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Thursday

James Walton

Better Call Saul review: the box set equivalent of a (very) well-made play

I lost count long ago of the number of dinner parties and pub conversations where I’ve had to utter the humiliating words, ‘Actually I haven’t seen Breaking Bad.’ The social isolation became even more shaming when my 81-year-old mother rang to ask me if I’d heard of the show and to explain how much she loved it. (‘But isn’t it very violent, Mum?’ I said. ‘Yes,’ she replied.) All of which means that I can approach Better Call Saul (Netflix) with what I like to think of as stern critical neutrality — rather than, say, ignorance. The main character is, or will become, Breaking Bad’s Saul Goodman, who, from a

Thursday

Stephen Bayley

The art of Coke

In 1915 D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation was premièred, Henry Ford manufactured his millionth Model-T (‘a million of anything is a lot’, he said), Kafka’s Metamorphosis was published and so, too, was one of Einstein’s critical contributions to his own general theory of relativity. Mixed into this modernist cocktail of extreme achievement and harrowing perceptions was something more banal, but just as enduring: the Coca-Cola ‘contour’ bottle. A century old this year, it is, in a disputed field, an undisputed ‘design classic’. And, like any classic in any genre, it can be read in many ways. Long before Apple and the Messianic Steve Jobs, Coca-Cola developed a business model

James Delingpole

Arabian Motorcycle Adventures review: enthralling and constantly surprising

There were great numbers of young men who had never been in a war and were consequently far from unwilling to join in this one.(Thucydides, 5th century BC) I love that quote, inscribed on the walls of the Imperial War Museum, because it tells you so much both about the reason wars happen and about the nature of men. Most of us go through a phase where we think it would be terribly exciting to ‘see the elephant’. And for a lucky few, it’s everything they hoped it would be and more. One of those lucky few is an extraordinarily jammy sod called Matthew VanDyke. By rights this young American

Deborah Ross

Selma review: rich, nuanced, heartbreaking

Selma, the civil rights film that stars David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King, undoubtedly contains the best and most powerful performance of the year as not nominated for an Oscar. Oyelowo has said this is because Hollywood prefers black actors when they play ‘subservient roles’ and aren’t ‘the centre of their own narrative, driving it forward’, which, alas — and before I could help myself — immediately made me think of Driving Miss Daisy (nine nominations, and winner of Best Picture over Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing). So, a useful reminder that, in congratulating ourselves on how far we have come, we should not forget how far we still

Friday

Alex Massie

The ineffable sadness of Mitt Romney 2016

The suggestion Mitt Romney might make another run for the Presidency of the United States made me think of a line from one of my father’s novels: ‘There’s nothing so sad as the memory of lost fucks.’  There’s a measure of wistful sadness but also some wry resignation. The obvious reaction is that, hey Mittens, third time ain’t no charm. Because that’s the way it’s supposed to work these days. You’re supposed to accept being beaten, supposed to retire gracefully from the fray, supposed to recognise it’s someone else’s turn. This ain’t Richard Nixon’s America and it’s not Ronald Reagan’s either. And yet, in one sense, why should Romney accept it is

Thursday

Steerpike

Peers demand PM lobbies President over haggis ban

Patriotic peers have demanded that David Cameron raise the US haggis import ban with President Obama at the White House today. As Steerpike noted yesterday, the 1971 ban on the product is under renewed scrutiny in the run up to Burn’s Night, with Lord McColl demanding answers to great cheers in the House of Lords this morning. Apparently ‘this wholesome food is much better than the junk many Americans eat’. Tory peer Michael Forsyth even went as far as to demand that a special envoy on the matter be appointed immediately, and suggested the former First Minister Alex Salmond might be free to take the fight directly to the Yanks. Only

Wednesday

Steerpike

Could a Tory peer convince the USA to stomach imported haggis?

