Spectator Life

As a child, I couldn’t get enough of Enid Blyton’s books. From the moment I discovered the Malory Towers series, set in a girls’ boarding school on a windswept Cornish clifftop, I was hooked. My strict grandmother called me a spendthrift for frittering all my pocket money (the princely sum of two shillings and sixpence a week) on paperback editions of Malory Towers, St Clare’s, The Naughtiest Girl and the Famous Five but I was too engrossed to care. Blyton’s first book, a slim volume of poetry called Child Whispers, was published in 1922 and she went on to publish more than 800 titles before her death in 1968.

There is something terribly cheering about Scotch pancakes. Even the best normal pancakes are a bit floppy, a bit (whisper it) flabby. They give the cook the choice of eating them one by one as they cook, or resigning themselves to the reality of a mostly tepid, slightly clammy pile. Scotch pancakes are not like this. So let’s get this straight: what are they? A Scotch pancake, sometimes known by its other name, a drop scone, is a leavened and griddled pancake. It is far thicker and smaller than its unscotched sister, and although on the face of it bears a strong a resemblance to its American sibling, it’s really rather different.

There are few more iconic British brands than WH Smith, nor many more ubiquitous. 90% of people can reach a store within twenty minutes from their door, and 73% make at least one visit a year. For many, the name conjures up childhood memories of first encounters with classic literature, sumptuous atlases or a beguilingly niche magazine. But something is deeply wrong with this erstwhile national staple: it has become a travesty of trade, a grim parody of twenty-first century consumerism. In this age of mission statements, WH Smith’s goal is ‘to be Britain’s most popular high street stationer, bookseller and newsagent’. But popular is a slippery term. WH Smith has sacrificed customer satisfaction at the altar of high-margin products.

When Paul Mason was covertly recorded by the Sun newspaper divulging his private view that Jeremy Corbyn does not appeal to the working classes, there wasn’t much surprise in the Labour leader’s office. The relationship between Corbyn and his celebrity guru has always been complex. Kremlinologists point to a meeting of Corbyn’s closest comrades earlier this year at Esher Place, a £6 million, Grade II country house in Surrey owned by Unite. The guest list was a who’s who of the hard left: John McDonnell, Diane Abbott, Len McCluskey, Labour strategy chief Seumas Milne and Momentum boss Jon Lansman were all in attendance. Corbyn had also invited Mason to join this star chamber.

Left-wing people in the olden days Left-wing people used to like working-class people. Lots of left-wing people used to be working-class people. These people were known as socialists and joined trade unions. Sometimes working-class people used to frighten left-wing people, but they pretended that they weren't frightened and were nice to them. Left-wing people supported working-class people, gave them money, sat in rooms with them and wore badges to show that they cared more than right-wing people, who wore ties instead of badges and didn't care. Nowadays Nowadays, working-class people are bored with socialism because it hasn't made them rich and happy. Nowadays left-wing people are middle-class people. Working class people are a big disappointment to left-wing people.

Lee Child’s Jack Reacher is back with the release earlier this month of The Midnight Line, the 22nd book in the series. The Reacher books are hugely popular, but fail to garner much in the way of critical respect. Here are five reasons why the public love Reacher and why critics should… Jack Reacher Reacher is without a doubt one of the most original, complex and compelling characters in crime fiction. An ex-military policeman turned drifter, he has nothing tieing him to the world except for his relentless (and almost psychopathic) desire for justice. He’s the archetypal existential avenging angel – John Wayne, Bogart and Brando rolled into one.

If there is one word that strikes fear and loathing into the hearts of Labour MPs, it is Momentum. This mixed bag of Trots, tankies, cranks and hipsters who delivered Jeremy Corbyn the leadership has become his Red Guards. Its name is synonymous with the new wave of hard-left entryism into Labour, calls to deselect moderate MPs, picketing offices, harassing staff and tweeting bile. So it doesn’t quite fit the public persona that its founder and chief commissar, Jon Lansman, is such an affable fellow. The 59-year-old Lansman is full of contradictions. He is the leader of Britain’s most notorious and divisive political movement, yet Labour colleagues agree he is ‘a lovely man’, ‘a loveable rogue’.

