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May 2022
Issue 27 | £6.95
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SPRING

MUSIC

SPECIAL

2022
Music Norman Lebrecht, Mahan Esfahani
The case for nuclear weapons Patrick Porter
Too late for trans regrets Laura Dodsworth
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c Set the music free
A
walk away from the Cotswold vided by Oxford and Cambridge.
town of Stow-on-the-Wold, site of the final Since Britten, Britain has produced a remarkable line of opera
battle of the first Civil War, lies the village of composers, including George Benjamin, whose Written on Skin,
Longborough. Blink and you’ll miss it. premiered in 2012 and widely reprised, can lay claim to be this
Though it has been settled for 5,000 years, century’s first operatic masterpiece.
its mark on cultural life is a recent one, And yet, if one were to read many of Britain’s classical music
made possible by the conversion of a critics and commentators — though not those who have contrib-
chicken barn into an unlikely opera house. It was the dream, real- uted to this special musical edition of The Critic — one would
ised in 1998, of Lizzie and Martin Graham. They got the idea while think opera, and classical music generally, is facing an apocalypse.
watching an opera on television. Opera magazine leads the way in cultural pessimism, publish-
Its 500 seats come from the refurbished Covent Garden. The ing editorial after editorial marked by a severe case of Brexit de-
building’s façade — a literal and metaphorical one, for the audito- rangement syndrome — in which everything continental is good,
rium remains rather basic — is topped by statuettes of a trinity of and everything British is very bad indeed.
composers. The beloved figures of Verdi and Mozart on either Much is made of the lavish public subsidy the major European
side, with Wagner, no one’s idea of a good man, though many companies receive, the post-Brexit issue of work permits, and the
more’s idea of a troubling and transcendent genius, standing atop. lack of a politically radical (i.e. left-wing) regietheater.
For this is a Wagner house, which in 2013 hosted the first Ring In this precious world, the director is king (they’re usually
cycle to be performed in a privately-owned men), let loose — and amply rewarded — to im-
venue outside Bayreuth, the Wagnerian holy of pose their often incoherent visions, almost cer-
holies. It will do so again in 2024. tainly at odds with the creator’s intentions, on
Longborough Festival Opera receives no long-suffering punters, and with little consider-
public subsidy, but it has hundreds of support- ation for the singers on stage.
ers and patrons, a few of whom are wealthy. It has the services of Covent Garden often buys into such nonsense — it has the
one of the great Wagnerian conductors, Anthony Negus; has an money to do so — but there is something to be said for the pared-
ability to spot and nurture serious vocal talent, much of it home- down productions of companies like that of Longborough, and for
grown; and employs a fine band of players, with major input from the simple but clever concert stagings for which Opera North is
the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. renowned.
Longborough’s Ring cycle was greeted with acclaim — one of
the two finest accounts of this epic work in recent years. The other It is years since Bayreuth had a production of any
was staged not at Bayreuth, Vienna, or Milan, but in Leeds. Roger of Wagner’s operas that was worth the while — its last overpro-
Scruton, not a man given to lavishing praise where it was not due, duced Ring cycle, complete with unconvincing crocodiles, was a
considered Opera North’s 2016 Ring the go-to performance, an disaster. Those who take their seat in the Festspielhaus are advised
extraordinary reading by the conductor, Richard Farnes. It is avail- to close their eyes for the duration of the performance, and wallow
able online, and makes the perfect introduction to this inexhaust- in the glorious acoustic.
ible creation. Opera North’s Parsifal opens in June before touring It is not just a Wagner issue: at Salzburg, the richest — and most
the country. expensive — of Europe’s classical music festivals, only a minimal-
ist production of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra sticks in the memory
In the Penguin Companion to Classical Music, Paul from recent years.
Griffiths writes of Britain’s historical “mistrust of opera”. One The problem with opera in Britain, like classical music in gen-
wouldn’t know it now. Longborough and Opera North share a eral, lies not with its gifted practitioners, nor with its enthusiastic
flourishing operatic landscape with Welsh National Opera, Scot- audience, but with those weaned on the public purse who declare
tish Opera and a plethora of country house companies: Glynde- it challenging and elitist — almost always themselves members of
bourne, Grange Park, Garsington, as well as London’s own rus in an elite, whether in education, the media, or politics. Ironically,
urbe, Opera Holland Park. Hackney’s innovative Grimeborn festi- they appear to have little trouble with the elitism of, say, sport.
val, has embarked on its own Ring, on a scale that makes Longbor- Britain has a model of classical music that, by and large, works.
ough look like the New York Met. It has an abundance of talent. The old German quip of a “land
Even the Royal Opera House, a gas guzzler of subsidy, all too without music” could not be more wrong. It just needs advocates,
often wasted, has delivered a landmark Peter Grimes, evidence if optimists with a bit between their teeth like the Grahams of Long-
any were needed of the vocal talent these islands produce, and not borough. Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet
only because of the choral scholarships and peerless training pro- airs that give delight and hurt not. c

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Contents
COLUMNS False euphoria of dysphoria
SPRING MUSIC SPECIAL Laura Dodsworth objects to a Snapchat
Letters 8 video which presents breast removal as
Jonathan Meades “pure trans joy” 42
Save this Severn heaven 6 Doubling down on a fraud
Law Christopher Silvester recalls the murky
Joshua Rozenberg: I spy a new role of civil rights leader Rev Al Sharpton
clampdown 9 in a notorious faked abduction case 44

Woman about Town The moral blindness of Putin’s

generals
Lisa Hilton: Evening Vespas 10
Daniel Johnson says Russian military
Dilyn the Dog
leaders in Ukraine have become Nazi
Just us. For years and years 11 Bring on the Big Beasts doppelgangers 46
James Kirkup Norman Lebrecht says music An unlikely man of the people
Boris will still be Boris 12 needs heavyweight champions to Michael Collins says Kenneth Clark
Sounding Board stand up for truth and excellence 32 wanted to democratise art and was
Marcus Walker: How do we deal with Doing the Strand unfairly accused of elitism 48
war crimes? 18
Michael Henderson fondly recalls STUDIO
Everyday Lies the glorious heyday of Roxy Music 33 James Stevens Curl on Victorian
Theodore Dalrymple: Election bumf 24 architecture in Ulster 54
Before and after Gould
Economics
Mahan Esfahani says Bach’s BOOKS
Tim Congdon: The lucky chancellor 25 Goldberg Variations have a rich
My Woke World history that far transcend its modern Alexander Larman assesses Amis at 100,
association with Glenn Gould 35 the master satirist without honour 58
Titania McGrath: Don’t trust the
myths of biology 31 Christopher Bray: Let’s Do It: The
The sound of love
Birth of Pop by Bob Stanley 62
Arty Types Jonathan Gaisman says Schumann
D.J. Taylor on Professor Barry Mole 41 expresses the intense emotions of love D.H. Robinson: Conspiracy on Cato
better than any other composer 37 Street: A Tale of Liberty and Revolution
Romeo Coates in Regency London by Vic Gatrell 64
Fat chance 76 Musical Scores Lucaster Miller: Portable Magic:
Stephen Pollard says that while A History of Books and their Readers
Miriam Elia on ...
football is often described as by Emma Smith 65
Solving the fuel crisis 7 balletic, for him great passages of
Tom Chesshyre: Nine Quarters of
Adam Dant on … play evoke great music 39
Jerusalem: A New Biography of the Old
The shipping forecast 52 City by Matthew Teller 67
Daniel Johnson: Straits: Beyond the
FEATURES 7KLVPRQWKōV Myth of Magellan by Felipe Fernandez-
FRYHULVLOOXVWUDWHG Armesto 68
Why are we supporting Ukraine? E\3DXO:HDULQJ Richard Hopton: The Greatest Raid,
Christopher S. Browning has
St Nazaire, 1942: by Giles Whittell 70
a cautionary message about
vicarious war 14 Gerard Russell: The Vanishing: The
The whispering mandarin
Twilight of Christianity in the Middle
Rod Dreher comes home Mark D’Arcy profiles Sir Roy Stone, East by Janine di Giovanni 71
Sebastian Milbank says the the secretive civil servant who made
conservative conscience of the Westminster work 26 John Self: Young Mungo by Douglas
Stuart; The Candy House by Jennifer
PAU L W E ARI NG

New World is here in the Old 19 The birds and the beef Egan; Winter Love by Han Suyin 73
Why nuclear abolition should fail Patrick Galbraith argues that cattle
Patrick Porter says nukes make farming can help save endangered species THE SECRET AUTHOR
major wars significantly less likely 22 such as black grouse and corncrakes 28 Time for us all to grow up 75

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 May 2022 | Issue 27

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 JONATHAN MEADES

Save this Severn heaven

A property developer has an Anthony Barnett and their doorsteps in an
Roger Scruton, “obeying If this bully gets attempt to make them
idyllic and precious plotland an instinct or a natural his way, these worthless. It’s a coarse form
development in his sights law in seeking out a place
marvellous of menace. So is letting
where they could build dangerous dogs loose —
buildings will

P
lotland developments for themselves”. That spirit they have killed 12 sheep at
exist in many forms: virtuously is still manifest in Tony be torn down Hill Farm — and uprooting
green, asbestos rich, “sustaina- Harrold’s Hill Farm and the hedgerows at night under
bly” recycled, joyously Story of Bewdley Plotlands
and replaced by glaring floodlights.
untutored, madly ad hoc, (Ebrook Press). “park homes” Wenman struts about the
inventive (former rolling stock, often from — characterless site issuing eviction notices.
Cohens of Kettering, gliders that no longer The first thing you caravans If this bully gets his way
fly, boats that no longer float). Many of the can be certain of with these marvellous buildings
earliest were converted from chicken huts plotlands is that there is will be torn down and
— which prompted W H Colt to move into always some officious jobsworth from the replaced by “park homes”, characterless
bodge-it-yourself timber houses. They are local authority incapable of acknowledg- immobile caravans. The rare subculture
self-expressive, optimistic in the face of ing that natural law and seeking to impose of Hill Farm will be extinguished. People
sometimes desperate poverty. a lesser law. of limited means will be refugees in their
They exist in many places: the coast The second thing you can be certain own country.
near Grimsby, on the plain near Andover, of is that there’s usually a photographer, Wenman has demanded a 300 per cent
the Gower peninsular, Sheppey, in the often the excellent Stefan Szczelkun, or a rent increase. And, of course, he has a team
Thames valley, at Carbeth north of filmmaker, or a sociologist like Iain of lawyers, big on small-print and dissem-
Glasgow, at Jaywick and all over south McNab, recording these purest manifesta- bled threats. They know the 1983 Mobile
Essex, for many years represented by tions of folk architecture, and the people Homes Act back to front. They know too
Bernard Braine, a Tory of a type that no who have loved them, still love them, have that many of Wenman’s elderly victims are
longer exists. He quite properly said: “The lived in them, often in a state of fear about largely ignorant of it. As for estate agents,
wholesale demolition of substandard what might happen next, about the fragile even supposedly upmarket ones such as
dwellings cannot be contemplated. security of their tenure. Savills are only too keen to broker deals for
However inadequate, every shack is The third thing you can be certain of is “park home” proprietors, lending the sort
somebody’s home.” that vulturing around the place there’ll be of reputability only a drastically cutaway
a lowlife property developer, a backwoods collar and an Eton-ish accent can confer.
Bewdley is on the Worcestershire/ Rachman, who wishes the inhabitants ill,
Shropshire border: Hill Farm, just outside who has not a shred of sympathy for these Wenman has form, stretching back
that lovely town, is a delightful place of houseproud people, many of whom have 20 years to when he bulldozed a property
deep roots stretching over a century. An air slipped through the frayed welfare net. belonging to a nonagenarian inhabitant of
of permanence and settlement hung over They are old, poor, valetudinarian, his site at Bordon near Hindhead. How
it when I filmed it as Severn Heaven 30 confused. They are prey. planning permission was granted remains
years ago. There were several third- and a mystery.
fourth-generation inhabitants who knew At the moment there are problems The inhabitants of the Hill Farm houses
the whole history of the place, who were in paradise. A Top Vulture called Michael have done what Wenman’s previous
proud of their forebears for having Wenman has bought Hill Farm. He has victims have not done. They have banded
chosen this sylvan, unpolluted not bought the splendid and together and have hired lawyers in the
riverine spot. variegated hutments but the land hope of obtaining a court order to prevent
It was as far as they could get beneath them. That ownership of Wenman prosecuting further abuses.
from Birmingham and the Black the land gives him control of This is their only recourse. The local
P O R T R A I T B Y VA N E S S A D E L L

Country into the Green and comings and goings at the site. If constabulary adopt the same shameful
Pleasant without a car. They he so wishes he can effectively attitude as they do to “domestics”, claiming
carried components of what would maroon inhabitants in their that it’s a civil matter. The same might be
be their huts and bungalows on the homes then offer them derisory said when squatters recently occupied an
train. They camped out sums to move. oligarch’s houses in Eaton Square.
under tarpaulins in the idyll Likewise he could But on that occasion, the fawning filth
they were creating. They potentially dump scrapie unastonishingly decided that it was a
were, according to or slurry within feet of criminal intrusion. c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 6 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
Miriam Elia on…

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 7 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
c Letters
IN DEFENCE OF SEELEY
Write to The Critic by email at [email protected]
including your address and telephone number

I don’t know why I’m helping you — sometimes supernatural, highly artificial
Paul Sagar is surely right that renaming the you’ve only got fifty followers… world of Murdoch’s fiction never depend-
Seeley history library at Cambridge is a ed on “relatability” for its success.
distraction from helping current victims of Rather, it must be the uncompromising-
oppression and injustice and benefits no ly moral nature of Murdoch’s fiction that
one (“FIGHT THINGS THAT REALLY has alienated modern readers. Murdoch
MATTER, APRIL). It seems to me, however, — herself a practicing philosopher — puts
that more can and should be said in moral dilemmas in her work: crises of
defence of John Richard Seeley. faith, questions of “goodness”, people
Seeley was Regius Professor of Modern beholden to seemingly arbitrary laws. Her
History at Cambridge, and a liberal-mind- characters are not all “good” (murderers,
ed, erudite, imaginative, and even adulterers, and narcissists among them),
prescient geopolitical thinker. His goal, set but they do force her readers to consider
out in his best-selling book The Expansion human life, and human nature, on a far
of England: Two Courses of Lectures bigger scale than the type of novels
Jason and Social Medea
(1883), was to create a federal or confeder- currently in vogue.
al state that would combine the United There is, of course, also the possibility
Kingdom with other Anglophone The campaign to “cancel” Seeley is that Larman’s assumption is wrong and
countries which by then had nearly based on ignorance of history and the that Kate Winslet’s statement might attract
achieved de facto independence: mainly target of its hate grotesque. opprobrium now. Earlier this year, Clare
Canada, Newfoundland, Australia and Allen Bass Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman
New Zealand. The Lough, Cork City, Ireland published Metaphysical Animals — a book
Seeley’s geopolitical goal in proposing which made clear Murdoch’s contribu-
an Anglosphere federation was to MURDOCH ON THE MAT tions to philosophy. But, then again, the
counterbalance the power of what he saw Alexander Larman (“HOW TO BECOME A Iris Murdoch Archive Project seems to be
as the emerging super-states of the future: CULT WRITER”, APRIL) makes reference to dedicating itself to working on a book
the Russian Empire, Bismarck’s German Kate Winslet’s statement about Iris about Iris Murdoch’s beermats. What a
Empire, and the vast, continental USA. Murdoch: “I’m a great fan of hers, but I’ve fairly dishonourable defeat.
Seeley conceived his projected Anglo- never read any of her books”. Larman then Clare Alexander
phone federal state as a voluntary, equal claims “two decades later, this would London
union of peoples with shared history, attract little opprobrium”.
culture, and language, as well as common Leaving aside what Winslet found to THE WAR BEFORE
legal and political values and institutions. admire in Iris Murdoch other than her I agreed with much of what Marcus Walker
These included, pre-eminently, the rule of written works (her tumultuous love life? said in his column (“OVER THERE IS NOW
law, individual liberties, and representa- Her famously messy house in Oxford?), OVER HERE”, APRIL). I do, however,
tive government. why a woman who won the Booker prize disagree with his assertion that Russia’s
in 1978 for The Sea, The Sea and was made invasion of Ukraine is Europe’s first
a Dame in 1987 for services to literature “state-on-state” war since the end of the
should have receded so dramatically in our Second World War.
cultural consciousness deserves greater It is true that the rump Yugoslavia of
consideration. Serbia and Montenegro invaded Slovenia CARTO ONS B Y R O B MUR R AY A ND JAME S ME L LO R

One argument is that Murdoch’ wrote and Croatia before those former Yugoslav
for — and about — a world that no longer states achieved international recognition.
exists: stuffy male-dominated academia, But the JNA (the Yugoslav National Army)
posh London finishing schools, and gothic participated in the attacks on Zvornik and
Scottish castles. If the plot of a Trollope Bijelina in Bosnia just after Bosnia’s
novel could be exploded by a phone call, statehood was recognized by the UN in
then the plot of an Iris Murdoch novel 1992, while the JNA and Serbian interior
could be exploded by the alcoholic, ministry paramilitary troops, known as the
cheating, somewhat underachieving lead Red Scorpions, also participated in the
male character being made redundant in a justly notorious 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
drive for greater departmental diversity. Richard Briand
But surely that can’t be the case: the Leek, Staffordshire

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 JOSHUA ROZENBERG ON LAW

I spy a new clampdown

Will new laws to combat special arrangements to Rights Convention. It
support the Good Friday therefore recommended the
foreign espionage inhibit agreement with Ireland. So the creation of an independent
public interest journalism? details may be quite tricky. statutory commissioner to

I
These proposals “are whom public servants and
f the prime minister decides intentionally designed to be others could lawfully report
to go to the country early, the country and actor agnostic”, allegations of wrongdoing or
legislative programme to be the government insisted last criminality.
announced on 10 May will be the year, which I think means that The Law There would be a strong
last before the general election. the UK is not singling out presumption that public
Already, we are told, Boris Johnson is specific states or their Commission servants should make
throwing out proposals that he does not intelligence agencies. But believes a disclosures about alleged
regard as vote-winners — including the suggestion of registration new Official wrongdoing to the commis-
further restrictions on judicial review. for foreign agents came sioner in preference to going
What legal reforms may find their way into from a report about Russia Secrets Act public. But, given that it
the Queen’s Speech? by parliament’s Intelligence would enable would be a last resort, the
The most far-reaching must be legisla- and Security Committee, the law to be Law Commission believed
tion to counter state threats. These include written in the summer of a public interest defence
overt or covert action by foreign govern- 2019 but not published until more focused should be available to
ments that seeks to undermine the interests July 2020. “It would clearly be intelligence officers, public
of the UK but fall short of armed conflict. valuable in countering Russian influence servants and journalists alike.
We used to call this hostile state activity in the UK,” the report says. In its consultation paper, the Home
until the ambiguity was noticed; it meant Office greeted that recommendation with
hostile activity by any state and not, as was The parliamentary committee predictable apoplexy. “The government
assumed, any activity by a hostile state. also said that the Russians seemed to believes that existing offences are compati-
If this legislation rings a bell then it’s consider the UK one of their top Western ble with article 10 and that these proposals
because a counter-state threats bill was intelligence targets. Russia was “seemingly could in fact undermine our efforts to
announced in last year’s Queen’s Speech fed by paranoia, believing that Western prevent damaging unauthorised disclo-
— although it never saw the light of day. institutions such as NATO and the EU have sures,” it said.
Instead, there was a consultation which a far more aggressive posture towards it
closed last summer. Eight months later, than they do in reality”. While Priti Patel at the Home
we are still waiting for the government’s The other thing the bill will do is to Office is accused of trying to rein in public
response. reform the Official Secrets Acts. A replace- interest journalism, the justice secretary,
ment statute was recommended by the Dominic Raab, says he wants to enhance it.
One of the things the bill will do is Law Commission in a report to the In March, Raab issued a call for evidence
create a foreign influence registration government published in 2020. on SLAPPs, which is meant to stand for
scheme. At present, it’s not an offence for Media organisations argued that any “strategic lawsuits against public participa-
foreign spies to work undercover in attempt at reform would inevitably lead to tion”. Although these look like claims for
London unless they obtain or communi- further restrictions on journalists. But the defamation or breach of privacy, their real
cate damaging secrets. In the US, by commission believes that new legislation aim is stifle public debate.
contrast, failure to register as the repre- would enable parliament to focus the law But how do you define a SLAPP? What
sentative of a foreign power has been more accurately — for example, the sets it apart from reputable claims against
an offence since 1938. term “enemy” would be replaced by journalists, authors and academics? And
P O R T R A I T B Y VA N E S S A D E L L ; H M G

What if spies don’t fill in the “foreign power” — and ensure that once you have identified a SLAPP, how can
right forms on arrival? That would it clearly covers electronic you thwart it? It’s fair to say the government
become a criminal offence — and communications that may be is struggling with this.
an easier one to prosecute than targeted from abroad. There is every chance that SLAPPs will
disclosing secrets. The Law Commission said it be mentioned in the Queen’s Speech.
But the government does not could not be sure that the Official But I strongly suspect that the necessary
want to deter legitimate Secrets Act 1989 was compatible legislation — either a one-off bill or Raab’s
activities such as encour- with the freedom of expres- much vaunted bill of rights — may be
aging tourism and there sion, as guaranteed by delayed, just like the counter-state threats
would also have to be article 10 of the Human bill. We shall see. c

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Woman About Town
Evening Vespas LISA HILTON
Living your best life hadn’t been
IN FLORENCE angular formations in a fashion which is
positively Cubist.
invented when I last spent time in Florence but being twenty- But why do people feel they have to behave as though
one and having Via delle Belle Donne as my address is museums were cathedrals? We were loudly shushed for
probably the closest I’ll ever get. daring to giggle joyfully at one of the accompanying works,
Nominally studying history Marco Zoppo’s Madonna with Spiritelli. The name has
of art at the British Institute, to be a pun avant la lettre as the gloriously irreverent putti
I seem to remember my main look to be in an advanced stage of refreshment.
preoccupations being how to It’s no accident that Zoppo worked in Venice — the
dismount elegantly from sitting rearmost angel is having a discreet puke, as though he’s
sidesaddle on a Vespa in a
mini skirt and which intense
public schoolboy doing oil
painting at the Charles Cecil
school I liked that week.
The Charles Cecil boys are still
in evidence and seeing my daughter off for a night on the
razzle at my old haunt of Campo Santo Spirito might have left
me a bit wistful; in fact, I was grateful that these days scooter
helmets are compulsory and that I could drift off at 10pm on
our tiny balcony overlooking Ponte Vecchio. More Charlotte
Bartlett than Lucy Honeychurch these days. had one too many Spritzes. Meanwhile the Christ Child in

•
In town to meet up with
• • maestro of maestri, pianist
Uccello’s Madonna is actually crawling out of the frame;
you can practically hear his poor mother hissing “Will. You.
Just. Keep. Still.”
Clive Britton to discuss an upcoming project on Schoenberg’s Renaissance art is full of jokes. It doesn’t always have to be
Pierrot Lunaire. Clive was zooming off to London to rehearse gazed at in reverent silence.
Schubert at the Royal Academy with cellist Robert Cohen but The show’s second site, the Bargello, gives the viewer a
managed to find time to introduce me to his local café in chance to walk across a city which would still be familiar to
Piazza Calamandrei near Santa Croce, where they do a very Donatello. The centrepiece here is the bronze David of the
peculiar but exceptionally scrumptious pastry filled with 1440s and here a bit of shushing might be justified. It is
apricot jam and lemon custard: pudding for breakfast. mesmeric.
Thanks to my new research obsession, the Schoenberg I saw it on that first visit to Florence, must have seen it fifty
World Map, which gives extraordinarily detailed geographical times since and still it surprises, astounds, delights. What a
information about every aspect of the composer’s life I was shame that the Kafkaesque regime which prevails in Italy’s
able to mention airily between crumbs that Pierrot had been state museums prevented the piece from being shown in
given at the Pitti in Florence in 1924. isolation. The Bargello is a bit of a Renaissance jumble sale —
“Oh yes,” replied Clive, “How they hated it.” everything from ivory handled-guns to della Robbia ceramics
— but David deserves better than clutter.
I LLU STR ATI ONS B Y J OHN MO NTG OM E RY

Laughing in the aisles ***

Donatello: The Renaissance at the Fondazione Palazzo Someone who has strong views on how exhibitions
Strozzi has received rapturous reviews as a “once in a lifetime should be staged is super-curator James Bradburne. Along
experience”. The rooms at the Strozzi open with the 1408 with the Uffizi’s Eike Schmidt, he is one of the first generation
David Victorious, a projection in white marble not only of of Italian state museum directors to have come from outside
the great century to come, but of Donatello’s vast and myriad the system. As director of the Strozzi and now the Pinacoteca
influence up to the present day. di Brera in Milan, Dr Bradburne has proved a bit of a Marmite
Art Deco is already present in the smaller bronzes whilst the figure for the Italian establishment: once visitor numbers had
majestic Sienese font, Herod’s Feast, collapses time through increased by over 1,000 per cent even the bureaucrats stopped

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 10 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 THE DIARY OF DILYN THE DOG
“And with one bound, he was free!” Bozza is
O telling me how he has beaten everyone again.
He is so clever. “They all told me I was done for, but I
said, ‘Just wait, something will turn up, the circus will
counting, but his insistence on the museum’s purpose as part move on,’ and what do you know, Russian invasion,
of living culture rather than as a hallowed repository of the
war crimes, stalwart
past has not proved popular with several ministers.
resolve, national hero!”
He asked me about the labels at the Donatello show and I
was obliged to report that they had reverted to wordy and We are at Chequers,
impenetrable type. In Dr Bradburne’s view, they should be no which is where Cazza
more than 500 characters and ideally written by outsiders, not sends us when she
experts who can’t forget their professional knowledge. British needs some peace
writers including Tim Parks and Sarah Dunant have done just and quiet. It is a big
that at the Brera. “Otherwise,” he said, “it’s just curators house with lots of
showing off to other curators.” interesting smells and
a huge lawn, but the
There aren’t many irritations that a ladies who are in
superlative Fiorentina can’t soothe though. charge here are not
When I lived in Florence there were a few much fun. They make
great old-time restaurants me sleep in a cold passage, when there are lots of
hanging on between the beds upstairs. Bozza isn’t sure about them either.
tourist joints and the tripe “They’ve been very offhand with me,” he told Cazza,
shops, including Sostanza, “ever since you had that party and they all got Covid.”
So it is just the two of us out for a walk. Bozza had
a former butcher’s shop in
an idea that we could invite some people from a
a slightly dodgy part of
place called Ukraine to stay with us. “Look at these
town (it’s still known to poor young ladies,” he said, “all by themselves, far
locals as La Troia, the from home, sweethearts away at the front. Least we
whore), that everyone raves can do is offer them a warm bed.” But when Cazza
about, but I think the lighting is saw the pictures, she took away his computer. “Very
nasty and the staff are supercilious. Lovely well, alone,” Bozza said, in a quiet voice.
Olio on Borgo San Jacopo has the best “You know, Dillers old chap,” he tells me as I roll
Fiorentina in town for my money, presented in a lovely bit of fox poo, “they said I’d be out by
unadorned and proudly upright after a primo Easter. What those people don’t understand is that
of pici, the fat hand-rolled pasta from Siena. when a chap has that inner oomph, that Olympian
JUHDWQHVVWKHQDOOWKHSLIŴHDERXWZRPHQDQG
children and parties and wallpaper — none of it
Gelato alla Gordon’s matters! I’m invincible!”

I
+HSXIIVKLVFKHVWRXWDQGORRNVDFURVVWKHƓHOGV
f I’d been a proper art student I would no doubt
“Dom’s busted. Rishi’s blown up. Election’s in the bag,
have visited the Scuola del Cuoio, founded in the
too. It’ll be Keith looking sad about things versus me
Franciscan monastery behind Santa Croce in the 1930s.
The district was home to Florence’s tanneries from the VPDVKLQJZDOOVRQGLJJHUV,PLJKWVWLOOEHKHUHLQƓYH
thirteenth century and the nearby street names recall their years. Imagine that. Just you and me, and Cazza when
trades — Corso dei Tintori (Dyers’ Street) and their effect, she can get away from town.”
Canto delle Mosche (Fly Place). He goes quiet for a bit. “Just us. Here. For years and
The frescoes are magnificent and the artisan leather goods years.”
can be monogrammed while you wait. This was my first visit Cheer up, Bozza! Look, I’ve found a cow pat! c
and after picking up some godchild-gifts (o tempo) we just had
time for an ice cream at the fabulous Gelateria della Passera. As told to Robert Hutton
I went for the gin and tonic. For old time’s sake. c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 11 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
Boris will be Boris ... again
James When I was starting out in newspapers in Except if someone on the comment desk was
the 1990s, I used to say that my career ambition was daft enough to blab to Boris about that topic. In
Kirkup to be an ex-editor. It seemed to me that the people which case, the Johnsonian nostrils would fill with
who had the very best of Fleet Street were the ones the musky scent of prey: “Ah. Um. I see. You know,
who’d once run the place then stepped down or — that’s exactly what I was going to write about. Do
more often — been given the push. Accustomed to you, ah, think you could ask Charles to do some-
passing authoritative judgement on the events of thing else?”
the day, the ex-ed crew could hold forth as column- Did Boris change — or simply invent — his
ists and authors. The grandest collected glittering plans for what to write about purely to snaffle a
prizes: Oxbridge masterships and seats in the topic from his colleague and ex-editor? I can offer
Lords. The pay-off cheques were nice too. no answer, though I will say I never took this sort of
The point was that former editors had made behaviour as indicating any animus towards
their bones. It didn’t really matter whether they’d Moore, whom Boris did after all make a peer.
run their paper well or badly. They’d done a job Instead, I think that Borisonian demand for first
that few others had. They had standing, the right to pickings from the news agenda says something
speak, and be heard — because of what they used about him, as a journalist, politician and, in due
to do. Boris Johnson understands this very well, course, a former politician. He wants and needs to
and not just because he technically qualifies for the have his say, and he fully expects that he will be
ex-editor title, having — nominally, at least — run heard, and heard first.
the Spectator. It’s one of the reasons he’ll be a very
good, and happy, ex-prime minister. He also knows extremely well how to play
This column isn’t an attempt to predict either the game and work the machinery of the media.
when or how Johnson will become our former PM. People need and want things to talk about, and he
I’m more interested in what he’ll do when he joins is very good at providing them. Johnson is some-
Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and May in the most times lazily described as “gaffe-prone”, but most of
exclusive and difficult club in politics. And my his “gaffes” are perfectly deliberate, words carefully
money is on him having a fine old time. gauged to catch attention and put him where he
wants to be, at the top of the agenda.
The final years of my time in newspapers Why should anything change when the inevita-
were spent on the comment desk of the Daily Tele- ble day comes and he’s turfed out of Number 10?
graph, where the worst days were the ones where Even members of his team at Number 10 privately
both Boris and Charles Moore were filing columns. despair that he often approaches the business of
That meant negotiating with both about the topics government with the sensibilities of a journalist
they’d write about, usually with the requirement looking for headlines: some complain that meet-
that they cover different issues, since readers crave ings are not so much “how are we are going to
Johnson variety and editors abhor duplication. change the country today?” as “what’s the line on
wants and Unlike some, I generally found Boris a fairly reli- that story, then?” Freed of l that burdensome gov-
needs to able columnist, usually making contact mid-morn- erning malarkey, his natural urge will be to return
ing for a chat about ideas, before filing in decent home to roost in the upper reaches of the com-
have his say. time. In those mid-morning chats, often before vol- mentariat.
Why should unteering his ideas for the column, he’d be keen to There, his status as ex-prime minister will give
anything know: “What’s Charles writing about?” him standing nonpareil. Name your subject, the
Answering this question candidly was a bad words of the former leader of a nuclear-armed G7
change when idea. The Baron Moore of Etchingham in the Coun- State will carry some weight, or least some interest.
the inevitable ty of East Sussex is a punctilious columnist who Remember: after Johnson was binned as May’s
day comes calls early in the morning to propose his thesis for foreign secretary, he didn’t miss a beat before re-
the day, which is, quite naturally, often about the turning to the Telegraph as a columnist, and not
and he is
biggest story of the moment. And as an ex-editor, just because he had (very considerable) bills to
turfed out of his suggested topic would, in most circumstances, pay. It’s what he knows, what he is. What he’ll be
Number 10? be accepted nem con. even after he’s done being prime minister.

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 12 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 lost a general election, after
all. Yet even he took time —
and a lot of questionable mon-
ey — before finding his feet as
former PM, most recently set-
ting the pace on pandemic
policy and offering good polit-
ical advice that Keir Starmer
just isn’t Blair enough to take.
And for all Call-Me-Tony’s
professions of silver-haired
contentment, you just know
he’d be back in No 10 in a
heartbeat if he was offered the
job again.
Arguably it’s the least distin-
guished PM who has made the
best fist of the post-premier-
ship. It’s always hard to say if
she enjoys anything at all in
life, but sitting stony-faced on
The others who have done and left that job 6WUXJJOLQJWRƓQGQHZ the backbenches, Theresa May radiates a certain,
LEO N NE AL/E AMO NN M. MCCO RMACK /J EF F J M ITC HE L L/DA N K I TWOOD /IA N F OR SYTH /A LL GE TTY IMAG E S

have all since struggled in their different ways. UROHV"30V&DPHURQ limited contentment. Unlike all the others who quit
David Cameron has meandered, aimless and 0DMRU%URZQ%ODLU the place, by staying in the Commons, May ensured
shameless, since running away from the mess he DQGEHORZ0D\ she had something to go back to after Number 10; a
made in office. Did he sell himself and his contacts role and some purpose.
book to a dodgy Australian financier because he
wanted to be even richer but couldn’t be arsed to Boris Johnson has something to go back to
work for it? Or just because it was a way to kill a few too, a role that’s bigger than even the biggest job in
of those long, dead hours between lunch and din- British politics: his own. He has always been his
ner when your chums can’t play tennis because own purpose. He was “Boris” before he was PM
they have actual jobs and actual lives? The dreadful and he’ll be “Boris” afterwards too.
emptiness of Dave’s post-premiership shouldn’t Only this time the fees will — by necessity — be
surprise: he had no purpose in the job, so he’s higher, the advances more extravagant and the au-
hardly likely to develop one now he’s out of it. diences bigger. I suspect a man who backs himself
Still, Cameron can take hope from John Major, to knock out biographies of Churchill and Shake-
who proves that if you wait long enough, some speare will have noted with interest Barack Oba-
people will forget how abject your premiership was ma’s evolution into a global media star.
and just assume that someone who did the top job Of course, some people will boo and snark
must be worth listening to. about his failure and duplicity in office, but like all
Gordon Brown was mostly miserable in Down- good hacks, Johnson will shrug off criticism as in-
ing Street, and has never been mistaken for a ray of evitable, and fleeting.
sunshine since leaving. He still beavers away at Tomorrow will always come around, and it
pamphlets and papers, perhaps hoping to recap- must have fresh headlines, new things to talk
ture those days of 2007 and 2008 when he could about. And Boris Johnson, once a prime minister,
make a decent claim to have saved the world from will be quite happy to keep them talking. c
a far worse financial crisis. But he’ll never silence
the voices that whisper: what if you hadn’t blown it James Kirkup is Director of the Social Market
all in 2010? Foundation and a former political editor of the
Tony Blair is hardly troubled by doubt: he never Daily Telegraph. David Starkey is away this month

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 13 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 WHY ARE WE
SUPPORTING
UKRAINE?
A CAUTIONARY NOTE
BY CHRISTOPHER
S. BROWNING
ABOUT VICARIOUS WAR

T
he Ukrainian flag and its colours Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, suggested a time
are proliferating across the British land- horizon of 20-25 years for both EU and NATO membership. In-
scape, virtual and real. They are to be seen deed, luminaries of Western strategic thinking, such as Henry
fluttering above town halls, on people’s so- Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, at least since 2014, have ar-
cial media pages, at football grounds, illu- gued that Ukraine would be better off recognising itself as a geo-
minating buildings, while outside the gates political buffer. It should “Finlandise”, something also recently
of a fishmongers in Shoreham a massive suggested by President Macron.
shrimp has been repainted blue and yellow, its pincers now Today, though, the situation is very different. For instance,
holding a Molotov (prawn!) cocktail. the initial days of the conflict were marked by Western journal-
Accompanying such visual displays has been an outpouring ists “discovering” the hitherto unknown “European” ambience
of fundraising efforts, a generosity of spirit washing across the of Ukrainian cities and that their residents look just like us. Set-
nation. Simultaneously, businesses, universities, local and dis- ting aside the sometimes racialised dimensions of such observa-
trict councils are actively severing ties with Russia, often far be- tions, from being on its cognitive margins Ukraine has been po-
yond the requirements of official sanctions. sitioned as emblematic of European civilisation, sometimes
“We stand with Ukraine,” say the banners. Indeed, there is a being described as at the “heart of Europe”.
pervasive sense in which — at least for the moment — we are all This bears stark comparison with the wars of the 1990s that
Ukrainians now. Solidarity and sympathy with a victim nation is ripped apart the former Yugoslavia. Then, Western discourse
understandable, alongside outrage and concern at an unexpect- emphasised their strangeness, their tribalism, and not least their
edly aggressive Russian action. “Balkan” element, a rhetorical and psychological distancing that
Strategically, military planners possibly spy an interest in facilitated an approach of disengagement and containment, a
sucking Russia into a drawn out quagmire, depleting its military position that changed only once Bosnia and Herzegovina was
resources, sapping its morale, and in so doing bolstering West- identified as fighting for “European” cosmopolitan values.
ern power. Yet notions of sympathy and strategic incentives By contrast, Ukraine’s current “European” framing means
VALE R IE MACON /AF P V IA GE T TY IM AG ES

don’t fully capture the generalised mood of emotional invest- that their fight is not simply supported, but is frequently repre-
ment and angst, but also projective consummation at the sented as a fight for “us”, and in that, also, in some sense, “our”
prospect of reflected glory deriving from the conflict. fight, with Ukraine even represented as the embodiment of “us”
— that is, “we too” are under attack.
From Finlandisation
to Europeanisation Vicarious Identity
On the face of it, such a level of support for Ukraine Beyond simply identifying and sympathising with
is not self-evident. Ever since the end of the Cold War, Ukraine the Ukrainians, we are living through them, internalising their
has suffered widespread corruption and failed to fully meet Eu- experiences as our own. Consider, for instance, the comments of
ropean and Western standards of governance. In 2016 the EU the Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, who was caught on camera

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 14 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 at the start of the conflict, talking to sol- oligarch is pitted against Russia’s (cor-
diers at the Horse Guards building in rupt) oligarchs. Of course, Musk is never
Whitehall suggesting that: referred to as an oligarch, only ever as an
We should send the Gurkhas in. We eccentric billionaire who has also chal-
should send the Scots Guards, kicked the lenged the Russian president to a fight,
backside of Tsar Nicholas I in 1853 in the spoils of which would be Ukraine.
Crimea — we can always do it again.
But as Western governments have
made palpably clear, in particular in re-
The Declining West
jecting Ukrainian calls for NATO to imple- So, what are the identities in
ment a “no fly zone”, we are not going to construction — what is this “we” that we
go over there. Consequently, all we have is keep hearing so much about? Most nota-
vicarious identification, either with his- ble has been the proclaimed, and to some
torical episodes such as the ignominious extent evident, reconstitution of the polit-
Charge of the Light Brigade of 1854, or ical West, a reconstitution that initially
with Ukrainians who are actually fighting was met with a sense of unexpected sur-
(for us) today. prise that soon had a euphoric edge to it,
And of course, the Ukrainian govern- 8.DQG8NUDLQLDQŴDJVŴ\LQ&KXUFK
a strange self-recognition that perhaps
ment has gone to great lengths to actively 6WUHHW7ZLFNHQKDP/HIW3UHVLGHQW the West exists after all.
encourage others to vicariously invest in =HOHQVN\DGGUHVVHVWKH*UDPPLHVLQ$SULO Yet, there was also a sense of caution as
their fight. Most obvious was President to whether the sudden upsurge in com-
Zelensky’s speech to the House of Com- mon purpose and community would last
mons on 9 March in which he directly referenced the culturally beyond an initial indignation at Russian actions. Of course, we
resonant British fight against the Nazis and invoked Churchil- are only weeks into this war and there is plenty of time for disa-
lian rhetoric about fighting at sea, on the land, in the air, whatev- greements to emerge, particularly as the implications of sanc-
er the cost, and not surrendering. tions and mass refugee movements on the West begin to bite.
But to be clear, as recently as February it wasn’t just Putin who
But similar practices are also evident in Ukraine’s expected to confront a disunited and disjointed West.
engagement of social media, specifically their clever use of iron- This speaks to a much longer history of debates about West-
ic humour, epitomised in the numerous TikToks referencing the ern decline. Following an initial period of post-Cold War trium-
“Ukrainian Tractor Brigade” towing away abandoned Russian phalism, most indelibly linked to Francis Fukuyama’s proclama-
tanks. Such memes actively appeal to and foster a shared ironic tion about the end of history, already in the years following 9/11
sensibility that closes the gap between us and them, inviting us the notion that the West was in trouble and fracturing was evi-
to identify with the humble and industrious Ukrainian farmer dent.
vis-à-vis a (presumed incompetent) Russian soldier. For instance, back in 2003, Robert Kagan famously declared
Vicarious identities are tempting because they can help us the West was split, more or less down the Atlantic, a split he lik-
uphold a sense of self-identity, status and self-esteem, particu- ened as one between Mars and Venus. The metaphor, in other
larly in situations in which we may feel that we are lacking or words, depicted the Martian Americans as living in a geopoliti-
falling short in some way. Typically, targets of vicarious identifi- cal world where power politics still matters, while the Venutian
cation are valued because they have become viewed as bearers Europeans were living in some kind of idealised (and for Kagan,
of “master signifiers”, or attributes, to which we are deeply at- illusory) Kantian paradise.
RIC HARD B AK E R/I N PICT UR E S VIA G ET TY IMAGE S

tached and understand as central to our sense of being and However, it wasn’t long before Europe itself was depicted as
self-understanding. similarly split between a more pro-American and pro-military
From a Western perspective these include signifiers such as interventionist “New Europe”
“liberty”, “freedom”, “democracy” and “Europe”. However, aside This is a Russia comprised of newer members of
from Ukraine, and although to a lesser extent, other vectors of we recognise, the EU and NATO, but also the
vicarious identification have also appeared that have similarly but also a Russia UK, and an “Old Europe” of
operated as cover for the potential shame we might otherwise France, Germany and others, in-
feel at our own helplessness.
of some value — herently sceptical about Ameri-
For instance, we have seen an interesting sense of societal en- if “Russia” is can military adventures.
joyment at the activities of the hacktivist group Anonymous, and “Russia”, “we” Throughout the early 2000s,
perhaps more particularly, the somewhat ironic embracing of can once more polemics about the end of the
Elon Musk for his activation of the Starlink satellite internet ser- be the “West” West had become common and
vice to the Ukrainian cause, but in which “our” (freedom loving) were referenced in the popularity

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 15 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
of books and articles with titles like: Suicide of the West, The
Death of the West, “The ‘Broken’ West”, The End of the West, The
The Redemptive West
Divided West, “The West May Be Cracking”, and “Does ‘the West’ Now, though, at least for the moment, some of these
Still Exist?” — these latter two notably both by Fukuyama and doubts have been cast aside. Liberalism is back and the West
suggesting that he too had caught the pessimistic vibe. stands again! The allegedly post-liberal West is apparently redis-
Common to the emergence of declinist narratives were two covering liberalism and associated master signifiers (democra-
claims as to what any such decline might be attributed to — ex- cy, freedom) as a core identity, and to some degree it has discov-
ternal challenge and/or internal decay. ered a sense of trans-European and trans-Atlantic coherence
In respect of external challenge, there has been a growing and a will to act.
sense that the West can no longer compete against rising world Indeed, within this, there is also nestled the subplot of a more
powers, in particular China, or more particularly that it has gone particular British revival, a chance to put meat on the bones of
soft and lacks the backbone to do so. post-Brexit proclamations of “Global Britain” and to reassert the
All that remains, then, is to hope to manage the decline and country’s strategic relevance to the West, a leading voice in Euro-
the handover of the reins of pean defence and a bridge to America.
As an American geopolitical dominance while Hence, we have seen a renewed championing of British intel-
defence official seeking to preserve key ele- ligence, an emphasis on the UK’s bolstering of defence commit-
expressed it: ments of the established inter- ments to the Baltic States, the active provisioning of “lethal mili-
national system as curated by tary aid” to Ukraine, and not least, the Prime Minister seeking to
“A professional the Western powers. However, position himself as coordinating Western efforts against Russia
boxer who trains as evidenced by the chaos that with his somewhat disingenuous “six-point plan”.
against lesser marked the withdrawal from Yet, this narrative of decline and resurrection is less surpris-
opponents Afghanistan in 2021, the ing than it may appear in the present moment. Historically, nar-
doesn’t improve” West’s ability to do this has ratives of the West almost always have this redemptive quality
been far from evident. about them. Indeed, ever since the coining of the West as a polit-
ical concept — notably in Russia in the 1820s and 1830s as a part
The internal critique is different. On the right, and of attempts to forge Russian narratives of self-identity — the
within conservative thought, the internal challenge is generally West is almost always narrated as on the brink of declining, de-
characterised as one in which the West is depicted as suffering caying and dying, but where such a narration also typically en-
from malaise and complacency, but also as wracked by unwar- tails an injunction to act now, to reverse the direction of travel,
ranted guilt and shame at its past, such that it has lost all faith in and thereby reclaim the West.
itself. Instead of action, the West is more prone to doubt. Indeed, there are very few narratives of the West that depict a
From this perspective, the villain and cause of Western de- finality and one-way direction of decline. For that, you need to
cline is often laid at the feet of the rise of philosophical decon- go back to Oswald Spengler’s classic text from 1928, The Decline
structionism and postmodernism with its claimed emphasis on of the West. In contrast to Spengler, though, in contemporary de-
a moral relativism that saps the will of Westerners to stand up for clinist narratives it is sometimes even the cause of claimed de-
and defend fundamental principles. cay that is seen to offer potentials for redemption.
It is this view that underpinned the speech to the Conserva- For instance, in 2010 the French philosopher, Pascal Bruck-
tive Party’s spring conference on 19 March by the Foreign Secre- ner, depicted the West as “wallowing in shame and self-loath-
tary, Liz Truss. Reflecting on the war in Ukraine, she proclaimed: ing” and as wracked by a “tyranny of guilt” for its past misde-
We have to be proud of our country and our long standing meanours and as a result all too “ready to shoulder the blame for
commitment to freedom and democracy. Now is the time to the poverty of Africa or Asia, to sorrow over the world’s prob-
end the culture of self-doubt, the constant self-questioning lems, to assume responsibility for them”. Yet, in this he also sees
and introspection, the ludicrous debates about languages, stat- the basis for recovery and renewed Western superiority, since
ues, and pronouns. Our history, warts and all, is what makes us for him it is the West’s unique capacity for self-reflection that
what we are today. We live in a great country, a great democra- makes it able to rectify its mistakes and marks it out as different
cy, and we should be proud of it.
from the non-West.
On the left, however, the internal challenge is instead framed
as one of the rise of an increasingly illiberal populism. Here, the In the current context, one might think about the
criticism isn’t simply that global order is becoming ever more much derided by some, but championed by others, text of Rich-
post-liberal with the rise of China and other powers (including ard Moore, the chief honcho at MI6. As Moore tweeted: “With
an increasingly nationalist India), but that the West itself is be- the tragedy and destruction unfolding so distressingly in
coming “post-liberal”. This interpretation has become increas- Ukraine, we should remember the values and hard-won free-
ingly common in the wake of Trump, Brexit, and the broader rise doms that distinguish us from Putin, none more than LGBT+
of populism across Europe, especially in Hungary and Poland. rights. So let’s resume our series of tweets to mark #LGB-

