Red Rishi | The Spectator

Taki

The death of fair play

New York He’s oilier than Molière’s Tartuffe but gets away with more. His latest move involves the martial art of jiu-jitsu, where he managed to get a referee to reverse his decision. I’ve been competing in martial arts for close to 60 years now, and have rarely, in fact never, witnessed a ref reverse his or her decision. But I’m no bad loser like Zuckerberg. Some of you old-timers may even remember something called fair play. Bad calls are inevitable in sport, and one is used to taking the bad ones with the good ones because in the end they all even out. Facebook’s honcho ended up a multibillionaire under a bit of a cloud, accused of having stolen the idea from twin brothers who could not have been overly smart to trust him in the first place. Never mind.

Real life

Melissa Kite

The BB wants to put my dream farm on a skip

‘Have you got your passport? Your phone? Your wallet?’ The builder boyfriend patted his pockets and told me not to worry as we drove through the Gatwick drop-off lane where they charge you £5 to open your car door for three seconds and push someone out. When I arrived back home, he texted: ‘I left my euros in the pocket of my work jeans.’ No matter. He could draw out cash when he got there. It had been a last minute rush to get him on a flight to Cork to view this dream farm I had found, in the sun-drenched valley. It was really a modest white bungalow but it had 45 acres behind it, and post and rail fences. If I squinted, it looked a bit like Southfork. It was certainly the closest I was ever going to get to homesteading.

Wine Club

Jonathan Ray

Wine Club: perfect summer fare from Swig

There are worse ways of spending the late May bank holiday than tasting a dozen or so wines from Swig, the merchant beloved of my sainted predecessors Messrs Waugh and Hoggart. Mrs Ray did question why I had to start so early, finish so late and ask so many neighbours to help but then she, too, got swept up in the fun and agreed that putting out spittoons would only spoil things and add to the washing up. She’s a trouper all right. This selection from Swig is the perfect summer fare The 2021 Di Meno Grillo (1), from the hills of north-west Sicily, is so engaging it demanded inclusion. I don’t get much on the nose – maybe a touch of peach and melon – but on the palate I get plenty: lemon zest, herbs, melon and grapefruit, and I love it.

No sacred cows

Toby Young

The demonisation of Kathleen Stock

It had been billed as the most controversial debate of the year, with even Rishi Sunak intervening to say that Kathleen Stock, who had been invited to the Oxford Union, should not be no-platformed. But if you were sitting in the Union’s debating chamber on Tuesday evening – as I was – the huge kerfuffle seemed baffling. For an hour and a half, the former philosophy professor talked almost exclusively about toilets. To be fair, she was given little choice. It was more of an interview than a debate, in which the president of the union fired questions at her. Roughly 90 per cent of them were about women’s lavatories. In particular, he wanted to know why she objected to trans women being allowed to use ‘the ladies’.

Dear Mary

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How do I persuade my wife to get my friend into her private members’ club?

Q. My wife has for some time been a member of a fashionable members’ club. A dear friend and ex-colleague recently approached me to ask if he could submit her details as reference for his application to such club. In some circles he may be deemed to be somewhat rough around the edges. Personally, I would have no hesitation in recommending him as I believe I owe him a great deal – indeed, I believe we all owe him a great deal. As a sometime servant of this country, he survived a near fatal wound in one of Mr Blair’s ill-advised expeditions to the Middle East. My wife has refused his request on the grounds that he is likely to cause trouble at some stage. I disagree, but even so I would support his application. What should I do? – J.R., Oxfordshire A.

Drink

Bruce Anderson

The Britishness of Bordeaux

Burgundy or Bordeaux? We were discussing that unending question during dinner over the weekend. I think that there is only one answer: ‘Yes.’ ‘But which, you clot?’ ‘Either. Better still, both.’ It is so much a matter of sentiment, and of which great bottle you have been lucky enough to drink most recently. But there is an argument, which is nothing to do with quality, that Bordeaux – claret – is more British. This is as true in North Britain as in England. There are various versions of a well-known piece of doggerel. My favourite is: ‘Proud and erect the Caledonian stood / Auld was his mutton but his claret good.

