When I was a child, I always wanted to watch television during supper, but my dad wasn’t keen. He preferred family conversation and as we chatted over a meal he would try to gently steer us towards more pleasant subjects rather than the vulgar or provocative topics I tended to propose. ‘A meal is a sacred thing,’ he’d tell me.  I spent my secondary education at a bizarre school run by a quasi-Vedic cult, where table manners were also important. Before lunch, we chanted a Sanskrit mantra. The organic vegetarian food was to be offered, not grabbed. We sat upright, our backs as straight as any Himalayan yogi. We were told not to eat more than we needed. Naturally, I sneered at much of this as angrily as any teenage Clash fan would. But time has had the final word, and I have come to see the sense in it. So now it’s me who finds myself out of step, pushing against the cultural current. 

The changing economics of war

Oxford needs to fight back against the university

Trump’s armchair geography is costing him in Iran

Recent surveys suggest that 73 per cent of Britons believe table manners are less important than they once were. Among those aged 12 to 27, a striking 60 per cent consider........

© The Spectator