Spectator articles from October 2004

Spectator archives from October 2004

Portrait of the week.
October 2, 2004... Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, in a speech at the Labour party conference in Brighton, spoke of a 'wholly new phenomenon, worldwide global terrorism based on a perversion of the true, peaceful and honourable faith of Islam' with roots 'in...

More apologies, please.
October 2, 2004... The most revealing part of Tony Blair's speech to the Labour party conference was when he said, 'modern life is being perpetually stressed out. You can do more, travel more, consume more, live longer but nothing stops still. It's always...

Diary.
October 2, 2004... Literary festivals, as usually reported, sound like pop concerts, with happy audiences and complacent writers, but that is only part of it. They are not alike. You may need wellies for one and sunscreen for another. Nor are the provisions...

Tony Blair has kept his grip on everything but reality.(Politics)
October 2, 2004... Two salient facts define the national political predicament this autumn. The first is a growing sense of disquiet about Tony Blair. Experts often speak of the lack of 'trust' which shows up in opinion polls. But there is more to it than that....

The Spectator's notes.
October 2, 2004... Brighton Has anyone considered the serious possibility that the three most determined Iraq war leaders will all be reelected? George Bush, and John Howard in Australia, are ahead in their polls, and Tony Blair is in a pretty good position...

Power to the people: Michael Gove says that the Conservatives stand for freedom, law and progress, and have it within their power to launch a decentralising, democratic revolution.(Cover Story)
October 2, 2004... As a journalist I got used to asking questions. As an apprentice politician I've had to get used to answering them. And that has meant learning all over again that the simplest questions to ask are the trickiest to answer. Most of my...

The Blairs.
October 2, 2004... HI! TONY! IT'S ME! PETER! GREAT SPEECH! IT'S OK HERE, IT'S JUST A BIT BORING I MISS HARTLEPOOL! GIGGLE! HANG ON! WE'VE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE.! THEY WANT TO CHECK REINALDO'S V.A.T. RETURN!

How far can they go? Molly Watson on the future plans of the pro-hunting hearties who invaded the Labour conference.
October 2, 2004... When the Ledbury huntsman John Holliday was arrested with Otis Ferry and six other pro-hunting protesters for breaking into the House of Commons during the debating of the Hunting Bill last month, the police rushed off to search his cottage at...

Back off, Gordon: Oliver Letwin, shadow Chancellor, on how the Tories would cut back on bureaucracy and set Britain on the path to a lower tax economy.
October 2, 2004... Recently, I set out in the Daily Telegraph a number of astonishing examples of the Chancellor's fat government. I pointed out that the Civil Service is now bigger than the population of Sheffield, that there are more tax collectors and customs...

Mind your language.
October 2, 2004... The 'execution' of captives, instead of their 'murder', is a longstanding gripe of Mr Don Barton of Powntley Copse in Hampshire, who wrote to me before the current round of deadly abductions in Iraq. I'm just wondering about the derivation of...

Betrayed by Bush: Patrick Buchanan says there is no conservative party in Washington. Instead there is a Republican party of big business, big government and big war.
October 2, 2004... Washington, DC Not even the British empire at its zenith dominated the world in the way the United States does today. US forces are deployed in lands the soldiers of Victoria never saw. Our warships make port calls on all continents. Our...

Thought police: Paul Robinson says the Tories are so frightened of challenging Blair on the war that their favourite think-tank will not tolerate dissent.
October 2, 2004... When the remaining flotsam of 20 or so Conservative MPs wash up on dry land after the next general election, they may do well to consider why it was that during this Parliament, every time the credibility of Prime Minister Tony Blair sank...

The thinking man's trumpet: Daniel Kruger meets Roger Scruton on his farm in Wiltshire and finds that the man who defends and defines conservative values is largely ignored by the Tory party.
October 2, 2004... Britain's pre-eminent conservative philosopher is rather muddy. I've seen him in London, tidy in yellow corduroy. In Wiltshire Roger Scruton is green and brown. Sundey Hill Farm, where he lives with his wife and their two young children, is a...

