Spectator articles from June 2005

Spectator archives from June 2005

Portrait of the week.(politics)
June 4, 2005... Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, on holiday in Italy, called for 'time for reflection' after the French referendum's rejection of the proposed European constitution. 'What emerges so strongly from the French referendum campaign,' he said, 'is...

A new Europe.(Editorial)
June 4, 2005... This magazine has a good record of opposing the centralising treaties of the EU. Alone in the media, The Spectator came out in 1985 against the Single European Act, which marked the first big expansion of the qualified majority vote. With a...

Diary.(Column)
June 4, 2005... Am I losing my puissance or has something gone disastrously awry with the nation's young women? It used to be at this time of year--just as the sun started to shine and the first green Nob of plum showed itself upon the twig--that they put away...

What's 'nasty' about the Tory party? Nothing--except the modernisers.(POLITICS)
June 4, 2005... There is a weirdness about the Conservative predicament. The Conservative party has won all the great intellectual and political battles of the last quarter-century. It has defined--and continues to define--the public argument over the role of...

The Spectator's notes.
June 4, 2005... I wish I could share the widespread joy at the great European 'No'. Yes, the word 'No' is good. Yes, I feel the normal human pleasure at the discomfiture of the politicians. I have enjoyed seeing Peter Mandelson trying to worm round the result...

Now for the British revolution: Anthony Browne says the French model has failed. Britain must now show the way forward--and save the European Union by her example.(Cover Story)
June 4, 2005... Brussels You might feel safe reading your Spectator, confident that you will die in a bed, but I can reveal that yet another world war is about to break out across Europe, that genocide is stalking the land, and Islamist terrorists are...

The Blairs.(Cartoon)
June 4, 2005... I'D HATE TO BE AS UNPOPULAR AS CHIRAC I SUGGEST YOU STAND DOWN THEN [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

A landslide in the Midi: Frank Johnson on how (and why) they voted in his part of rural France.
June 4, 2005... Dept d'Herault Our TGV, slipping through La France Profonde from Lille to Montpelier three days before the referendum, would now end its journey earlier, at Nimes, the intercom told us: unspecified faults on the line. Midi Libre's headline...

The counsel of Trent: Damian Thompson says that the new Pope wants to promote the Latin Mass--and radical purification.
June 4, 2005... Benedict XVI is the first pope in history to have gone about his daily life as a Catholic priest wearing a collar and tie. In this country, the practice is almost unknown; in Europe, it is the mark of a liberal theologian. But the other day the...

Reading for pleasure: Olivia Stewart-Liberty finds that the British Library is buzzing with sexual tension.
June 4, 2005... The first time I went to the British Library, I was waiting to collect my reader's card in the foyer beside a lightly tinkling fountain, when a short fat man ambled over. 'Hi,' he said. 'I'm Leon.' He dipped a finger into the round pool of...

Mind your language.(Shop Horror)(Book Review)
June 4, 2005... I have been enjoying in a way a book my husband gave me for my birthday called Shop Horror (Fourth Estate, 10 [pounds sterling]). This compilation by Guy Swillingham of colour photographs of the 'best of the worst in British shop names' shares...

The worst of both worlds: Ross Clark says that the government's PFI deals allow private companies to prosper at the public's expense.
June 4, 2005... Imagine you are a left-leaning Guardian reader with a social conscience. You are not a communist, but your attitude towards private enterprise is less one of enthusiasm than grudging tolerance. If we are going to let private companies run...

Thabo's tantrum: Rod Liddle is amazed that the South African President should take offence at Gordon Brown's efforts to help Africa.
June 4, 2005... Does our Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, think that black people are inherently sexually depraved? I have to tell you that the HM Treasury press office has yet to come back to me on this vital question. I think that they are stalling...

Mexican wave: Peter Brimelow says that immigration is out of control in the United States.
June 4, 2005... Washington, Connecticut If you read the conservative press in the United States--which in effect means the neoconservative press--you will find a lot of despairing talk about the damage immigration is doing to Europe. What you are unlikely...

