The Times - UK (2022-03-18)

30 Friday March 18 2022 | the times

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the sense of victimhood and paranoia

that seems evident among its leaders.

The best hope for ending the conflict

will be through Russian citizens being

denied the attractions of the free

world. We should, however, be

extremely cautious in exercising

sanctions against individuals and

wary of compromising the rule of law.

Whatever one may feel about the

moral questions arising from how the

oligarchs acquired their wealth, the

vast majority have been found guilty

of no criminal offences either here or

in Russia. Once any state acts against

people based on a moral as opposed

to a legal position regarding how that

wealth was acquired, there is no limit

to who may be thought to have

offended society and face the

sequestration of their assets. Action

against resident aliens may be

acceptable during wartime but no

such state exists between Britain and

Russia at present, and long may that

remain the case.

Anthony Browne

Datchet, Berks

Sir, President Putin appears to have

taken grave offence at the charge of

being called a war criminal by

President Biden (“ ‘Hundreds trapped’

climate change APPG; Ben Lake MP,

chairman, fuel poverty and energy

efficiency APPG; Baroness Parminter,

chairwoman, environment and

climate change committee; Baroness

Hayman, co-chairwoman, Peers for

the Planet; Ian Liddell-Grainger MP,

chairman, energy studies APPG;

Kerry McCarthy MP, chairwoman,

small island developing states APPG;

Philip Dunne MP; chairman,

environmental audit committee

Sir, Alice Thomson does not explain

how we obtain electricity when the

wind does not blow and the sun does

not shine (“Suddenly, we’ve all

warmed to green energy”, Mar 16, and

letters, Mar 17). Our energy bills have

soared because we have duplicate

energy systems — one for when it is

windy and another, powered mostly

by gas, when it is not. This country

could have plentiful supplies of cheap

shale gas if the government would lift

the moratorium on fracking. Instead

we choose to fund President Putin’s

war by buying gas from Russia.

David Stark

Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire

after strike on theatre”, news, Mar 17).

No doubt he would also object to

being no-platformed or cancelled.

One wonders why he cares. The

evidence might suggest that he has no

interest in complying with

international law or in upholding

humanitarian norms. His whole

point, surely, is that he regards

western concepts of freedom,

individual rights and the rule of law

as outmoded and decadent, and

above all inapplicable to him. But

then autocrats are not known for

their sense of irony.

Richard Millett QC

London NW1

Sir, Helen Hanson (letter, Mar 16)

opposes the monthly £350 to be paid

by the government to households

accommodating Ukrainian refugees.

She argues, cogently, that the

payment should be a charitable

gesture to support the desperate

needs of these refugees. Any recipient

who agrees with her can pass the

money on to a suitable charity and, if

a taxpayer, make a gift aid

declaration, thereby converting the

£350 to £437.50 for the charity.

Anthony Rentoul

Twickenham

Freeing Nazanin

Sir, I am delighted that we have at last

repaid the long overdue debt owed

to Iran that has allowed Nazanin

Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh

Ashoori to return home (reports,

Mar 17). However, Britain has an

even larger debt dating back almost

700 years: the money borrowed by

Edward III from banking families in

Florence to finance the English in

the Hundred Years War. These loans

amounted to 900,000 gold florins

from the Bardis and 600,000 florins

from the Peruzzis. Although Edward

made some repayments in cash,

wool and other items, the debt is still

outstanding. Partly as a consequence

of this, both families went bust

shortly after making the loans.

Brenda Hunt

Salisbury

Sir, We seem to bestow honours now

to “celebrities” and political figures

who neither need nor deserve them.

I would suggest that Nazanin

Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her husband

be given awards, hers for bravery

and his for persistence in the face of

government delay and incompetence.

It would be small recompense for six

lost years but a recognition of the

esteem and affection in which the

people of this country hold them.

Roger Baker

Strensall, N Yorks

Bursting with flair

Sir, In your leading article (“Suits You,

Sir”, Mar 15) you lament the demise

of men’s suits. Having spent my

entire life in the production of men’s

tailoring, may I point out another

possible cause: the trend to create the

“burst tomato” look, suits so tight as

to be uncomfortable. The tailored suit

has always been an absurd item but

the effort from so many skilled people

to produce a tailored look that is also

good to wear has been trashed in the

latest fashion. If there is a way back

for tailored garments, comfort has to

be considered.