Second opinion.
October 2, 2004... He who wishes to fathom the degradation of England must travel on our regional trains. First, of course, comes the announcement regretting 'the delay to your journey'. The delay to my journey last week was caused by the non-attendance of the...

The Spectator classics prize.
October 2, 2004... Peter Jones announces the latest winner. It was gratifying to note the expansion of the competition's constituency, especially when it was classically motivated, i.e., by the prospect of material gain--'Cripes, if there's champagne at...

The problem, not the solution: the Tory party has failed conservatives, says Peter Hitchens. It cannot convincingly replace the anti-British, anti-marriage, intolerant, multicultural, amoral rabble of New Labour.
October 2, 2004... The last thing we need now is a Tory recovery. Proper conservatives should dread such a thing as much as Labour's serious faction dreaded victory in the March 1983 Darlington by-election. They longed for the most crushing defeat possible,...

How to cut taxes and get rich: if you want economic success, says Sam Smyth, the Irish style of fiscal conservatism is a good model to follow.
October 2, 2004... Dublin Reticence is no more a national characteristic of the Irish political class than coyness is a natural attribute of British shadow chancellors. But Bertie Ahern has resisted boasting about the phenomenal success of the Irish economy...

The coverage of the Iraq hostage crisis has been no victory for terrorism.(Media Studies)
October 2, 2004... The Bigley affair has not brought out the best in anyone. Naturally I exclude Kenneth Bigley himself, who can hardly be blamed for being kidnapped and should be freely forgiven for his desperate Internet appeal to the Prime Minister. But I am...

Conservatory has to face the shareholders and stand up to Marksist analysis.(City And Suburban)
October 2, 2004... Tense times lie ahead for Conservatory Holdings (writes my political investment correspondent, P.E. Ratio). At next week's annual general meeting, two questions will be on shareholders' minds or even on their lips. Is this historic company...

To survive in the war on terror you must live in fear and be very, very stupid.(Thoughts For The Day)(Television Program Review)
October 2, 2004... They've been trying to scare us all again, this time through tile offices of the BBC--a somewhat cowed organisation which seems, these days, more than happy to do the bidding of the government. I don't think they can have succeeded, though,...

Entrapped by Europe.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
October 2, 2004... From Christopher Booker Sir: Niall Ferguson ('Britain first', 25 September) stands history on its head in claiming that 'it was precisely the unreliability of the United States' as both an ally and an export market which 'convinced...

What 'power struggle'?(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
October 2, 2004... From Professor Paul Huxley, RA Sir: At the end of his article on the Royal Academy (Arts, 25 September), William Packer attempts to add validity to his views by counting me and the president, Phillip King, among his friends and claiming an...

Pugwash hogwash.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
October 2, 2004... From Rian Malan Sir: Last Christmas you were kind enough to carry an article in which I opined that reports of a massive Aids pandemic in Africa appeared to be exaggerated. I have since been accused of incest, homosexual tendencies, sexual...

We need more troops.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
October 2, 2004... From J.G. Cluff Sir: General Sir Mike Jackson has jumped on to the New Lahour bandwagon ('No way to write an article', 11 September). Ordinarily that would be his problem, but the band wagon is spinning out of control and is in danger of...

Texans against Bush.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
October 2, 2004... From Clarke Hayes Sir: I find the fatuous certainty of your correspondent W.K. Wray (Letters, 25 September) that no 'genuine Texan' could vibrate with hatred for George W. Bush astonishing. Not only have I met many such Texans (in Texas)...

Toffs vote BNP.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
October 2, 2004... From John Storey Sir: Rod Liddle asserts that 'nobody with any social standing, or in possession of a decent education or good breeding, thinks the BNP anything other than utterly ghastly (Thought for the day, 25 September). My late...