My phone vibrates with a three-letter text message heralding another inevitable Westminster hangover: “MoG?”. The Marquis of Granby pub on Romney Street is an old-fashioned sort of boozer: mahogany-panelled bar with a chandeliered burgundy ceiling and a gents you have to wade through. There’s none of your poncey hipster food served on slabs of wood here; if you head to the upstairs dining room you’re having a pie and a pint. You can see why Nigel Farage loves this place for a photo opportunity. I’m meeting another journalist for an ale and a gossip, but this used to be a Tory haunt before Conservative Central Office moved from Smith Square.

The Great British Bake Off (GBBO) is like a steaming spotted dick, moist and dense and delicious, and speckled with dried fruit. Paul Hollywood is the flour. He binds it all together. Mel and Sue are the milk and butter. They’re rich and creamy, and maybe a bit naughty in their comedic charm. Mary Berry? She’s the sugar, of course. Were she not there, the pudding wouldn’t be a pudding at all. It would just be a mound of carby sadness. Spotted dick is a fine pudding. And so terribly British, just like GBBO. Yesterday, gasps were heard when it was announced that the show will, as of the end of series seven, move to Channel 4. The maker, Love Productions, could not agree a deal with the BBC. Shockingly, the disagreement between the BBC and Love Productions is over money.

Young people today are very reluctant to assume that anything is certain, and this reluctance is revealed in their language. In any matter where there might be disagreement, they will put a question mark at the end of the sentence. And to reinforce the posture of neutrality they will insert words that function as disclaimers, among which the favourite is ‘like’. You might be adamant that the Earth is spherical, but they will suggest instead that the Earth is, ‘like, spherical?’ Whence came this ubiquitous hesitation? As I understand the matter, it has much to do with the new ideology of non-discrimination.

Thanks to Stephen Fry I had never wanted to be on television. Around the time Fry made the transition from print to screen, and hence real fame, he wrote a piece lamenting the irreversible step he had taken. Now, as a result of his face being familiar, he explained, he could never again complain in a restaurant without being accused of throwing his weight around. To put his bins out risked snoopers going through the contents. He even feared cutting his toenails, he said, in case someone got hold of them and knocked up ‘an army of clones’. Joking aside, Fry knew he had lost the precious gift of privacy and would never regain it. ‘If only I’d stuck to radio,’ he said. His words had a terrible ring of truth and I’ve always remembered them.

On 2 September 1939, as Neville Chamberlain sat down after trying to explain away his latest bout of sucking up to Hitler and the deputy leader of the Labour party, Arthur Greenwood (standing in for his absent boss Clement Attlee), rose to reply, the infuriated Tory MP Leo Amery shouted: ‘Speak for England, Arthur!’ It’s telling that it took the threat of imminent fascism to make a member of Parliament a) speak plainly, and b) offer support to a member across the floor. To this day, such incidents are rare, to say the least. Instead, Parliament is plagued by a ceaseless cacophony of casual cat-calling, rising to a pitch of parasexual excitement when one side smells blood.

Evgeny Lebedev’s famous friends are eager to tell you what a darling he is. Piers Morgan says that he is ‘one of the most charming, well-connected, exotically attired and fascinating figures in English society right now’. Stephen Fry says that ‘for a man of his power, status and wealth, he is endlessly teaseable and humorous’. Boris Johnson says that he is ‘a major force for good’ and ‘a very generous soul’. And Boris’s sister Rachel calls him ‘a wise old beard (or two) on young shoulders. He’s much smarter and funnier than people think.’ You get the picture. Evgeny likes to be ribbed, especially if the person doing the ribbing is a celebrity.