Spectator articles from May 2004

Spectator archives from May 2004

Portrait of the week.(Dodgy dealer)
May 1, 2004... Fifty-two former ambassadors, high commissioners and governors criticised Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, for supporting an American policy in Iraq that was 'doomed to failure'. 'The conduct of the war in Iraq has made it clear that there...

Rogue mail.
May 1, 2004... Putting The Spectator together in a week of postal difficulties is always an awkward task because we can never be quite sure when our subscribers are going to get to read the magazine. We can't be certain that by the time it drops on to your...

Diary.
May 1, 2004... Washington Not since Randolph Churchill's The Fight for the Tory Leadership has any book of political reportage caused as much of a stir on either side of the Atlantic as Bob Woodward's latest bestseller Plan of Attack. In the last few days I...

Blair is already thinking about when to go: summer might be a good time.(Politics)
May 1, 2004... Everyone knows that moment in the Bugs Bunny cartoons when the rabbit dashes over the cliff. For a few moments the creature remains aloft, suspended in space, little legs busily pumping away. Then he makes the mistake of looking down, realises...

The spectator's notes.
May 1, 2004... As soon as I read that 52 former diplomats had written to the Prime Minister to express dismay at his policies in the Middle East, I shouted out '364 economists!' In March 1981, following Geoffrey Howe's Budget, 364 economists wrote to the...

How Islam has killed multiculturalism: Rod Liddle says that Blair's great U-turn on immigration has placed the Labour party to the right of Ray Honeyford--the man once vilified as a racist.(Cover Story)
May 1, 2004... Do you have a core of Britishness within you? Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality is anxious for us all to have one, even if we are not quite sure what it is. Trevor reckons he has one, at any rate. Perhaps it...

The Blairs.
May 1, 2004... [ILLUSTRATION OMMITTED] Caption: It's not fair! no body else gets their post delivered on time! but I do!

Not many bucks for our bangs: Tony Blair may be George Bush's most reliable comrade in the war on terror, but, says Andrew Gilligan, British firms aren't getting much reconstruction work in Iraq.
May 1, 2004... Down at the New Connaught Rooms in London's Covent Garden, the anti-war movement is making a heart-warming return to truly over-the-top form. 'Twenty suited "executives" wearing pig masks will gorge themselves in a trough of blood-stained...

Second Opinion.
May 1, 2004... Marriage, like slavery, is a peculiar institution, and these days more and more people are avoiding it. It is hard enough for two human beings to associate closely, let alone to promise to do so for the rest of their lives. The glory and misery...

Mind your language.
May 1, 2004... Well, the Poles are in the European Union, and very welcome they are too as far as I'm concerned. Already Tesco and Carrefour are flogging the poor things centrally distributed comestibles with sell-by dates on them. From my archives (a...

My great escape: David Hargreaves says that running away from school was one of the best things he ever did.
May 1, 2004... Thirty years ago this month I ran away from school. I was not quite 15 and had been at boarding school for over five years by the time I left. A turbulent puberty and a delayed recognition that years of searing unhappiness were damaging...

The lies of the land: forget Dame Shirley Porter, says Theodore Dalrymple. If it's real scandal you are after, consider the millions wasted as a result of public service corruption.
May 1, 2004... Dame Shirley Porter is the unacceptable face of corruption, a rich woman taken in gerrymandering (had she started off poor, no one would have minded). But though the sum of money she was initially required to pay Westminster Council in...

The triumph of Tesco: Deborah Ross joins her mother on a trip down the aisles of Britain's favourite food chain.
May 1, 2004... when I was growing up, my mother always went to Sainsbury's, the Sainsbury's on Ballards Lane, Finchley. I must have accompanied her sometimes because I can remember the marble counters, the rotating saw of the ham-slicer, turned by hand, and,...

Thatcher bounces back: on the eve of the 25th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher's 1979 general election triumph, Simon Heifer says the Iron Lady has a new spring in her step.
May 1, 2004... In her 79th year, widowed after a long and happy marriage, and having endured indifferent health, Lady Thatcher might seem to some to have become vulnerable, damaged and a target for pity. Certainly, a spiteful profile of her in a Sunday...

