11 SEPTEMBER 1971

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TINKERING WITH IRELAND

The Spectator

The talks between Mr Heath and Mr Lynch have not done any great harm; and the two Prime Ministers must by now know each other's mind better than they did before, which is an...

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POLITICAL COMMENTARY VICTOR MONTAGU

The Spectator

Three years ago Dr Kiesinger, then West German Chancellor, said on Panorama that Britain was a Conservative country. He was of course entirely right. We are a country which...

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THE SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

The Spectator

This summer I determined to go abroad with family. Eventually, following the kind offer from an old friend of a villa in Cavtat, we decided to go to Yugoslavia. It was a holiday...

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INDUSTRIAL COMMENTARY ERIC JACOBS

The Spectator

Blackpool Can it really be ten years since the TUC Congress to which George Woodcock put his famous question — "What are we here for?" I suppose it must be. The question recurs...

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IRELAND

The Spectator

My solution for Ulster JOHN VAIZEY Northern Ireland has ceased to work. Twelve thousand soldiers, internment, thuggery, looting and burning and no conceivable end to it....

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OXFORD LETTER

The Spectator

The pornoscopers of Copenhagen MERCURIUS OXONIENSIS Good brother Londiniensis, In my last letter to you I touched lightly upon the Elect of our nation who, by certain abstruse...

MEDICINE

The Spectator

Bedside manner JOHN ROWAN WILSON Second only to the Hippocratic Oath in medical mythology is the bedside manner. Throughout all the vicissitudes of the last quarter of a...

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SCIENCE

The Spectator

Long life? BERNARD DIXON An extraordinary and disturbing exchange took place in Swansea last week between Professor R. R. Porter, FRS, head of the biochemistry department at...

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Colin Wilson on Gabriel Pascal John Jones on Christopher Hill,

The Spectator

Christopher Sykes on Cecil Beaton's aunt J. E. J. Altharn on philosophy, Auberon Waugh on a sandwich R. M. Hartwell on the young Keynes The paradox of John Maynard Keynes is...

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Colin Wilson on a cinema charlatan

The Spectator

The Disciple and his Devil Valerie Pascal (Michael Joseph £3.00) One of the most interesting chapters of Hesketh Pearson's biography of Shaw was called 'The Strange Case of...

John Jones on the myth of Antichrist

The Spectator

Antichrist in Seventeenth Century England Christopher Hill (OUP £1.50) Most Englishmen of the early seventeenth century believed that history was providentially directed, and...

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J. E. J. Altham on Wittgenstein, Russell & Moore

The Spectator

Prototractatus Ludwig Wittgenstein edited by B. F. McGuinness, T. Nyberg, and G. H. von Wright, translated by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness (Routledge and Kegan Paul £7.50)...

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Christopher Sykes on Cecil Beaton's aunt

The Spectator

My Bolivian Aunt Cecil Beaton (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £2.50) The presentation by the publishers of this memoir is misleading. The picture by Cecil Beaton on the jacket of three...

Auberon Waugh on Mr Richler's jumbo sandwich

The Spectator

St Urbain's Horseman Mordecai Richler (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £2.50) Mr Richler's new book, which is far the best and most interesting I have read from him, is calculated to...

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CINEMA

The Spectator

Bridging the generation gap CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON For one reason or another, a good many distinguished foreign film directors sooner or later get round to making a film in...

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THEATRE

The Spectator

Surprise, surprise KENNETH HURREN It would be surprising if its present one-week visit to the Old Vic — from New York via old York — were the last London saw of The Last Sweet...

BALLET

The Spectator

Angels descendant ROBIN YOUNG The Little Angels from South Korea are the first dance company to appear here (they are briefly at Sadlers Wells Theatre) at the express wish of...

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EDINBURGH

The Spectator

Goehr ahead RODNEY MILNES After the first flush of enthusiasm, two uncomfortable thoughts about Edinburgh. With no 'theme,' no concentration on one or two composers, the...

MUSIC

The Spectator

More than polo DUNCAN FALLOWELL Those wanting to score a quick point at a cocktail party — and who doesn't somewhere between their third and thirteenth raspberry gin? — should...

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Will Waspe's Whispers

The Spectator

The interrogations on the London Weekend Tele. vision Man in the News show, never renowned for spikiness, begin to look alarmingly puffy. Last Sunday's programme was a blatant...

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Questionable benefit of pensions

The Spectator

Sir: This month pensioners will be getting the £1 increase which the Chancellor announced in his budget last March. But just how far does this benefit go? Quite apart from the...

The Irish mess

The Spectator

Sir: Will Britain ever learn? The tragic events in Northern Ireland are a repetition of the troubled Years 1920-1921 in the South when the battle was between the Sinn Fein...

