Society

Thursday

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Farewell to rugby’s King John

You couldn’t miss the heartbreaking irony of one of the greatest rugby players who ever pulled on his boots passing away just as the latest tournament was getting under way featuring 18-stone behemoths smashing into each other. Barry John, who retired at 27 and died last Sunday at 79, could have walked through brick walls and emerged unscathed. Was he the finest fly-half ever? He was certainly the most beautiful to watch. He played just 25 games for Wales and a handful for the British and Irish Lions, including the 1971 tour of New Zealand when he helped them to their only series victory against the All Blacks. It was

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: why don’t my guests thank my husband for hosting too? 

Q. When people come to stay for house parties, my husband – who already works a 60-hour week – does a lot of the unseen chores. He’s in charge of fires, drinks, seating plans, arranging outings, and he pays for everything. We are in our sixties and I know it is traditional etiquette to write and thank the ‘lady of the house’, but my husband really feels rather miffed that no one ever mentions him in their thank-you letters. How should I most tactfully encourage people to address their thank-you letters to both of us, rather than just to me, without seeming bossy? – G.M., West Sussex A. It may

Luke McShane

Fearless teens

A trio of teenagers dominated the Tata Steel Challengers event, which took place in Wijk aan Zee last month alongside the elite Masters event. Their fearless chess helped them get the better of many more experienced grandmasters. India’s Leon Luke Mendonca, 17, took first place with 9.5/13, and will receive an invitation to the Masters event next year. Joint second on 9/13 were the reigning World Junior Champion Marc’Andria Maurizzi from France (16) and Daniel Dardha (18) from Belgium. These games from the latter two are simply electrifying. Marc’Andria Maurizzi-Jaime Santos Latasa Tata Steel Challengers, Wijk aan Zee 2024 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 d5 4 g3

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

‘Is it France? I don’t know’: Hôtel de Crillon, Paris, reviewed

Hôtel de Crillon sits on the Place de la Concorde, a vast square renamed for bloodshed, then the lack of it – it was the Place de la Révolution, with knitting and bouncing heads. Now it is placid, and the Crillon is the most placid thing in it. No one does grand hotels like the French, except perhaps the Swiss, who have nothing better to do. Hôtel de Crillon was one of twin palaces commissioned by Louis XV before the French butchered his grandson and his wife outside them: it looks like Buckingham Palace but prettier and with possible PTSD. It has been a hotel for 115 years and next

Luke McShane

No. 787

White to play. Salem-Vrolijk, Tata Steel Challengers 2024. Black’s last move, Qf2-c2, was a fatal error in an otherwise drawn endgame. Which queen check won White the game? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 12 February. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1 Rc8! Qxc8 2 Nb6+ wins, or 1…Qh7+ 2 f5 and the pawn promotes. Last week’s winner Graham Baker, Campsea Ashe, Suffolk

Dot Wordsworth

The unforeseen nature of consequences

In March 1847 the world first read of Mr Toots saying: ‘It’s of no consequence.’ He went on saying it for the next 13 months until the last number of Dickens’s Dombey and Son had been published. His embarrassed sallies into affairs of the heart had gained a catchphrase. Mr Toots’s remark meant ostensibly, ‘It doesn’t matter,’ but I was reminded of it by the warning that the United States issued after the killing of three of its service people in Jordan. It promised a ‘very consequential response’. To me consequential suggested a different knot of meanings, about causal effect. The insurance world thinks of consequential loss not as an

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: mischievous Valentine acrostics

In Competition No. 3335 you were invited to submit an acrostic poem for Valentine’s Day whose acrostic contains an unValentine-ish sentiment. The prize winners, printed below, pocket £20 apiece. Venus, darling, gorgeous snuggly-wuggly, Apple of my ever-loving eye,  Let me kiss you, squeeze you, honey-bunny,  Ever-treasured sugar, sweetie-pie, Nuzzle me, my gorgeous, hot stud muffin, Tweety bird, mon cher, my cara mia, I am your own lamby-wamby snookums, Naughty, wicked whispers in my ear, Endlessly, my ickle lovey-dovey, Shower me with cuddle-bun excesses,  Intimately cooing I’m your wuv-bug,  Stroke me with your smoochy, fond caresses, Call me your hot mama, foxy vixen, Romeo, my sun, my star, my comet, Angel,

Doc

2640: Double entry

The 12 six-letter unclued lights bear a common feature, different in each case, but ignore one hyphen.         Across    1    Put up a hammock for son with Heather (5)    4    One lies drunk after attempt to restore equilibrium (9)    9    After seven days, say, shall journalist be wimpish? (4-6) 11    Muse was, for Caesar, love (5) 12    Cunard cruise finally turned to French river (7) 14    Vocalist shortly to be a scorcher (5) 15    Just a bit of a fight! (5) 21    Such gall on day in May (3-5) 22    Mournful key member CIA outed (7) 24    Some delayed up at university (4) 25    Sandwich filling aunt

The Spectator

2637: Born to sing – solution

The unclued lights are the given names of pop stars. The pairs are 7D/20, 12/11, 25/24, 26/1D and 33/8. First prize Karen Bloom, Allington, Maidstone, Kent Runners-up Bernard Golding, Earsdon, Whitley Bay; D.P. Shenkin, London WC1

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

The reality of food banks

The old man next door asked me to collect his parcel from the food bank. ‘Sure,’ I said. I joined a queue of 20 starvelings outside a chapel in the East End. Most were migrants carrying rucksacks or bags for life, and there were a few Cockney mums with fidgety nippers in tow. Everyone in the queue had a mobile phone – which is normal these days – and most were dressed for the Olympic Games in Adidas sprint shoes, Nike jogging pants and Reebok breathable weightlifting shirts. I felt distinctly under-dressed in my Oxfam castoffs. Despite their keep-fit attire, many of the applicants seemed to be on the corpulent

Melissa Kite

I’ll do anything to get a decent plumber

The plumbers come and go, but mainly go, and I am now so desperate for a bath that I will do anything for a man carrying a pipe wrench. If only I had more Botox in my face and my highlights done, I found myself thinking, as we sat at the kitchen table one night rowing about the seemingly impossible problem of trying to get tradesmen who are also farmers on EU subsidies. Most plumbers walk into our crumbling country house, look horrified and tell us we’re mad The bathrooms in this old Georgian pile are so cranky they might as well not be there. In fact, it would be

Henry Jeffreys

Women love flowers. Who knew?