James Roberts

Ret’d designer for Pierre Cardin;

Ashdon, Essex

Shipwreck survivor

Sir, Cat lovers upset by Shackleton’s

murder of Mrs Chippy (letters,

Mar 14, 16 & 17) may be heartened by

the story of Nigeraurak, ship’s cat on

the Karluk, Vilhjalmur Stefansson’s

ship in his 1913 Arctic expedition,

which suffered a similar fate to the

Endurance. She was kept alive and

safe with the survivors of the wreck.

When they were finally rescued six

years later she was found to be fatter

and fitter than before, as all the

sailors who cared about cats had

shared their meagre rations with her.

Ralph Lloyd-Jones

Nottingham

World wide wonder

Sir, Paul Saunders writes of using

Whitaker’s almanac to discover

“unknown unknowns” (letter, Mar 17).

Such serendipity works when using

computers, too. I was recently

researching for a quiz and through

googling Betjeman’s Summoned by

Bells to check a source, I came across

a delightful programme of Betjeman

reading from that autobiographical

poem on BBC iPlayer. I was entranced

to hear his voice again and saw some

wonderful images, including the

local place mentioned in my quiz.

Ruth Wright

Longborough, Glos

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Festival of Brexit

Sir, It is difficult to see how an
informed or accurate assessment of
the Unboxed festival could be made
by the Commons culture, media and
sport committee since evidence was
heard before the ten projects had
been announced and any activity
had taken place (“Brexit festival ‘a
vague waste of £120m’ ”, Mar 16).
Throughout the pandemic,
Unboxed has created jobs and
facilitated new partnerships across
science, technology, engineering,
arts and maths, developing hundreds
of events and activities for the public
to experience, and working with
the local communities that will host
them across the UK.
The committee may wish to speak
to the 50,000 ecstatic people who
saw our opening event, called
About Us, in Paisley a couple
of weeks ago. They may also wish to
visit our varied programme that runs
throughout this year and see for
themselves what truly new
approaches to creativity can achieve.
Martin Green
Chief creative officer, Unboxed
Dame Vikki Heywood
Chairwoman, Unboxed

Waning of US power and the rise of oligarchs

Sir, Iain Martin’s tribute to Harry

Truman as one of the great postwar

American presidents is well deserved

(“America’s lost its knack for great

leadership”, Mar 17). As a child in

England I remember hearing and

reading of the “Truman Doctrine”, as

a great American ally emerged from

its prewar isolationism. Together with

Dean Acheson, Truman, with

unprecedented benevolence, helped

to repair the wartime ravages of a

Europe then facing an existentialist

communist threat. Later research

confirmed that initial impression of

truly great leadership: a mixture of

brave military service, readiness to

bear responsibility (“The buck stops

here” being his famed motto) for

decisions conveyed with succinct

clarity, and all garnished with a

humbleness rarely found at such

level. Apart from Ukraine’s valiant

president, such qualities seem sadly

lacking in today’s world leaders.

John Kidd

Surfers Paradise, Queensland

Sir, As Daniel Finkelstein writes

(comment, Mar 16; letters, Mar 17), it

was right for Britain to engage with

the oligarchs as failing to do so would

have isolated Russia and increased

How to wean Britain off Russian gas

Sir, As a cross-party group of

parliamentarians with an interest in

energy and the environment we

support robust plans to reduce the

country’s dependence on gas. With

gas prices quadrupling in a year and

now the war in Ukraine, the prime

minister’s forthcoming energy plan

represents a critical moment for

the UK to take the steps required to

achieve this. Russia is the largest

exporter of gas in the world and we

cannot realistically expect to affect

the market price, so we need to

address demand as well as supply.

The simplest solution is to use less

gas. Through better energy efficiency

such as insulation, switching to

electric heat pumps for homes, and by

expanding cheap domestic renewables

for power generation we can quickly

insulate ourselves from this gas crisis

and bring down our energy bills, both

now and for the future.

