Spectator articles from May 2008

Spectator archives from May 2008

An inconvenient truth.(on the Israeli air strike against Syria)
May 3, 2008... In its 6 October 2007 edition, The Spectator reported on Israel's air-strike on Syria exactly a month before. We noted that the 6 September raid 'may have saved the world from a devastating threat' and revealed that a senior British ministerial...

Diary.(Personal account)
May 3, 2008... Vanity thy name is Nikki Bedi. I've just been for one of my biannual visits to my 'derm' Dr Nick Lowe. The Times recently called him Dr Botox. I've been his patient for 13 years; the first seven in Santa Monica, where my skin had begun to...

Labour politicians are already preparing for opposition. The race to succeed Gordon is on.(POLITICS)(Gordon Brown)
May 3, 2008... Over lunch about a year ago, I tried to tease out the intentions of someone tipped as a possible successor to Gordon Brown. He was feigning optimism and loyalty to the anointed leader-in-waiting, so I advanced some hypothetical scenarios...

The Spectator's notes.
May 3, 2008... If, when you read this, Boris Johnson is the Mayor of London, it will, I have just discovered, be thanks to me. When the idea of Boris's candidacy was first suggested, I spoke on the telephone to Mary Wakefield, who is now the deputy editor of...

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody.
May 3, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] MONDAY Dear me! Why does everyone take what we say so literally? When Dave declared that he wanted to end Punch and Judy Politics he was speaking metaphorically. He didn't mean he was literally going to stop...

Happy 60th birthday, Israel: well done for surviving: Melanie Phillips says that the prosperity and growing cultural confidence of Israel is a fitting riposte to the Western intelligentsia, American meddling and the daily propaganda assault that ignores the Islamisation of the Palestinians.(Cover story)
May 3, 2008... What would Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion have said if, on the day that he declared the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, he had known that six decades thence Israel would be encircled by its enemies, hopelessly...

Flash Gordon.(Cartoon)
May 3, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Mr Brown, fine tuning another tax package to help the poorest of the poor.

Balls wants a 100 per cent tax on inherited brains: Irwin Stelzer admires the Schools Secretary, and so regrets that his admissions policy prevents schools from taking account of a pupil's prospects of success. Bad news all round.(Ed Balls)
May 3, 2008... Seemingly alone among my acquaintances, I see virtues in Ed Balls. He certainly is not media-friendly, partly because he has the Brownian habit of trying to bury questioners under a barrage of verbiage, only some small portion of which is...

Strip clubs are a City girl's sanctuary: Venetia Thompson, until recently a broker, says that the feminist Fawcett Society should not campaign to outlaw City outings to strip joints: they are harmless after-hour creches.(Essay)
May 3, 2008... It appears that women's rights activists have hijacked the credit crunch. There could be no better time for the Fawcett Society, led by their director, Katherine Rake, to launch an attack cannily entitled 'Sexism and the City'--complete with a...

I[Q.sup.2] debate: America has lost its moral authority.(Intelligence Squared)
May 3, 2008... Big names at last Tuesday's Intelligence Squared debate. Our beaming chairman Adam Boulton called on Will Self to propose the motion that America has lost its moral authority. In his sharp black suit, Self glared at us like an undertaker whose...

Not even science fiction foresaw the end of fathers: the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeks to end the child's right to a father figure, writes John Patten, ignoring all sound research in its obsession with 'discrimination'.
May 3, 2008... 'Down with Clause 14(2) (b)' is hardly a snappy slogan. It is not even as succinct as 'Abolish Clause 28 now!', the phrase that so resonated back in the days of the furore over the teaching of alternative lifestyles. But this dense little bit...

Sorry, but family history really is bunk: Leo McKinstry says the current craze for genealogy reflects an unhealthy combination of snobbery and inverse snobbery, and is a poor replacement for national history.(Essay)
May 3, 2008... When I visited the National Archives at Kew last week the place was full of them, scurrying about with their plastic wallets in hand, a look of eager concentration on their faces. It was impossible to escape their busy presence as they...

This Austrian horror gnaws at our fears about how we treat our own children: Josef Fritzl's unspeakable crimes against his daughter not only sicken us, says Rod Liddle. They sharpen our confusion about day-to-day parenting in the modern world.(LIDDLE BRITAIN)(Elisabeth Fritzl)
May 3, 2008... You may, by now, be losing track of Austrian nutters who lock women in basements. The latest is Josef Fritzl, who kept his daughter Elisabeth imprisoned in a dungeon for more than 20 years and fathered a total of seven children with her. The...

