T he Trades Union Congress, seeming more irrelevant than ever, embarked on its annual conference in Brighton with Mr Arthur Scargill and Mr Moss Evans both declaring their...

Dr Owen's dilemma Colin Welch N o sooner had I despatched my last (or first) piece to the printer than 1 realis- ed that the balance was wrong. Support them or no, most of us...

T here is a tendency among Europeans to assume that Americans are auto- matically more dynamic and efficient than themselves. Even Mrs Thatcher's Govern- ment believed that only...

1.1K Eire Surface mail Air mail 6 months: £15.50 IR£17.75 £18.50 £24.50 One year: £31.00 1Rf35.50 £37.00 £49.00 US subscription price: $65.00 (Cheques to be made payable to...

A fairly entertaining organ Auberon Waugh Aude, France A s the Jews never tire of pointing out on French television, most Frenchmen seem anti-Semitic in one way or another....

Timothy Garton Ash I n Poland now, politics is the art of the impossible. Look at it first from the Generals' point of view. Their spokesmen Claim that the demonstrations to...

Patrick Desmond T he 7,000 armed followers of Yasser Arafat who took ship or truck out of Beirut last week have left claiming a vic- tory. Mr Begin, at the height of the siege,...

Nicholas von Hoffman F irst Wilson, then Roosevelt and now it's Reagan who is drawing boundary lines on a map. Apparently the plaster in the walls of the Oval Office emits an...

Andrew Brown Stockholm A bout a year after reaching this country I became shop steward in the small factory where I then worked. There were only five employees, but a couple of...

Brian Inglis ould it be a celebration — members of the Society for Psychical Research, arriving last month in Cambridge for its centenary conference asked each other; or would...

Gavin Stamp A rchitecture is seldom news. The English usually seem indifferent to it and live without complaint with bomb-sites and unfinished, mutilated or just plain hideous...

The acceptance, almost in silence, by both Houses of Parliament of Lord Selbourne's Married Women's Property Act, published this week, marks an ex- traordinary and, to us,...

Richard West Warwick W hen I asked for a single to Warwick at Euston Station, the friendly Indian clerk said it was better to book just to Coventry, and if I could wait till...

No Black Mischief Paul Johnson I t's not every day that an old-style monarch aged 83, who has reigned 61 Years, has a state funeral. When King Sobhuza II ascended the throne...

Through the pipeline Tony Rudd T he rift between America and her European allies over the Russian gas pipeline is serious not only because it is such a clear and open case of...

The Indian trials Sir: Murray Sayle (`Treason doth never Prosper', 4 September) may well be inform- ed on the events in Burma, Indonesia, South Korea, and Singapore. On these I...

Sir: Patrick Marnham's quoting of the poem by Christopher Logue about Wales (Notebook, 28 August) brings W. H. Auden to mind. In 'It's no use raising a shout' (The English Auden...

Sir: It was interesting to read Jeremy Lewis's able review of the Enid Blyton phenomenon (14 August) shortly after learn- ing that the BBC had ended its Listen with Mother radio...

Sir: Peter Ackroyd (28 August) is entitled to his opinion of the film Puberty Blues (though he seems wilfully to miss the point of the film) but he is not entitled to jump from...

A. N. Wilson Of this and Other Worlds C. S. Lewis. Edited with a Preface by Walter Hooper. (Collins £7.95) I n characteristically bluff tone, C. S. Lewis dismissed speculation...

NICOLL'S BIRDS OF EGYPT (1930). Derek Barber, Stanley Pontlarge, Winchcombe, Cheltenham, Glos GL54 5FfD. PERSONS by R. Puccetti, published in 1971. Phone: R. Rees, 01 402...

David Williams C unninghame Grahame died in Buenos Aires in 1936 at the age of 83. (He was, and is, a big name in Argentina.) Not many people of that age could look back on a...

Lately, he has recalled those medieval tombs He'd biked for miles to see and sketch With a young, yes, sardonic pity for the wretch With toads clamped to his eyes, And the...

Ronald Hingley The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg, 1910-1954. Compil- ed and edited, with an introduction by Elliott Mossman. Translated by Elliott...

Terence de Vere White Tempting Fate Michael Levey (Hamish Hamilton £7.95) Tempting Fate Michael Levey (Hamish Hamilton £7.95) T he idea of anyone so eminent as the Director of...

Francis King An Ice Cream War William Boyd (Hamish Hamilton £7.95) rrhis second novel by William Boyd con- 1 founds but does not disappoint the ex- pectations raised by his...

David Hughes Chronicles of a Death Foretold Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Cape. £5.95) ("Nile hundred pages of quality make this V a fiction that reverbrates far beyond its modest...

Top-notch Churchill Bryan Robertson Rocket to the Moon (Hampstead) W hen the curtain rises on the first of Peter Hartwell's resourceful and elegant sets for Caryl Churchill's...

Operatic Peter Ackroyd Diva (`AA', selected cinemas) This is an extremely odd film — both very bad and very good, continually hovering on the edge of inconsequence and then...

Confusing Jann Parry The Swan of Tuonela (Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet) The Ring' Cycle in dance: now, there I would be a project to daunt even Diaghilev. David Bintley is not...

Triangles John McEwen p aula Rego's first solo exhibition in Eng- land took place at the AIR Gallery in the summer of 1981, and was widely con- sidered a stunner. Now she...

No hope Richard Ingrams rri he news that Richard Baker is leaving shortly is another blow for the BBC's rotten news department. He is the last re- maining news presenter who...

Field Day Taki Athens T am getting out of town the moment I finish writing this and staying out until I fly to Chicago next week. (A man called Donoghue, who supposedly has...

Lurching Jeffrey Bernard The drama began at once. Jim Bracey . ' a farmer, millionaire, collector of tracti on engines, an ex-landlord of mine who stan ds about 6ft 6ins, has...

No. 1235: Voice from the void Set by Jaspistos: In 1924 T. Werner Laurie published a book entitled Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde. You are invited to supp- ly some of the...

Jacomo reports: Competitors were asked to provide an advertisement for a product named after a Shakespearian character. Shylock would have been astonished at his popularity — as...

Shocking Raymond Keene T he pressure of the large entry for the increasingly popular Lloyds Bank Masters has finally produced a near in- conclusive result at the top. Although...

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A prize of ten pounds will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 27 September. Entries to: Crossword 574, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WCIN 2LL. 2 ' 5...