Mary Wakefield

Now that the Fed has introduced a temporary reduction in interest rates, and my selfish fear has subsided, I’ve become obsessed with the debt-ridden or bankrupt souls that we now know to call sub-primes, because loans they take out are risky or sub-prime. And the more I read about sub-primes, the sorrier I feel for them and the more it seems that our financial system relies on treating them like livestock – to be fattened up, encouraged to consume, then sacrificed when the time is right. Poor sub-primes, sitting in their sub-prime trailers, watching sub-prime, prime time TV.

Dr Salvatore LaSpada (what a lovely name) had a plaintive piece in yesterday's Daily Telegraph about how little we Brits give to charity. America gives away 1.7 per cent of it's GDP to good causes, he says, so what's with our pitiful 0.7? Giving is great! says LaSpada encouragingly, "It's the best fun you'll ever have!"  Whoa there Dr S! But he's right of course, giving does generally feel good, so there's probably a decent reason why we don't. And the reason I think is actually quite simple. It's not that we've contracted our consciences out to the State, or that we're intrinsically mean, but rather that Big Charity has taken over in the UK, and donating to Big Charity is no fun.

The road was cordoned off by Horse Guards parade on Friday afternoon, because of some ‘function’ on the pavement beside the Treasury building: squat little marquee, squat little men drinking warm champagne and 30 odd police officers standing around in the street with truncheons. As I herded with the crowd along the pedestrian detour I saw a blind man in a smart suit with a guide dog, fumbling in a panicky way at the police barrier. He worked in the Treasury opposite, he said, and though there'd been a gap in the fence 5 mins ago, which he’d popped through to walk his dog, it now seemed to have vanished. I couldn't see the gap either, so I called out to a nearby policewoman, and this is how the conversation went: Policewoman: “Oh, I just closed that gap.

Help, please! Yes you – don’t pass me by, I have a problem and I need your advice. How can cyclists survive – not just physically, though that’s also tricky – but financially? We bike because it’s practical and ethical, and because we’re encouraged to by our political leaders, but why should we go on when it’s just impossible to stop a bike being nicked? This is how bad it’s got  – there I was at 2am last night lying on my sofa, reading some cop book, squinting with exhaustion when I heard a thin electonic whine, as if from a hedge strimmer, coming through the open window. I ignored it. Read on. But only a few sentences later, being even nosier than I am lazy, I wandered over to the window to have a peer around.

Has anybody noticed that slowly, slowly, (little by little) short people are taking over the world? They took Hollywood many decades ago, beetling their way into the limelight with their bulging eyes and cuban heels. Then they quietly assumed the moral and spiritual high ground, with the truly minuscule Saint Mother Teresa and Gandhi. These days they're after political power. There used to be a ban on very short people becoming famous politicians -- they were there, in the background, but like rats or baby pigeons, they never dared show themselves in public. But now there's that charismatic little titch Sarkozy set to become President of France and the pint-sized tyrant Ahmadinejad in the east. Neither seem ashamed. And isn't Hillary Clinton on the short side?

Is it ethical to snoop around an Archbishop’s sitting-room? Surely, I decide, a gentle stroll around furniture is OK: past a gilt mirror and a large crucifix, past a picture book of the Jewish Haggadah and over to a baby grand tucked into the curve of a bay window. There are two piano pieces on the stand and no sign of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor — it seems sensible, not sneaky, to see if the music offers any insight into the man’s mind. The first piece is Chopin’s Grande Valse Brillante; underneath it, Francis and Day’s Community Song Book with optional guitar accompaniment. Then, behind me, a voice, ‘Do you play the piano?’ The Cardinal is smiling, dressed in immaculate black, thinner than I expected, older.

Mary Wakefield looks back at our issue of 24 April 1926, and finds The Spectator reflecting on Mussolini, the brewing General Strike — and the off-side rule It was press day at The Spectator when Queen Elizabeth II was born. The printers had set the lines of type for the edition of 24 April 1926, and were waiting for the extra paragraph about the new royal baby. Did their hearts swell with pride when it arrived? The Spectator gave them the benefit of the doubt: ‘Universal pleasure has been caused by the birth of a daughter, on Wednesday, to the Duke and Duchess of York,’ it said. ‘The new Princess is third in the line of succession to the Throne, coming after the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York....