Society

Thursday

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

What do oven chips have to do with virtue signalling?

Why does virtue-signalling matter? It’s a fair question. After all, if people display virtuous behaviour, need we care about their motivation? I understand why some are irritated by the term; deployed unsparingly, it can be used to denigrate any act of decency. Yet, if the phrase is relatively new, the concept isn’t. Several of the best-known passages of the New Testament (The Widow’s Mite; the Sermon on the Mount) deal with the contrast between sincere acts of virtue and those driven by self-advertisement. No chant from a football crowd has ever converted anyone in the opposition stands Why is this distinction important? For one thing, cheap displays of virtue may

Dot Wordsworth

Double dutch: the many meanings of ‘Holland’

The title of the keenly awaited volume of memoirs by John Martin Robinson sounds like a crossword clue: Holland Blind Twilight. Would that be a Dutch kind of unseeing twilight or a drinking-session blind at twilight when Hollands gin is consumed? Of course not! It’s plain enough. Blinds are often made of Holland, a linen fabric. When unbleached it’s brown Holland. Holland came from Dutch Holland in the 15th century. Holland is also one of the Parts of Lincolnshire, the other two being Lindsey and Kesteven. The Parts of Lindsey are divided into Ridings (West, North and South, unlike Yorkshire). A riding is a third, from trithing a Norse affair,

Bruce Anderson

The beauty of wine from the Rhine

In an apparently benign — almost prelapsarian — setting, the Rhine is an epitome of the human condition. Scenery is rarely more beautiful or more glorious. Yet it can be equally hazardous. This is a river that arouses mysticism, and its temptations. By swimming in those waters, men seek to affirm their unity with the cosmos and their triumph over the natural world. But every year, a fair few swimmers end up in the mortuary. Their quest for mastery over nature ends with ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Almost as soon as men first emerged from caves, they began to beautify their dwellings near the Rhine, as well as

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: What is the etiquette of greeting a friend who is engaged in a ceremonial display?

Q. Passing Buckingham Palace in a taxi the other day, I saw the ceremonial wing of the Household Division prancing impressively along on horseback. The taxi halted to allow them to pass. As I knew one of the young men socially, I wondered what is the etiquette of greeting a friend who is engaged in a ceremonial display? I can see it would have been disruptive to the integrity of the group if one member had to nod or wave back to somebody, but surely it would have been rude of me not to acknowledge him — even if only to do a ‘thumbs up’? As it happened, I did

Aidan Hartley

Is today the day I become a Kenyan citizen?

Nairobi Since my father first caught sight of Mombasa from his ship in late 1929, at least some of my family has lived continuously in east Africa until now. After Kenya’s independence in 1963, many Europeans opted to become citizens of the new country, but my parents did not. All my life, I never had any doubt where I wanted to be most of all and once, after too long overseas, I recall bursting into tears when the pilot announced that we had entered Kenyan airspace. Still, I grew up grateful that I held a British passport. It allowed me to travel the world as a correspondent, probably more easily

Melissa Kite

To be jabbed – or not to be jabbed?

The doctor’s receptionist was adamant. ‘If you had not had the vaccine you would have been even more ill with Covid than you are now,’ she said. The builder boyfriend’s father argued back and forth with her for a while, but the conversation went nowhere. His GP wasn’t in the least concerned that he had contracted coronavirus despite being doubled jabbed. The fact that he was managing to make a phone call and was not in need of hospitalisation was proof of the vaccine’s resounding success. He rang us immediately to tell us this good news as the BB and I were languishing in bed, having caught it, presumably, from

Jeremy Clarke

A date with destiny – and chemotherapy

I was shown to a room divided into three cubicles, each with a reclining chair and bed table. In the first, a nurse was vacuuming fluid from a man’s lungs. He was large and physically helpless with a beautiful smile. He had no voice but croaked breathlessly over the whirring noise of the machine. I set up shop in the middle cubicle and peeked round the partition to greet my other neighbour, a bird-like woman with a black head wrap. Her smile too was bright, with a suggestion that in her case chemotherapy is no longer the disaster it once was. Six weeks ago my colon was resectioned. While she

