2598: By any other name – solution
From our UK edition
The unclued lights are the former and current names of various products: 2/8A, 12/36, 16/32, 17/34, 13/22.
The Spectator
Wednesday
The pointlessness of renaming the Brecon Beacons
From our UK edition
Putting out fires The Brecon Beacons National Park Authority said it was renaming the park because the word ‘beacon’ implies carbon emissions and ‘does not fit with the ethos’. — Many hills in Britain carry the name ‘beacon’ thanks to chains of fires which were lit up to warn of approaching invasion. In Devon alone, 39 beacon sites have been identified. Most famously, beacons were lit in July 1588 to warn of the approaching Spanish Armada after it was spotted off Land’s End, although there is no record of how many fires were lit nor how quickly it took the message to reach London. — Not that the name of the Brecon Beacons really appears to be changing at all.
Letters: The reincarnation of Anne Boleyn
From our UK edition
Pension point Sir: I have just read Kate Andrews’s article on junior doctors’ pay (‘Sick pay’, 15 April). While not wishing to get drawn into the rights or wrongs of their strike action, may I point out that in respect of the NHS pension scheme, for the sake of balance, the employee’s pension contribution also needs to be taken into account? The employer may well pay a 20 per cent contribution, but a junior doctor on a salary of either £29,000 or £37,000 (both figures quoted in the article) will pay 9.8 per cent of salary with a consequent reduction in take-home pay. John Etherington Wilsden, West Yorkshire Coach trip Sir: It was good to see mention of the Speaker’s state coach in your leading article (‘Reign or shine’, 15 April).
Wednesday
King Charles and a tale of two coronations
From our UK edition
The United Kingdom is one of the last countries in the world to host lavish coronation ceremonies. Europe’s new kings and queens keep these events low-key, whereas the British monarchy continues to be marked by splendour and mass popular appeal. This time last year, there were 3,874 applications for road closures to mark street parties to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee. A coronation is, of course, far more historic. Yet with just three weeks to go, there have only been 274 street party registrations. In many ways, the disparity is understandable. Elizabeth II had built up huge personal affection over a lifetime’s service.
China vs Taiwan: how do their military forces measure up?
From our UK edition
Conditions of carriage The King and Queen will travel to and from the coronation in a carriage which boasts heating and electric windows. Are these uncommon luxuries? Popular Mechanics magazine in the US reveals that the King is not alone in expecting mod cons in his carriage: even the Amish employ various modern technologies in their horse-drawn buggies. Their $8,000 vehicles have had brakes since the 1960s, originally salvaged from scrapped Volkswagens. Now, 10% have disc brakes. Most have bodies made from fibreglass and all those in use in Ohio and Pennsylvania have headlights and tail lights by demand of state legislation. Many also have interior lights, usually powered by batteries used in cordless tools.
Portrait of the week: Doctors on strike, Labour on the attack and Tupperware in trouble
From our UK edition
Home President Joe Biden of the United States visited Northern Ireland, shook hands with party leaders, talked with Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (though not about a trade agreement), and went on to the Republic of Ireland, for the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. The accountancy firm Johnston Carmichael resigned as auditors to the Scottish National party. Its decision coincided with a police search of the SNP’s headquarters in Edinburgh following the arrest and release without charge of Peter Murrell, the party’s former chief executive and the husband of Nicola Sturgeon, who was the SNP leader and first minister.
2597: A Couple – solution
From our UK edition
The couple were VICTORIA (23, 36, 37, 45) and ALBERT (2, 9, 17, 20, 46). 7 was the link. First prize Kenneth Allen, Riddlesden, W. YorksRunners-up P. and A.
Letters: The C of E has become too broad a church
From our UK edition
Too broad a Church Sir: I am not implacably hostile to Justin Welby; I share Christian empathy with the Archbishop’s earnest struggles to attract a spiritually dead nation back to the Church of England as described by Dan Hitchens’s article (‘The lost shepherds’, 8 April). However I cannot agree with his strategy. A liberal church is doomed to failure because it’s selling something that we already have. I ask our bishops: what is the Church’s USP? What does it offer that we can’t get elsewhere? The Church used to stand apart as a bastion against a hostile world, but if all it does is follow along behind modern secular fads then it is admitting its own redundancy. If you permit everything, you stand for nothing.
Tuesday
The legacy of Nigel Lawson
From our UK edition
Nigel Lawson was the most consequential chancellor in modern British history. He gave the world a case study in how to overturn a failed consensus. He was guided throughout his political career by the political principles articulated when he was editor of this magazine. His legacy is so rich that it offers a wide choice of lessons, three of which stand out for Rishi Sunak today. The first is one that the Prime Minister himself writes about in his article – the importance of preparing for battles. Lawson wanted lasting change and realised that radicalism is pointless without strategy. Tax can only ever be a reflection of the spending rate: to cut tax revenue without spending restraint will only ever lead to the restoration of high taxes.
Portrait of the week: Delays in Dover, decline in house prices and Donald Trump in the dock
From our UK edition
Home Britain joined Australia, Japan and nine other countries in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or the CPTPP. Kemi Badenoch, Business and Trade Secretary, said that projections of its contribution to the growth of the UK economy, of 0.08 per cent over a decade, didn’t tell the whole story. Teachers voted for more strikes; the Passport Office began five weeks of strikes. The Food Standards Agency investigated allegations that a meat supplier falsely labelled foreign pork as British and mixed rotting and fresh meat. In March, house prices were 3.1 per cent less than a year before, according to the Nationwide – the largest annual decline since July 2009. In March, the pound gained 3 per cent against the dollar.
