Spectator articles from January 2009

Spectator archives from January 2009

The right of self-defence.
January 3, 2009... Barack Obama got to the heart of the matter in July when he visited Sderot in Israel, a town in range of Hamas missiles. 'If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep,' Mr Obama said, 'I'm going to do everything in...

Diary.
January 3, 2009... Baghdad Time magazine has dutifully chosen Barack Obama as its Person of the Year. Fair enough--but a much more interesting choice would have been Nouri Al-Maliki, prime minister of Iraq. When I was in Baghdad back at the start of 2008 it...

Cameron needs a robust economic policy that will stand up in an election campaign.(POLITICS)(David Cameron)
January 3, 2009... When David Cameron agreed last June to let his chief strategist work from California for six months, it seemed a timely break from what was threatening to become a dull job. Gordon Brown looked finished, and his party too weak to depose him....

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody.(Viewpoint essay)
January 3, 2009... Here they are, my New Year's Resolutions for 2009: 1. Keep job. Make self indispensable to Dave, thus ensuring that should the axe fall again on the Tory nerve centre as Britain plunges ever deeper into recession, Yours Truly will be last...

[Cartoon].(Cartoon)
January 3, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IT'S MIRACLE THAT ANYONE SURVIVED!

Operation 'Go Nuts' is a success so far--but for how long? Paul Wood says that Israel's 'shock and awe' in Gaza caught Hamas off-guard and was a ferocious demonstration of willpower. But the Islamist organisation is far from finished.(Cover story)
January 3, 2009... Jerusalem A couple of months ago in Gaza, I found myself sitting across a table from a young Palestinian woman who had volunteered to become a suicide bomber. Umm Anas was 18 years old and wearing a niqab which revealed only her large brown...

Flash Gordon.(Cartoon)
January 3, 2009... I GIVE YOU A TOAST! ME! HAPPY NEW YEAR! [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Let India 2.0 rise from the ashes of Bombay: Elliot Wilson says that an energetic form of political activism--principally on the internet--is needed in India and there are encouraging signs on Facebook, MySpace and other sites.
January 3, 2009... If there is any good to come out of November's bloody terror attacks in Bombay, it can be found not on the city's angry streets, nor in the Lok Sabha, New Delhi's lethargic lower house, but in a more nebulous place, dismissed by both Hillary...

Global warning.(Column)
January 3, 2009... Reading an account by the historian John Waller of the Dancing Plague in Alsace in 1518 recently, I could not help but notice the interesting but perhaps incomplete parallels with our own time. Economic conditions in Strasbourg were dire in...

Studying Islam has made me an atheist: Douglas Murray says that he stopped being an Anglican after analysing Muslim texts and deciding that no book--of any religion--could claim infallibility.(Viewpoint essay)
January 3, 2009... Just over a year ago I told a lie. In print. In this magazine. I was one of those asked by The Spectator last Christmas whether I believed in the virgin birth. Since it had always seemed to me that if you believed in God a 'pick and mix'...

Pinter told me his favourite line from literature: Michael Henderson remembers the passion for cricket that underpinned his friend's genius as a playwright, and an unforgettable day at Lord's.(Harold Pinter)(In memoriam)
January 3, 2009... The public face of Harold Pinter, who died on Christmas Eve after a long illness, was rather daunting. At the Edinburgh Book Festival a few years ago he acknowledged as much when he admitted that he could sometimes be 'a pain in the arse'. But...

The police don't need reform: a response to Daniel Hannan and Douglas Carswell.(Viewpoint essay)
January 3, 2009... While I accept that the arrest of Damian Green and the invasion of his privacy was quite appalling, and that those responsible have to be held to account, this kind of abuse does not usually take place in the other 43 police forces in the...

Labour's carrot and stick.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 3, 2009... Sir: The Spectator is right (Leading article, 13 December) to call not just for 'benefit claimants actually to do something for their handouts', but for a significant increase in the income tax threshold. There is little sense--or fairness--in...

