Society

Wednesday

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: Clerihews on well-known philosophers

In Competition No. 3314, you were invited to submit clerihews (two couplets, AABB, metrically clunky, humorous in tone) on well-known philosophers. Eric Idle’s ‘Bruces’ Philosophers Song’ cast a long shadow over a large and jolly postbag. ‘Extraordinarily hard to avoid couplets from the Monty Python song!’ wrote A.H. Harker in a note accompanying his entry.Brian Murdoch was thinking along the same lines, as were R.M. Goddard and Nick MacKinnon: ‘We petty clerihewers can only peep about beneath the huge legs of Eric Idle…’ An honourable mention, nonetheless, to Matt Quinn, Donald Mack and Anthony Stadlen, and £8 each to the winners below. Friedrich Nietzsche, Emerging glumly from a monster movie

Luke McShane

No. 767

White to play. Liu-Adhiban, Abu Dhabi Masters2023. White’s next move secured a decisive advantage. What did he play? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 4 September. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1 Rxd4! Then 1…exf4 2 Qf4+ or 1…Rxd4 2 Qc8+ Ka7 3 Qc5+ Ka8 4 Qf8+. White wins the Rh6 in either case. Last week’s winner Robin Murfin, Lyme Regis, Dorset

Luke McShane

Back to Baku

A fortnight ago, I wrote about Magnus Carlsen’s narrow escape against the German teenager Vincent Keymer at the Fide World Cup in Baku. That brush with mortality seemed to galvanise the world no. 1, who coasted to the final with convincing victories in his next three matches, against Ivanchuk, Gukesh and Abasov. His next opponent was another exceptional talent, 18-year-old Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa from India, and Carlsen’s triumph in the tiebreak secured victory in perhaps the only major event which he had never managed to win before.    Nevertheless, Praggnanandhaa had perhaps even more reason to be satisfied with his own performance. His achievement became front-page news in India and drew praise

Dot Wordsworth

How weighing in became wading in 

The Sun reported that a woman sold a pair of rings which, if worn on two fingers, spelt out NTCU. Or they might be swapped round, with ruder consequences. When someone objected, the maker’s followers on TikTok apparently ‘flocked to the comments to weigh in on the situation’. In a report on some other matter, the BBC mentioned an Australian who ‘has form for wading into sporting rows’. So do people weigh in or wade in? Have they weighed in or waded in? The earliest citation given by the OED for wade in, meaning ‘intervene energetically’ is in a poem from 1863 called ‘How are you, Sanitary?’ The title is

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Bruton is suddenly the place to be – and I have a theory why: At the Chapel reviewed

At the Chapel, Bruton, is a restaurant and hotel in a former chapel in Bruton. This was once an ordinary town in Somerset, with a note in the Domesday Book, a ruined priory and a famous dovecote on a hill. Bruton is known for a flood in 1917 – it was the second-largest one-day rainfall measured in the UK – but another calamity was coming. In 2014 the art gallery Hauser & Wirth, with branches in London, Zurich and New York, decided it needed a premises in Bruton, and a restaurant called the Roth Bar and Grill. There is also an Instagram-friendly farmhouse to rent on this site. When I

Olivia Potts Olivia Potts

Tarte tropézienne, the glamorous dessert named by Brigitte Bardot

Is there a more glamorous piece of pâtisserie than the tarte tropézienne? Born in the inherently chic Saint-Tropez, named by Brigitte Bardot on the set of a film before becoming such a cult favourite that it  graces virtually every bakery on the French Riviera, the tarte tropézienne has star quality. But for some reason, it’s rarely found beyond its namesake town; I’ve never even seen it anywhere in the UK. There’s been a real resurgence in recent years of retro or comparatively unknown European pastries – the choux bun, the pain Suisse and the Kouign-amann have all become cool, widely available bakery favourites – but the tropézienne remains uncharacteristically low

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: how should a newly single, fiftysomething man make a pass?

Q. My friend kindly arranged for me to use her freelance gardener and, despite the gardener working only four hours a week, she has transformed my garden. Today I asked if she could do any more hours and she said only on an ad hoc basis. This evening I received a message from another friend asking for the gardener’s number, as hers has left. She has a superior garden to mine and I am terrified this wonderful gardener will give the ad hoc hours she has promised me to this potential new employer. I have tried to prevaricate but I can’t lie to this lady. Mary, what to do? –

Roger Alton Roger Alton

England need to look alive to have a shot at the Rugby World Cup

So the end is near… or it certainly will be soon if England’s rugby players carry on trying to do it their way. One thing we can be certain about: England are not going to win the World Cup. There is a chance they might not get out of their group; Argentina are properly good and Samoa will be hard to beat. Even Japan could give England the run-around, though they are not the team they were. At this rate, England might finish up even lower than eighth – their current position in the rankings – come the end of the tournament. Time for rugby’s answer to ‘Bazball’. Not to

Ysenda Maxtone Graham

‘A year of fish fingers’: how motherhood put me off frozen food

It’s 100 years since the American inventor Clarence Birdseye, with an investment of $7 for an electric fan, a few pails of brine and some blocks of ice, started developing his system of packing fresh food into cardboard boxes and freezing it at high speed, thus ushering in the frozen food era. If you go into your nearest branch of Iceland, you’ll see that the era is still in full swing.  In the colourful and far from morgue-like aisles, cheerful, sensible couples are filling their trolleys for the week, tempted by the dazzling food photography and the ‘tanginess’ of everything. This is wall-to-wall packaging seduction. ‘Oumph! Mexican spiced fajitas’, shouts

