Society

Saturday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

More than Madonna’s mother-in-law

I am wandering the gilded streets where it all began. A few hundred yards from here a handful of clever, public-school-educated young men met of an evening to discuss how best to transform the thing they loved, the Conservative party. They would meet for something called ‘supper’, apparently. Yes, I am in that little, extortionately expensive triangle of west London between Kensington and Notting Hill and I have the scent of history in my nostrils. Well, it’s either history or truffled polenta — hard to tell at this time of day. I’m here to meet a woman called Shireen Ritchie. Those youngish men who met for supper in Notting Hill

Michael Ashcroft

Conspicuous bravery celebrated

Michael Ashcroft, a devoted collector of the Victoria Cross, marks the 150th anniversary of the medal’s creation and salutes its simple beauty The concept of bravery intrigues me as much today as it did when I was a schoolboy. What is the crucial factor that makes some people more courageous than others? Is it in their genes, their upbringing or their training? Are they motivated by patriotism, religious conviction, respect for those who fight with them or simply an old-fashioned sense of duty? Is the bravery of most people premeditated or is it a spur-of-the-moment response to the heat of battle? These are the sorts of questions I started to

Boris Johnson

They love capitalism, but not elections

Boris Johnson goes to Beijing on a mission to sell democracy, but finds his hosts — as wedded to authority as they have been for the last 4,000 years — politely declining his offer It was towards the end of my trip to China that the tall, beautiful communist-party girl turned and asked the killer question. ‘So, Mr Boris Johnson,’ she said, ‘have you changed your mind about anything?’ And I was forced to reply that, yes, I had. Darned right I had. I had completely changed my mind about the chances of democracy in China. Before flying to Beijing I had naively presumed that the place was not just

Interconnect

Why Housman holds up

Aged 12 or 13 I copied several poems by Housman into a commonplace book I had been encouraged to keep. An English master had read several Housman poems to us, and I’ve been grateful ever since. For some years Housman was my favourite poet, till superseded by Byron (Don Juan especially) and Eliot. The melody or music of the verse no doubt appealed, the mood and message also: ‘We for a certainty are not the first/ Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled/ Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed/ Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.’ Just the stuff for an adolescent oppressed by an unsympathetic housemaster and

Jaspistos

Complimentary

In Competition No. 2439 you were invited to write a poem in praise of a friend. The only time I wrote a poem in praise of a friend, he shortly afterwards committed murder, followed by suicide. There are, though, much happier examples. Pope’s ‘On a Certain Lady at Court’ ends:‘Has she no faults then,’ Envy says, ‘Sir?’Yes, she has one, I must aver;When all the World conspires to praise her,The Woman’s deaf, and does not hear.The compliment is spiced by the fact that she actually was deaf. I also like Day Lewis’s poem ‘For Rex Warner on his 60th Birthday’, which contains the shrewd line, ‘“Keeping up” a friendship means

Paul Johnson

A noble lady who showed that virtue is its own reward

Truly good people have always been rarities, and ours is not an age which nourishes them by attention and respect. When a good person dies, it is not headline news but, rather, a private tragedy for friends, who thereby lose a beacon in their own confused and muddled lives, someone they could regard as a mentor and who could be relied on to tell them gently but truthfully where they had lost direction. That was how I, and I think many others, saw Christian, Lady Hesketh, always known as Kisty: someone to turn to in time of trouble, for counsel and comfort. Her death earlier this month, swift and peaceful,

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

If Jesus did not exist, the Church would not invent him

Many readers will have read The Spectator Easter survey — ‘Did Jesus really rise from the dead?’ — with intense interest. I did. The results of a survey posing the simple question, ‘Do you believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead?’ were sharply different from what I expected. Just one avowed atheist was interviewed, plus 22 believers. Yet between almost all of them, including the atheist, a most arresting consensus arose: one which only Charles Moore and perhaps Fergal Keane seemed reluctant to join. The atheist, Richard Dawkins, put it like this: ‘If the Resurrection is not true, Christianity becomes null and void and [Christians’] life, [Christians think], meaningless.’

