Spectator articles from January 2003

Spectator archives from January 2003

Portrait of the week.
January 4, 2003... A third of families entitled to working family tax credits are not claiming them; 604,000 low-income families are missing out on 1.4 billion [pounds sterling], an average of 42 [pounds sterling] a week each. The Tories are looking for ways to...

Scientific underworld.(Brief Article)
January 4, 2003... Those who mistrust the new biotechnology have always argued that if it is technologically possible to do something, sooner or later it will be done. As far as the fundamentals of human existence are concerned, the Promethean bargain is a bad...

Diary.(Brief Article)
January 4, 2003... Delhi If you are invited to one of these grand Indian weddings, you should jolly well make an effort. I inquired about the dress code, and was told that it would be all right for me to wear something called Kurta Pyjama. So I got the full...

Why I had to flee London for a night with Widow Twankey. (Shared Opinion).(Brief Article)
January 4, 2003... James Agate, the biggest noise among interwar British theatre critics, bellowed in 1932, `Clearing our minds of cant, let it be said that the London pantomime has never been a patch on its provincial brother.' Agate was writing when at...

Why not kill Saddam and spare Iraq? Rod Liddle reveals that in some military quarters there is plenty of enthusiasm for assassinating the Iraqi leader, and reports on some of the methods that might be employed. (Cover Story).(Saddam Hussein)
January 4, 2003... THERE'S something terribly primitive about bombing the hell out of a country simply to get rid of one man (and, perhaps, his small ragbag assortment of grinning, psychopathic sons, obsequious flunkeys and hired assassins). This is what...

My quarrel with the Archbishop: David Blunkett accuses Rowan Williams of `fetishism' in his analysis of the `market state'.
January 4, 2003... IN 1362 the Archbishop of Canterbury complained that, given the slightest opportunity to drink, the English would binge themselves silly. This Christmas and New Year I was personally constrained in my indulgence by the aftermath of major...

Second opinion.(Brief Article)
January 4, 2003... WHEN I was young, I could explain everything, at least to my own satisfaction. With the passing of each successive year, however, my confidence in my understanding has waned to the point of not even understanding what it is to understand. The...

Why I daren't admit to being a Tory: James Delingpole has discovered that if you are right-wing, the best thing to do is to keep your mouth shut.
January 4, 2003... A FEW months ago a groovy young columnist invited me to be her date at the premiere of a porn movie. I felt terribly privileged, first because I'd never been to a porn premiere before, second because the guest list included Martin Amis, and...

Ancient & modern.(Brief Article)
January 4, 2003... `PREPARE for war, Blair tells army,' announces a newspaper headline, stirring the ghost of the Roman military historian Vegetius in its grave. The civil servant Vegetius composed his Epitome of Military Science--the sole surviving Latin...

His Holiness was not amused: the bizarre career of Zambia's Archbishop Milingo has embarrassed the Vatican--and, says Hugh Russell, it isn't over yet.(Emmanuel Milingo)
January 4, 2003... Lusaka HAVE you been totting up the number of abject apologies offered to the public in recent months by those Roman Catholic bishops who so blithely allowed their randy paedophile priests to continue organising choir practice? If you...

Mind your language.(Brief Article)
January 4, 2003... I LAPPED UP Liza Picard's Dr Johnson's London on holiday, and now someone (not my husband) has given me her Restoration London for Christmas. In a small section on the words used in the Restoration period, she brings in two expressions...

Rock of ageism: the government's `Age Positive' campaign sounds good, says David Lovibond, but if you're over 50, forget about finding a job.
January 4, 2003... THERE were four of us on the shortlist: three women in their twenties and me. We sat in a row while a Home Office cheerleader told us what a great life awaited one of us in the press office. The jolly-along lasted for perhaps ten minutes, and...

The brutish British: you think Nazism couldn't happen here? Theodore Dalrymple isn't so sure. We are a nation of slaves and slave-drivers.(Brief Article)
January 4, 2003... I GREW UP believing that it couldn't happen here; that the intrinsic decency, good sense and ironical detachment of the British would have precluded Nazism or anything like it from taking root in our sceptred isle. Now I am not so sure. Utter...