In the end we'll give in to terrorists in Iraq, so why not now--over Mr Bigley?(Shared Opinion)
October 2, 2004... At the time of writing, the hostage Ken Bigley, so far as we know, lives. While he endures his ordeal, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary said that they could not negotiate with his tormentors. That would be to 'give in to terrorism'....

The North Country is in great beauty and good heart.(And Another Thing)
October 2, 2004... Although I do not live in the North, I was born there, and my heart is still there. Each year, in the early autumn, I make a little expedition up north to examine again, and paint, its spare, elegant landscape, hear its soft speech and find out...

Professional to his fingertips.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... V.S. PRITCHETT: A WORKING LIFE by Jeremy Treglown Chatto, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 308, ISBN 070117322X 18 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 Perhaps not uniquely, I was discouraged from reading V. S....

The fine art of appreciation.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB by Karen Joy Fowler Viking, 12.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 304, ISBN 0670915580 11.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 A FINE BRUSH ON IVORY: AN APPRECIATION OF JANE AUSTEN by Richard...

Sob sisters and scolders.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... HELL HATH NO FURY: WOMEN'S LETFERS FROM THE END OF THE AFFAIR edited by Anna Holmes Robson Books, 9.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 375, ISBN 1861056885 Without meaning to come the Big I-Am, I've got issues with the whole premise of this book,...

A time of zero tolerance.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... HAVOC by Ronan Bennett Bloomsbury, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 244, ISBN 0747562490 14.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 Born in 1956, Ronan Bennett is a Belfast writer of great gifts. His last novel,...

From Africa back to Scotland.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... THE SUNDAY PHILOSOPHY CLUB by Alexander McCall Smith Little, Brown, 14.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 281, ISBN 0316728179 12.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 The publishing world is full of romantic stories,...

Gravity, mischief and variety.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... ALL THE POEMS by Muriel Spark Carcanet, 9.95 [pounds sterling], pp. 129, ISBN 185754773X Muriel Spark rightly insists that she is a poet who, as it happens, writes novels, and that she writes novels without ceasing to be a poet. Being a...

Somewhat concerning food.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... FISH, FLESH AND GOOD RED HERRING: A GALLIMAUFRY by Alice Thomas Ellis Virago, 14.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 406, ISBN 1844080854 12.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 Alice Thomas Ellis is not a person to be...

Descending and condescending.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... WHERE HAVE ALL THE INTELLECTUALS GONE? by Frank Furedi Continuum, 12.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 167, ISBN 0826467695 11.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 When asked to name a British prime minister other...

The Serpent Beguiled Me.(Brief Article)(Poem)
October 2, 2004... The Serpent Beguiled Me Following Eve, you look for apple cores Along the riverbank, tossed in the mud. Following Adam down long corridors, You swing your torch to look for spit and blood. He got his chest condition...

A prodigy of a politician.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... WILLIAM PITT THE YOUNGER by William Hague HarperCollins, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 652, ISBN 0007147198 23 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 William Pitt the Younger always was the politician's politician:...

An exercise with jerks.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... OH, PLAY THAT THING by Roddy Doyle Cape, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 376, ISBN 0224074369 14.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 Reviewers coming to this book, the second volume of Roddy Doyle's The Last...

Doctors' dilemma unsolved.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... HYPOCRATIC OATHS: MEDICINE AND ITS DISCONTENTS by Raymond Tallis Atlantic Books, 19.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 342, ISBN 1843541262 17.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 This is a brilliant tract against the...

Porridge and privilege.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... A PRISON DIARY, VOLUME I: HELL by Jeffrey Archer Pan, 6.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 259, ISBN 0330418599 A PRISON DIARY, VOLUME II: PURGATORY by Jeffrey Archer Pan, 6.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 310, ISBN 0330426370 A PRISON DIARY, VOLUME...

Morality and mortality.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... HEADS YOU WIN by Ferdinand Mount Chatto, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp, 290, ISBN 0701177519 14.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 At the start of this sixth and final volume of Ferdinand Mount's novel...