Tomorrow, parliament will debate a topic of immense significance. Steerpike hears that Tory peer Lord McColl is planning on championing a great repressed minority, in a land that claims to be free. Not so much a political hot potato, rather a hot sheep stomach stuffed with the animal’s heart, liver and lungs. Since 1971 haggis has been banned in the States, denying the 24 million Americans who claim to be of Scottish descent (with varying degrees of credibility), from celebrating Burns Night properly. Behind the scenes there has been a long lobbying campaign to have the ban overturned, aimed at Defra and the US Embassy, and spearheaded by Ranald Macdonald, owner of

Tuesday

Alex Krasodomski

The real danger of #CyberJihad is that anybody can get involved

There was a certain irony to the news that @CENTCOM had been hacked yesterday afternoon. While President Obama was giving a speech on cybersecurity, the U.S. Central Command Twitter account was spouting pro-Isis propaganda. Nothing new here, though. Since day one, Isis have used the internet to threaten the West and in particular American soldiers. During a few days in August last year, my research group tracked eighty thousand tweets sent using the hashtag #AMessageFromISIStoUS from Isis sympathisers. Many of them contained grisly threats: images of US casualties and coffins with warnings not to interfere in the affairs of the Caliphate. Cyber-jihad is a natural evolution of terrorism. Islamic State seem to have

Thursday

Harry Mount

It’s 200 years since Britain last fought America. But it’s not a battle the British care to remember

2015 is the year of Waterloo and Wellington. The 200th anniversary will be celebrated with grand commemorations on the battlefield and in London. But today, January 8th, 2015, is also the 200th anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans – the last time Britain fought America, and the beginning of the special relationship. How smoothly and quickly we moved from bloody slaughter to two centuries of close friendship. And how remarkable that the battle is forgotten here. Perhaps that’s because we lost so spectacularly to General Andrew ‘Old Hickory’ Jackson, the future American President. The battle concluded the War of 1812 between Britain and America, which ended in a score draw

Deborah Ross

Foxcatcher: piercing, shattering, spellbinding

Foxcatcher is a crime drama (of sorts) that has already been dubbed ‘Oscarcatcher!’ as it barely puts a foot wrong. It is tautly directed, deftly written, thoroughly gripping and offers psychological heft as well as sublime performances all round, even from Steve Carell’s prosthetic nose, which deserves a nomination in and of itself. (Schnozzle of the year?) It’s also based on a fascinating true story, although the less you know about this story, particularly how it ends, the better. I would even advise you to stop reading right now, but I need the money, plus the abuse in the comments section below. My life wouldn’t be worth living without that.

Tuesday

Neil Barnett

The Saudis are playing a clever game with oil supplies. Here’s how to understand it

As oil prices continue to plummet, the rather sterile debate over Saudi intentions drags on. Some believe the Saudis are locked into a secret conspiracy with Washington to stiff Russia and Iran. Others prefer to take the Saudi oil minister at his word and believe that it’s all about market share. The truth is that the debate is founded on a false dichotomy: the Saudis are doing both things at once, and several other things as well. The best way to understand this is to try to step into the shoes (or sandals, rather) of a senior member of the al-Saud family. Your neighbourhood is convulsed in war and revolution,

Thursday

Lewis Jones

Touring America in Steinbeck’s footsteps

In 1960 John Steinbeck set off with his poodle Charley to drive around the United States in a truck equipped with a bed, a desk, a stove and a fridge. To renew his acquaintance with that ‘monster of a land’, he planned to cross the northern states from the east coast to the west, then drive down the Pacific and across the southern states. He was 58, and recovering from a mild stroke. Having recently abandoned his attempt to write an American Don Quixote, he called his project ‘Operation Windmills’, cast Charley as his Sancho Panza, and named his truck Rocinante. Travels with Charley was published in 1962. It was

Friday

Fleur Macdonald

Did Adnan Syed do it?

I doubt most people would have been familiar with the relatively unremarkable murder of a Baltimore high school student by her ex-boyfriend in 1999. Until Serial started a couple of months ago. Similarly, you might never have heard of Richard Hickock, Perry Smith or some murder in Kansas. Until Truman Capote. Just as he popularised true crime by making it as exciting as fiction, Sarah Koenig has done the genre a favour by making it a bit more listener-friendly. Now one and a half million are tuning in and Hae Min Lee and Adnan Syed are on BBC Radio 4 Extra. The story goes as follows. While Koenig was a journalist on