The return of the gentleman: it's going to be a tough year in the City, says Peter Oborne, but loyalty and honesty are back in town.(Brief Article)
January 4, 2003... THE most successful investment banker in Europe of 2002, according to the league tables that pronounce on these matters, was Nicholas Wrigley of Rothschild. Those familiar with the history, ethics and conduct of the City of London over the past...

The drinks are on Camden: Bill Wigmore spends an evening with con men and chancers who live off `the social'.
January 4, 2003... `I TELL yah, it's already in Archbold's!' Liam wears that look of smug triumph so familiar in the faces of the uneducated who have grasped a piece of arcane knowledge. He is Irish, slim, bald, in his late fifties, and has a large, black cowboy...

Seeing something made is half the pleasure of owning it. (And Another Thing).
January 4, 2003... A product may now go two or three times round the globe before it reaches the shops. I note this after inspecting boxes in which some of my grandchildren's Christmas presents came. One flying bird was inspired by the design of an Italian, had...

Islam's liberal force. (Letters).
January 4, 2003... From Mr Peter Emery Sir: A thesis in Frederic Raphael's review of books by Gore Vidal and Roger Scruton, `What will the oracle answer?' (Books, 7 December), cannot be left unchallenged. Such misconceptions and distortions could lead to...

Winston's use of Ultra. (Letters).
January 4, 2003... From Mr Bernard Reeves Sir: Raymond Carr, in reviewing Churchill: Visionary, Statesman, Historian by John Lukacs (Books, 7 December), says that Churchill accomplished what he did from `a position of weakness' and that all he could offer in...

The great escapist. (Letters).
January 4, 2003... From Jayne Osborn Sir: I went to see Die Another Day with my friends who live in LA and we found it most enjoyable, so I was amazed that George Trefgarne had taken the trouble to write such a long letter to you, giving the film a severe...

In vino pietas. (Letters).
January 4, 2003... From Dr Joseph Lambert Sir: It is possible that the recent comment on the Christian Brothers (Michael Vestey, Books, 16 November/Professor Dandeker, Letters, 14/21 December) confuses the Irish Christian Brothers with the older and possibly...

Baguette snatcher. (Letters).
January 4, 2003... From Mr Christopher Stephens Sir: Petronella Wyatt's description of her encounter with a baboon (Singular life, 7 December) reminded me of how, in Cape National park, I was mugged by a baboon. I was about to take the clingfilm off a filled...

High prairie, low life.
January 4, 2003... THAT OLD ACE IN THE HOLE by Annie Proulx Fourth Estate, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 359, ISBN 0007151519 Annie Proulx's latest work is a strange hybrid. It is more a series of short stories than a novel; and though it is immensely...

Brave men and bunglers.
January 4, 2003... GALLIPOLI by L. A. Carlyon Doubleday, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 600, ISBN 0385604 750 For Australians Gallipoli is a name as eloquent as Thermopylae for Greeks, and for much the same reason--it designates a heroic defeat. It has assumed...

Alpha minus query.
January 4, 2003... THE SELECTED WORKS OF CYRIL CONNOLLY: VOLUME I: THE MODERN MOVEMENT VOLUME TWO: THE TWO NATURES edited by Matthew Connolly, with a foreword by William Boyd Picador, 20 [pounds sterling] each As a formula for failure, the first line of Cyril...

Mixed motives and memories.
January 4, 2003... THE PHOTOGRAPH by Penelope Lively Penguin/Viking, 14.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 235, ISBN 0670913928 Here is Glyn, charismatic telly don, searching the landing cupboard for an offprint to illustrate an article he is now writing and a...

A monkey puzzle of a family tree.
January 4, 2003... SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF A BESTSELLING AUTHOR by Michael Kruger Harvill, 10 [pounds sterling], pp. 119, ISBN 1860468632 Michael Kruger's new volume of short stories will delight any bibliophile--at least those who are not earnestly set...

When conscience is a doubtful guide.
January 4, 2003... WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING by Chris Hedges Public Affairs Ltd, 12.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 185, ISBN 1903985595, Tel: 01865 860960 In the summer, I met a man who made his living by selling computer hardware he found discarded...