ID charade.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
June 4, 2005... From John Hunter Sir: You seem to believe that Conservatives have spent the last four years 'standing up for local and national democracy, and against the tendency of the government to centralise power' (Leading article, 28 May). But...

Not from nowhere.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
June 4, 2005... From Neil Glanfield Sir: Martin Vander Weyer's article ('Stagnant Britain', 28 May) on declining social mobility might have been even more powerful if he had known a little more about Jamie Oliver's origins. He states that 'most of Jamie's...

End of a 'panacea'.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
June 4, 2005... From Denis Mollison Sir: There is a good reason why Andrew Kenny ('Which kills more: ideology or religion?', 28 May) has 'not heard one word of pity or regret from any green organisation about the vast loss of human life caused by the ban...

Malice of Ali.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
June 4, 2005... From Claus von Bulow Sir: Geoffrey Wheatcroft's recollections of Alistair Forbes (Books, 28 May) gave many examples of this great raconteur's courage in biting every grand hand which fed him. But no finger was too small for Ali's nibble....

Episcopal contrasts.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
June 4, 2005... From Timothy O'Sullivan Sir: In later life Cardinal Hume regretted choosing the cloister over training for mortal combat in 1941 (Books, 28 May). He would tell anybody who cared to ask that he did so in the naive expectation that as a monk...

A burger to read.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
June 4, 2005... From Wynn Wheldon Sir: I'm afraid I must take exception to Lloyd Evans's defence of The Da Vinci Code (Arts, 28 May). While Dan Brown may well be smarter and better informed than Mr Evans and me, and undoubtedly very much richer, The Da...

Clarke's your man.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
June 4, 2005... From David Meikle Sir: I often find myself in agreement with Charles Moore, but we diverge when it comes to his views on the Conservative party (The Spectator's Notes, 28 May). Moore disapproves of Kenneth Clarke, saying that if he became...

A biased system.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
June 4, 2005... From John Maloney Sir: Your editorial of 21 May says the Tories must fight street by street with the Boundaries Commission to eliminate Labour's rotten boroughs. I'm sure they are already doing so. But in the end the commissioners work on...

Painterly pique.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
June 4, 2005... From Dr J.W. Millar Sir: I enjoyed Michael Prodger's article on George Stubbs's magnificent equestrian portrait of 'Hambletonian Rubbing Down' (Arts, 14 May). As a child I often visited Mount Stewart and saw the original painting...

Tasty trees.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
June 4, 2005... From Martin Kidd Sir: I was amused by Nigel Farndale's piece (Diary, 28 May) concerning the disposal of his Christmas tree. Here in Berlin everything is recycled and nothing wasted, including Christmas trees. For a few days after...

It's an overdue jolt for Europe's tram on the line to ever-closer union.(CITY AND SUBURBAN)
June 4, 2005... There has to be a first time for everything, and now the French have taken my advice. 'Allez France', so I urged them last week, 'votez Non, votez souvent'--and they did. Offered Europe's new constitution on a plate with lettuce round it, they...

When coughing drowns the parson's saw.(AND ANOTHER THING)
June 4, 2005... Farewell, the merry, merry month of May. Most of it, in my case, was taken up in catching a cold, feeling it concrete-up my nose, torch and lacerate my throat, twist and file down my bronchial tubes until they performed a fiendish symphony of...

Putting the ghosts to rest.(Book Review)
June 4, 2005... MAO: THE UNKNOWN STORY by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday Cape, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 814 ISBN 0224071262 [telephone] 23 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 In 1976, the year of Mao's death, I went back to...

Birds in the hand.(Book Review)
June 4, 2005... THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ALLEN LANE by Jeremy Lewis Penguin/Viking, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 484, ISBN 0670914851 PENGUIN BY DESIGN by Phil Baines Penguin/Allen Lane, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 255, ISBN 0713998393 [telephone] 14.99 [pounds...

