The Spectator
7 October 2017 Aus
Playlgbtiq
Australia
Grateful, not dead
As is the case after every horrific mass shooting in the United States, Australians not directly affected by the events…
Australian Columnists
Brown study
I have been making a sort of trial balance on the same-sex marriage campaign; not the nitty gritty of the…
Trump notes
Lefties on their knees Just when you thought political life in the United States simply could not become more polarised,…
Yes/No notes
At least it shows we don’t need compulsory voting Australians are having their two bob’s worth on same-sex marriage.The first…
Australian Features
In space, no one can hear you screaming for cash
Such is the mystique of Elon Musk that he is able to make the absurd declarations that he will launch…
Another Trek
Paul Swart, 86, was a kind man of great compassion and his face mirrored those qualities. Mr Swart helped 30…
The war we don’t know how to fight
One day, perhaps before it is too late, Turnbull, Brandis, Shorten and co. and their fellow members of the political…
Tim’s tawdry trick
As the saying goes, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So naturally, when the…
Playlgbtiq
I keep turning a thought over and over in my head: What would we think of Hugh Hefner if he…
Business/Robbery etc
Sound commercial practice for marketing and industrial relations reasons? Self-indulgent directorial virtue-signalling for status purposes? Fear of retaliation by activists…
Features
Sentences without end
My first sight of Colin was as a lanky manifestation lying on a desk in the Dartmoor prison education department…
Say nothing
To my embarrassment, ever since my novel We Need to Talk About Kevin was published in 2003, I’ve been a…
Imran’s biggest test
It’s been a long journey for Imran Khan. He founded his political party, PTI (Pakistan Movement for Justice), in 1996,…
The shootings prove…
It is terribly important whenever an atrocity occurs to scour the internet for information — however specious — that proves…
Spanish practices
In October 1936, on the anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of the New World, a ceremony was held at Salamanca University,…
Following suit
Why do Tories all look the same? This year, having never been to a party conference before, I went to…
Putin the peacemaker
When Russia entered the Syrian civil war in September 2015 the then US secretary of defense, Ash Carter, predicted catastrophe…
The great unknowns
Have you heard about the invention that cures your smartphone addiction? Whereas normally you can’t go more than a minute…
Low spirits
You may have noticed that we’re in the throes of a 21st-century Gin Craze. It’s not as serious as the…
Soho drinking clubs
When someone says ‘Let’s go for a drink at my club’, what do you imagine? A grand St James’s establishment…
The Week
Always a dull moment
From ‘Perfect peace’ by Christopher Hollis, 21 October 1960: In Mr Terence Rattigan’s The Final Test, an English spectator of…
Tory blues
Theresa May’s conference speech — interrupted by coughing fits and with part of the set falling apart behind her —…
Portrait of the week
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, told her audience at the Conservative party conference that she wanted to continue, like…
Columnists
Monarch was an airline from an earlier era – but were its owners to blame for its demise?
Monarch Airlines was the ghost of an earlier age of holiday travel. When I used to see its planes lined…
If only the Tories understood economics
‘I don’t think I’m quite as Austrian as you are,’ a Tory minister said to me the other day. And…
The Conservatives admit they have a problem – but can they solve it?
For those who don’t want Jeremy Corbyn to be prime minister, the Tory conference was half encouraging and half depressing.…
The media is paying too much homage to Catalonia
However much we try — and lots of us don’t — we fall for the power of the photo-image. So…
Books
Re-discovering Cook
Despite an unpleasant resurgence of anti-British, anti-European political correctness, Captain James Cook (1728-1779) remains one of the world’s greatest explorers.…
Lost in the metropolis
Richard Rogers is to architecture what Jamie Oliver is to cookery. It is not enough for either of them just…
Octopus beaks and snake soup
Driving across Japan’s Shikuko island, the food and travel writer Michael Booth pulls into a filling station to find, alongside…
That’s no lady
Did I enjoy this novel? Yes! Nevertheless, it dismayed me. How could John Banville, whom I’ve admired so much ever…
Band of bickering brothers
There aren’t many downsides to being a film critic, but one of them is being asked to name your favourite…
The keys to Chinese
The history of industry is the story of the reduction of complexity to easily manageable, replicable components or actions. But…
The worst things happen at sea
This horrifying and engrossing book could scarcely be improved upon. In this age of HRHs Harry, William and Kate-led openness…
August Auguste
In 1959 the formidable interviewer John Freeman took the Face to Face crew to the 81-year-old Augustus John’s studio. The…
A poet in prose
Literary reputation can be a fickle old business. Those garlanded during their lifetimes are often quickly forgotten once dead. Yet…
Who is Sylvia – what is she?
In May 1956, three months after meeting Ted Hughes, one before they will marry, Sylvia Plath writes to her mother…
Our islands’ story
Britain has 6,000 islands. Not as many as Sweden’s 30,000 but quite enough to be going on with. Only 132…
Tales out of school
In 1952, the five-year-old Michael Rosen and his brother were taken on holiday along the Thames by their communist parents.…
Wandering Jews
Simon Schama is an international treasure. Whether on screen or in print, he is all energy, enthusiasm, dramatic gestures, emotional…
Arts
Pretty vacant
Alice is at it again. Christopher Wheeldon’s 2011 three-act ballet began another sell-out run at Covent Garden last week. It’s…
Back to the future
Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner first came out in cinemas 35 years ago, which I was going to say probably…
Mourning glory
On the face of it, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds aren’t exactly a natural fit with the O2. Cave’s…
The Merry Widow
Not everyone celebrates a 55th anniversary, but if you are a national ballet company at the peak of its form,…
Life
Tube
When George Eliot wrote ‘The tube-journey can never lend much to picture and narrative,’ she was not making an observant…
Raising the threshold crappiness
I love anything open late at night. Never mind ‘the sigh of midnight trains in empty stations’; even mundane activities…
Get a life
In Competition No. 3018 you were invited to take your lead from Meik Wiking — CEO at the Happiness Research…
Boris, the conviction politician
I’m writing this from the Conservative party conference where I can report that Boris Johnson, who has just wowed the…
no. 477
White to play. This is from Anand-Esserman, Isle of Man 2017. White now killed off the exposed black king. What…
to 2327: Exhibition
Five unclued lights (1D, 14, 21, 24 and 41) are titles of paintings by EDWARD HOPPER (5 39). First prize…
