Society

Saturday

Clarke Hayes

Fare’s fair

There’s a fair glut of food festivals going on all across the country in the coming weeks, reflecting — and rightly so — the harvest. There’s a fair glut of food festivals going on all across the country in the coming weeks, reflecting — and rightly so — the harvest. But how retro is that? Fantastic! Even better, to my mind, is that it proves that our collective mindset has changed dramatically — we are growing ever prouder of our food and its local provenance, willing even to think that British might really be best. That in itself is cause for celebration. My local is the second annual Hastings Seafood

Samson Spanier

In search of perfection

The 4th Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792) gave his name to the snack of meat encased between two slabs of bread. The story goes that it was designed so that it could be eaten at the gaming table without hands getting greasy. Like all myths that stick around, this one convinces because it captures its subject. A sandwich should be of high quality, fit for an aristocrat if not for a king. And it should be simple. Excellent ingredients are vital, and the pursuit of them has sent me running away from motorway service stations and high-street chains. As for snack trolleys on trains, let’s not even go there. Dispel from

Rebecca Jed

A British revival

There was an episode in the latest series of The Apprentice in which a bungling ex-army man was commissioned with selling the best of British produce in a French market. He chose to represent his country with huge quantities of ear-and-sphincter sausages and factory cheddar, made a big loss, and was fired from the show. There really was no excuse. British cheeses have come an enormously long way in the last decade or so, as a quick peer into one of the Neal’s Yard shops reveals. In 1989 the Department of Agriculture was all set to ban unpasteurised cheese amid listeria panic. The Specialist Cheesemakers’ Association was set up in

Interconnect

Don’t follow the herd

Ten days ago I went to one of London’s finest restaurants, the Lahore in Whitechapel. The place was packed with hundreds of eager punters. Ten days ago I went to one of London’s finest restaurants, the Lahore in Whitechapel. The place was packed with hundreds of eager punters. There were bankers from the City, large families of Asians, Essex chavs. We were served plate after plate, piled high with spiced fodder from a kitchen with a glass façade enabling you to see the troops of cooks preparing kebabs piled on coals, hundreds of pieces of dough turning into breads in a brick oven, and huge vats of bubbling chicken and

Interconnect

This lethal golden elixir

It used to be the taste of shame. Something that could induce nightmare Proustian flashbacks to teenage years of furtive pub trips and buying jumbo supermarket two-litre bottles. Never go back! And yet we all apparently have: this alcoholic madeleine is cider, and it appears that everyone loves it now, unreservedly, without any embarrassment. But this lethal golden elixir has evolved a little from the days when it was something to be drunk in parks, by the swings. Now it comes in all varieties, and vintages, and prices, in bottles with pretty labels, and is there to be found in smart gastro-pubs and at swanky dinner parties. Look at Waitrose,

Toby Young Toby Young

I was so good at talking up Shepherd’s Bush that I can’t afford to live there now

I first bought a flat in Shepherd’s Bush in 1991 and I’ve never missed an opportunity to tell the world just how marvellous it is. The shops, the streets, the people — it really is a showcase for Britain’s multicultural society. You couldn’t ask for a more vibrant and lively neighbourhood. My intention, obviously, has been to boost property values in the area so I can afford to move somewhere else. Almost anywhere in west London would be preferable — Olympia, Baron’s Court, Queens Park — but Notting Hill would be my first choice. If only I could bring local property prices into line with most other west London neighbourhoods,

Interconnect

Spoiled for choice

Was last weekend the most stirringly chock-full and eventful ever in sports broadcasting history? BBC Radio 5 heroically, breathlessly, covered the lot. Television viewers possessing the full works — satellite, terrestrial and all the trimmings — must have been frenziedly fingering their remote dibber like demented teenage girls texting myriad mates on their mobiles. For an all-embracing sports nut, Saturday teatime threw up an almost impossible challenge of choices: where did you begin with at the five o’clock kick-off — England football’s utterly crucial match at Wembley on BBC1, or gallant Northern Ireland in Latvia on Sky Sports? Or England rugby’s opening defence of their World Cup against USA in

