Kippers

Wednesday

David Profumo

Homage to the herring as king of the fishes

In 1755, Samuel Johnson (this was before his honorary doctorates) defined the herring as ‘a small sea-fish’, and that was it. By contrast, Graeme Rigby has spent 25 obsessive years documenting the cultural and economic importance of this creature. The resulting omnium-gatherum is like the bulging cod-end of a bumper trawl net, farctate with glistening details that embrace zooarchaeology, cooperage, otoliths, skaldic verse and Van Gogh’s ear. Clupea harengus is a highly adaptable, widely distributed marine teleost that can form shoals covering several square miles, and their milky spawning trails are so long they can be seen from space. The name may derive from the Germanic heer (army), and its nicknames include ‘Digby Chickens’.

Monday

The Spectator

Letters from Spectator readers, July 2024

From our US edition

The cunning of the Democrats’ lawfare On the right flank the aristocrats of the conservative intelligentsia dominated by the likes of Max Boot, David Frum, David French, Bill Kristol and George Will would rather compromise than soil their false pride; the haughty intellectual snobs are thus perfect targets for Alinsky’s “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules” — aristocratic intellectual elites that would rather die than support a judicial and policy juggernaut with bad table manners. As Victor Davis Hanson observed, Marquess of Queensberry Republicans would rather lose nobly than win ugly. — Adler Pfingsten Will Cherelle Parker become the next ‘America’s mayor’ in Philadelphia?

letters

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: the admirable strength of Ukrainians

The bravery of Ukraine Sir: Few articles could resonate as strongly as that of Svitlana Morenets (‘Scrambled logic’, 20 April). She brings the agony of her brave countrymen and women home to us, and the effect of dithering and equivocation by the West. As a volunteer with a refugee charity, I weekly admire the character of our Ukrainian clients, mainly older ladies who spend their time bringing us delicious homemade cakes, volunteering in charity shops and signing up to English classes at the local college.