The Spectator

Friday

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: How it strikes the soldier

From our UK edition

From The Spectator, 26 September 1914: One knew, of course, perfectly well that there was a very good feeling between men and officers in the British Army, and that there was a great deal of mutual respect and liking and good fellowship. What is very moving, however, is the belief that every soldier seems to have that his particular officer is the ablest, bravest, most careful, and most con- siderate man in the Army. Half the stories are prefaced by such remarks as: "You see, we had the luck to have a wonderful good officer. He knew exactly what ought to be done. We'd have followed him anywhere " —and so on.

Thursday

The Spectator

Spectator letters: The best ‘never’ ever is in the Declaration of Arbroath Plus: BST for England, the problem for social workers, and C.P. Snow was not cold

From our UK edition

Never say never Sir: Dot Wordsworth (Mind your language, 20 September) quotes various telling usages of ‘never’ for rhetorical or theatrical effect. But she missed one of the earliest and spine-chilling best: the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320. Quite apart from including the first-known written statement of the old Scottish principle that kingship is essentially a contractual appointment, and can be terminated if the people feel let down, the translation ends with: ‘For as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never shall we on any conditions be brought under English rule.’ Even Scots like me, who would have voted ‘No’ last week if we had been able, thrill to the resonance of these words. So what do they do for a ‘yes’ voter, even after 700 years?

The Spectator

How does your cannabis grow?

From our UK edition

Pot plants A 65-year-old Devon woman rang a BBC gardening show to enquire about a mystery plant only to be told it was a cannabis plant. Some other places cannabis plants have been found: — In 2012/13 British Transport Police found 500 plants growing across the rail network, including one at Hounslow station. — Under lights in the boiler room of a Streatham primary school, which was alerted by an electricity company concerned at excessive power consumption. — Outside the Tower of London, apparently planted by pro-drugs activists. Police decided that the campaigners had committed no crime because they had only scattered seeds, not cultivated the plants. — At Kew Gardens, which has an exhibition this autumn featuring illegal plants.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Cameron visits UN HQ, Scotland checks its bruises, and a Swede sells his submarine

From our UK edition

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, visited New York for talks at the United Nations; he said Britain supported the American air strikes on the Islamic State. ‘These people want to kill us,’ Mr Cameron said on NBC news. Mr Cameron met President Hassan Rouhani of Iran in New York, the first such meeting since the Iranian revolution in 1979. Mr Cameron was caught by cameras in New York saying to Michael Bloomberg, its former mayor, that when he rang the Queen with the Scottish referendum result, ‘She purred down the line.’ Alex Salmond resigned as First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party, with effect from November. This followed the referendum for Scottish residences, which rejected independence by 2,001,926 votes (55.