Saved by comic relief.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... THE GOLDFISH BOWL: MARRIED TO THE PRIME MINISTER by Cherie Booth and Cate Haste Chatto, 18.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 256, ISBN 0099462028 15 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 There is one glorious...

Patriot and appeaser.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... MAKING FRIENDS WITH HITLER: LORD LONDONDERRY AND BRITAIN'S ROAD TO WAR by Ian Kershaw Allen Lane, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 587, ISBN 0713997176 18 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 Since appeasement is in...

The world we have lost.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... MIND THE GAP by Ferdinand Mount Short Books, 14.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 316, ISBN 1904095941 12.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 8011 4848 The Whig interpretation of history, a relentlessly progressive account...

Late in the Day.(Brief Article)(Poem)
October 2, 2004... Late in the Day A summer afternoon and the children from the local school are speaking so that I can hear them, entirely in obscenities. We have handed a world to them devoid of art, luxuriant, hallucinatory, a...

Going behind the Bushes.(Book Review)
October 2, 2004... THE FAMILY by Kitty Kelley Bantam Press, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 705, ISBN 0593048911 18 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 Kitty Kelley is the Heat magazine of celebrity biographers. Spectator readers who...

The Graham Greene Betjeman knew.(Critical Essay)
October 2, 2004... In August 1937 the Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who was visiting Salzburg, wrote a long letter to his friend Felix Frankfurter, the American jurist. (At that time, Frankfurter, at 55, was best known for having campaigned unsuccessfully on...

Everyone's a winner: Tiffany Jenkins on the absurd proliferation of cultural prizes.(Arts)
October 2, 2004... The announcement of the new title of World City of Literature fills me with dread. Not because those bidding for the prize--Edinburgh, Dublin, Oxford, Paris and New York--do not have a literary tradition; they do. And not because they have...

Devon failure.(Conservation)
October 2, 2004... Until a week ago, the majority of the historic contents of the superb Regency cottage orne at Endsleigh in Devon remained intact. Now they have been sold. This is all the more depressing as only eight years ago they were lent to a charitable...

Flower power.
October 2, 2004... Constance Spry: A Millionaire for a Few Pence Design Museum, Shad Thames, SE1, until 28 November Constance Spry (1886-1960) was a remarkable figure who exerted a powerful influence over the taste of generations of home-makers, particularly...

Salutary shock.
October 2, 2004... Dali--the Centenary Retrospective Palazzo Grassi, S. Samuele, Venice, until 16 January, then to The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia The experience of the critic is one of constant revision, for nothing remains ever quite the same,...

Early retreat.(Music)
October 2, 2004... I pick up my Radio Times and turn to the listings for Radio Three. On the day I do this (24 September), I find the following composers listed: Duparc, Pasculli, Bach, Haydn, Liszt, Rameau, Puccini, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov, Mendelssohn,...

Californian class.
October 2, 2004... San Francisco Ballet Sadler's Wells Theatre I wish ballet companies due to visit London in the next few months could bring programmes that are as richly varied and neatly constructed as those presented by San Francisco Ballet last week....

An exhibition of work by David Inshaw can be seen at Agnew's, 43 Old Bond Street, London, W1.(Brief Article)
October 2, 2004... An exhibition of work by David Inshaw can be seen at Agnew's, 43 Old Bond Street, London, W1. Inshaw, who was born in Wednesfield, Staffordshire, in 1943, studied painting at Beckenham School of Art and at the Royal Academy Schools under Peter...

Attitude, not latitude.(Gardens)
October 2, 2004... Gardeners are not often happy with their lot. Even if they have bought a house specifically for the garden that surrounds it, nothing will be quite right. The soil will be too light or too heavy, too stony or too chalky, too moisture-retentive...

Who needs friends?(Theater Review)
October 2, 2004... Cloaca Old Vic One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Gielgud The Solid Gold Cadillac Garrick Cloaca, Kevin Spacey's debut as the artistic director of the Old Vic, must rank as one of the biggest disappointments of the year. It isn't...

