The Spectator

Guests

‘OK...shall we call a cab or are you going to persuade us to stay and sample a bottle of the fine Rioja I spied in the kitchen?’

Pets

‘I just love that little fluffy grey kitten!’ ‘No chance! Just look at those sad big eyes on that gerbil!’

Barometer | 3 January 2013

The Seacole empire Education Secretary Michael Gove says he wants to rewrite the national curriculum in history to concentrate on figures such as Cromwell and Churchill instead of Mary Seacole. Some institutions which have been named after Seacole in recent years: — Mary Seacole House, ‘mental health drop-in centre primarily for black and ethnic communities

Letters | 3 January 2013

Caught in the ratchet Sir: Melissa Kite (‘Hunting for Dave’, 29 December) wonders why the Prime Minister won’t reopen the question of hunting. Is it not just possible that the reason given is the real reason — he knows he could not win a vote on it? There is no point in leading the troops

Over the cliff

There is something about the dying embers of a year which causes the world to concentrate on entirely the wrong story. In the last days of 1999 many were fixated on the so-called ‘millennium bug’ rather than on the real computing crisis: the absurd over-valuations of internet companies which was soon to lead to stock