Troll
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The Spectator
Thursday
Football 2
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Flatpack
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Burger
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Santa 2
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Smell 2
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100 years of Pyrex, processed cheese and nudes in movies
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Marking a century Some things which celebrate their 100th birthday in 2015: 3-D films The first was shown at the Astor Theater in New York on 10 June, featuring the Niagara Falls. Nude scenes in films Audrey Munson played an artist’s model in Inspiration, a film by George Foster Platt released by the Mutual Film Corporation on 18 November 1915. It didn’t lead to a long career. By 1920 she was selling kitchen goods door-to-door. The following year she tried to take her life and in 1931 was consigned to a psychiatric hospital where she spent the rest of her life before dying, aged 104, in 1996. Pyrex, which was introduced in the buffet cars of American trains. Compulsory voting It was introduced for the first time in state elections in Queensland.
Spectator letters: RT replies, Bristol bristles, and Ross Clark doesn’t (yet) eat his hat
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Moscow writing Sir: After months of lamentations from western politicians and officials about losing the ‘information war’ to Russia, a former executive editor of Radio Free Europe tries to paint everything Russia Today does in terms of a ‘propaganda’ campaign (‘Moscow calling’, 6 December). If RT is not inherently bad, it is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, says John O’Sullivan. Take the sectarian violence in Libya, and the Syrian rebel groups that have now become Isis. Russia Today was reporting on these issues years before anyone else cared to. According to O’Sullivan’s article, when we cover the hypocrisy of US or European policies it is simply to further RT’s pro-Russian, anti-western agenda.
Portrait of the year | 11 December 2014
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January Floods covered 28,000 acres of the Somerset Levels. Ukip suspended an Oxfordshire councillor for saying floods were God’s punishment for legalising same-sex marriage. An Afghan was granted asylum because he had become an atheist. Fallujah fell to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis). Half a million fled fighting in South Sudan. Cannabis went on sale in Colorado. In Amsterdam, alcoholics were paid in beer to clear up litter. Jeremy Paxman shaved off his beard. February Floods grew worse in the West Country. The railway at Dawlish, Devon, was swept away. The Thames then flooded. Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, visited London to have tea with the Queen and urge Britain to stay in the EU.
Why do the Liberal Democrats see the over-65s as a “time bomb”?
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We are living longer, healthier and more prosperous lives than ever — it’s one of the greatest advances of our time, and yet our politicians prefer to see it as a disaster. ‘We are facing a time bomb,’ says the Liberal Democrat Norman Lamb, a health minister. He presents the numbers as if we are supposed to be appalled: 'by 2030 England will have double the number of over-85s. The number of over-65s will have increased by 50 per cent.’ In other words: oh my God, we're all going to live. It's odd that the Liberal Democrats should be so alarmed by the fact that there will be half a million of us who have celebrated 90 or more Christmases — three times as many as there were in the 1980s.
Books and arts – 11 December 2014
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The Spectator at war: Fighting for peace
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From President Wilson's Message, The Spectator, 12 December 1915: We quite agree that it is the greatness and glory of America to be the true friend of all nations, to "threaten none, covet the possession of none, and desire the overthrow of none." No ideal could be higher or better worth preserving. We also are entirely with President Wilson when he says that the American people should be specially proud of being the champions of peace and concord. But we would urge him and his fellow-citizens not to be content with general expressions, but, in America's own vigorous language, to " make good." Americans must not feed themselves on the enervating food of generalization. Let them be lovers of peace, but let them take thought how to defend its citadel.
Tanya Gold went on to marry the person she had her worst date with, Jack Whitehall didn’t
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Tanya Gold Food columnist My worst date was with the man who is now my husband. It was in February 1994, and we were both freshers at Oxford. He took me to see Schindler’s List. Schindler’s List is not really a date movie, even if its score does feature on The Most Relaxing Classical Album in the World… Ever! (Volume 2. I love the ‘Ever!’) It’s the genocide of European Jewry, I suppose; it just doesn’t make me want to mate with someone so tall, blond and blue-eyed they could conceivably be a Lebensborn baby. I realise now that he had a strategy; he thought I might be so upset about the Holocaust — as if it was news to me! — that I would have sex with him and produce a half-Lebensborn baby.