Stick with the simple.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 3, 2009... Sir: I read Paul Johnson's admirably simple explanation of the origins of the universe (And another thing, 13 December) on the 6.46 Chiltern Railways train from Marylebone to Saunderton. His argument, that the creation of the universe by a...

Homer's home town.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 3, 2009... Sir: On the popularity of modern poetry (Ancient and modern, 13 December) G.K. Chesterton, as so often, had the last word. Different critics will have different views about new poems, he says in his essay 'The Middleman in Poetry', but none...

Not from Nottingham.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 3, 2009... Sir: Robert Beaumont (City life, 6 December), whomsoever he may be, didn't do his research when he visited Nottingham. Its heritage is manufacturing, not mining, and so the city was unaffected by the pit closures in the 1980s and 1990s, as it...

The wrong dates.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 3, 2009... Sir: If, as William Leith says (Books, 13 December), Shakespeare was born in 1516 and died in 1564, who was it who wrote the plays attributed to him which were first performed between 1590 and 1616? I think we should be told. David...

What did they talk about in the Ice Age? The weather, of course.(AND ANOTHER THING)(Viewpoint essay)
January 3, 2009... This is the time of year when I repeat Christina Rossetti's lines In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron Water like a stone. November was as cold as I remember this once-muggy, foggy...

Corruption is the hot election issue, but the biggest fish are yet to be fried.(CITY LIFE)
January 3, 2009... It's early days in Indonesia's election season, but already Jakarta is transformed into a riot of colour. Political bunting of all shades sprouts from every conceivable vantage point, brightening the grey of poverty; the green of the surging...

A strong line required.(Putin and the Rise of Russia)(Book review)
January 3, 2009... Putin AnD the rise oF russiA by Michael Stuermer Weidenfeld, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 253, ISBN 9780297855095 [telephone] 16 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

The Millers' tale.(Arthur Miller, 1915-1962)(Book review)
January 3, 2009... Arthur Miller, 1915-1962 by Christopher Bigsby Weidenfeld, 30 [pounds sterling], pp.739, ISBN 9780297854418 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Arthur Miller was born in 1915 in Jewish Harlem, the son of immigrants from the...

Division and misrule.(The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power)(Book review)
January 3, 2009... The Duel: PAkistAn on the Flight PAth oF AMericAn Power by Tariq Ali Simon & Schuster, 17.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 304, ISBN 9781847373557 [telephone] 14.39 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870...

Plagued by plagiarism.(And Then There Was No One)(Book review)
January 3, 2009... And then there wAs no one by Gilbert Adair Faber, 14.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 258, ISBN 9780571238811 [telephone] 11.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] And...

Slum-dwellers and high-flyers.(Heliopolis)(Book review)
January 3, 2009... Heliopolis by James Scudamore Harvill/Secker, 11.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 279, ISBN 9781846551888 [telephone] 10.39 [pounds sterling] 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] James Scudamore...

Conflicts of interest?(Land of Marvels)(Book review)
January 3, 2009... Land of Marvels by Barry Unsworth Hutchinson, 18.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 287, ISBN 9780091926175 [telephone] 15.19 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Land of...

Naafi Break.(Poem)
January 3, 2009... Naafi Break 'Will you GET a F***ING HOLD OF IT [your rifle], soldier!!!... You look like a virgin holding her first cock!!!' Borne on the depraved rantings of the sergeant-major you're off, down the narrow service road,...

Dates for your diary: Andrew Lambirth looks forward to some great exhibitions in the year ahead.(ARTS)
January 3, 2009... There's a very full year's viewing ahead to cheer the eye and gladden the heart however bleak the financial prospects. For a start, the National Gallery is mounting a major exhibition focusing on the fascinating relationship that Picasso had...

Enchanted evening.(Theater review)
January 3, 2009... Twelfth Night Wyndhams Loot Tricycle Another stunna from Michael Grandage. His production of Twelfth Night is an excellent and often beautiful frivolity and if you're a fan of the play it's a must-see event. I can't stand the...

