Spectator articles from March 2006

Spectator archives from March 2006

Policies, please.(David Cameron)
March 4, 2006... For a politician to invite the television cameras into his home is a risky business. An inexperienced Mrs Thatcher in 1975 merely had to open her larder to the nation to find herself accused of hoarding food. Tony Blair was criticised for the...

Portrait of the week.
March 4, 2006... Mrs Tessa Jowell, the Secretary of State for Culture, said that she had signed without asking any questions a form that her husband, Mr David Mills, used to gain a mortgage for a house, which he repaid a month later with an alleged bribe of...

Diary.
March 4, 2006... I was revolting from a very early age and more than once thought of taking over a radio station and starting a revolution. In those days the wireless exerted far more influence than the newspapers, at least in our house. I can still remember...

It's not just Tessa Jowell who is being investigated--it's the entire government.(POLITICS)
March 4, 2006... Sir Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet secretary, has been obliged to deal with a considerable volume of intricate business in the course of his brilliant Whitehall career. When he was John Major's press secretary in the mid-1990s Sir Gus was obliged...

The Spectator's notes.
March 4, 2006... Last week our local hunt met at a subscriber's farm. Because it was a weekday, the mounted field was small--half a dozen or so. As soon as they moved off, they were pursued by 31 masked men, many of them carrying fence posts. When three of the...

Down with the new morality: the public is not as enlightened as New Labour would like to believe, says Ross Clark, in this analysis of an exclusive Spectator/YouGov poll on sexual attitudes.(SEX AND SOCIETY)(Cover story)
March 4, 2006... It was John Major who came a cropper while trying to restore the nation's moral values: his 'back to basics' campaign was mocked to death before it had really got started. Yet Mr Major's attempt to influence the nation's morals was nothing...

Ruth and consequences: one of America's most celebrated 'sexologists' tells Harry Mount that there are some problems she will not advise on.(SEX AND SOCIETY)(Interview)
March 4, 2006... New York 'I tell them about pressure, foreplay... I introduce them to a vibrator but I tell them never to get too used to it. The penis can never duplicate the vibrations of a vibrator.' At 77, Dr Ruth Westheimer has still got the old...

Mind your language.
March 4, 2006... 'It is,' Tony Blair said, 'a word, I think, that members of the public readily know and understand and juries will understand.' He was talking about glorification. I suppose people know it when they see it, but they hardly use it. For the...

Anyone for chastity? Maybe not, but Piers Paul Read says that the refusal to tame our instincts is coarsening society and harming children.(SEX AND SOCIETY)
March 4, 2006... Of the precepts that have been abandoned in my lifetime, none has been junked with greater enthusiasm than chastity. Like the statues of Dzerzhinsky, Ceausescu or Saddam Hussein, it had come to symbolise a tyranny over our natural instincts...

A sad scene: Miles Douglas on the jealousy, ageism and sexual intrigue of gay men's lives.(SEX AND SOCIETY)(Column)
March 4, 2006... A few months ago I persuaded one of my oldest and best gay friends to invite his lively, articulate heterosexual neighbours to dinner. The meal was, as I had expected, a great success. Conversation was amusing, flowed naturally along with the...

Get a life, girls: why do middle-class mums go to the gym for pole-dancing classes? Because, says Ariel Levy, they have been conned by kitschy, slutty 'raunch culture'.(SEX AND SOCIETY)
March 4, 2006... Some version of a sexy, scantily clad temptress has been around through the ages, and there has always been a demand for smut. But whereas this was once a guilty pleasure on the margins--on the almost entirely male margins--now, strippers, porn...

A short visit to hell.(Column)
March 4, 2006... Several years ago, in another lifetime it seems, I played a porn star. In fact I played the Pornstar, in a fairly successful little two-hand play called The Dyke and the Pornstar. The piece gained a deserved reputation for being daring, risqut,...

Where have all the babies gone? Fraser Nelson on the long-term implications of Europe's falling birth rate.(SEX AND SOCIETY)
March 4, 2006... The last European will die on 6 August 2960. This, if you extend demographic trends far enough, is the grim official prognosis for our continent. We are rich enough and clever enough to have separated sex from childbearing and too busy for...