Legal abortion

The Spectator

From Dr D. M. Potts Sir: I was interested in the thoughtProvoking advertisement insert by Life in The Spectator. The poster makes the point that humane people condemn atrocities...

Censoring ads

The Spectator

Sir: Like your correspondent Mr R. K. Brian I am glad that it is not on the whole the practice of The Spectator to censor advertisements on arbitary moral grounds; nevertheless...

Militant liberals

The Spectator

Sir: Since Mr Dan Morton (September 4) has seen fit to favour me with a somewhat offensive and personal sneer (characteristic, I fear, of the deteriorating level of white...

Sculpture of Dodeigne

The Spectator

Sir: Your reference to the work of Eugene Dodeigne in your last edition could imply that the quality of his art might be in question. This misses the crux of Mr TalbotRice's...

Arabs and Jews

The Spectator

Sir: With regard to your review of the new Cambridge History of Islam (August 28) and in view of the present situation in the Middle East, it is strange to recall that at the...

Toynbees' thought

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Sir: The riddle of Arnold Toynbee is no more than the paradox essential to any great man and his thought, but Mrs Shirley Robin Letwin is pleased to fasten on Toynbee's ethics....

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Undiplomatic

The Spectator

Sir: May I briefly comment on Mr Patrick Cosgrave's very thoughtful review of my last-but-one book, A Diplomatic History of the First World War. I pursued two main lines of...

Alternatives to joining EEC

The Spectator

Sir: It is frequently stated that there are no viable alternatives to joining the Common Market. Nothing could be further from the truth; if the British government were to play...

The Shortest Way

The Spectator

From General Sir Horatius Murray Sir: It may be that my impressions an two issues in Palestine in 1948 may be of help in the general discussion of the Jewish-Arab problem....

Sir: Although I unfortunately missed the original article, I was

The Spectator

nevertheless delighted to read Mr F. R. MacKenzie's spirited defence of himself and his opinions. However, like the eighteen-yearold chit, J. Maule, I have little difficulty in...

Sir: I agree with Mr Gershlick (Letters, September 4) that

The Spectator

it is difficult now to say how many of the Palestinian refugees fled from Palestine in 1948 out of simple fear for their lives and how many were driven out by the Israelis. It...

Inner City problems

The Spectator

Sir: One of the most pressing problems facing a large City like London is the problem of the Inner City. In order to investigate the nature of the problem, Greater London Young...

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Tony Palmer and Princess Anne

The Spectator

Sir: Tearing oneself away from the fascinating subject of whether Tony Palmer has had sex, or, indeed done anything more fatiguing than putting pen to paper, your columns would...

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MONEY

The Spectator

Cheaper money is the spur NICHOLAS DAVENPORT No sooner was the printer's ink dry on my remark last week that " sooner or later Bank rate will be cut to 5 per cent one Thursday...

JULIETTE'S WEEKLY FROLIC

The Spectator

First run on Townmoor in 1776, the St Leger's our oldest, longest and now most vulnerable classic if those intent on tampering with it have their way. It is naturally...

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PERSONAL COLUMN

The Spectator

This my son was dead. . . . SASTHI BRATA THAT of course was the bearded patriarch forgiving the Prodigal. And great need he had of forgiveness too. But consider for a moment...

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Nervousness as Mrs Gandhi moves to left of centre

The Spectator

KULDIP NAYAR New Delhi When in the wake of the Congress party's split a year ago Mrs Indira Gandhi talked more and more in radical terms, many people thought that she had to...

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INDIA: 2

The Spectator

Soft swish of salaams CAROL WRIGHT 'Tourists are our honoured guests ' proclaim hoardings at every Indian airport. And in a country of poverty, the visitor feels himself so...

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CLIVE GAMMON

The Spectator

" Watch thyself," said Black Gauntlet. Rebuked, Sir Frederick of Gaywood, champion knight of Kent, sneaked back to the Red Pavilion. He did not wish to share the fate of Sir...

THE GOOD LIFE Pamela VANDYKE PRICE

The Spectator

My father was a patient, gentle, easy-going man. Yet he always got non-existent or appalling service in restaurants and sometime we would wait forty-five minutes for the bill....

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The Spectator

BENNY GREEN Now is the time when the voice of the tutor is heard in our land, and the inimitable drone of the spotted Lesser Lecturer wafts over the autumn air at dusk, a time...

NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND TONY PALMER

The Spectator

The fiasco at Weeley jokingly called a pop festival turned out to be neither a festival nor popular. You may remember those newsreel shots of 120,000 fun-loving youngsters...