The Spectator back issues from January 2006:
The wrong track
Jan 07, 2006 ...Unlike the jubilant Polly Toynbee, we are not convinced that David Cameron's recent pronouncements on big business and the redistribution of wealth quite amount to a repudiation of capitalism, nor even, as she puts it, that the Conservative leader has 'put a stake through Mrs Thatcher's ...
PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Jan 07, 2006 ...The cost of domestic gas and electricity was expected to rise by 15 per cent in the spring, an increase of 50 per cent in three years. Among the New Year's honours, knighthoods went to Tom Jones, the singer; John Dankworth, the jazz musician; Arnold Wesker, the playwright; and Lord Coe, the ...
DIARY
Jan 07, 2006; ...Thanks to the wonderful French health service -- specifically, beautiful Dr Jeanne at Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris -- I'm now much more mobile again, my wounded foot only short of a couple of toes and no further mumbling from US medics about amputation. I spent some months in a wheelchair being ...
Putin plays the market
Jan 07, 2006; ...I don't believe that I can be alone in having spent a Russian or Ukrainian winter with the windows of my room wide open. Many buildings in that part of the world are dreadfully overheated, for the simple reason that energy is so cheap. Soon, however, Ukrainians will have to learn to close their ...
Spare me those touchy-feely Tories
Jan 07, 2006; ...Come Twelfth Night, and David Cameron has been leader of the Conservative party for just one month -- but what a month! Anyone who doubted whether he would make much immediate impression has been stupefied and dumbfounded, and Cameron and his colleagues cannot possibly be faulted for lack of ...
The Hollywood turkey farm
Jan 07, 2006; ...The American papers have lately been filled with stories about the heartbreak in Hollywood over the great box-office slump. There were 6 per cent fewer cinema-goers in 2005 than in 2004. More worrying to the studios is the fact that this is the third consecutive year of decline. There ...
Labour of love
Jan 07, 2006; ...Whether or not you have heard of the legend that is Mrs Betty Parsons depends largely on what you were up to and where you lived between 1956 and 1986. If you lived in Kensington and Chelsea, and had a baby at any point during those years, then you will not only have heard of her but will ...
More women MPs, please
Jan 07, 2006 ...From Amber Rudd Sir: Rod Liddle's article on women candidates in the Conservative party contains an irritating and often repeated inaccuracy. ('Let's not forget the weirdos and halfwits', 17/24 December). He refers to 'the refusal of women to put themselves forward as potential ...
Belt up
Jan 07, 2006 ...From Michael Simons Sir: Simon Nixon trivialises Green Belt legislation to a reckless degree ('No bubble, no slump', 31 December). Far from benefiting a mere handful of stockbrokers, it is thanks to the Green Belt that several millions of Londoners still live within 15 miles or less of open ...
America fair
Jan 07, 2006 ...From G.E. French Sir: What a lovely piece of American nostalgia by Geoffrey Wheatcroft ('God Bless America, not Bush', 17/24 December). I too had, and still have, that marvellous continent and its people close to my heart. Warts and all. We knew about the nasty bits, of course: slavery, the ...
Lewis vs Pullman
Jan 07, 2006 ...From David Watkins Sir: Further to Caroline Moore's spirited defence of C.S. Lewis ('War of the worlds', 17/24 December): however wrong-headed Lewis may have been as a moralist, he was a most open-minded and generous critic. Very often he enthusiastically praised writers of fantasy -- ...
Eye and I
Jan 07, 2006 ...From Christopher Booker Sir: As a keen student of the ever-growing mythology surrounding the origins of Private Eye, I must congratulate Patrick Marnham for his novel suggestion that Paul Foot was invited to be the magazine's first editor (Books, 17/24 ...
The invisible patient
Jan 07, 2006; ...NAPOLEON AND DOCTOR VERLING ON STHELENA by J. David Markham Pen & Sword, £19.99, pp. 178, ISBN 033048902X . £15.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Recently an auction house in Swindon sold for more than £11,000 a cracked tooth of Napoleon's, extracted during his exile on St ...