Wagner treat.(Tristan und Isolde)(Hansel und Gretel)(Opera review)
January 3, 2009... Tristan und Isolde Royal Festival Hall Hansel und Gretel second cast Royal Opera House There have been few treats for lovers of Wagner in London in the past few years, but handsome amends were made in a concert at the Royal...

Good intentions.(Television)(Television program review)
January 3, 2009... If you don't mind--yeah, like you've any choice in the matter--what I thought I'd do for this New Year column is to do just enough TV for the editor not to want to sack me, then move swiftly on to the stuff my hardcore fans prefer, namely the...

Life in the saddle.(The turf)(Viewpoint essay)
January 3, 2009... When, back in the mists of history, I proposed to Mrs Oakley (in the rather naff Caribbean cocktail bar of what seemed at the time to be a fashionable London venue patronised by a set we could not afford to join) I prefaced my question with a...

The rot at the top.(High life)
January 3, 2009... The year 2008 was like herpes, very hard to get rid of; 2009 will be worse, trust me, as Bernie Madoff used to tell the suckers. This one, incidentally, is not over. The greatest scam ever perpetrated will go on and on. Madoff was not alone,...

Shark attack.(Low life)(Short story)
January 3, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Three missed calls. Two answer phone messages. The bank manager. He needed to see me. Would I make an appointment and come in to see him as soon as possible? His tone of voice suggested it was a matter of some...

We don't like change.(Real life)(Viewpoint essay)
January 3, 2009... My Siciliana pizza arrived with three artichoke slices missing last night. Three artichoke slices, two anchovy fillets and a chunk of mozzarella missing to be precise. I know this because I am a creature of obsessional habits and when I get...

Mustn't grumble.(Bridge)(Viewpoint essay)(Brief article)
January 3, 2009... Playing rubber bridge at TGRs last week, my partner and I went down in a slam and started moaning about our bad luck. Our opponent, Paul Fletcher, who has a Jewish joke for every occasion, asked if we'd heard the one about the Jewish ladies who...

Not just for christmas: Matthew Dennison extols the virtues of a rare but distinguished breed.(STYLE)(Viewpoint essay)
January 3, 2009... I live with a supermodel--excessively fussy about diet and grooming. Sadly this gorgeous creature has four legs not two, and is a boy not a girl. He is a Pekingese dog and, five years ago, he was a birthday present from my wife. (She, too, of...

Bob slays.(CHESS)(Brief article)
January 3, 2009... Here are the solutions to the Bob Wade puzzles given in the pre-Christmas issue. In each of the positions Bob slew his victim with consummate brilliance and efficiency. Wade-Bennett; New Zealand 1942/1943 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Promises.(COMPETITION)(Poem)
January 3, 2009... In Competition No. 2576 you were invited to submit New Year's resolutions of well-known figures past and present. There can be no finer example to the goal-setting constituency than Jaspistos who, in his late forties though not necessarily...

1895: typical.(CROSSWORD)(Brief article)
January 3, 2009... The unclued lights (one of two words) are exemplified in Chambers 2008. Elsewhere, ignore one accent. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Solution to 1893: Urban tag [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The unclued Across lights are four CITIES, each...

My New Year advice to aspiring journalists: become accountants instead.(Viewpoint essay)
January 3, 2009... Like many people in the media, I'm bracing myself for an annus horribilis. I have multiple income streams--film, television, radio, books and journalism--and all have been decimated by the Credit Crunch. I'm not exaggerating when I say my...

Mind your language.
January 3, 2009... One of my Christmas presents was a book by the agreeable Dominican, Fr Timothy Radcliffe, called Why Go to Church? On page 61 I found the assertion that 'in Persian there is a word, nakhur, for a camel that will not give its milk unless its...

The wiki man: a fortnightly column on technology and the web.(Column)
January 3, 2009... I'd like to start 2009 with a few words of thanks to everyone who has joined the Spectator readers' lending team at www.kiva.org/team/spectator. So far we have lent money to over 100 small businesses in the developing world, a figure buoyed by...

Dear Mary.(YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED)
January 3, 2009... Dear Mary Q. I moved down from Scotland to London about two years ago with my family. When my husband is away or working late, I regularly have dinner with a (platonic) male friend who used to live near us up north. He now lives in north...

