New Zealand Listener

No business like show business

Best in show. Is there a more divisive concept in civil society? Our forebears may well have held “Best Decorated Cave” events, human competitiveness being a usefully adaptive trait.

But the value of modern shows can be hard to spot, as with the recent Chelsea Flower Show and America’s Westminster Dog Show. Both are hugely enjoyable spectacles but have taken paths so far from their

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