Globophobia.
May 1, 2004... Ten new members join the European Union on Saturday and thousands of economic migrants are queueing up at the borders, raring to go. I refer, of course, to Western European property investors hoping in make a killing on property markets in the...

Iraq is not worth the life of a single British private.(Shared Opinion)
May 1, 2004... Mr Blair's Iraq war seems to be becoming more and more unpopular among British voters, especially among the only ones who now tend to vote: the middle classes who switched from the Conservatives to Mr Blair and ensured his two landslides. Yet...

The first Whig the Devil? Then who was the first Tory?(And Another Thing)
May 1, 2004... The great reaper toils on. Of the dozen or so ushers at my wedding in 1957 only two are left. But they are going strong. Hugh Thomas has just produced a superb book on the origins of the Spanish empire, and now comes Peregrine Worsthorne's...

The BBC of print.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... From Stephanie Lawson and Rupert Read Sir: It is an indictment of the pitiful state of our 'democracy' that Britain's future role in Europe should depend on the whim of one egregious Australian-born businessman ('The man who calls the...

Parris: right and wrong.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... From Dominic Lawson Sir: Matthew Parris in his otherwise excellent article on the hypocrisy of the so-called alternative medicine industry (Another voice, 24 April) claims that the Sunday Telegraph has been making its 'usual song and dance...

Torture warrants.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... From Alan Dershowitz Sir: Paul Robinson's purported description of my views on torture are a complete fabrication, as anyone actually reading my extensive body of writing on this subject can attest ('Extremism in the defence of liberty',...

The dying West.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... From Phil Wyness Sir: Mark Steyn is right to point out that 'the West, as a... demographic fact, is dying', but it will not be George Bush who proves its saviour ('Only Bush can save Europe', 24 April). The West needs saving from itself....

Shawcross's 'satire'.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... From Rod Liddle Sir: A majority of readers, I suspect, will view the argument that Iraq is better off as a result of our invasion because fewer Iraqis are dying as a result of sanctions as the argument of a thug or an idiot. Even the...

Death of a Fakir.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... From Paul Johnson Sir: In a recent article (And another thing, 17 April) I raised the question, 'What happened to the notorious Fakir of Ipi?' One of your readers, late of the South Warzistan Scouts, tells me that the Fakir, whose real...

Iraqi democracy curtailed.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... From William Bourne Sir: My brother, as the Governorate Coordinator for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Dhi Qar province, was responsible for authorising the local elections orgauised by Adrian Weale (Letters, 24 April). His reward...

Unfair to Lady T.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... From Professor Antony Flew Sir: Bruce Anderson in his welcome to 'the Tories' revolutionary new educational policy' is unfair to Margaret Thatcher ('Passport to Eton', 24 April). Certainly 'she turned more grammar schools into...

Bad luck with cabs.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... From Susan Goodsir Sir: Petronella Wyatt (Singular life, 3 April) and her mother seem to have been unfortunate in their taxi drivers. I am the driver of a black London cab. I am not fat, lazy or careless, and nor are any of my colleagues....

Museum fever.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... From Charles Clarke Sir: Tiffany Jenkins's criticism of educational projects in museums is misguided, (Arts, 10 April). We are not seeking to 'direct and assess... museums'. Museums are inspiring spaces that should be appreciated and...

Why did No. 10 ignore the CIA's advice that the 45-minute claim was nonsense?(Media Studies)
May 1, 2004... Bob Woodward of Watergate fame has just published an account of the background to the Iraq war called Plan of Attack. It has attracted a good deal of publicity in this country, particularly for its assertion, which has not been denied, that...

The neocon's imperial burden.(Collosus: The Rise And Fall Of The American Empire)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... COLOSSUS: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE by Niall Ferguson Allen Lane, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 384, ISBN 0713997702 'They can't like us a whole lot,' was the report of one American soldier. 'If we came into a village there was...

