Spectator articles from May 2006

Spectator archives from May 2006

System? What system?(immigration)
May 6, 2006... The foreign prisoners scandal has revealed nothing less than a crisis of governance: the fundamental incapacity of what ministers feebly call 'the system' to respond to a series of urgent contemporary problems. This is a modern disaster in the...

DIARY.
May 6, 2006... Third-world airports are more satisfactory than ours in every department. They are more efficiently run. There is no need to walk several miles to your departure gate. They tend not to be disgustingly overcrowded like Heathrow or Gatwick....

The idea that Brown's succession will save Labour is pure fiction.
May 6, 2006... When the last Conservative government sacrificed its reputation for competence, it was at least for a worthy cause. On Black Wednesday, British monetary policy was rescued from what was to become the eurozone after John Major's government lost...

THE SPECTATOR'S NOTES.
May 6, 2006... As I write, no one knows what the result of the local elections will be, but it seems safe to predict that the turnout will not be high. Politically minded people tend to worry about low turnout because they find it hard to understand that...

DIARY OF A NOTTING HILL NOBODY.
May 6, 2006... THURSDAY The government is in 'meltdown' and we are marking the occasion with lots of glacier jokes (Steve not amused) and by gazing at our collective navel. Much argument about who should 'be in the lead', and whether letting prisoners out is...

Blessed are the spin doctors.(Jack Valero)(Interview)
May 6, 2006... Rome In the run-up to the release of the film of The Da Vinci Code on 19 May the communications director for the UK branch of Opus Dei, a bundle of nervous energy even in calmer times, can hardly contain himself. 'This is going to be the most...

Opus Dei is scary because it's so normal.
May 6, 2006... After three hours with Opus Dei women at Ashwell House in east London I wandered west, half-stunned, like a cat hit by a car. At Oxford Circus the usual loons were saving souls: 'Repent now, turn to God!' from a woman on the south side. From a...

Immigration, Iraq and oil:a bitter brew for Bush.
May 6, 2006... Don't look to polling data to get an idea of what is going on in the minds of Americans. Only 29 per cent of Americans say they are satisfied 'with the way things are going in the United States at this time'. Yet 85 per cent are satisfied with...

The future of Europe will be decided by tomatoes.
May 6, 2006... Ioannina, Greece Like a penitent sinner, or an addict entering recovery, the European Union has developed a fondness for confessing it has lost the public's confidence. Among EU leaders and top Eurocrats, there is much talk of...

The real disgrace is a fit of bogus morality about Prescott.
May 6, 2006... I spent Bank Holiday Monday trying to find out everything I could about Jo Knowsley, for your benefit. I didn't find out very much. Certain questions, crucial to the public interest, remain unanswered - so I will have to speculate about them...

Expel foreign crooks? No, we're far too nice.
May 6, 2006... Political defenders of Charles Clarke insist it's unreasonable to expect ministers to be acquainted with 'every nook and cranny' of the department they are responsible for, especially one as cumbrous as his. It's hardly his fault, they...

Prepare for coalition.(Letter to the editor)
May 6, 2006... From William MacDougall Sir: I hope Fraser Nelson is mistaken in his talk of a 'Lib Dem Test' for Tory policies ('Cameron's secret plan', 29 April). Of course the party should not be frightened of coalition; after all, it has been in coalition...

PC Beeb.(Letter to the editor)
May 6, 2006... From Colin Broughton Sir: Rod Liddle is right in suggesting that the fiction of the BBC's impartiality should be addressed by more openness ('BBC staff's views should be open', 29 April). The bias of the BBC is far from 'gentle'. On...

Fascists are socialists.(Letter to the editor)
May 6, 2006... From Frederick Forsyth Sir: Lord Tebbit (Letters, 29 April) is quite right to rebuke idle journalism which relentlessly repeats untruths instead of analysing the meaning of the words and phrases it uses. It is a matter of record, not opinion,...

