Spectator articles from April 2007

Spectator archives from April 2007

The wages of stealth.(British Chancellor Gordon Brown)
April 7, 2007... A stealth tax, by definition, is one in which political pain is deferred in return for immediate gain. The Chancellor who imposes such a tax effectively mortgages his credibility and the public's trust in him. But, sooner or later, as Gordon...

DIARY.(funerals, awards, and cricket)(Column)
April 7, 2007... This afternoon we are saying farewell to the 11-year-old daughter of a close and muchloved colleague, Robin McKie, the revered and veteran science editor of the Observer. Olivia was killed in a road accident one Friday lunchtime. What the...

THE SPECTATOR'S NOTES.
April 7, 2007... Friends with military experience ponder two questions about the Iranian kidnap of the 15 British sailors. The first is, 'Why didn't they put up a fight?' The answer seems to lie with the rules of engagement. This was effectively confirmed...

DIARY OF A NOTTING HILL NOBODY.
April 7, 2007... MONDAY Feel dreadful. Had horrendous nightmare last night. Was sleeping fitfully when a ghostly form appeared above my bed. He was tieless, wearing a white, open-necked shirt (possibly Paul Smith), the sleeves billowing as he held out his arms...

Revealed: how the Conservative party is planning to split.
April 7, 2007... For the son of an Aberdonian stockbroker, David Cameron has had an uneasy relationship with Scotland. It is a land of massacred Conservatives, even less hospitable to his party today than it was during the great Tory wipe-out ten years ago. In...

The magus of Fitzrovia in his prime.(author Ian McEwan)(Interview)
April 7, 2007... I meet Ian McEwan for lunch at Elena's L'Etoile near his Fitzrovia home. He is greeted like a member of the family, and he tells me with relish that the restaurant features in The Dean's December by one of his literary heroes, Saul Bellow. ...

'You get your film, ' the Israeli soldier said, 'and go home'.
April 7, 2007... Hebron 'S o, are you happy now?' the young Israeli soldier with the machinegun and the sneer asked me, as the Palestinian kid was bundled into the back of a police paddy wagon and conveyed to who-knows-where for a spot of rigorous...

Sloane Rangers! Unite to save your Square.(Sloane Square, garden of Middle England)
April 7, 2007... Sloane Square is an easy target. It's been the butt of jokes for years as vast swaths of motherhood look to Peter Jones and its immediate environs as reassurance that all is well in the garden of Middle England. Generations come and go -...

'We Christians need more persecution'.(Interview)
April 7, 2007... InWestminster Cathedral a dozen or so deaf mutes are doing the Stations of the Cross. They have reached the 14th station, 'Jesus is laid in the tomb'. A priest leads the prayers in sign language. 'We, too, O God, will descend into the grave...

Senator Duke?
April 7, 2007... How disappointing it is that our legislators spend so much of their time arguing about reform of the House of Lords when the whole of Parliament is crying out for reform. The House of Commons just carries on as though nothing has happened in...

A celebration of 'Porgy and Bess'.(Opera review)
April 7, 2007... Gershwin's Porgy and Bess is a masterpiece, whatever other category one finds for it. It is bursting with vitality, it has a larger number of memorable, indeed unforgettable tunes than any work of comparable length in the 20th century, whether...

Tales of 'Stuffing it' Austen, 'Eye-opener' Dickens and 'Banana' Waugh.(Jane Austen; Charles Dickens; Evelyn Waugh)
April 7, 2007... Isuspect gluttony, the excessive consumption of food and drink, was the first of the deadly sins to be committed. The least glamorous of them too. It is universal today, to judge by the number of fatties and the stomach-heaving coverage of...

Brits in denial.(Letter to the editor)
April 7, 2007... Sir: James Forsyth ('Where is the outrage at the kidnapping of our Marines?', 31 March) points out that the indifference the public is showing towards the seizure and humiliation of 15 British service personnel by Iran demonstrates a country...

Needy children.(Letter to the editor)
April 7, 2007... Sir: I read Ross Clark's mean-spirited article about Red Nose Day ('Read the small print before you donate', 24 March) with great concern. As the director of the Children's Legal Centre I would like to make it clear that at no time was any...