It’s funny how long it can take a man to learn a simple lesson. For example, for years I had assumed that women couldn’t really love flowers, that it was all some sort of conspiracy created by Big Florist in league with Big Greetings Card that everyone, apart from me, had fallen for. On Valentine’s Day I would look pityingly at the men on the Tube clutching a dozen red roses, or the girls in the office with big bouquets pretending to like them. I knew better. ‘She’d much prefer a nice bottle of dry sherry,’ I’d think to myself – and then wonder why my girlfriend looked so cross

Aidan Hartley

Viazi the dog had a lucky escape from a baboon

Laikipia Viazi is a Samburu mongrel bitch with a curly tail. She is one of the most delightful, wonderful creatures I’ve known in my life. Her energy is boundless, she is always cheery and she’s been my great friend. When our collie Sasi had her litter of puppies in a heavy thunderstorm on the farm before the pandemic, we assumed Jock the labrador was the father. It later became evident that Sasi had been jumped by a roving Samburu cattle dog. We found homes for all of the puppies except for this little girl, who was as brown and as round as a baked potato – so we named her

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 10 February 2024

The Reykjavik Bridge Festival, held annually at the end of January, is one of the great treats of the bridge calendar, and this year it was twice as good: Thomas Charlsen decided to hold his terrific World Bridge Tour (WBT) just preceding it to make it easier for teams who wanted to play both. In a sea of world-class talent, the outstanding performance of young Danish superstar Dennis Bilde was breathtaking. He was not only on the winning team in both events, but also walked away with first place in the pairs. Here he is working his magic to make the opps go wrong (see diagram). Contract 3NT by South

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Charles’s cancer, Churchill’s teeth and a hot cross bun crisis

Home The King announced that he had cancer, which was discovered during his treatment for non-malignant prostate trouble. He would continue with state duties, including weekly audiences for the Prime Minister, while receiving out-patient treatment. Public engagements, of which he performed 425 last year, would be kept by the Queen and the Prince of Wales. The Duke of Sussex, his younger son, flew from California to see him. Michelle O’Neill, the Deputy Leader of Sinn Féin, became the First Minister of Northern Ireland as the Northern Ireland Assembly met for the first time in two years since the Democratic Unionists boycotted it over post-Brexit trade rules. The DUP nominated, as Deputy First

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Do asylum-seekers really want to convert to Christianity?

Slightly bored last Thursday afternoon, I converted to Islam to see what it was like. All I had to do was intone the Shahada – ‘La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammadun Rasul Allah’ – and then have a nice shower with some Head and Shoulders to wash away the deluded Christian filth that had hitherto cloaked my physical being, the musty detritus of a decadent creed. I have to say, once converted, it didn’t feel terribly different inside but on the plus side I was immediately offered several senior posts with the BBC and the Arts Council which I may or may not take up. The people in these NGOs are

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Should King Charles have announced the news of his cancer?

Everyone seems to agree that it is better for royal personages to be open if they have cancer. It helps thousands of other sufferers and their families. But nowadays sheer necessity is part of it: the omnipresent video evidence of the monarch’s daily life makes it unavoidable that people will notice physical changes. This applies to our present King. In her recent biography, George VI and Elizabeth, Sally Bedell Smith gives an excellent account of the illness of George VI, which probably began in 1949 and killed him in February 1952. Even in those days, people did begin to notice. She quotes Harold Nicolson, as early as March 1950, hearing

Paul Mason

Labour is right to ditch its £28 billion green pledge

My family despises war movies, so it’s way after Christmas that I get to see Ridley Scott’s dire Napoleon film. The most embarrassing scene is where Josephine lifts up her dress and tells Bonaparte: ‘If you look down you will see a surprise, and once you see it you will always want it.’ It strikes me that something similar is going on between Reform UK and the Conservative party, with the result being long-term electoral irrelevance for the latter. When I think of conservative values, the words chivalry, monarchy and the church come to mind. In Penny Mordaunt, the Tories have a politician who has wielded an actual sword, in

The Spectator

The need for the monarchy has never been greater

The natural reaction to this week’s news that King Charles III is suffering from cancer has been one of concern and compassion. As the Prime Minister said, consolation can be drawn from the fact that the illness has been caught early and that Charles is continuing with his duties – albeit stepping aside from public-facing engagements for the time being. But it hasn’t taken long for conversation to stray on to other questions: might it be better for him to step back from all duties? And perhaps at some point he should give way to Prince William? Such an idea is to be resisted. Charles III is the oldest monarch

Wednesday

Alexander Larman

Will anything reconcile William and Harry?

In this most eventful of weeks for the Royal Family, the unanticipated return of Prince Harry to Britain has created new drama. Indeed, so unexpected have the tidings of the last few days been that the sudden arrival of the Duke of Sussex at his father’s side yesterday – a seismic and unprecedented event, given the current state of relations between Harry and the rest of the Royal Family – has barely been given the attention that it deserves. The meeting between the King and his younger son is said to have lasted around half an hour and to have taken place at Clarence House, before Charles headed off to Sandringham and