Ancient & modern.(SEX AND SOCIETY)
March 4, 2006... Last time we saw how closely the preparations to make Gordon Brown prime minister paralleled those to make Tiberius emperor (princeps, 'first man') in AD 14, after the death of the first Roman emperor Augustus. Still, the successor to an...

Why foreigners love us: Rod Liddle doesn't mean to give offence, but suggests that one of Britain's strongest appeals as a tourist destination is that our women put it about.(SEX AND SOCIETY)
March 4, 2006... An opinion poll of young European men recently asked which of the Continent's women they would most like to sleep with. Italian and French girls took the honours, but there was a strong showing from the Swedish ladies, which shows that a lot of...

Design fault: Bryan Appleyard says that the attempt to transcend human nature by tinkering with embryonic genes is doomed to failure.(SEX AND SOCIETY)
March 4, 2006... 'Designer babies' is headline shorthand for a weird new world of genetic enhancement. Thanks to several generations of science-fiction imagery, it evokes an unnatural and evil world of blond, staring, probably homicidal children, which scares...

Will Jordan be the new Palestine? Douglas Davis says that George W. Bush's drive for global democracy may hand the Hashemite kingdom over to Hamas.
March 4, 2006... If unintended consequences are the progeny of political activism, then the fate of King Abdullah of Jordan is a lesson to us all. The West's best friend in the Arab world is now the region's most vulnerable monarch. It was, after all,...

Genghis was a leftie.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 4, 2006... Sir: Paul Johnson demolishes the ludicrous expression 'to the fight of Genghis Khan' and wonders what the Mongol leader's true politics might have been (And another thing, 25 February). I'd have thought Genghis was a clear-cut leftie. His...

Make 'localism' a reality.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 4, 2006... Sir: Alasdair Palmer's piece ('Local villains', 25 February) regarding the unresponsiveness and intransigence of local authorities is, I am sure, wearily familiar to just about any reader. Like many others, his frustration and irritation is...

Trial by tabloid.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 4, 2006... Sir: Ross Clark's article about Sion Jenkins ('Trial by tabloid', 18 February) was a victory for common sense and reasoned journalism. The lack of reporting of the defence case and the heavy reporting of the prosecution case at every appeal and...

Schools mayhem.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 4, 2006... Sir: I cannot help but think that Boris Johnson is being disingenuous when he asks why selection is 'banned' in the state-maintained sector (Diary, 11 February). However, just in case his question is sincere, I will explain. The state education...

Trendy Ulster folk.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 4, 2006... Sir: Jane Kelly's fascinating article ('Out of tune', 25 February) highlighted the cultural alienation of immigrant communities. So she might be interested to know that many people in Ulster learn the songs of their cultural heritage through...

Plucky journalism.(Letter to the editor)
March 4, 2006... Sir: I couldn't agree more with the lady who says that the Telegraph is the perfect size to pluck pheasants on (Any other business, 18 February). It's ideal for trout, too, while the weekend sections accommodate the occasional salmon that comes...

The prince of start-ups is entitled to speak louder than any big-ego business knight.(ANY OTHER BUSINESS)
March 4, 2006... Every time Sir Alan Sugar fires a contestant on The Apprentice, the nation quivers in admiration; likewise whenever Sir Richard Branson launches another airborne publicity stunt. Serial entrepreneurs are accorded guru status, yet whenever...

In this age of uncertainty, the PR man is king--or, at least, king-in-waiting.(SHARED OPINION)
March 4, 2006... So Mark Bolland has definitively fallen out with his public-relations 'guru', the Prince of Wales. Many assume that it is the other way about, with Charles the prince, Mr Bolland the PR man. But the Charles-Bolland matter is proof of one of my...

Kindly write on only one side of the paper.(AND ANOTHER THING)
March 4, 2006... A scare article in the Guardian says that handwriting will soon disappear. Not so. In fact, in the last two years I have reverted to doing all my writing by hand as they no longer make the machines I like, and my eyes object to staring at a...

Doing nothing in particular very well.(Too Close to the Sun: The Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton )(Book review)
March 4, 2006... TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF DENYS FINCH HATTON by Sara Wheeler Jonathan Cape, 18.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 284, ISBN 9780224063804 [telephone] 15.19 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 'We are...

