Books and Arts – 31 October 2013
Society
Thursday
To 2134: Mere letters
The pairs of anagrams were of countries and their capitals: Dominica & Roseau (2 & 11); Latvia & Riga (20 & 8); Italy & Rome (21A & 35); Algeria & Algiers (27 & 26); Yemen & Sanaa (29 & 31). Title: PURE MAIL (Peru & Lima). First prize Henry Dove, Farnborough, Hampshire Runners-up J.B. Caldwell, Winster, Windermere; Vincent Clark, Frant, East Sussex
Qualified teacher status – who believes what?
Should pupils in free schools and academies be taught by teachers without Qualified teacher status? This question has become the latest game political ping-pong involving all three parties. So much has been said it’s difficult to know what everyone believes. Here is a summary of where all the key players stand: Tristram Hunt (and Labour) No, well maybe — the Shadow Education Secretary’s position is unclear. In a Daily Mirror interview, Hunt said ‘they have to work towards qualified teacher status or they have to go’. But last night, Jeremy Paxman asked Hunt no less than nine times whether he would send his children to a school with teachers who
My views on breast-feeding in public are politically indecent
The Daily Mail has got itself into a bit of a lather over a “young mum” who was asked not to breast feed her baby at a swimming pool in Ashford, Kent. The story is here. As you can see, she apparently got her fecund baps out in the pool itself, before being censured by the pool manager. I think I’m sort of with the pool authorities on this, which perhaps just underlines my lack of modernity and general reactionary nature. Truth be told, I’m not terribly happy about seeing an infant breastfed in a café either. But I suppose the women are right when they reply well, we don’t
The great irony of the government’s transparency push
David Cameron’s announcement that the government will publish a register of beneficial ownership should make it harder for companies to evade tax. This register of who owns what will make it harder for people to hide their earnings via complex ownership structures. This register of beneficial ownership is all part of the government’s transparency push timed to coincide with the Open Government Partnership. But what will have more of an effect on British voters’ lives than the register of beneficial ownership are the other measures that Francis Maude announced today. Allowing parents to see their child’s record in the national pupil database will give people a far more rounded view
Dave’s ‘crimson tide’ is not a family trait
Sky News made history today by broadcasting for the first time ever from inside the Court of Appeal, and Counsel for the Appellant looked familiar. Indeed, it was none other than Alexander Cameron QC, the Prime Minister’s brother. Dave’s florid face evidently runs in the family; but, while the PM is prone to getting rather shouty at the dispatch box (the so-called ‘crimson tide’), Alexander was a model of composure before the bench. Perhaps he might give his little brother some lessons?
The one good thing we’re leaving in Afghanistan
Kabul A strange new institution is rising from the dust in the mountains west of Kabul. The foreigners here call it the Sandhurst in the Sand. Those who work at the new British-led military school, which welcomed its first cadets last week, prefer the more cumbersome ‘ANA-OA’, short for Afghan National Army Officers Academy (though the Australians who guard the place call it ‘Duntroon in the Desert’ after their own Sandhurst equivalent). Whichever name sticks, the ‘Afghan Sandhurst’ will be perhaps the only significant British contribution to Afghanistan’s security after the Nato mission finishes at the end of next year. Some see it as a way of making up for
Sport: Serena is shining like never before
The comic book Asterix in Switzerland is full of joys, not least the many jokes about Swiss obsessions with tidiness and bureaucracy. Watching the Basel Open last week, the audience was a treat. Immaculate of course, with giant glasses, and cashmere V-necks looped over the shoulders, and doubtless trading assets between matches over hot chocolate and a strudel. But even his home-town crowd and all the UBS credit cards in the Alps couldn’t lift the greatest Swiss of all to take what would have been only his second title of the year. Roger Federer was outgunned in the final by Juan Martin del Potro, having just squeaked past a rangy
Georgic
In Competition 2821 you were invited to supply a poem that provides instruction or useful information. This challenge was, of course, a nod to Virgil, whose Georgics, a didactic poem spanning four books, is part agricultural manual, part political poem. Although it was published way back in 29 bc or thereabouts, its lessons can still be applied today: a team of Italian archaeologists recently planted a vineyard in Sicily using Virgilian techniques. Although Virgil was the inspiration, the brief did not specify that entries be written in dactylic hexameter (Bill Greenwell’s was: impressive); neither were you committed to a theme of agriculture and country life. The winners pocket £25 each.
You’re not as special as you think
My preferred route from the Times’s offices in Wapping on to the main road takes me across a precinct then down a short flight of concrete steps to the pavement below. Across the top step (for reasons unclear to me) a yellow line has been painted behind the step’s edge, like those lines you’re supposed to stand behind on railway platforms. Crossing this, and turning right when I reach the pavement, takes me straight to the right-hand side of the steps. A rational pedestrian seeking to shorten his journey would choose such a route, but not with any precision: one could plot a range of courses down the steps, all
Are you a Yuffie?
