I t would be tempting to believe that, having been knocked down by a burly NUM picket, Mr Ian MacGregor was exac- ting his revenge on the National Union of Mineworkers and its...

Du Cann's toboggan Charles Moore t the height of the Tory leadership crisis in the autumn of 1974, a journalist telephoned Mr Edward Du Cann, the chair- man of the 1922...

UK Eire Surface mail Air mail 6 months: £17.25 E17.25 £20.50 £26.50 One year: £34.50 £34.50 £41.00 E53.00 For special offer turn to p.10 Name Address 'US Subscriptions: $75.00...

M r Neil Kinnock and his Shadow Cabinet seem to be in danger of br eaking the law by refusing to appear on television with Mr David Dimbleby. They are not in dispute with the...

Criminal trespass Auberon Waugh I rather suspected that Mr Fagan might be doing us all a good turn when he strolled into the Queen ' s bedroom in Buck - ingham Palace wishing...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington Washington B y 11 o'clock Sunday evening it was certain that Gary Hart had beaten Walter Mondale for the second time in six days, first in the...

Murray Sayle Tokyo (Ince upon a rainy night in Boston USA, V a former Royal Artillery officer who had managed to survive the first world war was giving a lecture about Mount...

Mr Arthur Charles, QC, has been asked for his opinion on the point whether a layman of the Church of England may, at the request of the officiating minister, and with the...

The Spectator for twelve months and receive FREE a signed copy of GOD'S APOLOGY A chronicle of three friends by Richard Ingrams Open to non-subscribers or to those who want...

Jonathan Manthorpe Aswept to the leadership of Canada's after Pierre Trudeau was Liber few d ays Party in a rather disgusting rush of Political euphoria, he said: 'This kind of...

Frank Johnson Paris W ord will have reached the rest of the world that they are going to build a pyramid in the middle of this city. Since these things tend to come out in a...

W hen I first met John Stewart Collis I remembered Coleridge's lines: nd thou art long and lank and brown is the ribbed sea-sand. I thought of them, principally, because of his...

Mrs Thatcher's PR problem Paul Johnson II na modern electronic democracy, where the media fill a large part of our lives, institutions ought to pay enormous amount of attention...

Clouds over Lombard St. Jock Bruce-Gardyne C hancellor Lawson, I read in one of my Sunday newspapers last weekend, is playing his cards close in to his chest. Gone are the...

2 5 Sir: Ferdinand Mount retails (B° ° "bc February) the odd idea of Georges v`itie that the Catholic Church invented sacrament of matrimony in the 12th eel l 0 to get its hands...

Israel's deterioration Sir: Paul Johnson is right in saying E ': Israel's future is more secure now I :0 when Menachem Begin came to Pow e ' h ) 1977 (`An unattractive...

Sir: Simon Courtauld writes (Notebook, 25 February) about Gibraltar in a manner which displays total ignorance of the true state of affairs. Firstly the TGWU is the only...

Sir; my attention has been drawn to Mr ir• AR raterson's article C Jan uar)). You have a long history of high- fair Bankers' ramp,' 21_ class fair journalism but this article...

Sir: Is Richard West right (`Chancellor's dilemma', 25 February) in attributing to Cobbett a belief that the Hythe Military Canal was built as a sort of anti-tank ditch? If so,...

Sir: I wonder if Mr Simon Courtauld's remarks about bobsleighing in the `Notebook' (18 February) were intended to be taken seriously? If when present at Igls in 1964 he had...

S. 'Certainly there is no evidence of trade M unions acting for foreign powers' (Charles ooreell rted, and 1 think very likely true, that ( MrPer cent of British trade union...

Art and morality Colin Welch A n Old Bailey judge recently interrupted the Guardian film , critic as he was praising the camera work in an obscene video horror film. Judge...

The art of self-defence Ferdinand Mount Rut, Chancellor: An Inquiry into the Treasury Hugo Young and Anne Sloman (BBC £5.95) Government and the Governed: The 1983 Reith...

