Lara Prendergast

A pal recently told me a story. It was about a friend of theirs who had been travelling on a train last summer, one of those old fashioned trains, with the windows that let you open the door from the outside. He was leaning on the door with his arm resting outside when another train suddenly passed by and clipped his hand. His wrist snapped. There was blood everywhere. He turned back into the carriage and was relieved to see his fellow travellers reaching for their phones. He assumed they were dialling for help. But he quickly realised he was wrong. They were in fact taking photos. I was reminded of this somewhat grim story today, after I read about a man from Telford who had committed suicide on Saturday.

There’s no better way to improve character and cure self-consciousness than to insist your child dress like a fool during their formative years. Distinct fashion tribes exist at some of Britain’s top schools and a boring old blazer simply won’t do. You can never be overdressed or overeducated, suggested Oscar Wilde. But why not at least aim for both by using this guide to school style? The Boaters Harrow insists their students wear boaters at all times while outdoors. Flouting this is cause for punishment. Entrepreneurial types make a quick bob by flogging their hats to Chinese tourists, before buying new ones at a cheaper rate from the school shop. The Witches Girls at Marlborough and Downe House wear long black skirts in the sixth form.

Syracuse is a handsome place, steeped in a rich historical broth. At the tip sits Ortygia, an island offshoot, which has been the backdrop to many Mediterranean sagas: Hellenic, Christian, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque — take your pick. By day, Via de Benedictis is filled with local men selling sea urchins, milky balls of ricotta and bunches of mint. At night, we went to the Piazza Duoma for aperitifs. The cathedral’s broken pediments and exuberant sculpture cast strange shadows on to the square and a zephyr blew. It was November and the place was empty, aside from a small boy on rollerskates and a dog. In summer it must swarm with people. An earthquake destroyed much of southern and eastern Sicily in 1693, and many of the towns were rebuilt in a Baroque style.

Props to Goldsmiths Students' Union, for taking the ‘safe space’ concept to absurd new levels. Last week, one faction of the union hosted a screening of the film Dear White People and advertised it as being 'for BME students'. BME stands for ‘black and minority ethnic’ – and the poster specifies that this screening is for students of ‘African, Caribbean, Arab, Asian and South American ethnic origin'. The union's welfare and diversity officer and education officer both reiterated this message on Facebook and Twitter, then stated that before the screening, there was a BME ONLY social happening at Cafe Natura.

The battle between the spooks and the geeks is heating up. A new report into the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby has suggested that the brutal attack could have been prevented if an internet company (which remains unnamed in the report) had allowed online exchanges between the two killers to be accessed by intelligence services. While the 191-page report suggests that both MI5 and MI6 made errors, the real villains to emerge are the US-based web giants. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who chaired the report, has suggested that internet companies are 'providing a safe haven for terrorists'. The report says: ‘What is clear is that the one party which could have made a difference was the company on whose system the exchange took place.

It was never clear why George Clooney became so attached to the Elgin Marbles. He didn’t even seem to know where they were from when he delivered his plea to the British Museum earlier this year: ‘They’ve had a very nice stay here, certainly. London’s gotten crowded. There’s plenty of room back there in Greece. England can take the lead on this kind of thing – letting art go back where it came from. The Greeks are nothing but generous. They would loan it back once in a while.’ ‘Even in England, the polling is in favour of returning the marbles to the Pantheon [sic].

When I think back to history lessons at school, the predominant focus was always on war. From the Battle of Hastings to the Battle of Agincourt, the Crusades to Nazi Germany, the curriculum seemed jammed full of stories about aggressive military affairs. Fascinating, but it was a relief to reach sixth form and discover another way to study the past — through a cultural lens, via the history of art. History of art is often viewed derisively in the UK. It’s almost ignored by the state system, yet is offered by many independent schools. Because of this, it’s seen as a ‘posh’ choice, in much the same way classics is. A--level history of art is available at only 17 state secondary schools out of more than 3,000, plus a further 15 sixth-form colleges.

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_4_Sept_2014_v4.mp3" title="Isabel Hardman, Emma Barnett and Jamie Bartlett discuss the leaked photos" startat=1312] Listen [/audioplayer]Nobody wants naked photos of themselves leaked across the internet so a global network of creeps can beat off to them. But celebs and plebs alike are increasingly confronted by this unsavoury reality. Whether it’s anonymous hackers or enraged ex-boyfriends who post the images, the story is the same: women are being let down by their ignorance of the pitfalls of technology. You should be able to take naked photos of yourself.

The leader of Rotherham Council has resigned following the results of a report which found that at least 1,400 children were victims of ‘appalling’ sexual exploitation in the town during a sixteen year period. The report details the ‘blatant’ collective failures during most of Roger Stone’s leadership. Professor Alexis Jay, a former senior social worker who wrote the latest report, described how children had been ‘set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone’. The report suggests that Rotherman Council and the police knew about the level of exploitation but did not act.