Aussie outrage.(Letter to the editor)
April 7, 2007... Sir: Charlotte Moore, reviewing Thomas Keneally's The Widow and Her Hero (Books, 24 March), questions whether there is 'a woman alive' who, like Grace, notices the difference between rail gauges in NSW and Victoria. I can tell her that for...

Cormac's slip.(Letter to the editor)
April 7, 2007... Sir: I am glad to hear (Letters, 31 March) that Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor is full of 'admiration' for the Pope's recent document on the Eucharist. Some of us wondered if the Cardinal shared the majority of his fellow cardinals' admiration...

Total recall.(Letter to the editor)
April 7, 2007... Sir: The review of Bryan Magee's autobiography Growing Up in a War (Books, 10 March) recounts that while Magee is in the Christ's Hospital infirmary he is tended by a thirtyish night nurse to whom he loses his virginity. Later in his review...

French trains: faster, cheaper, greener, sexier.
April 7, 2007... Guillaume Pepy doesn't look like a man in a hurry. An elegant 47-year-old Frenchman with impeccable manners, he doesn't look like an archetypal railwayman either, which may be because he isn't. It's true that he's an enarque, a graduate of...

A way out of this Kafkaesque world.
April 7, 2007... The regulator of premium-rate telephone services, ICSTIC, is investigating television companies which dangle prizes before viewers' eyes and then make it extremely difficult to claim them. When it has finished with that, perhaps the watchdog...

Market-leading eco-warriors.(Eugene Murtagh )
April 7, 2007... It's bleak, cold and nearly dusk at Kingspan's industrial estate at Holywell in north Wales. Gene Murtagh runs up a ladder to show off a roof garden made with Kingspan's insulated panels, which are being tested to see how much soil they can...

In business since 1537, the City company that's acquiring targets in Basra.(Honourable Artillery Company; Basra, Iraq)
April 7, 2007... To Armoury House, headquarters of the Honourable Artillery Company, for lunch with the recruiting officer - not with a view to joining up, though the PT would do me good, but to inspect the morale of this ancient City institution and inquire...

The great novelist as generous critic.(Touchtones: Essays on Literature, Art and Politics)(Book review)
April 7, 2007... TOUCHSTONES : ESSAYS ON LITERATURE , ART AND POLITICS by Mario Vargas Llosa, selected, edited and translated by John King Faber, [pounds sterling]25, pp. 353, ISBN 9780571214990 . [pounds sterling]20 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429...

Our women at the front.(High Tea in Mosul: The True Story of Two Englishwomen in War-Torn Iraq)(Book review)
April 7, 2007... HIGH TEA IN MOSUL : THE TRUE STORY OF TWO ENGLISHWOMEN IN WAR -T ORN IRAQ by Lynne O'Donnell Cyan, [pounds sterling]9.99, pp. 213, ISBN 9781905736096 . [pounds sterling]7.99 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 In the horror that...

From hero to villain.(Bomber Boys: Fighting Back, 1940-1945)(Book review)
April 7, 2007... BOMBER BOYS : FIGHTING BACK , 1940-45 by Patrick Bishop Harper Press, [pounds sterling]20, pp. 395, ISBN 9780007189861 . [pounds sterling]16 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Patrick Bishop's much praised Fighter Boys brought...

Starting out on the wrong foot.(Jackie Daydream)(Book review)
April 7, 2007... JACKIE DAYDREAM by Jacqueline Wilson Doubleday, [pounds sterling]12.99, pp. 343, ISBN 9780385610155 . [pounds sterling]10.39 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 E. Nesbit once pointed out that, in order to write good books for...

Wonders never cease.(Seizure)(Book review)
April 7, 2007... SEIZURE by Erica Wagner Faber, [pounds sterling]10.99, pp. 232, ISBN 9780571227594 . [pounds sterling]8.79 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Janet seems to have her life neatly organised. She's hardworking, she has a nice...

A nation transformed in two generations.(The New Spaniards)(Book review)
April 7, 2007... THE NEW SPANIARDS by John Hooper Penguin, [pounds sterling]10.99, pp. 480, ISBN 9780141016092 . [pounds sterling]8.79 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 When in November 1975 Franco died, he still possessed the powers granted...