Ancient & modern.(Boris Johnson and Pericles)
May 3, 2008... Boris Johnson has vowed as mayor to emulate his hero Pericles, turning London into 'an education to Britain' as Athens was (Pericles claimed) to Greece. In one sense this will be difficult since the mayor has limited responsibilities, mainly...

Call that a crisis?(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
May 3, 2008... Sir: Ian Hay Davison ('How to rescue a bank', 19 April) is right that the Northern Rock episode was far from unprecedented. But there is much more to say. The difficulties of a number of relatively minor institutions in the early 1990s,...

Anticipating the crash.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
May 3, 2008... Sir: Rod Liddle (Liddle Britain, 26 April) welcomes the predicted 25 per cent fall in house prices, and so do I. But comparisons with the last property crash do not take into account the malign effect of the buy-to-let market. Landlords will...

Last call.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
May 3, 2008... Sir: Charles Moore asks (The Spectator Notes, 26 April) when the Times might be running a correspondence on 'the last cuckoo'. Alas, I tried this back in 2001 when, having for several decades noted the arrival date of the first cuckoo, we for...

The BNP's purpose.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
May 3, 2008... Sir: Trevor Phillips, in his mission to 'break the ice' surrounding the immigration debate (Diary, 26 April), is selective in blaming the continuation of Enoch Powell's belief in the 'dangerous delusion' of racial integration on white...

Pregnant with meaning.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
May 3, 2008... Sir: There is yet another use of the phrase 'going forward' which Dot Wordsworth neglected to mention in her wonderfully entertaining recent column (Mind your language, 12 April). It is one that my wife learned in 1960 when she went to visit...

Dover and out.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
May 3, 2008... Sir: Alex James's navigation is even worse than Father John Thackray thinks (Letters, 26 April). Mr James thinks he can cross from Cap de la Hague to the white cliffs of Dover in a light aircraft in ten minutes. Since Cap de la Hague is on the...

Gordon can barely speak English either, so why don't we swap him for Sarkozy?(SHARED OPINION)(Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy)
May 3, 2008... Say what you like about Nicolas Sarkozy, but he's a feisty little tyke, isn't he? Apparently, he put himself through an hour-long grilling on French TV last week. We've got our issues with the strange angry man in Downing Street, but the...

When the corridors of power echo to the strains of 'Nil nisi bunkum'.(AND ANOTHER THING)
May 3, 2008... When did the newfangled service for a dead nob first come in--the one that says it is a 'celebration' of the life, rather than a lament for the death? I would like to read a learned survey of the subject. When I was a boy in the Thirties, all...

For Formula One, sex sells; but not the way Max likes it: Christian Sylt and Caroline Reid say the motorsport industry is in turmoil--and could lose millions in sponsorship--as a result of Max Mosley's tabloid embarrassment.(BUSINESS)
May 3, 2008... Few sports have a sexier brand image than Formula One. Racecars snaking through the streets of Monaco past grandstands full of the world's most glamorous women; grid girls in tight T-shirts; top models such as Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum...

Say farewell to gentlemanly capitalism: Tim Curzon Price foresees a new era in which finance will be as tightly regulated as pharmaceuticals.(AFTER THE SUBPRIME CRISIS)
May 3, 2008... Ever since social arrangements became complex enough to write into laws, we have regulated the behaviours that have the potential to mess up our common lives. Look at the Book of Deuteronomy. It's all there: health and safety (diet and...

Ruling the waves.(Breath)(Book review)
May 3, 2008... BREATH by Tim Winton Picador, 16.99[pounds sterling], pp. 205, ISBN 9780330455718 [telephone] 13.59[pounds sterling] (plus 2.45[pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 Tim Winton is a prodigy among novelists, publishing his first novel when...

Recent crime novels.(Book review)
May 3, 2008... Laura Wilson specialises in acutely observed psychological thrillers, in most cases set in the recent past. Stratton's War (Orion, 18.99[pounds sterling]) marks a departure for her in that it is the start of a series. Set in London during the...

The last laugh.(Deaf Sentence)(Book review)
May 3, 2008... DEAF SENTENCE by David Lodge Harvill Secker, 17.99[pounds sterling], pp. 294, ISBN 9781846551673 [telephone] 14.39[pounds sterling] (plus 2.45[pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 David Lodge's writing career spans...