Letters: The positive case for daycare
From our UK edition
Major mistake Sir: Douglas Murray (‘Our poor deluded MPs’, 1 April) contends that John Major is widely regarded as ‘one of the worst prime ministers in living memory’. If so, that seems unfair. Although a greyish figure, Major had to operate with a narrow parliamentary majority and a fractious party. It is often forgotten that he was instrumental in establishing the foundations of peace in Northern Ireland, for which Tony Blair is perhaps given too much credit. Moreover, it is difficult to name any of Major’s successors who didn’t leave No. 10 without black marks on their record. Ranking PMs is something for history.
How deadly is the Grand National?
From our UK edition
Falling at fences Activists from an animal rights group were secretly filmed apparently plotting to disrupt the Grand National, protesting in part at the number of horses killed at the event. – Since 1839, 88 horses have died either during the race or were put down as a result of injuries. Four died in the past decade and nine in the decade before that. The deadliest race was 1954, when the event was held on soft ground. Of the 29 horses entered, only nine finished. Four died. The longest periods without a fatality were 1908-22, 1892-1900, 1873-81, 1961-66 and 2013-18. State of the unions How much are public sector unions costing the taxpayer?
2596: charades – solution
From our UK edition
RUNNERS (10), ANSWER (28) and MEADOW (29D) defined FIELD; PROVISIONS (18), MANAGE (38) and PASSENGER (30) defined FARE; and THRUSH (11), PICNIC (16) and COMPILER (20) defined FIELDFARE (above the grid) First prize Steve Reszetniak, Margate, Kent Runners-up Alan Norman, Impington, Cambridge; Amanda Spielman, London SW4.
Wednesday
The lessons of the trans debate
From our UK edition
The World Athletics Council has taken the decisive step of announcing that transgender women who underwent male puberty before their transition will henceforth be excluded from female events. The decision has been made, according to the council, to ‘protect the future of the female category’. World rugby has already made a similar ruling and other sports are expected to follow suit. It has been a long and heated debate, but a consensus is emerging on the side of common sense. Those who overreached on this issue are counting the cost. Nicola Sturgeon’s bizarre gender self-ID law that would have granted women’s rights to anyone who wanted to claim them went on to sink her premiership.
2595: Three of a kind – solution
From our UK edition
The unclued lights each contained a letter which appeared three times.
Portrait of the week: Scotland’s new First Minister, Prince Harry’s day in court and Amsterdam’s campaign against British men
From our UK edition
Home Humza Yousaf was elected leader of the Scottish National party, beating Kate Forbes by 52 per cent to 48 per cent after Ash Regan was eliminated; MSPs then elected him First Minister. Of 19 transgender prisoners in custody in Scotland, 12 began their transition ‘after their date of admission’, according to data obtained under Freedom of Information laws. The National Executive Committee of the Labour party voted 22 to 12 to bar Jeremy Corbyn from standing as a Labour candidate at the next election. The terrorism threat level in Northern Ireland was raised from substantial to severe, meaning an attack was highly likely.
Bottle
From our UK edition
He wakes. Alive. No cash. No phone. Down from their ash trees squirrels nose through drink and dope enough to stone a wood’s astonishment of crows. He stirs and gives the crows a scare. Pinned up with lamps, tar paper sky flaps open at a corner where, tipped out of dusk, moths flicker by, skim rings around him, put to flight such stars as steel-capped boots might spark, shake out the red from each tail light before their wings fold into bark; its scabbed and corrugated face that mocks him as, still pissed, he tries to wave down cars or, flailing, chase light vanishing inside cats’ eyes, gone searching for an end, a trick with ampoule, vial or blister pack or, waiting for its twist and click, the white top of a childproof cap.
Who was the first April Fool?
From our UK edition
Fooling about When did the tradition of 1 April pranks begin? One theory is that it derives from the ancient Roman festival of Hilaria, which involved games and pranks – although that was held on the spring equinox, which falls more than a week earlier than 1 April. — In Chaucer’s ‘Nun’s Priest’s Tale’, a fox fools a cockerel ‘since March began thirty days and two’. Another explanation is that ‘All Fools’ Day’ referred to backward country folk in 16th-century France who didn’t realise that the adoption of the Julian calendar had moved New Year’s Day from 25 March (a week’s festivities used to end on 1 April) to 1 January. However, the first reference to a ‘poisson d’Avril’ was in a poem from 1508, before the calendar change was made.
Letters: Speak up for our children
From our UK edition
Care of children Sir: At last people, namely Harriet Sergeant (‘The ghost children’, 25 March) and Rod Liddle (‘Childcare: an inconvenient truth’), are speaking up for the children. In so many areas of life today we sacrifice our children for the sake of our adult fetishes and fancies. The only people who have no political voice are our children. I am not suggesting that we lower the voting age to five; only that we try to do our best on their behalf. Why not spend the money that is going to provide 30 hours of childcare per week for babies over nine months old simply to pay the mothers to stay at home and look after them themselves? I can tell you which the babies would prefer.
My friend Proudhon
From our UK edition
I painted beaches, seasides, shores or waves dashed on a harbour wall, a mackerel sky, a signature, to peddle to the gullible, until the seasons ran aground with darkly varnished fishing smacks or chalk-white gulls soared to astound the cliffs that threw their shadows back. My friend Proudhon said property was theft and so each rock and shell, each stone turned over by the sea, was never mine to lift or sell; as if I’d stumbled on by chance, light-fingered, dawn’s exuberance, pickpocketing, as morning came, sienna, cobalt, cadmium.