said to be divided into the 'Drips' and the 'Drops.' The 'Drips' were the alleged sentimentalists who shrank from hanging as a revolt- ing and unnecessary anachronism. The...

HOW ARE THE WEAKLY FALLEN I When Malenkov and Beria came into office in March, 1953, the two chief power machines—the Party and the Security Police—were in their hands. But...

affected the whole nation after a major defeat. He has gone out of power in a crisis of politicians. It is their anxiety—and that of the French settlers in North Africa—that...

The obvious explanation of Malenkov's fall from power, the Daily Telegraph's expert considered, was probably the correct one : 'The Soviet army have won the battle for power in...

Ministers' conference might in most respects have been written before it began. All they did was to record substantial agreement on subjects which were known to be certain to...

to the new town of Meadowlands, which is scheduled to begin on February 12, may seem to Dr. Verwoerd, South African Minister of Native Affairs, to be no more than a move towards...

danger of succumbing to it as well. But now? Here is Mr. McNeil writing that, after the eclipse of Mr. Malenkov, `the probability must be that co-existence at this moment in...

out the two blunders he made in his attack on the Spectator the week before last. Of course, the objects of his attacks do not usually have an opportunity to reply. But Mr....

they are angry. The latest case of a quotable cap hardly fitting is M. Rene Mayer's denunciation of M. Francois Mauriac, the writer and Nobel Prize winner, under the thin...

G. D. H. Cole has informed the Oxford University Labour Party. 'In fact, 1 wish he were dead.' Subsequently Professor Cole has explained that politically he meant every word he...

is a matter personal to him. The pollution of a river may be pro- ductive of manifold mischief in varying degrees to many dif- ferent people.' With this judgement Lord Justice...

IT is probably true that few Archbishops make a less distinct impression on lay minds than the Archbishop of York, and yet few in a long and varied career have put up such a...

send half a squadron of bombers to carry out a surprise attack with H-bombs, and in a few minutes eliminate this country as a military power. If this view were to be accepted...

By LORD HAILSHAM T HE psychology of war is one of the main elements of defence, and as such is a principal factor in modern political calculations. Since it is to be supposed...

without rising to thermo-nuclear heat? This is one of the relatively few points for discussion in a bleak subject where the con- clusion seems promising. Past evidence suggests...

By SIR GEORGE THOMSON, FRS I N the long and dreary history of the attempts to reach international agreement on the control of atomic energy, the brightest gleam shone in the...

EXTINCTION I OMAN beings, Mr. T. S. Eliot has said, cannot bear much reality. The object of the four preceding articles is to focus attention on the grimmest reality in contem-...

By COMPTON MACKENZIE F ROM time immemorial the Greeks have been recog- nised as champions of the mythopeeic art, but some of the recent efforts in our press to discredit Greece...

onions in boxes so that they can be planted out later, thus allowing the ground to be put to other use in the meantime. The boxes should be covered with glass or kept in the...

By JOHN BETJEMAN A Tjust about the time that I am writing this. Monday afternoon, Parliament is transferring the Cocos Keeling Islands from the Crown Colony of Singapore to the...

go,' said my friend, who was talking of his experiences when his farm was snowbound. 'The lorry couldn't get to us to pick up the milk. We couldn't get it away ourselves. They...

By IAN NIALL M ARKET day always seems to me to be one of the most solid traditions of country life. It goes back so far that I doubt if anyone could say exactly when the...

Avoiding a Problem M. S. Rat hbone. Kenneth Darwin, Michael Ramsden Income Tax J. H. H. AVOIDING A PROBLEM

the revolution is over? (The phrase about renaissance man was perhaps a silly one, but let's not quibble about whether revolutions destroy old eras or start new ones.) For nine...

avoid the issue raised by coloured immigration to this country. You suggest a restriction on this move- ment because 'the absence of a colour bar in Britain, which is an...

Up till the First World War the middle classes freely participated in cultural activities of all , types. This greatly assisted in the development of the arts and humanities,...

then the sooner we stop criticising Malan and MacCarthy, the better for us : for according to you, we are no better than they. I do not think we are much better, but 1 cherish...

article, 'Slipped Discs,' may have done a grave disservice to many readers who are suffering from this condition. His attitude seems to be: 'Slipped discs arc merely a...