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 16 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 THM2022”. Here, what some people support being provided, therefore, is that
might see as further evidence of self-in- it is sufficient to enable the Ukrainians to
dulgent wokeist self-loathing and virtue continue defending, fighting and dying,
signalling is repurposed as part of the but not enough to enable them to prevail.
fight for liberal order and fundamental Yet, it is also notable that since the start
(Western) freedoms. of the war our projected desire for a
Ukrainian (read Western) victory has also
Vicarious War: been reflected in Western media report-
ing on the conflict, which has typically
A Cautionary Note talked up Ukrainian successes, empha-
This rediscovery of the West is at sised Russian blunders and atrocities, but
least partially premised on an intriguing has had perilously little to say about
process of vicarious identification with Ukrainian military casualties, “blue-on-
the Ukrainian fight. However, several 8NUDLQLDQWURRSVWUDLQLQJLQ-DQXDU\WR blue” incidents, or supply-line difficul-
things can be noted about this that might XVH%ULWLVK1/$:DQWLWDQNZHDSRQVLQ ties, and as such has failed to provide a
also give pause for some consideration. SUHSDUDWLRQIRUWKH5XVVLDQLQYDVLRQ more sombre assessment of the situation
First, in this process a securitisation of on the ground.
Western subjectivity is evident whereby A final point is to recognise that pro-
Western coherence is now framed in terms of defence of free- cesses of vicarious identification have certain vulnerabilities
dom against a Russian autocrat, a process of othering that may baked into them, since in general they mask a lack of one’s own
ultimately only mask rather than resolve Western fragilities. capacities, ability or will to become engaged, but also tend to be
Within this, important historical legacies and resonances are episodic, coming in waves of intensity and dissipation.
also in play. In particular, the fact that Russia has often played
this role of constitutive other to the West, a convenient and It remains to be seen, therefore, how long this lasts. At
“worthy” enemy, and as such, an enemy it becomes increasingly some point, for instance, the glorious and almost mythical de-
difficult to give up on. fence of the Ukrainians may begin to appear less glorious. What
For at least a decade now, rhetorical references to a “new if, for example, it descends into a slaughter? Or what if starving
Cold War” with Russia have occupied parts of the Western stra- Ukrainians start fighting amongst themselves, as has been re-
tegic community. In other words, this is a Russia we recognise, ported already in some places? Or what if stories of Ukrainian
but also a Russia some value because if “Russia” is “Russia”, “we” atrocities become more manifest and routine? Vicarious identi-
can once more be the “West.” fication is vulnerable to our changing moods and limited atten-
In Western military circles there has, for some time, been a tion spans. Thus, what if we just start to get bored and invest in
surprising nostalgia for great power war. Specifically, there has other stories instead, like spats at the Oscars? What then will be
been a growing dissatisfaction and frustration with the messy the consequences for Ukrainians?
© DE F E NSE O F U K RA INE/ ZU MA PRE SS W IRE SE RV IC E/A LAM Y STO CK IMAGE S

and indecisive engagements of the War on Terror that some mil- Some of our support for Ukraine’s fight may be purely strate-
itary folks have experienced as emasculating. As expressed by gic, or connected to feelings of mutual vulnerability: if this can
one senior defence official in the Pentagon in 2018, “real men happen to Ukraine, then where might Putin deploy Russian forc-
fight real wars. We like the clarity of big wars.” Or as another es next? Other reasons reflect very human processes of identify-
American defence official expressed it: “A professional boxer ing with the victims of an egregious attack and outrage at the
who trains against lesser opponents doesn’t improve.” But as it death and suffering being inflicted on innocent civilians, but
happens, America won’t fight and has to settle for vicarious par- also anxieties connected to how the attack has destabilised
ticipation in this latest big war. widely held views about the nature of the world we live in, and a
fear that the constitutive rules of global and European politics
To be clear, there is much to applaud in our identify- may be changing. The world we “knew” is ending — hence the
ing and empathising with Ukraine’s fight, but we should be accusations that we have been guilty of self-satisfaction and
mindful about what drives aspects of our support. Consider, for complacency.
example, the evident satisfaction expressed by the Conservative All these things are true. Tied to these, though, is that support
Party Chairman Oliver Dowden at being able to report in an LBC for Ukraine has also become central to a politics of “becoming” in
interview that Ukrainian fighters are proclaiming “God Save the which Ukraine features as a proxy enabling the Western subject
Queen” whenever they fire a British-donated bazooka. It can be to reconstitute itself once more, but where such practices also en-
tempting, for instance, to “sponsor a tank” on Patreon and to tail potentially troubling consequences and limitations. c
want to give Putin a bloody nose, but the people doing so are not
us, but Ukrainians experiencing terror and death daily. Dr Christopher S. Browning is a reader of Politics and
One uncomfortable aspect about the nature of the military International Studies at the University of Warwick

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 SOUNDING BOARD THE REVEREND MARCUS WALKER

How do we deal with war crime?

The horrors of Bucha have do causes a reaction well deaths on a screen, we
beyond their own soul. turn into them. We allow
reminded us that humans are It tempts some to follow the basest level of our
capable of evil on a huge scale in their footsteps, but it nature to triumph in the

E
also tempts those of us same way they have done.
vil is back. outraged by their actions
It hadn’t gone away, of to acts of evil in return The hardest path,
course, but for us living for evil. but the essential one, is to
comfortably in the West, evil The “we” here needs, afford them the dignity
was something perpetrated to a certain degree, to be which they have stripped
by mass murderers or serial sex offenders separated out. For most from so many others. To
but not by ordinary people. of us, the “we” is fairly treat even the worst
One of the more common things I’ve hands off. We’re not on Russian soldiers as fellow
heard as a priest is people jokingly telling the front line and we’re children of God, as
me that they couldn’t possibly make their unlikely to encounter any Evil is infectious creatures made in the
confession as they’ve been far too evil, and of the people committing image and likeness of
I wouldn’t have the time. any atrocities ourselves. and we are all God, even when they
My response, almost invariably, would But there is another within range. It have tried to drown that
be to ask when was the last time they’d “we”, made up of people starts with one image in the blood of
committed genocide. (And yes, for the whose families have innocents. That is the
uninitiated, Anglicans do do Confession: suffered directly the
person, but it also only way to preserve our
it’s not only encouraged in the Prayer horrors of this war, who tempts those of us humanity.
Book but Queen Elizabeth I famously said, will have known people outraged by their It’s a vaccine against
“All may, none must, some should.” If slaughtered on Vladimir all the different evil
you’re in the “should” category, feel free to Putin’s order, and who
actions to acts of responses to an evil act.
get in touch.) might find themselves evil in return This doesn’t mean that
But now evil is back. Back at the face to face with a killing may not be

P O R T R A I T B Y VA N E S S A D E L L ; N A R C I S O C O N T R E R A S / A N A D O LU A G E N C Y V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S
forefront of our minds. Genocide? murderer in the near future. necessary. Winning the war against a
Possibly. Crimes against humanity? regime which seems set on tyranny and
Certainly. On a huge scale. By ordinary There is very clearly a huge slaughter is no evil in and of itself, and that
people. The horrors in Bucha (the men difference between those facing these involves using all the lethal force you can,
with their hands tied behind their back, horrors directly and those facing them within the rules of war.
shot in the head, the women, naked, through social media and the television But if you are going to kill, and to kill on
burned to a crisp) and the horrors that our news. But the ethical question is the same, the kind of scale necessary to beat an army
broadcasters have spared us (the girls, and it is a tough one. How do we inoculate such as Russia’s, it’s essential to take this
some as young as three, genitalia ripped ourselves against evil? vaccine; it’s essential not to be dehuman-
apart from multiple rapes) have reminded There is really only one way: the ised by dehumanising others.
us that humanity is capable of evil on a humanity of others, even those who have This is not easy. It’s much easier to call
vast scale. committed crimes against humanity. Or, an enemy an orc and treat them in our
The people doing it have thought for us Christians, to try to see the face of minds as if they were not human. But that
themselves good people and will still Christ in those who have put Christ’s way lies the road to more Buchas, to more
be thought by neighbours and people on the Cross. It’s not easy. slaughter, to more evil. That way, whoever
friends and families to be good From the depths of our human wins, evil wins.
people. And yet they are not. nature comes the urge to make But we have a choice, each of us, near
them suffer, and to rejoice in and far. And it applies, of course, to much
And this moves the ethical their suffering. lesser evils as much as to the horrors we
problem on to us. How do we deal But when we do this, when have been focused upon these last few
with people committing atrocious we, for example, treat Russian months. And in those choices we each
crimes? This isn’t an abstract prisoners in the way they decide whether to shine a little more light
question, because evil is treated Ukrainian in the world or allow the darkness to creep
infectious and we are all civilians, we turn into that little bit further forward.
within range. It starts with them. When we laugh I pray that we have the grace to choose
one person, but what they as we watch their the latter. c

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 The conscience of the New World is here in the Old

Rod Dreher
comes home
failure of the adults of his tight-knit community to do anything
Sebastian Milbank
about it. On one field trip he was attacked by a group of other

T
he American writer Rod Dreher boys, and describes his teachers stepping over — and past —
is an unfamiliar figure in Britain, where him as he was pinned to the floor crying for help. They, the
his diagnoses of the problems ‘“liquid responsible adults, didn’t want to offend the cool kids. Is this
modernity” presents for moral living are a conservative story, or a liberal one? Did he witness the harms
incomprehensibly alien to most Tories. of conformity and hierarchy in a closed community, or a crisis
Conservative electoral success, allied to of adult responsibility and a lack of discipline and authority?
the natural Blair-style social liberalism The more I spoke to him, the more I got a sense of two
of its parliamentary leadership, has seen conservatism fade insights, held in productive tension: a deep love and reverence
away here as an explicitly creedal enterprise. Since the death for community and tradition, yet an intense awareness of its
of Roger Scruton, no one figure writes in a language Tory fallibility in practice.
politicians want to or can speak. But abroad these conversa-
tions are happening, and Rod Dreher has been at the centre — Some conservative careers are a squalid succession
or in front of them — for most of this century. of ideological trends, naively embraced with equal enthusiasm.
These ructions are often labelled “populism” (or worse) by Dreher’s trajectory is something much more interesting —
many British commentators, who dismiss or demonise them a series of disillusionments driven not by cynicism, but by
and move on. But what is actually going on is far more com- a burning desire for an ideal community: a vision of the good
plex, with parallel revivals of religious conservatism, communi- life and the good society.
tarianism and nationalism. The Reagan-Thatcher consensus on The first and greatest disillusionment, and one that still
economics is under serious question, and it is now the right, troubles Dreher to this day — he calls it a “spiritual wound that
not the left, that is seeking to offer a serious challenge to will never heal” — is his falling out with Roman Catholicism.
globalisation. In 2001 Rod Dreher was comfortably ensconced in the world
of Catholic Washington DC. He and his wife were converts, and
Small town roots loyal adherents to both a John Paul II-style Catholic faith, and
Dreher first came to widespread attention in America American conservative Catholicism.
with the publication of his book, Crunchy Cons: The New This faith provided an alternative to the small town Method-
MAX B EC HE R ER F O R TH E WASH INGTO N POST VI A GE T TY IM AGE S

Conservative Counterculture and Its Return to Roots, in which ism he grew up with, one that had the broad horizons, and
he called for a return to an older (and more European) mode maybe ambitions, the former lacked, but shared its deep roots.
of conservatism which questioned the libertarianism of the It was a path he felt drawn to ever since visiting Chartres
modern right, and looked to a religiously-informed localism. Cathedral as a 17-year-old — here it seemed was a living
Born in 1967, he was brought up in St Francisville, a small symbol of a faith and a civilisation
town in Louisiana, by conservative Methodist parents. In that could answer every human
America, small town origins are either romanticised as pastoral
He is driven need and question, a home for a
cradles of future greatness or as close-minded hick villages to by a burning homeless soul.
be transcended by the triumphant individual. desire for It was this influence that gives a
Dreher movingly speaks of a far more ambiguous relation- an ideal specifically European flavour to his
ship with his roots, however. He describes a troubled relation- conservatism, and it is Catholicism
community:
ship with a family that could never quite forgive him for leaving, that has been one of the main
and making it in the big city — he’d got above himself as far a vision of vectors by which anti-capitalist and
as they were concerned. But at the same time he felt a deep the good life anti-globalist ideas have entered the
longing for the sense of structure, community and belonging and the good discourse of the US right. Dreher,
he grew up with. society like others, was strongly influenced
A formative experience was being bullied at school, and the by Catholic social teaching — the

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 19 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
communitarian and distributist challenge to happen, giving their time and money to help
both communism and capitalism offered his sister. After he and his wife moved in
by texts such as Rerum novarum. 2011 to support his grieving family, they
found themselves mysteriously rebuffed
He’d found a faith, a community by his sister’s daughters. Eventually one of
and a worldview, and was meeting with them explained why: “Listen Uncle Rod,
ever greater professional success. He talks our mother raised us to think you went to
about being “almost militant, in the way that the city and got above yourself and you’re
converts can be” and that he “felt like part of a not to be trusted.” For them it wasn’t just a
tribe” of religious conservatives. It could easily matter of inherited prejudice, it was a question of
have been the end of the story. But like many honouring their mother’s memory and thus her feuds.
awkward souls, Dreher has always had an issue with tribes. Honour culture is almost impossible to understand for those
He was covering a topic that was then still only on the who haven’t experienced it, but it runs deep in the US South,
boundaries of public consciousness: sexual abuse in the Catho- especially rural areas. Dreher’s corner of the South was settled
lic Church. He spoke to one Father Thomas Doyle who said to by Tories fleeing the American Revolution, with a mixture of
him “if you keep going down this path, it will take you to places English planters and Scots-Irish: “The one thing we know how
far darker than you can imagine”. But he kept going, even to do better than anyone else is hold a grudge.” Part of the
though this was “like [being] the hobbit who looks into the genius of watching Dreher relate life and death lies in seeing
Palantir and fries his brain”. Dreher always thought that if he his struggle to transcend such honest bitterness.
had the “syllogisms” of his religion straight, the intellectual
coherence of his faith, nothing could shake it. But by 2005, as Re-engage with conservatism
the abuse scandal continued to break, he and his wife found Dreher has long written about what we would call
themselves losing their religion. class politics. He recommended that US conservatives, who
They turned to orthodoxy, attending an Eastern Orthodox associate environmentalism and high culture with effete leftist
church, and converting in 2006. But, “I had to make a con- elites, should re-engage with those things as naturally conserv-
scious decision not to be the sort of Orthodox that I was a ative — going back, essentially, to William Morris and John
Catholic.” For him, his Catholicism had become about intellec- Ruskin. His small town, big city divide is our Great Expectations
tual pride and an excessive idolisation of religious authority. fable of struggling with humble origins.
Midway through his story, and beset by crisis, Rod returned But in America, and increasingly worldwide too, class is
home. The event that precipitated this return was his sister’s becoming geographically concentrated, with urban elites
battle with cancer and eventual death. 2011’s The Little Way of allying with the ethnically diverse urban poor to push a
Ruthie Leming beautifully and sorrowfully recounts their cosmopolitan form of politics, whilst rich suburbanites and the
childhood in Louisiana and the end of her story. Yet the rural poor drive a more parochial conservatism.
challenges of faith were matched by the experience of family life. It’s a world that’s easy to get lost in, politically and spiritual-
Dreher had left his DC Catholic conservative bubble, hungry ly. Dreher’s story raises hard questions. Are history, tradition
for something simpler and more grounded, and, in the midst of and community the problem, or the solution? Are they an
family tragedy, hoped to repair frayed ties. Dreher had never escape from a modernity, or do they trap us in the past?
got on with his working-man father: “He wanted to be in the Reeling from the “double blow” of losing confidence in both

MAX B EC HE R ER F O R TH E WASH INGTO N POST VI A GE T TY IM AGE S

woods,;I wanted to have my head in a book.” John Paul II his religion and his patrimony, Dreher contracted a chronic
served as an alternative father figure, one who “embodied all case of mononucleosis — a rare form of the disease, exacerbat-
the good things about my own dad, but who was more compas- ed, his doctor believed, by extreme stress. “You’re never going
sionate and intellectual”. to be well unless you move away.” But he stayed — his parents
But the experience of going home was bittersweet: “My were old and needed his help.
family was not what I thought it was”. His sister had taken the He sought help from his
path he had not. She stayed in her home town, married her
Dreher therapist, he turned to his priest
high school sweetheart, and became a teacher. He felt con- praises the and to prayer. But what ultimately
stricted by his community, bullied and oppressed by it, and got diversity of got him through this part of his life
out as soon as he could. Ruthie was beloved by the community, Europe and was a fourteenth-century poet:
of whom she was an active and generous member, and in Dante Alighieri. Like a lot of us, he’d
which her family had lived for five generations. But she was the
argues that always been aware of The Divine
one who got cancer and died. capitalism Comedy as something he ought to
has turned read, but had never actually picked
When Ruthie fell ill, a thousand people turned up the US into it up. But one day he saw it in a
to fundraise for her medical bills. They were all there: the a “shithole” bookstore and read the opening
bullies who had tormented him, the teachers who had let it lines: “Midway upon the journey of

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 20 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
our life / I found myself within a forest dark / For the straight- English sensibilities. He’s disarmingly open, fluently and
forward pathway had been lost.” earnestly laying out his life story over the course of our
He saw himself in it immediately, and read it “not like a conversation.
literary exercise” but “like a map that could read me to rescue”. His religiosity, for all its fascination with Europe and
He came to believe that he’d placed family and a sense of place tradition, is very American: apocalyptic and with a passionate,
above God himself, especially in the form of his father. In the personal relationship with his saviour which he describes
end, he deepened his faith, reconciled with his dying father, as “an active life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ”.
and forgave him. There’s more than a touch of revivalist preacher to Rod.
But here is something we’ve lost: passionate self-expression
So how, I asked, had a man who went on this kind of and apocalypticism were once defining features of many
intellectual journey not ended up a liberal? Why was he religious communities in this country, and those passions
instead at the heart of European nationalism and conservatism, still quietly burn away in the pages of Milton and Blake. His
speaking up for tradition and community? How had this influence is already being felt in Britain, as I learned when
reader of Dante returned to the mortal city in his 2018 book, I spoke to Daniel French, an Anglican priest and one of
The Benedict Option, in which he calls for a new kind of Dreher’s English supporters.
“intentional community” of religious people organising locally French believes that the shock of the pandemic, in which
amidst what he sees as the collapse of liberal modernity? many ordinary Anglicans were horrified by the bishops’
But the pessimism is the point. Like Tolkien, Dreher is quite willingness to close churches, and their increasingly manageri-
prepared to see human history as a form of “long defeat”, and alist agenda for the Church, has helped generate an appetite for
his The Benedict Option, which draws heavily on Alasdair something very different.
Macintyre’s After Virtue, is optimistic about the possibility of
the development of the human person through education and With the establishment apparently blind to, or
community, but sceptical about the overall state of the culture. complicit in, the dwindling of British Christianity, French
For a European right that feels itself besieged, both literally and believes The Benedict Option presents an alternative that meets
metaphorically, Dreher’s mix of apocalyptic diagnosis and the scale of the crisis: “It is naive to think that change in
achievable small-scale treatment is compelling. Christian fortunes is just one revival tent away. The Benedict
Option points rather to our corporate journey out of exile
Revivalist preacher requiring several generations of introspection.” Conservatism
After an invitation to the Hungary-based Danube and Christianity alike may have to accept some time in the
Institute, Dreher took on a visiting fellowship and overnight wilderness if they’re to recapture their soul, and to truly revive.
Hungary was all over US right-wing media (thanks to the According to Daniel French there is an increasingly “under-
shared interest of Dreher’s friend Tucker Carlson). American ground” aspect to conservative Christian life in the UK —
conservatives were suddenly talking about a different kind of believers have woken up to the fact that the culture is against
right-wing politics, and the liberal left furiously reacted with them, and in many cases even traditional religious leaders too.
accusations of a worldwide fascist conspiracy. Another of his UK allies, Dr James Orr, believes that Rod
I asked him how he reconciles his scepticism of authority, Dreher is destined to have a significant impact on our conserv-
and the idolatry of family and place, with Orban’s Hungary, atism. “His insights are proving more salient with every week
and nationalism in general. Dreher replied he was a “reluctant that passes, not only for Christians but for all those who are
nationalist”, but “believes nations are important”. His defence beginning to feel the consequences of rejecting the West’s
of nationhood is not triumphalist, he suggested, but essentially Christian inheritance.
conservative, praising the diversity of cultures in Europe, and “As hyper-progressivism continues to colonise the UK
opposed to what he calls “the McDonaldisation of Europe”, public square with neuralgic imports from the US culture wars,
arguing that America has been turned into a “shithole” by I predict that more and more people in the UK will start to take
relentless capitalism. Dreher’s jeremiads seriously and pay attention to his construc-
His perspective on state power is realist — it is always tive proposals.”
going to exist, and if it isn’t used to defend basic natural goods Whether or not James Orr is right, Dreher is interesting not
like the family, or religious faith, it will be wielded by those just for who he is, but for what he represents. He stands at a
who are their relentless enemy. And if he’s sceptical of tradi- newly emergent nexus of traditional European conservatism,
tional authority, he’s even more wary of the panglossian English realism, and American romanticism and religiosity.
narratives of modern liberalism. He’s determined to break the With an increasingly sterile politics, caught between techno-
taboo on the right against using political levers to restrain the cratic centrism and the hollow battles of the culture wars,
power of big business. there’s a desperate need for new ideas, and fresh approaches.
But having made the improbable leap from America to This is a man worth listening to. c
Continental Europe, can Dreher be translated into a British
milieu? In some ways he’s utterly at odds with traditional Sebastian Milbank is online editor of The Critic

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 21 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
ZERO SENSE: WHY
NUCLEAR ABOLITION
SHOULD FAIL
The harsh reality is that the are inherently uncertain and their future intentions unknowable,
how can we reasonably take this risk? What plausible assurances
nuclear revolution is irreversible could good-faith disarmers have that more ruthless regimes will
and makes major wars significantly not dissemble and prepare for clandestine rearmament, maybe
taking the world from zero to a volatile condition where one state
less likely, says Patrick Porter could acquire a nuclear monopoly?
How can those with nukes be confident that abolitionists will

I
s a world without nuclear weapons verify disarmament and stop disarming states from regenerat-
possible? Is it even desirable? A number of “aboli- ing? Will they undertake this inspection and policing without a
tionist” movements, from the “Global Zero” initia- supreme international authority that does not yet exist? Or will
tive to ICAN (International Campaign for the Aboli- they somehow invent such a global Leviathan, which must be so
tion of Nuclear Weapons), say yes and yes. powerful that it would incentivise nuclear proliferation against
They propose that humanity should eliminate it? As political scientist Kenneth Waltz noted, given the size and
nuclear arms, those that draw on nuclear reactions concealability of the bombs:
to concentrate vast levels of violence into a single missile. So there’s nothing short of an unimaginably competent and des-
apocalyptic, immoral and wasteful are they, advocates of disar- potic international regime, if you could imagine it, that would be
mament claim, that no one should deploy them in any capacity, capable of controlling and moving toward the elimination of
even if their main purpose is to prevent wars by deterring others’ nuclear weapons. And who wants that? Who wants that kind of
aggression via the threat of retaliatory punishment. world tyranny?
As well as moving towards elimination, abolitionists often Some people do desire world tyranny, benign or otherwise,
advocate intermediate steps, including taking nukes off alert, es- which in itself is an argument against disarmament.
tablishing no first use agreements, and “sole purpose” declara-
tions. But their ultimate goal is a phased, multilateral reduction If the alternative answer is to trust in changing
to zero and the delegitimising of the very idea. global norms, was there not also international opprobrium on
Today’s nuclear abolitionists can boast success, if success is the eve of World War Two towards submarine warfare and stra-
measured by attention, acclaim and the agreement of non-nu- tegic bombing? When they feel the heat, do not some powers
clear states. Global Zero has U.S. national security grandees tend to relax their taboos?
amongst its supporters, from George Schultz to Henry Kissinger. What about smaller states in the crosshairs of larger nuclear
In 2017, ICAN won the Nobel Prize for Peace. It helped galvanise ones? How readily will Pakistan, say, or North Korea cooperate,
the signing of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. when they must reckon with large adversaries who have fought
But getting nuclear powers to disarm has proven elusive. them intensely before, such as India and the United States?
China has undertaken a large nuclear build-up, the United What about nuclear states that must survive in an often hostile
States is modernising its arsenal, Britain is enlarging its, Iran is neighbourhood, such as Israel?
enriching uranium and North Korea is testing intercontinental Above all, disarmers rarely interrogate just how benign a
missiles. Russia issues nuclear threats, with its suite of tactical as “zero” world would be. Homicide on an industrial scale preced-
well as strategic-scale weapons, as it savages Ukraine. Not a sin- ed the atomic strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August
gle nuclear state has even considered signing on to the treaty. 1945. Getting rid of nukes would add further mischief to a world
Every NATO state living under the extended deterrence of the US historically prone to atrocity. A denuclearised world would still
abstained, except for one that voted against it. Treaty allies such contain the materials and expertise to make them again. Intel-
as Japan, South Korea and Australia also voted against it. lectually, the nuclear revolution is a bell that cannot be unrung.
Why the difficulty in persuasion? One clue lies in the words of Therefore, as political scientist David Blagden argues, would
Beatrice Fihn, head of ICAN, who once proclaimed “We’re com- not every international crisis be aggravated by an awareness of
ing for your weapons!” potential proliferation, adding further time pressure to insecuri-
It is a strong, simple claim. And it raises difficult questions. Our ty? Given the problem that “other minds” might wish to race for
weapons? And others’ too? Are you sure? Given others’ intentions the bomb and seize an advantage, would not states have a strong

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 A WOMAN WALKS
NEAR THE ATOMIC
BOMB DOME AT PEACE
MEMORIAL PARK,
AS HIROSHIMA
MARKED THE 76TH
ANNIVERSARY OF THE
BOMBING LAST YEAR
armed Ukraine gives fresh urgen-
cy to the “absolute weapon” and
its consequences. Abolitionists’
responses have not been entirely
coherent. They argued for dec-
ades that nuclear weapons, while
genocidal, are not reliable means
of deterrence, and that cases of
incentive to prepare the ability to regenerate nuclear arms? apparently successful deterrence, such as the Cold War, are
Even if we could magically guarantee the elimination of all mere coincidences. The main reason, they repeat, that no one
nukes forever, would such a change not restore the hopes of ag- has fired a nuke in anger since 1945 is luck.
gressors that they could attack and win at acceptable cost, and Yet now, leading abolitionists discover that nuclear deter-
perhaps annihilate others while shielding their own population? rence demonstrably works, after all. The very force that enables
And without the weapon that uniquely serves as a great equalis- Vladimir Putin’s predation in Ukraine, they observe, is his pos-
er, would the elimination of nukes not empower the strong at the session of an evil arsenal and the blackmailing power it confers.
expense of the weak, using their size and wealth to lock in their “Don’t like being held hostage by a nuclear-armed thug, forced
conventional advantages? to watch while he invades a sovereign nation and kills a bunch of
In sum, would a post-nuclear world, if such a civilians?” asks Derek Johnson, “Young Leader”
thing emerged, not be more frequently unstable, WOULD A at the Munich Security Conference: “Cool, con-
violent and genocidal? POST- NUCLEAR grats, you’re now a disarmament activist.”
These are elementary questions. The failure WORLD NOT For her part, Beatrice Fihn once argued that
thus far to address them satisfactorily is not due BE MORE “It’s hard to say if deterrence works or not; the ab-
to a lack of talent or gravitas in abolitionist ranks. UNSTABLE, sence of something doesn’t prove it.” Yet with Pu-
To the contrary, their capacity to mobilise civil VIOLENT AND tin’s invasion, deterrence demonstrably can work
society suggests they are no fools. Rather, the GENOCIDAL? after all: “We cannot let countries do this to other
solutions are simply not available. countries anymore, [just] because they have nu-
clear weapons.”
Not all the prizes, celebrity endorsements and So if it is true that Putin’s overt threats of nuclear use are ex-
treaties in the world will erase the harsh reality, that the nuclear erting a unilateral deterrent effect — and it clearly is, as the fear
JINH EE L EE /S OPA IMAGE S/L IG HTR O CK ET V IA G ET TY I MAG ES

revolution that was consummated with the detonation of atomic of nuclear escalation is explicit in Western policy debate — then
bombs on Imperial Japan in 1945 is irreversible and permanent, it follows that nuclear deterrence is possible, and that we can
and makes major war significantly less likely. International poli- know it intuitively beyond speculation. And the same logic that
tics will forever exist in an atomic shadow. shields Moscow’s atrocities in Ukraine, namely nuclear weap-
Nuclear weapons are unique and different because they ons matched with a credible threat of retaliation, will also make
make victory impossible. That is, they make meaningful success, it hesitant to attack NATO. Indeed, NATO states would be less
the achievement of goals at an acceptable price, impossible be- likely to arm Ukraine’s resistance if they had already disarmed.
tween nuclear-armed adversaries. Swift, mass, indiscriminate
destruction is an ancient practice, achievable with clubs and It is cavalier, therefore, to dismiss the possibility
machetes. Nukes are distinctive not simply because of their of nuclear deterrence with the wised-up line that correlation
sheer violence, but the impossibility of defending against them. does not equal causation. Indeed, it suggests incuriosity, given
Because it is almost impossible to stop one bomb getting we have historical evidence to draw upon. Nuclear-armed states
through, they break the link between military victory and the really have hesitated to attack other nuclear-armed states, given
threat of annihilation: you don’t have to prevail on the battlefield the prospect of suffering unacceptable return fire. India and Pa-
to threaten an adversary’s vitals. kistan since proliferating have not ceased competing. But both
Nuclear-armed Russia’s barbaric invasion of non-nuclear have been more mutually cautious than during the pre-nuclear

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 23 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
era, when they fought three conventional wars. THE REAL “bloody nose” limited pre-emptive strike on
Since then, they have engaged in brinkman- CHOICE IS North Korea, only for the executive branch to con-
ship they have taken care to control, such as the BETWEEN OUR clude “no attack plan could confidently preclude
1990 Kashmir confrontation, and fought a brief DANGEROUS escalation or collateral damage”. Now compare
and highly constrained peripheral war in 1999. WORLD AND the reluctance to attack North Korea, which suc-
Nuclear proliferation in its early, “nascent” phase A YET MORE cessfully advanced its nuclear programme, with
can trigger threats and instability. But there is an
VOLATILE ONE the fates of Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi and Iraq’s
unignorable pattern of limitation followed by Saddam Hussein, who abandoned theirs.
de-escalation efforts between states with nuclear forces, as when So nukes really do inhibit wars between nuclear “pairs”, if
India and China squared off in border skirmishes recently. only we care to look. And like most things, nukes have mixed
Indeed, evidence of the real force of nuclear deterrence lies effects and varying outcomes. Nuclear deterrence doesn’t al-
precisely in the United States’ determined efforts to prevent pro- ways work in warding off attacks. It just works a hell of a lot.
liferation by others. Wanting a free hand, it knows proliferation Disarmers regularly raise two cases of deterrence failure,
would constrain its power. Even the slight risk of nuclear escala- from which they try to generalise: the Yom Kippur attack on Isra-
tion either precludes options to attack, or takes them quickly off el in 1973, and Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands in
the table. In crises, even the superpower was deterred. 1982. Argentina miscalculated that Britain would not defend the
Washington’s cautious, calibrated steps in the 1958 Berlin cri- Falklands at all. And in 1973, Syria and Egypt attacked Israel de-
sis drew partly on President Dwight Eisenhower’s increasing spite its nukes, but confined their attack to disputed, not core,
risk-aversion, his well-founded belief that the coming of the So- territories. Israel’s nuclear weapons helped convince Arab states
viet Union’s thermonuclear capability would mean, in the event afterwards that they could not wipe out Israel.
of escalation, tens of millions of immediate fatalities. Likewise, Nuclear deterrence does not deter aggression in all its forms.
in most hypothetical wargames, including on the Soviet side, It does not prevent other kinds of problems, just as car insurance
possessors were reluctant to engage in massive nuclear strikes. does not provide cover against burglary. It does address one ex-
In recent time, hawks in the Trump presidency advocated a istential problem directly, and it structures the calculations of
most states, making the deliberate recourse to major
EVERYDAY LIES WITH THEODORE DALRYMPLE war more unattractive. As the cases of 1973 and 1982
show, deterrence is not an intrinsic property of

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nukes. It requires believability that the possessor
might use them if threatened.

EUHDNIDVWDUHVKDPHOHVVO\SURPRWHGDQGHPRWLYHVORJDQVLQWRQHGLQWKH
There are other limits. Nukes do not re-
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move security competition between rivals. When de-
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ployed astutely, they dissuade rivals from all-out
OHDŴHWVDQGVWLFNHUVE\SDUWLVDQVRI-HDQ/XF0«OHQFKRQWKHGHPDJRJLF
conflict at the highest level, but they sometimes em-
OHIWZLQJFDQGLGDWHŏ7KHULFKSROOXWHŐVDLGRQHRIWKHPŏWKHSHRSOHSD\Ő
bolden possessors in lower-intensity skirmishes. Nu-
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clear weapons also carry risks of human fallibility,
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from accidents to miscalculation. We have little
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choice but to live with and mitigate them, through
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robust command and control systems and safety
GLVWLQFWFDWHJRULHVZLWKLQWHUHVWVGLDPHWULFDOO\RSSRVHG
precautions.
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The real choice, ultimately, is not between our
LOOXVRU\KRSHRIDFRQƓVFDWRU\VROXWLRQWROLIHōVOLWWOHSUREOHPV7KHEHVWWKDW
world and a fictitious world in which nuclear risks
FDQEHVDLGRILWLVWKDWLWSHUPLWVWKHGLVVDWLVƓHGDQDFFHVVRIKDWUHGDQG
are absent. It is between our dangerous one, and a
PRUDORXWUDJHZKLFKLVDOZD\VHQMR\DEOHDQGJUDWLI\LQJWRH[SHULHQFH
yet more volatile condition still defined by the temp-
$QRWKHUOHDŴHWSURPLVHGWKDW0«OHQFKRQZRXOGIUHH]HWKHSULFHVRI
ŏSURGXFWVRIƓUVWQHFHVVLW\ŐVXFKDVIXHOIRRGDQGHQHUJ\$WWKHVDPHWLPH
tation of nuclear power.
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Every postwar generation entertains the dream of
WKHXVHRIIHUWLOLVHUVSHVWLFLGHVDQGLQGXVWULDOLVHGPHWKRGVRIUHDULQJ7KH global disarmament, and confidently claims that ab-
ODWWHURIFRXUVHKDYHWKHLUVHULRXVRUFUXHOLOOHIIHFWVEXWLQWKHZRUOGRI olitionists are coming to take our weapons. And each
HOHFWLRQVQRGLIƓFXOWFKRLFHVKDYHWREHPDGH(YHU\WKLQJGHVLUDEOHPXVW time, possessors have reason to refuse, choosing to
EHERWKFRPSDWLEOHDQGSRVVLEOHOLNHO\FRQVHTXHQFHVPXVWEHLJQRUHG survive in the world as it is. c
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QRWRQO\RUJDQLFEXWIUHH7KHREYLRXVIDFWWKDWQRWDQJLEOHJRRGLVFRVWOHVV Patrick Porter is Professor of International
WKDWVRPHRQHPXVWSD\IRULWLVKHUHRYHUORRNHG7KHFDQGLGDWHNQRZVWKLV Security at the University of Birmingham and
/LNHDOOWKHRWKHUFDQGLGDWHVKHOLHV c a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United
Services Institute, London

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 24 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 TIM CONGDON ON ECONOMICS

Bad news brings Rishi good luck

Soaring inflation means tional gilt-edged securities”. over 16 per cent were
Eventual repayment of necessary to persuade
the Chancellor can avoid these securities will be in anyone to put their trust in
an unpopular tax hike the same pounds and the British government.

R
pennies as specified at issue, With a number like 16 per
ishi Sunak may seem to and no protection is given cent, they had a margin of
be Chancellor at a difficult against inflation. safety against inflation in
time, dealing with the Obviously, a 10 per cent the low double digits.
challenges of Covid-19 and rise in the price level is Remember that 27 per cent
the implications of the equivalent — as far as the inflation was recorded in
Ukraine invasion. But he is a fortunate holders of the £1,900 billion summer 1975.)
chancellor in a crucial, if highly disreputa- of conventional debt are Suppose that the Bank of
ble, respect. concerned — to a reduction England remains as
The Bank of England has warned that in the real value of their incompetent as it has been
consumer inflation may be in double digits asset of about £190 billion. Given the in the last two years and
by the end of the year. As a result, every Indeed, if inflation nudges continues to allow such fast
monthly announcement of the main price somewhat above 10 per hubbub over growth of the quantity of
indices enacts a large change in the tax take. cent, this expropriation the NI increase, money that double-digit
The increases in the consumer price index by inflation would be Sunak may feel inflation becomes
(and the retail prices index) are therefore £200 billion. entrenched.
more important to the sustainability of the That is the amount that that inflation Then investors in UK
public finances than the tax increases holders of conventional gilts is a superb government debt will again
announced in the recent Spring Statement. will be worse off in just one tax collector want yields in double digits
How is Rishi Sunak a lucky chancellor? year. Moreover, in some so that they can secure a
The answers are two-fold. First, inflation is sense the government is positive real return. With the
proceeding at such a rapid pace that the “better off” and Rishi Sunak can smile, as conventional national debt at about £1,900
real value of the national debt is being he does not have to announce a visible and billion and rising — more or less by £100
reduced sharply. The public sector net very unpopular tax hike of the same size. billion a year, what would the debt interest
debt is about £2,350 billion — much the Given the media hubbub about the bill be if the interest rate were 16 per cent?
same as 2022’s expected nominal national National Insurance increase contained in Clearly, it would be over £300 billion, more
output. Because of the continuing budget the Spring Statement, which raises a mere than the cost of the National Health
deficit, the debt is rising by roughly £100 £12 billion a year, he may reflect that Service and over three times all public
billion a year. The average figure for the inflation is a superb tax collector. expenditure on education.
value of the debt can be called at £2,400
P O R T R A I T B Y VA N E S S A D E L L ; DA N I E L L E A L / A F P V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S

billion during the coming financial year. Secondly, savers have not retaliat- A welcome emphasis in the Spring
About a fifth of the debt is index-linked. ed against the inflation tax by demanding Statement was on the need for the public
As a legacy of past arrangements and a much higher yield on their government finances to be resilient, where the notion of
contracts, it is the RPI — not the CPI bonds. resilience is code for the UK’s future ability
— that affects the UK index-linked debt. In the mid-1970s, when Britain was to keep deficits down even if the debt
Inconvenient facts for the government are widely believed to face double-digit interest bill soars into the stratosphere.
that increases in the RPI tend to be higher inflation into the indefinite future, the Every British government should try to
than increases in the CPI and that the yields on long-dated gilts peaked at maintain a reputation for good housekeep-
nominal returns to holders of over 16 per cent. Today they are ing and financial prudence.
index-linked securities increase still under 2 per cent. Frankly, Mr Sunak’s luck will run out if holders
automatically with the RPI. But the yield is so derisory that Mr of British government debt make a more
the resulting increase in public Sunak and his successors — effective protest against being cheated —
expenditure — which is enormous perhaps in cahoots with the as they were in the 1970s — by the inflation
— is not my main point here. Bank of England — have a that results from shoddy and irresponsible
pernicious incentive to organise fiscal and monetary policies. c
Excluding the index-linked even more inflation. (As
debt, 80 per cent of the debt index-linked gilts had This column is based on the author’s
— over £1,900 billion — takes not been introduced in response to the Spring Statement for
the form of so-called “conven- the 1970s, yields of the think tank, Politeia

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 25 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
MARK D’ARCY pays tribute to Sir Roy majority on the committees which vote on the fine detail of leg-
islation, even though the Tories had failed to complete the small
Stone, whose secretive role at the heart of formality of actually winning a Commons majority.
Westminster made government possible “It was a constitutional outrage, but then there are plenty of
those in Westminster,” said Alistair Carmichael, the wily Lib

Whitehall’s
Dem chief whip during the coalition. And for the opposition, it
foreclosed some promising opportunities for trouble making.
Stone would have known the change was bound to sow trou-
ble for the future; experience had taught him that every shift in

whispering Westminster’s balance of power between government and op-

position produces a reaction, and usually retaliation. Perhaps
that decision was the first tiny pebble in the avalanche of parlia-
mentary chaos over the following two years.

mandarin Roy Stone has now left Westminster and seems disin-
clined to return to his former haunts. But those who dealt with
him still respect the confidentiality of the relationship: they

I
n the morning after the Tories’ 2017 election checked with him before agreeing to speak to me, and, even
debacle, when Theresa May’s ambitions for Blair- then, there was still a sense of discretion about his role in events.
style Commons dominance had crumbled into a “Even years on, talking about these things seems slightly risqué
lost majority, the chief whip, Gavin Williamson, to an old whip,” one grumbled.
turned to his private secretary and asked, “Do you His role was considerable. From a modest cubby hole next to
think we could do a Walter Harrison?” the chief whip’s office, decorated in Commons institutional
Both men had seen This House, James Graham’s grunge, all mottled carpets and battered woodwork, Sir Roy and
play about the minority Labour governments of the his predecessors (just four men have done the job in a century)
‘70s and the extreme manoeuvring of deputy chief have been the pivot of the parliamentary machine — grand mas-
whip Harrison which kept them in office. The man he asked, Sir ters of the art of the possible. Their
Roy Stone, nodded slowly and replied, “I suppose we can. In fact
SIR ROY WAS A task is to head off trouble, to spot
we’re going to have to.” WESTMINSTER the points at which the govern-
Sir Roy was a parliamentary oracle. Virtually invisible outside ORACLE WHOSE ment’s law-making may run into
the confines of the Government Whips ‘Office, he was one of the ADVICE, ALWAYS difficulty and find ways around
most important figures in Westminster; the consummate pro- DELIVERED them, or at least ways to contain
fessional whose whispered advice to successive chief whips, al- IN STRICTEST the resulting problems. In a sense
ways delivered in strictest privacy, kept the business of govern- PRIVACY, KEPT the private secretary is the guardi-
ment flowing smoothly through the parliamentary machine. an of the conventions which are
GOVERNMENT
His longevity in office, 21 years, meant he was institutional supposed to respect the rights of
memory made flesh. He knew everyone and had seen everything,
BUSINESS the opposition as well as ensure
just like his equally legendary predecessor, Murdo Maclean, FLOWING the government’s big bills and the
who served for 22 years. He was “the usual channels”, the go-be- constant stream of orders and regulations are duly approved.
tween in the endless deal-making by government and opposi- The process of getting government business through is far
tion which sets the course of Commons life, and the go-to source less about House of Cards-style breaking the will of backbench-
for advice on how to work Westminster. His opinion mattered. ers (always, old whips insist, a misleading fiction) than about
management. One said, “The reality is that it’s about saving the
dashing to westminster after his own election count, government from itself and steering it away from stupid ideas.
Williamson’s first consultation was with the PM herself, to estab- The team is you as chief, talking to ministers, and Roy Stone talk-
lish if she felt she could continue. His second, tellingly, was with ing to Whitehall — and it’s usually much more powerful to have
Sir Roy. With ultra-contentious Brexit legislation looming, both him talking to officials saying, ‘FFS what the hell do you think
men saw the huge problems confronting Theresa May in imple- you’re doing?’”
menting her Brexit plans without a majority. In due course the “The chief’s job is to manage government and Roy was the
result was parliamentary dramas far eclipsing the half-forgotten most powerful tool for doing that, because if things can be
turmoil of the Wilson and Callaghan years. stopped through official channels then that saves you from us-
Stone’s advice focused on what needed to be done to deliver the ing political capital at ministerial level.”
government’s agenda. What followed were a series of apparently This is more necessary than you might think. “Whitehall be-
technical rule changes designed to maintain the government’s lieves that if you have a Commons majority you can do what you
grip on legislation. They included maintaining a government like,” said one insider. “But the reality is not like that, because it