Mind your language

Dot Wordsworth

The Viking roots of ‘Thirlby’

Last month hundreds of Westminster street signs were auctioned off. Their design with san-serif capital letters was the work of Sir Misha Black in 1967. One for Thirleby Road went for £240. It is not a famous street but my husband and I know people who live there, though they were not the lucky bidders. I had never got a satisfactory answer from our friends about how the street is pronounced. They do not know. I find this odd. How do they get home by taxi? The crux is whether it is two syllables or three. By chance, a trip with my husband to North Yorkshire last week resolved the question. Four miles or so from Thirsk is the village of Thirlby (with no E). ‘Why should Thirleby Road in Westminster be named after a Yorkshire village and be spelt in a different way?’ asked my husband.

Poems

Peter Bakowski

Portrait of an actor between engagements, Tottenham, 1958

Your dream remains one of distance,away from shoddy parents,this lukewarm suburb,its limp bus service.You take on any part —cad, butler, toady. In rehearsals,you hone timing, gestures.Volume, even.Remember to stride across the boards,your performance directed towardsrows of church hall chairs. Regarding praise — you tryto float on your backamongst the heave and ebbof egos cast adrift,aspiring, each, to be the causeof a FULL HOUSE noticein a West End theatre foyer. But the one you fancy for the spotlight of your bedremains unswayed by your lines off-stage,their delivery,your silken cravat. The kitchen fridgecontains one bottle of HP sauce.You sing ‘Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?’until interrupted by the landlordpounding on the door.

John Fuller

No Plot

The letters will be found in the spidery tomb. The madman laughs aloud. There’ll come a time When the characters are together in a room To hear about a codicil or crime. The swindler knows at last he’ll be arrested, The drunken baronet falls up the stairs, The patient women, being sorely tested, Rebel at last and leave the page in pairs. Our histories are yet to be arranged. We like this freedom, though it’s all we’ve got. There are no drafts, and nothing to be changed. There are no chapters, and there is no plot.

William Palmer

An Orderly Creation

From his work in the garden – those strips of wildnesstamed, the carpet lawn watered at the end of day –the gardener goes to his rest. Snails have been salted, roses stand corrected,hawthorn hedges are cut to the back of the headof a West Point cadet. Harebells, foxgloves, the white trumpetsof convolvulus – all have been destroyedin sweaty triumph. Only a few forget-me-nots,their eyes showing, are left, unrememberedunder the hedge. Into the last sunlight the ash raisesits rebel flame. Asleep in his armchair, the gardenerdreams of tree felling.

The Wiki Man

Rory Sutherland

The case for building more roads

Suella Braverman was completely wrong to ask her civil servants to investigate the possibility of arranging a one-on-one speed awareness course. This is not because this was in breach of the ministerial code. That aspect of the affair was one of the worst examples of contrived, sanctimonious outrage I have ever seen; it pains me to think anyone thought it remotely newsworthy. No, the main reason Suella was wrong to request a one-on-one course is far simpler. Attending a speed awareness course in the company of a random selection of other people is a total blast, and too great an entertainment opportunity to miss. It’s like Twelve Angry Men with motoring advice.

The turf

Robin Oakley

The science of horse racing

Everybody in racing is looking for an edge. With 7-4 the field, the punter is looking for a 2-1. The racecourse executive wonders which pop group will add 4,000 to the gate if booked for after-racing entertainment. The jockey on a confirmed front runner plans to slip the field out of the stalls. Trainers all seek an extra ingredient to help win them races consistently. At Sarsen Farm, a state-of-the-art new yard in Upper Lambourn built on the site of what was once a decrepit farmhouse then a Jockey Club tractor depot, Daniel and Claire Kubler are hoping that what a famous if ungrammatical advertisement for white goods used to call ‘the appliance of science’ is going to do the trick for them.

Life