Puzzlingly unmoving.(Opera Review)
October 2, 2004... Werther Royal Opera The Trojans ENO Hard to credit, but at the Royal Opera the new production of Massenet's Werther begins with the prelude being played while the curtain is still lowered, no one messing around in front; and when it...

Economic fallout.(Television)(Television Program Review)
October 2, 2004... Dirty War (BBC1, Sunday) was a horribly realistic depiction of what would happen if Islamic suicide bombers detonated a 'dirty bomb' at Liverpool Street Station. The bit that scared me most and the reason I wish I hadn't watched it was the...

Curious changes.(Radio)
October 2, 2004... On the face of it, the appointment of Mark Damazer as controller of Radio Four would seem to be sound. He's experienced in political news and current affairs, he has an intellectual hinterland with interests in history and the arts, he's likely...

Sex, lies and videotape.(High life)
October 2, 2004... New York Except for the people, this is a wonderful time of year to be in the Bagel. Summer's blistering heat has gone the way of Britain's Davis Cup hopes--tiny Austria, using natives, has just eliminated big-bully Britain, which was...

Little man with a grudge.(Low life)
October 2, 2004... Standing directly behind our Minister of State for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality on the deep carpet of the conference room at the Thistle Hotel, Exeter, while he gave a press conference, I took the opportunity to examine the man...

Snail trail.(Singular life)
October 2, 2004... A distinguished former Cabinet minister complained to me the other day that he visited a famous restaurant in Budapest only to discover that it failed to serve goose. This was in unfavourable contrast to the Gay Hussar in Soho, which is...

Open verdict.(Bridge)
October 2, 2004... BRIDGE is often a humbling experience. You might think there would come a point at which you'd be familiar with most types of hand. Not so. Even the most seasoned player is occasionally dealt one which leaves him stumped as to what to bid, or...

Black arts.(Chess)
October 2, 2004... The World Championship match between Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Leko in Brissago, Switzerland was always likely to contain more than its fair share of draws. However, Kramnik stunned the chess community by striking down his ultra-solid...

A to L.(Competition)
October 2, 2004... In Competition No. 2360 you were given 12 words (whose first letters straddled the alphabet from A to L) and invited to incorporate them in any order into a plausible piece of prose. I am always refreshingly surprised by how popular this...

1684: 2/10.(Crossword)
October 2, 2004... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Eight unclued lights can be resolved into four pairs forming the titles of works by 2 10, to whose date of birth the puzzle's title alludes'. One unclued light is of three words, two are of two; in one, ignore a...

Summer fruits.(Spectator Sport)
October 2, 2004... Summer came to an end in theatrically symbolic manner last weekend as the last rites of the cricket season were administered in (almost literally) pitch darkness when, with gallant rapture, two West Indian tail-end batsmen carried their side...

Dear Mary.(Your Problems Solved)
October 2, 2004... Q. My flatmate recently departed for a fortnight's holiday, leaving behind several days' worth of dirty plates. When I asked if he'd mind washing them up before going, he replied that he had no intention of doing so, because he knew I'd do them...

Portrait of the week.
October 9, 2004... Mr Michael Howard, the leader of the opposition, speaking at the Conservative party conference, summarised Tory plans in ten words: 'school discipline, more police, cleaner hospitals, lower taxes and controlled immigration'. Neither he nor Mr...

War and peace.
October 9, 2004... The newsreader Martyn Lewis once complained that there is not enough good news on the telly. To judge by his forays into literature, he would quite happily have presided over a Nine O'Clock made up entirely of dog and cat stories, but he had a...

Diary.
October 9, 2004... I spent three weeks rehearsing Tynan, a monologue devised by Richard Nelson and Colin Chambers from Kenneth Tynan's posthumously published journals. It's a lonely business rehearsing a monologue. You sit on the stage in the Swan Theatre in...