Taki

The joys of uninhabitable islands

Isle of Patmos Two hundred years ago last March, the Greeks rose up against the hated Turks who had occupied most of the mainland for 400 years and, with the help of Britain, France and Russia, drove the infidels back to where they had come from. The war ended with the London Protocol of 1830, which recognised the creation of the independent nation-state called Greece. Hellas, as we call her, became the first independent nation in the Balkans and the first to break away from the Ottoman Empire. The Society of Friends, which had been founded in 1814 outside Greece and included members of my family, had established the groundwork

Nicholas Barrow

Modern soap operas have lost the plot

I have Asperger’s syndrome and since childhood have been watching TV soaps: mainly EastEnders and Neighbours. I found classic EastEnders from the 1980s and 1990s highly reassuring during a dark time in my life three years ago, and in lockdown. I would say, though, that in recent years these two soaps have gone downhill. They are more staged, the storylines less intriguing and the themes exaggerated. They don’t seem to be about everyday life any more. In the EastEnders of the 1980s and early 1990s you could relate wholeheartedly to the characters and reflect on their behaviour. You would feel they were real, and also that they were part of

The Spectator

Is rain getting heavier?

Reinventing the wheels Skateboarding made its debut at the Olympics. Who invented the skateboard? — There are many reports of homemade skateboards being created in the 1940s and 1950s by Californian surfers who wanted to continue a form of their sport out of season, but the first commercial skateboard was marketed by roller-skate company Roller Derby in 1959. The sport, however, failed to catch on until 1973, with the introduction of urethane wheels and a curve at the end of a board known as the ‘kick-tail’, which allowed acrobatics to be performed. Water logs There was more surface flooding in London. Is heavy rain becoming more common in London? The

Peter Jones

The Greeks had their reservations about the Olympics

Winners at the Olympics were thought to have come as close to a god as any man could. But that did not stop some Greeks wondering whether it was all worth it. The poet Xenophanes commented that ‘a noble boxer would not make a city better ordered, nor keep its granaries filled’. Diogenes the cynic once met an athlete boasting about how fast he was. Diogenes replied: ‘But not faster than a rabbit or deer, the swiftest of animals, and also the most cowardly.’ Aristotle was not hostile to the games per se — just to the extremes to which they drove people: ‘The athlete’s habit of body does not

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Channel crossings, chain-gangs for criminals and Tesco Bank shuts up shop

Home The daily number of coronavirus cases detected by tests fell from 54,674 on 17 July to 23,511 by 27 July. About 92 per cent of adults in England and Wales had coronavirus antibodies at the beginning of July, according to an estimate by the Office for National Statistics. In the seven days up to the beginning of the week, 447 people had died with coronavirus, bringing the total of deaths (within 28 days of testing positive) to 129,130. (In the previous week deaths had numbered 284.) In a week, numbers remaining in hospital rose from 4,121 to 5,238. By the beginning of the week, 88 per cent of adults

Wednesday

John Darlington

Why Stonehenge doesn’t have to go the same way as Liverpool

It has not been a good month for the United Kingdom’s internationally important heritage sites. Stonehenge is teetering on the edge of losing its world heritage site status, with Unesco warning the UK government against a proposed £1.7b, two-mile long road tunnel near to the site. If so, it could go the same way as Liverpool, which lost its World Heritage Site status last week. In a city that boasts more Georgian buildings than Bath, the arguments have quickly polarised. In one corner, the developers and city authority decry the intransigence of Unesco and maintain that change is necessary to generate jobs and a thriving economy; and in the other,