Fighting his corner.(Isaac Rosenberg: The Making of a Great War Poet)(Book review)
May 3, 2008... ISAAC ROSENBERG: THE MAKING OF A GREAT WAR POET by Jean Moorcroft Wilson Weidenfeld, 25[pounds sterling], pp. 468, ISBN 9780297851455 [telephone] 20[pounds sterling] (plus 2.45[pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 ...

Our new puppet-masters.(McMafia: Crime Without Frontiers)(Book review)
May 3, 2008... MCMAFIA: CRIME WITHOUT FRONTIERS by Misha Glenny The Bodley Head, 20[pounds sterling], pp. 426, ISBN 9780224075039 [telephone] 16[pounds sterling] (plus 2.45[pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 This book is about...

Last but not least.(Catherine Parr: Henry VIII's Last Love)(Book review)
May 3, 2008... CATHERINE PARR: HENRY VIII'S LAST LOVE by Susan James Tempus, 20[pounds sterling], pp. 348, ISBN 9780752445915 [telephone] 16[pounds sterling] (plus 2.45[pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 'Love is but a frailty of the mind when 'tis not...

A career in the West.(Sergey Prokofiev: Diaries 1915-1922, vol. 2: Behind the Mask)(Book review)
May 3, 2008... SERGEY PROKOFIEV: DIARIES 1915-1922, VOLUME II: BEHIND THE MASK translated by Anthony Phillips Faber, 30[pounds sterling], pp. 775, ISBN 9780801447020 [telephone] 24[pounds sterling] (plus 2.45[pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 Was...

Howling to the moon.(Wolf Totem)(Book review)
May 3, 2008... WOLF TOTEM by Jiang Rong, translated by Howard Goldblatt Hamish Hamilton, 17.99[pounds sterling], pp. 527, ISBN 9780241143520 [telephone] 14.39[pounds sterling] (plus 2.45[pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 ...

What Shakespeare thought and felt.(LIFE & LETTERS)(William Shakespeare)
May 3, 2008... Why did Shakespeare choose to publish his sonnets in 1609? This isn't the most difficult question they invite, nevertheless an interesting one. His long poems, The Rape of Lucrece and Venus and Adonis, were published soon after being written,...

The Path.(LIFE & LETTERS)(Poem)(Brief article)
May 3, 2008... The Path That winds out of the wood, towards the ferns-- Beeches, ghost-elms and horse-chestnuts guard The meadows and the rides that slope downhill Through midge-crowded evenings, rustling grasses... She rode...

Crescendo of polyphony: Peter Phillips on a Zambian chamber choir which decided to perform Byrd, Tallis and Tippett.(Arts)(Vox Zambezi)(Concert review)
May 3, 2008... As calling cards go, renaissance polyphony would not seem to promise a ticket to anywhere much, unless to heaven. When I started giving concerts in 1973, the received wisdom on the subject, even in the UK, was that whole concerts of it would...

American beauty.(Exhibitions)(The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock British Museum)
May 3, 2008... The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock British Museum, until 7 September Coming of Age: American Art, 1850s to 1950s Dulwich Picture Gallery, until 8 June Although the potent influence of all things American has had a pernicious...

Slump fever.(Theatre)(Gone with the Wind, Harper Regan, Letting Go, For One Night Only)(Theater review)
May 3, 2008... Gone with the Wind New London Harper Regan Cottesloe Footprints in the Sand Oval House How did they get it so wrong? Turning chicklit's greatest story into a hit musical should have been a doddle. Just put the...

Tired old friend.(Cinema)(Iron Man)(Movie review)
May 3, 2008... Iron Man 12A, Nationwide Iron Man is a Hollywood superhero blockbuster and probably the first of a franchise, even though it already feels like the 64th. These movies are always, in their way, whopping piles of junk, but they can be hugely...

Feeble Fidelio.(Opera)(Opera review)
May 3, 2008... Fidelio Teatro Real, Madrid For all its glories, Madrid is not a city that one associates with great opera performances, as one does Barcelona. Perhaps it's not surprising: it's only 11 years since the new Teatro Real opened, after delays...

Changing perspectives.(Radio)(Chatterton: The Allington Solution)(Radio program review)
May 3, 2008... 'Could you account for everything that surrounds you in the course of a single second?' asks one of the characters in Peter Ackroyd's first play for radio, Chatterton: The Allington Solution (Thursday). 'All the intentions, the wishes, motives,...

Jane's sex problem.(Television)(Miss Austen Regrets, The Apprentice, Heroes, Peep Show)(Television program review)
May 3, 2008... I'm always on the lookout for writers who've had well-paid, fun, fulfilled lives but I hardly ever find them. Jane Austen, for example. You'd think that the very least God would have given her in return for Emma and Pride and Prejudice would...

