A A rgentina successfully invaded the ..Falkland Islands, with the loss of about four men, possibly more, appointing a military governor of the renamed Malvinas Islands in the...

The last armada Ferdinand Mount A debacle speaks for itself. All things that inescapably follow — the humiliation, the indignation, the ministers hurrying in and out of...

I t was in fact nearly three weeks ago that a band of 'scrap dealers' raised the Ar gentinian flag on the island of South Georgia. Events have moved so rapidly in r ecent days...

UK Eire Surface mail Air mail 6 months: £15.50 IR£17.75 £18.50 £24.50 One year: £31.00 IRS35.50 £37.00 £49.00 US subscription price: $65.00 (Cheques to be made payable to the...

Being in the right Auberon Waugh Expecting a telegram at any moment recall- ing me to the Colours, I went to the acting cupboard to retrieve my old army uniforms. They had...

Tim Congdon O n a visit to Buenos Aires last October I stayed in an old fashioned hotel in the centre of the city. On the wall was a framed Print depicting 'The Royal Hunt in...

Nicholas Shakespeare `O f the petty revolution, so sudden and so distant, the English ministry could not possibly have such notice as might enable them to prevent it ... From...

We observe with pleasure that in the Liberal meetings which are taking place in the provinces, a good deal of atten- tion is devoted to the dead-set made by the Tories against...

fan Jack R ear Admiral Maximilian von Spee r , Made his great and fatal mistake on 6 for 1914, when he changed course t or the Falkland Islands. He needn't have done so; once...

Gerda Cohen Jerusalem O h my Jerusalem, harsh stone king of cities, every time I go there I swear never to go back. There is no peace and no subtlety in Jerusalem. Stark and...

Timothy Garton Ash Budapest T ike the world seen from a satellite, east- ern Europe seen from an American banker's boardroom looks much of a muchness. In the 1970s it looked...

Richard West Bangkok T his month Thailand celebrates the bi- centenary of the Chakri dynasty and of the capital which it founded, Bangkok. It is r emarkable that this worthy...

Peter Paterson A ger Hiss has just paid his annual visit to London. Alger who? might be the reasonable response of anyone under the age of 50, though the facts of the Hiss case...

C. H. Sisson O ne could almost find it in one's heart to leave the Archbishop of Canterbury alone with his sorrows, as he awaits the P ope's visit. This little ecumenical...

Jingos and appeasers Paul Johnson A t every level', the Guardian summed .ri.up the Falklands invasion, 'the Government had been caught flat-footed'. Sure; but Fleet Street had...

A farthing for the Falklands T he invasion of the Falkland Islands demonstrates yet again that the main risk in international business these days is not losing one's money...

Sir: Feminist-bashing as a Spectator sport is not my concern, but bookshop-bashing definitely is (Roy Kerridge, 13 March). In a country in which the standard and number of...

Sir: I have always believed that an author should accept with equanimity the bouquets and brickbats flung by reviewers. But PhillP Warner's comments on The Bitter End ( 27...

your issue of 27 March is that Japan imports its fuel froth the Arabs, who imPo . r l manufactured goods from the West, who in turn import manufactured goods from, Japan; and...

Sir: Murray Sayle's article (27 March) was long by the Spectator's standards, but every word was totally absorbing. He points out clearly and shrewdly that the Japanese are...

Statistical reasoning Sir: Ferdinand Mount's sensible discussion of the electoral impact of the Alliance (3 April) rightly stresses that this cannot be measured on the basis of...

Gavin Stamp c ity of Gold: The Biography of Bombay Gillian Tindall (Temple Smith £11.50) F or Robert Byron, it was 'that architec- tural Sodom, Bombay' — which today seems a...

THE SPANISH COCKPIT by Franz Borkenau (Faber and Faber, 1937). S. Courtauld, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1. Tel: 01-405 1706. SHELDRAKE, a novel by Michael Wharton. Box No...

Richard West The Gentleman in Trollope: Individua lity and Moral Conduct Shirley Robin LetWin (Macmillan £15) T he idea of the Gentleman is a modern outrage, implying not only...

Lewis Jones The Dean's December Saul Bellow (Alison Press/Secker & Warburg £7.95) S aul Bellow's heroes are commonly prophets, and Chicago their wilderness. The Dean looks the...

Scanning the morning 'paper, Chewing his bacon and bread, `Says here it's Maundy Thursday, — What's that?' he said. `Don't know. But something about, The Queen and giving money...

Francis King The Skating Party Marina Warner (Weidenfeld & Nicolson £6.95) rr he river Floe, which one assumes really 1. to be the Cam, has frozen over and a middle - aged...

A. L. Rowse G eorge Santayana is overlooked and neglected today, and yet he wrote about the most perfect English prose of this century. He wrote one book that became a...

A simple love story Bann Parry Romeo and Juliet (Theatre Royal, Glasgow) B ritish ballet-goers can now see no less than three different productions of Romeo and Juliet to...

Featherweight John McEwen y ou do not have to be Susan Hill to know that rueful owls are once more a-nesting, the black-headed gulls seem all to have slipped while dipping...

Botched butchery Mark Amory Arden of Faversham (Other Place, Strat- ford) Macbeth (Memorial, Stratford) A Coat of Varnish (Haymarket) A non has had a critical buffeting...

Unearthed Richard Ingrams M y favourite programme, Did You See ..? (BBC 2), contrives to dig up the most wonderful bores. The latest was a man called Denis Donoghue, a...

Old fashioned boy Peter Ackroyd on screen recently, there was a great deal of excitement — and, since we had im- a gined that there was nothing there at all, t he excitement...

Canned Jeffrey Bernard w ell it wasn't all fun and games i n old Languedoc. I worked like a dog at times. To write something then learn it a nd then say it to camera isn't...

Losing ground Taki Athens T his has been a hectic week, starting with my ignoble defeat in the Annabel's race on 1 April. I came a credible third, but only because most of...

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked to write a poem defining 'a lady'. `A lady,' said James Branch Cabell rather mysteriously, 'doesn't behave like a gentleman.' Whatever...

No. 1213: Fatal wisdom Set by Jaspistos:Y ou are invited to write a fable, in prose or in verse (maximum 100 words or 16 lines), in which the protagonist follows the advice of...

Compass lost A prize of ten pounds will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 26 April. Entries to: Crossword 552, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street London WC1N...

Near miss? Raymond Keene T he English team has had a good run recently. In mid-March a decisive 91/2-61/2 victory was inflicted on Sweden in the qualifying round of the...

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