Brillo boxes and marble nudes.(Book Review)
June 4, 2005... WHAT GOOD ARE THE ARTS? by John Carey Faber, 12.99, [pounds sterling] pp. 298, ISBN 0571226027 [telephone] 11.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 Professor John Carey is at his most acerbic, combative and...

Jazzing up the Wilson years.(Book Review)
June 4, 2005... ENOUGH IS ENOUGH by Mark Lawson Picador, 16.99, [pounds sterling] pp. 371, ISBN 0330438034 [telephone] 14.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 Sex, as Philip Larkin famously told us, began in 1963: but it did...

On the scent of the rose.(Book Review)
June 4, 2005... THE TUDOR HOUSE AND GARDEN by Paula Henderson Yale University Press, 38, [pounds sterling] pp. 288 ISBN 0300106874 [telephone] 38 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 THE GARDENS AT HAMPTON COURT PALACE by Todd...

When men were blokes.
June 4, 2005... HEROES + VILLAINS photographs by David Steen Genesis, 150 [pounds sterling] (regular edition), 250 [pounds sterling] (deluxe leather edition, signed by Roger Moore) ISBN 00104351939 www.genesis-publications.com or tel: 01483 540970 Ever...

Lost in translation: Henrietta Bredin on the prevalence and pitfalls of opera surtitles.(ARTS)
June 4, 2005... They're here to stay. There is no longer any point in discussing whether or not opera performances in languages other than English should have surtitles. Everyone's doing it now. So, if they're here whether we like them or not (and it has...

'How various he is'.(Joshua Reynolds)
June 4, 2005... Joshua Reynolds: The Creation of Celebrity Tate Britain, until 18 September The first question: why isn't this Reynolds show at the Royal Academy, of which Sir Joshua was so famously the founding father? The short answer is that the RA...

Rare Tallis.(Music)
June 4, 2005... In thinking about Tallis in this his anniversary year, I have come to realise that performances of even his most famous works are so rare that we are still at the pioneering stage with most of his output. The culture of performing him is so...

Exquisite torture.(Olden but golden)(Column)
June 4, 2005... Consulting my records, as Dr Watson used to say, I find that it was in June 2003 that I first wrote here about the iPod. My former colleague Caspar, now editing the Observer's excellent monthly music magazine, produced the elegant little box of...

Rossini subdued.(La Cenerentola; La Clemenza di Tito)(Opera Review)
June 4, 2005... La Cenerentola Glyndebourne La Clemenza di Tito St John's Smith Square Glyndebourne began in what is now the traditional manner: high winds and driving rain. This year there was the further discouragement of being kept out of the...

Choreographic kaleidoscopes.(Dance Review)
June 4, 2005... Rambert Dance Company Sadler's Wells Theatre At first, the idea of a dance work based on Albert Einstein's theories, including the relativity one, might be puzzling. Yet Mark Baldwin's Constant Speed is a winner. The Rambert Dance Company...

Pleasures denied.(Theater of Blood; Hedda Gabler; Some Girls)(Theater Review)
June 4, 2005... Theatre of Blood Lyttelton Hedda Gabler Duke of York's Some Girls Gielgud Well, it wasn't quite the theatrical event of the year I was expecting. Theatre of Blood is an adaptation of the 1973 cult film in which a disgruntled actor...

Philosophical consolations.(Believe What You Will)(Theater Review)
June 4, 2005... Believe What You Will Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon At Stratford's Other Place, the RSC is putting on an excellent new play by David Grieg in which a wounded American pilot spends the entire evening in manacled misery on the floor. In...

Dictators' legacies.(Radio)
June 4, 2005... The propaganda myths surrounding Mao Tse-tung have been exposed this week with the publication of a biography, Mao: The Unknown Story, by Jung Chang, the author of the bestselling Wild Swans. It emerges that one of the few non-mythic aspects of...

Glimmer of hope.(Television)(Ladette To Lady )(Television Program Review)
June 4, 2005... To be honest, I haven't been watching an awful lot of TV lately. It gets in the way of bedtime reading and an early night. You think you're safe watching a programme at 9 p.m., which is when all the best ones are on, but that means you can't...