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 26 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 depends on what the MPs will wear. There’s a disjunction; min- Perhaps his greatest moment was the rushing-through of the
isters believe what the civil service tells them they can do, and EU Withdrawal Agreement bill, which cleared the Commons
then they get rudely disabused.” and the Lords unscathed on 30 December 2019 against the
hardest of deadlines. It was “a huge achievement” in the view of
Roy Stone’s Whitehall-facing role (especially including one Commons insider, but went almost unremarked because it
the special advisors and policy advisors around ministers) was happened so smoothly. That smoothness was the product of a
to explain that the legislative process could be really difficult, not deep understanding of the parliamentary ecosystem.
necessarily because MPs are technical experts (few are) but be- Stone operated at a time when the conventions of parliamen-
cause they have a keen sense of what might an- tary life were under increasing pressure. They
noy party worthies or cost them votes. seem like small things; governments not en-
Several chief whips admired the way Stone croaching on opposition day debates by using
spoke truth to power. “He wouldn’t hesitate to up a couple of hours for ministerial statements,
challenge more powerful people,” Williamson ensuring that debates on the detail of bills gave
said, “He never felt the need to gild anything. It time for key opposition amendments. This
may have been difficult for fragile egos, but re- sense of balance and respect for the rights of
alistic politics required it.” the other side have always mattered in parlia-
Part of the reason was that he had reached ment, and bad things happen when one side
the peak of his career, a notch or two below decides the other has been cheating. The sys-
permanent secretary level. Thus he had no ex- tem can suddenly grind to a halt, and with it
pectation of further advancement and no need the vital business of government.
to curry favour. Trust was the essential quality Such niceties, complains Nick Brown, are
that made this subtle, demanding role possi- now being abandoned in the face of a govern-
ble. One insider summed up the inner secret of ment’s need to keep control of its legislation.
Westminster’s operating system as “deniable So the way report stages of bills are timetabled
informality underpinned by omertà.” Each day and amendments grouped together — poten-
of Commons debates saw a trade-off between tially the most dangerous moment in the life
the government’s requirement to get its agen- cycle of a bill — is, he says, increasingly config-
da through, and the opposition’s desire to make its points — or, ured to head off awkward votes. “Back then, the opposition was
as one source dismissively put it, to blow off steam. carried out through negotiation and convention — the story of
The private secretary was the go-between, and that required what happened next is one of changing times and standards.”
all sides to trust him. “He was incredibly professional and abso-
lutely determined not to make a mistake or to do something re- The state needs Parliament to work. Delivering a steady
garded as unethical,” Labour’s long-serving former chief whip, stream of laws and regulations is delivering government — and
Nick Brown told me. “You need the Roy Stone post in opposition so at one level it is possible to see Sir Roy Stone and his predeces-
as much as in government. When he struck a deal there would sors and successors as essential agents of a Deep State deter-
be no wriggle room, no ambiguity. It would all be in the pro- mined to keep the show on the road. What Stone always wanted,
gramme motion and it would be set in stone. The business one chief whip told me, was a powerful whips’ office, which not
would move smoothly along rail lines to its destination. Roy held only understood the limits of what was possible, but also had the
things together when the Gordon Brown government was under influence at the top table to ensure that ministers did not at-
continuous attack.” tempt the unwise or the impossible. Stone’s true superpower
Another ex-chief whip, the Conservative Andrew Mitchell was both his grasp of legislation and his canny understanding of
agrees: “He was the honest broker. He was the pipework be- politics. It meant he was able to give exceptionally good advice
tween us; when people had a different recollection of what had to the Chief Whips and ultimately the system he served.
been agreed, he squared the circle. He had to be objective and Peter Hennessy’s “good chaps” theory of constitutional gov-
clear about what mattered.” Mitchell says Stone, and his prede- ernment relies not only on politicians with an innate sense of
cessor Murdo Maclean, feature in all his “mental photographs” boundaries, but also on officials who point to where they lie in a
of great Commons votes, because they were so critical to the shifting landscape. Roy Stone performed that role, sometimes
whole government operation. They were legends within a small forcefully, for a succession of governments.
and select circle at the core of parliamentary business. The question is whether the requisite good chaps and good
UNI VE RS ITY O F L INCO LN

officials are still there to operate the Hennessey model. “People

Stone was particularly influential whenever a gov- underestimate this,” says Gavin Williamson. “In politics, titles are
ernment hit parliamentary trouble, for example when the coali- nice, but it’s really what you do with the power you have that mat-
tion’s NHS reforms ran into the sand. He insisted that the rewrit- ters; Roy Stone understood how power moved and worked.” c
ten legislation had to go back for detailed scrutiny, or yet more
trouble would follow. And the powers that be listened. Mark D’Arcy is a BBC parliamentary correspondent

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 27 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
The birds and the beef
Far from being an ecological enemy, cattle-grazing encourages biodiversity
and helps in the battle to save some of our most endangered species

Patrick Galbraith

W
hen it comes to killing the grasp is the extent to which cattle — specifically the right cows
planet, we’re frequently told that all in the right places — are essential in the fight against the
things cow are practically akin to extinction of many of our most endangered birds. Some are
cocaine. From that 16oz sirloin you wont to rebel against biodiversity loss by glueing themselves
had last Saturday to those White to the pavement, and fair play to them. But in reality, you can
Russians you like to drink when you also do your bit by going in search of the right bit of beef.
go dancing in Soho, it’s ecocide, one mouthful at a time. The
narrative runs that, just like growing gak, “big beef” requires In early November 2020, I visited the Galloway cattle
vast tracts of land to be ploughed up and turned over to sale in Castle Douglas with local farmer Patrick Laurie. To
production, with the inevitable result that wildlife is wiped out those who want beasts that you can send off to the abattoir
as vital habitats are lost. at twelve months old, slow-growing Galloways are an
Almost three years ago, with a vague plan of writing a book, unattractive prospect, but to Patrick they aren’t just flesh.
I set off across Britain, in the hope of seeing ten of our most They are an integral part of his struggle to save the black

AVALO N/U NIV ER SAL IMAGE S G RO U P VIA GE T TY IM AGE S

endangered birds. It had suddenly occurred to me that if I grouse, a species that was once found in every corner of the
didn’t see the likes of a turtle country but is now disappearing,
dove, a capercaillie, or a Black Grouse in some places, at a rate of up
corncrake soon, I probably to 40 per cent a year.
never would. As well as wanting Part of the trouble, on
to see and hear these various patches of ground where black
birds, I also wanted to meet grouse once thrived, is that
those who are devoting their moorland which isn’t grazed
lives to trying to save them, and becomes dominated by rank
to understand why they feel it grass and bracken. The effect
matters so much. is that heather and blaeberry,
I had a good idea of some of both important parts of the
the hurdles that these conserva- black grouse’s diet, are totally
tionists, farmers, and scientists crowded out.
face, but what I didn’t fully Patrick pays a relatively small

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 28 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 A group of Welsh Black
cows and calves at Cefn
Bodig Farm, Snowdonia
National Park, Wales

amount of money to graze his cattle but he told me he’s very 3,400 guineas, “that if there are native beasts on the hill round
aware that the landowners, who he rents ground from, are here, over the winter, you’ll have black grouse in spring.”
forever looking over his shoulder and wondering whether
they should plough it all up and plant non-native commercial Six months later, in West Wales, I went to stay with a
forestry blocks. The effect on the land, farmer who has devoted almost
as habitat for everything from black Lapwing everything he has to trying to save
grouse to lapwings to curlew, is the lapwing, an iridescent wading bird
ruinous but the potential revenue with a haunting cry that has declined
is tremendous. by almost 90 per cent in the past forty
years. Like so many of the people who
The great irony is that in a feature in my book, Charles Grisedale
world where trees are posited as the sees lapwings as totemic — the day they
answer to our ecological woes and cows go, will be a day he loses a deep-rooted
are deemed to be the devil, there are part of himself. As Charles stood in the
very few people speaking out against straw after we’d had dinner (his own
the scourge of forestry. Those who do sausages), going for a pee next to one of
are generally hill farmers and gamekeepers, and as they told his South Devons which was expected to calf in the night, he
me time and time again when I was researching my book, looked back and told me that his animals are essential in
I LLU STR ATI ONS B Y R O BE RT VAU GH AN

policymakers aren’t much bothered about anything they’ve maintaining his fields as prime lapwing habitat.
got to say. When Charles was a boy, he remembers the first book he
As Patrick and I leant over the rail, watching a large bull ever had being all about birds. “It said in it that lapwings are
blowing snot all over its face, while the silver-tongued auction- very common, and there was a picture of them nesting
eer ratcheted up the price, he explained that unlike fast-grow- between grazing cattle. When the young hatch, the hen
ing commercial beasts, which tend to be better suited to an lapwing is happy there because the grass is short and her
easy life in a shed, native cattle such as Galloways will smash chicks don’t get swamped.” Charles zipped up his fly and went
up and eat all of the rank vegetation. to rub the russet muzzle of the expectant mother. “That’s the
All of that suffocating grass and all of that bracken. “I’d farming job done properly,” he said, as he ran his hand down
almost say,” he added as the auctioneer banged the gavel at her face, “isn’t it girl?”

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 29 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 That night, over a bottle of whisky, Charles bemoaned the able to take on new bits of ground and has witnessed the
reality that in places such as East Anglia, hundreds of thousands corncrakes recovering when he implements the old ways.
of lapwings have been lost because of stock being taken off “That’s one of the main features why I do so much of what I do,”
ground and wheat, barley and peas being planted instead. “A lot he told me, as we sat on upturned fish boxes in his shed, next to
of the time the crops are sown in autumn then harvested the a sickly calf. “This would be a very dead and dull place without
following summer, so when lapwings are looking to nest in spring corncrakes. What’s the point if you don’t have the wildlife?”
the cover is already too tall,” he explained.
When I first rang Angus, back
Corncrake
It was May when I went to see in 2020, he’d been relatively cool
Charles and seven weeks later, in the about me visiting until I told him that
summer heat, I went up to Uist in search my Aunt Karen had taken the record,
of corncrakes. In 1832, John Clare, the the previous year, for a Highland heifer
great rustic poet of the Romantic school, at the Oban sale. “You mean that
who started work as a farm labourer at three-year-old, Anna of Eilean Mor?
the age of seven, wrote that, “boys know Eight thousand guineas. Now that
the note of many a bird / In their really was a very fine animal.”
birdnesting bounds / But when the The pedigree cattle world is a small
landrail’s noise is heard / They wonder one and Karen later explained to me
at the sounds.” that they’ve been trading beasts with
Corncrakes were historically known Angus for decades and similarly to him,
as landrails and the striking call that they view Highland cattle as an
Clare refers to sounds like a credit card essential part of promoting biodiversity
being run across a plastic comb. When on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula where
Clare wrote those lines, corncrakes could be heard in every they farm. “You’ll have to come and see for yourself,” she said,
English county but, except for the odd vagrant, they’ve now when I called. “The island where we graze our cattle is just full
all but gone from England. They are only just holding out on of life: oystercatchers, snipe, curlew, and lapwings. They’re all
Scotland’s northwestern periphery. there and they wouldn’t be if it wasn’t farmed.”
Up on Uist, I met Angus MacDonald, who has farmed on the Part of the benefit is that, because cattle generally only
island, man and boy. He explained to me that if there is any extract about 10 to 30 per cent of the nourishment their food
hope for the corncrake, it lies in the traditional crofting system. contains, the rest of it ends up sputtering out as dung. The result
The old crofting cycle saw cattle being grazed on the low is a steaming feast of rich goodness for beetles and flies. It
ground in the winter, before being sent up to the hill in spring. wouldn’t be a pretty job but those who’ve counted have totted
The result was that when the corncrakes returned from Africa, up over 200 beetles on a single cow pat, which in turn provides
“they’d have the run of the place. They would flourish with food for some of our most endangered birds. In short, the shit
nothing to stop them.” brings the land to life.
Angus has been very successful and over the years he’s been My aunt, like lots of farmers, doesn’t have the right ground
to “finish” her cattle on, so her calves are generally sold at
market as store beasts, which get finished and then sent to the
abattoir by somebody else. “The provenance at that point gets
lost, in a sense, and the people who buy the beef don’t know
they’ve contributed to making the West Highlands a better
place,” she explained.
But by her reckoning, there’s a bit of a failure of marketing
going on. “Surely,” she suggested, “people would be keen on
buying a product with a picture of a lapwing or a redshank
or a curlew on it.” She laughed when I told her that in all
honesty, I didn’t really know whether it was a brilliant idea and
shoppers would go mad for it or whether most people would
CARTO O N B Y R O B MUR R AY

have no idea what those birds are and wouldn’t think it matters
much anyway.

A couple of months back, after the BBC Panorama

programme on the horrors of dairy farming (“A Cow’s Life, The
True Cost of Milk?”), I caught up with Patrick Laurie. He’s no
“It’s time we told you… you’re adopted.” fan of intensive milk production but at the same time he was in

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 30 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 despair that cattle are so frequently trotted out as the greatest
TITANIA McGR ATH’S
cause of our environmental woes when he knows them to be
WOKE WORLD
an essential part of saving the black grouse, a bird that by his
own admission, means almost everything to him.
He was on his way to feed his beasts when I called, but Don’t trust the
storm Eunice was raging so he was happy to sit in his truck and
grumble. As he sees it, half the world thinks cattle are killing myths of biology
the planet and the rest are generally only happy to pay for beef
Scientists and intellectuals have long struggled to
produced in a way that actually is. “We’ve got this glass ceiling,”
he shouted over the wailing wind, “where nobody, down the O determine what a ‘woman’ might be. This
mysterious concept has evaded the sharpest of minds
pub, when they’re out for Sunday lunch, is prepared to pay
more than 20 quid for a steak. They might tell you they care through human history. It is very much the holy grail of
about the world, but they’d rather save the money.” metaphysics, a will-o’-the-wisp dancing on the ever-
He was reluctant to commit to a hard figure when I asked receding horizon of knowledge.
him what people should pay for a product like his or my aunt’s So when Boris Johnson claims he knows what a
or Charles Grisedale’s, but he said he reckoned I was about ‘woman’ is, and that they ought to have ‘single-sex
right when I suggested 40 quid for a nice bit of ribeye. spaces’ and their own categories in sports, we should
Legalities aside, perhaps the cocaine comparison is an treat his comments with the derision they deserve.
appropriate one. Beef shouldn’t be an everyday thing. More like When Keir Starmer was asked if a woman could have a
a once-a-month indulgence, for which you ought to pay penis during an interview by Nick Ferrari on LBC, the
through the nose. The difference of course is that cocaine is
Labour leader’s response was far more incisive and
destroying the beauty of the world whereas native cattle, grazing
GLJQLƓHGŌ8K1LFN,ōPQRWHU,,GRQōWWKLQNZHFDQ
away in a bit of rough country, can truly help to save it. c
conduct this debate with, you know, I get this, uh.’ This
just goes to show that only a Labour government will
Patrick Galbraith’s In Search Of One Last Song: Britain’s
Disappearing Birds and the People Trying to Save Them be able to bring clarity to this issue.
is published by William Collins This new ‘gotcha’ question, favoured by bigots and
fascists, has even reached the highest levels of the US
MXGLFLDU\.HWDQML%URZQ-DFNVRQUHFHQWO\FRQƓUPHGWR
WKH6XSUHPH&RXUWZDVDVNHGGXULQJKHUFRQƓUPDWLRQ
KHDULQJWRGHƓQHWKHZRUGŌZRPDQōŌ1R,FDQōWōVKH
replied. ‘I’m not a biologist.’ Personally, I found this
answer a little disappointing, because it implied that
being a woman was somehow connected to the myth
of ‘biological sex’.
Anyone who asks the question ‘what is a woman?’ is
thereby revealing that they have the intelligence of
your average garden slug. This is why we shouldn’t trust
these so-called ‘archaeologists’ who claim to be able to
determine whether those ancient skeletons they’ve
uncovered are ‘male’ or ‘female’. This is pure pseudo-
science. Next they’ll be telling us they can work out
their pronouns by measuring the femurs.
Let me settle this matter once and for all. A woman is
anyone who says she is a woman. A woman is a feeling,
a shimmering nimbus of possibility, an echo of distant
CARTO O N B Y CL IV E GO D DAR D

dreams reverberating gingerly through a winter’s

gloaming. She is a mewling constellation, a bagful of
semi-felched pixies, the enchanted stardust that
pirouettes luminously on the spindle of time.
It’s got absolutely nothing to do with tits. c

Titania can be found @TitaniaMcGrath

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 31 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 Music needs strident champions who can stand
up for truth and excellence against
the pious, box-ticking diversity fanatics

bring on the
big beasts
Norman Lebrecht

T
hink hard, and you may remember bank season goes to a Lyric for Strings by one George Walker.
a time when a symphony orchestra was a If the name fails to ring Bow bells, Walker was an Afri-
collection of musical instruments rather can-American, the first ever to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music.
than an instrument of social policy. It was His Lyric is vaguely lovely in a post-Mahler, post-Samuel Bar-
not that long ago, around the turn of the ber Adagiettoish sort of way, though never on the same plane
century, when concert halls would roll out of ironic ambiguity or quivering emotion. But George Walker
a forthcoming season of symphonic cycles is now a necessity.
and new commissions, a programme shaped by the taste and The National Symphony Orchestra of Washington DC,
proclivities of a music director, the likes and abilities of the conducted by the very able and intelligent Gianandrea Nose-
musicians and a reasoned assessment of what might make da, is putting on a cycle of Beethoven symphonies, “paired”
the box office click. with works by Walker and William Grant Still. Both were
No longer. blanked in their lifetimes because of their skin colour and
London’s Southbank Centre’s season brochure buries its both deserve a fair hearing. But to bracket them with Bee-
two resident symphony orchestras beneath the “exciting” ad- thoven as “American Masters” is like speed-dating James Gal-
dition of new ensembles — the “immersive” Paraorchestra, a way with a penny-whistler. Listen closer and you will hear
worthy group of musicians with disabili- whispers that the only way Washington
ties, and Chineke!, an orchestra of ethnic
Every leading U.S. felt it could play Beethoven this year was
minority musicians. The release goes on orchestra now by balancing him with black composers.
to promise “genre-blurring pioneers and has a v-P for
big names in classical music”. Who, for in- diversity, Equity and Last month, the Grammy award for
stance? “Abel Selaocoe, Daniel Pioro, She- inclusion with best orchestral performance went to the
ku Kanneh-Mason, Víkingur Ólafsson and as much clout as the Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor
Manchester Collective”. musical director Yannick Nézet-Séguin for a Deutsche
So, not the Vienna Philharmonic. Or Grammophon album of two symphonies
Riccardo Muti. Or any lions of the classical by Florence Price. More than Walker or
jungle. What we are witnessing is a pandemic of reformist Still, the Kentuckian Price had a true feel for orchestral timbre
box-ticking that places policy above pulling power. Forget and in 1933 had an E minor symphony premiered by the Chi-
about a box office that is running one-third below capacity. cago Symphony Orchestra.
Forget about the music, too. The new curators have higher The E minor is a conservative piece with unmistakable res-
priorities. onances of Dvorak’s New World, enjoyable enough but nei-
ther blazingly original nor noticeably relevant to these times.
Visit the Philharmonia Orchestra and their Finnish Yet the Grammy voters decided that this is today’s most im-
conductor, Santtu-Matias Rouvali. Top billing in their South- portant tract of orchestral music, bar none. In a much-quoted

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 32 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 letter to the Boston conductor Serge Koussevitzky, Florence
Price said of herself: “I have two handicaps — those of sex and
race.” Both have now become distinct advantages in wide
awoke classical music.
In Baltimore, the conductor Marin Alsop, a vibrant equali- Michael Henderson recalls
ty campaigner, has just replaced the unifying brotherhood
stanza of Friedrich Schiller in the finale of Beethoven’s ninth the glorious heyday of
symphony with the yammerings of a local rapper, name of Roxy Music, when just to be
Wordsmith. “Family, friends share your opinion, push for
gender equality,” he rants.
a fan of a band that sounded like
You catch the drift? In 2022 Beethoven is unperformable no other was like being in
alone and in his own right. In order to play his music in any an exclusive club
concert hall you have to furnish it with freshly minted drivel

doing the
by Wordsmith — “positive vibes”, he calls it, in a pathetic clos-
ing cliché.
Every leading American orchestra now has a vice-presi-

strand
dent for DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion. This person
has as much clout as the music director, who is required to
sign off programming by a non-musician with social justice
as their flag of conviction.

H
London’s SouthBank calls its approach a “new classical alf a century! Can it really be 50
music strategy”. The aim is clearly to please schoolmates of Toks years since six odd-bods without a re-
Dada, the centre’s young Head of Classical Music, at the ex- cording contract booked a studio in Pic-
pense of the committed, if much older, classical audience. No- cadilly to make an LP which still sounds
body has shown any projection that this wheeze will succeed. as odd as a cat with two tails? It takes
The pressures for change are driven mostly from without. some believing what a thin year 1972 was
Arts Council England has a cash-for-equality agenda that it for pop music. As David Hepworth has
quickly denies when caught red-handed. written persuasively in Never A Dull Moment, 1971 supplied a
In the US, bleeding-heart billionaire donors and Demo- veritable harvest. That was the last roar of the Sixties, without
crats on Capitol Hill have turned the likes of Baltimore and the nonsense that accompanied the flower power period.
the National Symphony into Petri dishes of social manipula- The following year was terrible. Guitar bands, the heavy
tion, while the New York Times bangs away at orchestras to brigade, prog-rockers, and a flotilla of singer-songwriters cast
appoint a woman conductor, preferably of minority race — a long shadow over 1972. Or, to put skin on the bones of this
though its own new chief critic, Zachary Woolfe, is demon- dismal parade, it was the year of Wishbone Ash, Deep Purple,
strably white and male. Yes and Cat Stevens.
Thank goodness for Roxy Music.
Hypocrisy abounds in this debate. I have campaigned It was Bryan Ferry, a sometime art teacher, who led the
as loud and long as Marin Alsop for an even playing field, but I team into Command Studios that spring to flesh out nine
would never consent to the designation of George Walker, a songs he had written. Island
Howard Hanson-like composer, as a deathless American Mas- Records, who had been sniffing
ter. What is needed right now is a music director with the balls around, swiftly added them to
— in a non-gender sense — to resist the reformist trolls. A J.K. the label’s roster, and that first
Rowling who will stand up for truth. A conductor who can put LP, called Roxy Music, was re-
the music first. leased in June.
But the podium is populated these days with the halt and Two months later, when
the lame, meek white Finns who apologise for their whiteness “Virginia Plain” reached num-
and maleness and cling desperately to privilege as it slips ber four in the charts, and the
through their fingers. A lack of big beasts has allowed lesser band camped it up on Top of the
ISL AND R ECO R DS

predators to roar. What remains of orchestral music by the sec- Pops, they were a phenomenon. Groups in those days were
ond quartile of this century will be the remnants of a proud supposed to reach maturity by spending months on the road.
civilisation reduced to the crapulous pieties of social justice. O This quirky bunch, knowing and playful, had conquered
without appearing to try. Roxy Music: even the name suggest-
Norman Lebrecht is The Critic’s Classical correspondent ed a world unknown.

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 33 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
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Grizzled old-timers were not impressed. Bob Harris, pre- of a rock band. An oboe!
senter of The Old Grey Whistle Test, the late night music show Mackay had read English at Reading University. Phillip
on BBC2, called them “cold”. Long-haired supporters of rock Targett-Adams, the roadie-turned-guitarist, was the son of a
and “progressive” music, who had turned in their kaftans for diplomat and a Colombian mother whose surname, Manzan-
RAF greatcoats, thought they were too clever by half. Which is era, he assumed for the stage. Brian Eno, like Ferry an art stu-
partly why those of us who were aged thirteen that year, look- dent, emerged from the world of sonic experimentalism. His
ing for something we could claim as our own, warmed to self-imposed role, until Ferry tired of it, was “doodler-in-
these odd ducks. chief”. Musically, and socially, here were exotic fruits.

Later that year, having bought Roxy Music at Rare The captain of the ship was forged in two very differ-
Records in Manchester during Michaelmas half-term, I re- ent worlds. Ferry, born in County Durham to a father who
turned to school delighted to be blazing a trail. A house pre- looked after ponies at the local pit, had studied art at Newcastle
fect five years senior, familiar with those boring rockers, took University with the pop collagist, Richard Hamilton. Roxy Mu-
one look inside the cover, and, noting Ferry and pals pouting sic, for its founder, was constructed as a collage in human form.
in all manner of poses, proclaimed: “Look at this, everybody. Ferry loved the American popular song in all its guises,
Henderson has bought a record by a bunch of homos!” black and white, old and new, and sought a way of arranging
And that was before you got to the actual sound. When those elements into something fresh. “Virginia Plain” was a
Richard Williams, the journalist who discovered Roxy, played refraction of mythical Americana (“where my Studebaker
the demo tape that Ferry had left at his flat, he may have felt takes me”) through the eyes of one who grew up in the north of
like Livingstone at Victoria Falls. They England after the Second World War.
sounded, he said, like five bands playing
that first track, Yet the most important feature of this
at once. with its chorus of musical laboratory came from the back,
Here was a group that defied categorisa- a car number where Paul Thompson provided a steady
tion, from the opening bars of “Remake/ plate, “CPL 593H”, beat behind the drums. It was Thompson,
Remodel”. That first track, which featured a was a call to arms who was labouring on a building site when
chorus of a car number plate, “CPL 593H”, with feathers he went for his audition, who ensured that
and eyeliner
B RI AN COO K E/R ED F ER NS /GE TTY IMAGE S
was nothing less than a call to arms, with Roxy never became another art school
feathers and eyeliner. band. This meshing of musical styles and
It was also the summer that David human personalities made them unique,
Bowie’s career took off. In fact, Ziggy Stardust was released on and those first three albums (the last made without Eno, who
the same day, 16 June, as that first Roxy disc. But Bowie had was ousted in the summer of 1973) still sound remarkable. If
been around for four years. Roxy came from nowhere and you got in early, as some of us did, you felt as though you be-
sounded like no other. longed to a special club, and like all clubs one of the perks of
Ferry’s vibrato, in a year dominated by David Cassidy and membership is the opportunity to keep others out.
Donny Osmond, rang like a bell from some faraway realm. Oh, what fun to be at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester on
That wasn’t the half of it. On “Ladytron”, the second track on 28 October 1973! It was a misty Sunday evening, a week before
that debut LP, Andy Mackay weaved his oboe into the texture Bonfire Night, and Manchester had not yet emerged from its

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 34 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
post-industrial fog. But here, and in other northern cities, The Madison, and cheap thrills?
Roxy planted their flags of conquest before loyal audiences. Bored of the beguine?
An American limousine (perhaps a Studebaker) drew up The samba isn’t your scene?
But playing our tune …
outside the hall that night, and out stepped a group of men
and women togged up for one of Jay Gatsby’s Long Island par- Ha ha! In March 1973 it was certainly “our tune”, out of bounds
ties where revellers cavorted to “yellow cocktail music”. Peo- to all who had not supped from the silver chalice. As Larkin
ple did not dress like that to hear the Doobie Brothers. wrote in his poem “For Sidney Bechet”: “Oh play that thing!”
You can have too much of a good thing, and the industry
That tour was Ferry’s shining hour. It was the month that has subsequently grown up around Roxy, with crimpers,
he assumed Humphrey Bogart’s identity from Casablanca, stylists and assorted hangers-on waffling about days of yore,
the identity he had stolen in sound on that first LP with the can be tiresome. But I didn’t think that when I saw Ferry driv-
homage “2HB”: “white jacket, moon, black tie, wings too”. He ing down the King’s Road in 1973. He was touched by some-
sauntered on to the stage in Manchester as the band played thing special that year, and those who caught Roxy in their
the introductory bars to “Street Life”, just in time to “wish pomp will never disown their inheritance.
everybody would leave me alone”. It was a grand club, the Roxy fellowship, and I was proud to
Nobody left him alone that autumn. “Street Life” shot up be a founder member. O
the charts and its parent LP, Stranded, concluded Roxy’s rise
to the summit. They were the cleverest, wittiest band of all, Michael Henderson is The Critic’s Radio correspondent
and if you said they were also the most self-conscious, whose
studied difference was almost a provocation to non-believers,
they wouldn’t have offered much of an argument. Yes indeed,
that night in Manchester was one to remember.
There was one more evening, in April 1974, at the Floral
Hall in Southport; a warm-up gig for a tour of America, which
(quelle surprise) never took to Roxy. But the bloom was begin-
ning to fade. Ferry had launched a solo career, which took up Mahan Esfahani says Bach’s Goldberg
more of his time, and the songs lost their tartness. Although Variations have a life far beyond their
“All I Want is You” (October 1974) and “Love is the Drug” (Oc- modern association with Glenn Gould
tober 1975) were perfectly good pop songs they represented a
retreat from the high ground of “A Song for Europe”.
When they parted in the summer of 1976 they had left me
behind. Eighteen months it lasted, that golden period of dis-
covery; long enough for their purpose, and mine.
before
They reappeared in the early Eighties as a pop group, and
enjoyed considerable success. Avalon, released in 1982, was
an international triumph. Even Americans bought it. To this
and after
day I have never heard a bar. Roxy were a different group,
playing to a different crowd. When a friend offered a ticket to
hear them in Manchester I wasn’t tempted. We move on. Pop
was only ever a gateway to the world of music for me, never
gould

I
the world itself. first heard of the indivisible connection
Nor have I returned very often to those early records, between Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Glenn
which isn’t to say they don’t have their place. It may not be Gould when I was around 16. It was that time in
Keats on reading Chapman’s Homer, but the echoes of “Re- high school when people began to separate them-
make/Remodel” will always linger, no matter how poorly that selves by tribe: the sporty types (constantly eating),
groundbreaking album was recorded. That amateur spirit — the theatre crowd (constantly screaming), the art-
“let’s do the show right here” — was part of its charm. ists (constantly painting each fingernail a different
colour), and so on. A member of the tribe that skipped class to
Which song defined that early style most faithful- read Patti Smith and Sylvia Plath over cups of burnt coffee
ly? It must be “Do The Strand”, the first track on the second scoffed at my copy of Trevor Pinnock’s recording of the varia-
album, For Your Pleasure, where Ferry’s name-dropping was tions and pronounced that the right recording was by some-
a cheeky wink even to those of us, the overwhelming majori- one named Glenn Gould. How could I not know this?
ty, who had never heard of Cole Porter or Nijinsky: There have been many reprises of this scenario. I have no
Had your fill of quadrilles? recollection in this period of ever sitting down to closely listen

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 35 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
to Gould’s recordings of he Goldberg failed to capture the Romantic imagi-
Variations of 1955 or 1981. It was not nation, which prized Bach’s keyboard
that I had anything against him but in music chiefly for its perceived virtues
that period I was drawn to other influ- of edification and technical improve-
ences when it came to Bach. In my ment. Maybe they were too light, too
twenties I was busy practising and play- pleasant.
ing catch-up as a musicologist who de- The few mentions of them in this
cided a bit late to actually play music. period were related to their unsuita-
But when it was time to perform and bility for piano, as the score specifies a
record the variations, I came to learn of harpsichord with two keyboards and
the dangers of failing to show sufficient thus requires two independent sets of
enthusiasm for Gould. strings at the same pitch. Apart from
mysterious references to excerpts in
This musical mark of Cain mani- the repertoire of virtuosi such as Franz
fested itself in different ways. During Liszt and Ignaz Moscheles, a few of the
post-recital Q&As, there is always an variations were trotted out by musical
audience member who asks about antiquarians in that most Victorian of
*OHQQ
Gould. I usually point out tactfully that *RXOGDW institutions, the public lecture-recital.
the work predates the life of the Cana- WKHSLDQR
dian pianist (1932-82) and move on. The task of reviving the Gold-
Now and then a review of my disc would mention the asso- berg Variations in the performing repertoire was left to a phe-
ciation of the Goldbergs with Gould. A few would note I had nomenon worthy of such a responsibility: the composer and
not mentioned Gould either in my liner notes or in interviews. pianist Ferruccio Busoni, who was once as readily associated
Other experiences were less amusing. During an onstage talk with Bach’s keyboard music as Gould is in our age. Busoni’s
with a journalist in Vancouver, I admitted to not being terribly 1915 edition of the Goldberg Variations lies somewhere be-
familiar with either of his recordings. The audience gasped, tween the philological discipline of the editor, the creative art
people walked out, and I proceeded to deliver one of my more of the transcriber, the erudition of the musicologist, and the
mediocre performances. transcendent insight of the composer. Busoni dared to treat
Afterwards, I sat in silence with the hall programmer. He Bach on similar terms as himself, approaching him with a cre-
later wrote my then-agent a complaint about how insulted au- ative license that never transgressed the boundaries of re-
dience members felt about my “transgression”. For years after- spect. His edition is a work of art in its own right.
wards that Vancouver journalist made considerable efforts in Busoni’s transcription for piano was based on a keen un-
articles and in social media to remark on how my arrogance derstanding of the harpsichord. He owned one of the earliest
was but one of my many faults as a second-rate musician. modern copies of a historical harpsichord, a double-manual
After this, I figured it was time to take apart the public per- concert instrument with four registers built by the early music
ception of Bach’s work into “Before Gould” and “After Gould” guru Arnold Dolmetsch. His approach to Bach was shaped by
(B.G. and A.G.) phases, and to examine the attitudes of the early stages of the Ba-
the myths and traditions surrounding the
during a talk in roque music revival. It was thought that
Goldberg Variations. One would do well Vancouver, I admitted the harpsichordist made terraced dynam-
to ask how Gould’s association might be a to being not terribly ics through the combination, addition,
result of various historical and social fac- familiar with either and subtraction of various sets of strings,
tors. What did the Goldberg Variations of gould’s recordings. some at different octaves, as on an organ.
mean to the public before 1955, the year of the audience gasped In order to hear Bach’s music, the score
R AY M OR ETON/K E YSTO NE/ G ETTY I MAG E S
Gould’s first studio recording? — people walked out should undergo surgery so that the music
could be heard “authentically.” Thus he
They occupied a minuscule space only hardened the narrative that the score
in the nineteenth century’s engagement with Bach. This is not of the Goldberg Variations was best suited to the harpsichord.
because they were unknown. At a time when Bach was consid-
ered secondary to his sons, his first biographer Forkel (1802) Enter harpsichordist Wanda Landowska (1879-
referred to the “air with several variations … with the most easy 1959), the first modern concert performer on the instrument.
and flowing melody”. Forkel is also the source for the story that The oversized influence of Landowska (above, right) on the
led to their moniker — the commission from an insomniac prewar public imagination of Bach’s music cannot be over-
count who commanded performances of Bach’s variations stated, and it was she who established the Goldberg Varia-
from his court harpsichordist, a young Mr Goldberg. But they tions as a universally recognised work. In a 1981 interview,

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 36 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
Gould even admitted that in his youth the work was seen as tion of Bach’s music as existing on a plane beyond questions
being “the private preserve, perhaps, of Wanda Landowska”. of medium; in an essay from the 1970s, she wrote “Bach mu-
Perhaps due to Landowska, recordings of the Goldberg sic is fundamentally abstract: not abstract in the theoretical
Variations were virtually non-existent in this period, with a sense, but in that its existence and endurance [are] based on
piano roll for Welte-Mignon by a 25-year-old Rudolf Serkin its fundamental musical terms, rather than that of a confined
being the one interpretation in the catalogue to predate period or instrumental style.”
Landowska’s 1933 recording for French HMV. A 1942 record- Even before she and her acolytes came to believe in her
ing by pianist Claudio Arrau was shelved by RCA — the own legend, Tureck’s playing, at least on the 1947 Goldbergs,
label had already recorded Landowska’s interpre- is defined by a degree of calculation and premeditation of
tation (her second one) in 1945 in an originally each and every gesture. In other words, it is arch.
limited release for subscribers which be- By taking cursory stock of the era “Before Gould”, we can
came an unexpected overnight sensation. see that, as with Busoni before him, Gould’s historical position
Though it is difficult to believe now, the vis-à-vis the Goldberg Variations is as much a result of the
popularity of Landowska’s recording and stultification of the public discourse around the work that
the association of the Goldberg Variations preceded him as it is to do with his own epoch-making
with the harpsichord were sufficiently artistry.
strong to dissuade RCA’s executives from re- The decision of a gifted, eccentric 22-year-old Canadian pia-
leasing Arrau’s version. Arrau, who had made nist to make his debut with a work associated with a somewhat
his European reputation in the 1930s mainly as a Bach uneven ride in the modern era was a brilliant stroke; it is no dis-
interpreter, was so in awe of Landowska that he decided “that respect to Gould to see this as an intelligent calculation. O
I should be a pianist [and] that I should only play things that
were conceived for the piano and piano sound”. His Gold- Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani recorded the Goldberg
bergs remained in the RCA vaults until 1988. Variations for Deutsche Grammophon in 2016

In 1951, the 40-year-old Ralph Kirkpatrick (the survivor

of eight uncomfortable months as Landowska’s student),
made the first of his two recordings, using the 1908 harpsi-
chord once owned by Busoni. The result is Kirkpatrick at the
height of his powers — unsentimental, uncompromising, at
once dry and quietly poignant. His recordings marked a wa-
tershed in the revival of the harpsichord in the performer’s
Jonathan Gaisman says that Robert
rejection of the rabbit holes of the terraced dynamics school Schumann expresses the intense
in favour of a language of articulation and timing closer to passion and despair of true love better
that which Bach would have known. The idiosyncrasies of
Landowska and the dour amateurishness of the early music than any other composer
movement were discarded in favour of a sober stance that al-
lowed the immanent qualities of the music to shine through.
Kirkpatrick’s subtleties did not find a wide audience in a
time stuck between the aging ideal of the Romantic virtuoso the sound
and the anti-virtuoso mantle taken up a few years later by
Gould. The critic Harold Schonberg, in thrall to the variegated
colours and mystical persona wrapped up in Landowska’s
playing, wrote with some disappointment of Kirkpatrick’s “ef-
of love
fort to avoid sensationalism or anything that might be con-

I
strued as an unstylistic romanticism”. n Shakespeare in Love, Queen Elizabeth I sets
a wager on whether it is possible for the essence of
The American public was more taken with pianist true love to be portrayed in a play. The film’s an-
Rosalyn Tureck, who first recorded the Goldbergs in 1947. A swer is Romeo and Juliet, and the odious Earl of
Chicagoan who acquired an English accent so plummy it Wessex, played by a bearded Colin Firth, has to pay
made Margot Asquith sound like Dot Cotton, Tureck was a up. How would a similar question be resolved in
progenitor of the Bach interpreter-as-guru model which musical terms? A plausible view is that if you had to
dominates attitudes today. use the language of music to explain what mature love feels
An erstwhile harpsichordist who made her debut as a per- like to a visitor from a distant planet, you could do no better
former on the theremin, Tureck is the source for the glib no- than direct him to Robert Schumann. His music perhaps con-

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 37 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 veys a more explicit and intimate expression of the state of Musically speaking, the best moments perfectly convey

being in love than that of any other composer. love’s ache and inwardness (the nearest translation of the
To make this unlikely encounter with an aesthetically curi- quintessentially Schumannesque quality of Innigkeit). The
ous alien more interesting, we should exclude opera, which is exploration in Dichterliebe of unhappy love is the greatest ex-
undoubtedly full of the most pression of that condition any-
powerful and intense dramati- where in music. Schumann
sations of the condition. Here wrote dozens of other songs
character, plot and context, as depicting both extremes.
well as words, give the com-
poser a “leg up”. But without It was, however, in 1836
these props, examples of the that Schumann made his most
realisation of the inherently heartfelt declaration of love for
private “I/Thou” nature of love Clara. At this stage, Schumann
are harder to find. was composing exclusively for
To state the obvious, love the piano. The Fantasie in C,
may be requited or unrequit- 5REHUW6FKXPDQQ Op 17, is one of the pinnacles
ed, and as with poetry it seems SRVVLEO\ZLWK of the Romantic piano reper-
that it is easier to write the mu- &ODUD PXVHV toire. It is dedicated to Liszt,
sic of love where it meets re- whose B minor sonata consti-
sistance. The tumbling semiquavers of Rastlose Liebe by tutes another (and was dedicated to Schumann in return.)
Schubert make explicit Goethe’s sentiment that “this affec- The genesis of and references within the Fantasie are com-
tion of one heart for another, ah, how strangely it creates plex, not surprisingly for this most allusive of composers. The
pain!” The more abstract frustrations of much of Brahms’s work honours Beethoven in several ways; one explanation is
music implicitly inhabit the same world and sometimes break that it was intended to help raise funds for the erection of a
the surface, as in the opening movement of the C minor piano statue to Beethoven in his birthplace, Bonn.
quartet, incidentally also inspired by the composer’s feelings An instance of this homage is found in the cooler moments
for Clara Schumann. of the ecstatically melancholy last movement, which contains
As for gratified desire, one might expect that Schubert, the near-quotations from the adagio of the Emperor concerto. But
greatest of all songwriters, would have occasionally managed a more significant allusion points to the Fantasie’s true inspi-
to express it, for instance in his setting of the Rückert poem ration. The first movement was originally entitled Ruines. (All
Du bist die Ruh, though even here there is the sense that all is the movements originally had titles of a classical nature, re-
not as it should be — unsurprisingly for a moved when the work was published in
composer who claimed not to know any Schumann was one of 1839).
happy music, and whose own love-life the handful of great It was an expression of Schumann’s de-
was without joy. composers to be spair at being apart from Clara; he wrote
happily married. His that it was a “deep lament” for her. At the
Schumann by contrast was one of wedding inspired an end of this movement is an explicit quota-
the handful of great composers to be bliss- outpouring of lieder tion from the last song in Beethoven’s Op
fully married. His lengthy pursuit, op- on the theme of love 98 cycle An die ferne Geliebte (To the dis-
posed by her father, of the woman who tant Beloved). In this work, the composer
eventually became his wife is well-known. sets six poems by Alois Jeitteles on the
(Her father, Friedrich Wieck, taught the piano, and is credited theme of lovers separated.
LE B RE CHT MU SIC & A RT S/ALA MY STO CK P HOTO
with one of the crasser remarks of the 19th century: “I told The final song (“Nimm sie hin denn, diese Lieder”) has the
Liszt that he could have been the finest pianist in the world poet sending his beloved the songs he has written, and imag-
— if only he had had a proper teacher.”) The marriage to Clara ining that she will sing them in turn when sunset falls across
eventually took place in 1840, inspiring an outpouring of the sea and behind the mountain; she will sing what he has
Lieder on the theme of love in all its forms. sung from the fullness of his heart and longing, and the songs
The composer’s so-called year of song includes some of his will vanquish what keeps them apart, and join one loving
greatest short pieces on this theme. Frauenliebe und -leben, heart to the other.
depicting the feelings of a woman falling in love and enjoying
the brief raptures of marriage and motherhood before a sud- Through repeated listenings to the Fantasie, the at-
den widowhood, is sometimes derided on the grounds of tentive listener comes to realise that the grand rhetorical ges-
Chamisso’s poetry (with some justification) or of its suppos- ture which opens and dominates the first movement is a con-
edly antifeminist sentiments (with none). cealed form of the “Nimm sie hin” melody, which is only fully

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 38 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
revealed at the conclusion of the movement. This is part of the ly within the context of the whole composition. Happily, lis-
meaning of the Friedrich Schlegel quatrain which Schumann teners can hear both and decide for themselves. Our several
places at the head of the work: amid all the tones in the bright- experiences of love may vary as widely as its contrasting por-
ly-coloured dream of life, there is one gentle note that is re- trayals through Schumann’s oeuvre, but whatever our indi-
vealed only to the one who listens in secret. (A theme and vidual fates the music remains to divert us, console us, and
variations traditionally begins with a statement of the theme; draw us, as the poet says, into a better world. O
much later, Benjamin Britten would deploy reverse variation
technique, whereby the themes are obscured until the end, Jonathan Gaisman is a QC practising in commercial law,
when they are at last plainly stated: Lachrymae and the third and a writer on cultural and other topics
cello suite are two cases in point.)
All of this is more or less familiar to those who know Schu-
mann’s piano music. But there is a more arcane feature of the
Fantasie of which all who love it should be aware. It provides
one of several examples of Schumann making substantial re-
visions to a work where the cognoscenti are divided as to
whether the first or the second version is the better. Common
to both here is the beautiful conclusion to the first movement. Stephen Pollard says that while
It consists of an unvarnished statement of the Beethoven
quotation, followed by two attempts by that path to provide a
football can be balletic, great passages
simple cadence in the home key to end the movement. But in of play are often accompanied in his
each case the music wanders away from this closure as if dis- mind by fragments of Bach or Mozart
satisfied. It is only at the third utterance that a solution is
found, as the piano breaks off halfway through the quote and
rises to a series of soft, celestial chords that combine tonic
and dominant harmonies. Perhaps these are the stars that
Schumann instructed the publisher to place at the head of Musical
each of the three movements. For many, this is the most ten-
der moment in the entire work and it is over all too soon.