A talent to chat.
January 4, 2003... ASKING FOR TROUBLE by Sheridan Morley Hodder, 720 [pounds sterling], pp. 342, ISBN 0340820578 Reliable as he has been as a drama critic, lately of this magazine, now of the New Statesman, Sheridan Morley in his memoirs disappoints. Always...

Remembering to forget.
January 4, 2003... AFTERMATH: VIOLENCE AND THE REMAKING OF A SELF by Susan J. Brison Princeton, 713.95 [pounds sterling], pp. 165, ISBN 0691016194 In this exploration of her pain, terror, and ten years of barely surviving the trauma of rape and near-murder,...

The disappearing guru.
January 4, 2003... INVENTING GOD by Nicholas Mosley Secker, 15.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 296, ISBN 0436210118 In 1909, in a late letter to his brother, Henry James bemoaned the fact that the `novel of ideas'--the novel `built on the momentum and inspiration...

Nights at the opera: Michael Henderson, despite his day job, indulged in his passion 31 times last year. (Arts).
January 4, 2003... It puzzles people on both sides of the divide if you are a sports journalist and declare an interest in opera, particularly when, as in my case, that interest blossoms into an absorbing (and extremely expensive) passion. There is not much talk...

Seductive and instructive.
January 4, 2003... Gustav Klimt: Landscapes (Osterreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, till 23 February) Vienna in winter, with its freezing mists and early dusk, is the perfect foil for a spirit-lifting encounter with paintings acclaimed a century ago by...

Ever the optimist. (Pop Music).
January 4, 2003... After buying a string of terrible albums if anyone recommends the Natalie Imbruglia to you I suggest you biff them repeatedly on the nose--I find myself resorting to future-gazing for comfort. Where 2002 has failed, it's just possible that 2003...

Genius remembered. (Radio).
January 4, 2003... Spike Milligan's extraordinary life was remembered in a tribute on Radio Two on Christmas Eve, Vivat Milligna!; .presented by Denis Norden. Milligan died last February at the age of 83, the surviving member of the Goon Show quartet, the others...

First among equals. (Television).
January 4, 2003... My resolution this year--as it is every sodding year--is finally to acquire the massive and thoroughly well-deserved fame and money which eluded me in the previous one. If it doesn't happen this time--and I suppose there is a reasonable chance...

What the eye doesn't see ... (The turf).
January 4, 2003... In the days when I was fit enough to go jogging on the Blackpool front during party conferences, I was alerted one morning that some politicians were planning to don shorts and trainers for a photo-op run in aid of some probably rather dodgy...

Child's play. (Hunting).
January 4, 2003... It does nothing but rain at present, and so, as we make our way across the marsh country of the Vale of Tears Hunt (VT), the posse of children in front of me kick up the water in the puddles, laughing as they go. Still pursuing the Editor's...

Bleak omen. (High life).
January 4, 2003... Gstaad What a way to start the new year. Back in jail. Yes, I've done it again, but this time only for an hour. It was the Radziwill wine that did me in, having dined with the Polish prince and his Greek princess prior to my arrest. I...

Follow the van. (Low life).
January 4, 2003... I only popped out for a packet of fags. The low-intensity family warfare that had blighted our Christmas Day had flared up again at the Boxing Day breakfast table. A trip to the nearest newsagents (five miles away), some soothing classical...

Winter pilgrimage. (Singular life).
January 4, 2003... We now have a male addition to our Hungarian colony. The first arrived a week ago as a sort of au pair and stayed only one night. He claimed he had to visit his sister back in the old country. I suspect, however, that he left from fright. All...

Deduction. (Bridge).
January 4, 2003... BRIDGE may have the image of a friendly social game, but to get to the top you have to be tough, and they don't come any tougher than the American world champion Bob Hamman. I first met him several years ago, when I interviewed him for an...

Annual review. (Chess).
January 4, 2003... THE year 2002 was a curious one for chess. In terms of set-piece chessboard battles with classical time limits, there were really only four competitions that came into serious contention. These were the Linares tournament in Spain and the Wijk...