Theodore Dalrymple

Medicine and letters | 22 April 2006

I was about to write ‘Everyone knows the story of James Lind, the Scottish naval surgeon, who conducted the first controlled trial in the history of medicine to prove the curative value of citrus fruits in scurvy’ when I realised that it would have been a silly and, worse still, a snobbish thing to say. After all, my clinical experience suggests that a good, or should I say a bad, percentage of British youth does not know the date of a single great historical event, such as the Battle of Hastings or David Beckham’s marriage, let alone has any familiarity with medical history which, however glorious and uplifting, must always

Friday

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody – 21 April 2006

SUNDAY NIGHTDave’s private office has just rung to say he wants me to accompany him on his earth-saving trip to Norway to highlight global warming — am so excited my climate’s changing! (Memo to self — restrain rubbish humour, must be picking it up from poor Mr Letwin.) V. select group. DC, Chief of Staff, Environment Spokesman and me — not so shabby being on the ‘gumby’ Defra brief now, eh Poppy?! Best thing is we’re travelling there on luxury private plane. MONDAYMentioned trip 17 times this morning. Made me popular for a bit but think may now be losing friends. The other press officers are clearly trying to ruin

Tim Walker

Diary – 21 April 2006

Delhi It’s a sappingly humid Sunday evening, but I decide a suit and tie are in order for Sir Michael Arthur, the British High Commissioner. Bad move. He is in shirtsleeves as he takes me out on to the terrace of his Lutyens villa in Delhi. His bearer pours me a gin and tonic and I inquire after another man known for his aversion to mufti: the Prince of Wales. Sir Michael explains that he couldn’t spend as much time as he would have liked at his side when he visited India with the Duchess of Cornwall last month. Jack Straw had summoned him home for the launch of the

Peter Jones

Ancient & modern – 21 April 2006

It is a general rule that public services rarely work properly, if at all. But over the past 60 years there has been one shining exception — grammar schools. Yet New Labour agrees with great thinkers like the IRA hero and sometime Ulster education minister Martin McGuinness that the single example of our public services that has been an unconditional triumph should be blown up. The reason seems to be that, if not everyone can have it, no one can have it. In that case, make every school a grammar school. Why not? Because it would not serve the needs of large numbers of pupils, i.e., the truth behind the

Saturday

Caroline Michel

Diary – 15 April 2006

When I told my husband I had been asked to write the Spectator diary by the editor he retorted, ‘Nepotism.’ ‘No darling,’ I explained, ‘not Boris’ (whose brother Joe is married to my husband’s niece) ‘the new editor of The Spectator.’ ‘Ummm,’ he said, ‘so how do you want to come across in the diary?’ ‘Oh, you know,’ I said, ‘witty, clever, charming, likeable.’ ‘Ah’, he said, ‘better get someone else to write it, then.’ Of course, Matthew has every right to feel a little grumpy at the moment. He is a whip and a minister in the House of Lords and has been fielding dozens of calls a day

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 15 April 2006

On Good Friday 1613, John Donne found the direction of his journey on horseback in conflict with the duty of his soul. In his poem ‘Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward’, Donne writes that ‘I am carried towards the West/ This day, when my soul’s form bends to the East’ (where the sun/Son will rise, and where Jesus was crucified). He says, though, that he prefers to face the other way, to avoid ‘That spectacle of too much weight for me’: it would be unbearable to see ‘The seat of all our souls …Made dirt of dust’. He imagines his back, as he rides, being regarded by Christ, turned towards Him