Woody and Mike.(High life)
June 4, 2005... New York Robert Wood Johnson IV is the billionaire owner of the New York Jets, an American football team which plays in New Jersey, as its crosstown rivals, the New York Giants, also do. Big Bagel real estate is much too expensive to waste...

Onwards and downwards.(Low life)(Column)
June 4, 2005... I was running on the treadmill in the gym in the new custom-built trainers I'd bought in Oxford Street. I'd popped my foot on a sensor, the assistant had pressed a button, and my feet had been measured to the nearest half-millimetre from every...

Under pressure.(Bridge)
June 4, 2005... MOST bridge players find there's a huge gulf between what they know and what they can put into practice. Solving problems in the comfort of one's home is one thing; playing in a real game, with all the pressures and distractions which that...

Spectator mini-bar offer.
June 4, 2005... If you've never been there, get yourself to Waddesdon Manor, the vast French chateau in one of the loveliest parts of Buckinghamshire built by Ferdinand Rothschild as his weekend place. Here, surrounded by more rare and beautiful objects than...

Paradoxical.(CHESS)
June 4, 2005... A few weeks ago I left you with the tantalising position where the hypermodern grandmaster Nimzowitsch suddenly energised his attack and went on to win with the unlikely-looking retreat Nh1. This week I pick up the thread and explain why the...

House rules.(COMPETITION)
June 4, 2005... In Competition No. 2394 you were invited to supply a rhymed poem offering four parental vetoes on children's behaviour, followed by four juvenile vetoes on parental behaviour. Exhausted and sleepless, back two days late due to botched air...

1717: Xena.(CROSSWORD)
June 4, 2005... The unclued lights are connected by a theme. Half the clues are normal; the other half each contain a definition and a hidden consecutive jumble of the light including one extra letter. These extra letters in clue order give the unchecked/...

A mountain to Clive.(SPECTATOR SPORT)(rugby)
June 4, 2005... The rarity of a British Lions rugby tour (England, Wales, Scotland and all-Ireland combined as one) makes it so resonant, so keenly anticipated. They kick off today against a Bay of Plenty XV in Rotorua, whiffily sulphurous hot-springsville....

Dear Mary.(YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED)
June 4, 2005... Q. Two friends of mine would be great as a couple but despite having often sat next to each other at dinner, and even been out to dinner alone together at least three times, nothing has happened. I can tell that they fancy each other but both...

Portrait of the week.
June 11, 2005... Mr Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, speaking in the Commons about the promised Bill to hold a referendum on the European constitution, said, 'Until the consequences of France and the Netherlands being unable to ratify the Treaty are...

Subsidising tyrants.(Live 8)
June 11, 2005... A bunch of ageing rockers belting out their old hits for the supposed benefit of Africa's poor (not to mention the hope of reviving fading careers) is such a tempting target for parody and scorn that it would be easy to dismiss Bob Geldof's...

Diary.
June 11, 2005... You don't have to love the budget airlines to find them useful for travelling in Europe. Since I belatedly discovered them Eve become a habitue and fly to and from Italy several times a year. At first it was from Stansted to Rome Ciampino which...

The remarkable hostility of George W. Bush towards Gordon Brown.(POLITICS)
June 11, 2005... The biggest point about last month's general election was not really that New Labour won, but that democracy lost. The low turnout, debased calibre of debate and half-hearted result amounted as much to a repudiation of politicians as an...

The Spectator's notes.
June 11, 2005... It is proverbial that the British press is disgusting and contemptible, but would we ever have got ourselves into the extraordinary situation of our Continental counterparts? In France, no national newspaper, except for the Communist...

You can't bank on the euro: no common currency has succeeded without a single government: Martin Vander Weyer on the growing likelihood that the euro will fail.(Cover Story)
June 11, 2005... All sorts of revealing things have been said in recent days about the survival chances of the euro. Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, declared that talk of disintegration was 'complete nonsense', as crazy as the...

