Society

Parson Weems, the popular author of the early American republic who invented the apocryphal story of George Washington and the cherry tree, achieved his greatest commercial success as a pamphleteer with Hymen’s Recruiting-Sergeant; Or the New Matrimonial Tattoo for Old Bachelors (1799). In this booklet, the amiable old clergyman suggested that young people ought to get married not only for financial security and in order to bring up young Americans but “for pleasure.” His racy pamphlet went into thirteen editions, and copies were still being sold fifty years later. The new report from W. Bradford Wilcox and Nicholas Wolfinger of the Institute for Family Studies has a much less catchy

Donald Trump recently disparaged Britain’s National Health Service for “going broke and not working,” leading Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to express his pride in a system “where all get care no matter the size of their bank balance.” But the news has been filled for months with stories of people unable to access care they need under the NHS, regardless of their efforts or financial resources. Beyond the nationalistic pride and defensiveness of politicians both sides of the Atlantic, how do British and American healthcare really compare? Are both sides as crazy as the other imagines, or do they each know something the other can learn from? Sweeping generalizations regarding

The film I, Tonya, has been well-received and is even up for an Oscar or two. I’m pleased about that because I’ve met Tonya Harding and her story has always fascinated me, not least because to watch her skate in the run up to the 1994 Olympics (particularly in Oakland, California in 1991 at the Ladies Free Skate competition) is to witness sport, art and sheer guts come together in an unfathomable holy trinity. It all went terribly wrong, of course, and she became the most reviled ice skater in the world. ust to recap, six weeks before those Olympics, Harding’s bodyguard, acting on instructions from her already ex-husband, Jeff

Gstaad For some strange reason there have been no #MeToo complaints around these parts. Some locals have grumbled about yours truly, and an interview I gave about this village to a Swiss daily, but although Harvey used to hang out here during Christmases past, no one’s come forward to claim rape. Is there something wrong with our womenfolk? No, most of them are semi-ladies who have made it big and landed some pretty big fish, so no use of crying wolf, sorry, rape. Even the mother of my children has expressed surprise. ‘I was pretty once, and men liked me, yet no one has ever jumped on me, except some

By all accounts, Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad was my kind of guy: may he rest in peace (on an Askvoll standard double). Like me, he was a skinflint. For a multibillionaire to buy his clothes at flea markets and select his groceries from supermarket quick-sale shelves is charming. About his retail wares, I’m more ambivalent. Look, hats off to Ingvar for making halfway-attractive furniture available to the hoi polloi at affordable prices. Yet every time I’ve succumbed to the allure of a cheap-and-cheerful Ikea design, I’ve ended up hating it. Part of the problem is the look. Cheap-and-cheerful is not my bag. I’m more into cheap-and-morose. In a profile a

I found Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book We Were Eight Years in Power surprisingly engaging. It combines a calm, friendly voice with a message of cold extremity. The message is that the sin of white supremacy is the true plot of US history. By trying to cure it, Obama exposed its true torrential force. The geniality of the voice makes the message oddly persuasive. Coates uses memoir with great skill, presenting himself as a normal struggling bloke who had an amazingly lucky break. Writers normally sound as if it’s their absolute right to hold forth, that they deserve every column inch they get, and far more money. This humbler attitude (or pose,

Prince Harry’s imminent wedding to Meghan Markle will reinvigorate the dying special relationship between Britain and America. It is a boost for the fading American regard for the monarchy. In America, the mother country is increasingly the forgotten country – and it has been fading for a century, ever since the First World War. As Sellar and Yeatman put it in 1066 and All That, after the allied victory ‘America was thus clearly top nation, and History came to a full stop’. As the increasingly weaker party in the 242-year affair, we cherish the special relationship much more than the dominant partner. That great Anglo-American WH Auden – an exile

I spent the better part of two sunny days indoors writing about authenticity for a Greek magazine, a strange subject in view of how inauthentic politics are in that Brussels-run south-eastern outpost dotted with islands. Mind you, what is taking place in the West makes Greek politics seem ideal by comparison. The witch hunt is on and it’s as phoney as the one that burnt those poor women in Salem long ago. Thank God for the French actress who injected some badly needed truths into Hollywood’s bullshit. Catherine Deneuve signed an open letter published in Le Monde attacking the wave of ‘puritanism’ sparked by the allegations against Harvey and co. It was

I know this because I saw it in New York two years ago, just before Britain’s EU referendum. And I was struck by the way it captured — not always intentionally, I suspect, given the impeccable liberal credentials of the cast and writers — the political mood in America and over here: revolution, uncertainty, unrest, the falling of old orders and rising of new. In particular, it’s the inspiring story of a nation full of talent and fizzing with energy that’s shackled to a greedy, unelected elite across the sea; belittled and derided by self-appointed rulers, yet willing nonetheless to take a risk in the name of freedom and self-determination. America,

As Kim Jong-un might blow up the world next year, if not this, and people are forever trying to work out what is going on in his country, perhaps it is worth describing a military parade I attended in Pyongyang a few years back. The occasion was the centenary of the birth of the current Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, the founder of the Marxist monarchy who, despite his death more than two decades ago, remains Eternal Leader of the nation. Other attendees included some flotsam and jetsam of the Cold War, a reunion of the Axis of Evil and representatives from various other rogue states and immiserated nations. Presuming it

In this giant, prodigiously sourced and insightful biography, John A. Farrell shows how Richard Milhous Nixon was the nightmare of the age for many Americans, even as he won years of near-adulation from many others. One can only think of Donald Trump. Nixon appealed to lower- and  lower-middle-class whites from the heartland, whose hatred of the press and the east-coast elite, and feelings of having been short-changed and despised by snobs, held steady until their hero and champion unmistakably broke the law and had to resign his second-term presidency. Nixon won a smashing re-election in 1972, even as it was apparent that the White House was awash with skulduggery. His

I arrived for lunch a bit late and was led to the dining table. Our hostess disappeared back into the house to bring out the food, leaving me to acquaint myself with the other guests, an Englishwoman and an American. The Englishwoman said that yesterday she had fallen off the wagon after eight weeks and today she was terribly hung over. She didn’t feel guilty, however, because she had enjoyed herself very much. The American man’s eyes were hidden behind sunglasses but he had a warm smile and great teeth and an easy, open manner. He introduced himself by saying that this was his first time in France, and that