No Picnic.(Short story)
April 7, 2007... Ironically, they rode a tandem bike, that warring pair, though any two less like to live in tandem would be hard to find. He rode in front. She took the seat behind. They quarrelled as they puffed up Devon hills. 'You pedalling?'...

The squalor of the past.(Hubbub: Filth, Noise & Stench in England, 1600-1770)(Book review)
April 7, 2007... HUBBUB : FILTH, NOISE AND STENCH IN ENGLAND , 1600-1770 by Emily Cockayne Yale, [pounds sterling]25, pp. 335, ISBN 0300112149 . [pounds sterling]20 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 The ability to manufacture discontent from...

Repetitive strain injury.(opera actors)
April 7, 2007... What is it like for an actor, after the stimulating exploratory process of rehearsal, followed by the high-voltage excitement of opening night, to go on performing the same piece over and over again, night after night? A long run of a show...

Singular sensation.(exhibitions)
April 7, 2007... Prunella Clough Tate Britain, until 27 August Harry Thubron: Collages and Constructions 1972u1984 Austin/Desmond Fine Art, Pied Bull Yard, 68u69 Great Russell Street, WC1, until 27 April It was a privilege to be a member of the jury that...

ARTS.(exhibitions)(Brief article)
April 7, 2007... Francis Bacon used to say all he wanted from art was excitement. Two electrifying showings of large paintings by the Royal Academicians Basil Beattie and John Hoyland fill the bill. A small room at Tate Britain, part of the BP British Art...

Sheer perfection.(Opera review)
April 7, 2007... L'Heure espagnole; Gianni Schicchi Royal Opera House Ariodante Barbican The trouble with perfection, on the extremely rare occasions one encounters it, is that it leaves one discontented with anything less. Now that I have seen Ravel's...

Star quality.(Sunshine)(Movie review)
April 7, 2007... Sunshine 15, selected cinemas The plot of Sunshine does not inspire confidence. A band of eight astronauts aboard the Icarus II must deliver a bomb to the centre of the dying Sun to reignite it. They come across the ship belonging to an...

Cultural bedlam.(Television program review)
April 7, 2007... By the time you read this the first episode of The Tudors will have been screened in the US on the cable channel Showtime. In fact, it will have appeared nine times on Showtime before episode two makes its debut this Sunday, though like the...

Aged-related patterns.(music band 'The Bible')
April 7, 2007... For many of us, the music that touches us most deeply remains the stuff we first heard between the ages of (give or take a couple of years) 14 and 22. During those all-important hormonal-explosion years, everything sounds more vivid, better...

Vicious propaganda.(Movie review)
April 7, 2007... The thing I really don't get at all about The Mark of Cain (Channel 4, Thursday) is how the people involved could bring themselves to do it. I mean, I'm quite skint at the moment and in need of attention and acclaim and a better career. But I...

Shafts of light.
April 7, 2007... Tough stuff on Radio Three on Good Friday, and an uncompromising bit of programming. W.H. Auden's Horae Canonicae, his seven-part meditation on the Crucifixion of Christ, was read throughout the day in its seven sections at approximately the...

National symbols.(Coca-Cola in Bolivia; coca symbol)
April 7, 2007... Santa Cruz, Bolivia Bolivia's ruling party is demanding that Coca-Cola drops the 'coca' from its name to 'dignify' the 'bioenergetic' leaf that provides the main ingredient in cocaine. Before any cokeheads get the wrong idea, this is no...

Lonely planets.(house up for sale)
April 7, 2007... We love this old house and can't imagine living anywhere else. But needs must and we've finally bitten the bullet - the house is on the market from today. Twenty years we've been here. For 15 of these it was a home for nine elderly residents...

Water features.(Laikipia, Kenya )
April 7, 2007... Laikipia A bit like my bowel movements after a fortnight in Katanga, the seasons in upcountry have lost their cyclical regularity. My father used to time the onset of the rains almost by his watch. Today, people blame global warming...