Garden shorts.(Brief article)
May 3, 2008... So a little light housework or gardening cuts your stress levels, does it? Well, I never. I long ago developed a 'ten-minute gardening' scheme for stress-busting, and I could not recommend it more highly. I keep a bucket near to hand,...

Twelve to follow.(The turf)(racehorses)
May 3, 2008... Experiments don't always come off. Like the train company trying out new safety glass for drivers' cabins. It adapted technology from an aviation manufacturer which had developed new cockpit protection against bird strikes. But when the bird...

Fifties glamour.(High life)
May 3, 2008... New York So there I was, at the Waverly Inn, Graydon Carter's little toy, which has been the hottest ticket in the Big Bagel for two years, when the booth next to mine filled up with young people, all of them scruffy and dressed like the...

Battle stories.(Low life)(on hooliganism)
May 3, 2008... Cass Pennant and his wife and son and son's girlfriend came round the other day for a cream tea. Cass used to be--still is--a top 'face' in the world of football hooliganism. When I was a kid I used to travel all over the country to watch West...

Happy hour.(Slow life)(Personal account)
May 3, 2008... 'I'm going to look at the dandelions,' I said. 'There's loads of them.' 'I'll come,' she said. 'Come on. Hurry up, then. It's happy hour.' It was the end of the day and suddenly still and sunny. The star was taking a curtain call....

Knife cuts.(The table)
May 3, 2008... This week's column should be guest-written by Hillary Clinton, who has shown herself a master at sinking the knife into Barack Obama's all-too-yielding flesh. But at home we can learn valuable lessons in wielding the knife from our own...

Male order.(Bridge)(Brief article)
May 3, 2008... The Portland Club is allergic to two things: conventions and women. The first are not allowed ever and the second can only be invited on special occasions. My ex-husband Michael Green always asks me to his annual dinner there and once, to...

Spectator mini-bar offer.(wine)(Buyers guide)
May 3, 2008... SWIG of west London offers some of our most successful mini-bars, and when you try these bottles you will see why. They are exciting, adventurous, mostly New World wines, hard if not impossible to find anywhere else, all at reduced--some very...

The greatest oddity of all: Olivia Glazebrook floats like a duck on the salty waters of the Dead Sea.(LUXURY GOODS)(Travel narrative)
May 3, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] On the way to the Kempinski Hotel Ishtar Dead Sea I inquired of our driver, Mohammed, 'Will I need to cover my head, or wear long clothes when swimming in the sea?' He was puzzled, asking, 'But what for?' 'Well, you...

Oasis in a foodie desert.(Food)(Elliotts Kitchen in Towcester, England)
May 3, 2008... South Northamptonshire, where I live, has been for as long as I can remember an area of the deepest gastronomic gloom. There isn't a decent restaurant anywhere, and the pub food is unfailingly disgusting. It's not that the people here don't eat...

His nibs.(PENS)
May 3, 2008... As Samuel Johnson put it: 'No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he does.' A couple of years ago I was given a neat little Waterman--midnight black and sleek as a beak--and it transformed the way I write...

Cranial craze.(BABY THERAPIES)
May 3, 2008... Babies scream. This is one of the first things you learn as a new parent (along with sleep matters, and labour hurts). What is more of a mystery is why. Is it hungry? Too tired? Overstimulated? Too hot, too cold? Angry? Isn't it amazing they...

The thrill of la chasse: Rory Knight Bruce goes hunting in Burgundy.(STYLE AND TRAVEL)(Burgundy, France)(Travel narrative)
May 3, 2008... The arrival of the faster Eurostar to France will doubtless bring more people to Paris and the new bridge in the south is already cutting driving times to the fashionable Riviera. But for those with more time on their hands it is still possible...

Why Frederick was great: Simon Heffer tours the palaces at Potsdam.(STYLE)(Potsdam, Germany)(Travel narrative)
May 3, 2008... So much of Germany is disappointing to the tourist, as indeed England must be. The reasons for this are similar: the most beautiful cities were bombed and are filled now with hideous buildings from the 1960s, the remnants of a more aesthetic...

Hotels of the week.(Directory)(Brief article)
May 3, 2008... HOTEL SANSSOUCI Allee nach Sanssouci 1, 14471 Potsdam, Germany Tel: +49 331 90 91 0 www.steigenbergerhotelgroup.com ART'OTEL POTSDAM Zeppelinstrasse 136, Potsdam 14471, Germany Tel: +49 331 98150 ...