The second movement is an energetic dotted march

scores
with a fiendish coda which has unnerved pianists since its

I
composition. The third is a profoundly expressive meditation ’ve always been fascinated by synaesthesia
on the distant beloved, this time without quotation from the — the phenomenon in which some people associ-
song cycle. Its last page seems to rock itself to sleep on a sea of ate ideas or concepts in their mind with a sense,
arpeggios, which become briefly impassioned then subside such as seeing colours as you hear music, or associ-
to a gentle conclusion. Or so the published version of the Fan- ating smells or sounds with different numbers.
tasie has it. However, the Széchényi library in Budapest has a I don’t know if it would be a boon or a burden,
signed copy of the manuscript which shows the last-minute and I struggle to imagine what it would be like.
changes that Schumann made. These include what Alan That said, I have my own prosaic version of it — although
Walker rightly calls “a major musical surprise”. as far as I know there is no label or official description for the
A full 15 bars of the original ending of the last movement way I often react to watching football (and it is only football).
have been crossed out and replaced by the comparatively More often than not, a passage of play will be accompanied in
perfunctory few bars with which modern listeners are famil- my mind by music, music which is lodged somewhere in my
iar. The rejected measures are a near-repetition of the elo- consciousness and which my brain decides to play to me
quent closing of the first movement, complete with its state- when something on the pitch prompts it.
ments of the Beethoven theme and the same resolution. In The only label I can think of is “pretentious”.
two places, the harmonies are poignantly altered and intensi- Football is often compared to ballet. Google “Johan Cruy-
fied by comparison with the first movement, in a way which it ff” and the word “balletic” pops up almost as often as “genius”.
is beyond the power of words to express. To watch Cruyff was to see football’s own Nureyev. More so,
Maybe Schumann wished to emulate the cyclical nature of because Cruyff changed football, redefining what footballers
his model, for An die ferne Geliebte brings back the music of did and how they did it in a way no ballet dancer has really
the first song at the end of the last; or maybe he wanted to done on his or her own. Cruyff was at one and the same time
finish the composition with a reiteration of its core message. the choreographer, the soloist and the conductor, and rein-
Walker is right to say that this original ending works beautiful- vented the performance of all of those roles.

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 39 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
Football and ballet do indeed have much in com- /XFDV0RXUDVFRUHVIRU6SXUVDJDLQVW
mon. Football has its own version of the corps de ballet — the $MD[LQWKH&KDPSLRQV/HDJXH
team as a whole — with the star players its prima ballerinas. VHPLƓQDO&XH%HHWKRYHQōVNinth!
But even today, with many of the caricatures of blokeish foot-
balling dunderheads having been wiped away, you would
struggle to name a footballer you could imagine enjoying a
night at the ballet. Certainly not one who would admit it, at
least not if he wanted to survive the ribbing he would get back
in the dressing room.
And then one evening at the Royal Ballet I was introduced
by a mutual friend to David Ginola.
But the comparison only goes so far, because while ballet
is choreographed and rehearsed, with every move finessed to
the nth degree, football is the opposite.
No matter how many choreographed moments it has —
free kicks, corners and such like — when they move from re-
hearsal on the training pitch to the real thing, they come up
against eleven other players. It’s football’s version of Mike Ty- sure, the inspired goal out of nowhere — the sudden, immedi-
son’s reply when he was asked if he was worried about ate entry of the piano at the start of the final movement of Bee-
Evander Holyfield’s plan to beat him: “Everyone has a plan thoven’s Emperor concerto — is something to cherish, but it’s
until they get punched in the mouth.” those matches where everything clicks that we long for.
I digress. Because while the balletic elements of football Perhaps that’s why, more even than Mozart, I have often
are part of its lure, it’s not what I feel when I watch. That’s the heard Bach — although as a Spurs fan there have been far
music. fewer of those moments in recent years.
For Bach, every element of the team has to be operating as
There is a wonderful podcast, Life Goals, in which one, the disparate skills and roles all subsumed into an overall
football fanatics are asked to talk about their eight desert island pattern. Under Mauricio Pochettino, there were many such
goals, and then to choose some music alongside them. I wasn’t Bach moments.
sure how to approach it when I took part; sometimes the goal is In recent years it’s been more like some of those modern
the music for me. Adding something else would be cacopho- “reinterpretations” of Bach, where the more you hear, the
nous, like playing two pieces of music on top of each other. more obvious it is that the composer reinterpreting Bach is a
Let me explain with one of the greatest, most famous of all hack trying to forge a career off someone else’s genius.
goals — Ricardo Villa’s all the way zig-zag run in the 1981 FA At the moment, there is one proper Bach team: Pep Guar-
Cup Final replay. It is, of course, balletic. The balance and diola’s Manchester City, which sometimes seems as if it is
poise would seem miraculous on any stage; let alone with the playing by algorithm. The mathematical perfection of Bach is
other dancers trying to kick you off your balance as you per- often mirrored on the pitch.
formed. Liverpool might be a more exciting team to watch, even a
But at Wembley, on the ground, watching the whole move better team, but they’re certainly not Bach. There is too much
— it’s not so much balletic as Mozartian. Villa’s goal is at one of the helter-skelter. You are awed by Liverpool as they pound
and the same time both a miracle of human skill and some- you into submission. Hello Beethoven!
thing so complete and so perfect, and so seemingly inevitable,
as to seem as if it were handed down directly from heaven. Much as I would love the idea that I always have music
As I watch it, I hear the final movement of Mozart’s clarinet running through my mind as I am watching football, some-
concerto — the fluidity, the poise, the sun, the joy. There is a times it’s hindsight. I was talking the other day about the
O RAN GE PICS B V/A LAMY STOC K PH OTO

Mozartian quality to so much of the sport. The quartet from worst foul I’ve ever seen, the infamous head punch by West
Act 3 of Idomeneo is the soundtrack when the players sur- German goalkeeper  Harald Schumacher on French striker,
round the referee, each making their own separate argument, Patrick Battiston, in the 1982 World Cup semi-final. It wasn’t
from the tender to the enraged, but doing so as one, together. so much a foul as an assault, and Schumacher ought to have
Or the final fugue movement of the Jupiter symphony, which done time for it.
surely marks the third goal in a clean sheet romp as your team I recall the exact circumstances when I watched it — sitting
flays the ball around the pitch seemingly at will. with my dad, while my mum feigned interest — and I have no
recollection at all of hearing any music at the time.
The fugue element is interesting, as it mirrors the But at some point since, the music attached itself. And so
control which is part of so much that is best about football. For now as I watch it, I always and only hear the “Dies Irae” from

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 40 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 Verdi’s Requiem. Day of wrath, indeed. sunk in. The music was fusing with the scene I was watching.
Three years ago, I watched Spurs go an aggregate 3-0 be- I hope I’ve made clear that this isn’t about background
hind to Ajax in the semi-final of the Champions League. music. All of us can suggest music that suits any goal — or
Whatever music I was hearing would have been dirge-like, to pretty much anything. The number of times I’ve heard Carly
mirror the awful, limp display we were putting up. At half time Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better” accompanying a montage of
in the second leg we were out of the competition. And then a goals …
miracle happened. No, this is about how the goals, the matches or even just
Lucas Moura scored three goals, with the critical final goal the moments are as one with the music. As they happen, I
coming in the sixth minute of injury time. It was magical, it hear the music unprompted.
was intense, it was like nothing that had happened before. I’ve left out some of the less elevating moments — when
There was pandemonium as the world turned on its head. it’s more Keystone Kops than Berlin Philharmonic. But for
Even now, as I write this, I hear what I heard then: the cha- every Bach partita there is also a conductorless band that falls
otic, cacophonous opening to the fourth movement of Bee- apart the moment they start to play. Too many Spurs games,
thoven’s ninth symphony. Except that while that music lasts you see. O
around ten seconds, somehow in my mind it felt as if it was
taking the minutes that were playing out, elongated, as it all Stephen Pollard is The Critic’s Turf correspondent

D.J. TAYLOR’S ARTY TYPES

Professor Both books were well received. John

Carey himself declared in the Sunday
Barry Mole Times that it was to Dr Mole’s great credit
Scholarly Obsessive that he had rescued a cruelly neglected
poet from the dustbin of history.

O Esme Smallbeer died young

in 1938 leaving behind him four
slim volumes of lyric poetry and a
A wiser man would have stopped
here, but Professor Mole, as he had by
now become, had got the bit between his
reputation that, as his Times obituarist teeth. The King’s College papers
tactfully put it, had been “somewhat included copies of half-a-dozen letters
eclipsed” by more fashionable sent to T.S. Eliot, together with Eliot’s
contemporaries such as W.H. Auden replies. The latter were unusually concise,
and Stephen Spender. if not downright terse — one of them ran
And that might have been the end of of King’s College, Cambridge, which, simply: “Dear Smallbeer. Thanks for yours
Esme, his forty-odd years on the planet and according to the archivist, no one had of 24 inst. Noted TSE” — but by adding a
Twilight in Wardour Street, the delicate looked at since it was deposited there by his certain amount of biographical material,
volume of autobiography left unfinished at son in 1953. Barry was able to produce a further volume
his death, had not a promising young Smallbeer: A metrical analysis, with entitled Smallbeer: Eliot: An Eternal
graduate student named Barry Mole particular reference to the ‘Chilterns Golden Braid.
discovered his name in the index to Sequence’ — this was a verse account of a All that was five years ago, after which it
Valentine Cunningham’s British Writers of walking tour Esme had taken at around the was the sad duty of Barry’s friend at the OUP
the Thirties. time of the General Strike — was duly to inform him that the Smallbeer market
There were only four references, and one submitted to the University of Uttoxeter’s was played out. Plans to publish an edition
of them was merely a footnote about Evelyn examining board, earned Barry his PhD and of his holiday diaries (Bridlington to Bognor:
ILLU STR ATI ON BY BE N K IRC HNE R/HE ART

Waugh’s mocking review of his first eventually procured him a research post. A Thirties Charivari) were put on hold.
collection, Smitten by the Tarantula, but But Dr Mole was not finished with his Just now Barry is investigating the
Barry was not deterred. long-dead protégé. An old college friend had career of the little-known Alf Tubbs, a
In fact, a little research disclosed that since risen to the post of editorial director at working-class writer of the 1950s once
Smallbeer was an ideal subject for a thesis. the Oxford University Press, and with his described by Kingsley Amis as “a talentless
Not only was he almost completely encouragement Barry was not only able to git with an obelisk-sized chip on his
unknown; not only had scarcely anyone publish a stout and authoritative volume shoulder.” He is not Esme Smallbeer, but
written anything about him in the 60 years entitled Smallbeer: Thirties Titan, but to there is an enormous archive at Walsall
since his passing; but there turned out to be introduce and annotate an edition of his Public Library and a garrulous widow, and
an enormous cache of papers in the library Collected Poems. Barry thinks he will do. c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 41 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
Pink News presents breast removal tually, I think my gender issues came out of mental health, not
the other way around.”
as “pure trans joy” in a new video The idea of having all my female anatomy removed mistaken-
ly and then wanting it back, creates a horrifically unnerving sen-

The false sation that is nothing like euphoria and the “bliss of fairy dust”.

Social and medical transition can be the best outcome

euphoria of for some people with gender dysphoria. However, it’s not always
clear who will benefit and who should delay, as “young people
may not reach a settled gender expression until their mid-20s”,

dysphoria according to the interim report from the Cass Review, which is
an independent investigation of gender identity services in the
UK for children and young people.
At the heart of gender identity ideology is the idea that gender
identity is innate. Detransition disrupts this ideology, by reveal-
Laura Dodsworth ing that sexualisation, homophobia, body dysmorphia, sexual
abuse and neurodiversity are some of the causes of gender dys-

J
oy”, “amazing”, “happiness”, “wholesome”, phoria and that dysphoria can pass, given time. As a result, all

‘‘ “freedom”, “light at the end of the tunnel”,

“greatest day of my life”, “euphoria” and “bliss of
fairy dust” — what do these words describe?
The answer is “top surgery” in a new Snap-
chat video called “What is Top Surgery Like For
the detransitioners I have spoken to told me that they had been
vilified for speaking out.
Dr Cass has observed that the largest group of referred gen-
der identity disorder patients are female teenagers who devel-
oped gender distress in their early teens. It has not always been
Trans Guys”, created by Pink News. If you don’t the case. Dr Jessica Taylor writes in her book, Sexy but Psycho:
know what that is, according to the video it is “a procedure that In 2009, 70 children were referred to the Tavistock and Portman
trans men and trans masculine people can choose to have, Gender Identity Service as they wished to transition. In 2019,
where breast tissue is removed and the chest is sculpted to have 2,590 children were referred into the same service. What is sur-
a more masculine appearance”. Put simply, it is a bilateral mas- prising however, is that in 2009, 75 per cent of the children were
tectomy, given to women as a treatment for gender dysphoria. boys who wanted to present and live as girls – but by 2019, 70
The video paints an uncritical picture of top surgery, as you per cent of the children were girls who wanted to present and
live as boys.
might expect from the first episode of a series entitled Pure Trans
Joy. I am sure its positivity will be welcomed by trans men, which This change in case mix has not been given enough attention
is clearly its purpose. by LGBT campaigners or clinicians. There has been little effort to
However, it made me uncomfortable. For a Sunday Times understand why so many young girls now experience gender
feature, I interviewed and photographed women who thought distress. Trans activists have argued that the prevalence of trans
they were transgender, had top surgery, then went on to change people now is in part due to greater visibility and acceptability.
their mind and detransition. But although they reverted their This goes some way to explaining the increase in numbers, but
names, pronouns and passports, flesh cannot be returned after not the change in the ratio of males to females.
a double mastectomy. The effects of testosterone cannot be un-
done, nor the removal of the uterus and ovaries, which some of Many women can recall some degree of discomfort
these detransitioners also had, leaving them sterile, on hormone with their body during sexual development. Puberty can result
replacement therapy for life, and traumatised. in a girl’s body being perceived as a woman’s before she is psy-
Lucy had been anorexic and had body dysmorphia. In addi- chologically ready. Soraya Chemaly, the feminist activist and
tion, she was a lesbian and had experienced homophobia. At the writer, wrote in the foreword to my book Bare Reality: 100 Wom-
age of just 23, she could not comprehend how doctors could re- en, Their Breasts, Their Stories:
move her breasts, uterus and ovaries. “I feel mutilated,” she said. The moment a girl’s budding breasts make an appearance is the
Susanna was sexually abused, which was compounded by moment that her relationship to the world and the people in it
the shock of discovering online porn at a young age. She was left begins to be redefined, even in her own imagination.
feeling ashamed of her body: “For me, transition was a kind of The trans men in “What is Top Surgery Like For Trans Guys”
self harm. I was trying to destroy the person I was.” evoke a freedom that some young girls might be seeking. They
Sinead wished that the psychiatrist at the Gender Identity are open-shirted, shirt-free, and repeatedly use the words “free”
Clinic had given her a proper assessment for comorbid condi- and “freedom”. The excision of female flesh renders their bodies
tions. “I’ve tried to talk about background issues with therapists, free from sexual expectations, even if what they seek to convey is
but because I was trans, gender dysphoria was seen as the cause freedom in their new gender.
of my problems, and not a symptom of them,” she told me. “Ac- As Dr Jessica Taylor said to me, “Girls are sexualised in our

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 42 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 culture from a young age. It would make emerging hypothesis of rapid-onset gender
sense that they seek to escape from their sex- dysphoria (ROGD). The internet cannot
uality and femininity, and this offers a legiti- “turn” you transgender, but Littman believes
mate medical escape hatch. the gender dysphoria related to trauma,
“When I hear psychotherapists saying mental health conditions, or simply puberty,
that if a girl wants her breasts removed, it is a can be initiated and magnified by peer con-
sign of her gender dysphoria, I wonder if tagion. Littman believes insights about the
they know anything about sexual trauma, A surgeon who role of peer contagion in eating disorders
because you hear it all the time in sexual performed “top can be applied to gender dysphoria, through
trauma.” The video “almost looks like a mar- surgery” posed friendship cliques, group dynamics, “inspi-
keting video. It deliberately glosses over rational” websites and YouTube videos.
pain, infection risk, the recovery period. No
holding two waste The Pink News video is the latest in a pleth-
one says what it feels like to have a mastecto- buckets labelled ora of social media content affirming the ben-
my. It positions life-changing and high-risk “breast tissue” efit, the “euphoria”, of gender transition. Con-
surgery to healthy young women as euphor- tent about eating disorders and self-harm is
ic and sensationalist and that it will solve their problems.” banned on Snapchat, but the transgender counterculture is both
She posits in her book that as girls grow up in a society that welcomed by the social media platforms and welcoming to the
frequently sexualises and traumatises them, a trauma-informed gender dysphoric. This video, like other transgender social media
perspective would argue that it is rational for girls to wish to es- content, contains no balance, no caveats, no words of caution or
cape their female bodies. It would make sense that they feel safer warning. There is no doubt. Only joy and certainty.
if they present to the world as non-binary or masculine.
I caught up with Sinead. She told me she still has stubble
The Pink News video is editorial, not marketing, and so and “a baldy bit” on her head, but says that if she makes “an ef-
new Advertising Standards Authority rules restricting the target- fort I am taken for a woman, and I never thought that would
ing of cosmetic intervention ads at under-18s do not apply to it. happen. For a long time I couldn’t shower without a T-shirt be-
But its placement on Snapchat is worrying given that 13- to cause of the mastectomy scars. I wish it hadn’t happened, but I
17-year-old girls are the platform’s biggest demographic group. don’t hate my body any more. For the rest of my life I will always
Unsurprisingly, social media is influential in this group. Ac- be bewildered that this was allowed to happen. I was dealing
cording to internal Facebook research which was leaked to the with unaddressed trauma from sexual abuse. I needed therapy
Wall Street Journal, Instagram has made body image issues and help, not a bilateral mastectomy.”
worse for one in three girls and in one Facebook study of teenag- We discussed “What is Top Surgery Like For Trans Guys”.
ers more than 40 per cent of Instagram users who said they felt “That was a fucking train wreck,” she said. “The thing that sticks
“unattractive” said the feeling began while using the app. And out to me was, they glitter up the language. It’s a bilateral double
‘Snapchat dysmorphia’ describes the feeling of people who want mastectomy. They don’t keep it clinical and factual, they make it
to look more like the filtered versions of themselves. seem like the best thing you can do for yourself. They have cho-
Social media offers a window display for some “top surgeons”. sen a platform which is full of young, vulnerable girls.
The account for the US McClean Clinic is now set to private after “Even if it’s not meant to be malicious, it is irresponsible. At
a backlash. In one post, a plastic surgeon who performed top the end, it says with top surgery you are not going to be stuck
surgery held two medical waste buckets labelled “breast tissue”, feeling uncomfortable for the rest of your life. That is a danger-
presumably in a celebration of transition. Female flesh is trash. ous thing to say to a teenage girl because it means if you don’t do
In July 2020, there were 27,000 results for “top surgery” on the it you will be unhappy with who you are for the rest of your life.”
GoFundMe crowdfunding platform. Now there are 41,582. In Women’s sports, prisons, even the basic question of what a
April 2019 there were 1,300 subscribers to the Reddit Detransi- woman is, have become a battlefield. Detransitioners bear the
tion Subreddit. In March 2022, there were nearly 27,000. literal scars of this battle. Amidst all the furore, the government
Top surgeons display before and after photographs on Insta- has reached the only correct decision on the issue of conversion
gram. The nipples in the before photos are covered with digital therapy for trans people. Before undertaking irreversible treat-
modesty stickers. Female nipples are freighted by sexualisation, ments, young people must be offered serious, legitimate therapy
deemed obscene and must be censored by social media stand- and the medical profession must not be stymied into solely fol-
ards. In the after photos, the same nipples are bare, hovering lowing an “affirmative” pathway.
above long scars, transformed into non-sexualised, acceptably The problem is that young people are affirmed and groomed
naked body parts. The girls are freed from sexual connotation before the first doctor’s appointment by euphoric and unbal-
when they are freed from their feminine flesh. anced content on social media. One trans man’s pure joy may be
PINK NE WS

another woman’s pure regret. c

The role of social media in gender dysphoria has been
explored in controversial research by Dr Lisa Littman, in her Laura Dodsworth is an author and journalist

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 43 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
Recalling the murky role played by ucated attorney and a victim of police brutality whose favoured
defence tactic was to refuse to let defendants testify before a grand
civil rights leaders including Rev Al jury and instead demand a special prosecutor be appointed.
Sharpton in a notorious faked aduction Mason was another civil rights attorney and an ordained
minister. Sharpton, too, was a minister who had preached his

Doubling first sermon at the age of five and was mentored by black con-
gressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and by James Brown, the
Godfather of Soul. Indeed, Sharpton had copied Brown’s hair-

down on style and dressed like him. They formed a company together to
promote concerts and helped stage Michael Jackson’s 1984 tour.
On 5 December 1987, Sharpton convened a press confer-
ence, at which he described Tawana as “a traumatised, raped

a fraud woman”. New York “is now the Mississippi and Alabama of the
Eighties”, he declared, and Tawana’s kidnapping “the most
shameful act of racism of our times”.
Maddox went further and claimed Brawley had been lured
Christopher Silvester into an automobile by a police officer. “There has been a com-
plete breakdown in the legal and criminal justice system in the

I
n March of this year the biracial gay actor Jus- state of New York,” he asserted. Brawley was refusing to talk until
sie Smollett was sentenced to 150 days in county jail Governor Cuomo named a special prosecutor.
for planning a hoax attack against himself in Chicago
in 2019 and making false police reports. His alleged Then a young man named Harry Crist, Jr., who worked for
attackers had worn ski masks, berated him with racial IBM as a technician and had a part-time police job, shot himself
and homophobic slurs, told him he was in “MAGA in the head with a .357 Magnum revolver. When he became a
country” — “Make America Great Again” — poured suspect, his friend Steven Pagones, an assistant district attorney,
an unidentified liquid on him, and left a noose around his neck. offered an alibi. (Years later it emerged Crist’s suicide note had
When a police investigation revealed a month later that he pointed to a failed relationship and his disappointment about
had paid two Nigerian brothers, who were his gym buddies, to not becoming a state trooper as his motives for suicide.)
perpetrate the attack, his credibility was shattered. The specula- Sharpton told a reporter that state attorney general Robert
tion was that sympathy for Smollett as the victim of a hate attack Abrams and his wife owned a farmhouse in Dutchess County
might have aided him in pay negotiations with his employers. and had made contributions to the election campaigns of Sheriff
At the time, some commentators made passing reference to Scoralick. When the reporter asked if this connection would stop
another hoax attack from the late 1980s, the Tawana Brawley Tawana from cooperating with the police investigation, Sharp-
case. If Smollett had read up on it, he might have thought twice ton replied: “That’s like asking someone who watched someone
— as should Smollett’s initial supporter, Al Sharpton, given his killed in the gas chamber to sit down with Mister Hitler.”
unrepented role in that scandal. The Jewish Abrams was understandably outraged at being
compared to Hitler. Worse was to come. When NBCTV showed
After a black teenager, Tawana Brawley, went miss- pictures taken at the hospital of a partially undressed Tawana
ing from her home in Wappingers Falls, New York, for four days with the racial slurs on her body, Alton Maddox told a congrega-
over the Thanksgiving holiday in 1987, she was found outside tion in Harlem: “Robert Abrams, you are no longer going to mas-
her family’s old apartment building in a refuse bag, with the turbate looking at Tawana Brawley’s picture! You’re no longer
words “KKK”, “nigger”, and “bitch” inscribed on her body, which going to go into the men’s room with your perverted mind and
was also smeared with faeces. She appeared unresponsive. rape our daughters!”
At a hospital emergency room, during the course of a 20-min- At another press conference, Maddox claimed to have evi-
ute interview by a black Dutchess County police officer, she said dence proving that Steven Pagones had attacked Tawana. It
not a word, but instead used a notebook to give answers. Her didn’t amount to much. Pagones “lived on the same street as the
story was that she had been detained against her will for days in Brawley family. Less than two years ago, he had eyed Tawana
a woodland area and repeatedly raped by six white men, one of Brawley.” Maddox insisted that Governor Cuomo should imme-
whom was a “white cop”. diately arrest Pagones, otherwise Tawana would not testify.
A rape kit was administered, but the forensic results showed Steven Pagones, who was in his late thirties, was shocked by
that she had not been raped, and puzzlingly there was no evidence Maddox’s outlandish assertions. He hired an attorney and was
of her having been exposed to the elements. Before long, her later able to provide a thoroughly documented alibi.
mother, Glenda Brawley, and Glenda’s boyfriend Ralph King, had
enlisted a trio of advisers: Alton H. Maddox, C. Vernon Mason, Sharpton doubled down. He accused Pagones, the grand-
and Al Sharpton. The son of a preacher, Maddox was a college-ed- son of a Greek immigrant, of having mob connections and said

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 44 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 5HYHUHQG$O6KDUSWRQOHIW7DZDQD%UDZOH\DQGDWWRUQH\ — at Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in Queens, and there
&9HUQRQ0DVRQRXWVLGHWKH6WDWH6XSUHPH&RXUW1HZ<RUN she stayed for several weeks, waiting for police to storm the
church — a temptation they sensibly resisted.
Cuomo was protecting the mafia. Among other, more outland-
ish, claims he made were that Tawana had been raped 33 times From the outset the police had entertained doubts
and that her attackers had included members of both the Ku about Tawana’s story. A witness had apparently seen her climb-
Klux Klan and the IRA. ing into the bin bag. The racial slurs on her body were upside
Glenda Brawley not only refused to let her daughter testify down, suggesting she wrote them herself. Given that Sharpton
before a grand jury, but also ignored a summons to appear her- claimed urine had been found in her mouth, it was awkward
self. She was therefore summoned to appear before Justice An- that she appeared to have cleaned her teeth not long before her
gelo J. Ingrassia of the New York Supreme Court. On the day of discovery. Cotton wool was found in her nostrils, presumably to
the hearing, the courthouse was surrounded by Tawana sup- lessen the unpleasant odour of the faeces which, when tested,
porters chanting, “No justice! No peace! Arrest Pagones NOW!” matched that of her neighbour’s dog.
One supporter was Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Is- Eventually, the grand jury as well as a major New York Times
lam, who sat outside in his gold Lincoln, as Glenda Brawley sat investigation concluded that Tawana had faked her abduction.
in another car with Sharpton at her side. She confessed to a boyfriend, Darryl Rodriguez, that she had
“Four hundred years of oppression is riding on this case,” said made up the whole thing because she had been out partying and
Maddox. The judge agreed, but said that he had a duty to uphold was afraid of her stepfather’s reaction.
CARTO O N B Y MAT T PE R CIVA L; JAC K S OTO MAYO R/N E W YO R K TIME S CO. /GE TTY I MAG E S

the law nonetheless. There was a brief recess, during which In 1998, Steven Pagones won a series of libel actions. Maddox
Maddox consulted with Glenda and Sharpton outside, and they and Mason paid up, Sharpton had his $65,000 bill paid by John-
decided she should go home. Maddox told the judge his client’s nie Cochran (O.J. Simpson’s lawyer) among others. Tawana re-
defence was that black people could not obtain justice, where- fused to pay her share. With annual interest of 9 per cent, it had
upon Ingrassia found Glenda in contempt of court and ordered reached $431,000 in 2013, when a court finally garnished her
that unless she appeared before the grand jury she should be nurse’s wages and she started to pay off the debt in minuscule
jailed for 30 days and fined $250. instalments. She now lives in another state, under another
Sharpton found sanctuary for Glenda — “our African queen” name, and has never apologised. She did, however, convert to
Islam under the guidance of Louis Farrakhan.
Mason was disbarred in 1995, blaming his advocacy of Tawa-
na’s cause for his downfall. He continues to serve as a minister.
Maddox was suspended from practising law in New York. As for
Al Sharpton, he has lost weight, now dresses more soberly, and
wears his hair in a more conventional style. He gave the eulogy
at Michael Jackson’s funeral and earns good money from an-
choring an MSNBC show, but he owes $3.7 million in taxes.
He originally claimed, “the reported hate attack on my friend
and brother, actor Jussie Smollett is despicable and outrageous,”
but later said Smollett should face “accountability to the maxi-
mum” if found guilty. Sharpton has, however, never apologised
for championing Tawana’s false claims. c

“Apparently they have branches worldwide.” Christopher Silvester is The Critic’s cinema critic

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 45 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
Daniel Johnson says Russia’s murderous tactics to “de-Nazify” Ukraine have made its
military leaders doppelgangers of the senior officers who executed Hitler’s evil plans

THE MORAL BLINDNESS

OF PUTIN’S GENERALS

O
ne parallel between the Russian in- Nowadays the focus of scholarship is rather on Rom-
vasion of Ukraine and the conduct of the mel’s loyal service to the Nazi cause, including rounding up and
Second World War that has hitherto es- deporting Jews from North Africa. Historians still debate wheth-
caped notice concerns the relationship be- er Rommel truly approved of the plan of his former staff officer,
tween the dictator and his generals. Just as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg to kill Hitler, though he certainly
the German General Staff obeyed Hitler’s sympathised with the conspirators and tried to recruit others,
orders, even when they knew him to be including Manstein.
leading them not only to defeat but to depravity, so the Russian However, he was wounded in an Allied air raid just before the
high command has capitulated to Putin despite realising that his attempt on Hitler’s life; afterwards he was incriminated and con-
war was not only a mistake but a crime. fronted by two generals at home. Given the choice between de-
In the Britain of the Sixties, a certain mystique still attached to fending himself before Hitler, which would almost certainly re-
the generals of the Third Reich. In their stylish uniforms and their sult in a humiliating trial and execution, or protecting his family
gleaming jackboots, they had swaggered. Only two, Keitel and and staff by committing suicide, he chose to swallow cyanide. The
Jodl, were executed at Nuremberg; the rest got away with murder. Nazi propaganda machine pretended he had died of his injuries.
Even some of those who were convicted of war crimes had Whatever they might claim afterwards, the truth is that most
friends in high places. One of the most prominent was Erich von German generals only turned against Hitler when the war was
Manstein, the architect of many German victories both in the evidently lost. Even then, they procrastinated, preferring to live
Battle of France and on the Eastern front. He was also complicit in denial rather than risk dying in disgrace. Thereafter, they
in the genocide of more than a pleaded ignorance.
million Jews and others by the
Nazi Einsatzgruppen in Ukraine. A salutary example of a major German general whose
Yet Churchill was among those reputation has plummeted from hero to zero is Heinz Guderian.
who successfully campaigned to He played a crucial part in military history as the creator of the
have Manstein’s 18-year sentence panzer division. Beginning in 1929, he struggled to persuade his
reduced to 12, of which he served superiors to adopt his ideas; only after Hitler became Chancellor
only four. in 1933 did the new concept become reality.
Manstein’s memoir Verlorene As a commander of these wholly new armoured formations,
Siege (translated as Lost Victo- Guderian devised the breakthrough in the Ardennes in May
VON MANSTEIN: ries) appeared in 1958, a key text 1940 which brought France to her knees. In Russia, he led the
COMPLICIT IN in the mythology that depicted assault on Moscow; when it failed he was dismissed.
THE GENOCIDE the Wehrmacht as “clean” and In 1943 he was reinstated as inspector general of Armoured
OF MORE THAN laid the blame for war crimes on Troops, with the task of rebuilding the panzer divisions; in July
A MILLION JEWS Hitler. Konrad Adenauer, the first 1944, after the Allied invasion of Europe and the failed plot
AND OTHERS chancellor of the postwar Federal against Hitler, he was made chief of the General Staff. In March
BY NAZI DEATH Republic, also played his part in 1945, just over a month before the war ended, he was replaced
SQUADS the rehabilitation of Manstein, by Hitler and retired to his estate.
on the grounds that West Ger- After the war, Guderian avoided prosecution, not least thanks
man rearmament required a sharp distinction between the Na- to B.H. Liddell Hart, the military historian and defence corre-
zis and an untainted military tradition as the basis for the new spondent, who debriefed him along with other German gener-
Bundeswehr. als. Liddell Hart championed Guderian as a pioneering “geni-
Respectable historians have long since repudiated that my- us” who had put his own theories into practice. He also
thology, as overwhelming evidence of the culpability of the Nazi contributed a preface to the general’s bestselling memoir, Pan-
WIK IPE D IA

military at every level has emerged. Even the most celebrated of zer Leader, which appeared in 1958, fluently translated by Con-
all German generals, Erwin Rommel, no longer basks in the stantine Fitzgibbon. The English version, unlike the German
posthumous glory that once fuelled such films as The Desert Fox. original, makes fulsome mention of his intellectual debt to

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 46 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 “Captain Liddell Hart”, presuma- Wagner Group to torture and butcher Ukrainians.
bly inserted by Guderian at his Once the invasion began, there were chilling echoes of LTI,
British sponsor’s behest. the lingua tertii imperii or language of the Third Reich, as the
A striking passage describes diarist Viktor Klemperer called it. A document published by
how Hitler, just after assuming Russian state media with Putin’s approval demanded the “final
power in 1933, watched Guderi- solution” to the “Ukrainian question”, calling for the total “liqui-
an’s armoured units on manoeu- dation” not only of the elite but “a significant part of the masses”.
vres. The new chancellor was Putin’s “special operation” echoes Sonderbehandlung, (“spe-
much impressed, repeatedly ex- cial treatment”), the Nazi euphemism for extermination. As in
GUDERIAN: claiming: “That’s what I need! Barbarossa, Russian forces are using mobile crematoria to de-
ARCHITECT OF That’s what I want to have!” Gu- stroy the evidence of their crimes, but this time the world is
BLITZKRIEG derian evidently reciprocated the watching.
WHO SERVED enthusiasm, struck by the fact It is implausible that Gerasimov did not know that the annihi-
HITLER ALMOST that Hitler was the first chancellor lation of civilians was an integral part of the invasion plan. Nor is
since Bismarck to visit their Kum- the Russian army any more “clean” than was the Wehrmacht.
TO THE END,
mersdorf training ground. Like Guderian, Gerasimov has been
BUT AVOIDED Though the general is at pains seduced by the opportunity to put
PROSECUTION throughout his book to distance his strategy and tactics into prac-
himself from the Nazis and their tice. Just as Hitler and Guderian
Führer, it is clear that their bond was real: it was Hitler who be- suited one another, so do Putin and
lieved in his vision of the irresistible power of the new panzer Gerasimov. In each case, the pitiless
division: a minimum of 400 tanks, integrated with motorised in- logic of total war has hollowed out
fantry and artillery. the military tradition of honour and
It was Hitler who gave him the opportunity to prove his worth chivalry.
in a “war of manoeuvre”, designed to overcome the dreaded Yet the capacity for self-decep-
trench warfare of 1914-18. (The Germans themselves disdained GERASIMOV: tion of such “professionals” is
the term Blitzkrieg, used by Western journalists to describe their ANNIHILATION boundless. In his memoirs, Guderi-
campaigns of 1939-40). And it was Hitler who trusted Guderian OF CIVILIANS an is contemptuous of his fellow
to salvage something from the wreck of his unwinnable war. WAS INTEGRAL officers who participated in the plot
For all these reasons, Guderian served Hitler almost to the TO THE PLAN of 20 July 1944 — officers whom he
bitter end, taking refuge in a facade of professionalism and join- FOR THE and his fellow members of the mili-
ing forces with the armaments minister, Albert Speer. Both these INVASION OF tary “court of honour” handed over
technocrats contributed to the once-dominant narrative that UKRAINE to the notorious “people’s court” for
made Hitler the scapegoat for the collective moral cowardice of torture and execution.
HE IN RIC H HO F FM ANN/U L LSTE IN B ILD VIA G E TTY IMAG E S; W IK IPE DI A

the German establishment. Absurdly, he claims that “if the assassination had succeeded,
Germany’s condition would not be one jot better than it is to-
There are many parallels with contemporary Russia. day”. His protestations of ignorance about Rommel’s fate until
Not unlike Guderian, the Russian chief of staff, General Vassily after the war ring false. Though he had left it too late to stop the
Gerasimov, has exploited Putin’s patronage to advance his own slaughter, at least the Desert Fox chose death rather than dis-
theory of “new generation warfare”. This “Gerasimov doctrine” is honour.
based on the “nonlinear” forms of psychological subversion pi- In March 1945, as his native Prussia was overrun, Guderian
oneered in the annexation of Crimea. joined forces with the propaganda minister, Dr Goebbels, to is-
At the time of writing there is speculation that Gerasimov, sue a radio protest against Russian atrocities and the “An-
who has only been seen in public twice since the invasion be- glo-American air terror”. Without irony, he laments that this ap-
gan, may now be in disgrace. However that may be, the assault peal fell on deaf ears: “Humanity and chivalry had both
on Ukraine was carried out according to his plan, at the heart of disappeared during those months.”
which were the “psyops” intended to reduce Ukraine to “a web The same kind of moral insanity has gripped Gerasimov and
of chaos, humanitarian disaster and civil war”. his fellow generals. They tell themselves they are slaughtering
Just as Guderian’s panzer divisions during Operation Bar- children to “de-Nazify” Ukraine. In reality, these Russians have
barossa were followed by the Einsatzgruppen, who systemati- become doppelgangers of the Nazis. c
cally massacred Jews and others behind the lines, so Gerasi-
mov’s tanks were followed by the merciless mercenaries of the Daniel Johnson is the founding editor of TheArticle

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 47 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
Michael Collins says Kenneth Clark has been
unfairly accused of elitism. He wanted to democratise
the glories of Western art and make it available to all

An unlikely man
of the people
‘‘I
t is lack of confidence, more than any- thodox view of a regressive establishment. He was
thing else, that kills a civilisation,” suggested an obituarist for an Edwardian summer that had
Kenneth Clark at the conclusion of his 13-part long since past. Yet his summing-up at the close of
television series, Civilisation, in 1969, “We can the final programme continues to resonate: “The
destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, moral and intellectual failure of Marxism has left us
just as effectively as by bombs.” Events at the with no alternative to heroic materialism, and that
time led him to suggest that, as unlikely as it isn’t enough.”
seemed, European civilisation could fall to the barbarians as it
had after the fall of Rome when “we got through by the skin of our In the decades that have followed,
teeth”. He quoted W.B. Yeats for back-up. It wasn’t that the centre Clark’s viewpoint has been sidelined by post-mod-
could not hold, it was that there was no longer a centre. ernism and, of late, identitarianism. Yet the book of
Being a self-proclaimed “stick-in-the-mud”, Clark was an odd the series Civilisation has remained in print and in
choice to front the BBC’s ambitious (shot in 130 locations across 2014 Tate Britain mounted an exhibition dedicated to
11 countries) and expensive (£130,000) project in a season of the works he had commissioned and collected. Two
radicalism and youthful insurrection. Filming proceeded in years later, James Stourton’s biography of him was
1967, the year the Vietnam War was at its deadliest, and global published to critical acclaim.
student protest at its peak. The civil rights movement was mak- Reviewing the latter, Professor Mary Beard criticised Clark for
ing headway; the women’s movement was making headlines. In his lack of attention to details and the absence of women among
Britain, homosexuality and abortion were legalised. the men of God-given genius that were his heroes. Clark had
The contemporary 20th-century world was one that baffled joined the canon of dead white males too stale and pale to be
Kenneth Clark, as he was the first to admit. The “personal view” relevant.
he presents in Civilisation concludes prior to the Great War. Be- This was evident when the BBC offered a modern take on
fore beginning work on the series, he supplied the BBC with sev- Clark’s series in 2018. It was touted as a departure from the ap-
eral stipulations regarding his approach. At the top of the list was parent elitism, erudition and European bias of the original. It too
— “not Marxist”. addressed the concept of civilisation but, in the words of James
“My approach to history,” Purnell, the erstwhile Blairite La-
Clark explained, “was uncon- bour minister who was the BBC’s
sciously different from that now director of strategy at the time: “It
DO N SM ITH/R AD IO TIME S /G E TTY I MAG E S; BBC
in favour in universities which won’t be the Auntie that dis-
sees all historical change as the pensed culture from on high, it
result of economic and commu- will be much more of a thought-
nal processes. I believe in the im- ful friend.” Mary Beard was one of
portance of individuals, and am a several jobbing academics, well-
natural hero-worshipper.” versed in identity politics, offer-
Clearly the public were fond of heroes too. Broadcast in col- ing alternate but incoherent views on art and history in a ratings
our on BBC2, Civilisation attracted over two and a half million failure that rapidly disappeared from view.
viewers and was sold to 65 countries. It’s unlikely that Kenneth Clark will have anything but a cameo
Most prominent among his critics were hoary academics and in this year’s BBC centenary celebrations — featuring Harry En-
neo-Marxist intellectuals. While they saw their take on civilisa- field fronting a documentary on the BBC’s output in the style of
tion as enlightened and progressive, Clark represented the or- the comedian’s upper-class character Mr Cholmondley-Warner.

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 48 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 “I WONDER
IF A SINGLE
THOUGHT
THAT HAS
HELPED
FORWARD
THE HUMAN
SPIRIT HAS
EVER BEEN
CONCEIVED
OR WRITTEN
DOWN IN
AN ENORMOUS
ROOM”

A caricature of figures such as Kenneth Clark, this routine was that didn’t mean intellectual effort wasn’t required to appreciate
hackneyed and redundant when we first endured it some years it. Art should be inclusive and accessible, but not necessarily
ago. Now it’s a sign that the ideas have dried up; the confidence easy. It’s all in the details (he was, after all, the author of One
has gone. The BBC itself is like a civilisation in decline. Hundred Details from Pictures in the National Gallery).
Clark encourages you to look at the buildings in paintings, to
between his first foray into broadcasting at the BBC look at the posture and expressions of the figures, and then asks
after the Second World War — he was a regular radio pundit be- you to compare to similar depictions in works from other eras.
cause of his expertise as an art historian — and his return with He lets the viewer know he doesn’t necessarily have the answers,
Civilisation, Kenneth Clark was a staple at ITV. and that certain subjects — modern art, for instance — are often
He became chairman of the nascent Independent Television incomprehensible to him too.
Authority in 1954. The move was viewed with disdain by BBC
colleagues and a number of his peers on the left and right — he I came to Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation late, sporadically
was booed at his Pall Mall club — as they feared that commercial making my way through the series via blurry, almost pointillist,
television would emulate the populism of the American model. versions on YouTube as Covid strengthened its grip and lock-
It would be the opposite of the Reithian credo that summarised downs came and went. Watching him now, discovering the se-
the paternal approach of the BBC: Educate. Inform. Entertain. ries, in its entirety, in the twenty-first century I saw it and him in
Clark reversed the order. He saw this as a greater opportunity detail. You genuinely get the feeling the heart, soul and mind of
to popularise art, and convince the masses it was not the pre- this man has been enriched, nourished and elevated by the sub-
serve of an educated elite (“the best for the most”). Even though ject he is so passionate about.
he himself didn’t own a television, he believed it was at its best His view of western history is not rose-tinted, as he’s quick to
when it dealt with real life. highlight its own moments of barbarism. As he told Joan
Similarly, he maintained that good art must be anchored in Bakewell in an interview when the series was broadcast: “The
the recognisable world. There should be an evident narrative — continuing thread is what happened in each of these epochs that
which is why he overlooked the surreal and the abstract — but pushed mankind a little bit further up.” He makes us feel we’re

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 49 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
the inheritors of a rich history and the progress and genius that
has brought us to this point. That is some legacy. He conveys this
to the viewer; it becomes contagious; this is why the visitor fig-
ures for museums and galleries increased because of the series;
this is why, among thousands of letters he received, a number of
viewers claimed he prevented them from suicide.
Kenneth Clark’s embrace of television and his appeal to the
viewer brought criticism from the same left-wing corners
throughout his broadcasting career: there was a lack of satisfac-
tory analysis; an absence of discussion of any depth. What was
perhaps more a comment on the snobbery and elitism of these vice he once commissioned Vanessa Bell to design, or the Clive
critics was the suggestion that he was making history to appeal Bell rug he opted to put on a floor rather than a wall. (Clark be-
to “lay people” rather than experts; the programmes were popu- lieved in both beauty and utility.)
lar because they reinforced “the ideological position of the audi-
ence”. Clark himself had another take, by way of a response: “Ac- Ultimately, Kenneth Clark was far less paternal and pat-
ademics were furious at the simplification of their labours.” ronising when it came to the tastes of the masses than many up-
It was in 1958, under the aegis of Lew Grade at ATV, that Clark per-class progressives. Not least of all the Bloomsbury group
first addressed the viewer with the question: why is art neces- with whom he was once acquainted. He was critical of the tastes
sary? These are claustrophobic, stilted outings that make for an of the rich and the aristocratic.
uncomfortable watch. In the programme “What Is Good Taste?” This was apparent when he fronted a series on royal palaces.
he’s in a home similar to that found in the social circles he moved His less than reverential approach to the art and interior design
in. It’s a wealthy, modern, supposedly stylish home that he finds of historic kings and queens caused some consternation within
sterile and inhumane. He switches to a typical working-class sit- the British royal family, with whom he had a connection, having
ting room or set, where three ducks fly north on the chimney been the Surveyor of the King’s Pictures during the reign of
breast, a Tretchikoff hangs in a recess, and the collection of me- George VI.
mentoes exhibited are displayed because they may bring luck or A speech he delivers in Civilisation could apply to the House
have sentimental value. of Windsor or the ostentatious super-rich of the current age. As
Clark is more comfortable in this environment. It’s humane; he points out, the expression of private greed and a sense of
it has a heart. Here, he declares, he would happily crack open a grandeur is a human instinct, but carried too far it becomes in-
bottle of stout. There’s a touch of the squire slumming it in this human: “I wonder if a single thought that has helped forward
moment, which often happened when the upper class tried a the human spirit has ever been conceived or written down in an
little too hard in the company of those below stairs. He then be- enormous room.”
comes somewhat condescending by dismissing the cheap ob- I was eight years old in the month Civilisation was launched,
jets d’art as “dull, meaningless and stupid”. living in a household of small rooms, where BBC channels were
Is he unaware these exhibits might hold some beauty and ap- rarely on screen and books were largely absent (along with fly-
peal to their owners? People who couldn’t afford the dinner ser- ing ducks and Tretchikoff). There were one or two on American
boxers, British footballers and East End gangsters. This would
improve in the 1970s with the arrival of monthly magazines on
DIY and household hints — “as advertised on TV” — that ar-
rived with a free binder. British television, now with three chan-
nels, was the conduit for all things cultural in this household,
where ITV was the channel of choice.
Mine, therefore, was the family that Clark hoped to reach out
to in his ambition to democratise art and make it available to all.
He failed in this instance, yet it was a household he would have
felt at home in, cracked open a bottle of stout in.
When I eventually got to grips with Clark’s masterwork, I was
drawn to his sartorial style almost as much I was to the historical
CARTO O N B Y L EN HAWK IN S

content, his genius as a communicator and the speeches that

punctuate the proceedings that resonate with us in a present of
toppled statues and history being erased or re-written. “It may
be difficult to define civilization,” he muses, “but it isn’t so diffi-
cult to recognize barbarism.” Then, at the end there is this:
“Your memory’s better than mine — have our I believe order is better than chaos, creation better than destruc-
grandchildren always been this boring?” tion. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 50 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 He opened the National Gallery early on the day of the FA cup
final, in the hope that fans would take in art before football. He
extended the remit of the gallery to bring paintings and murals
into the public sphere, by way of restaurants, canteens and hos-
pitals: “Often it has seemed as if the educative virtue of works of
art consisted in knowing about them, not in experiencing them
directly.” His skills as a communicator were honed during his
time as a lecturer, but Oxford was too much like preaching to the
converted.
Years later, in 2014, David Attenborough, who had been the
ATTLEE’S SOCIALISM BBC2 controller responsible for coaxing him back to the corpora-
tion and commissioning Civilisation, said: “We neglected to no-
CHIMED WITH CLARK’S tice that K had a very strong social conscience.” Despite his claim
AMBITIONS FOR ART: to being apolitical, Clark was apparently a Labour voter, (unlike
his son, the Tory minister Alan Clark who became the keeper of the
THE BEST FOR THE MOST keys to the castle when his father died in 1983, aged 79).
Kenneth Clark’s secretary recalled that her boss believed the
the whole, I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and
election of the Labour party in 1945 was one the greatest things
I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology.
the English ever did. You can understand why this would appeal
Kenneth Clark’s accent may have been from the upper class- rather than the Marxist utopianism of intellectuals, and the rev-
es, but his attire was that of a middle-class commuter, at least olutionary zeal of the trade unionism of the time.
throughout Civilisation. Again and again, it’s all in the details. The practicable socialism of the Attlee government which
There were brogues and Burberry, but the style was predomi- dealt with the perennials of housing, employment and welfare
nantly more Dunn & Co., than Savile Row. in a country rebuilding itself in the wake of the war chimed with
Bri-nylon shirts with soil-coloured ties and slurry-coloured Clark’s ambitions for art and broadcasting: the best for the most.
suits saw him through the dark ages. There was a raglan sleeve But that didn’t necessarily mean he believed that such change,
on a dogtooth overcoat as the Renaissance blossomed. The first or even politics, was responsible for great and lasting art: “Al-
and only hat of the series arrived in the wake of the industrial though one may use works of art to illustrate the history of civili-
revolution: a homburg in a Bournville brown. sation, one must not pretend that social conditions produce
works of art or inevitably influence their form.”
Clark’s journey through art — a “freak aptitude” as he
referred to it — began when he was a solitary, only child, fre- Quotes similar to this and clips of his monologues to
quently in the charge of the family servants. His father handed camera from Civilisation now crop up regularly on social media.
him a book on the Louvre. It began there and then. A calling, of These clips notch up thousands of views within days of being
sorts. tweeted. His name is referenced regularly in podcasts covering
Art was the means by which this repressed, distant, socially history, art and politics. In hindsight, Clark’s fear that western
uncomfortable adult found his voice and became such a bril- civilisation was in its death throes, that the barbarians were at
liant communicator. “The communication with simple people the gate, seems premature.
was one of the things about the programmes that particularly The events that surrounded him in the 1960s were largely on
annoyed intellectuals of the left,” he writes in his memoir The the fringes of society, and some were responsible for bringing
Other Half, “who believed that they had a prescriptive right to about necessary change. Those who believe, misguidedly, they
speak to the working classes.” are the inheritors of this mantle are now in the mainstream,
He was an unlikely candidate to appeal to the proletariat be- championing discredited causes that have become part of a new
cause of his pedigree and class. Clark was the product of a family orthodoxy, rapidly being embraced by elements of the establish-
that had grown very wealthy from the textile trade (“Many richer ment in the belief that their survival depends on it.
… few idler,” he was quoted as saying.) He was a student at Win- The barbarians are inside the gates, making headway daily,
chester and Oxford. with an agenda that’s fundamentally anti-“white”, anti-western
From the early 1950s his country home was Saltwood Castle and interested in history only insofar as it can be bent to serve
on the Kent coast. His clipped vowels were a hangover from the their own take on sociology. Kenneth Clark believed that west-
Edwardian age in which he was born, but they emerged from a ern civilisation has seen a series of rebirths. Is that what we are
mouth filled with teeth that were so bad you’d struggle to find currently experiencing, or are we merely hanging on by the skin
similar on the poorest of the English working class. At 30, he be- of our teeth? c
came the youngest-ever director of the National Gallery, and
soon a Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford. It was in these roles Michael Collins is the author of The Likes Of Us, a biography
BBC

that he increasingly harboured the desire to bring art to all. of the white working class.