SPECTATOR MINI BAR OFFER.(Product/service evaluation)
April 7, 2007... Prestige Agencies is part of the admirable Playford Ros company in North Yorkshire. They sell some wonderful wines from the world's boutique vineyards, often made in tiny quantities, all created with the kind of loving attention you just don't...

Green is the new black.(fashion shifts to organic materials, synthetic is out)
April 7, 2007... Working at Vogue magazine in the middle Nineties was a glorious exercise in indulgence. I well remember the first pot of Crme de la Mer to arrive in the beauty department, hot from New York. It cost [pounds sterling]115. For a face cream!...

Treasure island.
April 7, 2007... It was Ian Fleming's anxiety about impending fatherhood that brought about the birth of James Bond. When his longtime lover, Lady Rothermere (formerly Lady O'Neill, nee Ann Charteris), fell accidentally pregnant in 1952, the panicked...

HOTELS OF THE WEEK.(Directory)(Brief article)
April 7, 2007... JAKE'S Tel: +1 876 965 3000 Fax: +1 876 965 0552 www. islandoutpost. com/ jakes HALF MOON Tel: +1 876 953 2211 Fax: +1 876 953 2731 www. halfmoon. com

Championship fever.
April 7, 2007... Eight teams, and scarcely 10 points between them for months. While the Premiership title has long been an unchallenging two-horse race between Manchester United and Chelsea, the top of English league football's second tier, the Championship,...

Conduct unbecoming.(Leading Seaman Faye Turney and Operator Mechanic Arthur Batchelor)
April 14, 2007... Monday was 'National Nuclear Day' in Iran. In Britain, with the paid appearance of Leading Seaman Faye Turney on television, it was national humiliation day. The abduction three weeks ago of 15 British sailors and marines by a hostile...

DIARY.(Saint Ives)(Personal account)
April 14, 2007... St Ives, Cornwall Emailing a friend in Boston, I reported that winter had been so benign in southern England this year that it was bound to snow in Cornwall at Easter. Not so. I write just after dawn as a fishing boat chugs across the tranquil...

Labour is fated to be led by Gordon Brown, but he can still be forced to share power.
April 14, 2007... A fortnight ago, I was invited along to a dinner with John Reid in the private room of a London hotel. It sounded wonderfully conspiratorial, arranged at just a few hours' notice at a time when speculation about the Labour party leadership was...

THE SPECTATOR'S NOTES.(Iran abduction of British sailors and marines)
April 14, 2007... Hitler said, 'I know my enemies. I met them at Munich. They are little worms.' He turned out to be wrong, thank goodness, but the impression that his enemies gave him emboldened him for war. The Iranians must now think that we, the...

DIARY OF A NOTTING HILL NOBODY.(Diary entry)
April 14, 2007... MONDAY Am going to get to the bottom of this Miliband unit if it's the last thing I do. There's something shifty about it, mark my words, although initial investigations are inconclusive. Kept eye on Poppy and James, and when they disappeared...

Why there will be no future Pax Americana.
April 14, 2007... With both houses of the US Congress set to maintain their challenge to President Bush's conduct of the conflict in Iraq - and being accused in turn of 'meddling in military strategy' and of wanting to 'set a date for surrender' - America's...

Our enemies are right to mock us.(Iran on Britain)
April 14, 2007... A taxi driver in Mexico City, who in my presence had just paid la mordida (the bite) to a traffic cop, taught me some lines by the 17th-century Creole nun and poetess, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz: O who is more to blame, He who sins for pay Or he...

'I thought never again meant never again'.(Professor Jeffrey Sachs)
April 14, 2007... New York As I ascend the solemn steps of Columbia University's Low Memorial Library, a Parthenon transplanted to Broadway, the early spring snow crunches underfoot and the woes of Africa and the developing world seem very distant. Yet that...

Why Brown's premiership could be short-lived.(Gordon Brown)
April 14, 2007... Inguessing at the shape of Gordon Brown's premiership, we have to ignore two groups. First, there are the idolaters, the inner clique that believes, really believes, that application of the Brown intellect to the social and foreign policy...