Heading for another fall.
January 10, 2009... Even with the sharp political mind of Peter Mandelson on his team, it is possible that Gordon Brown failed to foresee one political consequence of his scheme to borrow and spend his way out of the recession. How can the government complain...

Diary.
January 10, 2009... To Cornwall for New Year with a carload of children and a husband muttering, 'It will be cold, you know how you hate the cold.' I'm a glass-half-full kind of a person, and the prospect of a beautiful clifftop break was blotting out the weather...

Why Brown and Cameron are silent on the coming war with Iran.(POLITICS)(Gordon Brown and David Cameron)
January 10, 2009... Only when Tony Blair popped up on the airwaves did it become clear just how different it is this time. Israel is again at war--yet, unlike 2006 there are no MPs clamouring for Parliament to be recalled. There is no Prime Minister who regards...

The Spectator's notes.
January 10, 2009... Although television coverage of the Israeli attacks on Gaza is extensive, it is uninformative. The BBC, in particular its reporter Jeremy Bowen, seems to be in thrall to the images it can project. But, by its Charter, the BBC has a duty to...

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody.
January 10, 2009... Monday Mr Clarke on the phone again, v crabby. He says it's taking a lot of hours out of his day having to answer questions about the economy and can't we stop people calling him so he can get on with counting sparrows. 'At this rate the...

[Cartoon].(Cartoon)
January 10, 2009... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] AMAZINGLY, THESE ROCKETS CAN DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN MEMBERS OF HAMAS AND INNOCENT PALESTINIANS

The natural order of things: Matt Ridley says that Darwinian selection explains the appearance of seemingly 'designed' complexity throughout the world--not just in biology but in the economy, technology and the arts.(Viewpoint essay)
January 10, 2009... Charles Darwin, who was born 200 years ago next month, has spent the 150 years since he published The Origin of Species fighting for the idea of common descent. Though physically dead, he is still doing battle for the notion that chimps are...

Onward Christian Zionists: Rod Liddle on the crazed, quasi-fascist evangelicals in Britain and America who believe war in Gaza heralds the Second Coming of Christ.(LIDDLE BRITAIN)
January 10, 2009... It being the new year and all, I thought I'd introduce you to some new mentalists, just in case you're getting bored with the old mentalists. These new ones are the people watching the disquieting events unfold in Gaza with what might properly...

Moderate Arab states need Israel to succeed: Douglas Davis says that if Hamas holds out it will shift the balance of power in the Middle East further towards Iran and the radicals.(Viewpoint essay)
January 10, 2009... Pity the international diplomats. Hardly back from their Christmas break, they were plunged into yet another dizzying round of declamations and demarches over a fresh bout of Israeli misbehaviour, this time in Gaza. By midweek, diplomacy had...

Sellotape and string pants: with fuel prices rising and temperatures dropping, Robert Gore-Langton reveals his guide to surviving the winter on the cheap.
January 10, 2009... More than ever in the UK, fuel bills now resemble school fees and so, despite the bitter cold, few of us can afford full-on 24-hour heating. But, driven by desperation, I've been researching the matter and have discovered several ways of...

Withdrawal from heroin is a trivial matter: Theodore Dalrymple is outraged by the mollycoddling of drug addicts coming off heroin and the notion that their predicament is a matter of human rights.
January 10, 2009... We live in Keynesian times: the answer to the economic problems created by a mountain of debt frittered away on trifles is clearly a whole mountain range of debt frittered away on trifles. In the circumstances it is good to know that a judge...

A coherent story.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 10, 2009... Sir: Douglas Murray says ('Studying Islam made me an atheist', 3 January) that what killed the Bible was not Darwin but 'German biblical criticism... the scholarship on lost texts, discoveries of added-to texts and edited texts'. It's a pity...

Know your Notts.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 10, 2009... Sir: Richard Baker's robust defence of Nottingham (Letters, 3 January) would have been more effective if he had not wilfully misrepresented my article (City Life, 6 December). To maintain, as Mr Baker did, that the decline of the...