Faith, hope and charity.(Christianity and Social Service in Modern Britain: The Disinherited Spirit)(Book review)
March 4, 2006... CHRISTIANITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE IN MODERN BRITAIN: THE DISINHERITED SPIRIT by Frank Prochaska OUP, 35 [pounds sterling], pp. 216, ISBN 0199287929 [telephone] 28 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 The issues...

Putting bezazz into Bazaar.(A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life in Fashion, Art, and Letters)(Book review)
March 4, 2006... A DASH OF DARING by Penelope Rowlands Simon & Schuster, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 548, ISBN 0743480457 [telephone] 16 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 Carmel Snow, routinely called 'the legendary Mrs Snow'...

Benedictions and cliches.(Dear Room)(Book review)
March 4, 2006... DEAR ROOM by Hugo Williams Faber, 8.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 55, ISBN 0571230377 The poems of Hugo Williams used to puzzle me; they were so simple I couldn't make them out. Autobiographical, yes--nothing wrong with that, usually--but more...

Much possessed by death.(Mishima's Sword: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend)(Book review)
March 4, 2006... MISHIMA'S SWORD: TRAVELS IN SEARCH OF A SAMURAI LEGEND by Christopher Ross 4th Estate, 14.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 262, ISBN 9780007135080 [telephone] 11.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 On the 25...

Watching the human comedy unfold.(Nomad's Hotel )(Book review)
March 4, 2006... NOMAD'S HOTEL by Cees Nooteboom, translated by Ann Kelland Harvill/ Seeker, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 195, ISBN 1843431505 [telephone] 13.59 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 I remember once swimming in...

The country of Sir Walter.(The Buildings of Scotland: The Borders)(Book review)
March 4, 2006... THE BUILDINGS OF SCOTLAND: THE BORDERS by Kitty Cruft, John Dunbar and Richard Fawcett Yale, 29.95 [pounds sterling], pp. 841, ISBN 0300107021 [telephone] 23.95 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 Although the...

The resurgence of the puritan element.(God's Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad)(Book review)
March 4, 2006... GOD'S TERRORISTS by Charles Allen Little, Brown, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 349, ISBN 0316729973 [telephone] 16 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 The words 'fanatic' and 'Arabia' are placed together so often...

The outlaw they couldn't keep out.(John Wilkes: The Scandalous Father of Civil Liberty)(Book review)
March 4, 2006... JOHN WILKES by Arthur H. Cash Yale, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 482, ISBN 0300108710 [telephone] 16 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 John Wilkes was an unlikely icon--cross-eyed from birth and lumbered with a...

The fine art of appreciation.(Still Looking)(Book review)
March 4, 2006... STILL LOOKING by John Updike Hamish Hamilton, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 222, ISBN 0241143357 [telephone] 20 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 John Updike is, among one or two other things, a model art critic....

Lust for life.(Maggi Hambling: The Works and Conversations with Andrew Andrew Lambirth)(Book review)
March 4, 2006... MAGGI HAMBLING: THE WORKS AND CONVERSATIONS WITH ANDREW LAMBIRTH Unicorn Press, 40 [pounds sterling], pp. 240, ISBN 0906290848 I must declare an interest. At my solitary meeting with Maggi Hambling, she suddenly barked, 'Would you like to...

Cultural divides on CD.(The Siege of Krishnapur)(The Bookseller of Kabul)(A Castle in Spain)(Audiobook review)
March 4, 2006... The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell is one of those books that people keep rediscovering. You can't believe you have never come across it before (it was written in 1972) and when you have finished it, either by book or CD read by Tim...

Meditation for lent: Andrew Lambirth on Charlie Millar's pavement of resin casts in Canterbury Cathedral.(ARTS)
March 4, 2006... For Lent, the artist Charlie Millar (born 1965) has installed a pavement of 308 resin casts, like transparent bricks, arranged in a rectangle on the floor of the Eastern Crypt of Canterbury Cathedral. Millar casts these bricks himself,...

Rootstock of radicalism.(Exhibitions)
March 4, 2006... Starting at Zero: Black Mountain College 1933-57 Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, until 2 April Now You See It Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, until 7 May London is about to experience two exhibitions about early 20th-century Modernism....

Celebrating Shostakovich.(Music 1)(Concert review)
March 4, 2006... Although the 100th anniversary of Shostakovich's birth is still six months away, Manchester staged a six-week celebration in January and February encompassing all 15 of the symphonies and string quartets as well as some of the concertos and...

