Lost Daphne du Maurier story found after 70 years

I love stories like this one: a literary gem unearthed after so many years. Over the past year I have been collecting newspaper cuttings of similar stories: an 1848 Emily Bronte letter going on display at the Parsonage Museum in Haworth; letters by Ted Hughes being bought by the British Library; a postcard written by a Titanic passenger auctioned at Henry Aldridge and Son; etc. I imagine it was just as thrilling for Ann Willmore to find the lost Daphne du Maurier story in an online publication as it would have been for her to find it in a cemetery of forgotten books.

Trident

The Times wins on best front page of the day (with the Telegraph’s splash on the prolonged flight ban finishing a close second). It has run with the Trident question, which cuts clear divides between the three main parties’ politics. Inside, they have printed a letter from four army generals asking whether the Cold War missile is actually value for money.

The generals question: ““Is the UK’s security best served by going ahead with business as usual; reducing our nuclear arsenal; adjusting our nuclear posture or eliminating our nuclear weapons?”

And they make the point: “It may well be that money spent on new nuclear weapons will be money that is not available to support our frontline troops, or for crucial counterterrorism work; money not available for buying helicopters, armoured vehicles, frigates or even for paying for more manpower.”

It does seem like an obvious way to reduce the country’s deficit. But the Times’ leader column cautions: “The only real alternative would be, therefore, to abandon our nuclear capability — and with it our nuclear expertise. That decision would be irreversible. It should not be taken lightly in a flurry of cost-saving, nor because it seems like an easy option in a politically charged debate. The generals are right to argue that Trident should be included in the Strategic Defence Review. The detail would surely make the case for its retention.”

Surely, there would be ways around Britain retaining its nuclear expertise if Trident were scrapped: strategic partnerships between states with experts working collaboratively, for instance. Besides, it is not as there isn't any talk of viable alternatives:

(From the Times' article): “General Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank added his weight to the debate last night, saying that a cheaper option to Trident should be considered, particularly as Britain strives for a world without nuclear bombs.

“Do we really need the kind of effective weapon we had in the Cold War? There is quite an argument to say we do not,” he told The Times. He suggested that nuclear-tipped missiles launched from the land or by air were possible alternatives.”

A Single Man

My heart sank when I read Stephanie Thoebald's review of A Single Man in The Telegraph, yearning for life after the fashion of Julianne Moore's character, Charley, who works on nothing but her face and her booze all day long. If Stephanie is being ironic, then I can't quite hear her. I am writing this because I don't think she is.

Julianne Moore's character is the most vapid, irritating and pitiful figure in the whole movie. Why is it that the leading female in a film about the gay male aesthetic has to be a kind of stuffed doll who comes out with robotic lines simmering with self-hatred? It's cliche and it's dull. The great joke of the movie is an anti-lesbian jibe delivered by Charley: "You remember that time in London when that old lesbian poured a glass of wine over my head because I asked her if she was hung like a doughnut?" (or something along those lines). Charley and George (Colin Firth) roar with laughter. Charley looks as if she might fall backwards off her chair. Drum roll.

Charley is cut in the style of a dysfunctional fag hag. She comes nowhere near Ann Bancroft in The Graduate or Bette Davis in Dangerous (see Stephanie's review). And as for comparing Julianne's role in A Single Man to the one she played in Boogie Nights - there is no contest. In Boogie Nights, the off-camera suggestions of Julianne's character are exciting. In Single Man, they are dull, predictable and unerotic. Women who have gay male friends are tired of seeing themselves portrayed in this way.

General Synod

We heard that the press box was empty at General Synod yesterday so I drafted a press release to tell them what they were missing. Press Association (whose religious correspondent is always on the ball) picked it up and then it went crazy:

Wesley’s path to schism
The Times Comment

Methodists declare 'we're ready to merge' with Church of England
The Times Comment

Methodism offers to die, to rise again.
The Times

Church of England General Synod extends pension rights for gay partners
The Guardian (last paragraph)

General Synod: Methodists likely to merge with Church of England
The Telegraph

Leader signals end of Methodism
The Independent

Methodist Church prepared to go out of existence
The Daily Mail

Methodist Church ‘prepared to go out of existence’ for mission
Christian Today

Methodists affirm commitment to a covenant relationship with CofE

Inspire Magazine

God's kingdom more important than denominations, says Methodist President
Ekklesia

Martin Amis Overkill

Could the press stop falling over backwards for Martin Amis just because he has a new novel out? I don’t see why he merits being plastered all over the front pages of the national press day in and day out. The Telegraph is so enamoured that it has printed a picture of him smouldering into the camera as a young man next to one of his recent quotes: “Have looks ever been more important? There’s a great tyranny of looks now.”

http://tinyurl.com/ykcpahs

Yesterday we had to suffer him in The Guardian saying that Gloria Steinem turned him into a feminist during one single day in New York: “It’s the rhetorical device she uses throughout, and it’s very effective.” He is never going to say Andrea Dworkin turned him into a feminist is he.