The Tories are no longer taking the core vote for granted.(Politics)
October 9, 2004... For some time it was not polite to utter the phrase 'core vote' at a Conservative party gathering, of within earshot of those loyal to the leadership. It referred, after all, to people who believed taxation was theft, who despised the European...

The Spectator's notes.
October 9, 2004... Bournemouth A friend gave me a guide to the Members of the new House of Commons after the 1910 election. It contains little biographies of each MP. In Liverpool, there are nine parliamentary seats, and seven of them are held by...

A question of trust: Peter Oborne compares the fanatical, messianic and dishonest Tony Blair with the measured, sane and assured Michael Howard. Only one of them is fit to lead this country, and it is not the Prime Minister.(Cover Story)
October 9, 2004... Since his sudden emergence in the 1990s Tony Blair has easily eclipsed three successive Conservative leaders: John Major, William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith. No prime minister for a century has dominated his opponents in such an emphatic way...

The Blairs.
October 9, 2004... 100% PLASTIC! IT WILL GO ON FOR EVER! IT WASN'T A SIMPLE HEART OPERATION. IT WAS A TRANSPLANT! I'M NOT STAYING IN HERE! I'M GETTING OUT YOU CANT! YOU'LL DIE! I DON'T CARE! I'VE GOT TO GO ON FOR A THIRD TERM! NO! NO!...

The shocking truth about Kilroy: Rachel Johnson meets Ukip's pin-up boy and finds to her horror that she likes him.(Interview)
October 9, 2004... In order to interview Robert Kilroy-Silk, the orthodontically perfect public face of Ukip, it is first necessary to talk to his people. But his people, it turns out, are his wife Jan. 'So,' Jan growls in what the BBC calls a lovely regional...

Mind your language.
October 9, 2004... 'Foxes' tails are just like ladies,' says Felix Graham, riding to a meet in Trollope's Orley Farm. The spirited Miss Staveley replies, 'Thank you, Mr Graham. I've heard you make some pretty compliments, and that is about the prettiest.' 'A...

Giving peace a chance: Richard Beeston detects a modest glimmer of hope as troops try to bring order to Iraq ahead of the elections.
October 9, 2004... Baghdad The house looked like a neocolonial mansion that had been picked up in an American suburb and dumped in the back streets of the Iraqi city of Ramadi. The squad of US marines did not bother to knock. They simply kicked in the door...

Globophobia: a weekly survey of world restrictions on freedom and free trade.
October 9, 2004... Farmers and gourmets from all over the world will be descending on Turin next month for the first 'slow food' conference. There will be nut-farmers from Brazil, yak-herders from Kyrgyzstan and raisin-farmers from Afghanistan, all gathered to...

Blue-eyed sheikhs: Icelanders are rolling in it, says Daniel Hannan. Why? Because they understand that small is beautiful--and have stayed out of the EU.
October 9, 2004... Reykjavik Britain, we are forever being told, is a small offshore island, tar too puny to survive except as part of a larger European entity. Eurosceptics have a well-rehearsed retort to this charge, viz. that we are actually rather big....

Second opinion.
October 9, 2004... It is the ambition of every doctor to describe a disease or a syndrome for the first time, and have it named after him as a perpetual memorial to his brief sojourn on earth. I have described many syndromes for the first time, but I am under no...

Has Auntie no shame? Rod Liddle on how the BBC was persuaded to pull Popetown--and waste 2 million [pounds sterling] of your money.
October 9, 2004... 'You may recall that we met at the memorial service for your uncle, the late Lord Grade. As far as I am aware he was the only other Jewish Papal Knight and he was a member of the Jewish Papal Knights' Association. (He was a Papal Knight of the...

Ancient & modern.
October 9, 2004... Any ordinary member of the human race is revolted by the beheadings in Iraq and longs for revenge: let us indeed return the people the terrorists want released, but with their heads cut off too. The Roman historian Livy might have repeated a...