Duns Scotus could not have been `brooding in the palace of Charles the Bald at Compiegne', as stated in my review of Georges Duby's The Knight, The Lady and The Priest (25...

Kevin Sharpe The Puritan Gentry: The Great Puritan Families of Early Stuart England J. T. Cliffe (Routledg e & Kegan Paul £18.95) W e cannot escape them. They will always be...

Asa Briggs The Letters of Anthony Trollope Edited by John Hall (Stanford University Press, 2 vols $87.50) A nthony Trollope would not have liked to be judged by his letters....

Duncan Fallowell B• H. Lawrence and the Experience of Italy Jeffrey Meyers (University of Pennsylvania £19) ovement from country to country was M for D. H. Lawrence a...

Francis King T he case of Desmond Hogan seis h!s problem. In his native Irelan d, previously published two novels and t w° collections of short stories have met wi th not...

Michael Beaumont The Americas Cup Ian Dear (Hutchinson, Australia £6.95) The Ultimate Challenge Barry Pickthall (Orbis £12.50) ast summer, the imagination of the Brit- ish...

Jeffrey Bernard Racehorses of 1983 (Portway Press £45) w ho can put a price on a book except for a publisher? Required reading at £45 a throw is a bit steep, but this hardy...

Patrick Skene Catling John. Nash Sir John Rothenstein (Macdonald £14.95) M any painters, though often loqua- cious, especially when propounding theories after the fact, do not...

The tempest Peter Ackroyd Carmen ('15', Curzon) C arlos Saura's film begins where it will /4—/end, in a dance studio; a group of young women are practising some steps. It is...

New, improved Giles Gordon A Streetcar Named Desire (Mermaid) The Man Who Fell in Love with His Wife (Lyric Studio, Hammersmith) The Mikado (Old Vic) S omething extraordinary...

Helping hands Peter Phillips T he 50th anniversary this year of the deaths of Elgar, Hoist and Delius has put their names before the public more than ever before. It is easy...

Real world Richard Ingrams W atching TV, I am often reminded of something Auberon Waugh once wrote in Books and Bookmen: 'Divorced of any religious perspective the lives of...

Indelicate Taki I hear those nice people at Private Eye have once again taken my name in vain and accused me of betraying a friend by chasing after his wife. What I want to...

Bygones Jeffrey Bernard M any years ago, round about 1950, I sparred three rounds one morning in Jack Solomon's gymnasium with. Al Phillips, The Aldgate Tiger, when he was...

Style P. J. Kavanagh There is not much more dispiriting than watching the TV highlights of a (the day international cricket match (th highlights of a series of artificial nig"...

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for an official announcement of an eccen- tric scheme by which the unemployed could be put to work on government money for the benefit...

No. 1311: Ripeness is all Set by Jaspistos: You are invited to write a poem (maximum 16 lines) in praise of the older man or woman as a lover. Entries to `Competition No. 1311'...

Sicilian Vespers Raymond Keene rr he Sicilian Defence has made a remark- able able recovery from Capablanca's stern indictment, that it 'leaves Black's position full of...

Prize: £10 — or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, 1983 edition (rin g the word 'Dictionary' under name and address) — for the first correct solution opened on 26 March. Entries to:...

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Wine Club Auberon Waugh T astes in Californian wine differ so violently that on this occasion I hav e departed fro m my usual practice. In addi- n on to backin g my own fancy,...

Cabernet Sauvignon, Soroma 1979 £5.00 Jekel Cabernet Sauvignon, Monterey, 1979 £9.75 *Firestone Merlot, Santa Ynez 1979 £6.24* *Paul Masson Cabernet Sauvignon 1981 £8.00* (2...

P resident Gemayel, having returned from a meeting with President Assad in Damascus, cancelled the agreement, reach- ed last May, for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from...

PASSION AND SOCIETY (Love in the West) by Denis de Rougement and 'The Divine and the Decay' (London 1957) by Bill Hopkins. S. Petherick, 88 Cornwall Gardens, London SW7. LINGE...