The Spectator

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The Spectator

Barometer | 15 November 2012

From our UK edition

Brave new words ‘Omnishambles’ was declared the Oxford English Dictionary’s ‘word of the year’, but will not for the moment be added to the dictionary itself. Here is a selection of the 498 words which were added to the OED in September alone, a month which concentrated on words beginning ‘a’: — Affogato, n, coffee-based beverage — Agometer, n, a device for measuring electrical resistance — Allowability, n, the state of being allowed — Allusionist, n, Someone who draws allusions — Ealdormanry, n, a legal district in Anglo-Saxon England — Egerdouce, n, an onion-based sauce Entwistle’s pay-off The BBC licence fee is £145.

The Spectator

Letters | 15 November 2012

From our UK edition

What the result says Sir: John O’Sullivan (‘Obama’s hollow victory,’ 10 November) says that after President Obama’s re-election, ‘America looks a less naturally conservative country, more a centre-left one.’ But we ought to consider what John O’Sullivan thinks of as left and right, conservative and unconservative; what Americans think; and what most of us British readers think. For most of this year, Obama has been, as Michael Lind observed in an earlier edition of the Spectator (‘All Right Now’, 8 September), the sensible conservative choice. Where Mitt Romney aligned himself with the forces of ideological radicalism and Tea Party craziness, Obama stood for moderation and calm.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 15 November 2012

From our UK edition

Home Abu Qatada, detained in Britain for seven years although not charged here, but wanted on terrorist charges in Jordan, could not be deported, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission ruled, because evidence might be used against him that had been obtained from the torture of others; so he was freed on bail. The annual rate of inflation by the Consumer Prices Index rose to 2.7 per cent in October, from 2.2 per cent in September, and to 3.2 per cent, from 2.6 per cent, by the Retail Prices Index. Unemployment fell by 49,000 to 2.51 million in the three months to September. The Rt Revd Justin Welby, Bishop of Durham, is to be enthroned as the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury on 21 March 2013.

The Spectator

A new world power

From our UK edition

For decades, America has dreamed about becoming self-sufficient in terms of energy, and ending its dependence on unsavoury Arab regimes. Now this dream seems within reach. The International Energy Agency this week forecast that America is undergoing a fuel revolution, and that it will overtake Saudi Arabia to become the world’s biggest oil producer by the end of this decade. By 2035, America should be able to meet almost all of its own energy needs. Energy prices are already plummeting, and global manufacturers have started to pull out of Europe and relocate to the southern states to cut bills. An economic miracle is under way. The reason for the miracle is hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

The Spectator

Books of the year

From our UK edition

A.N.Wilson Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death by James Runcie (Bloomsbury, £14.99). At last, an Anglican Father Brown. Runcie has sensibly set his detective stories in the 1950s, before the boring era when DNA and science spoilt the poetry of crime investigation. Canon Chambers, a self-effacing, clever clergyman with a taste for pubs and shove-halfpenny, and an agonised capacity to fall in love with women, is surely a bit as Archbishop Runcie must have been when he came out of the Guards and took orders?  Each tale is beautifully crafted and surprising. I hope for many more volumes.

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