I am sorry, but the C of E really must make up its mind about homosexuality.(Church of England)
April 14, 2007... The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has suggested that the Church of England has become obsessed by homosexuals. His implication seems to be that Jesus Christ didn't go on about them too much and so, really, neither should we. The term...

This is Miliband's moment, and he should run as the 'we screwed up' challenger.(David Miliband)
April 14, 2007... It may be time to stop talking about whether David Miliband challenges Gordon Brown, and start talking about when. The young cabinet minister plainly contemplates the possibility - or why would he have been so conspicuously keeping his options...

Misread signals.(Letter to the editor)
April 14, 2007... Sir: In his analysis of the Falklands conflict ('From the Falklands to Iraq', 31 March) Simon Jenkins treats the independent-minded Lord Franks with disdain for heading an inquiry 'staged to exonerate ministers of guilt'. Nowhere is there...

A party for England?(Letter to the editor)
April 14, 2007... Sir: The plan to roll back the Conservative party from Scotland ('Revealed: how the Conservative party is planning to split', 7 April), although a setback to Scottish unionists, would be a blessing in disguise for England's ethnic minorities....

The Hebron massacre.(Letter to the editor)
April 14, 2007... Sir: In Rod Liddle's article 'You get your film and go home' (7 April), no mention is made of the reason why the Jewish population in Hebron is so small: the massacre in 1929 of the Jews of Hebron (who lived there for many centuries) while the...

Vive la difference.(Letter to the editor)
April 14, 2007... Sir: In his eulogy to the wonderful French railway system ('French trains: faster, cheaper, greener, sexier', 7 April), Neil Collins fails to mention one important difference between French railways and their British counterparts: SNCF is owned...

A fine divorce.(Letter to the editor)
April 14, 2007... Sir: Alasdair Palmer ('For once, Heather Mills has a point', 31 March) says: 'I am sure Fiona Shackleton is rich and successful enough not to have to be professionally concerned about anyone other than very wealthy litigants.' I would just like...

The name is Aston. . .(Letter to the editor)
April 14, 2007... Sir: My name was misspelt as Ashton in the Letters page last week. Since the letter was a comment on Brian Magee's accuracy among other matters, I should consider a correction particularly appropriate. Ben Aston Cookham, Berkshire

Banking on victory for the Scottish Nationalists.
April 14, 2007... These days the Scots feel as proud of their banks as they once did of the Clyde shipyards -- a macho symbol of economic prowess. This explains why the future of Scotland's financial sector under a possible SNP government has become a hot issue...

Can Sarko halt France's decline?(Nicolas Sarkozy)
April 14, 2007... When I first moved to Britain in 1995, after a misspent youth in France, there were few Gallic accents to be heard outside the tourist hotspots. The long-established community in South Kensington had been joined by a growing number of French...

The island state that wishes it could be towed to less murky waters.(Singapore)
April 14, 2007... Singapore's property market is roaring. I know that because our lease will soon expire and our landlady wants 70 per cent more rent than she did in 2004. No matter that our flat leaks like Blair's Cabinet and that its 1970s-wired electricity...

The Master and the Servant.(Lloyd George and Churchill: Rivals for Greatness)(Book review)
April 14, 2007... LLOYD GEORGE AND CHURCHILL : RIVALS FOR GREATNESS by Richard Toye Macmillan, [pounds sterling]25, pp. 356, ISBN 9781405048965 [pounds sterling]21.50 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 This is an excellent book: readable,...

Toomuch information.(Tomorrow)(Book review)
April 14, 2007... TOMORROW by Graham Swift Picador, [pounds sterling]16.99, pp. 247, ISBN 9780330450188 [pounds sterling]14.50 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 In managing too carefully the revelation of truth, parents often betray it. ...

The be-all and end-all.(The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works)(Book review)
April 14, 2007... THE RSC SHAKESPEARE : THE COMPLETE WORKS edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen Macmillan, [pounds sterling]30, pp. 2482, ISBN 9780230003507 [pounds sterling]25.50 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 In May 2004 the Royal...

Family Home, Lincolnshire.(Brief article)
April 14, 2007... and from the summerhouse, the view is, first, that unmarked area of grass, where stood the Air Force quarters of a few of England's Few, that rings with silent laughs, our chipping green for practice golf. Beyond -- the orchard's gorgeous...