Nostalgic Noel. (Competition).
January 4, 2003... IN COMPETITION NO. 2270 you were invited to conjure up in prose a child's blissful Christmas of the past. The most rapturous description of Christmas I know is not a passage of Dickens but Dylan Thomas's `Conversation about Christmas' in...

1595: teak. (Crossword).
January 4, 2003... A first prize of 30 [pounds sterling] and a bottle of Graham's exquisite ten-year-old Tawny Port (delicious drunk chilled) for the first correct solution opened on 20 January, with two runners-up prizes of 20 [pounds sterling] (or, for UK...

Aggers and the oiks. (Spectator Sport).
January 4, 2003... HOW wonderful it was to return from Australia to find our civic life in such safe hands. A town council in Dorset has banned Bernard Manning from its theatres, fearing riots in the streets of Weymouth if he took the stage to tell any `racist'...

Dear Mary ... (Your problems solved).
January 4, 2003... Q. A couple of years ago you advised readers to minimise present-buying stress at Christmas by finding something that would be acceptable to people of all age ranges and simply buying up said item in bulk. This year I took your advice and feel...

Portrait of the week.
January 11, 2003... The aircraft-carrier Ark Royal set sail for the Gulf and 1,500 reservists were called up. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said in a speech to a conference of more than 100 British ambassadors that Britain should remain the closest ally of...

Jail is not the answer.
January 11, 2003... David Blunkett has once again shown his unfailing instinct for making a bad situation worse. His declaration, after the shooting dead of two young women in Birmingham, that the courts will be told to sentence anyone caught with an illegal...

Diary.
January 11, 2003... Sydney When I first came to Australia in the 1980s the national sense of humour was less developed than now. Scarcely had I settled in my taxi at Perth airport than my driver offered, unsolicited, the following joke: `Mate, what's the...

Why conservationists should thank God for the motor car. (Thought For The Day).
January 11, 2003... It is the almost unchallenged assumption of our time that we are destroying the environment and, as a result, every day rendering extinct thousand upon thousand of species of blameless crawling, hopping, flying or swimming things. ...

Just who are they, and what are they up to? (Another Voice).
January 11, 2003... They asked me how I knew/My true love was true.... Or so the song goes. But who were they, and why did they ask anyway? They don't appear very sympathetic --they with their sneering inquiries about how I knew my love was true. Are they the same...

Living in a state of terror: Peter Oborne has just returned from Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe is clinging on to power by starving and terrorising his own people.
January 11, 2003... THERE has been a row during the last fortnight about whether the government should ban the English cricket team from travelling to Zimbabwe for next month's World Cup. But the cricket has obscured the real issue. And that is whether Britain and...

The extreme centre: Tim Luckhurst says that the BBC is exercising thought-control over the extent of legitimate debate.
January 11, 2003... ANGUS ROXBURGH, Europe correspondent of the BBC, has published a book called Preachers of Hate. It analyses the resurgence of populist politics in Continental Europe through interviews with leaders and supporters of parties including France's...

The Bishop and the Princess: Damian Thompson believes that The Rt Revd Richard Chartres has some questions to answer.
January 11, 2003... THE Bishop of London, The Rt Revd Richard Chartres, does not much care for journalists, who complain about his majestic manner and general unapproachability. They might be surprised to learn that, as a young priest, he was briefly religious...

The blairs.
January 11, 2003... SHOW, ME RESPECT, MAN! I'VE GOT FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACE THAT WILL BLOW YOU AWAY IN THE US OF A.. ON AN' ON AN' ON.... DON'T DISS ME, MAN! ILL PUT YOU AWAY MAN! CARRY A GUN IT'S FIVE YEARS IN THE CAN! IT'S A KNEE JERK! FU... ...

Mind your language.
January 11, 2003... `THESE yours?' asked my husband with his back to me, his head ostrichised in a cardboard box and a sheaf of envelopes in his upraised hand. They were, indeed, a bundle of letters from 1999 caught up in his circulars from cricket clubs and...

Ancient & modern.
January 11, 2003... MRS Samira Ahmed, an ex-university professor in Sudan, has launched a sex-strike in an attempt to end the 19 years of (un)civil war that have torn the country apart. The newspapers went into their usual routines about Aristophanes' Lysistrata...