Dragon's fire.(CHESS)
May 3, 2008... The Dragon variation of the Sicilian Defence is based on an early... g6 for Black followed by placing the black king's bishop on g7. It has a reputation as a fierce counter-attacking line. As with the Najdorf variation of the Sicilian, Black...

Giving up the ghost.(COMPETITION)
May 3, 2008... In Competition No. 2542 you were invited to submit a ghost story entitled 'The Face of the Horse'. I read the entries by flickering candlelight in a bid to recreate the atmosphere of the dean's rooms at King's College, Cambridge, where M.R....

Boris has played me like a violin twice in my life--even appealing to my conscience.(STATUS ANXIETY)(Boris Johnson)
May 3, 2008... At the time of writing, the outcome of the London Mayoral election is still unknown, but I am rooting for Boris, obviously. Doubts have been raised about his ability to run a city like London, but he possesses at least one essential attribute...

Mind your language.
May 3, 2008... 'Twenty-five years ago,' writes Mr Peter Gasson from Aylesbury, 'policies were implemented; services were provided; changes were made or brought about; promises were fulfilled. Now they are uniformly delivered. I suppose the word has become so...

The wiki man: a fortnightly column on technology and the web.
May 3, 2008... If the climate-change debate has accomplished anything, it has proved people never say sorry. When I was about 12 the families of the people who now wince at every gramme of carbon we burn carried on their cars a yellow sticker reading...

Dear Mary.(YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED)
May 3, 2008... Q. Since I now live alone and have spare bedrooms my house in London has become something of a destination for old friends who want to stay overnight. I love seeing them. I love making them welcome and giving them drinks and food if they want...

Brown is not the problem.(Gordon Brown)
May 10, 2008... In September 2006, as Tony Blair was forced to bring forward his departure date by backbench rebellion, The Spectator predicted a Labour civil war. It was not clear when this conflict would erupt, only that its coming was inexorable. This week,...

Diary.(Personal account)
May 10, 2008... On Monday morning I am outwitted by my four-year-old daughter, who manages to leave for school in a light cotton dress on a phenomenally cold and wet spring day. That night I therefore take myself to Chelsea Town Hall for the launch of The...

Abolishing the 10p tax rate shattered the contract on which New Labour was based.(POLITICS)
May 10, 2008... Why is the abolition of the 10p rate of tax unlike any other rebellion of backbench Labour MPs? The answer lies in the mood of Labour backbenchers following decades of modernising the party, a process that began under Neil Kinnock but only...

The Spectator's notes.
May 10, 2008... The growing power of Islam in Britain has forced the British public to learn more about its component parts--Sunnis and Shiites, Deobandis and Barelwis, and so on. By the same token, I feel it is time for a more thorough understanding of...

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody.
May 10, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] MONDAY Hooray! Britain is going Conservative crazy!! The sun is shining and all over the country people are waking up to the exciting new force in British politics!!! Actually, I haven't really woken up. Am...

Cameron gets ready for No. 10--and Boris must wait his turn: David Cameron talks to Fraser Nelson about his local election triumphs, admits that he is not going to 'agree on everything' with the new Mayor of London, and says Boris should join the queue to become PM after him.(Boris Johnson, prime minister)(Interview)(Cover story)
May 10, 2008... The victorious David Cameron is being driven towards Buckingham Palace, the adrenaline of election success still pumping through his veins. Crowds line The Mall, peering into the blackened glass of his limousine. But when he approaches the...

Obama failed this week as well as Clinton: James Forsyth says that Hillary's disappointment in Tuesday's primaries is matched by the decline in Obama's image, as the sheen of the wunderkind fades and doubts multiply.(Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton)
May 10, 2008... Raleigh, North Carolina Barack Obama entered the arena on Tuesday night to Bruce Springsteen's 'The Rising'. But a more appropriate song would have been 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' by the Rolling Stones. For although Obama did not...

The hard choices that face the Father of the Mayor: Stanley Johnson is adjusting to his new constitutional position in the life of London: not least deciding which clubs to avoid at lunchtime in order to dodge Boris's journalist foes.
May 10, 2008... Last July, soon after Boris had announced he would be a candidate for the post of mayor of London, the editor of The Spectator very kindly invited me to give my reaction in the columns of this magazine. In the article I wrote then, I described...

