One of Britain’s exam boards was attacked last year for a question in a GCSE religious studies examination: ‘Explain briefly why some people are prejudiced against Jews.’ Is this really a theological question? Or does it belong in biology? Or psychology? Or economics? The Canadian evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate devotes a
I don’t want to defend Chris Huhne, I really don’t. Apart from anything else, I have always thought the country would be better off if all Oxford PPE graduates were simply imprisoned immediately, instead of the present inefficient system where we wait for them to commit a crime first. This would save us from being
If you ever need confirmation that necessity is the mother of invention, you can do worse than watch one of the rash of property programmes on Channel 4. A typical example of this genre was the recent ‘We Are A Boring Retired Couple Who By The Happy Accident of Being Born in 1950 And Having
To understand the Jimmy Savile affair, you had to be there. By ‘there’ I mean the late 1970s. At the time my school on the Welsh borders had its own very minor provincial sex-pest. I think every school did. Ours was known as ‘the 50p man’. Periodically he would approach a straggler on a cross–country
Supposedly the coffee chain Starbucks will sell you a smaller, 8oz cappuccino even though this size and its price is never published on their menu boards — you just have to ask for a ‘short’. Handy to know. In any case, I never liked using the word ‘grande’. Two syllables seems pretentious; using one makes
The award for the most hideous TV moment of 2012 goes to NBC — and their coverage of the opening ceremony of the London Olympics. ‘Apparently there’s going to be a tribute to someone called Tim Berners-Lee.’ ‘If you haven’t heard of him, we haven’t either,’ giggles co-anchor Meredith Vieira. Then, with no evident irony,
In a now famous 1993 paper the economist Joel Waldfogel attempted to calculate the economic deadweight-loss caused by giving Christmas presents. His argument was that money spent by a gift-giver on a present would usually have been better spent by the recipient, since the recipient would have a better idea of his own needs and
I recently met a friend at the RAC Club in Pall Mall. Leafing through their brochures, I noticed there was an entrance fee of £2,900 and an annual renewal fee of £1,265. Gosh, I thought, that’s expensive. Except it is and it isn’t. It is expensive when you compare it with other clubs. On the
It is safe to say that readers of Condé Nast Traveller and the Sunday Times Travel Supplement will never be troubled by a review of the Holiday Inn Reading M4 Junction 10. Its name will never appear beside Le Sirenuse or the Gritti Palace in lists of the world’s most opulent hotels. The aroma of
At her school interview, my daughter was asked to name the most important technology of the modern age. I’m proud to say she answered ‘sewerage’. Some historians now claim the washing machine was, in economic terms, a far more revolutionary innovation than the internet or the mobile phone: it was this which enabled women to
An evil wizard has captured 15 dwarves of rare mathematical genius. He informs them that, the following day, he will make them stand in a circle and then from behind will place a hat, randomly either black or white, on each of their heads. He will then go to the dwarves in turn and ask
It’s a cheap joke, but it cheers me up. When Starbucks started that habit of asking your name and writing it on your cup, I began giving my name as ‘Chantelle’, ‘Monique’, ‘Desirée’ or ‘Pixie’. Then, when I’d collected four or five of these empty cups, I would leave them all lying around in the
If the all-party Parliamentary Housing Sub-Committee were to embark on a week-long fact-finding tour of Barbados, it would create a tabloid scandal. Yet it might be a good idea all the same. For among the palm trees they will find remnants of a fascinating housing experiment which began almost 200 years ago, yet which affords
Pojoaque, near Santa Fe, New Mexico This is a magical part of the world — and it’s easy to see why D.H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley and Douglas Adams were tempted to hang around for a while. When James Delingpole finally gets his act together and leads 10,000 Spectator subscribers into the desert to form a
‘Develop your eccentricities while you are young,’ said David Ogilvy. ‘That way, when you get old, people won’t think you’re going gaga.’ I am 46. And I am happily beginning to discover that a lot of habits I once thought ‘geriatric’ are in fact common sense. I haven’t yet started wearing beige or buying shoes
I have never practised tax avoidance myself. It’s not that I’m particularly virtuous: it’s just I’d rather pay a few thousand pounds to HMRC than spend an hour talking to an accountant. But I was fascinated by the Jimmy Carr affair for one reason. Why was Mr Carr, alone of the thousand or so participants,
There is a kind of mercantile speculation which ascribes every action to interest and considers interest as only another name for pecuniary advantage. But the boundless variety of human affections is not to be thus easily circumscribed. This is from a sermon by Samuel Johnson. I can’t find the date, but suspect he is having
It is a common lament that the British are bad at languages. At first glance, this is inarguably true. Few educated Brits can chat unselfconsciously in French. Yet ordinary Swedes or Dutchmen can tell jokes and explain complicated ideas in perfectly idiomatic English. It’s our fault, isn’t it? Well, not quite. Let’s leave the matter
What’s so good about email? Well, it’s quick and easy for you to write an email, you can copy in lots of people, it’s immediate and it’s free. And the worst thing about email? Well, it’s very quick and easy for other people to send you an email, or to copy you in on an
I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK. I think the moon landings took place as billed. And Diana’s car crashed into a pillar in the Pont de l’Alma without the assistance of the Duke of Edinburgh. In the last case, I am particularly disinclined to believe in conspiracy theories since, prior to the accident,