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 51 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
Adam Dant on …

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 52 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 53 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 STUDIO 1

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T
he growth of Belfast during the nineteenth century
was phenomenal: in 1801 the town contained around
20,000 inhabitants, but by 1901 (by which time it had
achieved city status) it was nearing 350,000.
The Georgian town benefited greatly from the trade in linen
rather than its manufacture (which came later), and the influence
of those interested in learning and literature was much stronger
than would be the case in the following century. The newspaper
the Belfast News Letter, was established in 1737 (almost half a
century before the The Times in London).
In 1788, the Belfast Society for Promoting Knowledge founded
a library, which morphed into the Linen Hall Library, still in
existence today. After the Union of Ireland with Great Britain
following the Act of 1800, and the end of the French Wars, Belfast’s
port was improved, and shipbuilding began to assume a position
of great importance.
Foundries, banks, educational establishments, a museum, a
chamber of commerce, and much else were set up. Soon, the town
was to be called Linenopolis on account of its great number of
linen mills and warehouses. By the 1880s it was the chief manufac-
turing and trading centre for linen in the world.
Impressive buildings need not only money and building skills,
but architects to design them, and several gifted men rose to the
occasion with considerable success.

One of the first was English-born Charles Lanyon

(1813-89), who designed the Crumlin Road Gaol (1841-4 — influ-
enced by Pentonville in London) and the noble Italianate
Courthouse (1848-50 — now derelict) [3] opposite. His Palm
House, Botanic Gardens, Belfast (1839-40 and 1852) [2] , is an early 2
and elegant example of curvilinear iron and glass construction,
built with Richard Turner (c.1798-1881) of Dublin, predating
Turner’s London collaborations with Decimus Burton (1800-81) at
Regent’s Park and Kew Gardens.
Lanyon was also responsible for the Tudor Gothic Queen’s
College (1846-9 — now the Lanyon Building of The Queen’s
University of Belfast) [1] . In 1854 Lanyon took his pupil, William
Henry Lynn (1829-1915), into partnership: the firm was responsi-
ble for such splendid buildings as the very grand Italian palazzo
that is the Custom House (1854-7), and Lynn was the architect of
several distinguished works of architecture both as a partner in the Architects of Ulster. W.J. Barre was one of the most prolific of
firm and later on his own account. Ulster architects, having been responsible for several splendid
buildings. These include The Ulster Hall, for which he won a
But there was another, whose work is now celebrated in competition in 1859, at a time when Belfast was being described as
W.J. Barre 1830-1867: A Vigorous Mind by Paul Harron, published “the commercial metropolis of Ireland … appropriately as at once
by the excellent Ulster Architectural Heritage as part of the series the Liverpool and Manchester of this portion of the United

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 54 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
1 Impressive
buildings need
not only money
and skills, but
an architect
to design them:
several gifted
men rose to
the occasion

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ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 55 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 STUDIO

Kingdom”. The Hall [4] was opened in 1862, and remains Belfast’s
principal musical venue (its fine acoustic makes it admirable for
concerts by the acclaimed Ulster Orchestra).
Among other important works by Barre in Belfast are the
former Methodist Church, University Road (1863-5), a polychrome
Lombardic-Romanesque brick job with an Italianate campanile
featuring spectacular machicolations; the Albert Memorial Clock 4
(1865-9), a Gothic design embellished with a statue of the Prince %DUUHōVEHDXWLIXOFRPSHWLWLRQZLQQLQJGUDZLQJVKRZLQJ
(d.1861) by Samuel Ferris Lynn (1834-76), brother of W.H. Lynn; WKHLQWHULRURIWKH8OVWHU+DOO%HOIDVW
and the robustly detailed polychrome Italian palazzo of the former
linen warehouse (now Bryson House), Bedford Street (1865) . 0RQXPHQWLQ%DQEULGJH&RXQW\'RZQWR&DSWDLQ&UR]LHUZKR
His grandest mansion was Clanwilliam (now Danesfort) House, SHULVKHGZLWK6LU-RKQ)UDQNOLQōVHQWLUHH[SHGLWLRQWRWKH$UFWLF
[7] erected for the magnate, Samuel Barbour (1830-78), whose 7KHSRODUEHDUVZRXOGDSSHDUWREHRIGXELRXVSDUHQWDJH
linen-thread manufactory was the largest in the world. Danesfort
is now the US Consulate, and there is no doubt it is a real show-
stopper, with vigorously-carved details, pierced parapets, and no 5
bashfulness in its eclectic invention.
What a shame Barre’s Frenchified Roxborough Castle (from
1865), outside Moy, County Tyrone, designed for James Molyneux
Caulfeild (1820-92), 3rd Earl of Charlemont from 1863, was
destroyed in 1922.

Barre was responsible for several churches, fine

houses, commercial buildings, and other building types, but he
also designed some memorials, including the very peculiar
concoction (1861-2) to Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier,
who perished in Sir John Franklin’s ill-fated Arctic expedition to
find the Northwest Passage [5] .
Crozier was a native of Banbridge, County Down, where his
memorial stands today, a Gothic confection topped with a statue
of the intrepid officer. Also featured are carvings showing the
Erebus and Terror stuck in the ice, scallop-shells, anchors, an
Arctic otter with a salmon in its mouth, and a convolvulus to
emphasise Crozer’s scientific interests.
Four flying buttresses support the central octagonal structure
carrying the statue: on those buttresses are what are supposed to
be polar bears, but the sculptor, Dublin-based Joseph Robinson
Kirk (1821-94), seems to have had an imperfect understanding of
what such creatures actually looked like, for they resemble the
improbable offspring of shaggy overgrown ferrets crossed with
unattractive dogs, and furthermore they ludicrously present their
rear ends to Captain Crozier high above them.

Barre was a versatile designer, who worked in several

styles. His Classical work is convincing, as in the handsome
Methodist Church in Darling Street, Enniskillen, County

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 56 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
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Fermanagh (1863-5), with its noble Roman Corinthian

8
pedimented front [6] and galleried interior a smaller version of the
Ulster Hall in Belfast.
But if his grander, more showy buildings were often highly
competent works of architecture, so were his exquisite miniatures,
of which the most perfect is the former gatelodge to Belmont
Presbyterian Church, Belfast, with its beautiful polychrome
brickwork (red, yellow, and blue-black) and central chimney [8] .
Paul Harron has done the short-lived Barre justice in this
well-researched volume, with many fine photographs taken
specially for it by David Bunting, and the book is remarkably good
value for money, given its quality. It celebrates an architect who
made a massive contribution to the built fabric of Victorian Ulster.

Professor James Stevens Curl, a Member of the Royal Irish

Academy, was awarded The President’s Medal of the British c
Academy in 2017 for “outstanding service to the cause of the
humanities” in recognition of his “contribution to the wider
study of the History of Architecture”

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 57 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 Anita Brookner and Keri Hulme, and it was also gener-
Amis at 100: ally felt that Amis, by far the best known of the nomi-
nated writers, was due his turn. Thwaite, Reynolds and,
a master satirist after some deliberation, Quigly all supported Amis,
and the Booker was his.
without honour When he went on stage to accept the award, Amis
was typically droll. “Until just now, I had thought the
Alexander Larman Booker Prize a rather trivial, showbizzy caper, but now I
consider it a very serious, reliable indicator of literary
merit.” This was, unsurprisingly, taken seriously

‘‘I
n 1986, I won the Booker Prize (“Memo to writers and others: never make a joke
for Fiction with my novel The Old Devils. against or about yourself that some little bastard can
With that substantial exception, I found turn into a piece of shit”) and it also did not help that,
the occasion of the award a horrid one.” because Amis was weaving from table to table to accept
Kingsley Amis described winning the lit- his peers’ accolades and congratulations, it was gener-
erary world’s most prestigious award in ally assumed that he — one of English literature’s most
his Memoirs with customary wit and economy. renowned topers — was drunk. (“So I was, of course, but
His by-then substantial frame was squeezed into a not to the extent suggested.”)
tight dinner jacket, with his feet in brown brogues be-
The Critic Books

cause they would no longer fit into his smart patent Amis’s place in the literary firmament
leather half-boots. The food at the ceremony was was already assured, but the Booker seemed to confirm
“worse than is inevitable”, and the atmosphere tense. that his peers had acknowledged him. At a time when
As he noted, “I realised I was becoming as much both- his son Martin seemed to have be-
ered by the prospect of making a fool of myself in pub- come both the more fashionable
lic as of not winning.” and bestselling of the two novel-
Amis had already been nominated twice before (for ists, it was a welcome reminder
Jake’s Thing and Ending Up) but was attending the cer- that “the King”, as Amis only
emony as the acknowledged frontrunner, with compe- semi-jokingly styled himself, still
tition including Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s reigned. Sales of The Old Devils
Tale, Kazuo Ishiguro’s An Artist of the Floating World soared; 30,000 copies were or-
and Timothy Mo’s An Insular Possession. The chair of dered by booksahops after the
the judges was Anthony Thwaite (“another old chum of Booker, and a total of 180,000
mine, of which you may make what you will”) and the hardbacks and paperbacks were
otherwise all-female judging panel included the novel- sold by February 1988, three times that of Amis’s previ-
ists Bernice Rubens and Isabel Quigly, the radio critic ous novel Stanley and the Women.
Gillian Reynolds and the “general reader” Edna He should have been both triumphant and relieved.
Healey, wife of Denis. Yet even amid the celebrations, Amis was miserably
While they might have been expected to side with aware that his reputation was less that of a major writer
Atwood, there had been two previous female winners, and more of an ungovernable piss artist. Shortly after
the ceremony, he wrote to Don-
$PLVVXUURXQGHGE\ZHOOZLVKHUV ald Trelford, the editor of the
DWWKH%RRNHU3UL]HSUHVHQWDWLRQ Observer, to complain about a
GLQQHUDWWKH*XLOGKDOO profile the newspaper ran, in
which he was accused of utter-
ing “outrageous racist remarks”
at a party, which he described
as “the miserable blend of in-
competence and dishonesty
PA I M A G E S / A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO

that typifies your newspaper”.

On this occasion, the slur
was easily disproved and an
apology was made. But Amis’s
attempts to play a game of repu-
tational whack-a-mole were
doomed, if only because he had
made too many enemies during
his life who were only too happy

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 58 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 The man once regarded as the greatest comic novelist since Evelyn Waugh is now
seen as little more than a Blimpish caricature whose books are reactionary relics

not only to believe the worst of him, but to actively join The Oxford academic Julian Thompson, an
in denigrating him. expert on Amis’s work, once remarked that he was mys-
After his death on 22 October 1995, at the age of 73, tified how “that consummate literary professional
first came the tributes (the Guardian, never instinctive- Kingsley Amis has gone down in history as a drunken,
ly onside when it came to all things Kingers, called him women-hating bigot”. In his centenary year, the man
“a good poet, a good critic, and a comic artist of genius once regarded as the greatest comic novelist since Eve-
with lots of staying power”) and then came the back- lyn Waugh is now seen as little more than a joke him-
lash, not least because of Martin’s not altogether flatter- self, a Blimpish caricature of a bon viveur whose major
I L LU S T R AT I O N B Y J O H N S P R I N G S

ing portrayal of his father in his memoir Experience. books are little more than reactionary relics of a (thank-
Amis’s biographer tactfully describes this as “de- fully) bygone age, and whose minor works are, at best,
pendent on changes in fashion and in the nature of the blessedly forgotten squibs and, at worst, vile indicators
book business and the reading public”, but even by the of personal failings that would, in our more enlight-
early 2000s, the novelist was regarded as Problematic, a ened era, have immediately led to Amis’s cancellation.
reputation that has only worsened over the past two (One can only imagine what Kingers would have had to
decades. Terry Eagleton’s description of him as “a rac- say about the culture wars.)
ist, anti-Semitic boor, a drink-sodden, self-hating revil- Lucky Jim is allowed to occupy a place in the firma-
er of women, gays and liberals” is all too typical. ment, reluctantly — although its most famous passage,

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 59 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 He was a man who drank to excess by his own admission and whose
affairs and ill-treatment of his family have seen him cast into darkness
about its protagonist Jim Dixon waking up with a hum- lunches” at Bertorelli’s, self-con-
dinger of a hangover, is tut-tutted at, and its female sciously boozy and gossipy
characters are held up as an example of Amis’s sexism, events to which the likes of Ber-
misogyny, women-hating etc — and the Memoirs can nard Levin, Anthony Powell and
be used as a piece of cautionary social history about the the “much-feared” John Braine
unreconstructed literary scene in the second half of the were invited to make fun of writ-
twentieth century. ers who couldn’t write and think-
But generally, Amis’s writing is now seen, even more ers who couldn’t think. But, as
than Waugh’s or his friend Philip Larkin’s, as the grim with Amis’s speech at the Booker
expression of a disordered mind. To admit to an affec- Prize, the line between self-re-
tion, let alone an idolatry, for his works is to stand flexive irony and straightforward
above the parapet and declare oneself a thoroughly unpleasantness has always been a fine one.
wrong ’un. He was a man who drank to excess by his own ad-
Well, I have been tarred and feathered for my liter- mission (even publishing a trio of books about his love
ary views before, so another round of denunciation will of alcohol; the first, 1972’s On Drink, is by far the best)
make little difference now. Amis remains, along with and whose adulterous affairs and alleged ill-treatment
Waugh, the finest comic novelist of the twentieth cen- of his family have seen him cast into darkness; this ren-
tury — and yes before you say “what about Wodehouse”, ders him an unlikely subject for literary or personal re-
Plum is essentially a timeless writer who removed him- habilitation. But if it falls to those who regard Amis as a
self from anything so dull as social concerns or normal writer of rare distinction so to do, then the challenge
life — and a memoirist, correspondent, critic and even must be embraced with alacrity.
poet of distinction, even brilliance.

I
He has one of the most distinctive yet readable styles am, of course, not an uncritical
of any of his peers, and his books should, in an ideal admirer of “the King”. He wrote prolifically,
world, be held up with those of Dickens and Fielding. and, like most prolific scribblers, the sheer
And yet I fear that, today, he would find it difficult to amount produced means that much of the fic-
even be nominated for the Bollinger Everyman Wode- tion and non-fiction alike is dispensable. After
house Prize for comic writing, let alone win it: an the initial magnificent run of Fifties form that
The Critic Books

award, lest we forget, that was not even handed out in produced Lucky Jim, That Uncertain Feeling, I Like It
2018 because of the low quality of contemporary hu- Here and Take A Girl Like You, his novels soon began
morous prose. to alternate between the brilliant (1969’s genre-hop-
ping supernatural comedy The
Delving into Amis’s biography offers some Green Man), the ambitious but
clues as to his downfall. The basic facts are familiar to not entirely successful (1976’s
all aficionados: the middle-class background, universi- The Alteration, which imagined
ty friendship with Larkin, arrival of fame in 1954 with an alternative reality in which the
the publication of Lucky Jim, notorious ending of his Reformation never happened)
first marriage to Hilary in the early Sixties to take up and the trivial; 1980’s Russian
with the modish novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard, and Hide-and-Seek was critically
then the slow slide into alcohol-induced torpor and de- panned, and Anthony Burgess, a
crepitude, interrupted only by the success of The Old friend and admirer, openly won-
Devils and the scandal that greeted the publication of dered whether “the overall dull-
Stanley and the Women two years previously, which ness and, may I say, futility of the
seemed to confirm all the worst rumours about his rep- book, represent a deliberate aes-
utation both literarily and personally. thetic”.
It remains his least enjoyable and most dyspeptic Amis was a pleasant but ulti-
novel, shot through with the anger that he felt about his mately undistinguished poet who
then-recent separation from Howard, and is the easiest never escaped Larkin’s shadow.
of all his books to skim over without unnecessary com- And his non-fiction, Memoirs
ment. aside, seldom showcased the best
Viewed like this, Amis’s life seems little more than a of his creative genius, although
descent into tragic obsolescence, interspersed with his occasional reviews and essays,
some slap-up meals in the form of the so-called “fascist best read in collected form in

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 60 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 1990’s The Amis Collection, frequently delight. One could even — perhaps over-charitably — as-
But to nit pick about the individual failings of his cribe the adulterous affairs that ultimately wrecked his
work is to stare obsessively at the twigs and branches first marriage less to lechery and more to a surfeit of
and fail to notice the glorious forest that surrounds bonhomie, and a desire to share that with anyone who
them. To read Amis’s correspondence, edited by his bi- came to hand. Little wonder that Hilary Amis once
ographer Zachary Leader with suitable care and affec- wrote on his back, while on holiday in Yugoslavia, “1
tion, is to socialise with a man who as Larkin famously Fat Englishman, I Fuck Anything”.
recalled after first encountering him at Oxford, “for the
first time I felt myself in the presence of a talent greater It is deeply disappointing that such a fellow
than my own”. of infinite jest is not being lionised in any meaningful
There are endless details and anecdotes that a lesser way for his centenary. (An idea I floated a couple of
writer would have spun out and over-indulged, but years ago to publishers of editing a new collection of
which Amis allows to stand on their own merits. Taken Amis and Larkin’s letters to commemorate their dual
purely at random, there is a letter to Larkin on 8 July anniversaries was swiftly shot down on the grounds
1954, post Lucky Jim success, in which he recounts a that it would be considered “uncommercial” to pro-
dull meal with Edith Sitwell (“rather like lunching with mote the work of two such controversial writers.)
a kindly maiden aunt who wants to show you she’s in- But Kingsley Amis — the most clubbable of men in
terested in all that writing you’re doing”) and then of- his lifetime, as the Bertorelli’s lunches and his much-
fers this observation: used membership of the Garrick would attest — was
Must run and meet Hilly; she is on the jury at the As- not someone who would have wanted to be celebrated
sizes this week. Yesterday there was a wonderful in a po-faced or banal way.
chap who used his television set to attract all of the If there was to be some well-intentioned but worthy
small boys of the neighbourhood into his parlour, memorial planned, perhaps with speeches that tortu-
where he would assault them and induce them to as- ously tried to excuse or explain away Amis’s more con-
sault each other. 15 years he got. Still, it’ll be a holiday troversial aspects, he would undoubtedly have been
for him in a way, I suppose. deeply bored by such an occasion. And then, with a cry
The dark wit of the observation, tossed away in a of “please communicate with my secretary should you
concluding paragraph, is entirely of a piece with any- wish to take part in the bum”, he would have insisted
thing within Amis’s fiction or criticism. But the impres- that proceedings adjourn to a more salubrious loca-
sion that one often has when reading his writing is of a tion, where jazz could be listened to, Herculean quan-
$OH[DQGHU
man who literally ran over with jokes and ideas and tities of alcohol drunk, and the whole world, in all its
CHRISTIES; ABEBOOKS

/DUPDQLVDQ
DXWKRUDQG fun: the famous faces that he made to amuse his giddy, silly absurdity, could be ridiculed and celebrat-
MRXUQDOLVW friends (not least the “sex life in Ancient Rome” expres- ed with equal flair.
+LVODWHVW sion, which gets an outing in Lucky Jim) seem less the That, rather than any number of Booker Prizes, is
ERRNLVByron’s attention-seeking antics of a born extrovert and more Kingsley Amis’s lasting legacy. Let us hope that he is
Women the outpouring of a desire to entertain those around still remembered in the same vein in another century,
+HDGRI=HXV him at all costs. too. c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 61 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 Basically, Stanley prefers songs to shows, singles to
A square prehistory albums, orchestration to guitar solos, entertainment to
ideas, and anything that exists to get your toes tapping.
of popular music Such music he dates only as far back as Ragtime. Victo-
rian parlour songs, Sousa marches, music hall sing-
alongs, even Viennese waltzes — none of these, he ar-
Christopher Bray
gues, “immediately made you want to dance”.
Right enough, though what Stanley’s otherwise om-

M
idway through Ian McE- niscient gaze misses is how dance has changed over
wan’s novel On Chesil Beach the course of the past century or so. Whether or not a
/HWōV'R,WWKH there is a scene in which the Strauss number had you on your feet immediately,
%LUWKRI3RS central couple argue about mu- when it did get you to the dance floor it would be either
%RE6WDQOH\ sic. Florence, the violinist in a on someone’s arm or with someone on yours. Dance,
)DEHUe string quartet, can’t stand the that is, was a social experience. You didn’t do it alone.
racket made by Edward’s rock group. It’s the drum- Rock music, on the other hand, is all about soli-
ming that really gets her: “the tunes were so elementa- tude. At one point in the book, Stanley quotes a rev-
ry, mostly in simple four-four time, [so] why this relent- erie from Steven Berkoff about dancing to Roy Elling-
less thumping and crashing and clattering to keep ton’s band at the Tottenham Royal: “you became more
time?”. At which point he kisses her and tells her she’s and more desperate to find someone you could crush
“the squarest person in all of Western civilisation”. for half an hour of fierce kissing and squeezing and
Not while Bob Stanley’s alive she ain’t. Though he is creating sparks as your gaberdine rubbed against her
himself a member of a beat combo (St Etienne), and taffeta”. Nobody remembers “A Whiter Shade of Pale”
though he has already written a history of modern pop like that.
that covers everything from Bill Haley to Blur (Yeah Yeah
Yeah), Stanley’s tastes are as square as an army drill. Rock’s individuation of experience moved
In his new book, Let’s Do It, a kind of prehistory of in tandem with developments in technology. Ian Ker-

FA B E R ; B E T T M A N N A R C H I V E / G E T T Y I M A G E S
pop that covers everything from Scott Joplin to Scott shaw has elsewhere pointed out how the invention of
Walker by way of Ronnie Scott’s, the transistor changed the radio from something the
Stanley (left) quotes Harold Ar- family gathered around to something individuals lis-
len’s dismissal of rock and roll tened to alone. Stanley explains how new technologies
as “horrible … Percussive in- enabled singers both to enhance and embody this
struments have taken the place sense of isolation.
The Critic Books

of the melodic line”, before ad- In the early days of recording, trained opera singers
mitting to his own regrets about (sopranos especially) often broke the tubes of radio
how by the mid-’50s “rhythm transmitters. Among the early adopters of the latest kit
and raw noise had become was Bing Crosby, who, as well as working out that the
more desirable to many than tape-recorder would let him put out ‘live’ radio shows
whistleability”. while he was on the golf course, also realised that not
Stanley wasn’t yet three during the Summer of Love,
but there can be little doubt that had he been a few
years older he’d have been one of those people whose
purchase of Englelbert Humperdinck’s “Release Me”
kept the Beatles’ “Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields For-
ever” off the top of the charts.

What Stanley loves isn’t so much light music as

music with a light touch. Just as he prefers the froth of
pop to the pomp of rock (in Yeah Yeah Yeah he prized
Sweet over Led Zeppelin), so here he favours the “urban
smarts” of Richard Rodgers’ first lyricist, Lorenz Hart,
over the “socially conscious” homespun philosophising
of Hart’s successor, Oscar Hammerstein.
And while he acknowledges that Rodgers and Ham-
merstein’s unified field theory of the musical “took an-
other step forward with Stephen Sondheim”, he rightly
dismisses much of the latter’s oeuvre as “precious” next
to, say, that of Cole Porter or Irving Berlin.

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 62 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 This book could cost you a lot. Few pages go by without your consulting eBay on
say, the price of Dick Haymes’s greatest hits or Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall

$ERYHFRQWDFW having to belt out a tune to the back row Which is a way of saying that reading this
VKHHWRI)UDQN of the gods meant he could sing more book could cost you a lot of money. Few pag-
6LQDWUDLQWKH intimately. So influential was his one- es go by without your consulting eBay on,
UHFRUGLQJ to-one sound that a few years later Mer- say, the price of Dick Haymes’ greatest hits or
VWXGLRF cury’s Mitch Miller had Vic Damone Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall. Stanley
/HIW5LFKDUG singing in a lavatory cubicle, the better to make his out- makes you want to hear these and hundreds of other
5RGJHUV of-this-world baritone a bit more down-to-earth. records because he’s so good at evoking what he’s
SOD\LQJDQG But Vic and even Bing are also-rans, says Stanley, heard himself. Here is Shirley Bassey with her “flame-
/RUHQ]+DUW
who rightly posits Frank Sinatra as “the fulcrum” on thrower voice”, here Barbra Streisand with her “rub-
which twentieth-century pop culture turns. So vital is bery Bronx honk”, here John Barry’s “still underrated”
Sinatra, he argues, that you can have “the bulk of this “James Bond Theme” — looking back to Stan Kenton
[600-page-plus] book inside three minutes [simply by and Sweet Charity, and forward to the Stranglers and
playing] “You Make Me Feel So Young””. Nice try, but the Pixies and Nirvana.
Sinatra is far too various an artist to be summed up in
one number. On which point, it wasn’t Michael Caine who told
That’s because he was more than just a crooner. He Barry that the opening phrase of “Goldfinger” sounded
was a storyteller, an actor, and the first singer to sing as like that of “Moon River” — it was the song’s lyricist,
if the songs mattered to him. Along the way, he invent- Anthony Newley. Shirley Bassey sang four Bond
ed what Colin MacInnes called “the most original thing themes, not three — as Stanley, who remembers Thun-
to come out in our lifetime” — the album. As Stanley derball’s unused “Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” but has for-
H U LTO N A R C H I V E / G E T T Y I M A G E S

says, next to one of Sinatra’s emotionally chaotic, aes- gotten “Moonraker”, claims. While Crosby and Arm-
thetically coherent records, the sainted Ella Fitzger- strong both recorded “April in Portugal”, Sinatra never
ald’s contemporaneous Songbooks are way too short did — though he did, of course, cover “April in Paris”.
&KULVWRSKHU of “emotional punch”. I don’t like it that Burl Ives named names any more
%UD\LVWKH Stanley is fond of going out on such limbs. Easy than Stanley does, but our knowledge of that fact does
DXWKRURI enough to big up Peggy Lee and Nat King Cole. Far nothing to “taint his music”. Stanley’s inexplicable deci-
1965: The Year more daring to suggest that the work of Lionel Bart and sion to not mark the line-breaks of quotations from lyr-
Modern Britain Matt Monro and, sotto voce it, even Barry Manilow, ics with an oblique, on the other hand, does taint this
was Born might merit another listen. otherwise magnificently square (and true) book. c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 63 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 Rich history of the
revolutionary poor
D.H. Robinson

‘‘W
hy did Brunt die
crying ‘long live liber-
&RQVSLUDF\RQ ty’?” asked the wife of
&DWR6WUHHW$ the Russian ambassa-
7DOHRI/LEHUW\
dor to London on May
DQG5HYROXWLRQ
Day 1820.
LQ5HJHQF\
Dorothea Lieven had just seen five British trades-
/RQGRQ
9LF*DWUHOO men hanged outside Newgate Prison. After the twitch-
&DPEULGJH ing stopped, their bodies hung in the air for half an
8QLYHUVLW\ hour. What kept the crowd from drifting off to the may-
3UHVVe poles? The prisoners had been given oranges to suck in
their last moments. Was tea served?
The hangman cut down one corpse, dragged it
through a heap of sawdust, and propped its shoulders
on a block. Then another man with handkerchiefs And he shows how former militiamen like Thistlewood
around his face decapitated it with a carving knife. mixed anti-militarism with extreme violence, thus en-
“This is the head of Arthur Thistlewood — traitor,” the abling government agents to encourage their plot to
hangman told the groaning crowd. Four more followed. kill the British Cabinet — and kill the plotters first.
Dorothea Lieven was no doe-eyed ingénue from a
Jane Austen adaptation. Cabinet ministers trailed after This is micro-history at its richest and its
her in London; later in life, she was the epicentre of lib- most penetrating. More than giving us a social history
eral Parisian society. “It is better to die free than to live in a few lives, Gatrell has told us a human story with the
as slaves,” prisoner John Thomas Brunt said to his depth of a novel. This is no mean feat: few people of the
co-conspiritor Arthur Thistlewood just before the drop. time left much trace of their existence. Even here, the
The Critic Books

Could she really not fathom why? only man who gets a full life story is Thistlewood; born
on the fringes of the gentry and the nephew of some-
Vic Gatrell tells us how the ordinary men at one with a claim to the strongly-contested title of worst
the heart of the Cato Street conspiracy met their man in eighteenth-century Jamaica.
fate. Through half-grasped aphorisms from The tradesmen appear only in flashes;
the “High” Enlightenment and the discourse Gilchrist, Adams, Monument would have re-
of shoemakers, he takes us into the radical mained names but for the words captured in
politics of their streets, their conflicted feel- spy reports (dubiously) and in court pro-
ings about royalty, republic, nation and em- ceedings. The voices of their wives are fainter
pire that bled out of the Napoleonic Wars still. Yet these glimpses are remarkable, and
and the French Revolution — and the British moving. For Gatrell has not only listened to the
government’s terror at the homegrown mob, which fa- voices of the silent. He has heard the human predica-
mously reached its apogee with the killing of 15 free- ment through those voices.
born Englishmen at St Peter’s Field in Manchester. We can feel the heaviness of Richard Tidd’s aged
He guides us along the knife-edge of life in Regency hand in a last submission to history which must have
London, through the tragic existence of luckless butch- felt as hopeless as the others: “Sir I Ham a very Bad
D E LU A N / A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO

er James Ings, who begged the king “to save my life, for Hand at Righting”. We feel butcher James Ings’s indig-
sake of family”, to the racism meted out to William nation in the courtroom because we have tasted the air
“Black” Davidson, who sang Robert Burns as he wres- in the rooms where he made his oaths, watched the
tled with the Bow Street Runners and whom Mr Justice volatility of his friendships, seen his betrayal. “I am
Garrow told was “entitled to British justice as much as sold like a bullock driven to Smithfield,” he cried.
the fairest British subject” — before having him public- Later in the century, Thackeray wrote of “the hidden
ly butchered. lust after blood which influences our race”. Britain’s
He traces rejections of Christianity that cracked in government, the target of the Cato Street conspiracy, is
cells and others that held firm to the edge of the drop. not Gatrell’s target. But when its members do appear, it

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 64 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
7KH%RZ is to the great strength of his book that they share the
6WUHHW5XQQHUV
EXUVWLQRQ
frailties of their would-be assassins.
This makes a parable about fearful and desperate
Love letter to the
WKH&DWR6WUHHW
FRQVSLUDWRUV
men brutalised by war, reared in the shadow of the guil-
lotine. Musket balls jangle in Lord Castlereagh’s pock-
printed word
,QWKHHQVXLQJ ets as well as Thistlewood’s. Dining with the Lievens the
VWUXJJOH$UWKXU Lucasta Miller
day he learned what he must have sensed every waking
7KLVWOHZRRG
moment — that men just down the street were plan-
NLOOHG%RZ

A
6WUHHW5XQQHU
ning to behead him — Dorothea said the foreign secre- s a Shakespeare scholar, Emma
5LFKDUG
tary looked “like a man who had just been hung”. She Smith is known for her work on the
6PLWKHUV fainted when he showed her the pistols. Castlereagh First Folio, a newly-discovered copy
ZLWKDVZRUG carried them for two years before he cut his own throat. of which she authenticated in 2016.
But it was with This is Shakespeare
Like revolutionary radicalism itself, the (2019) that she reached a wider read-
Cato Street conspiracy was a dead end — as was the ership, delighting non-specialists with her subtle yet
authoritarianism of Lord Liverpool’s neo-Tory govern- no-nonsense insights into the plays. That book was
ment. Make no mistake, the Thistlewood type is still based on a series of podcast lectures, its oral origins
with us, and ideations of beheading have not vanished traceable in the lively accessibility of its literary voice.
entirely from the political landscape. And recent histo- Her talent for communicating
ry has proved that some are still incapable of seeing the complex material in conversa-
politics of the people as anything more than a symp- tional, occasionally irreverent,
tom of madness, malice, or economic relations. They prose, is apparent in Portable
are still crying for the re-moralisation of the masses. Magic, which transforms the
The difference was that some of Liverpool’s minis- dusty scholarly discipline of bibli-
ters had the wit to see that British politics was dead- ography into a world of wonders.
locked. Perhaps some believed the same myths that Despite the subtitle, this is not
moved Londoners to speak of “an un-English complex- a conventional history in the
ion to the night” when the conspiracy was broken. Af- sense of a chronological narrative.
ter he became home secretary in 1822, Robert Peel re- Instead, it is a series of freewheel-
formed some of the worse abuses of the criminal justice 3RUWDEOH0DJLF ing essays, based on case studies,
system. The Duke of Wellington — one of the Cato $+LVWRU\RI in which Smith explores what she
%RRNVDQGWKHLU
Street men had an especially large grenade for him — calls “bookhood”: a concept that
5HDGHUV
led the move towards Catholic emancipation later in focuses on the material culture of
(PPD6PLWK
the decade. the book, while revealing how in-
$OOHQ/DQHe
Gatrell affords the aristocratic Whigs who began to exorably it is tangled up with hu-
deliver parliamentary reform in the 1830s only a walk- man desire, aspiration and power.
on part. But they did manage, as George Tierney vowed
in 1819, to make the House of Commons “gradually The range of reference is vast. One moment
and practically a truer representation of the people”. we are in Korea, where printed books with movable
Ings told the court that he hoped his children would metal type long predated the Gutenberg Bible. The next
live to be free men. Some of the conspirators’ sons did we are in Islington public library, where volumes de-
live long enough to vote. faced with sub-Surrealistic add-ons by 1960s play-
Cato Street is on the sidelines of that story. We need wright Joe Orton and his lover Kenneth Halliwell are
histories of modern Britain that are honest without now proudly displayed as art treasures — at the time,
confusing the country for Tsarist Russia — as Dorothea they were jailed for their efforts.
Lieven surely realised when the traps dropped. Com- The magistrate in the Orton case pronounced the
placency is the worst vice of British Whig history. Brit- defendants’ ludic interventions — which included col-
ain avoided a revolution after 1789, and in 1820. But as laging an image of a monkey onto a rose in a gardening
Gatrell’s works have shown with a starkness few can manual — to be “disastrous”. Such a belief in the invio-
emulate, reform was not easy and freedoms were hard- lability of the book gives credence to the views of an
won and harder still to preserve. But the moderation unnamed African that books are a “white man’s fetish”.
that so spectacularly eluded Arthur Thistlewood and You cannot underestimate the power of the book in
'+5RELQVRQ his associates in the spring of 1820 was one of the keys Western culture. Cemented with the rise of Christiani-
LVD)HOORZ to progress. The radicals decided to seize the British ty, it took on equally life or death meaning in the battle
RI0DJGDOHQ state instead of overthrowing it. By the end of the cen- between liberalism and totalitarianism in the twenti-
&ROOHJH tury, democracy itself was fast becoming a conserva- eth century. Yet the Latin liber (book) and liber (free)
2[IRUG tive value. c are, sadly, false friends, at least etymologically.