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 15 September 2007

During the summer I worked in my step-father’s office. I discovered that while he is generally well liked his (25) employees do have one gripe. Q. During the summer I worked in my step-father’s office. I discovered that while he is generally well liked his (25) employees do have one gripe. At Christmas he always arranges for each one of them to receive a present of a hamper of ‘luxury’ foods. These, apparently, often contain items such as olive paste, wild boar sausages, crystallised fruit and stem ginger which the recipients are none too keen on. One employee told me they have Googled the cost of these hampers and, frankly,

Roy Hattersley

Junior leaders

I should not have been surprised to discover that The Spectator has a profound influence on village life — a happy state of affairs which was illustrated last Friday evening immediately before the start of our junior fell races. I should not have been surprised to discover that The Spectator has a profound influence on village life — a happy state of affairs which was illustrated last Friday evening immediately before the start of our junior fell races. As the young contestants were lining up, I was handed a box and a sealed envelope. The box contained a revolver and inside the envelope there was a note about how the

Jeremy Clarke

Sparks flying

She lay on her side and watched the people coming and going from the tented stalls and music stages. I lay on my back beside her and stared up at the billowing ceiling. We’d arrived at the Ragged Hedge Fair, put up the tent, had a series of unbelievably petty squabbles in the process, and were now paralysed by apathy. We lay in our tent, barely speaking, until it was dark. The Ragged Hedge Fair, held in the Cotswolds each summer, is one of a growing number of small ‘green’ summer festivals springing up to cater for those disillusioned by the squalor, commercialism and criminality at Glastonbury. Power is supplied

Taki

Birthplace of blondes

I simply can’t understand why so many Greek women resemble Scandinavians. Everywhere I look there are blondes — fat blondes, short blondes, hairy blondes, but blondes nevertheless. On board S/Y Bushido I simply can’t understand why so many Greek women resemble Scandinavians. Everywhere I look there are blondes — fat blondes, short blondes, hairy blondes, but blondes nevertheless. Could it be the carbon-dioxide emissions that cause this phenomenon, or is there something in the water that turns dark-haired women into fair ones? I suppose we’ll never find out. Never mind. Whereas northern types have been known to snore at the wrong moment, Greek ladies are hot-blooded, hence Greek men get

Alan Judd

Profit and loss

Depreciation is to cars what compound interest is to us: it bites sooner and deeper than you think. In March 2006 my sister-in-law paid a main dealer £8,000 for a 2002 Renault Laguna Sports Tourer Dynamique, an 1,800cc estate equipped with air-conditioning, sunroof (the UK market is apparently the only one that demands both), alloys, CD player, and so on. It was a one-owner car with a full main-dealer service history throughout its 25,500 miles. In August this year, 17 months and 15,500 miles later, she sought to part-exchange it for a 2004 Mazda MX5. The Mazda main dealer offered her £2,000 for the Renault (What Car? gives £3,500 as

Robin Oakley

She’s got rhythm

Former US champion jockey Eddie Arcaro has entered the new Oxford Dictionary of Quotations with his comment, ‘When a jockey retires he becomes just another little man.’ Former US champion jockey Eddie Arcaro has entered the new Oxford Dictionary of Quotations with his comment, ‘When a jockey retires he becomes just another little man.’ Nobody in politically correct America pulled him up for not saying ‘person’, despite the 3,700 winners of races worth some £46 million ridden by the marvellous Julie Krone before she quit the saddle. In Britain, sadly, the question would not have arisen. We have plenty of successful women trainers: nobody could have handled triple Gold Cup

Lucy Vickery

School daze

In Competition No. 2511 you were invited to describe, in prose or verse, Christopher Robin’s first day at a comprehensive school. In Competition No. 2511 you were invited to describe, in prose or verse, Christopher Robin’s first day at a comprehensive school. The idea was to wrench Pooh’s chum from a cosy world of Nanny, Hornby train-sets and bedtime prayers and plunge him into the lawless pandemonium of an inner-city comprehensive, where presumably the only ‘hoppity hopping’ he’d be doing would be to dodge the bullets, and his fellow pupils would more likely have a dose of the clap than sneezles and wheezles. How did he fare? Over to you.