Lions and donkeys.(Letter to the editor)
May 6, 2006... From Sir Simon Day Sir: I was most interested by the article by Lord Ashcroft to mark the 150th anniversary of the Victoria Cross ('Conspicuous bravery celebrated', 22 April), as I too have had a lifelong fascination with this great award. ...

Freudian quip.(Letter to the editor)
May 6, 2006... From William Oddie Sir: Roger Scruton ('An unhappy birthday to Sigmund the Fraud', 29 April) could have quoted G.K. Chesterton, who prophetically warned against most of the heresies of the last century, and also saw through Freud in much the...

Little Americans.(Letter to the editor)
May 6, 2006... From Steve Spurrell Sir: Allow me to clear up Jason Boatright's misunderstanding about the 'strange criticisms' Europeans so often make of Americans (Letters, 22 April). There is far more to experience around the world than there is in any one...

Still alive.(Letter to the editor)
May 6, 2006... From Timothy Williams Sir: Frederic Raphael writes: 'Papon was tried and condemned for war crimes only as an old man, in the late 1990s, and died in prison' (Books, 29 April). Maurice Papon is still alive; he was released from jail on 18...

My fantasy Cabinet would be a ministry of all the failures.(Column)
May 6, 2006... Most of us know what it is to finish a task undertaken for the first time, having made every mistake in the book, and regret we are unlikely ever to have to do this job again. We would know the ropes next time: the pitfalls, the useful...

Galbraith versus Friedman: the great debate is not over yet.
May 6, 2006... I would love to have been a fly on the wall - or a butler - at the US embassy in New Delhi in March 1963 when Milton Friedman, champion of laissez-faire, came to lunch with J.K. Galbraith, high priest of higher welfare spending and at that...

Looking back in judgment.(John Osborne: A Patriot for Us)(Book review)
May 6, 2006... JOHN OSBORNE : A PATRIOT FOR US by John Heilpern Chatto, [pounds sterling]25, pp. 528, ISBN 0701167807 . [pounds sterling]20 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 The heart starts to sink on the very first page, p. xiii to be...

Wives and wallpaper.(A Much Married Man )(Book review)
May 6, 2006... A MUCH MARRIED MAN by Nicholas Coleridge Orion, [pounds sterling]12.99, pp. 464, ISBN 075285254X . [pounds sterling]10.39 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Anyone baffled by the conundrum of what to read on the beach this...

Captain of a dreadful crew.(Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism )(Book review)
May 6, 2006... BLACK SHIRT : SIR OSWALD MOSLEY AND BRITISH FASCISM by Stephen Dorril Viking, [pounds sterling]30, pp. 717, ISBN 0670869996 . [pounds sterling]24 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 To meet Oswald Mosley was a most unpleasant...

Genesis.
May 6, 2006... Sitting at the window shelling peas into a battered colander between my knees (sweet, pod-swollen peas of early May) till suddenly I find I've slipped away sixty years and vividly recall rough stone on bare legs astride a wall swinging...

No reason to pull down the statue.(Blood, Sweat and Arrogance)(Churchill's Secret Weapons)(Book review)
May 6, 2006... BLOOD, SWEAT AND ARROGANCE by Gordon Corrigan Weidenfeld, [pounds sterling]20, pp. 495, ISBN 029784623X . [pounds sterling]16 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 CHURCHILL'S SECRET WEAPONS by Patrick Delaforce Pen & Sword,...

A philosopher rescued from politicians.(Adam Smith and the Pursuit of Perfect Liberty )(Book review)
May 6, 2006... ADAM SMITH AND THE PURSUIT OF PERFECT LIBERTY by James Buchan Profile, [pounds sterling]14.99, pp. 198, ISBN 1861979053 . [pounds sterling]11.99 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 In February 2005 the then chairman of the US...

Giants in petty strife.(Rousseau's Dog)(Book review)
May 6, 2006... ROUSSEAU'S DOG by David Edmonds and John Eidinow Faber, [pounds sterling]15.99, pp. 405 ISBN 0571224059 . [pounds sterling]12.79 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 'In London, if a man have the misfortune to attach himself to...

