism. It has now emerged that police forces used these anti-terror powers
The Spectator at war: The consequences of neutrality
From The Spectator, 10 October 1914: IT would be a base act to try to bribe or to threaten a neutral Power like Italy into joining the Allies. The notion of taking up the attitude that she may find herself in the wrong box when the peace is made is one which must be utterly
From the archives | 9 October 2014
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 10 October 1914: The Germans must really be in very desperate straits if, as is alleged, they are straining every nerve to prepare a hundred Zeppelins and other aircraft to hover over London and bombard our capital from the clouds. No doubt the first appearance of the visitors
Wednesday
Looking for a cure to Ebola? Try a western lifestyle
There is something depressing about the fact that it has taken a sick Spanish nurse to put Ebola back on the front pages. Since the summer, some 3,400 West Africans have died, but interest in the story here had waned. So long as the disease did not make the nine-mile leap across the Straits of