A painful, wonderful world
Jan 07, 2006; ...CONSTITUTIONAL by Helen Simpson Cape, £14.99, pp. 144, ISBN 02224077945X . £11.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Here are nine short stories, some of them very short indeed, and such a slight collection must reflect Jonathan Cape's faith in the writer. They are ruminative scenes of ...
Grand tour of Venice
Jan 07, 2006; ...Magnet for tourists as it is, Buckingham Palace is the perfect setting for Canaletto in Venice, an exhibition devoted to the grandest producer of tourist art of the 18th century focusing exclusively on a city which had already become one of the world's leading tourist destinations. Giovanni ...
Social outlaw
Jan 07, 2006; ...It's the morning of 2 January as I write, and I'm gloomily contemplating my New Year's resolutions. Actually, gloomily is hardly the mot juste. I'm having a complete jelly-livered panic attack about them. It's our family custom to go to the Pilot Boat pub in Lyme Regis for lunch on New ...
Politics of decency
Jan 07, 2006; ...The film industry, like the media generally, tends to attract people on the left of centre, some anxious to peddle their beliefs, others merely and instinctively slanting it their way on the assumption that everybody thinks like them except for some rednecks out there in the strange world of ...
A rare treat
Jan 07, 2006; ...Gstaad Nursing the inevitable Karamazovian state, I watched the pretty Georgina Rylance on New Year's day playing the heiress in an Agatha Christie TV adaptation of The Mystery of the Blue Train. It didn't help at all. Some of you may recall that Miss Rylance infamously turned down my ...
PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Jan 14, 2006 ...Mr Charles Kennedy, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, called a press conference and said, 'Over the past 18 months, I've been coming to terms with, and seeking to cope with, a drinking problem. . . . I've not had a drink for the past two months and I don't intend to in the future.' He ...
DIARY
Jan 14, 2006; ...Sky like the inside of a saucepan and a mean little drizzle stinging your face, garden sunk deep in midwinter gloom, except for the winter-flowering cherry trees with small, sugar-pink blossoms prinking from bare branches to lift the heart. I look for the first snowdrop, then the first aconite, ...
It wasn't the booze: Cameron did for Kennedy, and now Blair is the target
Jan 14, 2006; ...A myth is beginning to be constructed around the events of the last week at Westminster. It needs to be challenged at once before it gains ground and becomes acknowledged fact. It goes as follows: Charles Kennedy was sacked as leader of the Liberal Democrats because he was a heavy ...
Why did he do it?
Jan 14, 2006; ...While David Cameron was at a Basildon comprehensive on Monday announcing that the Conservative party no longer believes in selective education, my ten-year-old son was sitting the 11-plus at a private school in Suffolk. There are no grammar schools left in Suffolk, as it happens, nor in ...
There is no worldwide terrorist conspiracy
Jan 14, 2006; ...If the world is to succeed in combating terrorism, then politicians and statesmen must strip away old prejudices and think afresh. That will not always be a comfortable thing to do, for at times it will mean trying to see things from the perspective of the terrorist. I remember how ...
Lawless in Gaza
Jan 14, 2006; ...As the dominating presence of Ariel Sharon recedes from the public stage, his lasting legacy is likely to be not his military exploits but his final major political act: unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. Israel had tried engagement, and when that did not work it opted for disengagement. ...
The dangers of 'satanic optimism'
Jan 14, 2006; ...David Cameron, Polly Toynbee and Paul Johnson make a formidable and alarming trio of evangelists. They preach the gospel of optimism, and exhort even the most fainthearted members of their flocks to convert to this creed. Cameron wants the Conservative party to become 'a voice for ...
Ancient & modern
Jan 14, 2006; ...It is fascinating watching the ancient patrimonial system of appointment at work, and there are few better opportunities to see it in action than when a man like David Cameron, without power and therefore without accountability or responsibility, gathers about him the team that he hopes will ...