Mad days.(Music 2)(Column)
March 4, 2006... Music festivals, like any public undertaking to do with 'art', put their planners on their mettle. As much creative thought can go into the format and the specially conceived theme of such things as into the concerts themselves. It is as if the...

Exploding myths.(Gardens)
March 4, 2006... I have been talking tosh. Well, not entire tosh, but certainly substantial dollops of wishful thinking and airy, groundless supposition. I have come to this conclusion after reading a book by a plant scientist called Ken Thompson. However, it...

Personal priorities.(Syriana )(Movie review)
March 4, 2006... Syriana 15, selected cinemas 'Syriana' is 'a term used by Washington think-tanks to describe a hypothetical reshaping of the Middle East', according to this film's director. As the title of his film, he uses the word to describe a concept:...

Heavy-handed symbolism.(The Cut )(Theater review)
March 4, 2006... The Cut Donmar The Exonerated Riverside Studios Steptoe and Son Comedy There's a scene in The Cut, a new play by Mark Ravenhill, that is so dull I came within a whisker of walking out. It occurs about halfway through and involves...

Series of distractions.(Macbeth )(Theater review)
March 4, 2006... Macbeth Royal Opera La Boheme Royal Albert Hall Verdi's Macbeth is one of those operas which I always have hopes will be greater than it ever actually seems in performance. Its seriousness of intention is plain from the outset, and by...

Healthy appetites.(Olden but golden)(Column)
March 4, 2006... There's nothing like a medical--or, as it is now known, an 'executive health check'--to make you feel painfully aware of your own mortality. As Leonard Cohen mournfully observed on his splendid album I'm Your Man, 'I ache in the places...

Post-Stalin fear.(Radio)(The Speech that Shook the Kremlin)(Radio program review)
March 4, 2006... There was a gripping account of Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech denouncing Stalin in 1956 in The Speech that Shook the Kremlin on Radio Four last week (Friday), told by the presenter Tim Whewell like a thriller. It was 60 years ago in...

Rural rides.(Television)(The Ban & The Bounder)(Television program review)
March 4, 2006... Important stuff first: can the chap with the farm address in Shropshire who very kindly said he'd let me have his hunt coats and boots for a modest sum please get in touch again on Jamesdel@dircon.co.uk? My email has been playing up something...

Doing time.(High life)(David Irving)
March 4, 2006... The telephone rang rather early, and when I picked it up an English male voice said, 'Hello, Taki, this is David Irving...' He was ringing from the Vienna pokey, just after his conviction, and we had a brief chat. Having been in such a...

Don't look now.(Low life)(Venice)
March 4, 2006... My boy didn't want to go to Venice. His in-built cant detector, these days becoming more finely tuned with every passing day, had alerted him to the possibility that Venice was going to be educational. 'Why Venice?' he said tetchily, as we got...

Off with her head.(Bridge)
March 4, 2006... People who don't know anything else about history at least know that Henry VIII made a habit of discarding his queens. In life, this is no doubt reprehensible; in bridge, however, it can be a very useful manoeuvre. Usually, when you discard an...

Restaurants.
March 4, 2006... Is it just me, or does everyone have a bit of a problem warming to Gary Rhodes? I know, I know, all celebrity chefs have their annoying shortcomings: Jamie's wet lips; Nigella's sloppy eating habits (sucking her fingers, juices dribbling down...

Hot property.(Cricklewood)
March 4, 2006... Perhaps it's the association with The Goodies and with Dennis Nilsen, serial killer, but people are reluctant to admit that they live in Cricklewood. 'Wel, it's sort of on the Hampstead border,' they mutter sheepishly, when quizzed on their new...

Spectator mini-bar offer.
March 4, 2006... Private Cellar is a new company specialising in delightful, unusual, out-of-the-way wines of quality. We ran a mini-bar offer with them last year, and it went extremely well, as it should, because the wines were delicious. This one is called...

Hot cross bunnies.(CHESS)
March 4, 2006... In chess jargon a rabbit is a weak player. The emperor Napoleon was a rabbit at chess. We suspect this from contemporary accounts. Since the late 18th century, when Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen, Aulic Councillor to the imperial court of Vienna,...