Trunk and disorderly: India is wild: Boris Johnson on a dangerous encounter at a traditional family wedding.
January 11, 2003... Tamil Nadu THE morning before she sustained her injuries I was on the beach having lunch with Ingrid, and she told me she was worried about the crows. `Is it not dangerous?' she asked, as they hopped around us with their black, dagger-like...

Banned wagon: global: a weekly survey of world restrictions on freedom and free trade.
January 11, 2003... TO partake in a consumer boycott has become so de rigueur that it is time Banned Wagon had its own campaign. There were several candidates for a boycott: any metal object made in America (in protest at President Bush's tariffs on foreign steel...

Roy Jenkins made me: Frank Johnson on his debt to one of the dominant politicians of the age.
January 11, 2003... MANY of us cannot get enough of these reminiscences from the lunchers of Roy Jenkins. You know the sort of thing. `I suppose I must have had lunch with Roy at least twice a decade. The last time was immediately after Labour lost the 1955...

Wanted: ingenious artists and designers to give a new zest to life. (And Another Thing).
January 11, 2003... I don't think much of the new Rolls-Royce car--as a work of art, that is. It is a long time since the design of a new car has excited me, as the Jaguars used to do, or even the Minis in the age of Alec Issigonis. Now I think about it, I rarely...

Milking, the Africans. (Letters).
January 11, 2003... From Mr Mike Brady Sir: Contrary to your suggestion in your leading article `Milk and sympathy' (28 December 2002), Baby Milk Action is not ignoring orphans and the infants of mothers with HIV and attempting to ban the sale of breastmilk...

Hit, and miss. (Letters).
January 11, 2003... From Mr Miles Hudson Sir: Rod Liddle's article ('Why not kill Saddam and spare Iraq?', 4 January) poses the crucial question about assassination--would it help? My book Assassination concludes by agreeing with Disraeli when he said, about...

Subbing Winston. (Letters).
January 11, 2003... From Mr Richard McNeill Sir: May I add a name to those mentioned by Andrew Roberts (`The secret of Churchill's gold', 28 December 2002) as being benefactors of Winston Churchill--that of Sir Abe Bailey, the South African mining magnate and...

An ill-tempered rant. (Letters).
January 11, 2003... From Mr Eric Taylor Sir: I suppose I am a kind of counterpart to Herb Greet (Letters, 28 December 2002), since I am a Brit living in the US. I can assure him there are many schmucks here, too, both those who `sneer at Bush and the war...

Pogroms? What pogroms? (Letters).
January 11, 2003... From Count Nikolai Tolstoy Sir: Among the historical `facts' upon which Mr Farrel Lifson (Letters, 28 December 2002) relies in his summary account of the foundation of Israel is the statement that `the tsars unleashed their pogroms in the...

Jack Jones's `achievement'. (Letters).
January 11, 2003... From Mr Anthony Pilling Sir: Andrew Gimson's interview (`The last trade union hero', 28 December 2002) with Jack Jones was a fine example of why Labour and socialism can never work in the long term. It is all about pulling down the...

Canine wound and cure. (Letters).
January 11, 2003... From Mr John Hare Sir: In 1999, while searching for wild Bactrian camels near the Arjin mountains that border the northern escarpment of Tibet, I was bitten by a Kazakh herdsman's Tibetan mastiff on the calf of my left leg. That evening,...

The book what I wrote. (Letters).
January 11, 2003... From Mr Sheridan Morley Sir: A critic should never complain of criticism, and Kate Grimond (Books, 4 January) is of course at liberty to find my memoirs (Asking for Trouble, Hodder) rather too personal. But could I just point out that the...

Set in his sexist ways. (Letters).
January 11, 2003... From Sian Vallis-Davies Sir: Is there perhaps a connection between David Lovibond's perception of professional women as `girlies in skirts' (`Rock of ageism', 4 January) and potential employers' perception of men in his age-group--as...