Ghosts from the past.(A Stain on the Silence)(Book review)
May 6, 2006... A STAIN ON THE SILENCE by Andrew Taylor Penguin/ Michael Joseph, [pounds sterling]12.99, pp. 343, ISBN 0718147499 . [pounds sterling]10.39 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Andrew Taylor has written on a wide range of subjects,...

Fighting a war in all but name.(Dusty Warriors)(Highway to Hell)(Book review)
May 6, 2006... DUSTY WARRIORS by Richard Holmes HarperCollins, [pounds sterling]20, pp. 385, ISBN 139780007212842 . [pounds sterling]16 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 HIGHWAY TO HELL by John Geddes Century, [pounds sterling]17.99, pp....

Serious but not solemn.(Muriel Spark)(Obituary)
May 6, 2006... Towards the end of the Seventies I was asked to write a short, critical study of Muriel Spark's novels. I accepted, with some trepidation and misgivings. At least I hope there were misgivings. There should have been, first because nothing...

Reassuring period pieces.(art exhibitions)
May 6, 2006... Here in London are two historical exhibitions which treat more of human identity, national and individual, than they do of pure painting. Each one showcases art, but in the wider context of the artefacts of a particular period. For a nation...

American demands.(travel)(Column)
May 6, 2006... The war on terror means little to a lot of people, but to the itinerant musician at an airport it means ever-increasing hassle, rough treatment and delay. In case you didn't know, the Americans have just invented a new queue the traveller must...

Moving on.(architecture in London)
May 6, 2006... Twenty years ago, Britain was gripped by an architectural battle of styles. The Lloyd's building in the City opened, representing the hopes for a resurgence of modernism, while Quinlan Terry's classical Richmond Riverside was beginning to...

ARTS.(art exhibitions)(Brief article)
May 6, 2006... There hasn't been a substantial showing of Matthew Smith (1879u1959) in London for at least a decade. Now Browse & Darby (19 Cork Street, W1, Tel: 020 7734 7984) has mounted a splendid exhibition of some 35 pictures (until 26 May), many of them...

Hitched and hooked.(Confetti )(Movie review)
May 6, 2006... Confetti 15, selected cinemas I don't know quite what came over me during the screening of Confetti. I was well prepared: I had curled my lip and rolled my eyes at the daft poster on the Tube; I had sighed and shaken my head over the...

Missing erotica.(Knot)(Dance review)
May 6, 2006... Companhia de Dana; Deborah Colker The Barbican Dance and eroticism have long gone hand in hand. For centuries, moving bodies have been regarded as arousing and dangerously tempting. Twenty-first-century adverts still draw upon that popular...

Cool cat.(pets)(Column)
May 6, 2006... My sister and I never had pets as children, or rather we had them but they didn't tend to last very long. Indeed, no sooner had some dumb animal entered the house than my mother seemed to be making plans to get rid of it. The raven itself was...

Murder in the cathedral.(King)(Opera review)
May 6, 2006... King Canterbury Cathedral There can't be many more tantalising prospects for an operatic composer than writing an opera about the murder of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 and then conducting performances of it there. That is...

American beauty.(Inside The New Yorker on Radio Four )(Radio program review)
May 6, 2006... Although I don't buy it often, I've always liked the New Yorker magazine, not only for its good writing but also for the humour. The cartoons are consistently sharp and amusing and the owners have cleverly marketed them as greeting cards, as...

First impressions.(The Impressionists)(Television program review)
May 6, 2006... I greatly enjoyed The Impressionists (BBC1, Sunday) in spite of clunky lines such as 'This is Paris, in 1862, ' and 'Cezanne! Do you know everybody?' There are the scenes where they are painting their actual paintings, when Rolf Harris seems to...

Pipe dream.(horse racing)
May 6, 2006... 'The unexpected ones are always the sweetest, ' said J.P. McManus after his Hasty Prince had followed half a dozen duck eggs by running out the 14u1 winner of the first at Sandown last Saturday. Following the extra-marital cavortings of...

