Mary Wakefield

Is it racist to be patriotic? Is patriotism, by definition, small-minded and exclusive? When you strip away the onion layers of sentiment about history and hymns, Shakespeare and lawn clippings, does it have a hateful heart? I ask because, as I’ve written before, I feel patriotic, and until recently I’ve considered this to be a good thing. I felt particularly patriotic at a service in Ravenstonedale, Cumbria, last week. I slid in late and guilty, amid snippy Sunday stares. After the sermon we trooped outside and in the suddenly sunlit graveyard the vicar whipped a trumpet from his cassock and began to play. A pair of starlings began their electric warble, the motes and midges were bright against the dark church wall.

My niece, Lara, 15, has a mind like a surgical blade. On any subject, from calculus to The X Factor, she finds the heart of the issue and dissects it with alarming ease. Lara makes mincemeat of homework, trailing A grades, which is why it was so odd to find her stumped two weeks ago. The trouble was with her English language GCSE. As part of her coursework (controlled assessment) she had to comment on a pamphlet, produced by a charity, about volunteering. On the cover of the pamphlet was a slogan in a pink circle, and Lara’s dilemma was this. She said: I’ll get points if I write that the circle symbolises something, an unbroken ring of trust, or the fullness of life. But I mean, the truth is, someone at the charity just chose a circle at random, didn’t they? So what should I say?

Finally, just in the last few years I’d say, we’ve all begun to accept the role of nature in the great nature/nurture debate. Though we’ve squirmed and baulked, we mostly now do accept that genes inform (to a greater or lesser extent) not just our height and eye-colour, but our personalities: our intelligence, our disposition. We’re more like our parents than we are like strangers — and what, after all, was so very controversial about that? So now we’re at peace with our genes, here’s another mental challenge, a curious discovery by geneticists that’s even more at odds with our intuition.

I have a friend who is perhaps best described by that old-fashioned phrase ‘ladies’ man’. He’s not a cad or a bounder — quite the opposite, in fact. He’d never leave a lady in the lurch, or lie to her, he simply enjoys the company of women — quite a lot of women — and they seem to enjoy him too. He knows all the hottest spots in town, and somehow all the barmen and doormen too. More important, he’s a listener, and as any girl will tell you, a man who listens is a rare and miraculous thing. But of all the cards up his sleeve, there’s one that trumps the rest: he’s friends with Artur, one of the best head builder/decorators in London, and for any home-owning thirtysomething woman, that’s catnip.

I can't blame bigwigs in the NHS for the meltdown of our 999 service. It's fundamentally our own fault that the service we depend on to save our lives is breaking down. We call 999 at the slightest sniffle, which means paramedics and ambulance drivers find it impossible to keep up. They're run ragged trying both to respond to every call and hit the government's response time targets. What I can blame the bigwigs for (by which I mean senior management in the NHS London Ambulance Services) and do in this week's Spectator cover story, is that they have responded to the crisis in a catastrophically counterproductive way, with the result that their paramedics are fleeing the service.

The US has said it has temporarily evacuated its staff from the Libyan capital Tripoli over security concerns. Earlier this year Mary Wakefield discussed in The Spectator how David Cameron wasn't paying due attention to the troubles in Libya: A few days ago I went to a talk about Syria; one of those events for the concerned layman, in which a panel of experts give a briefing. Everything sounded depressingly familiar until expert number three piped up: I hear people blame Saudi Arabia and Qatar for the Islamists in Syria, he said, but in fact, they more often come from Libya. The crowd shifted in discomfort. Isn’t Libya done and dusted? Oh no, said the expert, it’s full of al-Qa’eda training camps now, especially in Benghazi.

In the middle of a troubled and brawling world: some hope and inspiration. In last week's edition of The Spectator we ran a piece by Jim de Zoete about the incredible story of David Rudisha, the Masai warrior and 800 metres world champion who ran what Sebastian Coe has described as ‘the greatest race of all time’ at the London 2012 Olympics. Rudisha has spent the last few years recovering from injury, but he'll be running again in the Commonwealth games next week. Watch him then, but tonight, watch Jim de Zoete's documentary about Rudisha and his coach, an Irish missionary called Brother Colm. 10pm BBC4. It'll give you faith in the world again. 100 Seconds to Beat the World: The David Rudisha Story is on BBC Four at 10pm tonight (22 July).

Tom leant back against the bathroom wall, his face streaked with blood from the nosebleed, eyes half shut like an owl. ‘I’m passing out,’ he said. Then his legs gave way and he slumped to the floor. ‘Tom? Tom?’ I shook him but — nothing, no response. His hands began an awful looping tremor. Five minutes before, I hadn’t been much worried, a little bossy even, enjoying playing nursemaid to a friend. It’s only a nosebleed T. Now. Don’t tip your head back, you’ll choke. Lean forward over the sink, pinch your nose. Like this. Here. As Tom lost consciousness, so my reality changed. This was a different world — one in which T might be having a fit, or dying. My thoughts moved at different speeds.

Feminism in modern Britain is not for the faint-hearted. Only the smartest, mouthiest girls on the social media scene dare join the fray — in print, in blogs, on Twitter — where they yell silently at each other in front of a mute but poisonous audience. It often seems not so much a fight for ladies’ rights as for territory: Caitlin Moran, Lily Allen, Laurie Penny, all jostling to own each particular piece of feminist turf. So it pleases me, secretly, that quite unnoticed by the Twitter girls, another woman’s voice, one that speaks aloud to millions every day, has done more (I suspect) to advance equality than the whole shouty lot of them. I noticed her first when I answered a phone call from an anonymous number not so long ago.

How did ISIS, the blackest-hearted and most dangerous of Islamist groups take Iraq's second city, Mosul, so easily? The lesson of their success in Raqqa province, Syria, is that they thrive on existing incompetence. In Syria the relative uselessness of the other rebel groups, especially any affiliated with the official Free Syrian Army, made ISIS an attractive proposition for young radicalised Muslims. Paul Wood, who has written for us brilliantly on ISIS over the years, has pointed out that it was disgust over the venal corruption of the FSA that turned young men to ISIS. In al-Maliki's Iraq the conditions were, are perfect for ISIS. Unemployment has risen leaving young men desperate  and directionless; corruption is rife and public services are disintegrating.

In my late thirties, I have become patriotic. It’s one of those things that’s happened with age, like cooking to freeze, plumping cushions and thinking policemen look too young. My heart stirs at the sound of a marching band and at the thought of great British inventions: the London sewer system, steam engines, float glass. On the slimmest pretext I’ll start lamenting the decline of our great industries and tell you that too often our brightest ideas are developed abroad. On most subjects, as we get older, my friends and I agree. On marriage and mortgages; grey hair and aching knees, but on Britain and its place in the world I am alone. Just a squeak from me in support of Britain, or British business, and my friends look taken aback, then almost appalled.

When Greg, my old uni pal, came to stay from NYC he brought with him an extra bag for his pills: vitamins A, B, C, D, zinc, magnesium, selenium, ginseng. They decamped to the kitchen, the pills, and stood in rows beside the kettle awaiting their morning ritual. They were bigger than British versions, I noticed, and more violently coloured. Come breakfast, Greg requested pomegranate juice, not for taste but for antioxidants, and orange juice for electrolytes. Then there was lunch. We’d be nearing the end of a trek round some royal palace when suddenly Greg’s voice would flatten: ‘You know, I think my blood sugar’s getting low?’ Then, in a dangerous monotone: ‘I need to eat.’ At first I didn’t take much notice.