(Gloria Steinem: http://tinyurl.com/ycngjmk)
(Andrea Dworkin: http://tinyurl.com/2zq3gt)

Kristin Scott Thomas

A bizarre angle to the reporting of Kristin Scott Thomas’s role in the film Partir taken by The Telegraph today:

“Kristin Scott Thomas's voice is no barrier in France,” the headline clips, “Received Pronunciation has been increasingly marginalised by Labour during its decade in power with the result that Kristin Scott Thomas, tired of being consigned to endless period dramas in her homeland, has taken her cut-glass accent to France.”

Kristin Scott Thomas has lived in France for years and done French films for ages. She has said before in interviews that she comes to England to do theatre and stays in France to do films. Anyone reading The Telegraph today would think that she only just moved to Paris yesterday. Basically, The Telegraph has dressed Kristin in its politics. We all know that The Telegraph’s top pin-ups are Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren and Joanna Lumley and we all know why The Telegraph loves them (and I am not implying that it shouldn't).

Unfortunately, there is very little info in the article about the film itself:

http://tinyurl.com/ygkpwqc

In The Beginning...

Maybe the next thing that will come out of Bible scholarship is that mathematical possibility preceded God:

http://tinyurl.com/ylmotye

Elsa Schiaparelli

What a cruel picture of Elsa Schiaparelli wearing a lopsided witch’s hat above copy describing her feud with Coco Chanel in today’s Telegraph:

http://tinyurl.com/n6ruju

If they were kinder, they would have used this one:

http://tinyurl.com/mmdzry

Wonderful. Let’s have a white, silk turban revival.

10:10

Despite the cynicism:

http://tinyurl.com/kl3oqt

...people still turned out at The Tate yesterday:

http://tinyurl.com/nahklw

:)

Camp Quest UK Launch

A very funny comment piece in today's Telegraph by Michael Deacon who is rationally sceptic about the Professor Richard Dawkins-supported launch of Camp Quest UK:

Here is a taste:

“At Camp Quest UK, children aged eight to 17 will be given lessons in evolution and rational scepticism.
“Now, I have no quarrel with Camp Quest's objectives. I am an atheist. And of course children should be taught to think scientifically. No, my worry is simply that the camp's teachings will be too effective. For if there's one thing to make my blood freeze, it's the thought of my child mutating into some kind of pedantic, humourless, eight-year-old mini-Dawkins.
"Imagine trying to celebrate the little beast's birthday: ‘Many happy returns, Darling. Now blow out the candles and make a wish.’
‘Certainly not, Father. This is a futile custom. There is no evidence to support the notion that blowing out the candles on a Marks & Spencer Victoria sponge increases the likelihood of one's desires becoming reality.’
‘Right. I see. Sorry. Well, luckily, we've bought some nice gifts for you.’
‘On the contrary, Father, luck did not influence your purchases. Indeed, there is no such thing. To believe otherwise is flabby thinking.’
‘Oh, God.’
‘Please don't say that, Father. You know perfectly well that the deity whose name you invoke does not exist.’
‘That Camp Quest thing really had an effect on you, hasn't it. I suppose you'll be wanting to go on the course they're organising for Easter…’
‘Most assuredly not. Easter is a spurious festival based on the fallacy that a man came back from the dead, which double-blind experiments have proved impossible. In consequence, I refuse to recognise Easter and shall spend the holiday period at school, whether or not my teachers are in attendance.’"

And here is the whole article: http://tinyurl.com/l2ontj

I have just checked out the Camp Quest UK website and watched a You Tube piece to camera by Religion and Contemporary Society Kings College Masters student and Camp Quest UK Director, Samantha Stein.

One of the highlights for the camp-goers is the “invisible unicorns challenge” which, Samantha says, is “a staple at any Camp Quest across the world”. The kids get introduced to the two invisible unicorns that they can’t see or smell or touch and they have to prove to the camp counselors that they don’t exist. “To be honest, I am not sure how they will manage that because we have faith that these exist, but err, there we go,” says Samantha (in the most see-through bluff ever).

