'The Shah, I am sorry to say, at this moment completely lost his head and shut himself up in his palace, while the streets of the town were patrolled by the military, a foolish...

Bad faith on the right Ferdinand Mount was not the only Prime Minister to be unaware of this disreputable traffic. . . In a speech at Oxford on April 1st last . . On April 2nd...

To New York in the prime of a golden fall to do a television show. I am just dropping off to sl eep, drugged to take care of the One Change, when Mr O'Malley rings. Mr 9Malley...

Sad but interesting Auberon Waugh Two weeks ago a six-month-old girl called Pamela Burgin was killed by ferrets in her parents' flat in Crystal Palace. The parents had gone...

Nicholas von Hoffman W ashington Voting in America is like Catholicism in Latin lands. Everyone is nominallY in favour of it but only a minority actually practise it. Thus we...

Desmond Stewart Baghdad After the 1956 Suez War Anwar Sadat, then working in the Egyptian press, told your correspondent that he advocated the erection of a statue to Sir...

Sam White Paris The discovery by the Paris news weekly L'Express that Darquier de Pellepoix, the Co mmissaire for Jewish affairs in the Vichy government during the War, was...

Richard West Johannesburg The new revelations of scandal within the South African Information Department have caused, besides consternation, a cer tain amount of glee among...

Christopher Booker To anyone who sees the story of modern man as that of a kind of Faustian delving into dark, 'forbidden' realms from whence heaven knows what strange monsters...

At the meeting of the Manchester Society for obtaining the Suffrage for Women, on Wednesday, Mr Courtney, MP for Liskeard, remarked that the progress of the cause was retarded...

Peter Paterson Making a social contract is relatively easy if (a) it doesn't really matter very much anyWay, or (b) you are sufficiently frightened by events to believe that it...

John Knight Last Tuesday, 7 November, was the fourth anniversary of that night when Lord Lucan murdered his children's nanny, Sandra Rivett, and then tried to murder his wife,...

Secretive Patrick M arn ham Inside Story by Chapman Pincher (Sidgwick and Jackson £6.95) is billed as 'a unique series of exposures'. Mr Pincher has worked for the Daily...

Dollar rescue? Nicholas Davenport The dollar has temporarily been saved. I said that it would need a huge line of credit and this it got — $15 billion in 'currency swaps' from...

Mr Auberon Waugh has been sent the following reply from Mr Derek Jameson, editor of the Daily Express, to his column in last week's Spectator: Dear Bron, Sorry, guy, to have...

£24 million is the amount we expect to invest in automatic letter coding equipment over the next ten years. When the system is in full swing, the annual return is expected to...

Conspiracy of Silence (7 ctober), Sir Anthony Nutting has allowed his personal opinion to override his duty to o bjectivity. The review is couched in tone arid terms least...

Sir: I have just seen your 28 October issue with my article headed 'The Papacy restored' which includes a typographical error of some substance. Jam printed as saying: 'A Pope...

Sir: Being the twenty-sixth on turn for reading the Spectator (not parsimonious, just poor) I have only just got round to Peter Paterson's description of Blackpool (7 October)....

Sir: In case anyone takes seriously Richard West's comments on the Daily Mirror (4 November) may I correct three errors of fact. (1) The Daily Mirror is not run by an...

John Biggs-Davison Queen's Rebels: Ulster Loyalism In Historical Perspective David W. Miller (Gill & Macmillan E8.50) Landlord or Tenant? A View of Irish History Magnus...

ecca West In our issue dated 3 December 1977 we published a review by Alastair Forbes of Dame Rebecca's book Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (which was originally published in...

Hans Keller Jung: il Ma n £5 n7 9 n 5 d ) Myth Vincent Brome m ia Whenever I fail to understand what people mean when they say they're bored, I quickly remind myself that lam,...

Benny Green The Tell-Tale Heart, The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe Julian Symons (Faber E6.95) In going over ground likely to be familiar to the general reader, biographers...

Rodney Milnes P rkk Up Your Ears John Lahr (Allen Lane Under this singularly unpleasant title and the sort of dust-jacket best removed when reading the book in a public place,r...

Facilities Peter Jenkins Clouds (Duke of York's) The World Turned Upside Down (Get' tesloe) Bar Mitzvah Boy (Her Majesty's) People do see things differently; not the most...

Comfortable Rodney Milnes Madama Butterfly (Cardiff) Joachim Herz's new production of Butterfly for the Welsh National Opera is very good indeed, and so it should be after...

New women Ted Whitehead Summer Paradise (Paris Pullman) Black and White in Colour (Scene, Leicester Square) Summer Paradise (AA) is a novelty: a Swedish film criticising women...

Discoveries John McEwen The new extension to the Scottish National Gallery has opened with an exhibition of eighteenth and nineteenth-century paintings, drawings and prints...

The Doctor Richard lngrams I was expecting to be dissatisfiedby Jonathan Miller's massive new medical series The Body in Question (BBC - 2) but had not anticipated that I...

Kick-off Alan Watkins The All Blacks now appear less menacing than they did ten days ago. Wales can look forward to Saturday's match with greater confidence — though I am not...

Greek love Taki There are few things more soothing to the soul than a racy scandal, especially one that combines licentious practices, the Church and politics. For the past...

Changeover Jeffrey Bernard It's now two weeks since I underwent my sex change and all I can say is that I wish I'd always been a woman. It was two weeks ago that I woke up...

Verse and worse Geoffrey Wheatcroft At Oxford on Saturday Convocation duly elected a new Professor of Poetry, amid H ogarthian scenes of corruption. There Were no obvious...

David Levy The Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires eon' tinues along its chaotic path. The games at being played in the River Plate Stadia' , which hosted the finals of the World...