Historicalthrillery-factual fiction.(Dancing with Eva)(Book review)
April 14, 2007... DANCING WITH EVA by Alan Judd Simon & Schuster, [pounds sterling]9.99, pp. 214, ISBN 9780743275682 [pounds sterling]8.49 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Recently, Adam Mars Jones accused me in the Observer of being in some...

Making a virtue out of necessity.(Food in Early Modern England)(Book review)
April 14, 2007... FOOD IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND by Joan Thirsk Continuum, [pounds sterling]30, pp. 396, ISBN 9781852855383 [pounds sterling]25.50 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 John Evelyn would find our agonies about food all too familiar. He...

Voodoo, rape and an apple tree.(Hospital)(Book review)
April 14, 2007... HOSPITAL by Toby Litt Hamish Hamilton, [pounds sterling]14.99, pp. 510, ISBN 9780241142806 [pounds sterling]12.75 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 A summary of the events that take place in this novel might run as follows: a...

Not content with the contents.(novels)
April 14, 2007... Degas once complained to Mallarme that he had been trying to write a sonnet, unsuccessfully, though he had had such a good idea for it. 'Alas, my poor Edgar, ' was the reply, 'poems are made with words, not with ideas'. A neat comment, but is...

Beyond the ordinaire.(art exhibits; Victoria and Albert Museum)
April 14, 2007... Show time at the V&A: the latest in its series of survey exhibitions brings us Surrealism in all its faded glory and sempiternal intrigue -- a gallery of the visually fickle and macabre, the once-disturbing and the lastingly chic. The...

Thank you, Humph.(Humphrey Lyttelton)(Book review)
April 14, 2007... I've spent the past couple of weeks sharing my life with some malignant bug that has left me feeling weak and pathetic on those relatively rare occasions when I'm not rushing to the loo. It's not exactly been a barrel of laughs, apart from the...

Heart of glass.(Philip Glass)(Opera review)
April 14, 2007... Satyagraha Coliseum Whatever one thinks about Philip Glass's music in general, and Satyagraha in particular, it does tend to get extremely well served, and never better than by ENO at the Coliseum, where this opera is receiving its London...

ARTS.(Oleksa Zakharchuk)(Brief article)
April 14, 2007... The work of the Ukrainian artist Oleksa Zakharchuk (born 1929) can be seen for the first time in Britain at the Mall Galleries, SW1 (until 19 April), and at the Arts Club (40 Dover Street, W1, 16-27 April). Zakharchuk graduated from art college...

Courting the computer.(Theater review)
April 14, 2007... The Merchant of Venice Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon Back in the 1920s someone complained there wasn't a play on the London stage that didn't have a telephone in it. While it's the lifeblood of theatre to move with the times, a...

Shades of grey.(Theater review)
April 14, 2007... The Lives of Others 15, nationwide The setting is East Germany, 1984. A highly appropriate year: the Stasi is positively Orwellian in its observation of its population, desperate to maintain the regime's image of a socialist paradise and...

Cooling off.(Television program review)
April 14, 2007... Lots of new comedy this week. Mitchell and Webb are a puzzle. They had a successful sketch slot, which followed the first runs of Peep Show. Then they turned up in the ads for Apple computers. One of them (I forget which) is supposed to use an...

Shocking women.(Picasso's art)
April 14, 2007... It was not so extraordinary in September 1946 when the Third Programme began broadcasting that its schedule should include a weekly discussion of the 'visual arts', kicking off with the then director of the National Gallery in conversation with...

Scoff no more.(Dubai World Cup; horse racing; Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum)
April 14, 2007... Seeking to realise your dreams it certainly helps if you are a member of a ruling family with untold oil millions to hand. But when Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and his brothers dreamed of creating a world-class racecourse on the dry...

Billionaire paradise.(Malibu)
April 14, 2007... New York Larry Ellison, the chief executive of the software giant Oracle and the world's 11th-richest man, according to Forbes magazine, is not imbued with grace or elementary good manners. He has constructed a basketball court on board...