A Spectator footnote on David Cameron’s adventure in Brussels last week. In 1990, Nick Ridley gave a famous, prescient, ill-tempered interview to the paper in which he condemned the single currency as a ‘German racket’. He had to resign, and Mrs Thatcher’s fall was not long in coming. Last week, Ridley’s nephew, the Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson, gave an interview to The Spectator in which he said that, since the eurozone seemed to be trying to form a new country, we should wrest the right to rule our own country back. Mr Paterson was not forced to resign, and Mr Cameron vetoed the proposed centralising treaty. Things have really changed, and will change a lot more.
Last week, I mentioned that our American friends the Frums came to stay and we all debated the euro. David and Danielle were also very kind to our labrador Dido, and advanced the interesting theory that the paws of all labradors smell of popcorn. Being English, I affected not to know what popcorn smells like, but the Frums are, in fact, right. Consultation with canine experts suggests that this property is unique to the breed. No one knows why.
One of the privileges of reviewing books is that one is sent scores of them free. My pile this year includes titles as various as The Concept of English Culture in the Cultural Biographies of Peter Ackroyd (by Tomasz Niedokos), The British Electric Industry 1990-2010 (by Alex Henney), and The Changing Face of Religion and Human Rights (by Clemens Nathan). Unfortunately, this privilege is also agony because it is so guilt-inducing. So much that is good has to be passed over inadequately read, as well as unreviewed. So I want to take this seasonal opportunity belatedly to mention two books which would be worth anyone’s time.
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