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 65 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
5LJKWWKH/DWLQ by this — the original owner of the Wheatley volumes is
*RVSHOIURP6W recorded as an enthusiastic white collector of African
&XWKEHUWōV American literature — is obscure. But racism, especial-
FRIƓQ%HORZ ly when unconscious, plunges irrational depths and
DVLJQHGƓUVW takes many forms. We may like to think of book culture
HGLWLRQRIMein as morally and rationally superior but at every level its
Kampf,
roots are complicated.
%ORRPVEXU\
One of Smith’s best chapters explores the publishing
$XFWLRQ+RXVH
history of Mein Kampf. The first edition, published in
/RQGRQ
-XQH
two volumes in 1925-6, had slow sales and, despite the
swastika on the spine, was modestly presented, with
conventional (for the time) art deco titling. By the time
the Nazis were in power, a mass market, yet grander,
version had appeared, quarter bound in leather with
gold Gothic lettering on
“Books are not absolutely dead things but do con- the front, given as a
tain a potency of life in them,” wrote Milton in Areop- freebie marriage gift
agitica (1644). For Smith, that life is “located in their under the Third Reich.
physical form as much as in their metaphysical con- With a blank space for
tent”. She reminds us that reading a book is an intimate adding the names of
sensory experience, not just the abstract transfer of in- the happy couple, it
formation into our minds. We hold the book, we touch even had a slipcase, like
/XFDVWD0LOOHU it, sometimes we even smell it (librarians have devised a prayer book.
LVWKHDXWKRURI an odour chart to catalogue the olfactory qualities of Then in 1941, the
Keats: A Brief ancient tomes). Books and bodies go together. Nazis suddenly decid-
Life in Nine The anthropomorphic “spines” of books make them ed that the Gothic
Poems and seem our twins, yet their physical longevity can under- script, with which they
One Epitaph line — and undermine — our mortality. In the eighth had been previously
century, a book was placed in the coffin of St Cuthbert identified, was in fact a
on Lindisfarne: a sublimely beautiful Latin Gospel, Jewish invention, so they switched typeface. In our own
handwritten by a scribe, with tooled red goatskin bind- era, Mein Kampf was recently republished in an aca-
ing, now in the British Library. A Mr John Underwood demic edition surrounded by explanatory footnotes
The Critic Books

provides a bathetic contrast: he was interred along with and commentary. Did such contextualisation, intend-
several books in 1733, including “Bentley’s Horace un- ed to neuter it, unwittingly lend it specious authority?
der his Arse’”.
Smith is clearly a zesty bibliophile for whom
More worrying is Smith’s chapter on anthropo- books mean more than their contents, but Portable
dermic book bindings — made from human skin — Magic is far from being an unsentimental love letter
which were once assumed to be fakes, appealing to to the book. Her scholarly knowledge gives her an
Gothic fantasies. Modern DNA analysis has proved that awareness that the book can be as dangerous as it can
several known examples are all too real, including a be benign. In This is Shakespeare she emphasised the

B R I T I S H L I B R A R Y; C A R L D E S O U Z A / A F P V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S
19th-century American gynaecological textbook bound Bard’s uncanny capacity for what she called “gappi-
in the thigh skin of Mary Lynch, a pauper Irish immi- ness”, and what Keats called “negative capability” — the
grant who died aged 29 of consumption. When Smith ability to live with doubts and ambiguities and to feel
begins to explore the question of race, the morally re- how crucial that is to understanding the reality of our
barbative nuances are placed further under the human condition.
microscope. Smith’s genius as a self-confessed book lover is to
As recently as 1932, a copy of Dale Carnegie’s biog- question as well as to value and register every contra-
raphy of Abraham Lincoln proclaimed itself as adorned diction — and to make you, the reader, think without
on the spine with a patch of “skin taken from the shin of even suspecting that you are. My only cavil is that her
a Negro at Baltimore Hospital and tanned by the Jewell infectious enthusiasm at times makes her argument —
Belting Company”. It’s hard to see how you could make which works by the association of ideas — seem a little
the idea more repulsive, except by that addition of breathless due to overlong paragraphs.
brand-name advertising. I’ll leave you with the thought of 2.5 million unsold
Two volumes by the 18th-century African American Mills and Boons being pulped and then recycled to cre-
poet Phillis Wheatley, currently in Cincinnati libraries, ate a noise-reducing layer under the surface of the M6
are bound in human skin. Exactly what was intended in the Midlands. c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 66 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 standing around with their guns, and if you want to vis-
New stories from it Al-Aqsa you’re questioned by them at the door, treat-
ed as if you’re a criminal.” A human rights lawyer
a very old city speaks even more plainly: “The 1967 war transformed
Jerusalem from a vessel of humanity’s most noble aspi-
rations of sanctity into a playground for pyromaniacs.”
Tom Chesshyre
Teller, who has a sprightly writing style, was brought
up Jewish in suburban Surrey. His great-grandparents

C
lose to the second station of had migrated to Britain between 1887 and 1913 from
the Cross, a juice-seller’s business is Poland and what is now Lithuania, Belarus and
1LQH4XDUWHUV booming from passing tourists. The Ukraine. His fascination with Jerusalem dates from a
RI-HUXVDOHP owner is 41 and had escaped Jerusalem childhood visit in 1980, followed by further family hol-
$1HZ to go travelling for many years after the idays. He had a bar mitzvah at the Western Wall aged
%LRJUDSK\RI intifada rebellions of his childhood. As 13, although he is now, he says, an “unbeliever”. Later,
WKH2OG&LW\ middle age approached, however, he was drawn back. he lived in the Old City for five months in his twenties
0DWWKHZ7HOOHU Why? “I love it, man. I love my home,” he says simply. while working at a Palestinian-run backpacker hostel.
3URƓOH%RRNV Trade is brisk, too, for the couple who run a hummus The population of the Old City is estimated to be
£16.99) shop near the fifth station. It’s the same for the maker 35,000, with more than 90 per cent being Palestinian
of halawa (a sweet sesame confectionery) by the sev- and around two thirds under the age of 30. It is ex-
enth station and the bookseller by station eight. tremely crowded, some neighbourhoods more densely
Life goes on without complication along Jesus’s packed than in Karachi or Hong Kong. This has
route to crucifixion. Or so it might seem. Be- dreadful knock-on effects. “Israel’s occupa-
neath the surface of everyday life, and of- tion exacerbates poverty, poor mental
ten out in the open, tensions swirl, as health, alcohol and drug abuse and oth-
Matthew Teller, author of Nine Quar- er social ills,” says Teller.
ters of Jerusalem, a journalistic urban The constant supervision by
biography, captures by way of a series drones and CCTV cameras (the po-
of interviews with those living within lice control more than 400), use of
its Old City walls. satellites to follow smartphones and
This is a “city of icebergs”, with face-recognition technology to track
much more going on underneath than individuals, though police deny this,
visitors clutching cameras might appreci- has insidious consequences. Big Brother
ate. Teller, a veteran journalist and travel writer is always watching, even in the quietest alleys.
in the region, has set himself the task of digging about
asking questions of those who really understand Jeru- Woven between the many tales told from
salem — those who live in it. within the walls, which were constructed in the 16th
Just about everyone gets a look-in. Jewellery sellers, century, is ancient and modern history. References
bakers, art gallery owners, musicians, hoteliers, local from biblical times are made. The Crusades are cov-
journalists, community volunteers, street hawkers, ered. So is British involvement in the 19th century, the
imams, religious teachers and, on one colourful occa- impact of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the forma-
sion, the fast-talking “matriarch of a grand family” sur- tion of the state of Israel in 1948, and the Six-Day War of
rounded by cats in a huge house tucked away by Al-Aq- 1967, when Israel defeated Jordan, becoming the “mil-
sa, the main mosque and third holiest site in Islam. itary occupier of Jerusalem’s east”. America’s recent
Afterwards, when transcribing, Teller needs to controversial recognition of the city as Israel’s capital
A R T U R W I DA K / N U R P H OTO V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S

check his recorder is not playing back the interview at gets a mention.
double-speed, such is her motor-mouth quality. He It was during the 19th century that mapmakers first
must have recorded hours of such encounters, which drew Jerusalem’s Old City in four quarters: Christian,
are often spur of the moment: a “very Jerusalem”, Armenian, Jewish and Muslim. This remains the basis of
serendipitous arrangement. most maps today. Teller, however, finds the word “quar-
ter” problematic as it suggests a place for outsiders,
Not everyone is cheerfully milking the tour- while not taking account of others living in the Old City
ists visiting the holy sites. The stories collected reflect such as Afro-Palestinian and Dom communities. Hence
the often disturbing reality of Jerusalem, with its divi- the book’s title referring to wider segments of society.
7RP&KHVVK\UH sions between Israeli, Palestinian, Armenian and This is a curious, offbeat biography of an important
LVDXWKRURI many other communities. “There is a weird energy in city that comes alive through the many gathered voic-
A Tourist in the the Old City,” says Bashar Murad, a musician. “It’s a es. It is as labyrinthine as the city it describes — and
Arab Spring beautiful place, but you see Israeli soldiers everywhere, perhaps it was meant to be. c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 67 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 was about 90 per cent. “The voyage Magellan cap-
Going to the ends tained failed in every declared objective.” Yet not only
did this driven, ruthless visionary hazard everything,
of the earth he persuaded Carlos I of Spain (better known to us as
the Emperor Charles V) to risk his prestige, merchants
to risk their money, and his fellow adventurers to risk
Daniel Johnson
their lives on a mission to the ends of the earth.
Only a man with the most extraordinary courage of

F
elipe Fernández-Armesto is that his convictions could have overcome so many obsta-
6WUDLWV%H\RQG
rare phenomenon: a genuine polymath cles, crossed two oceans and captured the imagination
WKH0\WKRI who never comes across as a know-all. of the world. And only an historian with extraordinary
0DJHOODQ Readers of The Critic will know him as gifts of erudition, navigation and narration could have
)HOLSH the magazine’s food columnist, in which done justice to Magellan.
)HUQ£QGH] capacity he attains the heights of culi- He was born not at Sabrosa in 1480, as tradition
$UPHVWR nary connoisseurship. Indeed, he has written a history claims, but in Oporto at an unknown date several years
%ORRPVEXU\ of food, among many other subjects. He can be unnec- later. An orphan, his decade or so as a page at the court
£25) essarily hard on vegans. But he also tells us how to make of Manuel I equipped him with the daredevil ethos of
Napoleon’s Corsican comfort food — potatoes and oceangoing chivalry that animated explorers and
onions fried in olive oil — more palatable. The conquistadors alike. “To set sail,” wrote the
dish is, of course, vegan. poet Luís de Camões, “is essential. To sur-
Felipe’s literary style is similar: he vive? That’s supererogatory.”
segues from baroque ornamentation to Magellan’s first voyage to the spice
sublime simplicity in a single para- islands on the eastern shores of the In-
graph. He embraces the minutiae of dian Ocean gave him ample opportu-
cartography or seamanship with as nity to demonstrate his mettle as a war-
much enthusiasm and as light a touch rior, but also left him with debts,
as the vasty deeps of Braudel’s longue detractors and a determination to dis-
durée or Ranke’s Weltgeschichte. cover his own route to fame and fortune.
Like me, Felipe was an undergraduate at He saw further service and at some point was
Magdalen College and learned much from the medie- wounded and acquired a limp. Accused of peculation
valists who then still held their own at Oxford. Notable and belittled by Manuel when he asked for a rise, in
among them was our tutor, the inimitable but high dudgeon the peppery supplicant tore up his com-
The Critic Books

much-imitated Karl Leyser. As I read an essay of mine mission and offered his services to the Spanish.
about Pope Alexander III, solemnly remarking on the This left Magellan without a patron and open to the
elusiveness of the papal personality, Karl interjected: charge of treachery. The Portuguese envoy in Seville
“He didn’t have a personality. He was a lawyer.” tried to tempt him back but to no avail. This diminutive
À propos Magellan’s first patron, King Manuel the Don Quixote avant la lettre had supreme confidence
Fortunate of Portugal, who called himself “Lord of in his abilities and his geographical intuition.
Commerce”, Felipe cites a delightful anecdote of Rich- As Fernández-Armesto explains, Magellan’s practi-

S C I E N C E S O U R C E / P H OTO R E S E A R C H E R S H I S TO R Y / G E T T Y I M A G E S
ard Southern, whose schoolboy essay claimed that cal experience and study of the available maps had
Henry VII was “the first businessman to rule England”. persuaded him that a western passage to the East In-
“Of course, I was wrong,” he added, “but at that mo- dies was possible, though no such route had yet been
ment I became an historian.” found through the uncharted landmass that would lat-
er become known as America. As to what lay beyond
To reconstruct the personality of Ferdinand the New World, nobody knew. But Magellan had heard
Magellan requires a plenitude of skills and talents, yet tell of the Philippines and seems to have set his heart
Fernández-Armesto has them in abundance. Sources on converting and colonising the archipelago.
for the explorer’s biography are few, obliging the au-
thor to offer “the closest reading ever of the texts that At the courts of Castile in Seville and Vallado-
are available”. He seasons what might have been a lid, he set about organising, equipping and manning
spartan repast with rich background detail, evocative his crazily ambitious expedition. Finance came from
characterisation and incisive detective work. the merchants of Burgos (one of whose daughters he
Like Leyser and Southern, Fernández-Armesto has married) and from its influential bishop, Juan de Fon-
the coup d’oeil that distinguishes the true historian seca — “an arachnid bureaucrat”. He also found a part-
from the mere academic careerist. He notices, for ex- ner, Rui Faleiro, a Portuguese navigator reputed to have
ample, that on Magellan’s voyage of discovery to the mastered the all-important art of calculating longitude
straits that would be named after him, the death rate at sea, but so mentally unstable as to be a liability.

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 68 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 instead returned to Spain — its officers
seeking to cover their tracks, claim credit
for the discovery and discredit Magellan.
The other ships struggled on through the
stormy strait for weeks until they
emerged into the calm waters beyond.
Magellan called it “the Peaceful Sea”; the
name “Pacific” has endured.

Thereafter the little ships

were swept by powerful winds across the
unimaginably vast ocean towards an un-
known fate. It was, as the author says, the
longest voyage on record and it was
physically and spiritually “transmuta-
tive”. At Easter 1521 they made landfall at
the Philippines. Initially welcomed by
the Filipino chief, Magellan miraculous-
ly cured his grandson of a two-year
fever, causing the entire tribe to receive
baptism in gratitude.
One of the explorer’s legacies is the
fact that the Philippines became the only
Catholic nation in Asia, until recently
joined by East Timor. Fernández-Armes-
)HUGLQDQGHV The laborious preparations took five years, be- to accepts the veracity of the healing story because its
0DJDOODQHV queathing a wealth of documents to scholars, but Ma- source was hostile to Magellan.
/XVLWDQXV gellan’s ultimate purpose remains mysterious. Circum- Yet the revelation of his own thaumaturgical powers
(Americae navigation of the world would have infringed the legal seems to have induced such a state of exaltation in the
RetectioE\ rights of the Portuguese, laid down by the papacy. King captain-general that he overplayed his hand. He sprin-
-DQYDQGHU Carlos saw his destination as the lucrative spice islands kled the Filipino notables and their wives with holy wa-
6WUDHW
of the Moluccas, to which he laid claim, but then “it may ter, preached sermons and acted as if evangelisation
3ULYDWH
be possible to seek whatever else may be suitable in con- had become his main goal. However that religious aim
FROOHFWLRQ
formity with the orders you carry” — orders now lost. was combined with a political one: to unify the islands
By now a father, Magellan made his will before em- under one ruler, who in turn would pay homage to the
barking with a fleet of five ships in 1519. For what tran- King of Spain.
spired over the next two years, we rely mainly on Anto- Events reached a climax when Magellan demanded
nio Pigafetta, one of Magellan’s lieutenants, whose that the people of Mactan submit to his friend, the king
account is partial to the captain-general but is full of of Cebu. When their ruler refused, he attacked a large
vivid detail and mostly accurate. army with a handful of men and refused help from his
native allies. The captain-general died a tragic, heroic
The Atlantic voyage was gruelling. There
F I N E A R T I M A G E S / H E R I TA G E I M A G E S V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S

and unnecessary death.

were quarrels with his Spanish co-commander, Juan de Untangling precisely what happened is hard, for the
Cartagena, ostensibly over Magellan’s secretiveness received story reads like a knightly romance, indeed it
about the eccentric course he insisted on steering. is “a tissue of literary topoi”, but Fernández-Armesto is
Cartagena and his fellow officers objected to Magel- in no doubt that the man responsible for the fatal deba-
lan’s disobedience, as they saw it, to royal orders. They cle was Magellan himself.
were loyal to their patrons, King Carlos and Bishop In a sense, he also fashioned his own enduring leg-
Fonseca, while the ordinary seamen sided with Magel- end and apotheosis. Having failed to achieve the rapa-
lan. The disputes culminated in Cartagena’s arrest, cious goals of his mission and died in the attempt, Ma-
which was followed by mutiny. It was crushed and two gellan’s memory has never suffered from the taint of
ringleaders were hanged or beheaded, then drawn and colonialism, as have Columbus, say, or Cortés. Fernán-
quartered; Cartagena was marooned at St Julian. dez-Armesto evokes a man who still seems to tran-
'DQLHO-RKQVRQ Yet discontent bubbled on, erupting again as the scend his squalid contemporaries: “Magellan’s mo-
LVIRXQGLQJ battered, starving crews tried to navigate what we now tives were better than that.” So, too, are those of his
HGLWRURI know as the Strait of Magellan. One ship, the San Anto- chronicler. This is a remarkable, I dare say a great one,
TheArticle nio, was dispatched on a reconnaissance mission, but worthy of an indubitably great man. c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 69 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 about the raid. The result was an “affectionate and en-
Heroism and thralling” piece of television which brought the exploits
of the Charioteers — as the men who took part in the
high strategy raid have always been known — to a wider audience.
Although the ostensible object of the raid was to dis-
courage the Germans from risking the Tirpitz in the
Richard Hopton
Atlantic, it is now known that, by the spring of 1942, the
German high command had already decided to keep

O
peration Chariot, the Raid on St the battleship moored safely in a distant Norwegian
Nazaire, has long been known as “The fjord. Accordingly, destroying the dry dock at St Naz-
7KH*UHDWHVW
Greatest Raid of All”. The audacity of aire was, strategically, a futile gesture.
5DLG6W
the plan, the lethal danger of the oper- The real point of the raid was to demonstrate that
1D]DLUH
ation, the inadequacy of the equip- the British were still up for a fight. The early months of
7KH+HURLF
6WRU\RI
ment provided, the astonishing cour- 1942 represented the low point of British fortunes in
2SHUDWLRQ age of the participants and the spectacular success of the war. In February, Singapore fell to the Japanese, a
&KDULRW its primary object have ensured its place in the annals military calamity as well as a huge blow to Britain’s
*LOHV:KLWWHOO of British martial heroism. prestige and her standing as an imperial power.
9LNLQJe In the early hours of 28 March 1942, a force of 623 Three days earlier, the flight of the German battle-
commandos and naval personnel stole up the Loire es- ships Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and the cruiser Prinz
tuary to attack the port of St Nazaire. Leading the force Eugen up the Channel from the French port of Brest in
was HMS Campbeltown, a superannuated destroyer broad daylight was a humiliation for both the RAF and
acquired from the Americans, which had been con- the Royal Navy. Some demonstration to her US and So-
verted into a floating bomb by the addition of four tons viet allies that Britain still had the fighting spirit re-
of high explosive secreted in her bows. quired to win the war was urgently needed. Operation
The plan was that she would ram the steel gate of the Chariot provided that evidence.
port’s immense dry dock where the charge would ex- Dorrian acknowledged this and Lyman hammered
plode, demolishing the dock gate. The commandos the point home: “the Charioteers succeeded spectacu-
would then swarm ashore to attack the dockyard in- larly simply by virtue of raiding … voicing through de-
cisive action Britain’s collective determination to con-
tinue fighting”. Whittell agrees, stating that “it was the
fact of the operation that mattered most”. He goes much
further, however, in emphasising the broad strategic
The Critic Books

significance of the raid on St Nazaire by including in his

book a coda describing Winston Churchill’s circuitous
journey to meet Stalin in Moscow in August 1942.
He flew from England to Moscow in an immense
loop via Gibraltar, Cairo, and Tehran in an American
B-24 Liberator piloted by William Vanderkloot. Once
he’d arrived in the Soviet capital, Churchill was able to
stallations, particularly the pumps and winding mech- use St Nazaire to convince Stalin that the British were in
anisms which operated the dry dock. With the dock out earnest about taking the fight to the Germans in their
of action, Hitler would not risk his battleship Tirpitz in continental stronghold. This was what the prime min-
the Atlantic where she could wreak havoc among the ister meant when he described Operation Chariot as “a

J O H N F R O S T N E W S PA P E R S / A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO
convoys supporting the war effort in Britain. This was deed of glory intimately connected with high strategy”.
the immediate, supposed object of the raid.
Whittell’s book offers a good account of the
Giles Whittell’s new book is not the first full- essential elements of the raid and, although it is lighter
length history of the event. C.E. Lucas-Phillips’s ac- in its description of some of the operational detail than
count, The Greatest Raid of All, was published in 1958 its three predecessors, it loses nothing in conveying the
followed 40 years later by James Dorrian’s Storming St courage of the British commandos and seamen in the
Nazaire, which remains the most detailed, authorita- face of suicidal danger.
tive account of the operation. In 2013 Robert Lyman On the other hand, it incorporates some fresh back-
published Into The Jaws of Death which told the story ground material. We hear, for example, of the pre-war
of the raid anew, with a greater concentration on the life of Micky Burn, one of the commando officers, in
genesis and planning of the operation. which he had met Hitler and had an affair with Audrey
In 2007 Jeremy Clarkson took time away from mess- Hepburn’s mother. Whittell also includes a smattering
ing around with cars to make a documentary for the BBC of new material from the German archives, which

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 70 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 The real point of the raid was to demonstrate
that the British were still up for a fight
Unholy politics and
a Christian exodus
Gerard Russell

I
n Baghdad, shortly after the 2003 war,
I visited the place which the city’s Jews had
used as their community centre and school. All
was quiet in the street as we approached; only a
slight movement in a window opposite showed
that the neighbours were watching. Inside,
dust awaited us and the feel of a place hurriedly aban-
doned. From a great pile of books I tried to extract one.
The others slid and crashed into an antique typewriter.
The book, a schoolbook introduction to Hebrew for Ar-
abic speakers, had been printed
$SKRWRJUDSK throws more light on the raid as seen from the point of in the 1950s.
WDNHQE\WKH view of St Nazaire’s defenders. It was in 1941 that a pogrom
RFFXS\LQJ Nor does he avoid criticism of the way in which the in Baghdad sparked a first major
*HUPDQV raid was planned: it was, he writes, a “turkey shoot; a wave of Jewish emigration. In
RI+06 massacre, foreseeable and foreseen”. The whole opera- 1951 Israel airlifted thousands of
Campbeltown tion had about it “a distinct sense of amateurs giving it Jews in an operation named after
DWWKH6W a go”. The Fairmile motor launches in which many of Ezra and Nehemiah, who fa-
1D]DLUHGRFN
the commandos sailed were unprotected, inflammable mously returned to Jerusalem
EHIRUHLWV
deathtraps, wholly unsuited to the demands of the op- after the Babylonian exile. Those
H[SORVLRQ
eration. The entire force was short of ammunition, few who remained in Baghdad,
7KH9DQLVKLQJ
while the planned diversionary air raid was a fiasco and studied from that little
7KH7ZLOLJKWRI
which succeeded only in alerting St Nazaire’s defend- schoolbook, were probably pre-
&KULVWLDQLW\LQ
ers to the fact that something was afoot. paring to follow in subsequent
WKH0LGGOH(DVW
-DQLQHGL*LRYDQQL years. By 2003, only a few dozen
The book does contain one or two errors of %ORRPVEXU\e Jews remained.
fact. Whittell states that “Every naval officer except Ry- Their population was once in
der [the commander of the naval contingent] was a re- the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions — even,
servist.” This was not the case: Sam Beattie, the captain by one surprising estimate, the majority of the popula-
of the Campbeltown, Bill Green, the navigator, and Ni- tion — before the arrival of Christianity and Islam. They
gel Tibbits, the explosives expert, were all regular naval wrote the Babylonian Talmud; they converted a queen
officers. and her whole kingdom to their faith. Now they had
Likewise, his assertion that “no one who landed on one dusty house in a back street and were afraid even
French soil returned to England on the launches or de- to be seen there. That is what extinction looks like.
stroyers” does not hold water: Ryder and Signalman Despite all the headlines, that is not the situation of
Pike both went ashore at St Nazaire and returned to Christians in the Middle East — not yet, at least. But
England the following day. The diagram of the port in- some of its ancient communities are certainly much
stallations at St Nazaire confuses the pumping house reduced. In 1991 one in 20 Iraqis was Christian; now
and the southern winding house, both important tar- they are at most one in 80. Christians in pre-mandatory
gets for the commandos. Palestine were 10 per cent of its population; now they
These quibbles apart, The Greatest Raid is an excel- are around 2 per cent.
lent addition to the literature about the attack on St As Egyptian Christian (“Coptic”) churches prolifer-
5LFKDUG
Nazaire. The calm, steely courage and fighting spirit of ate around the world, their population at home must
+RSWRQōVQRYHO the Charioteers, which made the operation a success, be dwindling even if reliable figures are not available.
The Straits of suffuses Whittell’s book. As one of the surviving com- All this has been helped along by massacres, terrorism
WRECKSITE.EU

TreacheryLV mandos, Micky Burn, said half a century after the raid, and officially-sanctioned discrimination. It is an indict-
SXEOLVKHGE\ “What I think we all did … had a spiritual as well as ment on Arab societies and, in turn, it deprives those
$OOLVRQ  technical and tactical importance. What it comes to is societies of cultural diversity, global networks and a re-
%XVE\ that we did the impossible.” c minder of their own past.

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 71 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
*HUDUG5XVVHOO This book sheds some light on the causes of Christian mass emigration
LVWKHDXWKRU and gives context for the violence those communities suffer
RIHeirs to
Forgotten
Kingdoms: This book sheds some light on the causes of triguing communities of Christians in Algeria, Tunisia
Journeys into the that mass emigration and some context for the violence and Morocco, partly made up of converts from Islam.
Disappearing those communities suffer. It is a beautifully and clearly Over in Iran, there are both some convert communities
Religions of written book, which gives a very broad picture of Chris- and some Assyrian and Armenian Christians. In the
the Middle East tian communities in Iraq, Gaza, Syria and Egypt. Di Arab Gulf, there are new populations of migrant work-
6LPRQDQG Giovanni has a sure hand in illustrating personalities ers, most from outside the Arab world, but also a num-
6FKXVWHU and capturing mood, she knows the politics of the re- ber of Iraqi and Egyptian Christians.
gion well and she has talked to a lot of people. Having
written a book on a similar topic, and knowing the dif- Finally, the oddest omission from the book
-DQLQHGL in some ways, the Middle Eastern country with the
*LRYDQQL highest proportion of Christians: Lebanon. Di Giovan-
JLYLQJWKH ni’s choice, I think, is of those places where the Chris-
NH\QRWH tian communities have suffered recently from violence
VSHHFKDWD and war. That makes sense, but it makes the book
FRQIHUHQFHRQ somewhat apocalyptic.
FRQŴLFW Then, two related challenges: how to include your-
UHSRUWLQJDW self in the story, and give it any kind of narrative arc?
%LUNEHFN The material is gathered over many years; it necessarily
8QLYHUVLW\RI involves a great many different characters, none of
/RQGRQ whose stories we can really follow for long, since the
DORQJVLGH
book must move on to another topic and another
3URIHVVRU7LP
place. I wrestled for months with my own material.
0DUNKDP
I would guess, too, that Di Giovanni gathered some
of her material before she had the concept for this
book, and so she had an even harder task selecting
what story would best set the scene, and how to give a
broad and accurate portrayal of a community from a
few well-chosen interviews. She is an expert at it, and
The Critic Books

the narrative flows easily, but I suspect a lot of thought

ficulties it presented me, I read it with an eye for how and effort went into its construction. It gives us breadth,
she tackled those same dilemmas. but not depth. There is no single character that stands
The first: how and why to write about the Christians out, except Di Giovanni herself.
of a country, rather than that country as a whole?
Christians often suffer discrimination and bigotry be- Di Giovanni’s introduction is full of self-reve-
cause of their religion. Sometimes they face persecu- lation and introspection, about her own religious faith,
tion. But this itself is often a symptom of a wider ma- her childhood, her anxiety about Covid and other
laise. In Iraq, Muslims have been the main targets of things. But then in subsequent chapters she vanishes
religious violence — from other Muslims — with Chris- from the story, reappearing at the end. I missed her
tians usually somewhat less targeted, because they along the way. I felt enormous distaste at the idea of
have less access to political power. In Egypt, there is inserting myself into my own book, and yet, as a reader,
systematic discrimination but this affects not only I found myself wanting to know how these encounters C H A R L I E J E R C I L L A / A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO
Christians (admittedly, they are probably the most nu- with deeply religious people, from a distinctive but of-
merous victims) but also atheists and liberals. ten very conservative tradition, affected Di Giovanni.
For the most part, Christians want to emigrate to the Did she find herself embarrassed, as I was, to wit-
West because of the general miseries that also afflict ness the Copts’ devotion to prayer and old-style fasting
Muslims: unemployment, declining economies, poor (no meat or meat products in Lent, liturgies lasting the
governance. Di Giovanni is strong on this — this is a whole day long, prayer six times a day) and think what
book highly informed by political and social under- wimps we are in the West that we think it a sacrifice to
standing. In fact, it cannot stand alone as a guide to give up chocolates and go to Mass once a week? Did
these Christian communities precisely because it takes she wonder, as I did for a time, amid the unholy politics
such a wide lens, and has little time to look at the Chris- of the Holy Land, whether religion wasn’t just the worst
tian communities’ traditions, history or beliefs. thing in the world and the cause of most of its prob-
Then: which countries to include? There are tiny, in- lems? I would have liked to know. c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 72 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 The “before” is Mungo’s life, where the details (Lada
New entrants in the cars, John Major, phone sex lines) tie the scene to the
early 90s, while the activities surrounding him —
rediscovery business glue-sniffing, car-torching, wife-beating — are all too
timeless.
Mungo’s sister Jodie does her best to bring up the
John Self family in Mo-Maw’s absence, while brother Hamish is
the local “Proddie” gang leader, ever up for a scuffle with

L
ast month I wrote about the risk “the Fenians”. (An aside: this makes him Hamish Hamil-
to new writers of growing up in public. ton. Could this baddie-naming be a swipe at one of the
<RXQJ0XQJR Douglas Stuart, whose first novel Shug- many publishers who short-sightedly rejected Shuggie
'RXJODV6WXDUW
gie Bain won the Booker Prize in 2020, Bain? Perhaps not, as the book does not feature side-
3LFDGRU
has found a neat way of minimising this: kicks called Jonathan Cape or Harper Collins.) There is
£16.99)
by the time Shuggie won, he had already sweetness to come, as Mungo finds something like love,
written his second novel, and so the pressure of follow- but it will not be straightforward: the object of his affec-
ing a bestselling prize-winner — it sold half a million tion is not only a Catholic, but another boy, James.
copies in its first six months — is, if not eradicated, at
least kicked into the long grass. As if Mungo didn’t have enough stacked against
When I interviewed Stuart af- him, he also suffers from facial
ter his Booker win, his second tics, which is in line with Stuart’s
novel was to be called Loch Awe. taste for keeping things on the
Its retitling to Young Mungo may nose. (Shuggie Bain had a scene
be an attempt to make it chime where the hero sang Whitney
more familiarly for fans of Shug- Houston’s “The Greatest Love of
7KH&DQG\ gie Bain. And it’s true that there All” aloud while being sucked
+RXVH are enough overlapping elements down into a swamp.)
-HQQLIHU(JDQ — perm three from Glasgow But this lascivious gift for feel-
&RUVDLUe housing estates, gay teenager, al- ing produces one of Stuart’s great-
coholic mother, social conserva- est strengths: his minor charac-
tism, the 80s and 90s, violent men ters like gay neighbour Poor Wee
and rape — that from a distance Chickie, whose scenes with Mun-
the new novel seems not so much go were for me the most moving
'RXJODV6WXDUW

a companion piece as a remix. in the book. And he has a fine way

Young Shuggie. Mungo Bain. with imagery, from pigeons’
But this is a more developed “heads swallowed by neck feath-
novel in both subject and style. ers” to a longed-for kiss that’s
Whereas Shuggie Bain in the first “like hot buttered toast when
book was a bit “soft”, implied to be you’re starving”.
gay, 15-year-old Mungo Hamilton in the new novel is Stuart seems uneasy with maintaining viewpoint:
clearly queer to himself and others, even if it takes him we see mostly through Mungo’s eyes, but slip from time
:LQWHU/RYH
a while to act on it. And if Agnes, the floridly tragic to time into secondary characters’ thoughts for no clear
+DQ6X\LQ
mother in Shuggie Bain, was as close to the centre of benefit and sometimes to the detriment of the story,
0F1DOO\
the book as Shuggie himself, here Mungo’s permanent- like a scene from Jodie’s viewpoint where her lover is
(GLWLRQV
ly stewed mother Mo-Maw is off to the side — not least described only as “the man”, purely to enable a reveal
£13.50)
because she’s rarely home to look after her three kids on his identity later. (I would have liked to see more de-
— and less sympathetic to the reader. velopment of this storyline, too, which is abruptly cur-
The plot proceeds in parallel lines: one from “the tailed midway through.)
January before” and one from “the May after”. Those When it comes to the good stuff, the book is oddly
prepositions carry a doomy weight: before and after coy on sex — why not call a cock a cock? — particularly
SARAH BLASENER/PICADOR

what? We’re about to find out, in excruciating, affecting when you see how explicit some of the violence is, in-
detail. The after period shows Mungo going on a fishing cluding a reading-through-fingers scene where one
trip to the lakes with a couple of men his mother met at character tries to get another to induce a miscarriage
-RKQ6HOILV her AA scheme: one obliterated by tattoos, the other by by punching her repeatedly in the stomach.
The CriticōV dependency. The reader gets a bad feeling from the mo- But in a way it seems invidious to quibble about this
OHDGƓFWLRQ ment one of them puts his arm round Mungo as they book at the micro level. This is big, Dickensian fiction,
FULWLF+HOLYHV leave for the bus station; but it’s going to get much worse with characters drawn broadly and where feeling is
LQ%HOIDVW than even veterans of Shuggie Bain could predict. never far from the surface. Stuart writes with sincerity,

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 73 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 The wartime setting applies an extra level of grime
to the romance, as buzzbombs fall so that “[we] could not
stop [kissing] though there was dust between our lips”.
which gives the book an integrity “a lot of things that are about to happen haven’t hap-
that’s rare in the irony-laden pened yet”, and the air is evocative of a time that, if only
world of literary fiction, and the in retrospect, seems a lot less maddening than today.
occasional implausibilities, like
how the fishing trip finishes, are From the fake past to the real past. Here in The
soon forgotten when the ending Critic’s fiction pages we always welcome new entrants
comes — as neat, messy and sat- in the rediscovery business, and none is more impres-
isfying as we could wish, which sive than McNally Editions, which launches its list with
makes it another progression a handsome reissue of Han Suyin’s 1962 novel Winter
from his debut. There are greater Love. This intense, atmospheric novel set in wartime
things still to come from Stuart. London — all silvery sheen and cigarette smoke — ri-
vals Alfred Hayes for the clipped gloom it brings to the
Also making a comeback subject of mankind’s greatest trial: love.
this month is Jennifer Egan, Our narrator, Bettina — known as Red for her fiery
whose new novel The Candy hair — is one of the “smart girls” at Horsham science
House is a sequel to her barn- college (the opening pages show some exquisite power
storming breakthrough 2011 play between female friends) who takes a fancy to new
novel A Visit from the Goon student Mara. Her interest is as pure as can be: she
-HQQLIHU(JDQ

Squad. That book made waves loves Mara for her beauty, and is quickly consumed by
with its structural novelty — was her obsession. But Mara is married and sees Red just as
it a collection of stories or a nov- a friend — to begin with.
el? — and its mutating forms, The reverses and switchbacks are too rich to spoil
which included one chapter writ- here, but Winter Love blends erotic passion with chilly
ten as a PowerPoint presentation. nihilism, all the more doomy because Red is narrating
After a hiatus into straight storytelling (Manhattan her story as a memory, and although we know there is
Beach, 2017), Egan-the-restless is back again with a no happy-ever-after for
+DQ6X\LQ

book that takes most of Goon Squad’s characters into her and Mara, we don’t
The Critic Books

the future, themed this time around technology rather know why. The war-
than music. That in itself tells you what sort of book this time setting applies an
is: the sort that, by engaging with the world outside our extra layer of grime to
window as energetically as possible, has designs on be- the romance, as buzz-
ing a New Great American Novel. (The opening of the bombs fall so that “[we]
final chapter even seems to nod toward an Old GAN, could not stop [kissing]
Don DeLillo’s Underworld.) though there was dust
This is such a busy book that it’s impossible to sum- between our lips”.
marise it adequately, but at the centre is Bix Bouton, an There is a focus
entrepreneur who has devised Own Your Conscious- throughout on identity
ness, a gizmo that allows people to upload their mem- and essence, on “why I
ories and view other people’s: in other words, like most am as I am”, as Red puts
social media, it’s a stalker’s charter. The novel’s title re- it. “How few of us really
fers to that other social media saw: if the product ap- try to find out what
R O L E X- A N O U S H A B R A R ; F I N N R I C H A R D S

pears to be free, you’re the product. “Nothing is free! we’re like, really, in-
Never trust a candy house!” side?” For Mara, more bluntly, “I suppose we are what
It’s impossible not to be impressed by Egan’s virtu- are called lesbians.” This being a mid-20th century nov-
osity as she spins her plates, but it’s also hard not to be el, of course, there can be no consummation of such
exhausted by it, not least by the style which involves a love without corresponding social death, and the final
lot of backstory — filling in the gaps since Goon Squad outcome delivers satisfaction to its readers through
— and relatively little narrative of the here and now. bold eradication of hope for its characters. Not inciden-
When she does slow down, as in a long chapter re- tally, this new edition of Winter Love, with its fine bind-
cording numerous parallel email conversations, it’s ing, good weight in the hand and exceptional design, is
much more satisfying. After zipping as far forward as a delightful book-handling experience. All sad stories
the 2030s, the book ends in 1991, when (self-evidently) should be this much fun to read. c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 74 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 THE SECRET AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO LITERARY LIFE

Time for us all to grow up

Why is the modern British from the projects who is each other any more.
encouraged to try her hand Questioned as to their
novel so terribly earnest and at horse-riding in upstate relevance, librarians usually
irrepressibly juvenile? New York. declare that they serve as a
And what do you know, useful bridge between

C
ircus of Dreams (Consta- it transpired that Gaitskell’s children’s books and adult
ble, £25), John Walsh’s book had started life as a literature for the child who is
elegant and entertaining Young Adult novel before having trouble transitioning
memoir of London literary taking on its more Pulitz- to the latter.
life in the late 1980s and er-friendly final shape. A traditionalist, on the
early 1990s, turns a bit less elegant and It is, naturally, very other hand, would probably
entertaining in its final stretch. Here Mr difficult to criticise anybody maintain that the sooner
Walsh files a traditional Grub Street who has won the Nobel you get young people started
veteran’s lament about how awful all the Prize for Literature, but there have even on the really good stuff, the more rapidly
young people are these days, how terribly been occasional murmurings to the effect their feeling for literature is likely to take
the Booker Prize has degenerated and that what with his ingenuous youthful root and grow.
how negligible would be the welcome for narrators and dystopian settings — see
any old-style publishing maverick who Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun But if one stratum of modern
applied for a job in the industry in 2022. — the great Kazuo Ishiguro might even fall literature is reaching out to the layer above
Such laments rarely do any good. And into this category. it, then, mysteriously, it is also reaching
yet this considerable harangue contains down to the one beneath. If one mark of
one highly arresting sentence. But how do you define a Young Adult the modern British novel is its lack of
This is the observation that Sally novel? And where did the genre come from interest in middle-class life, once a staple
Rooney, for all the bouquets that have in the first place? concern, then another is its irrepressible
descended on her sober Hibernian head, As far as the Secret Author recollects, juvenility, here defined as the flaring
has, in her best-selling and TV-adapted it was essentially an American phenome- prompt-cards that advertise its themes, its
Normal People, really only produced a non whose ornaments began to wash up mundane psychology, its terrible earnest-
superior version of the Young on these shores in the ness, its desperate wish not to offend and
Adult novel, albeit one mid-1970s. Previously there its deep-dyed moral salubriousness.
containing far more sex than had only been children’s Why should this be? Why should so
the genre usually allows. fiction, but suddenly public much modern fiction set out to conciliate
libraries came out in a rash the late-teen to twentysomething audience
And here, you feel, Mr of paperbacks with titles like in a manner that, it might be argued,
Walsh is onto something. In The Boys of Summer or Minty actively patronises it?
fact, a quick trawl of the files Morgenstern Heads West. The answer lies in the fact that in the
reveals that this complaint has They were usually what is late 1990s and early 2000s a reading
been made about a whole host
Is Normal known as “issue” novels, that is revolution took place in the UK, aided by
of distinguished literary names People to say artefacts in which the film and television, in which the works of
in the past decade or so. really only eye-catching subject matter J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Philip Pullman
I L LU S T R AT I O N B Y G R E G C L A R K E ; PA N M A C M I L L A N

What did Julie Myerson a superior (drugs, teen sex, disintegrating and other titans of the trade carried all
think of Donna Tartt’s equally families) always seemed to be before them, while leaving in their wake a
celebrated The Goldfinch version of more important than such huge reservoir of not quite fully formed
when she reviewed it for the the Young stanchions as character, style young person’s taste.
Guardian back in 2013? Why, Adult novel? and plausibility. All this explains Julie Myerson’s remark
Ms Myerson not only judged Nothing wrong, of course, about The Goldfinch being “Potteresque”.
it tedious and over-long, but, oh dear me, with the kind of book that, nearly The Harry Potter audience grew up, and in
“Potteresque”. half-a-century later, turns up in the Young Sally Rooney and her coevals it may very
Several critics were deeply puzzled by Adult section of a public library: the novel well have found a new home. Mr Walsh is
Mary Gaitskell’s The Mare when it rolled about feisty Arabella whose erstwhile best right to suggest that this is a bad thing. c
into view three years later; Ms G, you see, friend Jessica won’t talk to her now she’s
had made her reputation by specialising in gone to the posh school, or Goth The Secret Author is a former Professor
rueful probings of complex psychological gear-wearing, gender-fluid Kieran whose of English and Creative Writing at a
states, and this was a novel about a girl parents have decided that they can’t stand leading British university

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 75 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
Romeo Coates
FAT CHANCE
While slow off the blocks,
the obese (“plus-size performers”)
belatedly attempt to make hay in these
enlightened times by claiming prejudice
forces them to play jolly/tragic fat folk,
rather than romantic lead roles.
Equity, no less, has now deemed
“fatphobia one of the last taboos to be
dealt with by our industry”. How very
exciting, in one’s later professional years,
to finally find a persecuted theatrical
minority I can technically be part of!

+ Championing what
they charmingly call “unapolo-
getic northern voices”, folk up at York
Theatre Royal eagerly highlight the
unfortunate behaviour of one audience
member who demanded a refund after
hearing Shakespeare performed in
Yorkshire accents.
Such snobbery of course has no place
in the modern theatrical world. Provid-
ing these productions are kept within
the borders of Yorkshire and remain a
safe distance away from the rest of us,
I see no valid reason for objection.

◆ After testing the patience of

many admirers with his creaking
Hamlet at Windsor only last summer,
that old show pony McKellen insists

H
aving reached that decrepit time of life when
on reprising his portrayal of the
young Danish prince in Edinburgh
one’s acting contemporaries are dropping like flies, I recently
this August. While Ian enjoys levels found myself dutifully attending three funerals in one week.
of artistic goodwill reserved only for Following a quick sharpener across the road prior to the final Friday
the very privileged few, hasn’t this gathering, I was soon sharing the indignation of many present when it
unlikely Hamlet already delighted
us long enough? emerged Anthony Andrews wouldn’t be arriving in time to offer a few
words of tribute to the deceased, having woefully misjudged the traffic.

+ Following that big

awards ceremony controversy,
I strongly supported calls for the most
Knowing this shabby situation had to be rescued quickly, I duly
offered my own less “starry” services to the anxious widow in question,
IL LU STR AT IO N B Y PAU L COX

undeserving winner to be disqualified privately confident an entertaining anecdote dating back to our brief
for such appalling public behaviour. time on the set of Tales of the Unexpected would more than suffice.
Quite what possessed organisers of While it should again be stressed I’ve attended an awful lot of these
the BBC Audio Drama Awards to give
events of late, may I apologise to all concerned for failing to realise
troublemaker Miriam Margolyes a
“Lifetime Achievement” prize still in time that my effusive tribute mistakenly related to a different dead
beggars belief. actor altogether.

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 76 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 “Between you and me …”
burning at the stake since foolishly making an enemy of
trans types, I gather the Irish fellow who wrote Father Ted has been
accusing others in the entertainment community of being lily-
livered and hypocritical after failing to come to his defence.
Clearly a bitter, deluded chap who singularly fails to appreciate
the workings of show business after all these years: not least, the
vast majority of high-profile, principled showfolk, always more
than ready to courageously speak out on the big issues of the day …
providing nothing risks being detrimental to their careers.

+ Congratulations to
Kenneth Branagh on finally
landing the first Oscar, having been
BOG OFF BIGGINS
Since when did that shameless
pudding Biggins start getting away with
trouper Brian Cox attempts to
save face by defiantly telling fans:
“Je ne regrette rien.” Of course you
an all too regular bridesmaid at such masquerading on television as an don’t, Brian!
events for decades. authority on royal affairs?
Some of us shall never forget the She was recently on the airwaves THE CLASS OF ’27
difficult spectacle of dearest Ken — brazenly suggesting insider knowledge regularly despairing of the
nakedly ambitious at the best of times of Her Majesty’s frailty. With the role of organisation that was once the BBC,
in his youth — attempting to grin and “royal commentator” having already I was finally heartened to read of the
bear then-wife Emma Thompson’s attracted its fair share of charlatans corporation’s recent pledge to have
early Oscars success 30 years ago. down the years, surely better for all 75 per cent of its workforce still officially
concerned when this Dame’s packed off middle class by 2027.
CHELSEA BUNS AND BANS for her next panto season in Darlington. While the mainstream media
ad to see Chelsea Arts Club

S
preferred to focus on the fact the other
the subject of unwanted head-
lines, after it recently emerged an
inebriated woman had chucked a “stale
+ THE Royal Shakespeare
Company has the begging bowl
out as it attempts to recover from the
25 per cent will apparently be “working
class”, anyone with knowledge of the
modern-day BBC knows this will also be
bread roll” at Joan Collins. Covid years and repay a whopping largely made up of decent middle class
While dear Joan can’t help rabbiting government loan. folk, affecting hoi polloi backgrounds
on to the press about the sorry affair “Increase your support ... you can and estuary/provincial accents, in order
(naturally, she’s since over-egged help even more,” punters are anxiously to seamlessly rise up the ranks.
matters by comparing her fate to Mr told. Thank goodness the RSC hierarchy
Rock’s at the Oscars), staff at this
esteemed establishment have been
adept at drawing a veil over the occa-
succumbed to that howling mob, just
months before the plague struck,
publicly turning their backs on barrels
+ just when we thought
it was safe to go out after two
miserable years, it pains me to report
sional fracas for decades. of unfashionably useful cash from a that the elderly and vulnerable should
My own regrettable clash with a British oil giant. remain locked behind closed doors
provocative Charles Dance circa 1995 I trust the very vocal minority who once more.
— alas, more than a bread roll was forced this courageously ill-timed I have it on good authority that the
thrown — was handled with trademark decision are now donating regularly and beaming vampire Brandreth is now
skill and decorum by the club’s employ- generously to the RSC’s crisis-hit coffers? back on his travels, preying on the
ees at the time. Would it now be too infirm with apocryphal tales and
much to hope that one’s own “life ban”, ◆ fresh from the humiliating unseemly commercial enterprises.
dating back to the said long-ago retreat that followed his sniping at the At the time of going to press, I’m
incident, is finally rescinded? Unlike expense of Depp, McKellen, Caine advised the good residents of Wim-
Joan, this loyal former member would and co in the recent memoir (now all borne, Taunton, Reading, Portsmouth,
never dream of ungratefully describing a terrible mistake on his part and soon Dorking, Launceston and Nottingham
your bread rolls as “stale”. to be rectified, apparently), Dundee should all be on high alert. c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 77 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 THE CRITICS Music|Opera|Pop|Art|

Norman
Lebrecht
on Music
Gergiev may yet
redeem himself
I knew Valery Gergiev
O as a
creature of the night. While others
crashed out, he talked until dawn. Once, in
9DOHU\*HUJLHYFRQGXFWVLQ5HG6TXDUH0RVFRZ
LQDFRQFHUWIRUWKH:RUOG&XSLQ5XVVLD
%HORZ9ODGLPLU3XWLQ5DQG*HUJLHY/DWWKH
Rotterdam, we listened to a pair of young
*UDQG.UHPOLQ3DODFHRQ-XQH
pianists he had flown over to play the
four-hand version of Stravinsky’s Rite of Gergiev festival every autumn until — well, him a bride back in North Ossetia when he
Spring. Afterwards, with window panes still you know the end. was ready to procreate.
rattling, he visited the two kids in their Ethnicity aside, his family knew how to
green room, then sat down and played the I first met him in St Petersburg where work the Soviet system. An uncle who
whole thing again, two-handed from he was reviving The Fiery Angel at the designed tanks for Stalin placed Gergiev
memory on a backstage upright. Mariinsky, an opera long banned for its with the elusive Professor Ilya Musin at the
We went on to dinner with a bottle of atonalities and sexual depravity. Gergiev Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire.
vodka, then for a walk around town while considered it a modernist masterpiece,
he tried to convince me that Prokofiev was equivalent to Wozzeck and Lulu. Before my It was from Gergiev’s lips that I first
more “important” than the overpraised flight home he sent round a limo and heard the name Vladimir Putin.
Stravinsky. Much of his argument was locked me in conversation in his office Gergiev kept the Mariinsky’s earnings in
undigested Soviet propaganda — that until two in the morning. Outside, a pair of a Russian bank which, like many in the
Prokofiev wrote his best work after filmmakers awaited their turn. 1990s, went bust. Penniless, he turned to
returning to Russia in the mid-1930s while It was impossible not to admire his Putin, the city’s deputy mayor, who covered
his rival was constipated in the decadent energy, musicality and unbelievable the wage bill. Later, as president, Putin gave
West. Never mind that Lena Prokofiev was resourcefulness in keeping opera and ballet Gergiev the national monopoly for selling
sent to Siberia and her ex was reduced to a alive in the crumbling Russian empire. His turkey meat, turning him into a minigarch
sister Larissa worked for him as a rehearsal with a private jet and, reportedly, a
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE NOT
pianist. His mother, he told me, would find Putin-like palace in the Caucasus. Those
TO ADMIRE HIS ENERGY, two, Putin and Gergiev, go back a long way.
MUSICALITY AND I met him through a Finnish friend, the
RESOURCEFULNESS critic Seppo Heikinheimo, the best judge of
baton talent I ever knew. Seppo set up a
quivering wreck in Stalin’s Second Terror. festival for Gergiev in the middle of Finland
“He survived,” shrugged Gergiev. and spent a cheery Sunday with me
In an outlying suburb, I realised we were scouting sites where Valery could build
M I K H A I L S V E T LO V / G E T T Y I M A G E S

hopelessly lost. “I know the way in himself a dacha.