Life means life.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 10, 2009... Sir: Lucy Vickery (Competition, 3 January) likes the idea that Lord Mandelson's New Year resolution might be 'In due course I shall float the Lord Home precedent, but not yet'. Lord Home, however, was notoriously the 14th Earl, while Lord...

Vying with the neighbours.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 10, 2009... Sir: It was my lot for 20 years to write next to Jeff Bernard, Britain's greatest ear. Jeff would write about drunken pub chitchat and the reader felt as bored as if he were there, such was Bernard's ability to recreate the way people talk....

ID cards are attractive.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 10, 2009... Sir: It is nothing short of cynical scaremongering to claim identity cards will put vulnerable women and children at risk, as the No2ID advert does. It is a fact that the scheme will use security protections as good as some military...

Why do we feel so comfortable criticising Israel, but we never mention Hamas?(SHARED OPINION)
January 10, 2009... What are we to make of the disquieting information that Ehud Barak's favoured pastime, when not waging war, politicking or dressing as a woman, is the dismantling and reassembling of clocks? 'That's really creepy,' I said to the wife, when...

Are you sophisticated? Here's how to find out.(AND ANOTHER THING)
January 10, 2009... The word 'sophisticated', though commonly used, especially by persons who turn out on close investigation to be unsophisticated, is tricky, and truly sophisticated people avoid it altogether. Now, having got that off my chest, let us try to...

Restoring the Taj is just part of Tata's challenge: Richard Orange says rebuilding the terrorist-hit Mumbai hotel will be an easier task than steering Jaguar Land Rover and the steel group Corus through a deep recession.(BUSINESS)
January 10, 2009... As guests made their way out of the Taj hotel in Mumbai after spending New Year's Eve in its restaurants, many stopped to study a small memorial plaque erected to commemorate the 12 staff who died protecting guests from terrorists at the end of...

Not so fantastic.(The Natural History of Unicorns)(Book review)
January 10, 2009... THE NATURAL HISTORY OF UNICORNS by Chris Lavers Granta, 18.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 258, ISBN 9781847080622 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 'A long time ago, when the earth was green,/ There were more kinds of animals than...

Foreign friends.(From Bonbon to Cha-Cha)(Book review)
January 10, 2009... FROM BONBON TO CHA-CHA edited by Andrew Delahunty OUP, 10.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 426, ISBN 9780199543694 [phone] 8.79 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] On the...

The misery of an intellectual.(REBORN: SUSAN SONTAG, EARLY DIARIES, 1947-1964)(Book review)
January 10, 2009... REBORN: SUSAN SONTAG, EARLY DIARIES, 1947-1964 edited by David Rieff Hamish Hamilton, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 318, ISBN 9780241144312 [phone] 13.59 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655...

Squaring the Circle.(Poem)
January 10, 2009... SQUARING THE CIRCLE These London Squares: green thoughts in a grey mind, like ample zoo enclosures that help keep the animals sane. In Queen Square between Faber and the Homeopathic Hospital you did a weekly stint at,...

'The Leap from the Judas Tree'.(Stephen Chambers)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 10, 2009... Stephen Chambers by Andrew Lambirth Unicorn Press, 40 [pounds sterling], pp. 192, ISBN 9780906290941 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Of the same 1980s generation as Peter Doig and the Young British Artists (Damien Hirst, Tracey...

Was the Abdication necessary?(The Eagle and the Crown)(Book review)
January 10, 2009... THE EAGLE & THE CROWN by Frank Prochaska Yale, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 240, ISBN 9780300141955 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] At least one very startling claim emerges in this study: according to her own account, Wallis,...

Batman.(Poem)
January 10, 2009... BATMAN At the same secure gate, after the interview, I met you and your new retinue who, over drinks in The Rising Sun, explained things then needled us about Irish abortion, as private a matter as the lab ...

Getting the detail right.(LIFE & LETTERS)
January 10, 2009... Evelyn Waugh told Nancy Mitford he was 'surprised to find' that Proust 'was a mental defective. He has absolutely no sense of time.' (Joke, given the novel's title?) 'He can't remember anyone's age. In the same summer as Gilberte gives him a...

