The party's over. T he Government announced that it was setting up pilot schemes of intensive teach- ing for seven-year-old children who cannot read, and that teacher-training...

SPECTATOR The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 THE QUEEN'S PEACE I t would be wrong to invest the...

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A. N. WILSON hen I used to work at The Spectator, W the Diary, invariably written by the editor, Alexander Chancellor, was composed at the last possible minute before the paper...

Reflections after a short sojourn in Switzerland at Christmas-time AUBERON WAUGH O n my return from eight days spent in Lucerne over the Christmas season, one of my...

Matthew Parris hears the voice of the Tory backbenches predicting disaster, but being far from worried about it 'TURMOIL'?' said my backbench friend. 'I don't know about...

THE correspondence about the infalli- bility of the Bible which the Times has inserted, has seemed to us unusually unprofitable. Hardly any of the corre- spondents go to the...

Stephen Handelman refutes the current view that President Yeltsin and his people are facing catastrophe Moscow NINA Klinkova, a clerk at a Moscow state produkti store, looked...

Robert Lefever challenges our prejudices about the superiority of the National Health Service FEW THINGS shock the liberal British about their American cousins more than the...

A reader received this press release from the Union Society, Cambridge: URGENT: ATTENTION NEWS DESK PRESS RELEASE Subject: Colonel Oliver North Lecture Colonel Oliver North will...

Matthew Lynn charts the success of Glaxo, Britain's largest company ... She had no idea that he might die. When it became apparent that he would, she slept in a chair at his...

persist. . . IT WAS a naïve domestic little murder, but I think you'll be amused by its pre- sumption. A man should not strangle his wife, of course, nor a wife her husband,...

Joanna Coles found herself inundated with horror stories about British Rail LAST AUGUST, regular Spectator readers may recall, I described an outlandish jour- ney I'd...

Sandra Barwick meets an untypical burglar with an all too typical story to tell HOWEVER mild the weather when young Gary went out with his mates to do a bur- glary he always...

Let's not be slaves to humbug PAUL JOHNSON T he Sunday Times reports a growing movement in Africa to put pressure on Britain and other advanced white nations to pay...

I PLAN to launch the Hindsight Invest- ment Trust. Certain to head the perfor- mance tables, it will be allowed to job back- wards. This should earn me a favourable notice from...

The Ovine Tendency finds an instant cure for sterling discontents CHRISTOPHER FILDES our legs good, two legs better. There is something about our hapless currency that brings...

SIR NATHANIEL Westminster is the paterfamilias of the the National Westmin- ster Bank's herd of pottery pigs. Children would collect them — a new pig for every £20 in their...

IN THE trough of a recession, we need higher tax rates about as much as we need higher interest rates, which is about as much as a moose needs a hat-rack. That is a respectable...

LUNCH with the Grobfather was quite something. He made a grand entrance, sup- ported by his butler, with a salver bearing a bottle of Dom Perignon and some cold sil- ver pots....

ANOTHER investment commentary that cries out to be written is Derek Terrington (now of Kleinwort Benson) on the troubles of Gerald Ratner, the Essex girl's jeweller. It was Mr...

Sir: Mr Tom Benyon states (Letters, 4 Jan- uary) that I am the 'expert theological wit- ness for the well-funded Shopping Hours Reform Council' (SHRC), and that it is therefore...

Sir: Coming from Norfolk, I not only sleep in my clothes during the winter but also know the heron by the name which would have been familiar to Shakespeare — harnser. Surely...

Sir: In the Christmas issue, Digby Ander- son's 'Food' column contains a recipe for kimchi, that excellent Korean preserve. A warning, though: while mixing in the three...

Sir: Miss Applebaum appears to think that Israeli society may well be affected by an immigration conditioned by 'the vengeful, unhappy nationalism that reigns in the Soviet...

Out of the chrysalis John Bayley VLADIMIR NABOKOV: THE AMERICAN YEARS by Brian Boyd Chatto & Windus, £25, pp.783 W riters who travel undergo a meta- morphosis. Hawthorne...

Richard Lamb FISHER AND CUNNINGHAM: A STUDY OF THE PERSONALITIES OF THE CHURCHILL ERA by Richard 011ard Constable, £15.99, pp. 192 R ichard 011ard has had full access to...