The transvestite, the fat cyclist and the woman from Chest Monthly: writers’ tales of weird dates
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Toby Young Status anxiety columnist About 15 years ago, when I was single and living in New York, I acquired what I can only describe as a stalker. A woman took exception to a newspaper article I’d written and started bombarding me with emails. For about a year, she sent me three or four emails a day, demanding a reply. In one of these emails she claimed to be a columnist for a magazine called Chest Monthly, and that piqued my interest. So I invited her on a date. We agreed to meet in a café and she was quite difficult to spot because, contrary to my fevered imaginings, she was completely flat-chested. I asked her how she’d managed to land a job as a columnist for Chest Monthly.
From the archives | 11 December 2014
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From ‘The Vantage Point of Peace’, a leading article in the Spectator of 26 December 1914: We are not going to write a Christmas article on palm boughs and olive branches and the Angel of Peace. Not only is there no peace in sight for the world at the moment, but any talk of peace before our enemies are beaten, or even half beaten, and while their ambition, their hatred, and, if you will, their folly are at full blaze, could only tend to prolong the war. What we and our allies have got to let the world know just now is that, in General Grant’s words, altered to suit the season, we pro- pose to ‘fight it out on these lines all winter’ — yes, and all spring and all summer and all autumn, too, if necessary.
The answers | 11 December 2014
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So they say 1. President François Hollande of France 2. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, of Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister 3. David Cameron, the Prime Minister, during the winter floods 4. President Barack Obama of the United States 5. Sir Elton John, on gay marriage for clergy 6. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as self-proclaimed caliph 7. Baroness Warsi, when she had resigned 8. The late President Ronald Reagan in a newly discovered recording of a telephone call to Margaret Thatcher after the United States had invaded Grenada 9. Ed Miliband 10. Philae, the lander on comet 67P (according to its Twitter account) Talking telephone numbers 1. Bananas 2. The Gherkin, at 30 St Mary Axe 3. The No vote in the Scottish referendum 4. Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf 5. John Darwin 6.
Wednesday
Toby Young and Taki reveal their strangest date
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Toby Young Status anxiety columnist About 15 years ago, when I was single and living in New York, I acquired what I can only describe as a stalker. A woman took exception to a newspaper article I’d written and started bombarding me with emails. For about a year, she sent me three or four emails a day, demanding a reply. In one of these emails she claimed to be a columnist for a magazine called Chest Monthly, and that piqued my interest. So I invited her on a date. We agreed to meet in a café and she was quite difficult to spot because, contrary to my fevered imaginings, she was completely flat-chested. I asked her how she’d managed to land a job as a columnist for Chest Monthly.
The Spectator at war: Blood and water
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From News of the Week, The Spectator, 12 December 1914: An incident connected with the naval action off the Falkland Islands which has touched us deeply, and which we are sure will touch the whole of our countrymen, has been the chorus of delight—no other phrase will do—with which the victory has been received in America. Blood may be thicker than water, but salt water and blood mixed, where the English-speaking race is concerned, carry all before them. Though the Americans on the business side of their beads are rightly determined to maintain a strict neutrality, that neutrality cannot resist the strain of a sea fight.
Monday
The Spectator at war: Revenge on the seas
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From News of the Week, The Spectator, 12 December 1914: The week has been a week of good news. Last in order but first in importance comes the naval victory off the Falkland Islands. No summary of this news can better the Admiralty's own report, which is splendid in its terseness and reticence:— "At 7.30 a.m. on December 8th, the Scharnhorst,‘Gneisenau,’ ‘Nürnberg,’ ‘Leipzig,‘ and ‘Dresden’ were sighted near the Falkland Islands by a British Squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir Frederick Sturdee. An action followed, in the course of which the 'Scharnhorst,' flying the flag of Admiral Graf von Spee, the ‘Gneisenau,' and the 'Leipzig' were sunk. The 'Dresden' and the `Nurnberg' made off during the action and are being pursued.
Sunday
The Spectator at war: The honourable spy
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From The Honourable Spy, The Spectator, 5 December 1914: Decency is violated by the military spy when he becomes, for instance, a naturalized subject of a foreign Power only to betray his adopted country. No such charge of dishonour can be brought against the German spy Lody who was shot at the Tower. He spied, he was discovered, and he paid the penalty without repining. In his last letter he compared his fate with that of the soldier on the field, modestly claiming a slightly lower place, and with admirable fairness he did not forget to pay a tribute to the justice of his judges. He took his chances and lost the game, but he played it intrepidly and within the rules to the last.