Toby Young Toby Young

I knew I was right about private schools

The Hunstanton Lawn Tennis Tournament has become an annual fixture in the Young household. Known as ‘Wimbledon-on-Sea’, the week-long competition takes place on the Norfolk coast in August and attracts hundreds of entrants. I’m not a contestant myself, but my two youngest are and five years ago my wife won the ladies’ doubles, meaning she’s now much in demand with the Norfolk silver foxes hoping to enlist her as their mixed doubles partner in the junior vets. This year she got as far as the semi-finals, which pleased the 59-year-old KC she was playing with, and was the runner-up in the women’s round robin. Don’t be fooled into thinking Caroline

Douglas Murray

George Osborne’s midlife crisis

There should be a term in anthropology for what happens to a certain type of Tory male in middle age. The type who after decades of espousing often unpopular causes suddenly attempts to ingratiate himself with the masses. Ordinarily this breakdown expresses itself in a desire to legalise drugs, but it can take other forms. If you become the chairman of the British Museum, there is one rather obvious way to try to please people Anyway, the moment that George Osborne was made chairman of the British Museum I expected what has come to pass. Osborne has long been a prime candidate for a Tory midlife crisis. He always had

Laurie Graham

Why I’m happy being a Brother

Two years ago, without being ennobled in any Honours list or recourse to surgery, I gained a new title. To the list of Mrs Graham, Mum and Nonna, I added Brother. It signified that I had become a resident of the Charterhouse almshouse.  The title is, if nothing else, a conversation piece. If I’m required to attend a party where I’m unlikely to know any of the other guests, I now wear my Charterhouse badge. It catches the eye and, at the age of 75, having my right breast scrutinised is no longer open to misinterpretation. ‘Brother Laurie?’ they say. ‘How intriguing. Do tell.’ Comrade? Too Leninist. Citizen? I hear

Rupert Shortt

Spain’s MeToo problem goes far beyond the Rubiales scandal

The Luis Rubiales scandal is being presented in Britain as ‘The kiss that started Spain’s MeToo movement’. But, in reality, the overseas coverage of the Spanish Football Federation’s president’s kiss – and his refusal to resign – tells us more about the UK and our own ignorance than it reveals about the country we visit in vast numbers but still struggle to understand. It’s not just that anyone with the slightest knowledge of Spain will know that it has been having multiple MeToo moments for many years – especially after the searing manada (mob) case of 2016–19, when five men were sentenced for the gang-rape of a women in Pamplona.

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Why won’t my British friends see a GP?

Having lived in the United Kingdom for almost my whole adult life, I like to think I’m well assimilated. I stopped trying to make pleasantries with strangers a long time ago. I skip dinner to stand outside the pub in the dark. Apart from my accent (though Americans tell me that’s changed, too) I think I can just about pass as British. But never for long. At some point, someone starts talking about a health worry or new ailment, and I tell them to see the doctor. Suddenly, the jig is up, and I’m an outsider again. I’m now very familiar with the British aversion to seeking medical care. Still,

The Spectator

Letters: The Lucy Letby killings shouldn’t mean we lose trust in all NHS managers

Murder mystery Sir: I once made a diagnosis of a very rare condition too late to cure the patient. She was nevertheless grateful and thanked me, though my conceit evaporated when she asked: ‘What took you so long?’ I suspect the managers at the Countess of Chester Hospital must feel as I did (‘Hospital pass’, 26 August). Murder was not on the top of their differential diagnoses. Many senior clinicians who have had leadership roles in NHS hospitals bear the scars of conflicts with management, though perhaps not as deep as those of the Chester paediatricians.  We would nevertheless acknowledge that most managers are dedicated, conscientious professionals committed to the

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

The joy of French motorways

The news that Heineken, the Dutch brewer, has sold its business in Russia to a local buyer for a token $1 – at a loss of €300 million, but with job guarantees for 1,800 Russian workers – raises moral issues about when and how multinationals should withdraw from pariah states. A database compiled by Yale professor and corporate responsibility campaigner Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, tracking 1,586 foreign operators in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, counts 534 as having made a clean exit versus 219 (including BT and some smaller UK-listed companies, alongside a plethora of Chinese names) ‘digging in’ for business as usual. The rest, global brands and pharma giants among

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 2 September 2023

The World Championships are taking place in Marrakesh, and when I log on to Vugraph I feel like a child in a sweet shop, spoilt for choice about who to watch. And yet an old expression which I heard as a child keeps coming back to me: you know you’re getting old when policemen start looking much younger. That’s how I’m beginning to feel about bridge players. The new generation – world champions like Michal Klukowski (27) and Sanna Clementson (23) – make me feel decidedly long in the tooth. It’s wonderful to see so many young stars representing their countries, of course, but I’m pleased the old-timers are out

Aidan Hartley

Hassan still has no dhow to captain

Kenya Hassan was our skipper. He’d take us in his dhow out on the Indian Ocean for trips along the Kenya coast, south among the secret wave breaks or north towards Formosa Bay. Once he took my brother on a proper voyage to Lamu island, which needed several days even in calm weather. With his big toe steering the tiller, the full lateen sail over us, Hassan told us about the fabled Bajuni islands north of the Somalia frontier, about whales and ambergris. He could neither read nor write but he could navigate by the stars. When we dropped anchor and jumped into the water to dive among the coral

Melissa Kite

Is it really possible to get Covid for a fourth time?

‘I can’t go through this again!’ I groaned, as I lay in bed encased in icepacks, one on my eyes and the other round the back of my neck. Covid – which seems to be alive and kicking this summer despite being pronounced over by the World Health Organisation – always strikes at my nervous system and sets off existing problems, including my fragile emotional stability. The builder boyfriend brings me orange juice and breakfast on a tray, walks the dogs, feeds the horses, goes to work and comes back to find me huddled under the duvet, sobbing. He is weather-beaten from his day on a roof, and feeling rough