Interconnect

Almost an Englishman

Within this great mound of words (there are at least 200,000 of them) there is a rather good book lurking. Its first merit is that it is very well written. The style is easy, lively, fresh, vernacular. The writing is devoid of clichés and prefabricated prose. Secondly, the story it has to tell is pleasantly exotic. The author was born shortly after the end of the first world war in eastern Germany. His mother, Wilhelmine, was the daughter of a Yorkshire clothing manufacturer, memorably called Abimelech Wainwright, and his depressed wife Elizabeth, who appears to have said nothing during the later years of her life. His father, Albrecht von Blumenthal,

Leo McKinstry

Why the kid should have gone to the chair

Towards the end of the classic 1957 American courtroom drama Twelve Angry Men, the toughest juror turns bitterly on his colleagues: ‘Brother, I’ve seen all kinds of dishonesty in my day, but this little display really takes the cake.’ Furious that the rest of the jury now seem to be inclined towards a ‘not guilty’ verdict in a murder case, despite a wealth of evidence against the defendant, he protests, ‘You all come in here with your hearts bleeding all over the floor about slum kids and injustice …What’s the matter with you guys?’ It is a question that could be addressed to those who now run the British criminal

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Lenin and Sid Waddell provide words to describe the leader of the Tube strike

Don’t mind me asking,’ a Geordie lad accosted me on the train, ‘but aren’t you Sid Waddell?’ I looked blank. Don’t mind me asking,’ a Geordie lad accosted me on the train, ‘but aren’t you Sid Waddell?’ I looked blank. ‘Go on, you are, aren’t you,’ his mate insisted, pumping my hand. ‘Hiya, Sid.’ Thanks to an on-board internet connection and Google Images, I was able to prove to my new friends that I was not the veteran metaphor-mangler of television darts commentary. Nevertheless the three of us agreed that I might just have been mistaken for him across the fog of a crowded club in pre-smoking-ban days, and I

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

We have treated the McCanns as if they were Big Brother contestants

Madeleine’s disappearance sparked a grotesque media circus Did Kate McCann inadvertently kill her daughter Madeleine and then confect a four-month long parade of grief and concern for the benefit of the media, in order to avoid being done for the crime? This seems to be what the Portuguese police have come to either believe or hazard. The McCanns are back in England but they are now — exotically — ‘arguidos’, which means that the Portuguese cops suspect they may have a case to answer. One or both of them may yet be charged, so far as we understand the machinations of the Portuguese legal system. It is said that traces

Margareta Pagano

‘Greedy? Short-termist? No, quite the opposite’

In the 1880s two young American salesmen-cum-pharmacists, Silas Mainville Burroughs and Henry Wellcome, invented the ‘tabloid’. It was not a cut-down newspaper but a form of compressed pill — the name was an elision of ‘tablet’ and ‘alkaloid’ — which they imported to Britain. Helped by its sales, their company Burroughs Wellcome achieved huge success: insulin was another of their inventions, while Henry Wellcome created the first proper medical bags, giving them to Stanley for his trips to Africa and Scott for his walk to the Pole. When Sir Henry Wellcome (as he became) died in 1936, he left a fortune which he asked five trustees to distribute for the

Richard Northedge

How the Governor lost his eyebrows

‘Bank of England denies NatWest rescue move,’ screamed an Evening Standard headline in December 1974 as the credit squeeze strangled the clearer most exposed to the secondary banks that were falling like dominos. This month the Bank has been denying it has just rescued Barclays: the £1.6 billion lent at short notice was not an emergency loan, it insists, simply the use of a strategic safety valve. Just as well, because it is no longer the Bank of England’s job to go round rescuing banks that run out of money. When Gordon Brown put the Bank in charge of setting interest rates a decade ago he took away its role