Anthony Browne MP, chairman,

all-party parliamentary group

(APPG) on the environment; Darren

Jones MP, chairman, business energy

and industrial strategy committee;

Caroline Lucas MP, chairwoman,

from the times march 18, 1922

THE RITUAL

OF WINE

DRINKING

Anglophobia

Sir, Perhaps Moray council
(“Islamophobia? Anglophobia is a
bigger issue, say Scots councillors”,
Mar 17) should have been put in
charge of the Scottish census, due to
be completed by March 20. The
question on nationality displays a
distinct anti-English bias, with
options including Scottish, Irish and
Polish but not English (or Welsh). I
am mortified that the many English
people I know must choose “Other
British” to describe their nationality
and hope they know that not all Scots
are so unwelcoming.
Jeanette Stafford
Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire

thetimes.co.uk/archive

Fine figures

Sir, Steven Hogg does himself and
“Ms Perfectly Boring” an injustice
(letter, Mar 17). I have met two
forensic accountants, both of whom
told me tales of fraud, corruption and
heroic feats of incompetence that
made my hair stand on end.
Bruce Hunt
Linton, Cambs

Successful silks

Sir, I was pleased to read Catherine

Baksi’s article about the QC selection

process (“Passage to taking silk is

‘fatally flawed’ ”, Law, Mar 17). Many

of the points she makes are well

known in the profession. A wise

counsel told me many years ago

that the best litigator (barrister or

solicitor) is the one who can keep

their clients out of court. This can be

achieved by giving sound advice so

that a matter never leads to a dispute

or advice to reach a satisfactory

settlement where a dispute is

involved. Both types of advice have

become increasingly important in

an international context, where the

role of trusted adviser has grown.

The Bar is well placed to perform

this role without compromising

independence. Indeed, the quality of

the individual’s independence makes

this particularly valued by those who

instruct barristers. The irony is that a

barrister whose practice is geared to

providing this counsel successfully

can never be a Queen’s Counsel under

the present system.

Nikhil Mehta

Gray’s Inn Tax Chambers, London

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The poets and writers who have

been celebrating the glories of

French wine this week have had

science come to their aid at today’s

meeting of the National Congress.

Dr Louis Mathieu, Professor of the

Faculty of Science at Bordeaux, has

explained scientifically the subtle art

of testing good wine — the “psycho-

physiology”. There are three factors

to be considered — the wine, the

taster, and the circumstances around

him. For the wine there are colour,

clearness, bouquet. The taster’s

capacity of appreciation depends

upon his ancestry, age, sex, health,

education and mood. The variation

of sensation produced by a particular

wine upon all these factors in the

tester is, declares Dr Mathieu, a

mere matter of mathematics to be

reduced to a table of formulae. But

his science changes to lyricism when

he considers scientifically how wines

should be drunk at dinner. The

principle is to have a crescendo of

effect upon one’s sensory apparatus.

The stronger wines should be kept

till the last — first, because weaker

wines seem even weaker after strong

ones and, secondly, because as the

dinner progresses one’s sensibility

diminishes. It would, therefore, be

heresy to drink port after soup, as

that would kill all the wines that

followed. It would also be an error to

end a meal with dry champagne.

But, Dr Mathieu complains, no one

any longer knows how to drink or to

eat. According to him, the proper

order of wines at dinner should be

Chablis or Pouilly with oysters and

fish; with the entree, Beaujolais, light

Burgundy, or Bordeaux; with the

roast, and above all with game, the

grands crus, a chateau wine, a

Vougeot or a Chambertin. With

roast veal Beaune or Pommard

should be drunk, or, perhaps, dry

champagne. Champagne, sweet or

demi-sec, should be taken with

dessert, and before coffee a glass of

port in the English fashion.

Afterwards cognac or Armagnac.

And, of course, you cannot

appreciate the savours of these wines

unless you are deliberate and elegant

in your tasting. The room the table,

the company, the shape and quality

of glasses, make a difference and

also, though Dr Mathieu does not

mention it, the sound of the names.

Could any liquid named Margaux,

Latour, Chambertin, or Clos du Roi

taste wholly ill?