The mating game in Manhattan.(Bergdorf Blondes)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... BERGDORF BLONDES by Plum Sykes Miramax Books, 10 [pounds sterling], pp. 320, ISBN 1401351964 A Publishing friend arrived with an armful of new books as a cadeau maison. I have to confess I picked up Plum Sykes's Bergdorf Blondes with a...

The Distinguished Thing: to whom it may concern.(Brief Article)(Poem)
May 1, 2004... The Distinguished Thing to whom it may concern Henry James, dying, Greeted death thus: Here it is, the distinguished thing. A lesson for us. Be prepared, keep Your wit in good nick. Life may be cheap But polish the rhetoric. Never...

Annus mirabilis, annus horribilis.(1968: The Year That Rocked The World)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... 1968: THE YEAR THAT ROCKED THE WORLD by Mark Kurlansky Cape, 17.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 441, ISBN 0224062514 Authors often puff up their subjects because their books have been long and arduous in the writing, but Mark Kurlansky is right...

Decline and fall of a Russian hero.(A Hero's Daughter)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... A HERO'S DAUGHTER by Andrei Makine Sceptre, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 163, ISBN 0340751274 It was only by a hoax that Andrei Makine came to be published. He was seen, he says, as 'some funny little Russian who thought he could write in...

Summer of 2003.(Brief Article)(Poem)
May 1, 2004... Summer of 2003 Hearing Jack's saxophone and Will's guitar This June evening, almost the longest day So that up there a single star Dissolves in distant sunlight, there's delay--If only for an instant--of the end I must reach. In this...

Jumping for joy.(The Fox In The Cupboard)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... THE FOX IN THE CUPBOARD by Jane Shilling Viking, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 339, ISBN 0670912913 Jane Shilling is a Times journalist and single parent who lives in Greenwich with her 12-year-old son. One day, for no particular reason,...

The crushing burden of proof.(The Unknown God: Agnostic Essays)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... THE UNKNOWN GOD: AGNOSTIC ESSAYS by Anthony Kenny Continuum, 14.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 222, ISBN 0826473032 Anthony Kenny does not believe in the existence of God, but his disbelief is qualified and complex. He does not believe that the...

Dirty hands with green fingers.(A Little History Of British Gardening)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... A LITTLE HISTORY OF BRITISH GARDENING by Jenny Uglow Chatto & Windus, 15.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 342, ISBN 0701169281 The unpretentious title of this excellent, delicious book is clever. Does it mean 'a modicum of garden history' or, in a...

Not with a bang but a whimper.(London 1945: Life In The Debris Of War)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... LONDON 1945: LIFE IN THE DEBRIS OF WAR by Maureen Waller John Murray, 20, pp. 512 [pounds sterling], ISBN 0719566002 A thoroughly battered London was forced to endure, at the beginning of 1945, not only a winter cold enough to freeze Big...

Following in Lucy's footsteps: Henrietta Bredin on how today's Grand Tourists try to penetrate the real heart of a city.(Arts)
May 1, 2004... Miss Lavish darted under the archway of the white bullocks, and she stopped, and she cried: 'A smell! A true Florentine smell! Every city, let me teach you, has its own smell.' 'Is it a very nice smell?' said Lucy, who had inherited from her...

Watercolour winners.(Exhibitions 1)
May 1, 2004... Coal may have been the foundation of Newcastle's fortunes, but its Laing Art Gallery--100 this year--was founded on sand. The sand, carried as ballast by returning coalers, supplied the city's glassmaking industry, which in turn supplied the...

Radiating negativity.(Exhibitions 2)
May 1, 2004... Raoul de Keyser; Edge of the Real Whitechapel Art Gallery, until 23 May Why did Raoul de Keyser (born 1930) give up his first career as an art writer and sports columnist to become an artist? What supreme folly possessed him? But perhaps...

A study in frustration.(Opera)(Opera Review)
May 1, 2004... II Tabarro; Love's Luggage Lost Opera North The Haunted Manor; King Roger Polish National Opera Do you fancy having an early supper and then going to a short opera? Or what about going to a short opera and getting home early, alternatively...