Thursday

Alexander Smith

Alexander McCall Smith’s notebook: America vs my diet

The trouble with going on an American book tour is that I know it’s going to play havoc with my diet. People on diets can very quickly become diet bores, but I am unrepentant: I know the calorie content of most things and, for instance, how long it takes to burn off a croissant. Not that I eat croissants any more, of course. (We dieters can be tremendously smug.) America is a challenge, though, because all their food is injected with corn syrup. In Denver I was once served an omelette that had been dusted, in cold sobriety, with icing sugar. But it’s not just icing sugar that is a

Monday

Anne Jolis

Boris’s dilemma: relinquish his US passport or pay American tax

When in doubt, blame wealthy foreigners for any political problems. That goes for pols in the US and the UK alike, and even the dual-national Mayor of London is not immune. Boris Johnson opposes blanket non-dom and mansion taxes, but wants councils to ‘whack up’ local levies on empty homes and advocates closing stamp-duty loopholes exploited by ‘mainly but not exclusively non-doms’.  Through these, he explained in one Telegraph column, and with ‘the agency of some clever lawyers, they avoid a tax that is paid by virtually everyone else’. So it is with great interest – and some sympathy, on the part of yours truly – that we expatriates in London learn of Johnson’s dispute with the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Speaking

Thursday

Michael Lind

How America’s right wing is becoming a lot more like Britain’s

   Washington DC [audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_20_Nov_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Michael Lind and Sebastian Payne discuss the growing similarities of the Britain and American right” startat=1350] Listen [/audioplayer]Amid all the commentary about the Republican party’s triumph in America’s midterm elections, a remarkable fact was ignored: in style and substance, the American right is rapidly becoming a lot more like Britain’s. And that might be the key to its success. In the last generation, American right-wingers have stood proudly apart from their counterparts in Europe, Britain, Canada and Australia. They were more religious, and more supportive of mass immigration. But that is changing. Exhibit A is the dwindling influence of the religious right in the US.

Thursday

Ed West

There is no such thing as ‘immigrants’ – only Poles, Yanks, Somalis…

There was much glee about yesterday’s publication of a report into the economic impact of immigration, which concluded eastern Europeans had provided a net benefit of £4.4 billion to the UK economy. There was far less mention of the fact that immigrants from outside Europe in the same period cost the taxpayers £118 billion. But as Christopher Caldwell observed in Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, the immigration debate is not about economics, for ‘the social, spiritual, and political effects of immigration are huge and enduring, while the economic effects are puny and transitory. If, like certain Europeans, you are infuriated by polyglot markets and street signs written in Polish,

Gary Kent

Kurds can pull off miracles, but they need help against Isis

The Kurds can pull off minor miracles when they need to. They require active support, however, now they are at the centre of the global struggle against the self-styled Islamic caliphate, Isis. Recent history shows the Kurdish potential. Eight years ago in Iraqi Kurdistan, there was much talk about oil and gas reserves. Some thought it was all hot air; their oil sector is now huge and has driven another once impossible dream – rapprochement with Turkey, which needs vast energy supplies to fuel its growing economy. Energy could even fuel Kurdish independence. However, a longer history hangs over the Kurds. Nearly a century ago, Kurdish hopes of a single

Wednesday

Jacob Heilbrunn

The real winner at the US mid-terms? Hillary Clinton

Washington, DC The American election cycle is beginning to resemble the 1993 comedy Groundhog Day. In the film, you may recall, Bill Murray plays an egomaniacal Pittsburgh weatherman named Phil Connors who discovers that he’s stuck in a time loop in which the same day repeats itself over and over. He goes bonkers, driving a truck over a cliff in a suicide attempt, only to wake up again the next morning. Substitute the American public for Connors and you have a sense of the prevailing political atmosphere in the US. Ever since 9/11 shattered its illusion of omnipotence, the United States has been unable to escape its troubles. Instead, it

Sebastian Payne

Obama was the Republicans’ greatest weapon last night. What will they do without him?

Anchorage, Alaska You don’t mean a thing if your state’s not a swing, goes the saying in American elections. But if it is a swing, then a whirlwind of money, consultants and campaigners will be sent your way. Alaska has been invaded these last few weeks; armies of activists sent to knock on doors in what looks to be a failed attempt to keep control of the senate. Across the nation, victory went to the Republicans, but with a hitch: their victory depended on Barack Obama. The president’s approval ratings are now down to those last seen by George W Bush. The Republicans won by denouncing Obama, and turning the mid-term