Rotterdam across the road, from the hotel There was a fourteenth-century sauna
to the concert hall and back,” said Gergiev, nearby. Gergiev and I spent a white night
unbothered. The sun was rising as we got there with his best friend, the pianist Denis
back. “Any faxes for me?” he demanded at Matsuev. There was something immature
Reception. Rotterdam was his first foreign about them, part Boys Own, part Boyzone.
job. He learned no Dutch and outraged Matsuev said he planned to build Gergiev a
musicians by missing rehearsals, but he concert hall in his Siberian home town of
had a strong fan club and the city put on a Irkutsk, a stopover for him on tours to

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 78 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
Theatre|Cinema|TV|Radio|Architecture

China and Japan. Putin, needless to say, galling given the number of children
would pay for it. Robert infesting the place). This was pre-war, so
There are not many places in a Finnish Thicknesse there were no camps of Ukrainian refugees
sauna to keep secrets and I got to know being tasered by Priti’s shock-troops, but
Gergiev pretty well. Down the years he on Opera picturesque Roma had surely been
would object to something I had written violently evicted — at any rate, there were
and contact was lost, only to be renewed at
his whim.
Singing lessons some old supermarket trolleys lying
around.
As everyone knows
After the 2004 school massacre in
Beslan, North Ossetia, Gergiev phoned me
to say he was changing that night’s Vienna
O , opera’s
purpose is to convey — at irksome
length — unwanted data about things like
With opera directors now Stakhano-
vite miners at the coalface of social justice,
Philharmonic concert to include Tchaik- sex-worker healthcare in nineteenth- the nub of their job is to dish up a correct
ovsky’s Pathétique symphony, giving a century Paris, the untaxing dilemmas of quotient of women/BAMEs/disadvantaged
performance many in the orchestra still pre-Revolutionary grandees (boring children/trans activists on stage, and
cherish. Rich and remote as he grew, the afternoon: hmm, shoot stuff, or shag/whip ensure that (importantly) they all have
human dimension was always paramount. the servants), pre-modern wars between simply masses of agency. Next, it is vital to
Our mutual friend Seppo suffered from shithole countries, and a bunch of Italians establish how furiously we disdain Western
depression. One evening on his balcony, bickering probably about whether their “civilisation”, Israel, and white men. After
preparing to jump, Seppo was switching off dough-based food has been undercooked anguished asides on global warming, some
his cellphone when Gergiev rang and in the manner indicated. small heed may be paid to the contents of
talked him down. The next time I saw We should be grateful that directors the opera at hand, in the unlikely event this
Gergiev was at a cast dinner after a bleak have troubled themselves to introduce is deemed appropriate.
Verdi Macbeth at Covent Garden. I waited elements of relevancy. Taking pity on the Happily, this homiletic zeal has finally
for him to speak. He looked at me and said, benighted masses who approach on their reached G.F. Handel, previously a stranger
“Seppo”. Our friend had tragically succeed- knees, crying “Master, sensei, guru, what to any notion of “meaning”. After March’s
ed at his next attempt. should we think?”, they bestow their attempted fuck-the-patriarchy Theodora at
wisdom, gleaned from a lifetime’s studying Covent Garden, the London Handel
Today’s Gergiev, nearing 70, is a the mystic scriptures of the Guardian and Festival opened with a production of Acis
notorious propagandist for the Putin the London Review of Books. and Galatea — you know, boy meets girl,
regime, ally of a war criminal, banned in So, at long last, we can see a piece like gets whacked by rock — wherein (we were
most countries of the world. I shall not miss LeoŠ Janácˇek’s otherwise pointless told) Handel does his nut about the global
his conducting because his concerts are all portrayal of woodland life, The Cunning ghastliness caused by “our evolved
too often unrehearsed, wayward and Little Vixen, through a prism conferring practices, which on the face of it seem to be
perfunctory, displaying contempt for the some purpose, thanks to director Jamie for the benefit of the many, but are in fact
public and for the music he professes to Manton at ENO. for the good of the few”.
serve. Not long ago, Gergiev conducted in The forest where It sounds bad, doesn’t
Moscow in the morning and at Carnegie these stupid animals it? Naughty us.
Hall the same night. You can do that with a waste their and our time This guff wasn’t
private jet, perhaps on a bet with Matsuev, has now fallen victim to addressed beyond the
but this is not the act of an artist. Gergiev Big Timba, doubtless to programme note,
sold out long ago to notions of power. print copies of the Daily obviously, but you gotta
That said, I do not like boycotts. The Mail, and denizens, start somewhere. It did
reason I am sharing these personal furry and otherwise, are mean that the actually
memories is to show that within a condemned to a useful life lessons
proscribed artist there is still a person with dreadful time adapting contained in Acis were
C L I V E B A R DA / E N O

7KH9L[HQ
a unique gift who may yet have the capacity to the resulting erosion rather elided: my
FXQQLQJO\
to redeem himself, and his audience, of both soil and favourite is the bit where
EDGJHUVD
through art. There was always some good opportunities for MailUHDGLQJ
a passing shepherd
in the Valery Gergiev I knew. I hope he, and poachers and child-mo- EDGJHU counsels the frisky giant
we, can find it again. c lesters (particularly Polyphemus against

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 79 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 Acis and Galatea at the
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dawn of imaginative sympathy and Mark Lawson points out that Savile’s
the startling concept that other success was largely because he understood
people might actually exist. Handel (unlike many of his fellow radio personali-
doesn’t give a toss about storytelling, ties) how to transition into a visual
even less about being socially useful, medium. But he always understood how to
but the combination of optimally grab at and exploit any opportunity
pithy Metastasian quatrains with available to him. It was how he became a
music that spirals down into the DJ to start with. He understood that for
characters’ hearts and into matters someone like him — someone who craved
raping Galatea on the grounds that it’s only of distress, comfort, love, is what he does status and celebrity, but above all craved
half as much fun as consensual sex. better than anyone else. the ability to access and abuse girls and
Directors, despairing of ways to fill up young women — pop music was an
One of the nicest things was the way the lengthy arias, have the characters make exceptionally effective vehicle.
the imperturbable audience rose above tea, or sodomise each other, at leisure: Savile admitted as much in an interview
even noticing the absurd staging, and sat baffled by the emotional truths of the with Lynn Barber in 1990. At first, it sounds
peaceably enjoying Handel’s perfect purest of all opera, sometimes they even like he’s denying the rumours which, even
serenata gorgeously sung and played by forget to harangue us about Palestine. And then, were circulating. “What the tabloids
our latest Baroque wunderkind, David if those Germans try any abuse or other don’t realise is that the young girls in
Bates, and his singers and band. funny business, you can bask complacently question don’t gather round me because of
This annual festival, of which Acis was knowing it doesn’t apply to you. c me — it’s because I know the people they
the headliner, is a great little affair, with a love, the stars, because they know I saw
whiff of village hall, dignified by our Bros last week or Wet Wet Wet … I am of no
consistently top-end performers of this rep. interest to them.”
Over in Germany, they have a peculiar idea But then he passes almost unnoticeably
that G-Fred was theirs (although he got the into an admission: “I always realised that I
hell out as soon as he could), and May is was a service industry. Like, because I
when they lay on rather more expansive
Sarah knew Cliff [Richard] before he’d even made
celebrations in his birthplace — Halle, near Ditum a record, all the Cliff fans would bust a gut
Leipzig — and in the stultifying university on Pop to meet me, so that I could tell them stories
town of Göttingen in Lower Saxony. about their idol.” So pop music did make
After decades of legally-enforced
guilt-tripping, the Germans have honed the Music monsters him interesting to “young girls” after all. By
attaching himself, lamprey-wise, to that
art of beating themselves up in opera world, he was able to acquire a charisma
How can you explain Jimmy
stagings. Nearly every production is at
pains to inform the audience they are a
gang of Nazis, after which the melomanes
O Savile to someone who wasn’t there?
Watching the Netflix documentary about
and glamour that was never his own.

Any position of power and trust is a

him with my 15-year-old daughter, I felt a gift to the Saviles of the world. Teaching.
HANDEL DOESN'T GIVE A lot of things: queasy, appalled, furious. But Sports coaching. Harvey Weinstein turned
TOSS ABOUT STORYTELLING, most of all I felt embarrassed. Look at this his movie company into a sexual malfea-
EVEN LESS ABOUT BEING grotesque, with his butchered fringe and his sance factory. Bill Cosby put his avuncular
SOCIALLY USEFUL frazzled peroxide bob. Not even handsome. personality as a stand-up in the service of a
Not even charming. An assemblage of long campaign of raping women. But pop
shrug and gorge themselves on the hotdogs grating tics and obvious depravity. music has a particular edge for predators.
and Sekt the theatres provide. On footage of a 1975 discussion show Its constituency is young. Its norms are
But the Germans do take Handel about his autobiography (called Love is an sexually tolerant, with groupies treated as a
seriously, and there’s nothing much this Uphill Thing, which is, again, obviously perk. And its product can function as not
month to detain us in Britain; checking out revolting), a female panellist calls him out merely cover, but propaganda.
LO N D O N H A N D E L F E S T I VA L

Julius Caesar in Göttingen, or Ariodante at on the lack of personality in the book. What That was true of Phil Spector, who
Goethe’s magical eighteenth-century are you really like, she asks him. What are abused women privately, and produced
theatre near Halle, would seem to be the you doing this evening, he answers. She music in which teenage girls played the
best possible use of time. The latter is the tells him off for deflecting, but in retro- perfect desiring subject, singing out in pure
essence of Handel’s patented dodge, a spect, deflection isn’t the right word. This voices their desperate longing for that one
distilled sample of souls under pressure, was the real him. Predatory. Opportunistic. boy (one of those girls was Ronnie Spector,
innocence betrayed, joy and faith and Empty. He called women “it”. Of course, we who he married and then bullied brutally;
atonement earned through torment, the made him into a children’s TV institution. when she left, she was barefoot, she wrote

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 6DYLOH6SHFWRU
.HOO\3HUOPDQ

also one of the most successful, and pandemic but surpassed the last pre-Covid
certainly the most influential, labels in pop year, 2019. The market surged to more than
music through the noughties. $65 billion, up some 30 per cent from 2020
Pop music is an art form of power to reach the third-highest sum since 2009
without responsibility. It’s what I love it for: as would-be buyers with itchy fingers who
the libidinous strut of it, the three-minute had accrued money during the restrictions
riot. But it’s an art form that has made an at last found ways of relieving themselves of
easy home for the vilest of people, and an it. Online sales are all very well, it seems,
art form that has sometimes done the work but no real substitute for physical spaces
of grooming for them. Savile, Spector, Kelly and real-life contact with the art.
and Pearlman might be hard to explain; it’s Smiles all round then. Except that the
harder, though, to explain why more like headline figures also overlay some quirks
them will always find their way. c that could yet emerge as real flaws —
depending on your place in the world.
in her autobiography). Top-end dealers had a very good time of
And it was true, even more so, of R Kelly things: those working in the $5-10 million
— he wrote a whole album called Age Ain’t bracket saw sales increase by more than a
Nothing But a Number for then-14-year-
old Aaliyah to sing. On one track, she
Michael third. Nevertheless, the reliance on high
net worth individuals (more than a third of
swooned that “No one knows how to love Prodger whom spent upwards of $1 million on art
me quite the way you do,” while he on Art and antiques in 2021) is precarious since it
responded “’Liyah, you’re the only one for relies on the availability of high-quality
me.” He was 12 years older than her.
Critics tended to simultaneously praise Decline of the works.
For the workhorses with a turnover of
Aaliyah’s “maturity” while downplaying
direct suggestions of inappropriateness — UK art market less than $250,000, things were less peachy:
only half saw any increase in sales at all.
despite the fact that a marriage certificate The year also saw the crazed growth in
The arrival of the annual Art
with both their names on had surfaced
following the album. When the Chicago
Sun-Times broke the story of Kelly’s
O Basel report on the global art market
is of particular interest this year since it
NFTs (non-fungible tokens) continue
unabated. In 2019, the NFT market was
worth $4.6 million but at the close of 2021
extensive sexual abuse of girls in 2002, the offers an overview of the relationship that figure was more than $11 billion, of
immediate response, recalls journalist Jim between money and art in 2021; that is, which art-related NFTs amounted to more
De Rogatis, was one of indifference. both during Covid restrictions and as they than $2.5 billion, a hundredfold yearly
began to ease. And what the new report increase.
Institutions lend credibility to demonstrates above all is the resilience of
these men, of course. Perhaps it’s under- art as an asset — but also, secondary What also emerged, however, was that
standable that the public imagined the perhaps, as food for the soul. investors — the majority Generation Z-ers
worthy old BBC would have guards against In 2021, sales by dealers and auctioneers — are flipping their NFTs at speed: the
harbouring a nonce like Savile: every time not only recovered all the ground lost to the average time between purchase and resale
he joked about being a creep, the punch- was just 33 days, and most of
line was that the presenter of Top of the these sales happened on
Pops never. could be. Perhaps people blockchains outside the art
thought the same about Kelly: there was a market. So NFTs seem to be
label behind him and Aaliyah, entourages neither works to keep and savour
around them. Surely all those eyes (which comes as no surprise,
wouldn’t let impropriety slide. admittedly) but nor do they
That label was Jive, also the home of appear to be materialising into
Backstreet Boys, managed by boy band the gift-from-the-gods cash cow
impressario Lou Pearlman who, Vanity that the market first mistook
ART BASEL; NETFLIX

Fair reported in 2007, used his power to them for.

make careers to sexually coerce the boys in It is, however, the UK art
his bands. (It was the label of Britney market that has a real cause for
Spears too, whose exploitation has now worry. A near-15 per cent yearly
been thoroughly documented.) Jive was increase (to more than $11
not an exemplar of safeguarding. It was billion) should be a cause for

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 81 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
celebration, but … that total sum is lower blue water between the British market and
than in 2019 and the recovery in Britain the Continent, but the signs are that it is
was less springy than in both the US and drying up at pace and the UK’s prominence
China. While the US remains the dominant as a place to buy and sell the most
prestigious art is under sustained threat.
THE UK WAS A LESS If the government wants to shield the
APPEALING PLACE TO BUY UK art market against the dripping of both
AND SELL BLUE-RIBAND reputation and money, the first thing it
WORKS THAN PREVIOUSLY should do is to lower the VAT on imports
from the current 5 per cent (in the US it is 0
market, accounting for more than 40 per per cent, in China it is 3 per cent). Alas,
cent of global sales, the UK market segment there are no signs yet that it will. c
actually declined by 3 per cent in 2021
resulting in a 17 per cent global share Michael Prodger is associate editor of
— the lowest proportion in a decade — and the New Statesman
the loss of second place in the market to
China (which has seen 25 new auction
businesses open since 2020). colours, the show is a visual winner too.
Updating the story imposes a conun-
There seems little doubt that this drum, not least because the posthumous
decline is related to Brexit and the Anne publication of Go Set a Watchman in 2015
imposition, since January 2021, of VAT and casts more doubt on the motivations and
other charges on all imports to the UK from
McElvoy racial outlook of Finch (Rafe Spall) than
EU states, as well as anti-money laundering on Theatre Lee herself suggested in the novel.
regulation, which has implications for the And even if we discount this bizarre
government’s heralded UK freeports.
While in the US, the value of imports of Atticus updated quirk of literary historiography, you
wouldn’t have to be a paid-up member of
art and antiques rose by 60 per cent in Black Lives Matter to see the portrayal of
Plays about racial injustice,
2021, in the UK they fell by nearly 20 per
cent; they now amount to only half the
value achieved in 2019. Although many
O the running-sore legacy of slavery
and suitable forms of atonement for the
the conflict over the judicially-ordered
deaths of black people purely through the
eyes of white adults and children as
top-grade works of art arrived from sins of forefathers are a dime a dozen right antiquated. So many roles have to shift, or
countries outside the EU, in 2021 at least, now. Both Broadway and the West End are be enhanced, to make this play work and
the UK was a less appealing place to buy sensitive to the accusation that they largely Tom Robinson, (Jude Owusu) is given
and sell blue-riband works than previously. fielded white plays for white audiences and more lines to reflect on the impossibility of
Indeed, what many in the art market are seeking to redress the balance. The a black man falsely accused of raping a
feared seems to be coming to pass: a loss in result can turn out to be less outstanding white woman.
trade here benefitting competitors in drama than a dutiful didacticism.
Europe instead. While the US has That, at least, is not a charge that can be Sorkin also inverts the ambling
subsumed some of the top-notch works levelled at To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper structure of Lee’s novel, as any TV director
that would have been sold in London, it is Lee’s 1960 novel about a court case in a would: bringing us into the courtroom
France in particular that has benefitted, small town in Alabama in the 1930s which drama, where Spall’s showy Finch
with strong growth elsewhere too. pits the local lawyer, Atticus Finch, first coquettes, wheedles and argues his way
France’s art market saw a 50 per cent against a white rapist framing a black man through the thicket of lies told by Tom
T H E P R I N T C O L L E C TO R / G E T T Y I M A G E S

growth in sales in 2021, to just under $5 for a crime and, as the story unfolds, Ewell (a brilliantly nasty Patrick O’Kane)
billion. It accounts for 7 per cent of sales against a justice system which is itself and supported by the traumatised, abused
globally, occupying fourth place in the complicit in racism. daughter Mayella (Poppy Lee Friar).
world, its strongest position for a decade. This adaptation, transferred from a It brings sensitive drama’s default
While Germany and Spain account for Broadway run, is written by The West Wing’s message in 2022 — that it is the job of the
just 2 per cent and 1 per cent of global sales Svengali of snappy dialogue, Aaron Sorkin, young to re-educate the old and the Finch
respectively, they too responded to the and directed by Bartlett Sher. Sher is one of children Jem (Harry Redding) and Scout
pandemic contractions better than the UK. my favourite reworkers of dusty musicals (Gwyneth Keyworth) chastise their evasive
For Europe as a whole, measured without repertoire. With the glossy assurance of dad so roundly that Scout appears to be
the UK for the first time, sales were up by Sorkin’s dialogue and Miriam Buether’s prepping for the part of the late Ruth Bader
just shy of 40 per cent. There remains clear elegant unobtrusive palate of faded 1930s Ginsburg.

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 82 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 5DIH6SDOODV$WWLFXV)LQFK
LQTo Kill a Mockingbird

At times, there is too clearly an imposi- The proximity of the directors to lose proportion
tion of East Coast, anti-Trump, wish Ukraine crisis also shows or finesse when dealing
fulfillment here, most obviously in the up a fatal flaw in Max with events on the home
handling of the maid — and ersatz mother Webster’s version, which front. Overall, it’s not a
to the young Finches — Calpurnia (Pamela is bluntly that the great Henry V, because as
Nomvete). In the novel, Calpurnia’s views concerns about patriotism Big Will (sort of) put it
are more fatalistic than radical: “When they turning into nationalism somewhere else: you can
don’t want to learn there’s nothing you can here are so glaringly proxies for book as much screen stardust
do but keep your mouth shut or talk their a critique of a post-Brexit Britain. If as you like, but sound and fury isn’t
language.” we had any doubts, the ending image of a all you need to make a mark. c
In this production, her verbal assaults disintegrating St George’s cross rams home
against her boss are a hefty contrivance. Her the “look what you’ve done” homily. Anne McElvoy is executive editor at the
sudden inversion of the power dynamic With unfortunate timing for the Economist and presents Free Thinking
feels like pandering. Do progressive Donmar, it is a reminder of the tendency of on BBC Radio 3
audiences now need their views mirrored to
feel at home with a story written at the start the fact. “I never cry at the pictures,” said
of the 1960s about the 1930s? one 22-year-old bank clerk. “It’s only the
Never mind: Mockingbird remains a Welsh that do that — and a lot of silly
powerful, unsettling story, told with a
mixture of elegy and brio. A bit of Broad-
Christopher women.” Men in 1950 tended to avoid those
films they suspected might “unman” them,
way gloss right now felt like a theatrical Silvester and they were more inclined to weep in war
tonic in the West End and thankfully, for on Cinema films, whereas women were more often
half the price of Manhattan. moved to tears by family dramas that

More battles rage over at the Donmar Sob stories reflected their own situations.
I don’t mind tearjerkers, though I don’t
Warehouse, this time of the iron-clashing seek them out, and the finest examples
This month I learned a new
variety as Kit Harington, the dishy
wolf-whisperer in Game of Thrones tumbles
on stage in the din of a very busy Henry V.
O acronym. mort stands for “middle-
of-the-road tearjerker”. coda — another
always creep up on you anyway. Earlier
generations of children cried over scenes in
Dumbo (1941) and Bambi (1942), just as
Harington’s Henry is a man wistfully acronym, standing for “child of deaf adults” later generations cried over E.T. the
remembering his days as reckless, feckless — is the title of the film that won the Oscar Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Toy Story 2
Hal. No prizes for guessing which royal for Best Picture. It is supposedly a mort. (1999). Adults, too, of course, since
Leaving aside its particular merits, I feel repeated viewings tend to produce the
A BIT OF BROADWAY moved to ponder those tearjerkers that same reaction.
GLOSS RIGHT NOW FELT have produced such a reaction in me over At the end of the 1960s, as an eight-year-
LIKE A THEATRICAL the years. old boy at boarding school, I was fed a
TONIC IN THE WEST END A 1950 Mass-Observation panel of 318 weekly diet of traditional British war films,
respondents showed that women wept comedies, Westerns, and other adventure
apostate today might be being channelled. more at the movies than men and that those films. Which of these made me cry?
Now on the throne, Henry morphs from men who cried were often embarrassed at I certainly remember crying over the
slick kingly CEO to desperado war leader.
Echoes of Ukraine are everywhere in the
sheer mess of the shot and shell and smoke
which at one point envelop the stage
entirety, leaving the audience too in the fog
of war as we try to follow the action in
sporadic bursts of clarity.
The rousing Harfleur speech cannot
help but echo the elegant encouragement
DONMAR WAREHOUSE

from Volodymyr Zelensky. But Harington’s

strongest scenes, befitting a screen star, are
the moments when the noise of this frantic
production abates and the light falls on him
to reveal the tension, drives and uncertain-
ties of Henry’s mercurial character.

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 83 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
scene in Captains Courageous (1937) in (1946), when George (James Stewart) is
which spoilt brat Harvey Cheyne who has saved by his guardian angel Clarence Adam
been rescued at sea, played by Freddie
Bartholomew, witnesses the death of
(Henry Travers); the reuniting of son and
father in Vittorio de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves,
LeBor on
Manuel Fidello, the old Portuguese-Ameri- which upon its release in 1948 became the Television
can fisherman who has befriended him, most successful foreign film to date in the
played by Spencer Tracy.
During an ocean race, Manuel is at the
UK, with wonderful oboe-led, orchestral
music by Alessandro Cicognini; the
Passed-by spies
top of a mast when it cracks and plunges execution scene at the end of Jacques
him into the waves. The rigging which
smashed the bottom half of his body has
pinned the rest of him to the wreckage. He
Becker’s Casque d’Or (1953), when Marie
(Simone Signoret) chooses to watch the
death by guillotine of her lover Roland
O The first question facing every
spy novelist is whether the protago-
nist is an expert or everyman. James Bond
asks the cook in Portuguese, so that Harvey (Serge Reggiani) from an illicit vantage — and his successors — are experts:
will not understand, to tell the captain to point; and the reconciliation between trained intelligence officers who can
cut him free with an axe. stricken and paralysed Adam Trask handle a gun, groom a potential asset,
I remember weeping tears of joy over (Raymond Massey) and his son Cal (James conduct and evade surveillance. An
the ending of The Inn of the Sixth Happi- Dean) at the end of Elia Kazan’s East of everyman protagonist is harder to write but
ness (1958), in which Ingrid Bergman as Eden (1955). allows for more character development as
Gladys Aylward, who had been told she he or she responds to pressure, obstacles
was not qualified to become a missionary, But it is not just endings that do it and crises. Eric Ambler’s novels, such as his
leads a column of starving Chinese for me. On a transatlantic flight a few years classic The Mask of Dimitrios, often feature
orphans across the mountains to another ago, the person next to me slept while I an everyday person rapidly sucked into a
mission serving as an evacuation centre. played and re-played, several times over, deadly vortex of intrigue and betrayal.
As they reach the mission, the children the scene in A Star Is Born (1954) when Among Mick Herron’s many literary
are singing the English song she has taught Judy Garland sings “The Man That Got achievements is the creation of a new
them — “This Old Man”. I still can’t watch Away” in a single continuous shot. archetype: the inexpert expert, aka the Slow
this scene without the tears pouring down It was actually filmed on three separate Horses. The Slow Horses are MI5’s internal
my cheeks. occasions, twice in October 1953 and exiles: the failures and screw-ups who have
Music is a big part of this. How is it again, finally, in February 1954, with been exiled to Slough House, a dreary
possible not to weep while watching the changes to set and costume, and it took office building in central London.
epilogue of Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s more than 40 partial or complete takes The Slow Horses are the anti-heroes of
List (1993), in which the surviving before director George Cukor was satisfied. the espionage world: unglamorous, their
Schindlerjuden and the actors who have But the result, in which Garland sang to careers in shreds, prone (understandably)
portrayed them place stones on the grave playback, is sublime, with every expression to depression, self-doubt and drinking. It is
of Oskar Schindler, and Liam Neeson and gesture impeccable. a clever idea, especially when delivered in a
places two roses, to the accompaniment of It is the sheer perfection of this best-selling series of books written in
Itzhak Perlman playing the theme for violin performance, freighted with the sadness of Herron’s trademark, dry, witty prose. There
and orchestra composed by John Williams? Garland’s own life and combined with the may even be a bit of the Slow Horse in
final line of Ira Gershwin’s lyric (“There is Herron himself.
We all have our personal favourites nothing sadder than/A one-man woman/ Unlike numerous other spy writers,
when it comes to films that cause us to Looking for the man that got away”) that Herron has no personal experience of the
weep. Other endings that have affected me causes me to weep each time I watch it. intelligence services. He worked as a
include Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life Check it out on YouTube. c sub-editor until 2017, writing a steady 350
words a day until the first volume was
:LGHVFUHHQ finished, the start of a steady, determined
*DUODQGLQ
path to his current career success, overcom-
A Star is Born
ing bumps and obstacles along the way.

All of which leads to the big

question for Herron’s legions of fans: how
will his imaginary world translate to
television? The answer, thankfully, is so far,
YO U T U B E

so good, at least for the first three episodes

of Slow Horses, now showing on Apple TV.
Gary Oldman is masterful as Jackson

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 84 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 *DU\2OGPDQLQSlow
Horses

like the books, it has a much Michael

wider resonance. Most of us, at
one time or another, have failed
Henderson
at something. But still we persist. on Radio
The horses may be slow, but they
can still gallop when needed.
A heavyweight’s
Secrets of the Spies, a
three-part documentary series
light touch
on Britbox, takes a factual look at
Easy listening is less easy to pull
Lamb, the greasy-haired, cranky, foul-
mouthed, flatulent, spy master. “Another
the world of espionage, focusing
on deception, assassination and manipula-
tion. Episode one feels choppy, rapidly
O off than we sometimes imagine. A
presenter who sounds homely may also be
day dawns, on MI-fucking useless,” he revisiting a string of old cases. Kim Philby’s banal. One who lapses into occasional
intones. This is a performance from an story is retold yet again, although his quirkiness, for comic relief, can appear
actor at the peak of his career — and a granddaughter Charlotte, now a spy contrived. To hold the listener’s attention
remarkable contrast to Oldman’s quiet, novelist, brings an interesting personal for two hours or longer by being natural, or
understated portrayal of George Smiley in perspective to the life of the master traitor. seeming to be, is a rare gift, and those
the adaptation of John Le Carre’s Tinker, There is an insightful interview with touched by it are becoming rarer.
Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Matthew Dunn, a former MI6 officer, also There can’t be much doubt that the
In many ways Smiley and Lamb are the turned thriller writer. Dunn once had to “light” radio performer who made it sound
antithesis of each other. “Lamb casts the remember the details of various aliases as easiest was Terry Wogan, whose breakfast
biggest shadow because of the things he he travelled the world, but London is now show on Radio 2 ran, in its second
says, but he is not a spy hero in the usual the main theatre of the action, he explains. incarnation, from 1993 to 2009, attracting
mould,” Herron told me in an interview for The pace and focus pick up in episodes eight million listeners.
the Financial Times. “He has turned his two and three. Unlike James Bond, real-life He had first taken the breakfast host’s
back on that. He is full of self-loathing for MI6 officers do not have a licence to kill. chair in April 1972 before he went off in
British governments, it seems, do. We learn 1984 to concentrate on telly but, though he
IN MANY WAYS, SMILEY intriguing details of how Anthony Eden enjoyed success on the box, it was as a
AND LAMB ARE THE ordered a series of inept attempts to have radio performer that he made his sharpest
ANTITHESIS OF EACH OTHER President Nasser of Egypt killed in 1956, the contribution to public life.
year of Suez. Poisoned chocolates failed On the wireless Wogan could really be
the way he has lived and things he has and so did an attempt to bribe Nasser’s Wogan. It was the place where he could
done. That is the key driver of his character doctor who absconded with the money. speak most naturally to his audience. On
— but what triggers him is when his Slow the box, on Blankety Blank for instance, he
Horses are in danger.” I would love to see a television series was a licensed jester, but he was never
The initial plotline — far-right nutcases about espionage that looks forward rather really stretched. His prime time talk show
kidnap Muslim university student — is not than back. The advent of Open Source
very original but strong characterisation Intelligence techniques to data mine the
helps carry the story. Kristin Scott Thomas internet — and encrypted communication
is brittle and convincing as the director of channels such as WhatsApp and Telegram
MI5, marching around its headquarters, — mean that tools previously restricted to
ramrod backed as she snaps out orders government agencies are available to all.
while playing a dangerous game of intrigue The near real-time coverage of the
and double-cross with Lamb and his team. conflict in Ukraine is revolutionising our
The cinematography is evocative, understanding of war and our ability to
adding depth and nuance. The camera accurately document war crimes. Video
zooms on the holes in Lamb’s socks before footage can be swiftly geo-located and
panning out to the ashtray and half-empty checked for authenticity. What does that
whisky bottle as he snores. Outside long, mean for the future of intelligence
wide shots of central London at night, drab gathering?
storefronts half-lit by yellow streetlights are These are revolutionary times for the
suffused with shadows and yearning. intelligence services, for all of us. Docu-
BBC

Slow Horses is fine entertainment, but mentary makers, over to you. c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 85 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
on BBC1 wasn’t very exist in live perfor-
good at all. There was
too much playing to
mance brought out the
best in him. Besides, if
Charles
the gallery, and too you are witty, have a Saumarez
many second-rate natural warmth, and Smith on
guests. The true Wogan
was much better than that.
speak English with clarity
and just the right tone, you
Architecture
He wasn’t the first person to are obviously not without talent.
excel in those early hours of the day, when Dreamy spires
people are cleaning their teeth and Radio 2 used to have these people in
It is depressing how much bad
cooking breakfast. Ray Moore, largely
forgotten now, also had a gentle manner
and a smart wit. It was Wogan, however,
abundance. After Wogan came Jimmy
Young, the pop crooner turned interviewer
of politicians. At teatime there was the
O architecture there is in London: so
many cheapskate, shoddy commercial
who claimed that kingdom as his own. Not courtly John Dunn and at bedtime Brian buildings expected to make a quick buck
many broadcasters are so identified with a Matthew presented Round Midnight. It was for property developers and which have a
show that they are irreplaceable. He a male world, largely, but that doesn’t alter life span of only 25 years.
belongs in that gilded assembly. the fact that these people were accom- Of course, there are developers who
plished broadcasters. make efforts to construct high quality
Fifty years after his first breakfast Sadly, when Wogan took his leave from buildings. But there is a problem in that
show, Radio 2 paid tribute to their finest those “old geezers and gals” who tuned in they think of each building in isolation, not
performer with Wogan In His Own Words, he was succeeded (hardly “replaced”) by as part of a wider urban environment; they
rooted in an interview — strangely unaired Chris Evans, a man who made his grubby tend to design for those who are going to
— he granted to Radio Southampton in mark by shouting at listeners. Instead of occupy the offices, not for those who have
1980. He spoke clearly and openly about the wit of Wogan, listeners were confronted to look at the buildings from outside. As a
his working life, and the joys and pitfalls of by an adolescent show-off who bellowed in result, the City of London has become
fame. The guests ushered in to pad out the capital letters. What were they thinking of? gimcrack, looking more like Singapore and
hour, invited to tell everybody how well And who was invited to present the Hong Kong than the fine city it once was.
they knew Terry and how much they loved station’s tribute to Wogan? Zoe Ball, of As an antidote, I took myself off to look
him, were a mixed bag. Is there anything a course, one of those lightweights the BBC at new buildings in Oxford as a reminder
Radio 1 disc jockey can tell us that we takes for serious broadcasters. The ageing that it is still perfectly possible to produce
haven’t heard a hundred times before? starlet, who now fills the hours allotted to exemplary architecture. It requires
The most convincing witness was Ken Wogan, told us how, as a teenager, she thoughtful clients prepared to think about
Bruce, another superb radio performer. used to listen “into” Terry’s breakfast show. architecture in the long term; how to add to
One listens to, not into. It’s not a small a historical environment with tact, and
TERRY WOGAN'S CAREER mistake, either. It reveals a tin ear, a lack of spend money on good quality materials as
WAS A COLLISION OF STARS. respect for the language Wogan cherished. an investment in the future.
SUCH ACCIDENTS HAPPEN It was that respect, more than anything, Of course, people will say that Oxford is
ONCE, IF AT ALL which bound him to his listeners. He never privileged and has the money to invest. But
talked down to them. it is not just about money. It is also about
Like Wogan, Bruce manages to sound like will — a belief in quality, a view that if
everybody’s friend. If you saw him walking Another lightweight favoured by Oxford is able to invest in the best in
towards your door you would put the kettle Radio 2 is Sarah Cox, a former ladette, who scholarship and research, then it should
on, and get out the shortbread. It’s that gift is 47 going on 16. Wogan, by the way, was also have the best buildings. CHRIS RIDLEY/RADIO TIMES/GETTY IMAGES

of easy communication: unquantifiable, 33 when he took over the breakfast show, There is competition between the
developed through years of experience. and already had the gravitas of one 10 colleges as to who can attract the biggest
Wogan said he had “no specific talent”, years older. The Balls and Coxes may donors from amongst their alumni and
which isn’t quite right, though you know prosper for now. By trying hard never to attract students by investing in first-rate
what he was driving at. Too many people grow up they are fulfilling a need the BBC libraries, common rooms, and student
on the radio today sound schooled, feels to be “challenging”, or whatever is the accommodation.
excessively prepared, anxious to turn a favoured adjective this month. They will
phrase. Wogan, like a master batsman, let not be recalled half a century on. One of the best of the Oxford colleges
the ball come to him. Terry Wogan’s career was a collision of for architecture is St John’s, helped by the
He was a highly intelligent man, with a stars. Such accidents happen once, if at all, fact that one of its fellows has been an
wide range of reference and a well-stocked and leave a hole that can never be filled. architectural historian from the time when
mind, so the problems that will always We must be grateful. c Howard Colvin, author of the Biographical

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 86 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 7KHOLEUDU\DW6W-RKQōVDQGEHORZ6W+LOGDōV&ROOHJH
V
QHZEXLOGLQJVRQWKHEDQNVRIWKH&KHUZHOO

Dictionary of British Architects, became a beyond the playing fields of Magdalen and the view across the meadows beyond.
fellow in 1948 and, on the advice of Sir John College School. In 2016, the college held a Behind this and overlooking it is a long,
Summerson, replaced Sir Edward Maufe as competition for a new building which brick accommodation building, which in
the College’s preferred architect. In Maufe’s would occupy the site of the car park in the some ways resembles the new vernacular
place, Architects’ Co-Partnership designed middle of the college and thereby connect for public housing. The materials used are
in 1957 new accommodation for the the line of miscellaneous historic buildings not expensive. What is important is the
college known as The Beehive. on Cowley Place to the dour Victorian sense of care in the siting of the buildings,
In 1967, Philip Dowson of Arup building, originally built as a private house the way the accommodation building is
Associates won a limited competition to called Cherwell Hall, in the garden beyond. subtly bent to follow the contour of the
design more student accommodation. In river, and the use of a small amount of
the 1990s, Richard MacCormac designed IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT MONEY. ornamental brickwork to add liveliness and
V I E W P I C T U R E S / H U F TO N + C R O W / U N I V E R S A L I M A G E S G R O U P V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S ( 2 ) ; A M U C H A N D R A K U M A R G O R T S C OT T

the so-called Garden Quadrangle. IT IS ALSO ABOUT WILL, visual interest.

Although the architects employed were all A VIEW THAT OXFORD IS At the entrance to the college, there is
modernists, they tempered their modern- ABLE TO INVEST IN THE BEST now a tower with filigree metalwork
ism by using the best materials and decoration which replicates some of the
inserting their buildings into the college’s The then-college president, Gordon ornament in the Victorian building.
historic environment with intelligence. Duff, insisted on holding a proper open Ornament is no longer a crime.
More recently, Wright & Wright, competition, organised by Malcolm As clients, college fellows may some-
architects who have become specialists in Reading, a specialist in organising times be tricky and demanding, because
library design, were recruited to design a competitions. They recruited a relatively they are strongly independent-minded. But
new library, a nearly impossible task young firm of architects, Gort Scott, who they have the advantage that they have a
because the space allocated was a narrow presented a proposal to demolish the sense of continuity and want to leave a
slot in between the old college wall and the existing building on the riverside and, legacy. It may be a benefit that they are not
President’s Garden, so the building instead, design an open, glazed, polygonal necessarily architectural specialists, but
couldn’t have a public façade, or a view garden pavilion, which gives a focus to the humanists. There are lessons in this for
out, on either side. college and opens it up both to the river what produces good architecture. c
But the architects have managed to
solve the conundrum by connecting the
new library to the old through a long
entrance corridor and providing incredibly
high quality internal spaces. There are
spaces to work, to read and to lounge,
private spaces and social spaces, with a big
day-lit meeting room. You can feel that no
"value engineering" was used here — the
process whereby project managers squeeze
out the qualities of any building project in
order to save on cost.

Then I went to have lunch at St. Hilda’s

College, now a mixed college, but founded
as a hall for women in 1893. It occupies a
straggling group of historic buildings on the
banks of the River Cherwell with a distant
view of the dreaming spires of Oxford

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 87 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
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 LISA HILTON +(3+=,%$+$1'(5621
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The comeback Pig

EATING

Lisa Hilton enjoys lunch at a country pub where the

OUT

cooking extracts the maximum amount of flavour

TA B L E TA L K LO G O B Y J O N N Y H A N N A H ; W R I T E R S ’ P O R T R A I T S B Y VA N E S S A D E L L ; T H E P I G H OT E L S

s comfort in the country still

I
is all very confusing. English social cooking of the type served under
naff? Once upon a time the rules comedy and tragedy, wrote John domes, country house hotels seemed
were simple: if the house was Coleman, is made up of “the perpetual to exist with no aim beyond making
freezing, the sofa covered in dog hair inaccuracy of imitation”, which was their patrons feel inferior about not
and dinner was a mouthful of shot spot-on where country house hotels having a rural place of their own.
nestling in rotten pheasant breast used to be concerned. A combination
followed by a Pearce Duff’s “shape”, you of bewildered, purse-lipped service, Robin Hutson of The Pig hotel
could rest assured if not content that squeaky chintz and (mostly) indifferent chain very sensibly decided to dispense
you were staying somewhere smart. with all the angst when he launched
7KH3LJRQWKH
If the place was “blissfully 6RXWK'RZQV the now eight-strong group in 2009. He
comfortable with chandeliers in the wanted an approachable, pub-sound-
loo” (in the words of no less a judge ing name, as people aren’t scared of
than Jilly Cooper’s mother), your hosts pubs, and he wanted his guests to be
were irredeemably nouveau riche. comfortable, which was still radical at
Posh interiors were never decorated, the time.
they evolved slowly into an inimitable The near fanatical devotion the Pigs
hodgepodge of Georgian silver, inspire across a litter which includes
Victorian armchairs and G Plan sofas, destinations in Hampshire, Dorset,
walls softly dappled with dark patches Somerset, Kent and West Sussex, is
where Granny had flogged off the proof of the prescience which saw Mr
Romney, frayed silk curtains, everything Hutson awarded Hotelier of the Year in
faded and mellowed by time. 2021. People don’t want faux grandeur
Then came the wiliness of “shabby any more than they want arch under-
chic”, Farrow & Ball paint and the statement; they want to feel like
horror that is Soho Farmhouse, which welcome visitors in a friend’s rather

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 89 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
Table Talk
fabby house. The restaurant menus change twice descended. Approachability has certain
Different yet consistent is how the daily but offer a zigzag approach, flexibly disadvantages. One minute you’re
Pigs work — they are dissimilar enough sectioned into “Bits” (Garden, Fish and running a near-perfect country house
not to feel like a bland chain but share Pig), cold starters which can also come hotel, the next you’re plastered all over
certain features. At each one the market as mains, a Garden and Greenhouse the Daily Mail as “luxury £215 per night
garden and “Twenty-Five Mile” menu section with separate Garden sides and celebrity country retreat” featuring, oh
is central to the cooking, rooms are more conventional mains. dear, “antique agricultural items”.
dispersed around the properties for Watercress soup and New Forest Perhaps the perpetual greased piglet
privacy and individuality and the asparagus tasted exactly of themselves, of politics was having a laugh when he
design focus is antique-meets-airy unfussy greenness and savour chose his latest mini-break getaway,
woods and warm neutrals. extracted from ingredients which are but it’s not The Pig’s fault. c
No junior executive suite nonsense too often relegated to garnishes.
either — the rooms are straightfor- Pa enjoyed his pork chop, though he The Pig on the South Downs,
wardly labelled from “Extremely Small” felt it could have been more Madehurst, Arundel BN18 0NL
through “Comfy” to “Big Comfy Luxe”. I adventurously sauced, my cod with
haven’t stayed overnight, but my family locally-smoked pork belly and pearl
(all enthusiastic Piggers), assure me
that the bathrooms are excellent and
barley was a gem of a dish, the woody
chewiness of the meat offsetting the
Going nuts
there are no domineering TVs in the
bedrooms. My dad was pleased to find
smooth glint of the cod with the buttery
grains amalgamating the two. A side of
in May

EATING IN
There is no dish that
&XUHGSRUN
DW7KH3LJ is not improved by
hazelnuts, says Felipe
Fernández-Armesto
uts in May” is a jolly little
‘‘N English paradox, such as
are common in children's
singing games. Other examples
associate roses with sneezing and
mulberries with one’s morning toilette.
There are no fresh nuts to gather in May
in England.
I have seen the reading “knots of
may,” recommended on the grounds
a Roberts radio in the room and honeyed carrots with caraway was, like that in folk-magic, posies of may
apparently they water the plants the watercress, a reminder of just how blossom formerly had power to stoke
properly. Pressed further, Pa came up really good vegetables can be when venery; but the theory seems contrived,
with “Like one of those duff old country they are super-fresh which is an easy and the standard text is convincingly
house places, but done up.” thing to say, but a hard one to achieve. ancient — available at least from the
early seventeenth century.
We went for lunch at the latest The cooking here extracts the The “nuts” intended are more likely
Pig, on the South Downs near Arundel maximum amount of flavour, rather to be the red, speckled fruits that
to check out their strong English wine than straining for an elaborate tech- cluster like tiny apples when the
list. West Sussex wines are improving nique and whilst the food at The Pig isn’t hawthorn — or may-tree — is in leaf.
every year and The Pig anticipates first showstopping, it isn’t trying to be. It’s the Alternatively, “nuts and may” is a
growth Chardonnay and Pinot Noir this kind of thing you’d cook yourself if your plausible version of the lyric, because
summer. Meanwhile we went for a fantasies tend towards eighteenth-cen- the best season for eating the fresh
T H E P I G H OT E L S

Stopham Estate Pinot Gris, chalky and tury houses and an acre of kitchen haws coincides with the autumn nut
refreshing and a little bit mango-ey, garden; bright, pleasing, easy to enjoy. harvest; the cold, frosty mornings to
just right to make a warm spring day Which might well stand for The Pigs which the rhyme alludes are good for
feel exotic. themselves if Boris Johnson hadn’t the berries. In May, by contrast, may-

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 90 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 Table Talk
.LQJRI1XWV"7KH
trees yield few gustatory JORULRXV+D]HOQXW
admired examples as almonds
rewards. You can chop the or pistachios or brazils or
leaves into salads, or infuse cashews.
them as a rather uninteresting For crushing into ganache
tisane, or steep the flowers in or cream or custard or ice
liquor and syrup to make a cream, or flavouring biscuits or
cordial to fortify you, later in cakes, hazelnuts are insupera-
the year, for gathering the ble, not only because their
frost-rimed berries. flavour is intense and univer-
sally complementary, but also
The only nuts to eat in because their consistency is
May are therefore those left perfectly poised between
over from previous winters. But contrasting humours.
there’s never a bad time to Cashews and brazils are too
crack a few nuts. oleaginous, almonds too
Except for novelty value, acorns are milky, while pistachios, which make
Britain’s least rewarding species. capon or guinea fowl, or toasted and delicious nibbles at drinks time or
English oaks yield unappealing served with the cheese course. flavourings in marshmallows or
varieties, and the endless soaking Puréed with sugar, they have an Turkish delight, are not quite crisp
required to leech out the bitterness honoured place on the pudding plate, enough.
leaves them tasteless — serviceable for as part of a confection of whipped Hazelnuts, to their most besotted
bulking out breadcrumbs or adding cream or ice cream or both. The result, admirers, are best eaten unadorned
crunch to vegetables, but hardly worth monte bianco, can be too rich for many and unaccompanied by any other food.
the trouble. palates and, in normal portions, But I like them as savoury ingredients.
Walnuts, because of their slight sickening to some, but is sublime at the Roughly ground and sautéed in olive
acridity, are best adding tang and close of a meal as a bite-sized bonne oil they are a transmutative coating for
crunch in puddings or in sweet sauces bouche, on a sliver of sponge or biscuit boiled or steamed cauliflower, broccoli,
or relishes to lubricate game. They go studded with chestnut fragments. or Brussels sprouts.
well with may berry syrup or, mingled
with some preserved haws, in jelly Britain’s only other seriously For the first, a pinch of ginger in
made from it. edible nut is the most versatile. I can the oil is enlivening; for the second, a
Chestnuts, on the other hand, are hardly think of a dish to which I’d be sprinkling of cayenne enhances the
sweet and chewy and herefore suit unwilling to add hazelnuts, interest. With sprouts, which have an
savoury dishes, which they enhance experimentally, at least, in one form or acid edge, cinnamon or nutmeg is a
C A R TO O N B Y R I C K A R D J O L L E Y; P E T E R S Z E K E LY / A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO

with a gentle contrast — chopped in another. If hazelnuts are to hand, it is perfect addition. Ground more finely,
stuffing for veal or poultry, or candied folly to pair any more exotic substitute with just a touch of allspice, sautéed
and added to the roasting pan of a with chocolate — even such widely hazelnuts are a wonderful sauce for
pasta in any shape or for gnocchi.
Or in a slightly coarser grind, and
blended with ricotta, they fill ravioli
with a complementary crunch, such as
you don’t get from the usual minced or
puréed stuffings.
Blended to the consistency of paste,
with pulped tomatoes or with a mixture
of passata and mascarpone, they make
a sauce to suit almost any delicately
fleshed white fish. Crushed and
roasted, they garnish game birds in
season more alluringly than bread-
crumbs, especially with a clump of
fresh may berries, which by then — at
ŏ)URPWKHORRNRIWKHVWDWXHVWKLVPXVWEH(DVWHU,VODQGřŐ
last — are ready for harvesting. c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 91 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
Table Talk
COUNTRY

footballing career, given the supply of

Funny old game game was so limited, butchers were
NOTES

paying two pounds a piece for birds.