Allergic reaction.(Theatre 1)(Cyrano de Bergerac at the Olivier)(Oleanna at the Garrick)(Democracy at Wyndham's)(Theater Review)
May 1, 2004... Cyrano de Bergerac Olivier Oleanna Garrick Democracy Wyndham's The nose has a prominent literary history--whether it's as a barometer for lies in Pinocchio, a suggestively protruding organ in the works of Rabelais, or a powerful detective...

Golden reward.(Theatre 2)(The Doe in the Manger at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon)(Theater Review)
May 1, 2004... The Doe in the Manger Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon Welcome to the Golden Age of Spanish drama. Even if the names of Shakespeare's near-contemporaries Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina and Calderon are not unknown, their plays are...

Intriguing drama.(Dance)(Anastasia)(Dance Review)
May 1, 2004... Anastasia The Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House The 1972 ballet Anastasia is one of the most intriguing expressions of Kenneth MacMillan's narrative abilities and, more particularly, of his still unparalleled use of different...

Polyphony in Belfast.(Music)
May 1, 2004... The longed-for regeneration of Belfast may not yet have come to fullest fruition--and it may not be hitting the headlines like other initiatives in Kosovo, Kabul and Basra--but the signs are there for everyone to see. The Europa Hotel (aka 'the...

Exploring abroad.(Gardens)
May 1, 2004... British gardens look the way they do for a number of impressively diverse reasons: politics, fashion, culture, society, creative energy, geology and climate. These imperatives, when connected, have produced one of the great glories of our...

Bitter and twisted.(Television)
May 1, 2004... With each new day, I become more and more twisted with rancour, regret and self-hatred over my continuing failure to make something of my life. I used to think that being a hugely witty and original writer would be enough to see me through, but...

Strange revolution.(Radio)
May 1, 2004... It's 30 years since the almost bloodless revolution in Portugal that overthrew the Caetano regime. You don't often hear anything about that period, but Radio Four marked it last week with the first in a series called Unfinished Business...

Meeting Ron.(High life)
May 1, 2004... New York The scene is Tramp, about ten years ago. There's Johnny Gold, the genial host of the second-longest-running nightclub in London history, Mark Shand, the English lothario, writer, elephant-rider as well as the future Queen...

Private pleasures.(Low life)
May 1, 2004... My boy's maternal grandfather, a retired farm labourer, loves his food. Almost his entire conversation is about what he are in the past and what he is going to eat in the future. The remainder is about the general consistency of the waste...

Celebrity culprits.
May 1, 2004... I think we should institute two new annual awards. The first would be entitled 'The most infuriating non-Brit in London' prize. There are an embarrassment of candidates. Mad mullahs, would-be suicide bombers, Madonna, who has reinvented herself...

The natural.(Bridge)
May 1, 2004... I READ recently about a group of British soldiers in the second world war who played bridge in a Japanese war camp: it helped them to endure the horrors. Even that wasn't possible for the young Czech-born Martin Hoffman. He was a prisoner in...

Forgotten success.(Chess)
May 1, 2004... 2004 is the year of Tigran Petrosian, as ordained by Fide, the World Chess Federation. During his lifetime Petrosian was not appreciated as much as he is now and his reputation is certainly on the up. A fine team player, his results in this...

Arrivederci, Ranieri.(Spectator Sport)
May 1, 2004... The immediate future in Europe looks none too rosy for English soccer. In next week's decisive semi-finals of both the Champions' League and the Uefa Cup, Chelsea and Newcastle need to play thunderously well against French opposition to reach...

Dear Mary.(Your Problems Solve)
May 1, 2004... Q. My parents, sister and in-laws are all devout Roman Catholics. I myself was raised a Catholic but have been an atheist for over 20 years, a fact of which all my family are aware. Naturally our family life involves attending numerous RC...

