Society

Saturday

Angus Colwell

David Deutsch: The Enlightenment, 'irrational memes' and how Wikipedia turned woke

The Amazon reviews for David Deutsch’s The Beginning of Infinity don’t alert you to the fact that this is a book on theoretical physics. They sound more like a weepy divorcé’s YouTube comments below a Mark Knopfler guitar solo. ‘I didn’t so much read it,’ says one. ‘It read me.’ ‘I was honestly sad when it was over,’ writes another. ‘This book changed my way of seeing the world, politics, science and, most importantly, of seeing what I will understand as containing some truth.’ When I talk to Deutsch – one of the most sensationally interesting theoretical physicists of our age – on Zoom, I see two beady eyes peering

Lionel Shriver

Discrimination is good, actually

Many years ago, a friend described one of my serious literary novels as ‘clever’. I was offended – but I shouldn’t have been. The friend was from across the pond, where I now understand ‘clever’ simply means smart. For Americans, cleverness infers a shallow, facile intelligence. Applied to people, it often hints at sly, calculating deviousness or cunning. It has no positive moral qualities, as westerners understand them. Tax evasion can be ‘clever’. Let’s move on to ‘culture’ – a big, fuzzy word we throw about with careless abandon that often summons images of traditional clothing and cuisine. But, parsed in its most profound sense, culture might best be defined

Roger Alton

Could two great managers bring us two World Cup wins?

Maybe it’s the time of the year, or maybe it’s down to my sad little life, but surely I can’t be alone in feeling my spirits lifted by the example that Steve Borthwick and Thomas Tuchel are setting. The managers of England’s rugby and football teams have displayed courage, vision and a higher morality that could usefully be followed in other areas – politics, certainly, or business. Both came under fire in the early days of their management and stood resolutely firm. Model stuff surely. What Tuchel has done with his England side is a proper lesson for life. He has decided on a course of action – picking the

Doc

Christmas crossword

The unclued lights consist of seven themed categories A to G (with G being interpreted very loosely) which are highlighted in yellow in the grid. Each themed category leads to six unclued theme words A to F, one of two words and another hyphened. Across 11    Bishop always upset item in bar (5) 13    Drink Church of Scotland finally banned (3) 16    Knight upset silver hay-cart (6) 18    Friends from abroad three-quarters down the list. That’s wrong (5) 20    Walk in west and east parts of Paris (4) 26    After parking drink in enclosed area (4) 29    Corrie character not born in France taking extra time (4) 30    Seabird

The Spectator

2730: Herrlines - solution

The unclued lights yield five phrases in German, all listed in one of the appendices in Chambers 13th edition: 1A, 17&31, 19D&18A, 37&30 and 43&29. First prize Diane Saxon, Stockport Runners-up Patrick Macdougall, London SW6; Martin Plews and Anne Greenwood, Horsham, W. Sussex

Victoria Lane

Spectator Competition: Write Christmas

Competition 3429 invited you to tell the story of the Nativity in the style of a well-known writer. There were very many excellent passages, enough to fill this column three times over, but as it is the £25 vouchers go to the following. Thanks for all your lovely entries this year and happy Christmas one and all. To begin at a new beginning: he was birthed, berthed in a barn with gert bulks of shifting, breathy beasts. Joseph would sooner have been up the pub, sheets to the wind, but it was no more the establishment to encourage the fulfilment of dreams than prophecies. At his own wordless dreamings, the

Luke McShane

No. 879

Martirosyan-Yilmaz, European Individual Championship 2025. Black has just pushed his pawn to c4, overlooking a crucial tactic. Martirosyan’s next move decided the game. What did he play? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 22 December. 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 a8=N! Kg2 2 Nb6! and regardless of Black’s response, 3 a8=Q or a8=B is mate

Luke McShane

Twelve questions for Christmas

1) A pair of jeans fetched $36,100 at a charity auction in March. Whose were they, and what was special about them? 2) In April, Tunde Onakoya and Shawn Martinez set a Guinness World Record for the longest chess marathon, playing in New York’s Times Square. How long did they last? 3) ‘In chess, the optimal state when you’re playing a game is somewhere between optimistic and delusionally optimistic. Because if you’re realistic, you’re just never going to be opportunistic enough to exploit your opponent’s mistakes.’ So said Magnus Carlsen during an interview with a famous podcaster this year. Which one? 4) Chess has a long history of running afoul

Christopher Howse

The Spectator's 2025 Christmas quiz

Events, dear boy In 2025: 1. Name the singer of ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It for You’ whose concert in Perth, Australia, was cancelled because a fatberg had blocked a main sewer. 2. What hub of intelligence did Blaise Metreweli take over? 3. In which capital city did state media warn people weighing less than 8st to stay at home during a spell of windy weather? 4. A swarm of what shut down a nuclear power station at Gravelines in France? 5. At the end of a summit in Alaska, who said in English: ‘Next time in Moscow’? 6. Why did Aalborg Zoo in Denmark appeal for guinea pigs

Theo Hobson

Tommy Robinson wants to put 'Christ back into Christmas'? No, thanks

So Tommy Robinson is inviting us all to have Christmas with him. The far-right activist has announced that there will be a huge open air carol concert in central London on 13 December, a seasonal Unite the Kingdom rally. The aim, he says, ‘is to put Christ back into Christmas.’ Hmm, isn’t that what thousands of church services already do? Robinson is saying: we should be proud of our national religion. Is he wrong? Yes and no So what is Robinson’s motivation for wanting to stage a very large and very public Christmas event? Well, he makes it pretty clear. ‘We shouldn’t have to put this on’, he says. ‘There