Out of step. (Letters).
January 11, 2003... From Mrs Indira Ondhia Sir: I would like to correct Boris Johnson on his description of the Bhangra Dance (Diary, 4 January). You lower your hands to waist-level and pretend to turn the doorknob and not the motorbike rev. This 270-degree...

Congratulations, Sir Peter, but is it wise for journalists to accept baubles? (Media Studies).
January 11, 2003... Should journalists accept honours? The question is prompted by last week's news that my old friend Peter Stothard has been made a knight, and my old colleague Andreas Whittam Smith given the CBE. This follows hard upon the recent elevation of...

Fight or flight? I have the business solution--book yourself into Dundictatin Park. (City And Suburban).
January 11, 2003... We need to get the year off on the right foot with a suitable business idea, and I have come up with a corker. I shall open a retirement home for dictators. This will resolve their most intractable problem, and their enemies' and subjects'...

Sorting out the under-forties.
January 11, 2003... THE GRANTA BEST OF YOUNG BRITISH NOVELISTS, 2003 The nervousness among the groovy juveniles of literary London was palpable even two years ago. It must have been about then that a New Puritan accosted me and asked, with an air of perfect...

Traditional but far from square.
January 11, 2003... THE EASTER PARADE by Richard Yates Methuen, 10 [pounds sterling], 226, ISBN 0413772020 There is a slight sense that the judges have not really gone for anything very eccentric and original. Dan Rhodes and Nicola Barker are the most playful...

Dominion over palm and pine.
January 11, 2003... EMPIRE by Niall Ferguson Penguin/Allen Lane, 25, pp. 392, ISBN 0713996153 `Now a major Channel Four series,' warns the dust jacket of Niall Ferguson's latest attempt to tread on our intellectual corns. Not much of an advertisement, really....

Sex and the Sandinistas.
January 11, 2003... THE COUNTRY UNDER MY SKIN by Gioconda Belli Bloomsbury, 18.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 380, ISBN 07475 54722 Anyone who's learned how to juggle motherhood and a career might consider adding another ball to spice up the act--that of...

To fame by leaps and bounds.
January 11, 2003... DANCER by Colum McCann Weidenfeld, 12.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 291, ISBN 1897580290 Here is an astonishing book. It is a biography of Rudolph Nureyev written as a piece of fiction, but it is not a roman a clef; real characters are given...

The third man.
January 11, 2003... DOUGLAS JERROLD, 1803-1857 by Michael Slater Duckworth, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 340, ISBN 0715628240 In the 1840s and 50s, Douglas Jerrold, Dickens and Thackeray were the three best known literary men in England, and it was said at the...

An early lead lost.
January 11, 2003... HOSIERY AND KNITWEAR: FOUR CENTURIES OF SMALLSCALE INDUSTRY IN BRITAIN, 1589-2000 by Stanley Chapman OUP, 55 [pounds sterling], pp. 328, ISBN 0199255679 In 1926 Simon Marks, head of a little-known chain of penny bazaars called Marks &...

Nothing in common but banditry.
January 11, 2003... TALK OF THE DEVIL: ENCOUNTERS WITH SEVEN DICTATORS by Riccardo Orizio Secker, 15.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 200, ISBN 0436209993 Researching a book on Guatemala, I looked up a few ex-dictators and former generals in the Guatemalan telephone...

Not waving but dumbing downing: Vanessa Curtis is aghast at the improbable role-casting for The Hours and Ted and Sylvia. (Arts).
January 11, 2003... Virginia Woolf was unsparing in her derogatory remarks about Americans. Even her friend T.S. Eliot was by no means exempt, coming under fire for his understandable reluctance to swap a well-paid job at the bank for the uncertain life of a poet...

Verve and vitality.
January 11, 2003... La Traviata (Royal Opera) Samson and Delilah (Barbican) Odd that La Traviata should have become a Christmas opera, the operatic equivalent, in fact, of The Nutcracker, to run in tandem with it until people feel it's time to get back to...

Something unique.
January 11, 2003... The John Hinde Butlin's Photographs: `Our True Intent Is All For Your Delight' (Photographers' Gallery, till 18 January) This is the story of two visionaries. Billy Butlin needs no introduction but John Hinde is more obscure. Camera buffs...