In this lonely mountain-village It has become my way To listen only to the voices of trees So that, today, I am lonely only when the wind drops And the trees have nothing to...

Francis King THE GOOSE GIRL AND OTHER STORIES by Eric Linklater Canongate, £15.95, pp. 306 I n 'A Sociable Plover', one of the least successful items in this selection of Eric...

James Hamilton SIR JOHN TENNIEL: ALICE'S WHITE KNIGHT by Rodney Engen Scolar Press, £37.50, pp. 232 J ohn Tenniel — born five years after Waterloo, died five months before...

Peter Black FINAL EXIT by Derek Humphry Hemlock Society, USA, $25, pp. 192,available in the UK through bookshops at £12.95 I t is against the law in Britain to publish...

from the diary of a country squire feeling cut off from society Book read; rook fed; cook said: Look! Head for town or drown in gin! Christopher Pilling

Denis Hills A NICE PLACE TO LIVE by Pamela Scott, edited by Philip Mason Michael Russell, £14.95, pp. 207 P amela Scott sailed as a child for Kenya in 1920 with her mother,...

Oliver Bernard CAN I COME DOWN NOW, DAD? by John Hegley Methuen, £7.99, pp. 88 O ne evening in 1990 a meeting of the BP Speak-a-Poem Competition Committee at the Poetry...

Architecture London's best-laid plans Alan Powers I do not build, therefore I am an archi- tect,' says Leon 'Crier, the radical conserva- tive urban theorist. The same could...

Images of Christ: Religious Iconography in Modern British Art 1910-1991 (Albemarle Gallery, till 17 January) Leonora Carrington (Serpentine Gallery, till 26 January) The New...

Parsifal (La Scala, Milan) Enchanted evening Rupert Christiansen Y ou might think that finding tickets for the opening night of La Scala's season would be problem enough in...

Winners and losers Marcus Berkmann W ith the autumn frenzy now past and Christmas no more than a distant, terrible memory, the record industry has moved into its annual period...

Who dunnit? Douglas Colby on the strange case of the folding mystery-musical T he essence of a good mystery — intri- cate plotting and cunning twists — is cere- bral,...

Just good friends Taki s I write this I am about to open my bill for my New Year's blast, and although I know I'm in for a had surprise, my deci- sion not to give any more...

Home truths John Diamond T he most unspeakably nasty man on TV this week was an architect called Henry Harrison who had wanted 'to produce something that wouldn't stand out...

Down to earth Zenga Longmore While we toil, Omalara tumbles over chairs, books and piles of Cab Calloway records. Her great delight lies in rapidly climbing a paint-spattered...

Light entertainment Jeffrey Bernard I bumped into Michael Elphick last week in the Grouch°, the club he calls the dor- mitory since there is a fair bit of snoozing in the...

REALLY the Lanesborough, which is the old St George's Hospital on Hyde Park Corner roundabout, should have been called the St George's Hotel. But I can only presume the St...

Forever England Raymond Keene N igel Short capped a brilliant year, during which he was named The Spectator Player of the Year, by winning the inaugu- ral English Chess...

COMPETITION 12 YEAR OLD SCOTCH WHISKY Headline story Jaspistos n Competition No. 1709 you were in- vited to provide a news item to fit the headline: ACROBAT ADMITS. If...

O '7 I T I tl'E 1 V i 3 1 L 3 1% 4I I , N IICIA 3 0 B a a J I, I. T . N E t IICLIR VIEILG A t1A R OT N J E ' A V 0 3 1' ' O t A HIVILC , H E E n t .. E . 3 % 11...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers English Dictionary — ring the word 'Dictionary') for the first three correct...

Martin Fagg helpfully suggests that a blank verse soliloquy by the ghost of Robert Maxwell would make an intriguing com- petition. Over to you. Maximum 16 lines. Those of you...

• Rugby skinflints Frank Keating THE autumn's rugby World Cup has quite thrown the inbuilt calendar out of kilter. One had grown used to enjoying the five- nations...

Dear Mary. . . Q. They say that the late Robert Maxwell used to turn heads when he entered a room. I have the same effect but the heads turn away. Is it possible to acquire...