The churches are demanding a lot of attention these days: Archbishops and Popes pronounce and assert; through radio and television if not so much from pulpits, the public is...

Inevitably if you linger for more than five minutes in any of the communal rooms of the House of Commons, the Smoking Room, the Cafeteria or the Dining Room, some senior person...

One hears strange things these days, like, for instance, the word now going around that. Geoffrey Rippon, of all people, is become even more devoted to the cause of British...

GERMAINE GREER Born during bush fire in Melbourne in 1939. Educated by nuns and two Australian univer- sities, she became very active in the under- ground press and determined...

which the leaders of Tuesday's unofficial general strike promised, but enough workers defied Tuc advice to stay at work to make the prospect of an even greater walkout in Jemmy...

SOUTH AFRICA End of apartheid DOUGLAS BROWN Apartheid is doomed, but it seems that it is only in South Africa itself that this truth is recognised. Otherwise we should not be...

Towards a solution By a correspondent now in Pretoria Recent reports indicate that Rhodesia and Britain are again approaching the Con- ference table but treating the table as...

An account of Harrods SALLY VINCENT Is it mere innocent affection, I wonder, that when they are together with their falling arches the stalwart liege-men and women who...

JOHN GRIGG Before 1911 the life of a Parliament was limited to seven years in Britain. Since then it has been limited to five years, and the purpose of this article is to...

EDWARD NORMAN . .It is a strange feature of the history of the debate which surrounds the relationship of the Church to the State that the more con- - servative participants...

new Constitution of Germany has been accep- ted by the Federal Parliament en bloc, and without serious opposition, Count Bismarck having stated that he would resign if it were...

By 'another Conservative' Efficiency is like temperance. Everybody agrees that it is a good thing, and that we need more of it. But move from the general to the particular....

Sir: Mr Tony Palmer, speaking, appropriately, from the Under- ground, (5 December) is full of righteous indignation over the poor student, desperately trying to par- ticipate...

Sir: I have delayed commenting on Tom Driberg's obviously auth- oritative review of George Rosie's book The British in Vietnam (14 November) until I could read the book. -...

Sir: Apart from the difficulty of distinguishing between some of Peregrine Worsthorne's dreams and a lot of other people's nightmares, he is jolly disloyal to the Sunday...

From: The Revd G. A. G. Bowden, the Revd John F. C. White, Roy Boulting, Bennie Gray, Sally Beau- man, The Mayor of Siena and others. South African logic Sir: I misread the...

Sir: The name of the Holy Father in Rome has never, to my know- ledge been linked in romantic dal- liance or otherwise, with any woman—not even with our former Minister of Arts,...

Sir: I am deeply grateful for your article 'War Guilt and Lt Calley' (28 November). In my view your argument is unanswerable. The dis- turbing reminder of the basis of the...

Sir: The SPECTATOR (31 October) published an article by Timothy Beaumont entitled the 'Barbarians of Siena'. The title appears promi- nently on the cover of your jour- nal, and...

Sir: As the general editor of the Penguin Education Specials series, I would not normally reply to the views of critics of individual books we publish, but as Mr Angus Maude, in...

Sir: No doubt, after being invited to 'bash' Mr Auberon Waugh for his male chauvinist remarks about 'women's novels', Brigid Brophy will very properly ignore him. However he...

Sir: The article 'Poverty—a new approach?' by Professor Vaizey (28 November) prompts me to submit to you the concept of my own ideal tax and benefit system. This consists of two...

Sir : Like the writer of your Note- book, I too firmly believe in the conspiracy theory of history. Now that he has uncovered the King- Cudlipp-Axel Springer pro-Euro- pean...

Sir: I was interested to read re- cently the correspondence about marmalade, and also the story that Harold Wilson took a iar of it with him to Moscow. I wonder if your readers...

No. 634: No go British Rail announce that intend- ing cross-Channel travellers on Christmas Day will be conveyed to Dover by road as there will be no trains. Competitors are...