Tuesday

Molly Kingsley

The danger of vaccine passports for education

In one sense vaccines are the perfect example of the ‘greater good’. Every citizen bears a tiny risk to protect not just their own health but that of society as a whole. By contrast, I can think of few graver threats to that greater good than the introduction of vaccine passports. Until recently the accepted view in Westminster seemed to have been that vaccine passports of any kind were discriminatory. Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, was told by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs committee last month that ‘Covid-status certification system would, by its very nature, be discriminatory.’ This all changed last week with the announcement that passports might, after

Julie Bindel

Domestic violence affects us all

Since the first Covid-19 lockdown last year, cases of domestic abuse and subsequent deaths have risen. In England and Wales, a woman dies as a result of domestic violence every three days. But the reality is that few perpetrators are arrested, let alone charged and convicted. The rise in cases is beginning to worry government ministers, which is no surprise given domestic abuse has never been properly tackled. Cabinet office minister Michael Gove has been planning how best to use existing powers to tackle this shadow pandemic. Ideas include a minimum standard for police and other criminal justice agencies to increase prosecutions and better protect the victims. The Domestic Abuse

Ross Clark Ross Clark

How many Covid hospitalisations are caused by Covid?

How many people have been taken into hospital and are dying with Covid, and how many have been admitted to hospital and died because of the virus has been one of the fundamental questions of the pandemic. We have been bombarded with daily statistics which have never attempted to put this into context. An overall Covid death toll of 129,000 – by the government’s count – means little without knowing who has been dying. Statistics relating to the age profiles of the dead and their medical histories have cropped up from time to time – showing that those who have died are, on average, over 80 and that many suffered

Stuart Ritchie

The Lancet, China and the origins of coronavirus

Right from its first issue in 1823, the Lancet was more than just an ordinary medical journal. Its founding editor, the dyspeptic surgeon and coroner Thomas Wakley, purposefully gave the journal the name of a sharp scalpel that could cut away useless, diseased tissue: he used it as a campaigning organ, to push back against injustice, bad ideas and bad practice. What bothered Wakley most was the establishment. Not only did the Royal College of Surgeons care little about quacks and snake-oil salesmen, but its members were also engaged in corruption and nepotism, ensuring that their cronies got the best positions and filling their pockets with lecture fees. Wakley wrote

Monday

Roger Mosey

In defence of the BBC’s Olympic coverage

For viewers of the BBC Olympics coverage, it’s back to the old days. Not since Sydney in 2000 has all the Games content been squeezed into the main terrestrial channels, with the red button and its one extra stream making its debut in Athens 2004. ‘The Olympics are perfect for interactive television,’ said a BBC executive celebrating the innovation, ‘because there are so many events happening at the same time.’ In the run up to London 2012 we made the promise that UK viewers would be able to watch any event they chose, from beginning to end – and the corporation delivered 24 HD television channels and an equivalent number of

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Can London’s floods be explained by climate change?

It’s climate change again, innit. It didn’t take long for Sunday’s flooding in London to be put together with Canada’s recent heatwave and the floods in Germany and China to be used as ‘evidence’ of ever-accelerating climate change – giving us even less time to save the world than previously thought. ‘More rain as Londoners call out climate change,’ screamed a headline on City A.M., alongside pictures of water pouring through Stratford DLR station and cars stuck on the North Circular. Sunday’s flash floods have also brought an old favourite out of the closet: a map purporting to show large parts of London which will be underwater by 2030 –

Oliver Johnson

Covid cases are falling – but don’t think it’s all over

The official Covid-19 dashboard has turned green and cases appear to have peaked, at least for now. You hear a lot of people say ‘cases don’t matter’, but they are a leading indicator of hospitalisations and deaths — and so a peak in cases (if confirmed by the ONS survey) should lead to a peak in hospitalisations in future weeks. So, is that it? Are we done? It would be unwise to estimate the R numbers for a few days. Not because I’m disappointed that numbers are falling, but because you can’t do linear regression on non-linear data. And there is still a lot of uncertainty. However, for the first