The Blairs.(Cartoon)
June 11, 2005... BUDDY CAN YOU SPARE A DIME! BREAK A LEG HONEY! GEE WIZ! AND I THOUGHT SHE WAS GONNA TALK ABOUT EUROPE! WOW SHE WAS BORN IN A TRUNK! SHE'S A HOOFER! O MY GOD! IT'S ETHEL MERMAN! [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The law can't stop hate; Le Monde has just been found guilty of defamation against the Jewish people, but, says Melanie Phillips, the courts are no place to handle European anti-Semitism.
June 11, 2005... Since the intensification of the Palestinian jihad five years ago, Britain and Europe have been convulsed by an eruption of virulent anti-Jewish hatred based on the systematic lies, libels and demonisation directed at Israel by the media and...

Mind your language.
June 11, 2005... Have you noticed,' asked Kim Fletcher, a man, at a party to launch his brilliant new Journalist's Handbook, 'how people say testament when they mean testimony?' I couldn't quite say I had, yet a nagging feeling in my brain suggested he was on...

The whingers of Oz: Eric Ellis on the weeping, xenophobic hysteria in Australia over the conviction of Schapelle Corby for smuggling drugs into Indonesia.
June 11, 2005... Schapelle Corby, the 27-year-old daughter of a fish-and-chip shop proprietress from Queensland, is not your usual Australian heroine. She is a drug smuggler, and was last month sentenced by a court in Indonesia to 20 years in prison. Back home,...

The evil that men do; fear of witchcraft can lead to great barbarity, as we have just seen. But, says Theo Hobson, it is not barbaric to believe in demonic possession.
June 11, 2005... Some forms of religion are intolerable. When an eight-year-old girl is accused of witchcraft by her fundamentalist Christian aunt, and is tortured by the aunt and others, the limits of religious tolerance are clear. But we should be...

Power to the African people: Julian Morris says that aid and 'climate control' will make poverty perpetual.
June 11, 2005... Nairobi can get quite chilly in July. Barely 50 miles from the equator, its 5,200ft elevation means that night temperatures sometimes drop to 50[degrees]F. As the G8 leaders meet in Gleneagles next month to discuss 'Africa and Climate Change',...

Good value.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
June 11, 2005... From David Conway Sir: Ross Clark says that NHS Trusts are 'stuffed with local worthies drawing generous salaries and pensions'. I object. Like all other non-executive directors of NHS Trusts, I received last year just over 6,500 [pounds...

Welcome to America.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
June 11, 2005... From Nick C. Flynn Sir: Come on, you guys ('Now for the British revolution', 4 June). Tell the EU to take a hike. You know you really want to. Face it, your relationship with the EU isn't going to get any better with the passage of time....

Insult to injury.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
June 11, 2005... From Jeffrey D. Sachs Sir: Tim Congdon has now matched his ill-informed review of my book with an even more preposterous and rude letter (21 May). Congdon persists in claiming that malaria was 'coming under control' in British-ruled Africa...

A settled debt.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
June 11, 2005... From Robert Triggs Sir: I should like to pay tribute to the far-reaching influence of the letters page in The Spectator. In the edition of 29 January this year I drew attention to an outstanding debt of 3 [pounds sterling] incurred against...

Hoover's blond wig.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
June 11, 2005... From Anthony Summers Sir: Gwynplaine MacIntyre writes (Letters, 21 May) that my biography of J. Edgar Hoover, Official and Confidential, contained the 'outright lie' that the FBI director was a transvestite. He refers--as if it stood...

Toilet trouble.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
June 11, 2005... From Sir Ludovic Kennedy Sir: With regard to 'toilets' (The Spectator's Notes, 4 June), it depends entirely on whom one is talking to. To Charles Moore, for instance, I would employ the diminutive 'loo' and hope he would reciprocate. But...

June in the Pyrenees is as close to perfection as I ever expect to get.(ANOTHER VOICE)
June 11, 2005... Canigou is more than a mountain. They speak of the Pic de Canigou, Mont Canigou and the Massif de Canigou. A landmark for more than 50 miles around and visible from much of south-west France, from the Spanish Costa Brava and from far out to...