Arabella Byrne

How to live gracefully in a ‘granny annexe’

There comes a time in every Boomer Granny’s life when she must consider the ‘granny annexe’ as a viable demesne. For Sarah Ferguson, that time has come. Disgraced, broke and soon to be booted out of Royal Lodge, Fergie is reportedly considering her daughter Princess Beatrice’s Cotswold ‘cowshed’ as her next billet. And while this is not the monstrous wedding-cake mansion that is Royal Lodge, it is still apparently a des res, with neighbours in the unnamed Cotswold village claiming that the property has recently had a refurb. Fergie can no doubt expect an open-plan kitchenette in Edward Bulmer hues, a fair few Pooky lampshades and a Loaf bed in the lead-on bedroom. Perfectly suitable for a woman who once flaunted her ability to adapt to any circumstances, declaring herself ‘a chameleon

Patrick Kidd

The strange history of one-armed vs one-legged cricket

A sheet metal worker from Shropshire who lost a leg below the knee in a tractor accident when he was a child has been told to pay back £36,000 in disability benefits after he was filmed playing cricket twice a week for a village team.  Shaun Rigby, 37, had received personal independence payments since 2016 and acquired a car under the Motability scheme three years ago but the Department for Work and Pensions has judged that his daily needs do not require such assistance.  Mr Rigby called the decision ‘unfair’, observing that people with less debilitating conditions get Motability cars. He remarked: ‘Just because I play cricket doesn’t mean my

Friday

Nick Robinson

Rod Liddle is wrong about the BBC

There is little to beat the thrill of finding a letter you didn’t know existed and being transported back in time and deep into your family’s history. Dated January 1955, it is addressed to ‘Desmond and Evelyn’ and urges them to show ‘tenacity, resolution and COURAGE’. It is signed ‘Pater’. These were the qualities deemed necessary for the son of an English colonel to marry the daughter of a German Jewish refugee against her father’s ferocious opposition. ‘I have the greatest respect for the good qualities of your race and I respect their fighting qualities,’ the man who would become my English grandfather wrote to the couple who would become

Damian Thompson

There's no one more obsessive than Sherlock Holmes fans. And I should know

There is no better time to read a Sherlock Holmes story than a winter evening. As the rain lashes against the windows and the fog descends, we can imagine ourselves sitting companionably with the great detective and the good doctor around the Baker Street hearth, waiting for the step of a visitor upon the stair. Unfortunately, our 21st-century climate rarely cooperates. The rainstorm arrives when we’re far from a hearth, fighting with an umbrella that turns inside-out at the first breath of wind. And when were you last enveloped in a London fog? The savagery of the elements beating down on 221b seems to belong to another world. ‘It was

The Spectator

Letters: Why I quit Your Party

Party’s over Sir: My departure from Your Party, described as ‘disputed’ by Douglas Murray (‘Where was my invitation to Your Party?’, 6 December), was in truth rather mundane: I had naively assumed that a party born to challenge the narrowing horizons of British politics might permit more than one world view at a time. This proved to be a radical proposition. I had signed up to build a broad, pluralistic church; what I encountered instead was a dogmatic project. The boundaries of acceptable opinion narrowed by the week, policed with a zeal that would make a Victorian temperance society blush. To suggest that segments of the working class might hold

Rory Sutherland

AI will take jobs – the wrong ones

As those of you familiar with this column will know, I am always eager to distinguish between an option and an obligation. For instance, a dinner party is usually more enjoyable than an indoor drinks party. Yet in one respect a drinks party wins out: the moment you accept an invitation to a dinner party, you are committed. By contrast, when you accept an invitation to a drinks party, you can bunk off at short notice and spend quality man-time watching YouTube documentaries about steam engines instead. A dinner party is an obligation, while ‘drinks’ is an option. This is also the principal distinction between a restaurant and a café.

Mary Killen

Dear Mary, from Bernard Cornwell: Should I stop a nightmare couple from coming to a wedding?

From Emma Barnett Q. What do I do about the fact that my friends are all scared of the telephone and its primary purpose? I loathe endless texting and yet I keep worrying people by actually calling them. How do I stop people answering the phone with a breathless: ‘What’s happened? Are you OK? Has someone died?’ As someone who effectively talks for a living, is there a way back? A. Most juniors do tend to react with alarm to a non-prepositioned phone call. Dispel fear with a text, festooned with laughing face emojis, asking: ‘Can you speak?’ Then dial the number. From Emily Maitlis Q. Several of our dear

Janet de Botton

A farewell to The Spectator

I don’t mind a bit of carefully controlled nostalgia but when it even nudges mawkishness I’m out. To prove it I am not going to gush and rhapsodise that this is my last column for the Speccie, but I will say that it has been a pleasure and a privilege filing this column every fortnight for the past 16 (give or take) years, and I have greatly enjoyed calling myself a ‘journalist’ at every opportunity. Particularly to journalists, some of whom get amusingly irritated! But that was then and this will be a new year; I don’t know who your next bridge columnist will be but I look forward to

Charlie Brooks

Can Ben Wallace defend racing from Labour?

I met Ben Wallace for the first time the other day. He was pretty well the only minister who came out of Rishi Sunak’s government with his reputation enhanced. I had a humdinger hunt ball hangover from hell – quite appropriate, given that he is leading the campaign to save trail hunting. He, on the other hand, was bright-eyed, bushy tailed and firing on all cylinders, in spite of a long drive to London from the north, where he was MP for Wyre and Preston North for 19 years. A good innings for a 55-year-old. We met in one of those venerable clubs in St James’s where Jimmy’s son John