Warrior writer.(Storm of Steel)(Book review)
May 6, 2006... New York I'm in the middle of rereading Storm of Steel, Ernst Jnger's account of his first world war experience, which was published in 1920 and immediately made him famous. No writer has ever claimed to have had Jnger's experience of...

In at the deep end.(alcohol abuse)(Column)
May 6, 2006... On Saturday morning I woke early. I was in a strange bed, in an unfamiliar bedroom, fully clothed, with my shoes on. Curled up beside me was a woman I didn't recognise. I lifted the covers and peeked underneath to see if she had anything...

Testing times.(cricket and soccer)
May 6, 2006... Blossom by blossom, the season changes. So should the headlines. Fat chance. Weird times: roll up, roll up for a Lord's cricket Test even before the mudlarks of winter have picked the teams for their end-of-term deciders. The...

Sorry, you're no Mrs Thatcher.(Tony Blair)
May 13, 2006... One of Tony Blair's most cunning and cynical ploys in his early years as Labour leader was to model himself explicitly upon Margaret Thatcher. In 1995 he said, 'She was a thoroughly determined person and that is an admirable quality. It is...

DIARY.
May 13, 2006... When the gifted Australian actor Russell Crowe threw a telephone at an American hotel desk clerk, I sent him a letter of congratulation. As one might expect in a wonderful but barmy country like America, the desk clerk became an overnight...

The trouble is Blair wants 'ample time', too. So let's see how the education vote goes.
May 13, 2006... Tony Blair has long had a private 'timetable' for his departure. The trouble is that it is much more complicated, conditional and flexible than his enemies would wish. It is not a single linear timeline, but a series of intertwined...

THE SPECTATOR'S NOTES.
May 13, 2006... Labour has run out of steam. Like the Conservatives after about 1988, they cannot think straight, and they are more interested in their own quarrels than in anything the public might need. Tony Blair is very conscious of the parallels with the...

DIARY OF A NOTTING HILL NOBODY.
May 13, 2006... MONDAY Poppy says if you put your ear to the ground it sounds very much like a thousand people quietly screaming, 'Gordon is coming!' All the talk is of 'timetables' and 'transitions'. Hezza has been on the phone saying it takes him back...

'You can't change without upsetting people'.
May 13, 2006... Evidence of the hardship suffered by the Conservative party over the last decade can be found on the right foot of the Churchill statue which guards the entrance to the House of Commons chamber. His toecap is gleaming, thanks to the tradition...

We need government - and we need it to be boring.
May 13, 2006... When Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinksy was uncovered, it unleashed a tidal wave of media speculation, official inquiries and impeachment proceedings (and in the end his own explanation for why he'd done it: 'because I could'). When...

What a shame that Brown does not understand gold.
May 13, 2006... Real gold bugs don't content themselves with demanding the return of the Gold Standard; they actually eat and drink the shiny yellow metal. An American economist I once knew took to drinking sake laced with gold-leaf shavings, of the kind...

Who needs UFOs when you can play Sudoku?
May 13, 2006... Your chances of being abducted by a grey-skinned, blank-eyed alien creature have receded very greatly over the last decade or so. If you haven't already been abducted, bad luck - it might never happen. Your chance has probably gone. Last...

'It seemed to me that Tony was suffering'.(Cliff Richard)(Interview)
May 13, 2006... Sir Cliff Richard has sold his palatial home on the St George's Hill estate in Weybridge, Surrey, but the entertainer is not forsaking Britain for America, as you might have heard, but merely downsizing. Indeed, he has already put in an...

MEDICINE AND LETTERS.
May 13, 2006... 'That Shakespeare, ' a German friend of mine once said to me, 'knew a thing or two.' You can say that again. Sometimes, indeed, I think he knew everything, at least everything about human nature. When a religious fanatic tells me that this or...

Hugo Chavez: a man with the perfect name to be a Cameroon MP.
May 13, 2006... Two weeks ago I mentioned here the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez; I think he is the international Left's best hope at present: anti-American without being bin Laden. He causes trouble for the United States, but in the old-fashioned...