Our successful railways
Jan 14, 2006 ...From Adrian Lyons Sir: Your leading article (7 January) suggested that railway operators are a cartel bent on exploiting their customers, but this is grossly unfair. Fares have risen, but an overall increase of 3 per cent above inflation since 1995 hardly constitutes 'steeply rising prices' ....
How to live
Jan 14, 2006 ...From Professor Robin Jacoby Sir: As a psychiatrist who has written reports in more than 30 homicide cases, I can wholeheartedly confirm Theodore Dalrymple's thesis that the majority of murderers are unfit for life ('Murder mystery', 7 January). But the picture he paints also illustrates their ...
Wanted, subsidised housing
Jan 14, 2006 ...From Shaun Spiers Sir: Simon Nixon has got it wrong. Scrapping the Green Belt and covering it in new homes won't solve the nation's housing problems ('No bubble, no slump', 31 December). All that a great splurge of sprawl would do is contribute to further urban decay, sucking jobs and money out ...
Alligator hunt
Jan 14, 2006 ...From Pamela de Putron Sir: Dot Wordsworth will be pleased to know that the term 'alligator pear', the English substitution for the Aztec word 'ahuacatl' and Spanish 'avocado' (Mind your language, 31 ...
Dactylic delights
Jan 14, 2006 ...From John Rattray Sir: Further to Grey Gowrie's review (Books, 31 December), while the 'Higgledy Piggledy' form of comic verse may be of recent invention, the double dactylic is by no ...
Who will be man enough to stand up for big business against Cameron and Brown?
Jan 14, 2006; ...Everyone seems to be concocting their own shortlists for the most desirable job in London (I speak, of course, of the leadership of the Liberal Democrats), but the contest that catches my eye is the one to become the next director-general of the CBI -- not least because, in a moment of whimsy, ...
What makes George Galloway strut and fret his stuff?
Jan 14, 2006; ...We each of us remember where we were when news reached us that George Galloway MP was to enter the Celebrity Big Brother house. I was on BBC Radio 5 Live. The time was 10.25 on the evening of Thursday 5 January 2006 and I was part of a panel discussing the shipwreck of Charles Kennedy, when all ...
Conundrums that will not go away
Jan 14, 2006; ...PHILOSOPHY : THE LATEST ANSWERS TO THE OLDEST QUESTIONS by Nicholas Fearn Atlantic, £17.99, pp. 304, ISBN 1843540665 . £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Nicholas Fearn has arrayed before us in his latest book a procession of Western philosophers, dead and alive, hailing from ...
Hellish motorway experience
Jan 14, 2006; ...Listening to Jim Norton reading The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man on this outstanding recording is a first-class way of either revisiting James Joyce's autobiographical novel or of dipping your toe in the water for the first time. I am a toedipper and whilst there were moments when ...
The long arm of technology
Jan 14, 2006; ...SUPPER WITH THE CRIPPENS by David James Smith Orion, £18.99, pp. 344, ISBN 0752867423 . £15.19 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 According to George Orwell, even homicide had its golden age. In his 1946 essay, 'Decline of the English Murder', he discusses what he calls 'our great ...
Cleverly out of step
Jan 14, 2006; ...BALLIOL COLLEGE : A HISTORY by John Jones OUP, £65, pp. 392, ISBN 0199201811 In his second, revised edition of a history of Balliol College, John Jones -- vice-master, chemist and archivist -- shows the same sure touch that distinguished his earlier work as he carries the college's ...
The return of the colonel
Jan 14, 2006; ...THE VENGEANCE OF ROME by Michael Moorcock Cape, £17.99, pp. 620, ISBN 0224031198 . £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 This is a great Homeric return. With The Vengeance of Rome, Michael Moorcock releases his hobbled Odysseus, Colonel Pyat, from the maelstrom of history, the ...
England's 16th-century Stalin
Jan 14, 2006; ...THE KING'S REFORMATION : HENRY VIII AND THE REMAKING OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH by G. W. Bernard Yale, £29.95, pp. 672, ISBN 0300109083 . £23.95 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Henry VIII is one of the most difficult and controversial figures in English history. The Victorian scholars ...