Clerihews.(COMPETITION)
March 4, 2006... In Competition No. 2432 you were asked for double or treble clerihews. It was E.C. Bentley's son Nicholas who invented the double clerihew, and treble ones have been recorded. You were in pioneer country. A clerihew, as I see it, deals...

1754: pals.(CROSSWORD)
March 4, 2006... Unclued lights are of a kind; one is hyphened. Each of 14 definitions has one letter missing; these letters spell out two items of the same kind as the unclued lights. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A first prize of 30 [pounds sterling] for...

Solution to 1751: potter's wheel.(CROSSWORD)
March 4, 2006... Circuit lights are works for television written by Dennis Potter. First prize: K.J. Williams, Kings Worthy, Winchester, Hampshire Runners-up: Shirley Curran, Carnforth, Lancashire; Brian G. Midgley, Ettington, Warwickshire ...

European blues.(SPECTATOR SPORT)(soccer)
March 4, 2006... Treats all round next week if the second-leg matches in football's Champions League are as compelling as the first. Chelsea and Rangers, each playing in Spain, are at serious risk of elimination, but Liverpool and Arsenal should be in the hat...

Dear Mary.(YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED)
March 4, 2006... Q. I deeply fancy someone in my office who sits near me. Our exchanges have always been businesslike and I doubt she has noticed my interest. The other women I work with appear to find me congenial and we socialise outside the office although...

Whose schools are they anyway? The principles at stake in this month's votes are as important as the Bill itself is disappointing.
March 11, 2006... As so often, Norman Tebbit has a point. 'Three of my grandchildren have gone to grammar schools, as I did,' he told the Observer recently. 'Now it looks as if we are going to cut off that route in the interest of something probably called...

Diary of a notting hill nobody.
March 11, 2006... THURSDAY Only my third day, and I must say that it isn't so easy being a Tory press officer in the AD era--that's After Dave (My joke!). People may think it's all frappaccinos and solar panels at Victoria Street but the reality is pretty...

Diary.(Diary entry)
March 11, 2006... Los Angeles When I boarded the plane for Los Angeles in New York last Friday to attend the Vanity Fair Oscar party, as well as several others, the beautiful Uma Thurman was just ahead of me, looking every inch the star (she is, after all,...

Jowell's torment is a gift from the gods to Gordon Brown.(POLITICS)
March 11, 2006... There has been an iron rule at Westminster since New Labour won power nine years ago. When Brown is strong Blair is weak, and vice versa. Imagine a seesaw. This weekend Brown is up, feet dangling in the air, smirking. The Chancellor is the big...

The Spectator's notes.(David Mills)
March 11, 2006... As so often with people in public life, the career of David Mills is beyond satire. If an anti-Blair left-wing playwright invented him, critics would accuse him of improbability. Mr Mills seems to have done almost everything which traditional...

This is all about Don Tony: and it's personal, not business: Matthew d'Ancona says that the Jowell Affair has revealed the loneliness of New Labour's once-omnipotent Godfather, as the Cameron and Brown families prepare for their own bloody turf war when he is gone.
March 11, 2006... One evening at dinner with Tessa Jowell and David Mills, Tony Blair spotted an unsightly paint stain outside their Kentish Town house. The Culture Secretary explained that antiwar protesters had discovered her address, and had poured out the...

Mind your language.
March 11, 2006... 'The government are entitled to pry into our bedrooms'--there is nothing wrong with that. 'The government is entitled to pry into our bedrooms'--there is nothing wrong with that either. In British English (as opposed to American English)...

Cameron is the Tory Muhammad Ali: Irwin Stelzer gives his ringside scorecard on the young contender versus Gordon 'Tax 'em' Brown.(David Cameron)
March 11, 2006... The fight is on. In the blue corner painted green for this event, is Dave 'Kid' Cameron. His seconds are John Redwood, advising him to lead with his right, and Zac Goldsmith, urging him to lead with his left, but not so violently as to affect...

David Davis: loyal, but not tamed: as David Cameron completes his first 100 days, the man he defeated for the leadership gives his first interview to Fraser Nelson--and foresees policy battles to come.(Interview)
March 11, 2006... As I wait for David Davis in the corner of his huge House of Commons office, it's easy to forget that he was the loser of the Conservative party's leadership race. Aides nervously shuttle in and out, taking notes as he plans the day like a...