Portrait of the week.
May 8, 2004... Labour published a summary of its achievements, under the title Britain is Working. Mr Tony Blair celebrated the seventh anniversary of his becoming prime minister even more quietly than Lady Thatcher celebrated the 25th anniversary of her...

Now for Turkey.
May 8, 2004... Romano Prodi conducts himself like a bolshie and narrow-minded innkeeper, who simply cannot be bothered to find room beneath his roof for the many people waiting outside who need shelter. The President of the European Commission announced last...

Diary.
May 8, 2004... My granddaughter was christened at the Brompton Oratory on Saturday. Although the day was muggy and storms had been forecast, I am sorry to say that there was no thunder and lightening. Like Hector Berlioz recalling the circumstances of his...

Tories at Westminster are filled with optimism, much of it misplaced.(Politics)
May 8, 2004... There is a substantial monograph to he written on the relationship between the Prime Minister and Margaret Thatcher. It began with abject, one-sided adoration. Colleagues recall Tony Blair, as a youngish MP, meeting Thatcher. They say it was...

The Spectator's notes.
May 8, 2004... Since accusations of racism are so often a way of unfairly discrediting an opponent, I tend to be very sceptical of them, but I cannot avoid feeling that anti-Semitism is in the air. The form it commonly takes at present was expressed in the...

'Female soldier' ought to be an oxymoron: Bruce Anderson says that the scandalous events of the past week show that the Arabs can take brutality--but not from American women.(Cover Story)
May 8, 2004... Anyone who wants to understand the peoples of Arabia and the surrounding regions ought to start with Wilfred Thesiger's Arabian Sands. He was writing about the late 1940s and, as be knew, the world which he described was about to vanish. This...

The Blairs.(Cartoon)
May 8, 2004... I LET HIM IN BECAUSE HE SAYS HE CAN RUN THE COUNTRY BETTER THAN TONY BLAIR [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Mind your language.
May 8, 2004... 'Yes, the post never comes till two now,' said my husband, thereby demonstrating that he hadn't been listening to what I'd been saying, and by implication that what I had been saying was boring. So then I read out something to make him laugh,...

Worse than Vietnam: the war has descended into chaos, says Julian Manyon. And whereas in Vietnam there was strong local support for the Americans, there is none in Iraq.
May 8, 2004... Baghdad As Iraq burns, Paul Bremer's men remain inventive. Faced with the problem of getting their positive message out from behind the blast walls and barbed wire which surround the Coalition headquarters in Baghdad, they have resorted to...

Women know their place: Rachel Johnson says that--irony, irony--a new version of The Stepford Wives is being released at a time when women are once again baking cherry pies and standing by their men.
May 8, 2004... Over the next few weeks, I predict, the weekend supplements will be frothing with halter-neck frocks and wide-brimmed floppy hats, all in a sweet palette of sugared-almond colours. It's not the start to the so-called 'Season', though it will...

The gods that failed: Peter Hitchens says that both Left and Right felt unspeakably smug during the years of protest. But now that communism and apartheid have collapsed, the world is hardly a better place.
May 8, 2004... I have just made a Channel 4 documentary criticising Nelson Mandela. Since people like me are not usually allowed to present TV programmes at all, I suspect I got the job mainly because nobody else wanted to do it. Radicals may like to fool...

Globophobia: a weekly survey of world restrictions on freedom and free trade.
May 8, 2004... The European Union's social chapter has been so successful in suppressing economic growth in Europe that it is no surprise to find the US presidential candidate John Kerry seeking to emulate it. Not that he intends to saddle American businesses...

They have ways of making you shut up: Daniel Hannan on how the police seized the computer and files of a German journalist for the 'crime' of investigating an EU financial scandal.
May 8, 2004... Brussels Tony Blair's referendum announcement has understandably crowded other European stories off the news pages. But, now that we know we shall have the chance to vote, it is worth standing back and considering how the EU actually...

More nanny, less tax: the burger classes are costing us a fortune in health charges, says Toby Church. It would save money if the state were to whip them into shape.
May 8, 2004... The nanny state is about to show its frowning brow in the shape of a public health white paper in the summer. The government may make it more awkward for us to eat, drink and smoke ourselves to an early grave. Libertarians should be shuddering...