Catflap
Jan 07, 2006; ...I've been in bed for the last fortnight, my brain numbed by painkillers. Between Christmas and New Year, the owner of the flat I'm recovering in was away visiting relatives, so there was only a cat for company. I detest cats. This particular cat is black with a white star on its chest ...
Opium of the people
Jan 07, 2006; ...I stoked up some good log fires over the holiday, and with a box or two of Thornton's Continental Selection was snug at the hearth with two British histories on the go, thoroughly enjoying them both: The Victorians by A.N. Wilson and Dominic Sandbrook's Never Had It So Good ...
David Cameron follows in the footsteps of Benjamin Disraeli
Jan 07, 2006; ...I had resolved on no account whatever to return to the theme of the Tory leader, David Cameron, this week. Other issues looked more pressing. The decision by Liberal Democrat MPs to destroy Charles Kennedy only months after he had led them to their most impressive general ...
THE SPECTATOR'S NOTES
Jan 07, 2006; ...In their New Year newspaper advertisement in the Sunday Telegraph, the Conservatives say, 'The right test for our policies is how they help the least well-off in society, not the rich.' That is a good approach, but will it be invariably applied? For example, the clearest way that the rich are ...
Celebrity squares
Jan 07, 2006; ...It is a long, long, time since the Conservative party had the support of a clever, truculent lesbian. In fact, has it ever happened before? Clever, truculent lesbians are usually very left-wing, in my experience. But now one of them has come out, so to speak, for David Cameron -- the extremely ...
Murder mystery
Jan 07, 2006; ...When one has prepared a number of reports on murderers, both for the prosecution and for the defence, one begins to discern certain patterns. Of course, it is possible that these patterns are not real, or rather are the consequence of the selection of cases that are sent for report. ...
Is 'belief' beneficial?
Jan 07, 2006 ...From Dr John Stoneman Sir: I have considerable regard for Mark Steyn's views on the world. However, I fear he has been rather confused in his article on rationality in your issue of 17/24 December ('O come, all ye faithless'). There is a genuine debate as to whether 'religion' (take ...
Slow bus to Swindon
Jan 07, 2006 ...From Philip French Sir: In his review of Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled (Books, 31 December) Grey Gowrie recalls an apparently accidental piece of verse he found in a lavatory by Wells Cathedral. The graffito he saw -- 'I'd like to [single syllable] you on a slow bus to Swindon' -- is in ...
The Bad Investment Guide's gilt-edged entry:trust in governments, settle for little
Jan 07, 2006; ...This is the time of year for virtuous resolutions, so let us resolve on a visit to the Bad Investment Guide, which now has a giltedged new entry. In among all the flaky oil-drillers and flats brought off the drawing board for a quick turn, we can note the stately presence of Her Majesty's ...
Funsters and fantasts
Jan 07, 2006; ...MASTERS OF AMERICAN COMICS edited by John Carlin, Paul Karasik and Brian Walker Yale University Press, £25, pp. 256, ISBN 030011317X . £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 GRAPHIC NOVELS : STORIES TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE by Paul Gravett Aurum Press, £18.99, pp. 192, ISBN 1845130685 ....
Hunting political Snarks
Jan 07, 2006; ...CRUSOE'S SECRET by Tom Paulin Faber, £20, pp. 400, ISBN 057122157 . £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Wandering the pavements of those uniquely dismal streets which surround Mornington Crescent underground station there used to be a bag-lady whose appearance made her almost a ...
Recent first novels
Jan 07, 2006; ...THIS THING OF DARKNESS by Harry Thompson Review, £12.99, pp. 626, ISBN 075530280X . £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 RULES FOR OLD MEN WAITING by Peter Pouncey Chatto, £12, pp. 192, ISBN 0701178116 . £9.50 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 WINKLER by Giles Coren ...
Jaw-jaw about civil war
Jan 07, 2006; ...WAR, EVIL AND THE END OF HISTORY by Bernard-Henri Lévy Duckworth, £12.99, pp.371, ISBN 0715633368 . £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Bernard-Henri Lévy is possessed of a large fortune, great intelligence and film-star good looks (if now a little ageing). He therefore had the ...