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 15 April 2006

‘Veronica,’ I said when she was taking her Wellingtons off outside the back door and couldn’t run away, ‘what does cotching mean?’ ‘Haven’t the foggiest. I thought you were Mrs Language.’ But cotching is meant to be young person’s slang, and, although Veronica has taken her degree, she still seems a young person to me. I’d found cotching in the Sun in an article about slang likely to be used by Jade Goody, an ordinary girl from south London who’d once been on Big Brother on television. The Sun said it meant ‘hanging out at a friend’s house to relax’. The short article included plenty more words I’d never heard

Frank Keating

Wit and Wisden

Two white-coated codgers bent over some sticks in north London yesterday morning. One cleared his throat and, in ritual tone of relief and contentment refound, undramatically announced, ‘Play!’ Considering everything, all was well with the world, and the 2006 first-class cricket season was officially under way at Lord’s — MCC v. Nottinghamshire; today begin six more three-sweater jobs when the gates are opened to the summer at the antique shrines of Hove and Chelmsford, Headingley and the Oval, Fenners and the Parks. Custom unstale, as ever, first toasts to the new season had been drunk in central London on Tuesday 11 April at the convivial black-tie dinner to launch the

Mary Killen

Dear Mary… | 15 April 2006

Q. Please help me urgently. I have made a terrible social faux pas. Two very good friends asked me to be godfather to their children. One child is Oscar, the other Tom. I accepted enthusiastically because, for all my other faults, I am a very good godfather. Last week I discovered the christenings of both are on the same date — in a month’s time — over 100 miles from each other. I had stupidly put one down in my work diary and the other in my social one. What can I do?B.D., Wandsworth, London SW18 A. This can only be resolved by seniority. The older baby should have precedence.

Taki

Club ties

Palm Beach This place is good news for senior citizens everywhere. It is the Mecca for the rich where even my old friend David Metcalfe is considered middle-aged. It is also one of the few resorts in America where religion counts a hell of a lot. In fact, this is what Palm Beach is all about. During the daytime, that is. Let me explain: the three main country clubs of PB are where it all happens during daylight. There is the Bath & Tennis Club, known as the B&T, the Everglades Club and the Palm Beach Country Club. The first two are Christian clubs, the last is Jewish. The trouble

Zenga Longmore

Rescued by reindeer

‘Something about the idea of being a travel writer distresses me,’ laments Jenny Diski in the introduction of her book. ‘So,’ she continues, ‘this is not a travel book.’ Well, distressing as this news may be to both author and reader, this is a travel book. All travel writers have their foibles. Some wish to delight their audience with tales of dangerous adventure. Others strive to amuse their public with wry and witty observations. Jenny Diski’s sole purpose is to do nothing. She wants to keep still. Her deeply uninspiring book slithers into action when she jets off to New Zealand to attend an International Writers’ Festival. Hey-ho, what a

Andrew Lambirth

Breath of the Mediterranean

The slightly warmer blustery weather of late March found me en route for Compton Verney, the charming Robert Adam house in 120 acres of Warwickshire park landscaped by Capability Brown. Purchased in 1993 by the philanthropic Peter Moores Foundation, it was sympathetically remodelled and opened to the public as an art gallery in 2004. Among the permanent exhibits are fine collections of German and Neapolitan paintings, British portraits, Chinese bronzes and a remarkable holding of British Folk Art. (The last includes an Alfred Wallis painted tin tray and a splendid three-legged dog with prongs, which is a large toasting fork made from a single piece of wood.) There are also

Jaspistos

Beastly behaviour

In Competition No. 2438 you were invited to write, in the spirit of Aesop or La Fontaine, a rhymed fable involving animals. Last week I doubted my qualifications to be a judge, but this week my credentials are copper-bottomed, since I have translated selections of the fables of both Aesop and La Fontaine: a sympathetic pair. Though separated by 2,000 years, I feel that the reputedly deformed Phrygian slave and the lazy courtier of the Sun King would have liked each other. I was lucky enough to be introduced to them as a child in wonderfully illustrated editions — Tenniel for Aesop and the great 19th-century draughtsman Grandville for La