Comment Central - Times Online - WBLG

Calling all fashionistas

The style mavens at the Times are twittering their way through London fashion week.

You can check it out here.

Who came up with the turkey?

And while we're on the subject of pumpkin pies and cranberry sauce...

Our Archive Blog asks the most pressing question of all. Thanksgiving or Christmas - who thought of the turkey first?

Happy birthday William

One of the pleasures of working at The Times has been the opportunity to work with William Rees-Mogg.

William is deservedly a legend. His gentle English liberalism has lent the paper its political tone while his erudition and insistence on high standards has given everybody on the paper something to live up to.

On top of which he is a remarkably courteous and obliging colleague.

So I am delighted to wish him Happy 80th birthday.

Here is William's career in a nutshell:

1928: born the son of a Somerset squire and an American actress.

1952: gets job at the Financial Times, the first of his 56 years (and counting) as a journalist.

1956: speech writer for the Prime Minister, Anthony Eden

1965: writes a leading article in the Sunday Times which helps convince Alec Douglas-Home to stand down as leader of the Conservative Party.

1964: appointed deputy-editor of the Sunday Times.

1967: appointed Editor of The Times, age 38.

1967: writes probably the most famous Times leading article of the 20th century, “Who Breaks a Butterfly on a Wheel?”  It calls for a measured and lenient approach to Mick Jagger’s minor drugs infringement. 

1979: interviews exposed spy, Anthony Blunt at The Times offices.

1981: steps down as Editor of The Times after 14 years in the chair.

1982: appointed Chairman of the Arts Council.

1988: appointed Chairman of the Broadcasting Standards Council.

1988: elevated to the peerage as Lord Rees-Mogg of Hinton Blewitt.

1993: rejoins The Times as a columnist

1993: unsuccessfully takes John Major’s government to the High Court, seeking a a judicial review on the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, in part because of its transferral of some foreign policy competences to the EU.

2002: celebrates 50 years in journalism

Today: Writes 80th birthday column

Auberon Waugh’s words when Rees-Mogg stepped down as Editor of The Times in 1981 were particularly lovely:

If in the months that follow, footling diagrams or ‘graphics’ begin to appear illustrating how the hostages walked off their aeroplane into a reception centre; profiles of leading hairdressers suddenly break on page 12; inquiries into the safety of some patent medicine replace Philip Howard’s ruminations on the English language; if a cheap, flip radicalism replaces Mr Rees-Mogg’s carefully argued honourable conservatism and nasty, gritty English creeps into the leader columns where once his sonorous phrases basked and played in the sun; if it begins to seem that one more beleaguered outpost has fallen to the barbarians, we should reflect that there never really was an England which spoke in this language of good nature, of friendliness, of fair dealing, of balance. It was all a product of Mr Rees-Mogg’s beautiful mind.

A change in roles

Alert readers might notice a change this morning in the thumb portrait on the top right hand corner of Comment Central.

Until this week it told visitors that I was Comment Editor of The Times. This morning it gives my new title - I have taken over as Chief Leader Writer of The Times.

I will be continuing with Comment Central.

Albert Einstein's exclusive article for The Times

If you have ever wanted to understand Einstein's theory of relativity, now is your chance.

Albert Einstein did not become a celebrity in the year of 1905 when he made his first big breakthrough and demonstrated that E = mc².

He became famous when, in 1919, the astronomer Arthur Eddington announced in London that he had tested Einstein's theory of general relativity during an eclipse and that the data showed the physicist to be correct.

The story of Eddington's discovery appeared first in The Times. The New York Times sent its golfing correspondent who, having first decided not to show up to the Eddington announcement, changed his mind and found the room was too packed to get in.

Having scooped the story, The Times proceeded to obtain an exclusive article by Einstein. The great man was asked to explain his theory to the layman, which he proceeds manfully to try to do.

And he doesn't make a bad job of it at all. Even if our leader, appearing the same day, is a little ungallant:

We cannot profess to follow the details and the implications of the new theory with complete certainty, but we are consoled by the reflection that the protagonists of the debate, including even Dr. Einstein himself, find no little difficulty in making their meaning clear.

Now, for the first time, you can read this exclusive and historic article for yourself.

This is just a taster of thousands of extraordinary articles since The Times began in 1785. You'll want to take a closer look and register here.

The best bit of The Times

The entire price of the paper this morning would be worth paying even if it had only contained this one joke by Hugo Rifkind.

In the May edition of France magazine, the BBC's World Affairs Editor John Simpson enthuses about his flat in Paris. But it has one big drawback.

"If the Eiffel Tower fell over," he says, "it would slice our flat in half."

Don't you suspect this is just how the Beeb would report it, too?

The Bugle is calling....

Colbert is closed. Stewart shut. But while writers' strikes wreak havoc in Hollywood, our transatlantic satire team bravely struggles on.

This week in The Bugle, Andy Zaltazman is forced to get in touch with his inner Frenchman while John Oliver explains why he's the inspiration behind Musharraf's sense of humour. Tune in today and forget all your Comedy Central woes.

Alice Fishburn

The Bugle is calling....

Forget about the BBC or New York Times. Transatlantic journalism has found a newer, and much funnier, outlet.

Enter The Bugle.

John Oliver and Andy Saltzman kick off the pond-hopping podcast this week with some crucial questions.

Is the British Empire back? How is swearing at work good for you? And just why is today's nuclear confrontation so much fun?

Alice Fishburn

Matthew Parris goes hunting in Bournemouth

What does David Blunkett really think about party conferences?

Who actually misses Blair?

And which Times journalist most resembles a jackal?

Find out all the answers in Matthew Parris's podcasts from the Labour Conference

A political gaffe, served up Belgian style

So let’s now turn to Belgian politics. But only for a laugh – because as political gaffes go, this one is pretty serious:

Yves Leterme (the new Prime Minister of Belgium) has not yet been officially sworn in but has already lost the confidence of half his country after reciting the opening lines of the Marseillaise - the French anthem - when asked if he knew the words to his country’s national song.

Belgium’s francophone newspapers today likened the gaffe to Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, breaking into “God Save the Queen” on Bastille Day.

Watch it below. And just, just in case you are interested in the delicate Belgian sensibilities on this matter, The Economist’s Charlemagne column explains further:

Brussels has played host to many lost causes over the years. Charlemagne's favourite is the harmlessly dotty rattachiste movement, which seeks to split Belgium into two — a Dutch-speaking north and a French-speaking south  and then ask France to absorb the second as an extension of its territory. It is a doomed campaign, not least because France shows no enthusiasm for it. Yet over 26,000 Belgians voted for the main rattachiste party in last month's general election. This makes no sense, until one realises that those voters do not really believe they will be joining France any time soon. Their vote is rather a Francophone bellow of frustration at the dominance of Dutch-speakers in an increasingly divided country.

And for those who remain interested, here are the words of “Brabaçonne”, the Belgian national anthem.

After centuries in slavery,
The Belgian coming out of the tomb
Reconquered through his courage
His name, his rights and his flag.
And your sovereign and proud hand,
Now, undaunted people,
Engraved on your old banner:
The King, the Law, the Freedom!
Engraved on your old banner:
The King, the Law, the Freedom!
The King, the Law, the Freedom