ELIE KEDOURIE The business of the student of politics is to explain politics. It is at his own peril, there- fore, that he takes for granted, or uses on his own account, terms...

GERMAINE GREER Beyond the Looking Glass Kathrin Perutz (Hodder and Stoughton 48s) Beyond the Looking Glass there lies not a chessboard but a nightmare world of Frankensteins...

PETER QUENNELL Cocteau: A Biography Francis Steegmuller (Macmillan 90s) Among the arts of life, Cocteau once re- marked, was knowing 'just how far to go too far'. It was an art...

PETER MATHIAS Imperial Chemical Industries Vol. I W. I, Reader (out , £6) Business history seldom lives up to its ex- pectations. It must be one of the larger branches of...

LORD TODD Beyond the Ivory Tower Sir Solly Zucker. man (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 50s) To combine in one book a series of essays on scientific subjects with a second group...

DAVID HARE Drawn Blanc Reg Gadney (Heinemann 30s) The Great Affair Victor Canning (Heine. mann 32s) When in Rome Ngaio Marsh (Collins 25s) Reg Gadney's first thriller Drawn...

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER 1 Fire on the Moon Norman Mailer \Veidenfeld and. Nicolson 65s) Last year, some months after Armstrong nd Alden had returned from the surface if the moon,...

AUBERON WAUGH The Fruits of Winter Bernard Clavel (Harrap 50s) The first part of Bernard Clavel's new book is so unbelievably boring that a less con- scientious reviewer (or...

S. J. TAMBIAH Homo Hierarchicus: the Caste System and its Implications Louis Dumont (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 80s) Homo hierarchicus belongs to 'traditional society', homo...

Tippett and Tempest RODNEY MILNES Do not be misled by the generous advance publicity surrounding the first performance of Sir Michael Tippett's The Knot Garden at the Royal...

Hearts and flowers Patrick Skene CATLING Hearts and Flowers. Peter Nichols's 'Play for Today' (Bac1), directed by Christopher Morahan, was solid and subtle and balanced and...

Baker Street irregularities CHRISTOPHER HUDSON Three of the four films this week (I'm including a very funny short at the Curzon) are parodies, and in two of them the joke...

Yea, verily KENNETH HURREN To the Theatre Royal, Stratford-atte-Bowe, in Mind much framed by dark Suspicion, there to contemplate a stage Piece yclept The Projector, advis'd...

American sounds DUNCAN FALLOWELL America produces some good groups; or, if that should sound patronising, some very good groups. Nobody can play country rock like the Band, or...

The Common Market re-examined % NICHOLAS DAVENPORT In its last bulletin the worthy National Insti- tute of Economic and Social Research had another look at the Common Market. I...

Political and journalistic commentary cony cerning the hive-off of the peripheral and viable activities of the nationalised industries has overlooked an important part of the...

There are moments, and this is emphatically one of them, when one's garden is anything but the lovesome thing which that Victorian poet rather odiously proclaimed it to be. I...

* Pamela VANDYKE PRICE •• • Those elaborate still-life photographs of 'pre- sents for everyone in your life' have never tempted me to spend so much as sixpence. They seem to...

Frustrated by a mere nostril at Sandown (though all credit to the brilliant Bula).and frolicking gently to a standstill, Skinflint winks arr evil eye purporting, perhaps, the...

The oddness of seeing England take the field without Bobby Charlton the other day against East Germany. That methodical un- gainliness, that awkward, thrusting power, that...

Last Saturday I took part in the radio pro- gramme Speakeasy, compered by the ami- able Jimmy Savile. The other speakers were Sunday Times journalist Murray Sayle, Con-...

I notice with some amusement that there are always people ready to sentimentalise the London slums, usually from the sanctity of either a service flat or the commuter belt....

No. 1459 DAEDALUS A prize of three guineas will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 18 December. Address solutions: Crossword 1459, The Spec- tator, 99 Gower...