Patrick Galbraith asks what Big These days, so much gets shot that
Jack would make of today’s shoots game dealers often charge estates to
take their birds away. You wouldn’t be
y knowledge of 1970s

M
to make do with lying out for geese on far off the mark if you suggested
footballers is limited. But the foreshore or shooting rabbits. that carcasses have become
there is one — being the In Jack’s adult life, though, all of that a business by-product.
editor of Shooting Times — with whom started to change and shooting began
I feel a sort of connection. to be sold commercially, on a per-bird As much as a day’s
About four years ago, I was in the basis. There are plenty of scientists who shooting is wonderful
office, digging through the archives, recognise shooting is responsible for all escapism, the
when I came upon a grainy photograph sorts of ecological positives. Not least countryside doesn’t
of Jack Charlton reading the magazine because it necessitates woodland being exist in a vacuum and
to his three children. maintained to serve as drives. world events mean that the
As well as being a hard-tackling But the sport’s transition from being forthcoming season is set to be the
centre-half for “The Peacocks”, he a pastime for the few to becoming a most disrupted in living memory.
appeared in two world cups, scored 35 business enjoyed by the many has had Pheasants are big consumers of wheat,
goals in internationals, and was known some pretty stark consequences. When 15 per cent of which is grown in
as “the dirty big giraffe”, among Charlton was at the height of his Ukraine. But with farmers downing
Liverpool fans. When Charlton died, in
2020, his family said that for all he
CHRISTOPHER PINCHER ON DRINK
enjoyed football, fishing always meant
more to him.
Charlton was involved in field sports
all his life and if you were to ask the
Fall into the gin trap
,KDYHDOZD\VHQMR\HG a liquid Lent. And
average countryman about his greatest
achievement they’d almost certainly
say Jack’s Game, the TV series which
O although each year I forgo a fridgeful of
foodstuffs — variously bread, cheese, potatoes,
saw him travelling the country to do red meat, white meat and sundry others — with
everything from beagling to ferreting. EOLWKHHDVH,WDNHFDUHDERXWWKHŴXLGV)RUWKRXJK
one must fast, one must leave some liquors on
A couple of nights ago, while which to feast.
rewatching the episode where Charlton One year I gave up everything except beer — and
heads to Wales for a day’s driven put on half a stone. Another year, remembering that
shooting, it struck me that at the start he old and surely bogus story about the Russian
merrily says there are “ten million refugee from the Reds who declared, “between the
pheasants shot in the UK each year. Five UHYROXWLRQDQGWKHƓULQJVTXDGWKHUHLVDOZD\VWLPH
million reared and five million wild”. I’m for another magnum of champagne”, I drank only
not quite sure where those numbers bubbles.
came from but 40 years on, shooting Such elan might have appealed to émigrés from
has — so to speak — exploded. the Bolsheviks but it held less attraction for my bank
Due to agricultural intensification, manager, and I never did it again. This year all wines,
there are now very few rough forgotten and beers were verboten and while most spirits were
CARL COURT/GETTY IMAGES

corners where wild pheasants can eke also prohibited, in a nod to Joe Kennedy, gin and
out a quiet living, but there are some whisky became my bootleggers.
fifty million captive-reared birds Gin, originally jeneverIURP)ODQGHUVEHFDPHDQ
released every summer. 6LSVPLWKōVKDYHWKH English staple after the arrival of William of Orange
When Charlton was my age, buying ƓUVWFRSSHUSRW LQ-DPHV,,WRRNVKLSDQGŴHGDQGWKHFRJQDF
GLVWLOOHU\LQ/RQGRQIRU
a day’s shooting would have almost QHDUO\WZRFHQWXULHV trade followed him. Protestant William, no fan of
been impossible. The wealthy had their &DWKROLF)UDQFHLPSRVHGUHVWULFWLRQVRQ%RXUERQ
own estates, while everybody else had

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 92 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 Table Talk
has resulted in a ban — perhaps with fewer birds being shot,
on bringing them game will become valuable again.
across the Channel. Either way, it’s the gamekeepers I
In Charlton’s day worry about. In a generation they’ve
the situation would gone from being people who worked
have been hard but it hard for landowners and were given a
wouldn’t have been cottage for life upon retirement to often
catastrophic. There being employed by businessmen who
wasn’t a big industry are happy to run them ragged, then lay
built on the sport, and them off when the wind changes.
wild birds that were What old Jack would have to say
-DFN&KDUOWRQƓVKLQJ
DW&RUQKLOORQ7ZHHG
still around would have about it, I don’t know. He famously
kept people going. But stood shoulder to shoulder with the
their tools and taking up arms, Europe’s things are more fragile now. miners on the picket line and was twice
P E T E R AT K I N S O N / A L A M Y

breadbasket is out of office. At the same I’ve already heard of a few shoots asked to stand as a Labour candidate.
time, the cost of fertiliser, which shoots knocking it on the head and almost He never did, but that dirty big giraffe
need to grow crops that birds shelter in, nobody claims to know where we’ll be would have got my vote. c
S TO C K P H OTO

has rocketed. Not least because much come Christmas. The real danger is that
of it comes from Russia. Finally, in days get sold but costs climb even higher Patrick Galbraith’s In Search
France, a large producer of game birds, and operators end up with holes in their of One Last Song was published by
avian flu is spreading rapidly, which finances. It might lead to a great reset William Collins in April

brandies and the English Gin is back, and how. So as the pancakes were
yeomen switched their polished off and Ash Wednesday dawned, it was the
allegiance to juniper obvious drink not to drop. The best gins are the dry ones.
berries. Too many people get carried away by Bombay, yet better
Unlicensed and unlimit- — far better — is Tanqueray.
ed, the Gin Craze ensued And best of all is Tanqueray 10. Centred upon juniper,
and it was not long before T10 is rooted in three other botanicals — coriander,
the womenfolk joined their angelica and liquorice — which lend it tasting notes of
yeomen in a headlong ERWKSHSSHUDQGSLQHQXWV7KHŴDYRXUVEXUVWRQWRWKH
pursuit of Dutch Courage. tongue then are becalmed by the
Many a mother was ruined tonic as they slip down the throat with
by a noxious mixture DFLWUXVV\ŴRXULVK
topped off with turpentine In blending Tanqueray 10, nothing
before the authorities is overlooked. Even the new bottle
acted to close Gin Alley design is based on the iconic Ameri-
with the Gin Acts of 1751. can cocktail shaker, acknowledging
%XWE\WKHQWKHFRXQWU\ZDVVXIƓFLHQWO\KRRNHGRQWKH Tanqueray’s place as the prince of
habit that it proved impossible to kick. martini makers. In its bottle it looks
BUYENLARGE/GETTY IMAGES; GORDONS

In the nineteenth century, we learned to mix gin with good. Out of it, it smells and tastes
tonic to mask the taste of malaria-busting quinine. In the great. And its affects are pleasant too.
twentieth century, gin became the baseload for pretty Clean spiritemakes for sound sleep
much every cocktail, that is until Humphrey Bogart and and a clear head. The bathroom scales
)OHPLQJōV%RQGFRPELQHGWRVXSSODQWLWZLWKYRGND also respond kindly. So next dry
January, or next Shrove Tuesday, as
1RZLQWKHWZHQW\ƓUVW gin has made a roaring you are deciding what is out, make
FRPHEDFNZLWKHYHU\ŴDYRXUXQGHUWKHVXQDQGDOOWKH sure you keep gin in. c
colours of the rainbow. Even the new gin glasses are
ODUJHUWKDQOLIHŋƓVKERZOVZKLFKEDUHO\ƓWWKURXJK Christopher Pincher is the
narrow doorways. Whatever happened to the highball? Government deputy chief whip

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 93 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
Table Talk
the slavish followers of fashion (ferns
Best muckers
BR ANCH
ROOT &

and grasses are a giveaway), and those

prone to virtue signalling (look out for
Hephzibah Anderson on the raised beds and state-of-the-art
tensions of sharing a plot compost tumblers).
You can even spot style differences
ou can never really The thing is, when I said we could

Y
on an allotment. Gazing around ours,
know someone until you’ve “share” it, I’d envisaged the entire plot I’m fairly certain you’d pair the riotous
gardened with them. That’s becoming ours — albeit with me tangle of sweet peas, nasturtiums and
what I’ve realised now I’m sharing an prevailing when it came to design, and bumper veg with the flaxen-haired
allotment with my mother. things continuing to be done as I do herbalist. The picture-perfect haven
We’re the best of friends ordinarily, them (yes, I hear how that sounds). My could only belong to graphic designers,
yet over the past few months, as we’ve mum, quite reasonably, presumed I and the straight rows of spuds and
dug and mulched and ordered far too was offering to carve up the plot and beans to the classic old buffer.
many seeds, any emerging green shoots give her a share.
aybe the horticultural

M
have had to weather some seriously That initial miscommunication has
frosty silences. Now, with our first joint turned out to be the first of many. I’ve friction on our plot shouldn’t
growing season gathering pace, I’m weeded her wild flowers while she’s come as a surprise. After all,
wondering whether to expect a breaka- planted wild strawberries where I’d my mum is an artist who makes her
way region up near the compost bin. already sown lettuce. She’s a proponent own clothes and when she fancies a
My mum surrendered her own plot of the no-dig method, and I’ve had to change, cracks open a bottle of fabric
after Covid lockdowns and a broken watch her scarify the surface of my dye. Tell her she looks smart and she’ll
wrist made tending a difficult patch — sorry, our — old courgette bed, take it as an insult. I, on the other hand,
impossible. Thick tree roots marked resisting the temptation to charge over own a quantity of crisply tailored
one end, irrepressible brambles the with a spade before she popped sweet garments in beige.
other; in between lay heavy clay soil still pea seedlings in. Of course, gardening can also
recovering from damage caused by a As for purple-sprouting broccoli disabuse you of illusions you’ve
pair of Tamworth pigs that lived there — well, I didn’t envisage billowing nurtured about yourself. I enjoy
before it became hers. green netting. Meanwhile, we’ve both planning but do I stick within its
An early lesson every allotment accidentally stomped on my daughter’s parameters? Absolutely not. And while
holder learns is that a plot’s upkeep is fairy garden. clutter at home makes me feel itchy, I’ll
always, always more work than you happily leave scattered piles of clover
imagine. So, for reasons not entirely “Show me your garden and I and buttercups on the allotment sitting
altruistic, I invited my mother to muck shall tell you what you are,” wrote around for so long they take root again.
in over on mine. Alfred Austin, who succeeded Tenny- In the wordless way that things are
son as poet laureate in so often achieved in a garden, my mum
1896. In the same way and I seem to be finding a way to
some dog owners harmoniously divvy up the tasks. She
resemble their pets, so doesn’t much enjoy planting, for
gardens frequently mirror instance, whereas I tend to skimp on
the personalities of their the aftercare; tomatoes and squash can
gardeners. be my responsibility, sprouts and
There are the social spinach hers; I’ll fend off the slugs if she
butterflies, whose outdoor keeps the cabbage whites at bay.
spaces seem to revolve Meanwhile, it’s taken a while to find
C A R TO O N B Y T I M OT H Y B R AY

entirely around entertain- anyone doughty enough to take on her

ing. At the other extreme, old plot (one candidate installed some
you’ll find the retiring wiccan-looking willow structures then
intellectuals: think thick vanished after trying to get a fork into
hedges and a meadow for the soil). But it finally has a new tenant.
a lawn, hidden-away One of the first plants that’s gone in, I
corners perfect for solitary note, is a kiwiberry bush: over to you,
ŏ+XUU\XS\RXORW6RPHRIXVKDYHKRPHVWRJRWRŐ
musing. Then there are Dr Freud. c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 94 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 Table Talk
ACCOUNT
rapacious villains that need to be
The final furlong? stopped.
But to add to the mess, racing’s own
TURF

Stephen Pollard says horse structure is falling apart. Without

racing is in existential crisis owners, there are no races. Owners
spend over £672m a year on training
t started with my father,

I
will be merely staking that in a month, fees and bloodstock. Yet less than two
who would deposit me in the even if you win — will prompt an per cent of owners even come close to
library on Saturday mornings so he “affordability check”, with bookies covering their costs.
could go and put his bets on. I would having to scrutinise bank statements Fair enough: it’s a sport and to have
then walk to Mecca Bookmakers and and other financial documents before a winners you have to have losers. But
wait for him outside. (I was once asked decision is taken on whether a punter prize money is a joke — one category of
as a tie-breaker in a kids’ general race has just £3,000 total prize money
knowledge quiz, “Where is Mecca?” My — and getting worse in relation to other
answer, Northwood Hills, was met with countries such as Ireland and France.
a glare). A study in July 2020 predicted a
We would discuss the form, the 20 per cent fall in owners by 2025 and a
jockeys, the ground. He’d take me with 15 per cent fall in horses in training —
him to Windsor, Ascot, Newbury, an immediate financial loss to racing
Newmarket and so many other of £124m.
1RWORQJIRU
courses. I was captivated. Nothing else WKLVZRUOG"
was as exciting. 7KHZLQQHU That forecast was, of course,
Fifty years on, I am as in love with it RIWKH*UDQG before the current economic mess. A
1DWLRQDODW
as I was back then when Lester Piggott $LQWUHH Cheltenham championship race this
was known as a jockey, rather than a WKLV$SULO year had just four runners — all Irish.
criminal, and a woman had yet to ride Racing seemed to react with a
in the Grand National, let alone win it. collective shoulder shrug, when the
But magical and romantic as it remains sensible reaction would be panic. A
in my mind, the part of my brain that Cheltenham race with four runners!
deals with reality tells me something How can you not see something is
very different. wrong?
There was a similar story with the
Racing is dying. It is an industry dire card that opened the turf flat
calculated as worth £4.1 billion a year meets the criteria to be allowed to season at Doncaster in March, with just
to the UK economy, and supports tens continue placing bets. eight horses in the Spring Mile. I’ve not
of thousands of jobs. And it is run, in This will cripple licensed gambling seen an age profile of owners, but I’d be
the main, by duffers who would — which is precisely the intention. The astonished if it wasn’t increasingly
struggle to make under-manager in a anti-gambling ideologues have racing heavily skewed to the over-60s, just as
hay factory and who possess not even in their sights because they can see racing more widely is retreating into its
the most basic understanding of how how easily it can be toppled. Racing comfort zone. Many leading owners
they and their sport are viewed by the receives around £80 million a year from are, literally, dying and not being
world around them. the levy paid by bookmakers. replaced.
They see the Cheltenhams, the Racing is — or should be — in the
o after the bookies

G
2 / ,  6 & $ 5 ) )  $ ) 3  9 , $  * ( 7 7 < , 0 $ * ( 6

Derbys and the Royal Ascots and they entertainment business. But when
slap themselves on the back at the — and who is going to stand up some of the crowd at Cheltenham had
success of their “product” and their for bookies? — and you get a sing-song after the last race, much of
fools’ paradise continues. racing, too. The threat is existential and the reaction on racing forums and
Racing is beset by crises, each one of imminent and racing is clueless social media was one of disgust at the
which is enough to cripple it. Let’s start politically as to how to counter it. plebs who didn’t understand how to
with the gambling review, due soon. A The fight is being left to the bookies, behave on a racecourse.
core proposal is said to be that anyone which is worse than useless as many There is no reason why racing
who loses between £100 and £1,000 a MPs have already been persuaded by should die. It has everything to thrive.
month betting — some say the trigger campaigners that the betting firms are Everything, that is, except the will. c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 95 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
Table Talk
modelled by Nineties’ super Helena
Spring into bling Christensen, “influenced by the bold
STYLE

spirit, yet cultivated nonchalance” of

Hannah Betts says post- fin de siècle hedonism. Its Beaded
pandemic life is a party Fringe Woven Mini Dress (£349,
karenmillen.com) moves fabulously.
’learned friend, writer,

M
back to infancy. Time was, I barely Warehouse also boasts a fair bit of
wit and raconteur, Harry sported princess shoes at all. Where my bling. Although how this hangs IRL is a
Mount, boasts several younger sister was granted an array of moot point as it looks more than a little
axioms regarding matters sartorial. party gowns and both gold and silver rum on some of its models and one
Chief among these is that his clothes dancing sandals, I was permitted wants this stuff to be loved and to last.
should be “retired” to the family merely one, on the basis that I refused
holiday home in Wales. Cue Haz to go to parties, not liking other Better to seek out coruscating
strolling about Pembroke with a raffish, children, or, indeed, people. slow-fashion star SON Vintage London,
vagabond air reminiscent of Zool- an innovative, eco-friendly, vintage-
ander’s “Derelicte” collection, itself a This was a tragedy I have been restoration label with a penchant for
tribute to “Haute Homeless”, Galliano’s overcompensating for ever since. fabulous fabrics, heritage highs, and
Spring/Summer 2000 couture creations Witness the early 2000s, which I largely cunning craftspersonship. Quoth
for Dior, complete with tin cups, J&B spent nose pressed up against Lanvin’s co-founders Trudie Ball and Sue Poole:
bottles and consumptive slap. window, sighing over Alber Elbaz’s The planet doesn’t need more new
The Mountian motto that concerns sumptuous, jewel-toned cocktail stuff. Our clothing history is rich,
us here is that which can be applied to frocks. More recently, I have devoted meaning we don’t need to start from
party dressing. Namely, that nothing years to stalking an emerald Yves Saint scratch every time. Our edits are small,
good can come of a a black tie event, Laurent puffball three sizes too small. the process unhurried, originality key.
We honour the integrity of the original
the scent of doom lying heavy in the air. For a rental fillip, head to
design, while bringing each piece bang
He’s right, of course. But, also: FFS. mywardrobehq.com or byrotation.com up-to-date, inspiring delight in the
We’ve had — what? — two, three, ten and hire something giddying to allay wearer and onlooker alike.
years of lockdown sweatpantery, quotidian gloom. On the former, my
meaning the desire to dress UP is pick includes a fuchsia Hervé Léger, Think prom dresses reworked as
strong. Party tits were back at the ruffle-hem, bandage dress (from £7 a jumpsuits, gowns reborn as maximalist
Oscars, “decolletarse” has been deemed day), a yellow-gold Vampire’s Wife minis, joyous touches by way of
a thing, glitz, glitter and metallics — kaftan (from £44 a day, and, yes, it’s half matching cuffs, bows and headbands,
traditionally packed away on 1 January my size, but, I did say “kaftan”), and a and more flounces than a Sondheim
— are making spring bling more marshmallow-hued Sorcha sing-along. I adore Big Green (£400,
ubiquitous than florals. “Gilded O’Raghallaigh crystal wig (from £32). sonvintagelondon.co.uk), a
Glamour” is the theme for May’s Met If you’re buying, slapper-chic voluminous, emerald brocade show-
Gala. To be sure, pained event dressing stalwart Karen Millen has confections stopper, sensational on the small-
is ghastly. However, post-pandemic
0HUPDLG
party dressing is about life as a party, %OLVV621
resplendence with insouciance, sequins 9LQWDJHōV

L I Z Z I E R E E S AT S H O OT I T M O M M A P H OTO G R A P H Y
by day. 3LOORZ'UHVV

I’ve just spent a week in Paris

and nothing makes me want to top
myself more than its womenfolk’s
excruciating good-taste uniform of big
coats, cool trainers, plus a violently
expensive bag, as showcased on the
Instagram account, Parisiennes in
Paris. Live a little, bitches. Or, as my
toddler niece once put it: “Hannah
wears princess shoes every day.”
Like all fetishes, this can be traced

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 96 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
 Table Talk
7KH
DGRUDEOH
framed. The Scarab (£300) is an about "over-thinking" the children’s
%LJ incredible, electric-blue halter frock lives. Partly because he probably would
*UHHQ with a deep v-back conjuring the silver have been the dickhead child in the
GUHVV brilliance of the scene-stealer currently situation himself, and partly because
dominating Balenciaga’s Rue Saint- he wanted to go on the camping trip
Honoré flagship. Meanwhile, the Pillow anyway. So off we all went to the New
Dress (£400) is pure mermaid bliss. Forest, me, Will, Hector and Lyra, for
For the gaiety of nations, I the Easter Bank Holiday. Minnie got
purchased I Fink In Love You Two out of it by wangling a late skiing
(£200), an exquisitely simple navy holiday with her own in-crowd friends.
column dress with fuck-off, sequinned, It was actually even more
chevron, 3/4 balloon sleeves in bolts of nightmarish than I’d imagined. Lyra,
blue and silver. I would wear it, equally who is not a camping natural (Will
insouciantly, with hot pink kitten heels blames me, I blame her oligarch-heavy
to the Serpentine summer shindig, Hampstead prep) immediately
somebody’s nuptials, or the pub. c developed some kind of allergy to
bracken. So while I was manically

Out with the Year 3 or whatever.

And said child will probably also
trying to acquire antihistamine and
manage her anxiety, Will was kicking
HOT HOUSE

in-crowd turn up in Nepal on their gap year, and

at their Oxford college, and eventually
back with the terrible media dads
(Hector’s school is less nouveau, more
on the same graduate training scheme pro-"pastoral care" than Lyra’s).
Claudia Savage-Gore in the City. It doesn’t even need to be as
barely survives a obvious as that. The dickhead boy(s) or And being so desperate to
nightmarish camp girl(s) can just make it abundantly clear impress, he didn’t realise Hector had
that your child was not part of the got separated and lost from his so-
o it happened — the unsolic-

S
in-crowd at prep school. called friends. Cue massive two-hour
ited school camping trip. I say search, culminating in the police being
unsolicited, but that’s not really I didn’t say any of this to Will summoned and then dismissed as
the right word. To recap, this was an about the camping trip, as he would Hector had been found weeping under
entirely unnecessary, utterly non-com- have given me his standard response a bush. Obviously I was hysterical by
pulsory trip instigated by the cool kids' this point, but we had to go through the
parents at Hector’s school. One of the motions of a lols freezing barbecue and
dads came up with it, and created a then sleep in a tent.
separate parents' WhatsApp group to Yes, of course, it was the huge kind
invite a select group of us on said trip. with actual mattresses and everything,
And suddenly it went from one but it was far from ideal. And, as feared,
man’s terrible idea, to "a thing" that was I encountered Roscoe’s mother on a
indeed happening. I said no to start dawn pee trip, who engaged me in a
with, even though I could feel the elite whole chat about whether I was ok and
nature of the whole thing swaying me. whether Hector may or may not have
As in, if we said no, or pretended to be suffered trauma in his time under the
busy, would Hector be excluded from bush. The next day a dad got a ukulele
the "right" clique for the rest of his out, at which point I forced Will to
school career — potentially adult life? pretend our burglar alarm had gone off
The thing is, and I think we all know to get out of there.
C A R TO O N B Y L E N H A W K I N S

this deep down, what happens in prep So that went well. The whole object
school emphatically does not stay in of the exercise was to ensure Hector’s
prep school. There will inevitably be lasting membership of the in-crowd.
some dickhead child who goes on to And instead we were the insane family
senior school with your child, who who started by screaming about
makes sure everyone there knows ŏ+LV(QJOLVKWHDFKHUVDLG anaphylaxis, then called the police and
KHŌFRXOGRIōGRQHEHWWHUřŐ
about the time they wet themselves in then left early. #Blessed c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 97 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
Sacred Cows
The Beatles:
occasionally
fab four
Written by Paul Lay
Illustrated by John Cuneo

I
n his review of The Beatles (aka “The
White Album”) published in the Observer in
October 1968, the filmmaker Tony Palmer
hailed Lennon and McCartney as “the greatest
songwriters since Schubert”. The White Album,
he insisted, “should surely see the last vestiges
of cultural snobbery and bourgeois prejudice swept
away in a deluge of joyful music making”.
Palmer was not the first, nor will he be the last,
commentator to abandon critical faculties in order to
claim a place on the “right side of history”. The previous
year Kenneth Tynan declared the release of Sergeant
Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band a “decisive moment
in the history of western civilisation”.
There are those who still cling to that claim and,
as the gushing response to Peter Jackson’s Get Back,
an eight-hour film of salvaged material from the 1969
Let it Be sessions, suggests, the popularity of the Beatles
and the affection in which they are held shows no sign
of abating. But Palmer’s Schubert comparison is a
telling one, not least because The White Album does
contain one Schubertian masterpiece: Paul McCartney’s
“Blackbird”.
A comment, it is claimed, on the US civil rights
struggle, “Blackbird” was inspired by JS Bach’s “Bourée
in E minor”, a piece for lute with which McCartney was
acquainted. No other song distils his melodic genius
down to its purest form and even the lyrics are a notch
above the Beatles’s often banal musings. covered by Marmalade.
It’s the pattern with Beatles LPs — that frustrating
The problem, apart from the fact that mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous. Even
Schubert wrote scores of superior songs, is that The Revolver — widely regarded as their masterpiece —
White Album — a double LP which is best edited down contains a couple of duffers, courtesy of George
to a shortish two-sider — also contains what might be Harrison. Similarly, his contribution to The White
McCartney’s nadir: “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”, a song of Album, along with the portentous “While My Guitar
“desperate levity” so hated by the other band members, Gently Weeps”, is “Piggies”, a grimly twee attack on
that they vetoed its release as a single. Its irritatingly bourgeois conformity that undermines all the trippy
ingratiating melody took it to number one anyway, sentiments of peace and love and karma that Harrison

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 98 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
preached to his immature end. One is reminded of the
Twitter trolls who remind us to “be kind” while spewing Sgt Pepper’s whimsy
misanthropy left, right and centre.
Nowhere is this inconsistency as striking as on has aged horribly next
Sgt Pepper. Despite its treasures — McCartney’s
“She’s Leaving Home”, a heartbreaking narrative of to its contemporary,
intergenerational misunderstanding set to a rising
melody of instant memorability; and “A Day in the
Life”, perhaps their finest hour, with verses by Lennon,
the Beach Boys’s Pet
detached and dreamy (“I’d love to turn you on”)
married to McCartney’s jaunty middle section
Sounds
celebrating banality and routine (a psychiatrist could
make much of it) — the rest is mediocre: “When I’m “Eleanor Rigby”, at 26 wrote “Hey Jude”, as well as
Sixty Four”, “Lovely Rita”, “Fixing a Hole”, all fine and “Blackbird”, “She’s Leaving Home” and numerous other
dandy, but Schubert? Sgt Pepper has aged horribly in its gems should have offered so little post-Beatles.
psychedelic whimsy, especially in comparison with its Perhaps it is that he and Lennon were primarily
great contemporary, the Beach Boys’s Pet Sounds. performers rather than composers. The four get their
mojo back one last time on the Apple Corps roof,
It was stateside that the flaws of the hippie playing among other tracks, “Get Back”, which McCart-
experiment, of which Sgt Pepper was the touchstone, ney had literally performed into existence in Abbey
were first diagnosed. Bob Dylan had opted out of 1967’s Road as Ringo and Harrison looked on, one in admira-
Summer of Love to retreat to Woodstock in upstate tion, one in envy. On that roof in Savile Row, eyed by
New York surrounded by the group of gifted musicians wary coppers, their beginning became their end.
who would become The Band. There he would lay down
the Basement Tapes, immersing himself in the music Perhaps it is, after all, to the composers of the
of the “Old Weird America”, to return to the public gaze Austro-German tradition that we should look to
with John Wesley Harding, a chorusless album of radical understand the McCartney conundrum. In Richard
conservatism, austerely out of time. Dylan had seen Wagner’s meditation on the art of song, Die Meistersing-
where the future lay and it was in the “authenticity” er von Nürnberg, Hans Sachs considers how few artists
of the past, of tradition, of blues and country. manage the leap from youth to maturity:
Almost simultaneously, another band, closer to In joyful days of youth
home, The Rolling Stones, had come to similar conclu- When first our souls are captured
sions and abandoned their own embarrassing experi- In joy of love enraptured,
ment in psychedelia — Mick Jagger always had superior When hearts are beating proud and high,
business acumen — to embark on a feat the Beatles The gift of song is given
never managed: a run of five LPs with barely a dud track To all by kindly Heaven:
among them, beginning with Beggars Banquet, all ’Tis spring that sings, not we.
leering swagger, amoral when not immoral, released at Through summer, fall and winter’s chill
the end of 1968. When cares of life are pressing,
What we are seeing in Get Back is a band in search Though marriage brings its blessing,
of similar authenticity, harking back to their Hamburg Children and business, strife, ill-will,
Only those who still have kept then
days, which is why Harrison’s introduction of Billy
This gift of song from Heaven,
Preston to the sessions, a friend from that era, is an
Then masters they will be.
inspired one. Preston adds structure to the chaos
recognised by McCartney, who chastises Lennon in Throughout his three score years and ten, Wagner
front of the camera with a dose of managerialism: surpassed each previous monumental work. Schubert,
“What you need is a schedule.” dead at 31, produced 600 songs, including at least two
They are the words of a man destined to sit atop the lieder cycles that we truly can call “decisive moments in
British establishment, a knight, a Companion of the history of western civilisation”.
Honour, and yet a creative mystery, one that the Irish What Palmer might think now of his comparison of
poet Paul Muldoon, in collaboration with Macca — Lennon and McCartney with Schubert we’ll never
their tome, Lyrics, is £75 when not on discount — has know. But it offers fair warning: whatever our sentimen-
done little to shed light on. For there are few more tal attachments, we should be careful not to confuse the
perplexing puzzles than why the man who at 23 wrote joyfully diverting with the divine. c

ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ 99 ƦƚƲƁſƁƁ
BORıS
starlıng
PROFESSIONAL CYCLING is a tough
tortured sport, and never more so than during the
hero of three Grand Tours each year: the Giro
the GIro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the Vuelta
a España. Each of these covers thousands
of kilometres and lasts three weeks, a time period succinctly
broken down by the Danish rider Per Pedersen. “First week,
you feel good. Second week, not so good. Third week, fucked.”
The Tour gets all the attention, but in many ways THE GIRO,
which begins on 6 May, is the best of the three. ADAM
HANSEN, who completed 20 grand tours in a row — a record
which will almost certainly never be beaten — reckoned that
the Giro is toughest of all, and if anyone should know, it’s him.
The terrain is endlessly challenging, the climbs are steep and
narrow, the weather can be atrocious, and in the high
mountains the snowpack has yet to melt away. the leader In the maglIa rosa on
the nInth stage of the gIro In 2021
Where France’s hexagonal shape lends predictability to each
year’s route (a week of flat stages for the sprinters followed by amazing, and the coffee is perfect,” said the Australian cyclist
some mountains, a few transition stages, more mountains, and HEINRICH HAUSSLER. “No disrespect to the other races, but
the final run-in to Paris), Italy, being longer and thinner, is that’s not the case there.”
much less conducive to formula. And is there a more beautiful item of clothing in any sport
Key mountain stages often take place in the first week and than the maglia rosa, the jersey worn by the Giro’s leader? The
shake up the leader-board right from the off. The Tour builds to actual pink varies in tone from year to year — sometimes light
a defined climax: the Giro delivers thrills and spills throughout. and bright, other times darker and richer — but be it tamarisk
It is not unknown for the race lead to change several times in or amaranth, it is always a beacon of elegance in the rainbow of
the last week. The Giro is never over till it’s over. the peloton as it comes whizzing by.
Despite the race’s toughness, riders love it. It doesn’t have

LU CA B ET TIN I/AF P V I A G E TTY I MAG E S ; PAT RIC K KOVARIK /AFP VIA G E TTY IM AG ES
the same global profile as the Tour, but that profile is distinctly The Italians don’t just love their race: they love
double-edged. The stakes at the Tour are so high that the top winning it too. France has been waiting since 1985 for a home
teams control everything, there are hordes of journalists and triumph: in that time the Giro has seen 18 Italian victors. The
VIPs, and the whole thing is sufficiently bloated and corporate last time anyone won both in the same year was 1998, and it
as to sometimes border on soulless. If the Tour is a stadium was done by a man
mega-concert, the Giro is a basement jazz club. And all the who was at once
better for it. the pride and
Whereas the TOUR (July) and the VUELTA (August/Septem- sorrow of Italian
ber) take place at least partly during the summer holidays, cycling.
bringing tsunamis of tourists who are at best casual fans, Giro His name was
spectators tend to be proper aficionados, knowledgeable and MARCO PANTANI ,
enthusiastic. Like Italian Formula 1 fans, they are known as and he was unique.
tifosi (which literally means “those infected by typhus”) and Tiny, even by the
watching a race in their company is not easily forgotten. standards of
PantanI wIns professional
This, perhaps, is the key to the Giro’s appeal: that it is the 15th stage cyclists — 5’7”, nine
of the Tour de
quintessentially of its country. “The Tour is very international, France In 1998 stone sopping wet
whereas the Giro is Italian,” said former rider CHRISTIAN — but you couldn’t
VANDE VELDE . “Lot of cologne. Lot of hair product.” And miss him: the
hospitality too, of course. “You can be in a little hotel out in the crooked nose, the
country and the pasta is the best you’ve ever had, the meat is enormous ears, the

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 NICK
tImothy
SIR RICHARD TURNBULL, the last
Are U.S. governor of Tanganyika, once assured
sports Denis Healey that “when the British
actually Empire finally sinks beneath the waves
superIor of history, it will leave behind it only
two monuments: one is the game of
to ours? Association Football (above), the other
is the expression ‘Fuck off’”.
This was unnecessarily pessimistic. The British Empire
bequeathed to our former colonies not only the English
language, the rule of law and parliamentary democracy, but
many sports beyond football. Indians love cricket, South
Africans love rugby, and this summer 43 countries will send their
finest to Birmingham to compete in the Commonwealth Games.
But among Britain’s former colonies lies an anomaly: the
UNITED STATES. For despite their status as participants in the
first international cricket match in which the Yanks lost to Her
pirate’s bandana. He was a rock star, an artist, a Cavalier Majesty’s loyal subjects from Canada in a match played on
amongst Roundheads: Il Pirata by name and nature, attacking Broadway and 30th in Manhattan in 1844, and despite the
when he felt like it rather than when a heart-rate monitor or popularity of “soccer” among school children, sport is another
algorithmic download told him he should. His days were the thing to confirm the notion of American exceptionalism.
ones when the road kicked upwards towards the heavens, the
places where eagles dare and angels fear to tread: Stelvio, Cricket is played in America, but only really among
Pordoi, Gavia, Finestre, Zoncolan. Indian and Pakistani migrants. Rugby must seem barbaric
Pantani was Italian to his core: la bella figura on two wheels, without all the protective equipment and time-outs of
fabulously romantic and daring. “We’re all imprisoned by American football. The governing bodies for soccer — or real
rules,” he said. “Everyone longs for freedom to behave in the football as we should call it — are forever told that if they truly
way they see fit. I’m a non-conformist, and some feel inspired want to break the American market, the game needs wider nets,
by the way I express freedom of thought. I’ve never been more goals, more breaks in play and no draws.
meticulous or calculating, on or off the bike. I ride instinctively, The late Sir Richard proffered the only response to such
responding to the moment. There’s chaos in everyday life, and I crazy proposals. But why, when it comes to sport, is America so
tune into that chaos.” different? It cannot be, as some suggest, because Americans
But that 1998 double was the summit, in every way. A year need everything faster and bigger than everyone else. American
later an excessive hematocrit reading saw him thrown out of society leads the world in hit-demanding, instantaneous
MARY E VANS PI CTU RE LI BR ARY /A LAMY STO CK PHOTO

the Giro while in the maglia rosa, and he was denied the chance pleasure-seeking, give-me-what-I-want-and-give-it-to-me-now
to defend his Tour title. commercialism, but urgency cannot be the issue. Baseball is
Within five years he was dead of a cocaine overdose: reassuringly slow. Basketball can go on for hours. It requires the
consumed by the chaos into which he’d tuned himself, fallen patience of a saint to watch American football with all its
from the razor-edge of control in a hurtling descent. stoppages.
A sad, lonely death in a hotel room near the sea: a long way,
in every way, from the vaulting mountain amphitheatres where Perhaps we need to explore an altogether more
he’d ridden through thickets of ecstatic supporters, where he’d horrifying explanation. Might it be that Americans prefer
found grace in the expression of his supreme talent, where he’d American sports because they are simply superior?
been Icarus and flown too close to the sun. O It is certainly the case that in some respects American sports
can be more advanced. Cricket has learned from baseball as
Boris Starling is an award-winning author, screenwriter fielding methods and training have grown more sophisticated.
and journalist. Leap of Faith by Frankie Dettori with Boris Football — real football — has borrowed ideas from across the
Starling was published by HarperCollins last year Atlantic in the application of data. In planning trips across the

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Atlantic, I cannot be alone in rushing to book tickets to the rugby might not work in American football, and vice versa. The
baseball and basketball. only metric we can really use to settle the argument is global
It is also true that American sports know better than sports popularity — and here American sports are behind.
elsewhere how to put on a show. English football clubs — most Not that they care. For perhaps what America likes about
obviously Tottenham — have copied how American stadia American sports is America: it is after all the land of hype and
work, hosting other sporting and live events. But nothing here hope, razzmatazz and self-sufficiency. Who else could get away
can compare to the entertainment put on at almost any with the ludicrously-titled baseball World Series?
American sporting event. It is not just the Super Bowl: from the And for the rest of us, perhaps how we feel about American
Cheerleaders sports reflects our ambivalence about America. While in the
of the North States, we might attend a game, stuff ourselves with super-sized
CarolIna Tar
Heels durIng burgers and marvel at the show. But we also choose not to
the 2022 import it, preferring to stick to our own sports.
NCAA Men’s Our sporting identity, like our national and cultural identity,
Basketball
Tournament lies in the specificities of place, tradition and habit — and long
In new may that be the case. O
orleans

Nick Timothy is the author of Remaking One Nation: The

Future of Conservatism and a Daily Telegraph columnist

PATRICK
KIDD
A century ago this spring, an
PIpe Oxford undergraduate got drunk for the
music to the hot dogs to the kiss cams, karaoke cams and celeb down and first time. After downing three quarters of
cams, every second of every event is squeezed for entertain- play up a bottle of Madeira, a glass of port and two
ment. Even high school basketball teams get cheerleaders. tumblers of cider, he stumbled into
In England the lunchtime entertainment at a test match is Hertford’s Old Quad and decided to show off by reciting a
the Yorkshire Tea brass band, where the musicians parade favourite poem. There was just one problem: the young Evelyn
around the pitch dressed as giant kettles and tea pots. Waugh found he only knew the first line.
In football, a brief 1990s experiment with cheerleaders at “There’s a breathless hush in the Close tonight,” he solemnly
Villa Park ended badly when oafish fans sang sexist songs. Even began, followed, perhaps, by a breathless hush from his friends,
without that, it cannot have been much fun for the cheerlead- broken by the odd fetid hiccup, as he struggled to remember
ers, since Birmingham on a cold January night does not much boy what came next.
resemble California on a summer day. wonder: Sir Henry Newbolt’s Vitai Lampada,
collIns
written 30 years earlier, compares the
But if American sports put on plenty of extra- tension in a school cricket match to the
curricular entertainment, it does not follow that their sports are sturdiness required in colonial warfare.
better. While in the rest of the world we are entertained enough “Ten to make and the match to win,” it
by sport, in America the sport requires something extra. We goes on. “A bumping pitch and a blinding
fans can be subjective about it: surely the skill of bowling in light, an hour to play and the last man in.”
cricket is greater than pitching in baseball, real football more If Waugh had been able to recall any
graceful and skilful than American football, and rugby more more, it would be the captain’s cry, at the
LANCE KI NG/G E T TY IM AG ES

physically and technically demanding than anything produced crease and later in battle, to “Play up! Play
the other side of the Atlantic? up! And play the game!”
Alternatively, we can try to be objective, inventing and The poem carries extra poignancy
comparing metrics to test skills: speed, strength, force, stamina, since it was on the Close at Clifton
technique. But it would all be misleading and impossible to College, Newbolt’s alma mater, in 1899
compare. Just as Michael Jordan was the greatest of all time in that AEJ COLLINS, a 13-year-old
basketball, his switch into baseball was a flop; what works in schoolboy, made 628 not out, which stood

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 stump, then came a huge cheer as
his second rapped the Australian
on the elbow.
I think, too, of being at Medinah
golf club, near Chicago, in 2012 for
an extraordinary Ryder Cup, when
Europe had battled back from 10-4
down to be a 6ft putt from retaining
the trophy. Ryder crowds, like
Corens, are seldom silent but as
Martin Kaymer lined up his
attempt, the German noticed
something odd. “I suddenly
realised how quiet it was,” he said.
“All day there had been noise and
now it was still.” A gentle tap and a
few seconds later pandemonium
returned, but now, instead of the
SIlence, Please: Mark Selby takes aIm cry of “U-S-A!”, it was “Olé! Olé!
durIng the 2021 Betfred World Snooker Olé-Olé!”.
ChampaIonshıps at the CrucIble
At Wimbledon there is still a
as a record in any form of cricket for 116 years. Collins would hush on Centre Court after the umpire says “Play”, and most go
later make a fifty at Lord’s for the Royal Engineers, but he never silent when he says “Quiet please” though there is always one
played first-class cricket. Captain Collins was killed at Ypres, who yells “Come on Tim!” So, too, do British and Irish rugby
reportedly urging his men, in the school spirit, to “Play up! Play crowds tend to respect the kicker when they eye up a penalty.
up!” At Thomond Park, Munster’s fortress in Limerick, the silence
He died on November 11, 1914. Exactly five years later, becomes a weapon to unease the visiting kicker, so deathly still
George V ordered two minutes of breathless hush throughout that you could hear a pin being dropped in Tipperary.
the lands, a tradition we continue today. It is respected because
it is rare. Like war, sport is naturally noisy. When, early in the The silence of the start line, like that when a
pandemic, football matches were played behind closed doors, conductor lifts his baton, is in anticipation of the tumult to
viewers found the lack of noise discomforting and so the come. “Silence is the perfectest herald of joy,” as Claudio puts it
broadcasters added the thrum of an artificial crowd that ebbed in Much Ado About Nothing. Be it a full stadium falling quiet to
and flowed with the action. All that was missing were the lewd watch sprinters kneel and tense, ready to snap into activity on
chants about the referee’s solo proclivities. the B of the bang, or the pastoral calm found at Henley Royal
Regatta if you wander past the Pimm’s-soaked enclosures and
Yet you don’t need a commotion to create an atmosphere. head for the start, where your only fellow spectators are likely to
Some of my favourite moments in sport have come when the be a few ducks.
crowd’s voice has been stilled. As Sid Waddell once said at a And then there is the sport conducted almost entirely in
darts match: “The atmosphere is so tense, if Elvis walked in with silence. It is striking how soundless snooker is when watched in
Z AC G OO DW IN/PO OL /G E TTY IM AGE S

a portion of chips you could hear the vinegar sizzle on them.” person. Even the murmur of the referee announcing the score,
I think of the air of anticipation at Lord’s before the first ball amplified by microphone for TV audiences, can barely be
of the 2005 Ashes series when England’s long-suffering fans felt discerned at the back of the theatre. For much of the time, the
the stirrings of that strange emotion: optimism. Mixed, of only noise bar the clink of cue ball upon object is the rustle of
course, with terror that Australia would soon set us straight. sweet wrappers. Few dare to cough in the Covid era. Give me
I was sitting in the top deck of the Tavern Stand next to Alan such concentration over sports with DJs shouting “make some
Coren and his son, Giles, who is not a natural Trappist but fell noise”. In our chaotic and cacophonous world, moments of
silent with everyone else as Steve Harmison walked to his mark breathless hush are to be cherished. O
in front of the Pavilion and charged in. Thirty thousand pairs of
lungs exhaled as his first ball fizzed past Justin Langer’s off Patrick Kidd writes the Diary and Tailender in The Times

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