Mosley is no EU hero.(Letter to the editor)
May 13, 2006... From David Meikle Sir: In his review of Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism by Stephen Dorril (Books, 6 May), David Pryce-Jones makes the disgusting suggestion that those who support the European Union, like Kenneth Clarke MP, are...

Very hunted, Norfolk.(Letter to the editor)
May 13, 2006... From James Wells Sir: Charles Moore (for whom I have the greatest respect) is sadly mistaken in stating that there is no hunting in large parts of Suffolk and most of Norfolk (The Spectator's Notes, 22 April). If he had checked on a map...

Third degree at JFK.(Letter to the editor)
May 13, 2006... From Bill Troop Sir: Peter Phillips, in his article on the problems musicians face when visiting the United States, doesn't know the half of it (Arts, 6 May). When Krystian Zimerman, who travels with his piano, came through JFK a few weeks ago,...

Dogberry wouldn't do.(Letter to the editor)
May 13, 2006... From David Jones Sir: In Martin Vander Weyer's article subheaded 'I am an ass' (Any other business, 6 May), the author shares with the reader his forthcoming thespian adventure as Constable Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing. However, contrary...

Turban vs biretta.(Letter to the editor)
May 13, 2006... From Osman Streater Sir: 'This doesn't pretend to be more than a useful focus exhibition, ' writes Andrew Lambirth of the 'Bellini and the East' exhibition at the National Gallery (Arts, 6 May). A pity, then, that his apparently automatic...

Constitutionally wrong.(Letter to the editor)
May 13, 2006... From John Klein Sir: Enough is enough. The right of the people to pursue happiness is promoted not in the US Constitution, as Charlotte Moore thinks (Books, 22 April), but in our Declaration of Independence. This error is repeated in British...

How to keep the oil flowing in a dangerous world.(John Browne)(Interview)
May 13, 2006... Click, click, click, but no amount of clicking brings to life the silver and gold lighter in Lord Browne of Madingley's hand. The chief executive of BP, Europe's largest oil company, has run out of fuel and the irony is not lost on him. But...

Other people's debts.
May 13, 2006... 'A financier is a pawnbroker with imagination, ' claimed Arthur Wing Pinero in his 1893 play The Second Mrs Tanqueray. His work may be rarely seen in the West End these days, but his words are enjoying a revival in the City. Earlier this week...

Jumping on the low-fat bandwagon.(obesity)
May 13, 2006... Sometimes life really does imitate art. It's less than 10 years since the satirist Chris Morris made his infamous episode of Brass Eye in which he persuaded a host of self-important politicians and celebrities to stand in front of the camera...

China's brand image problem:it's a country full of counterfeits.
May 13, 2006... Augustus the Strong, the 18th century king of Saxony and Poland, is an unlikely but fitting metaphor for a rising China. Fitting because Augustus was as weak as he was strong. A bear of a man, he is said to have fathered 356 children,...

Books do furnish a TV series.(12 Books That Changed the World )(Book review)
May 13, 2006... 12 BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD by Melvyn Bragg Hodder, [pounds sterling]20, pp. 372, ISBN 0340839805 . [pounds sterling]16 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 665 When I was younger, I used to think, 'If ever you become famous, on...

Ill-considered imperial gestures.(1956: Power Defied)(Book review)
May 13, 2006... 1956: POWER DEFIED by Peter Unwin Michael Russell, [pounds sterling]20, pp. 256, ISBN 0859552969 During 1956 three major powers made dramatic efforts to prop up their position by the use of armed force. The British and French, in collusion...

No end of a lesson.(Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq)(Book review)
May 13, 2006... COBRA II: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE INVASION AND OCCUPATION OF IRAQ by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor Atlantic Books, [pounds sterling]25, pp. 603, ISBN 1843543524 . [pounds sterling]20 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 'We...

Public skool monkey business.(Wicked!)(Book review)
May 13, 2006... WICKED ! by Jilly Cooper Bantam, [pounds sterling]17.99, pp. 846, ISBN 0593052994 . [pounds sterling]14.39 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I misjudged this book. I thought the airport fiction promised by the literary editor...