Our transport system is not even 'Third World': Andrew Neil offers a despairing snapshot of cancelled trains, ludicrously expensive rail tickets, hell at Terminal 5, nonexistent customer service. Does anyone want to fix this?
May 10, 2008... To Liverpool to chair the annual conference of the British Chambers of Commerce, stout yeomen of the country's small- to medium-sized businesses. I'll let the train take the strain, I thought, and burnish my green credentials, even though I...

'It's harder for straights to feel Christian charity than gays': Theo Hobson meets Gene Robinson, the only openly gay Anglican bishop, who says that homosexuals are more open to the Christian 'message of radical change'.(Interview)
May 10, 2008... I am sitting in St Mary's church, Putney, home of right-on Anglicanism. Bishop Gene Robinson--the gay American whose election nearly split the Anglican church--is seeking reassurance from his fans. He's had a grilling from our nasty press, he...

Don't expect the cyclone in Burma to have benign political side-effects: Rod Liddle says that there is a natural hope that the interventions of the UN and charities in the disaster-stricken country will open it up. But history does not support such optimism.(LIDDLE BRITAIN)(Nargis, United Nations)
May 10, 2008... In the dark early hours of 12 November 1970 a tropical cyclone swung in from the Indian Ocean and made its way, to devastating effect, up the course of the world's largest delta--the confluence of two huge river courses, the Ganges and the...

London notebook.(London, England)
May 10, 2008... Only the most venerable and knowledgeable London cab driver has heard of Belsize Circus, a roundabout near the slums of Kilburn Heights where I have my lodgings. During the second world war many bombs fell nearby but, as was the case with most...

Israel and Palestine.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
May 10, 2008... Sir: Melanie Phillips ('Happy 60th birthday, Israel', 3 May) denies Israel one of its greatest successes over the last 60 years by deliberately ignoring its status as a regional military and economic superpower. The image of Israel as a David...

A death foretold.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
May 10, 2008... Sir: John Patten ('A bill to end a child's right to a father', 3 May) suggests that even science-fiction writers 'never dared foretell the death of fatherhood'. He must have forgotten John Wyndham's hallucinatory novella Consider Her Ways...

My best shot.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
May 10, 2008... Sir: Simon Hoggart wrote kindly about Foyle's War (Arts, 26 April) but I wonder what makes him think that 'give it my best shot' was not a phrase that would have been used in 1945. I always took great pains to get the language right and--as...

Work of the devil.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
May 10, 2008... Sir: Opus Dei ('The BBC and Opus Dei', 26 April) has just cause to complain, but others, too, have come off badly in BBC drama. This week's Waking the Dead was such a grotesque portrayal of the army, and of the Guards in particular, that it...

Good call.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
May 10, 2008... Sir: Matthew Parris should not be too hard on cold-callers (Another Voice, 26 April). Last January I received an unsolicited phone call from a very nicely spoken (and very persuasive) young man named William. 'Can I interest you in a six-month...

Unfair dismissal.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
May 10, 2008... Sir: I was surprised by P.J. Kavanagh's review of my Isaac Rosenberg: the Making of a Great War Poet (Books, 3 May). Having happily followed my interpretation of his life, he rather suddenly dismisses Rosenberg as a poet, citing Geoffrey...

A speech recorded in Hansard on an unspecified day in the near future.(ANOTHER VOICE)(Speech)
May 10, 2008... 'You have reminded me, Mr Speaker, that for a minister resigning, permission to make a Personal Statement to the House is granted entirely at your discretion and should be of an explanatory nature. With the speech of the Noble Lord, Lord Howe,...

Literary woodlice boring needless holes in biographical bedposts.(AND ANOTHER THING)(Critical essay)
May 10, 2008... Are there too many biographies? Thomas Carlyle thought so 150 years ago. 'What is the use of it?' he wrote growlingly. 'Sticking like a woodlouse to an old bedpost and boring one more hole in it?' He was then engaged in his 13-year task of...

Emperor Soros's new clothes: Matthew Lynn says hedge-fund pioneer and currency speculator George Soros is still a brilliant player of markets--but as a philosopher, frankly, he's incomprehensible.(BUSINESS)
May 10, 2008... If nothing else, three decades as one of the world's most successful speculators has taught George Soros how to pitch a book. While the main title of his latest work, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets, might not be the kind of thing to get...

Clear blue skies and shiny shopping malls, but Mao's corpulent corpse still presides.(CITY LIFE)(Mao Zedong)
May 10, 2008... I went to visit Mao Tse-tung the other day. The embalmed body of the Father of communist China lies in a mausoleum in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. There he rests in his trademark grey suit--the same grey as Beijing's toxic 21stcentury skies. ...