Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean. . .' Raymond Chandler L ady Thatcher said in the Lords debate on Maastricht that she would never have signed the...

A man of no principles, desperately looking for the string MATTHEW PARRIS sea on an ocean of indifference.' The Tory backbencher's voice betrayed sur- prising venom for a chap...

I must be terribly careful writing in The Spectator about Darius Guppy. This maga- zine has twice printed pieces by Veronica Lodge (a pseudonym) about how badly Guppy has been...

Why I, for one, am sticking up for John Major CHARLES MOORE U ntil last September, one felt slightly pleased with oneself for suggesting that John Major was not a very good...

Timothy Ecott on the newly forged alliance between old enemies in South Africa Johannesburg CONTRARY TO most reasonable expec- tations, Mrs Winnie Mandela is not behind bars...

Anne McElvoy encounters difficulties with artistic and political taste in post-Soviet Russia Moscow VLADIMIR ILYICH was in a terrible mess when I clapped eyes on him at the...

Michael Heath

Tony Scotland searches for and finds the claimant to the Imperial Chinese throne SOON AFTER her marriage to P'u-yi, the last Emperor of China, Li Shu-hsien found a small...

The Queen's official birthday, June 3rd, was marked by the usual shower of hon- ours. Five gentlemen obtained peerages, — Sir H. Hussey Vivian, Sir Thomas Henry Farrer, Mr. J....

Simon Courtauld on the decline of the White Man's Kenyan playground Nairobi THE PROBLEM, I was told, with Presi- dent Daniel arap Moi is that he used to be a teacher. He...

Henry Porter chronicles the relentless rise, and business methods, of Mark McCormack EACH YEAR the American agent, Mark McCormack, publishes a calendar of events with which...

I CANNOT quite make up my mind which is worse, family life or the lack of it. Suffice it to say that both are dreadful, which proves, I suppose, that life is what pessimists...

Alistair McAlpine, former Tory Party treasurer; says there is no fund to bale out poor MPs IT HAS been a bad couple of weeks for the Conservative Party. Perhaps as he sits in...

Steve Jones argues that the great genetic advances of history have already happened TO QUOTE Mr Winston Churchill, MP: The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the...

Damian Thompson on the impossibility of compromise on women priests in the Church of England Praise God, from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him, all creatures here below,...

`AT THE end of little more than a cen- tury after his death St Thomas Becket is inscribed on 29 December in an Arme- nian synaxary.' Well, who'd have thought it? And do you know...

Lady Macbeth rushes in where Calpurnia fears to tread PAUL JOHNSON It was Hillary who put a blight over the first days of the presidency by insisting Clinton raise the issue...

Sir: I could not help noticing that for a third time in as many months Christopher Fildes has made a less than well-informed tilt at London City Airport (City and Sub- urban, 29...

Sir: Up until now, Paul Johnson has been absolutely right about everything, but he is incorrect to state (And another thing, 2 9 May) that Hofstra University's commence - ment...

Sir: With reference to Max Beloffs article (`Would Winston Churchill have signed Maastricht?', 8 May), I was seconded from the Foreign Office as a Private Secretary to Winston...

Sir: In my royal review last week (Books ,5 June), a tired typist and I allowed a gremlin to claim that the sainted Di flies economy in a seat next to the loot. She does, of...

No mean cuisine Hugh Massingberd O ne lunchtime at a club to which I used to belong, my neighbour summoned the waitress and pointed to a large splinter of wood in his plate of...

Don't count the calories Francis Wheen T he best-selling book in Britain at the moment is Delia Smith's Summer Collection, a volume of receipts in more than one sense of the...

Cooling off James Seely T he secret of summer drinking is to drink more without getting more drunk. The Borgias administered nothing more lethal than doctored Pimm's — the...

Mellow fruitfulness Auberon Wau g h A ll the Pierre Andre offers have been popular, each one more successful than the last, so it would be stupid to change the for- mula, even...

Simply superb Nigella Lawson T o strive, to seek, to find and not to yield is, no doubt, the proper business of the restaurant critic. In the fast on nine years I have been...

First to be equal Alan Watkins FIGHTING ALL THE WAY by Barbara Castle Macmillan, f20, pp. 626 THE CASTLE DIARIES, 1964 - 1976 Papermac, f14.99, pp. 816 B arbara Castle was the...