I remember, during one of my last classes at UCL, the topic of conversation turned from the cultural implications of Algerian independence to the subject of life after university. Our lecturer, a grumpy ‘progressive Hoxhaist’, told us that things had never been worse, and out of the 20 or so students in the room, only one or two would have found any kind of full-time employment by the time the year was out. ‘But it’s not fair!’ cried one girl, ‘we’ve all worked so hard over the last four years, we’re all clever [speak for yourself, I thought], we all have debts and we’re just going to be ignored!’ ‘Who
Nancy Dell’Olio: Englishmen can’t flirt (except for Russell Brand)
Why can’t British men flirt? This was one of my first thoughts when I arrived in England some years ago. I adore flirting. Like so many Italians, I consider flirting a way of life, an added joy to the day, as harmless, normal and pleasurable to a woman as a glass of chilled champagne at an unexpected hour. When living in Rome, I had become accustomed to that stereotypical Italian man. I’m sure you are all aware of who I am referring to: L’uomo forte. Oh, they are adorable. The subtle glances across a room, the secret smile, that turning of the head and that silent acknowledgement that if only,
The fight for your life is now raging
Beneath your noses, a great change in this country is being planned. Secret polls have been taken, and a private member’s bill has been tabled. The euthanasia lobby is limbering up for the fight of its life: to change the law for once and for all. The Assisted Dying Bill, introduced by former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer, is the fourth such to come before the House of Lords in the last decade. Since it is almost identical to the last bill, which sought to let doctors supply lethal drugs to terminally ill patients and which Parliament rejected in 2006, why is this one being introduced? The answer has largely to
Notes on … Christmas shopping in Bruges
Most Belgians of my acquaintance tend to be rather disparaging about Bruges. It’s a theme park, they say, a Flemish Disneyland. Antwerp is livelier, Ghent is more authentic. A lot of its historic buildings are actually clever fakes. All of this is true, but that doesn’t stop it being one of Europe’s most beautiful cities — and an ideal destination for Christmas shopping. Given the choice between Bruges and Westfield, I know which shopping centre I’d choose. Like a lot of pretty cities, Bruges is a monument to boom and bust. Commerce paid for its ornate medieval architecture, but then the river silted up and Bruges became a backwater. Preserved
I got a call from Jeremy Hunt about health tourism — but he still doesn’t get it
On Monday morning, Jeremy Hunt’s diary secretary rang me to arrange a time for me to speak to the Secretary of State over the telephone. I had already received an email from his special adviser the previous week, saying, ‘The two points which the independent research make clear are central to what you’ve been saying for a long time; namely that health tourism is a huge problem with a substantial cost to the NHS and the current system is an unfair burden on frontline staff.’ When Jeremy rang, he was charming, full of praise, and eager to tackle the issue of health tourism — the exploitation of the NHS by
Rod Liddle: How I was bullied when I wore a burka
I dressed up in a burka to wander around the streets of Canterbury recently, to see what level of Islamophobic abuse and discrimination I suffered from the infidel locals. This was a groundbreaking piece of campaigning journalism done at the request of the Sun newspaper, which had bought me an XXL black nylon burka just for the job. I still have the burka and wear it on occasions, when nobody else is in the house. It frightens the dog. It yaps and yaps at me, with an uncomfortable expression on its face, exactly the same expression it uses for wasps. Wasps the insects, not Wasps the ruling and oppressive hegemony:
If ‘Greek’ is playing within 200 miles of where you live — watch it
This week chanced to give me a fascinating study in contrasts and comparisons: Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek at the Linbury Studio, Britten’s Death in Venice at the Grand Theatre Leeds. Two English operas from the latter half of the 20th century, both with mythological undertones and overtones, one of them the noisy announcement of his presence by a young composer, the other the last testament, a dying fall, of the ultimate Establishment figure who contrived also to be seen as an outsider; one full of profanities and vicious humour, the other both subversive and genteel, without a trace of irony or laughter. Death in Venice, the opera, has never much appealed
The Speculator: Why I get so excited at goalless football matches
A successful gambler once told me: ‘Never bet on football, never bet on multipliers, and never ever bet on football multipliers.’ Multipliers, in case you don’t know, are those enticing combination wagers on bookmakers’ shopfronts: ‘Liverpool win 2-0 + Sturridge to score = 33/1.’ Mugs like me fall for them every time. My subconscious tends to add together the two probabilities — that of Sturridge scoring and that of Liverpool winning 2-0 — when really I should be multiplying them. Duh. The bookies don’t always triumph when it comes to football, however. This year’s Champions League has so far seen few upsets: as a result, the major sports bookmakers have
How mansion taxes will make us all poorer
There are few things most of us enjoy more than watching the value of our houses rocket. Every homeowner will have felt the pulse of excitement that comes from a mental calculation of how much has been added to their net worth by the latest bulletin from Rightmove or the Halifax. Yet fast forward two or three years and the same news could make our hearts sink — because by then a mansion tax could well have been introduced, and rising prices will take many middle-class owners over the threshold. The mansion tax bandwagon has been rolling for several years, pushed enthusiastically by business secretary Vince Cable and his Lib
Should you invest in nuclear power companies?
Power companies are the new banks as far as the public is concerned — but does that mean they’re not worth putting your money in? In any troubled marketplace there are always stocks to be picked, but current political turbulence makes that an unusually tough challenge in the UK energy sector. Much anger is currently directed at the ‘big six’ energy groups — Centrica, Scottish & Southern (SSE), Scottish Power, E.on, RWE and EDF — and their pricing power in the domestic market. The recent round of tariff rises, ahead of the winter heating season and in the face of a moderating wholesale market, served to underline the suggestion that