Importance of hummability
Jan 07, 2006; ...In a recent article in the Times, Matthew Parris wrote stirringly about the inspiration which may come from listening to buskers: 'Amazing how a snatch of music heard in passing can lift the imagination and spirit.' To him the essence of this snatch is hummable or whistle-able melody, and we ...
Festive viewing
Jan 07, 2006; ...I can't remember a Christmas where I watched so little Christmas TV as this one, which is a shame in a way, because I do think that mammoth sessions in front of the box are the key to feeling truly Christmassy. Going to church helps, too, obviously, but it's never quite enough. The only way ...
Silent Wires
Jan 14, 2006; ...The silent wires are hanging in the still December air. No ripples move upon the muddy pool where wet clay clods from tractor tyres were flung. They still lie there dissolving, like the smoke of gathered fuel Which rises from the rooftops of the houses on the plain where headlamps ...
But mad northnorth-west
Jan 14, 2006; ...LORD MALQUIST AND MR MOON by Tom Stoppard Faber, £7.99, pp. 208, ISBN 0571227236 . £6.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 In 1966, a proud Tom Stoppard went to Foyles', where to his delighted surprise 12 copies of his first novel were on display. Two weeks later, he checked up on how ...
Man of distinction
Jan 14, 2006; ...The name of Bacon in the 17th century inevitably suggests Sir Francis, first baron Verulam and viscount of St Albans, Lord Chancellor and natural scientist, philosopher and writer. Of an acutely inquiring mind, Sir Francis died of a chill caught trying to deep-freeze chickens. Nathaniel Bacon ...
That elusive something
Jan 14, 2006; ...The Art of White The Lowry, until 17 April There's a central chapter in Moby Dick where the narrator Ishmael traces his fascination with the whale to the colour white. For all its associations 'with whatever is sweet, and honourable, and sublime', he feels that 'there yet lurks an ...
Pleasure count
Jan 14, 2006; ...Hansel and Gretel Opera North The Bartered Bride Royal Opera House Humperdinck's minor masterpiece Hansel and Gretel is one of those operas that disappears for a time and then comes in waves. I hope that Opera North's splendid new semi-production of it heralds a fresh wave, because ...
Feast for the eyes
Jan 14, 2006; ...The Sleeping Beauty English National Ballet, Coliseum Kenneth MacMillan, the father of 20thcentury dramatic ballet, is not the kind of choreographer one would normally associate with a traditional production of the 1890 classic The Sleeping Beauty. The lavish staging of Beauty that is currently ...
One god further
Jan 14, 2006; ...'You don't sound very excited about it, ' said a morose, off-screen interviewer to Jeremy Paxman, at the start of Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC2, Wednesday), the programme that traces the forebears of the famous. Or at least of television celebs. Paxman, who was fishing in the middle ...
Help or hindrance?
Jan 14, 2006; ...There are different ways of being helpful as my son discovered not long ago filming in Africa. The local paper was running an Aids campaign and thoughtfully provided free condoms with every copy -- each one neatly perforated by the staple which attached it to the front page. . .In the same ...
Pandora's box
Jan 14, 2006; ...Gstaad On the evening that Charles Kennedy resigned, Barry and Lizzie Humphries came to dinner. My German cook Alexander made a special cake for Dame Edna, but Barry smelled a rat. He asked if the cake contained any alcohol. The answer was almost none at all. 'Well, ' said the great ...
Walking wounded
Jan 14, 2006; ...On the second day of the New Year, I rose, dressed, arranged myself on my crutches and hobbled down the road to the station. It was wonderful to be outside again. (Never give credence to ideas that occur to you indoors, said Nietzsche, which I think I'll take as my New Year's resolution. ) At ...
Disrespect
Jan 14, 2006 ...The Prime Minister is right about one thing: 'The liberty of the law-abiding citizen to be safe from fear comes first.' It is indeed the first duty of the state to ensure that its citizens can live peacefully and go about their lawful business without fearing that they will be attacked or have ...