Ancient & modern.
March 11, 2006... Alastair Campbell was called upon in the last 'Ancient & modern' to conjure up some means by which his new chum Gordon Brown might appear less obviously panting to take over from Tony Blair. Claudius (emperor AD 41-55) offers a possibility. In...

300,000 Frenchmen can't be wrong: Allister Heath says that the US consulate in Paris is being besieged by people wanting visas to the land of the free--and all because of a typically French industrial dispute.
March 11, 2006... It is easy to spot the US consulate on the rue Saint-Florentin, in the Ist arrondissement of Paris, by the lengthy queues of surly faces lining up to beg for a visa to travel to the Land of the Free. Astonishingly for a country where...

Eurosceptics against the nation state: David Rennie uncovers the cruel paradox that to save the single market sceptics must support the European Commission.
March 11, 2006... Brussels For years, Eurosceptics in Britain have waited for the European Union to lose popular support. They watched the ancient nations of Europe shambling towards ever closer union, and thought: this cannot last. One day a compelling...

Let's remember Ronnie by knocking down his shop: Matthew Norman says that Ronnie Barker's memory will be best served by the destruction of Arkwright's store from 'Open All Hours'.
March 11, 2006... It is perhaps the least pertinent sign of the fin de siecle fatigue enveloping it that not a peep has yet been heard from No. 10 on the vexing matter of Arkwright's Corner Shop. In that happier era when Mr Tony Blair railed against the wrongful...

Medicine and letters.(Dr David Cooper)
March 11, 2006... Though I say it myself, who perhaps should not, doctors make very good writers. They are usually down to earth, not a quality always found among the highly educated. They are the ultimate participant-observers of life; and a little literary...

Why I hate British films: Rod Liddle says he refuses to be patriotic about our posturing, second-rate film industry.
March 11, 2006... It was Colin Welland who first uttered those terrible words 'The British are coming!' at an Oscar ceremony, back in 1982--clutching his gold-plated statuette in his northern paw and grinning from beneath his deeply northern moustache. Colin had...

Sayonara, Pilks--we're short of owners with their hearts in the business.(CITY AND SUBURBAN)(Company overview)
March 11, 2006... A sprig of the Pilkington family was saying goodbye to his hosts. 'I've an early start,' he explained. 'I've got to be at the bloody glassworks in the morning.' When he arrived, he found that the chairman, Sir Harry Pilkington, was there before...

What sells wins.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 11, 2006... From Peggy Hatfield Sir: How exciting and unusual to see people in the media advising sexual restraint ('Anyone for chastity?', 4 March)! As Piers Paul Read reminds us, our culture is up to its eyeballs in sex--in films and also on the...

Falling birth rates good.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 11, 2006... From Nick Reeves Sir: It's high time that governments weaned themselves off the myth, put about by certain economists, that a large population is good and that a declining population is bad ('Where have all the babies gone?', 4 March)....

Ghastly British men.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 11, 2006... From David Whitby Sir: Rod Liddle ('Why foreigners love us', 4 March) must realise that the accommodating nature of British girls, from the visitors' point of view, is in response to the woeful standard of British men. Given what's on...

Catch the voters young.(Letter to the editor)
March 11, 2006... From Ferdinand Mount Sir: I am not in the least surprised that apprehensive commentators like Charles Moore should recoil from the Power Commission's proposal to lower the voting age to 16 (The Spectator's Notes, 4 March). They were almost...

Jordanians love their king.(Letter to the editor)
March 11, 2006... From Sir Kenneth Warren Having just returned from Jordan, I am bewildered by Douglas Davis's article on that country's future ('Will Jordan be the new Palestine?', 4 March). He is hot on political theory, but ignores completely the...

Who owned our churches?(Letter to the editor)
March 11, 2006... From Susan Wood Sir: Matthew Parris's modest proposal (Another Voice, 25 February) is based on a false premise. Rome never had 'ownership and control of the Church's fixed assets', nor was the Church as a whole or in England ever a...

Don't mock the prince's 'black spider': it could save the albatross.(ANOTHER VOICE)
March 11, 2006... Briefly last week the nation chortled over its cornflakes at newspaper headlines about the 'black spider', and reports of letters to ministers from the Prince of Wales, and pictures of letters from ministers to the Prince of Wales heavily...