Swinging from the ladder-top, yards nearer heaven, one arm, one leg clocking above the door: now, you could read me as ten past seven a minute ago, I was five to four. Each...

William Leith THE BATTLE FOR ROOM SERVICE: JOURNEYS TO ALL THE SAFE PLACES by Mark Lawson Picador, £14.99, pp. 289 M ark Lawson begins by telling the reader that he is a...

Craig Brown DIARIES by Alan Clark Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £20, pp. 421 T his blissfully unpleasant book should do much to restore the reputation of Simon Raven; indeed, it is...

Francis King AFTERNOON RAAG by Amit Chaudhuri Heinemann, £13.99, pp. 133 T wo years ago I was a member of the jury which awarded the first prize in the Betty Trask awards to...

Duncan Fallowell SACHEVERELL SITWELL: SPLENDOURS AND MISERIES by Sarah Bradford Sinclair-Stevenson, £20, pp. 486 S acheverell Sitwell presents a problem in biography. Well...

Tom Shone PADDY CLARKE HA HA HA by Roddy Doyle Secker, £12.99, pp. 282 H ave you heard the one about the Irish novelist who was so good for a laugh nobody could take him...

I help roll her stockings over her feet, then up to her knees. She's managed her dress but I free her fingers from the sleeves. Before the mirror she rouges her cheeks, combs...

Nigel Spivey MISREADINGS by Umberto Eco Cape, f9.99, pp. 180 P osthumously published juvenilia usually constitutes an act of homage. But for an author to collect his...

Today in a field of lucerne ninety nine butterflies flew around in shimmying circles, daft and dizzy and blue; hieroglyphs for recalling the sky on the day it was planned, these...

John Bowen B etty Trask was a romantic novelist: the bosoms of her heroines heaved and they suffered delicious frissons in the pres- ence of clean-cut masculine men. She left...

Exhibitions Anguished aftermath Giles Auty Paris Post War Art and Existentialism 1945-55 (Tate Gallery, till 5 September) R ecollections from my schooldays remind me that...

Water play Peter Phillips I t is said that the'only difference between children and adults is the price of their toys. Any representative list of adult toys,, gadgets, devices...

Inquest of Love (London Coliseum When will they ever learn? Rupert Christiansen I try, I really do try. I'd hate anyone to think I was a boring old fart who believed that...

Falling Down (`18', selected cinemas) Wide Sargasso Sea (18', MGM Shaftesbury Avenue) Just another loser Mark Amory — really astonishingly badly made, with its greatest...

Leonardo: A Portrait of Love (Strand) Sweeney Todd (Cottesloe) The great and the grim Sheridan Morley O n the Morley/Richter scale of truly disastrous stage musicals,...

That's entertainment! Ursula Buchan T here are two reasons why gardeners will almost kill to get to the Chelsea Flower Show each May. The first is that we receive an addictive...

Hold your breath Taki I would like to make it mandatory for every London resident, taxpayer and prop- erty owner to spend a week of every year confined within the boundaries...

Hero material Martyn Harris H e is an `S-H-one-T' according to Jane his wife, but it is hard not to like Alan Clark (Love Tory, BBC 1, Sunday, 9 p.m.). Any former employment...

Writers' cramp Nigel Nicolson H ow much light is thrown on the char- acters and habits of famous writers by their houses and possessions? Not much, except the degree of their...

Staying the course Jeffrey Bernard T he Derby Day outing to Epsom on the Groucho Club coach was a day to remem- ber and I only wish I could remember more of it. The start of...

Raymond Keene THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP match between Nigel Short and Gary Kasparov will take place at the newly refurbished Art Deco Savoy Theatre in London from 7 September to...

Polite conversation Christopher Howse IN COMPETITION NO. 1782 you were asked to contrive a conversation composed of clichés. After reading your accomplished entries I hardly...

A first prize of £20 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 28 June, with two runners-up prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers,...

Prepare for battle Frank Keating THERE IS another ancient colonial war being waged, as well as cricket's for the Ashes. I fancy it will be worth setting the alarm clock, for...

Dear Mary. . . Q. I need your advice rather urgently. To explain, I've just got a fax machine and have been sending out lots of letters on it. One of my sisters in England also...