If I was a kid and Samantha delivered the rules of the game to me in the same way she does in the You Tube clip, I wouldn’t want to play – the camp counselors are going to have to put a little bit more heart and soul into it then that. But - get this - the prize is (Samantha says, fluttering her eyelashes), “a £10 Darwin note signed by Richard Dawkins himself, so I am sure that will give the kids some incentive to participate in this activity.” What?! Not the activity itself?! I think the prize should be a unicorn – two of them. Those poor kids.

Seriously, watch the clip yourself: http://tinyurl.com/l2akfa

Women "Happiest at 28"

Women are happiest at 28, a study has claimed. "Everything in life hits its peak at some point, and nearly reaching your thirties isn't so bad now,” a Clairol Perfect 10 spokesman is reported as saying in the Telegraph:

http://tinyurl.com/nxbjmr

The thing is - how can I know for sure?... I guess if the past 96 hours are anything to go by, then - on a superficial level at least - it can’t be so bad!

Artistic Licence

On the theme of letters to the editor, here is one I wrote to The Telegraph a couple of years back when I was a student (it is the ninth letter on the page when you scroll down and is headed 'Artistic Licence'):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/3614241/The-Daily-Telegraph-letters.html

I wrote it at the desk of my overpriced digs in Jericho. It was past 10pm. My boyfriend at the time was driving all the way from Somerset to Oxford on the spur of the moment. I decided to write this letter to kill time waiting for him. By the time he arrived, I was engrossed. I remember greatly appreciating his patience after he had waited for me to finish it.

I was surprised but pleased it was published a few days later when I had almost forgotten about it!

Equality Politics

The Guardian reports today that the Equalities and Human Rights Commission formed 18 months ago will tell the Government that the economy is too fragile to impose pay reviews on business despite the fact that women’s pay is on average 17 per cent less than men’s and the gap is increasing.

Meanwhile, in today's The Telegraph, we learn from a front page report that MEPs are still allowed to refer to “waiter” and “waitress” because no gender-neutral term has been successfully proposed and that there is no male version of “midwives”. Well done. Now that they have got that straight, maybe they can tell the UK's Equalities and Human Rights Commission a thing or two about something that matters a lot more.

The Thought Police

The front pages of The Telegraph and The Guardian today make chilling reading.

Telegraph journalist, Martin Beckford, has unearthed a document passed by the Department of Health last month, which equates NHS staff talking about religion to harassment under disciplinary and grievance procedures.

Alan Travis from The Guardian has relayed a House of Lords report, published today, stating that Britain has constructed one of the most extensive and technologically advanced surveillance systems in the world; a system which risks undermining our basic freedoms.

CCTV is a mixed blessing. It does help to solve and deter crime. However, putting cameras up all over the place chips away at the very freedoms we are trying to protect. The very anxious begin to think that because a lift is not equipped with CCTV, anyone travelling up and down in it is “at risk”. And the sanctimonious come out with the blackmailing line: “If you are not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.” If former Home Secretary and ID cards fan, Charles Clarke, was travelling alone in a lift listening to his I Pod, I doubt he would be the kind of man who would break into a dance. However, some of us might. But if there was a camera there, we might think again. And who would be watching? It all feels a bit creepy.

Martin Beckford’s report in the Telegraph contains a strong quote from Dr Peter Saunders, the general secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship. “One of our cherished freedoms is that of freedom of speech, which enables us to have important debates about crucial issues,” Dr Saunders is quoted as saying. “But we’re seeing a culture of thought police emerging.”

There is also a thought-provoking quote from Neil Addison, a Roman Catholic barrister who specialises in religious discrimination cases. “To what extent do you stop ordinary conversation?” he asks. “What they’re doing is saying you cannot even talk about religion and that means a whole area of human experience is cut off.”

We should stand up for our civil liberties and resist George Orwell’s 1984.

Young People In The Media

The British right wing press has given young people a good bashing today.

Forget Generation X or Generation Y, The Daily Mail has decided to sneer and deride youngsters by branding them “Generation Sex” and dedicating a whole double page spread – and a sizeable amount of its front page – to an article all about how teenagers are living depraved and meaningless lives in cyberspace.

The Mail Online has run yet another article on teenage pregnancies and obesity, loudly shouting (as if we didn’t hear the first time) that Britain has the worst statistics in Europe.

The Telegraph takes a subtler tone in its derision as it gives space to a British Social Attitudes report, which found “most young adults do not share the views of their parents’ generation on the importance of marrying a long-term partner or the role of women in the household”.

This, alongside the knife crime stories, would make you believe that Britain has no hope in its young people and that they were nothing but a problem waiting to be solved.

I know this isn’t true and I look forward to young people getting some positive media coverage in the right, as well as left, wing press!