Westminster games, p10

New gardens with deep roots, p37

Sharpen your Olympic conversation, p14

THE WEEK

3 Leading articles 7 Portrait of the Week 9 Diary Miriam Gross 10 Politics James Forsyth 11 The Spectator’s Notes 17 Rod Liddle 22 Ancient and modern 23 By the book 24 Hugo Rifkind 26 Letters 28 Any other business Martin Vander Weyer

Barometer returns next week.

12 Day of the drones The writer Daniel Suarez on a flying-robot revolution Mary Wakefield 14 Brush up your Olympics How to win gold when conversing in front of the telly Mark Mason 16 ‘We are one body’ In Syria, the regime’s violence has reinvigorated the uprising Paul Wood 18 China’s office of last resort Encounters with injustice, and just a little hope, at the Petitions Office John Simpson 20 No man’s land

America’s sex war started in the suburbs Florence King 22 The despair bubble

It could finally be time to be cheerful about the economy Philip Delves Broughton

BOOKS & ARTS

Boks 30 Jane Ridley The Day Parliament

Burned Down, by Caroline Shenton 32 Lewis Jones The Golden Door, by A.A. Gill Andro Linklater Little America,

by Rajiv Chandrasekaran 33 David Ekserdjian Titian, by Sheila Hale 34 Emily Read Names for the Sea, by Sarah Moss 35 James Walton Mo said she was quirky, by James Kelman Caroline Moorehead Good Living Street, by Tim Bonyhady 36 Cressida Connolly The Dinner, by Herman Koch David Crane Clive Brittain, by Robin Oakley 37 Peter Parker A Time to Plant,

by Hugh and Grania Cavendish 38 Michael Carlson The Twenty-Year

Death, by Ariel S. Winter Bookends Marcus Berkmann

Cover by Kyle T. Webster. Drawings by Michael Heath, Castro, Alex Fine, Holland, Ken Pyne, Adam Singleton, Dish, Tony Husband, Geoff Thompson, Paul Wood, McLachlan, Bernie, Grizelda, Roger Latham, Robert Thompson, Mazurke, Øivind Hovland, NAF, Evans, Meyrick Jones and RGJ www.spectator.co.uk To subscribe to The Spectator for £104 a year, turn to page 26 Editorial and advertising The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP, Tel: 020 7961 0200, Fax: 020 7681 3773, 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 7681 3773 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 7681 3773, Email: dstam@spectator.co.uk Distributor COMAG Specialist, Tavistock Works, Tavistock Road, West Drayton, Middlesex UB7 7QX Vol 319; no 9597 © 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 | 4 august 2012 | www.spectator.co.uk The royal command performance, p11

Arts 39 Lloyd Evans Go north, young man

(but stick to the Fringe) 40 Music Peter Phillips 41 Exhibitions Laura Knight: In the Open Air;

Alex Katz: Give me Tomorrow Andrew Lambirth 42 Opera Götterdämmerung

Michael Tanner 45 Theatre The Doctor’s Dilemma

Lloyd Evans 46 Cinema Ted

Deborah Ross 47 Television James Delingpole 49 Radio Kate Chisholm

Culture notes Victoria Lane

Cool Katz, p41

LIFE

Life 53 High life Taki Low life Jeremy Clarke 54 Real life Melissa Kite The turf Robin Oakley 57 Bridge Janet de Botton

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

The untalked-to suburban housewife had affairs and then went to a psychiatrist. The shrink, like her husband, hardly said a word Florence King, p20

Middle age lays many hazards and traps for us, not the least of which is golf Marcus Berkmann, p38

With children and staff milling about, it is going to be impossible to keep the place flying-spaniel-proof Melissa Kite, p55

Contributors

Miriam Gross, this week’s diarist, has a memoir — An Almost English Life: Literary, and Not So Literary, Reflections — coming out next month from Short Books.

John Simpson is the BBC’s world affairs editor; on p. 18, he meets some of the people petitioning the Chinese state for justice.

the spectator | 4 august 2012 | www.spectator.co.uk

Jane Ridley, who on p. 30 contemplates the incineration of the Houses of Parliament, is the author of Bertie: a Life of Edward VII, to be published later this month.

Caroline Moorehead is a biographer and journalist specialising in human rights. Her latest book is A Train in Winter. On p. 35 she reviews a tale of pre-war Vienna.

James Walton, who reviews James Kelman’s latest on p. 35, is the author of The Faber Book of Smoking and Sonnets, Bonnets and Bennetts.

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