The fight has gone out of the peace movement: Lloyd Evans examines the rhetoric of the anti-war poets and playwrights and finds that the voice of dissent has faded into torpor and complacency.
May 8, 2004... Poetry and conflict are as old as each other. From war springs suffering and from suffering song. Fourteen months after the invasion of Iraq, the ancient association is as vibrant as ever. According to the Guardian, an anthology entitled 100...

Job of the week.
May 8, 2004... Head of Complaints Healthcare Commission Salary: up to 85,000 [pounds sterling] (more may be available for an exceptional candidate Responsible for the handling of up to 5,000 complaints annually, the Head of Complaints will help create and...

Spectator mini-bar offer.
May 8, 2004... In May our thoughts turn to southern France in summer: roasting heat relieved by light breezes across the dry and herby land. Cicadas are chirping, tiny lizards scuttle across the baking hot stones into ancient wood crevices, and cracked church...

If those Mirror pictures are fakes, Piers Morgan will have to resign.(Media Studies)
May 8, 2004... Are the Daily Mirror's torture pictures fakes? Most of my friends, whether anti-war or pro-war, think that they probably are. Such is my own inclination. But let us for a moment try to see things from the point of view of Piers Morgan, the...

Torture is wrong.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 8, 2004... From Guy Herbert Sir: Alan Dershowitz's own views (Letters, 1 May) are scarier than those attributed to him by Paul Robinson. Professor Dershowitz appears to be saying that torture is wrong, but that the state should adopt, approve and...

The case for war.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 8, 2004... From Nigel Famdale Sir: Frank Johnson, in his otherwise astute article on Iraq, argues that only the Left believes in going to war against horrible regimes that do not threaten British national interest (Shared opinion, 1 May). I would...

Prescott's elastic belt.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 8, 2004... From John Hayes MP Sir: John Prescott, in his prickly response to Rod Liddle (Letters, 10 April), repeats the government's standard defence of its unpleasant neglect of England's landscape--we have protected 'valuable green space. In fact...

My lambasted Latin.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 8, 2004... From Peter Knight Sir: I was sorry to read of your contributor Harry Mount's apprehension that he might not remember sufficient Latin to satisfy the Oxford examiners (Letters, 24 April). This must surely reflect badly on his early tutors....

Unfair to vitamins.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 8, 2004... From Christopher Booker Sir: With respect to my editor, Dominic Lawson, I fear that both he and Matthew Parris are missing the point of vitamin supplements and herbal remedies (Letters, 1 May). They are perfectly entitled to share their...

Osmosing to Britishness.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 8, 2004... From Stephen Mendes Sir: David Lovibond is wrong to claim that 'the burgeoning ethnic minorities cleave to their languages, dress, way of life and, most importantly, their religions' ('The Real Racists', 10 April). The original immigrant...

Wile E., not Bugs.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 8, 2004... From Paul Stock Sir: Peter Oborne is mistaken (Politics, 1 May). It is Wile E. Coyote who always succumbs to the force of gravity, not Bugs Bunny. Wile is a much more apposite model for Tony Blair--always concocting over-elaborate traps...

Diminishing to us all.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 8, 2004... Front Joan Adamson Sir: Ross Clark (Globophobia, 17 April) asks whether the descendants of African slaves bringing lawsuits against Lloyd's of London and others would rather be 'plodding around in a grass skirt in West Africa' than living...

In praise of MEPs.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 8, 2004... From Dermot Scott Sir: Your leading article ('It's about democracy', 24 April) wrongly suggests that MEPs 'do not have the direct power to reject legislation that is enjoyed by their counterparts at Westminster'. The European Parliament in...

A tragic history.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 8, 2004... From Robert Duffield Sir: Jeremy Clarke's boy's maternal grandfather's belief that keeping goats tends to make people either cynical or pugnacious certainly has ancient roots (Low life, 1 May). The word 'tragedy' is derived from the Greek...