When Wittgenstein and Hitler were whistling schoolboys together.(AND ANOTHER THING)
June 11, 2005... I cherish scraps of personal information about great men. At the age of ten, and using only bits of metal discarded as useless, Ludwig Wittgenstein built a working sewing machine. I classify this achievement as even more remarkable than writing...

His hopes on the shelf, the PM discovers the dangers of making history poverty.(CITY AND SUBURBAN)
June 11, 2005... The Prime Minister likes the idea of making poverty history. It gives him the chance to forget about Europe and think about Africa. Bob Geldof and his band can know that the lead singer of Ugly Rumours will be with them in the spirit, and so...

The way ahead.(INVESTIGATION)
June 11, 2005... So what is the point of the Tory party? What does it stand for? Where is it going? We at The Spectator decided to ignore any petty skirmishing that may be taking place at Westminster between any putative leadership contenders, and to think long...

The creepiness of Peter Pan.(Book Review)
June 11, 2005... HIDE AND SEEK WITH ANGELS: A LIFE OF J. M. BARRIE by Lisa Chaney Hutchinson, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 402, ISBN 0091795397 [telephone] 18 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 KENSINGTON GARDENS...

A disenchanted warrior.(Rules of Engagement: A Life in Conflict)(Book Review)
June 11, 2005... RULES OF ENGAGEMENT: A LIFE OF CONFLICT by Tim Collins Headline, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 406, ISBN 0755313747 [telephone] 18 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 Tim Collins won instant fame for...

A death greatly exaggerated.(The Collapse of Globalism: And the Reinvention of the World)(Book Review)
June 11, 2005... THE COLLAPSE OF GLOBALISM AND THE REINVENTION OF THE WORLD by John Ralston Saul Atlantic Books, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 309, ISBN 1843544083 [telephone] 14.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848...

Wearing heavy boots lightly.(Book Review)
June 11, 2005... EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE by Jonathan Safran Foer Hamish Hamilton, 14.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 320, ISBN 024114213X [telephone] 12.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 'I used to be...

The good gang of four.(Book Review)
June 11, 2005... THE STORY OF GENERAL DANN AND MARA'S DAUGHTER, GRIOT AND THE SNOW DOG by Doris Lessing Fourth Estate, 15.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 282, ISBN 0007152809 [telephone] 13.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800...

The first great bourgeois victory.(Book Review)
June 11, 2005... MEN OF HONOUR: TRAFALGAR AND THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH HERO by Adam Nicolson HarperCollins, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 341, ISBN 0007192096 [telephone] 14.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 ...

Damsels in distress.(Fat Girl : A True Story)(Book Review)
June 11, 2005... FAT GIRL: A TRUE STORY by Judith Moore Profile, 2.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 106, ISBN 1861979860 [telephone] 11.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 NOT A GAMES PERSON by Julie Myerson ...

Judging the Man Booker International Prize.
June 11, 2005... Compared to literary competitions, Paris had it easy. Instructed by Zeus to judge who, among rich Hera, wise Athena and beautiful Aphrodite, was the fairest, Paris only had to follow the competition's instructions and reward Aphrodite for the...

Singing for fun: Ariane Bankes on how two schools are collaborating on a new music drama.(ARTS)
June 11, 2005... IS community singing almost a thing of the past? When church attendance was high there was a weekly chance to sing your heart out to the familiar hymns and psalms, and for most children there was daily school assembly with a wheezy and...

Crowd control.(Exhibitions)
June 11, 2005... Summer Exhibition Royal Academy, until 1.5 August 'Times have changed,' I was told by one disgruntled Academician. Once the members were guaranteed to have their work hung 'on the line' (i.e., in pride of place at eye-level), and...

Draughtsman of genius.(Architecture)
June 11, 2005... C. R. Cockerell RA (1788-1863) The Professor's Dream is the title of a small exhibition (until 25 September) in the Tennant Room at the Royal Academy, a relatively new space that links with the John Madejski Fine Rooms, formerly the piano...