Talking to David Cameron about the refugee crisis is a bit like discussing human rights with your bank manager. He understands why you’re upset, he really does – his heart bled when he saw those awful pictures. But you’ve already made a generous donation to a refugee charity, so why not leave it to the politicians to get on with creating stable governments in Syria and Libya?
On a day at the races, ladies should steer clear of miniskirts, spaghetti straps, and full-frontal nudity. When sharing a sex text that’s been screen-grabbed from Snapchat, always pass it to your left. The correct way to address an envelope to the Prime Minister is “The Rt Hon David Cameron, MP, The Prime Minister”, and not “snobbish pretender at No 10”... It’s hard for the layperson to imagine what advice will be in Debrett’s new etiquette classes for the 21st century because they’re compiled by experts... Читать дальше...
Jeremy Corbyn is likely to become Labour leader at the end of this week. After which, Labour politics will become properly weird. For a while, he will enjoy a novelty honeymoon with the general public, I think. I have heard of women pensioners, some of them members of their local Conservative associations, who want him to win and say they would vote Labour if he did. They like him, they say, because he is sincere and not one of those plastic politicians. He is also of retirement age, they don’t say, and quite old-fashioned in his style. Читать дальше...
The novelist Francis King once wrote a rather pointed short story entitled “Hard Feelings”. Set in the 1970s, when such relationships were more conspicuous than they are now, its cast consists of Adrian, a middle-aged antiques dealer, and Mike, his somewhat younger working-class boyfriend.
It is the weekend of a Group of 20 meeting – the finance ministers and central bank governors of what are, more or less, the 20 largest economies in the world gathering in Ankara, Turkey, to debate what they might do about the world economy. Had they been meeting a few weeks ago they might be preening themselves over how well they were doing: decent growth in the United States and UK, signs of a recovery in most of Europe, and solid growth in the two largest Bric (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economies, China and India. Читать дальше...
We lack moral imagination. It took a photograph of a dead child – in his smart red top, bright blue shorts and new lace-up shoes – to open our eyes to the reality of the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War. The statistics had not done it. Nor had the news that 700 boat people had died in a single accident in the Mediterranean. Nor, even, had the reports that 71 migrants had suffocated in the back of a refrigerated lorry. But the image of one three-year-old lying lifeless on a beach has turned a political tide. Читать дальше...
Bond is back, though, like a dose of herpes, he has never truly been away. There are six weeks to go before the new film, Spectre, arrives but the pre-publicity is already at full throttle (the announcement of its title alone merited a press conference). Since then stills have been shared, teasers issued and, in the past week, speculation over who might succeed Daniel Craig as the next Bond – Idris Elba and Tom Hardy are alleged contenders – has become national news.
At the end of June, as the Supreme Court struck down gay marriage bans across the United States, opponents promised a national backlash and widespread resistance to the ruling. Two months later, it is surely some measure of the national mood that, of all the clerks of all the counties of all 50 US states – the men and women responsible for issuing marriage licences – just one remains in the headlines for her refusal to heed the court’s decision.
I’m off to Israel for a quick three-day work trip. In these extraordinary times, it feels as if I’m the only person heading towards the Levant as opposed to pouring out of it.
David Cameron never expected to be outflanked by public opinion wanting him to be more liberal on migration. But that is precisely what happened last week as the British people demanded a more compassionate response to the refugee crisis. With no clear lead from the top, the Government suddenly found itself floundering, unable to field ministers on the media to defend a policy in flux.
Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto Opus 42 may be a difficult work to love, but as Julian Johnson’s programme essay pointed out it’s anything but a rejection of tradition. The phrasing and texture, and the dialogue between soloist and orchestra, implicitly hark back to Mozart, and that was how Mitsuko Uchida and the London Philharmonic under Vladimir Jurowski presented it.
What a summer of sadness it has been: daily reminders that our world faces the greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War. Millions of people fleeing conflict in Syria and Libya drowning in the Mediterranean, dying on Eurotunnel trains and suffocating in lorries. Each day brings new horror. People fleeing death at the hands of Assad and Isis are dying needlessly because of the West’s indifference and inertia.
On Thursday morning, we had a front page that set the agenda and went viral online. Because it mainly consisted of a shocking and, to some, offensive picture, its publication goes right to the heart of what journalism is, and ought to be.
A therapist has come up with some unexpected advice for couples looking to strengthen their relationship – unfriend each other on Facebook.
We had always assumed and hoped that our children would to go to the local secondary school. But when our next-door neighbour’s son failed to get in because they were about two-and-a-half yards outside the catchment area, we realised we might have to look further afield. And sure enough, when his time came, our son didn’t get in. Despite our discomfort with the principle of selection, he had applied for a music place elsewhere (he played three instruments, which he loved). He didn’t get in there either. Читать дальше...
The northern mists that swirl around the legend of King Arthur seem to have confused the writer of this headline, which appeared on a news page on Thursday: “You’ve heard the legend, now the truth: Arthur was Scottish”.
It should not have taken the sight of a dead child for the British Government to improve its offer to Syrian refugees. Consider the humanity of all three million people who have fled that country thus far, forced out by the barrel bombs of President Assad on the one hand and the apocalyptic savagery of Isis on the other.
For reasons that we are all perhaps wearily familiar with – relative economic decline, disastrous participation in illegal foreign wars, a Prime Minister too detached from the European Union to play a leading role, strained defence budgets – Britain is not the force it was in international affairs. This is most painfully apparent in the refugee crisis, where Downing Street is now struggling to catch up with public opinion, and in the recent Ukraine conflicts, where the UK was barely a bit-part... Читать дальше...
Just as I battle with my 79-year-old father in his flat in Carlisle, a "Friends Fest" invitation arrives for me to spend time in Monica Geller's apartment and watch her give swing dance lessons – Monica the petite, chopsy, dustpan-wielding, wise-cracking, formerly fat, now bony brunette in the hit TV series. Everyone knows this.
I've just had another birthday. I won't tell you which one, except to say that it's a product of two prime numbers, x and y, where y=x+6. And it's not 91. That pleasure is yet to come.
Well done! You've secured actual, human-to-human contact. Some relationships stay in cyberspace for months, with only repetitive strain injury and extreme anxiety to show for it. The first thing now is to make sure your date is firm, and not just a mirage on the virtual horizon.
Readers with longish memories will recall the ill-fated singer Janis Joplin asking: "Oh Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz"? The thought of having a motor handed to you is a pleasing one, especially for those tens of thousands of drivers facing difficulties after buying second-hand cars.
TSB got in touch this week with details of a great new offer: a current account paying 5 per cent interest. Oddly, it didn't bother to tell me about another new initiative – one that means long-suffering customers will soon be getting 0.75 per cent interest on an account that paid 3 per cent just a year ago.
Hidden charges make me see red. I know from sad experience that if you don't check all the small print, you're almost asking to be taken for a ride – but still I get caught out. And I was caught out this summer simply because I had tried to be clever and cut costs.