Missing the middle path.(Black Swan Green)(Book review)
May 13, 2006... BLACK SWAN GREEN by David Mitchell Sceptre, [pounds sterling]16.99, pp. 371, ISBN 0340822791 . [pounds sterling]13.59 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Reading David Mitchell's fourth novel, which is told through the eyes of a...

The master and the loyal retainer.(Visiting Picasso: The Notebooks and Letters of Roland Penrose)(Book review)
May 13, 2006... VISITING PICASSO : THE NOTEBOOKS AND LETTERS OF RONALD PENROSE by Elizabeth Cowling Thames & Hudson, [pounds sterling]25, pp. 408, ISBN 0500512930 . [pounds sterling]20 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 It was not easy to be...

The book that didn't make the short list.(The Lost Gospel)(The Gospel of Judas)(Book review)
May 13, 2006... THE LOST GOSPEL by Herbert Krosney National Geographic, [pounds sterling]16.99, pp. 309, ISBN 1426200412 . [pounds sterling]13.59 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS edited by Rudolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer and...

Flying.(Poem)
May 13, 2006... (In Memory of M) You smiled and clenched my hand, tight in your own, the sky pressed on our shoulders as we rose. I felt that I was further now from home than I had ever been. The shrill salvos of seagulls showered the air - below, the...

Humanity makes all plain.(The Letters of Samuel Pepys, Samuel Pepys)(Book review)
May 13, 2006... THE LETTERS OF SAMUEL PEPYS edited by Guy de la Bedoyre Boydell, [pounds sterling]25, pp. 296, ISBN 184383197X . [pounds sterling]20 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 The title of this well edited and interesting book is...

In the shadow of the master.(classicla music)
May 13, 2006... Last week I found myself at one of the strangest concerts I have ever been to. It was given by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under its chief conductor (and music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra) Sakari Oramo in...

Pioneering vision.(modern art)
May 13, 2006... Albers and Moholy-Nagy: From the Bauhaus to the New World Tate Modern, until 4 June Sponsored by BMW (UK) Ltd Here are more than 300 works in yet another mammoth exhibition at Tate Modern. Perhaps the sheer size of it puts people off,...

Shaken or stirred?(Othello, Hamlet)(Theater review)
May 13, 2006... Othello Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon Hamlet Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon Completism has become a maddening obsession these days with the BBC's Radio Three. Every crotchet of Beethoven given in a week, every...

Feel the force.(Don Giovanni)(Opera review)
May 13, 2006... Don Giovanni Scottish Opera It's a great relief to see Scottish Opera back on stage again, even if their season consists of only a handful of performances of a couple of operas. I hadn't realised how sentimental I was until I found my eyes...

Single minded.(Just Like The Fambly Cat)(Sound recording review)
May 13, 2006... Agreat surge of lipsmacking new releases is on its way, tragically preceded in my household by a couple of whopping bills, so I am having to restrain myself. The need for new music: is it a physical addiction or a psychological one? Cold turkey...

Watching the detective.(Movie review)
May 13, 2006... Brick 15, selected cinemas I have read all Raymond Chandler's books, some of them several times, but if you asked me for a synopsis of any of them I think I'd be stumped. I can remember scenes (the stifling orchid house, the blanketed old...

Comic timing.(Margaret Thatcher Ha Ha Ha)(Radio program review)
May 13, 2006... How quaint the wave of alternative comedy of the 1980s seems now. It began at the Comedy Store in Soho just two weeks after Margaret Thatcher first became prime minister and was largely an attack on her and her government. That's why it then...

Building on success.(The Architecture of Happiness)(Book review)
May 13, 2006... Alain de Botton has done it again and I hate him. A few years ago, I decided to make him my friend as a way of warding off the bitterness and jealousy I might otherwise have felt about his increasingly nauseating success. And for a while it...

The Aston challenge.(Aston Martin V8 Vantage)(Product/service evaluation)
May 13, 2006... We don't often get second chances. Education, the direction of your career, first love, life itself - they're none of them dress rehearsals, unless you're lucky with the first two. And if they were, would we do any better? Best not ask....