February 13, 1830 WE cannot perceive much consistency in the man who opposes general reform, and yet prates about the necessity of representing the productive classes. Are the...

to fashion in illness. Not so long ago, in any English village, all one heard about illness , was an allusion to the squire's gout or to old Mrs. Grump's 'rheumatics.' Now,...

SIR,—Mr. Howard, in his article on 'Under- graduate Christianity,' has given us a delight- fully entertaining account of his own views upon Oxford religion. However, for those...

Yugoslav Opera Ir• we had any equivalent of the so-called Yugoslav National Opera now finishing its season at the Stoll, the Welsh National Opera ought to be it. Croatian rather...

TELEVISION AND RADIO 'HELEN, who will muddle things,' says Margaret Schlegel, of Howards End, rattling along about German rivers at a luncheon party, 'says no, it's like music....

mythical and legendary characters these purely animal figures, Mr. Tippett surely meant to press home that lesson'—among many others —that the lovers have to learn; the lesson...

eclectic and enjoyable experience. The first half was all Adam and Eve, with rustic tunes and scenes; there was Gluttony forsaking the church for the pub and swallowing instead...

the course of its production 1,100 people were injured. This in itself, of course, is very stimulating news, and one can be forgiven for expecting great things. Unfortunately,...

closed, purely abstract compositions. Santomaso has further refined his free handling (half-way, as it were, between Har- tung and Kermadec), adding a new elegance to his always...

'A Kind of History' D 0 you 'enjoy reading letters? Would you like to read 6,000 of them, all to or from the same person? If so, you have only ten years to wait. Professor W....

Best S.F.: Science Fiction' Stories. Edited by Edmund Crispin. (Faber, 15s.) IT is dangerous to praise science fiction publicly, as I have once before found to my cost. Friends,...

A Victorian Boyhood. By L. E. Jones. (Macmillan, 18s.) WHICH childhoods turn into the best books of memoirs, or form the best backgrounds for novels? Stable and solid ones,...

Tibetan Marches. By Andre Migot. Translated by Peter Fleming. (Hart-Davis, 18s.) NOT even the news that the Chinese Communists have driven a motor road the thirteen hundred...

successor for five years, and to have it still remembered when the successor appears —that is a feat, not quite so rare as the Indian rope trick, which it rather resembles, but...

The Tunnel of Love. By Peter de Vries. (Gollancz, 12s. 6d.) MR. DE VRIES has written a comedy of manners of that upper- middle-class, commuting world which forms the background...

Mander and Joe Mitchenson. (Rocklift, 42s.) Winn' Shaw play had the longeft run and which the shortest? Which of his full-length plays has never been publicly performed in the...

(Fantasy Press, 5s.) Taus year's Oxford Poetry, coming from a university which we are now accustomed to regard once again as a nest of singing birds, contains many poems which...

is, more nearly, a perspective in tech- nical matters. It comprises a modest account of the functions, techniques, devices and forms of streams-of-consciousness fiction and, as...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT 1 RE investor should now take stock of his Position in the light of the new monetary Policy. Bank rate has been raised by + per cent. to 3i per cent. and...

By CUSTOS THE Stock Exchange has a neat turn of phrase and it aptly described the dull mar- kets this week as an attack of `Malenkovia.' When the business turnover declines and...

(MARGARET BISHOP) LETTER TO THE EDITOR Sm,-The exasperating unreliability of the Spectator teleception service is now past endurance. To begin with, the logotransmis- sion...

Competitors are asked to imagine that by the next General Election man will have learnt how to control the weather; a prize of f5 is offered for an extract from any political...

The Elizabethan Society is rightly protesting against the move to close England's one remaining bookshop, and let the premises as showrooms for a popular make of medium- priced...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 258 Report by R. Kennard Davis Even more Interesting than the present series of extracts from the Spectator of 125 years ago would be extracts from 125...

Century Dictionary, New Versioh, is recommended for Crosswords A copy of the De Luxe edition of Chambers s Twentieth Century Dictionary and a book token for one guinea will be...

1 2 3 5 6 7 8 11 14 17 18 19 21 22 24 26 She gets the call-up (7). 'Is this really a case of seeing is believing in the East? (4-5). 1-leaveh on earth for an Irish peer (6)....

critics (than among whom, as he himself not infrequently remarked, it would have been difficult to find a more consistently attentive readership) could have learnt with anything...

The usual prize of 150 dollars is offered for the first correct tape recording to be received of a doggerel translation into basic Martian polyameters of Wordsworth's 'The World...