The man who can fix it, p20

Going Hungary, p42

THE WEEK

3 Leading article 7 Portrait of the Week 9 Diary Peregrine Worsthorne 10 Politics Daniel Knowles 11 The Spectator’s Notes 17 Rod Liddle 21 Ancient and modern 25 Hugo Rifkind 26 Letters 27 Any other business Martin Vander Weyer

James Forsyth, Deborah Ross and James Delingpole are away.

Midsummer in Stratford, p45

12 These are Blair’s children The rioters and the state

Harriet Sergeant 13 Appetite for destruction Culture and anarchy in Britain

Theodore Dalrymple 14 John Greening ‘Praise for’: a poem 16 Tottenham notebook Saturday night with the rioters

Ravi Somaiya 18 After the golden age Forty years of funny money

Matthew Lynn 20 The next Berlusconi? Diego Della Valle, darling of Rome

Robin Lee Navrozov 21 Help yourself to self-help The faster way to take in advice

Melanie McDonagh 22 The polar bear problem They’re thriving, and they’re hungry

Matt Ridley

BOOKS & ARTS

Books 30 Joanna Kavenna Arctic explorers of the 20th century 32 Alexander Chancellor Death and the Dolce Vita,

by Stephen Gundle 33 Patrick Skene Catling The Cat’s

Table, by Michael Ondaatje Allan Massie Tretower to Clyro,

by Karl Miller 34 Christopher Howse Raised on Skiffle, by Roy Kerridge 35 John Spurling

The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy, by Mervyn Peake; Titus Awakes, by Maeve Gilmore 36 Ed Smith CrickiLeaks, by Alan

Tyers and Beach 37 Hugo Williams The short life of Tara Browne 39 Lewis Jones

Stieg & Me, by Eva Gabrielsson Martin Parker

‘Beyond Descartes’: a poem Bookends Marcus Berkmann

Cover by Christian Adams. Drawings by Michael Heath, Castro, Bernie, Adam Singleton, Geoff Thompson, Kipper Williams, RGJ, Will Dawburn, Holland, Grizelda, Nick Downes, Evans, Herneman, James Parker and Colin Wheeler. www.spectator.co.uk To subscribe to The Spectator for £104 a year, turn to page 56 Editorial and advertising The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP, Tel: 020 7961 0200, Fax: 020 7961 0250, Email: editor@spectator.co.uk (editorial); letters@spectator.co.uk (for publication); advertising@spectator.co.uk (advertising); Advertising enquiries: 020 7961 0219 Advertising fax: 020 7961 0020 Subscription and delivery queries Spectator Subscriptions Dept., 800 Guillat Avenue, Kent Science Park, Sittingbourne ME9 8GU; Tel: 01795 592886 Fax: 0870 220 0290; Email: spectator@servicehelpline.co.uk Newsagent queries Spectator Circulation Dept, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP, Tel: 020 7961 0200, Fax: 020 7961 0057, Email: dstam@spectator.co.uk Distributor COMAG Specialist, Tavistock Works, Tavistock Road, West Drayton, Middlesex UB7 7QX Vol 316; no 9546 © The Spectator (1828) Ltd. ISSN 0038-6952 The Spectator is published weekly by The Spectator (1828) Ltd at 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP Editor: Fraser Nelson

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the spectator | 13 August 2011 | www.spectator.co.uk The yob Olympics, p12–17

Peake’s practice, p35

Arts 40 Barry Humphries The life and brief career of the

Australian artist Charles Conder 42 Exhibitions Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography in the 20th Century; Richard Long; Giuseppe Penone; Thomas Struth Andrew Lambirth 43 Dance Mariinsky Ballet

Giannandrea Poesio 44 Theatre The Mother; Blue Surge

Lloyd Evans 45 The Homecoming; A Midsummer

Night’s Dream Patrick Carnegy 46 Cinema Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Chris Ayres 47 Pop Marcus Berkmann Opera Tosca; Otello

Michael Tanner 48 Radio Kate Chisholm 49 Television James Walton Culture notes Ed Rex

LIFE

Life 53 High life Taki Low life Jeremy Clarke 55 Real life Melissa Kite 56 Wild life Aidan Hartley 57 Bridge Susanna Gross

And finaly . . . 58 Chess Raymond Keene 59 Competition; Crossword 60Status anxiety Toby Young Dave Michael Heath 61 The wiki man Rory Sutherland Your problems solved Mary Killen 62 Drink Bruce Anderson Mind your language Dot Wordsworth

Only the illegal acquisition of an expensive consumer durable, preferably a Rolex, will assuage my righteous wrath and end my grief Rod Liddle, p17

True to form, Brecht questions everyone’s assumptions but his own Lloyd Evans, p44

‘The French revolution,’ I said. ‘A good thing or a bad thing?’ ‘It isn’t finished,’ the chateau owner said. ‘More heads need to come off’ Jeremy Clarke, p53

Contributors

Peregrine Worsthorne is a former editor of the Sunday Telegraph.

Theodore Dalrymple’s Spoilt Rotten: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality is out in paperback this month.

Harriet Sergeant’s Wasted: The Betrayal of White Working Class and Black Caribbean Boys is published by the Centre for Policy Studies.

John Spurling’s novel A Book of Liszts was published by Seagull Books in July.

Daniel Knowles is assistant comment editor of the Daily Telegraph.

the spectator | 13 August 2011 | www.spectator.co.uk

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