A pair of aces: William Cook talks to the creators of some of TV's funniest and best-loved comedy programmes.(ARTS)
January 10, 2009... As our economy disappears down the plughole, along with the reputations of most of our bankers and politicians, the one consolation is that entertainers like Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross suddenly seem terribly passe. When you're broke,...

Winter wonders.
January 10, 2009... Bruegel to Rubens: Masters of Flemish Painting The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, until 26 April If you felt deprived of snow this Christmas, hasten along to The Queen's Gallery, for there, in a splendid exhibition of Flemish painting...

Shakespeare it ain't.(The Cordelia Dream)(Theater review)
January 10, 2009... The Cordelia Dream Wilton's Music Hall Sunset Boulevard Comedy Marina Carr is a writer of enormous distinction which isn't quite the same as being a writer of enormous talent. She's been given chairs by so many universities...

Crowd pleaser.(Cecilia Bartoli)(Concert review)
January 10, 2009... Cecilia Bartoli Barbican Turandot Royal Opera House For this year's appearance at the Barbican, Cecilia Bartoli, ever exploratory in her repertoire, chose an evening of canzone, songs by composers and a few by singers of the...

Question time.(Slumdog Millionaire)(Movie review)
January 10, 2009... Slumdog Millionaire 15, Nationwide From the wonderful things I'd already heard about Danny Boyle's latest film Slumdog Millionaire I was fully poised to fall madly in love with it, and perhaps even run off with it although I would not have...

Recent loves.(Pop)
January 10, 2009... And so to the records of the year. I usually do this piece in December, but as all sensible shoppers know that's the worst month in the year to buy anything for yourself--particularly music, in what is very much a buyer's market. Amazon's...

Community living.(Radio)
January 10, 2009... Phew! Normal service has been resumed. No more panto; no more guest editors forcing Evan, Jim, Ed and Sarah into embarrassingly coy interviews with Karl Lagerfeld et al.; no more year-end reviews of the year behind and portentous glimpses of...

Quality treat.(Television)(The Diary of Anne Frank)(Television program review)
January 10, 2009... There are still some things that the BBC does incredibly well, and The Diary of Anne Frank (BBC1, Monday to Friday) was one. It's the licence fee that allows the corporation to take these risks, and next time the Murdoch press whinges about it,...

Something to smile about.(Motoring)(Product/service evaluation)
January 10, 2009... Eos is a word I struggled with, presuming it to derive from the Greek prefix, eo-, meaning dawn or beginning, particularly in relation to plant or animal life. Then I discovered Eos was goddess of the dawn, beloved by (rather too) many Titans,...

Interesting season.(High life)
January 10, 2009... When Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet committed suicide just before Christmas, I hoped against hope that others would do the same. No such luck. Villehuchet was an aristocrat, a gentleman and an honest man. He felt responsible for the loss of...

Suited and booted.(Low life)(Travel narrative)
January 10, 2009... It was minus four degrees, dampness hung in the air, and visibility was down to about 120 yards. As I drove up on to Dartmoor with fog lamps on, wipers going, and heater and blower at full blast, I didn't anticipate that this year's New Year's...

Love of the land.(Slow life)
January 10, 2009... There were four brothers. They'd just been left their uncle's farm in his will, a few dozen acres of Leicestershire. It was a fairly standard small-farm package. They'd all grown up with the place, working there through the summers: a red-brick...

Tight contest.(Bridge)(Brief article)
January 10, 2009... Only one letter separates autistic from artistic and only one IMP separated the outcome of this year's Gold Cup final. It was hard to believe that the very last board of a 64-board match was going to determine who won the Gold Cup title, but...

Spectator wine club.(Product/service evaluation)
January 10, 2009... Now is a good time to lay in wine. Merchants are selling off stock to raise capital; meanwhile they are nervously waiting for the grisly effects of the pound's recent fall. And while some growers on the Continent will cut their own prices in...