Inner-city cosmetics B ritish security forces shot dead three IRA terrorists in Gibraltar. Sir Geoffrey Howe said that a 'dreadful terrorist act had been prevented', while some...

SPECTATOR The Spectator, 56. Doughty Street, London WC11■1 2LL Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 REITH'S HEIRS T he background noise of the 1980s has been the...

BRITISH Aerospace has chine a wonderful job persuading an initially disbelieving press and City that its plan to buy the Rover Group is a proposal made in heaven. 5o now must...

When selling power seems to lack selling power NOEL MALCOLM ust as The Electrification of the Soviet Union must be one of the most un- electrifying titles ever given to an...

DAVID HARE M iss Jane Seymour blew into Heath- row last week and complained that it was typical of the English that they failed to treat her like a star. What name shall we give...

Tranquillisers as an alternative explanation for all that is wrong with modern Britain AUBERON WAUGH S ome time ago, drawing attention to the fact that Hugh Johnson's...

Timothy Garton Ash finds the Bonn government resisting the charms of both Mrs Thatcher and Mr Gorbachev Bonn IF YOU were a German, you could be mildly irritated. If you were a...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on Democrat and Republican efforts to keep their preachers in order South Carolina THE crowd was emotional in Spartanburg. Textile workers chanted and...

Anthony Daniels finds that General 1Voriega's problems go beyond hoodwinking the populace Panama THERE are parts of the city of Panama that do not lack a certain sleazy charm....

In Dominic Lawson's article, 'The debtors of Smack City' (27 February), the author of Liverpool: Gateway of Empire (Lawr- ence and Wishart) should have been given as Tony Lane....

Peter Millar on why the Peter Millar on why the Waldheim affair throws light on this week's anniversary of the Anschluss IT WAS a tour guide overlooking Salzburg from the...

$50 BILLION Dominic Lawson on Kuwaiti control of the largest accumulation of money in the City WHEN $50 billion is trying to hide, it can afford the best obscurity money can...

Peter Hadley recalls his part in one of the lost causes of Gilbert Murray DUNCAN Wilson's recently published biography of Gilbert Murray covers many aspects of his...

The media: Paul Johnson thinks it high time we reported Russia freely THE way in which we see the world, especially through our television screens, is often radically...

A sperm-bank for ideas on currencies JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE L ord Croham, better known perhaps as Douglas Allen, from the days when he ran the Treasury for Ted Heath and Tony...

AS AN Oxford man myself, I do hope that Roland Smith shuts down Cowley rather than Longbridge. That must be the first choice to be made by any new owner of Austin-Morris,...

The sun sets over Goodison's empire and now it needs a role CHRISTOPHER FILDES I t has long been apparent that Sir Nicho- las Goodison was looking around for a suitable exit...

WE NOW have a test case for my theory about banks and bankers, which is (rough- ly speaking) that by the time things are seen to have gone wrong, the man who let them go wrong...

TIMES are getting harder at Lloyd's of London, where globe-flying brokers have found themselves demoted — from their accustomed first class, right down to busi- ness class. Over...

Sir: Reading your otherwise interesting leading article 'An affordable strike' (13 February) I was struck by an error all the more remarkable for being so lightly made. It...

Sir: Your Profile of David English (6 February) — marked, alas, more by envy than a just appreciation of a man who's made remarkably much of his life — isn't quite accurate in...

Sir: Your leading article (5 March) prefers opinions to facts. Some of your readers may prefer the latter. Contrary to your portrayal, the video is a positive move. It was...

Sir: I am glad that Charles Moore (`To the Cape and back', 5 March) recognises that Baragwaneth is a Cornish name, and the great hospital of that name in Johannes - burg is, I...

Sir: Auberon Waugh (Another voice, 27 February) says Australia's Aborigines 'never advanced beyond the earliest Stone Age, never discovered fulcrum and lever, let alone the...

Sir: It seems likely from your Diary of 30 January that the respondents to your ques- tionnaire respecting the habits etc of your readers are, judging by their quaffing of malt...

Sir: I am sorry that Alastair Forbes (Let- ters, 5 March) is so upset by my article about his friend Gianni Agnelli, which he considers 'an ignorant, fabulising diatribe',...

Sir: How splendid that One cannot make a Wodehousian mistake in The Spectator Without being courteously corrected. As Christopher Fildes's culpable reference checker I ask the...

Sir: I am appalled by Mr Fallowell's review of Susana Walton's book (20 February). It seems to me that he has chosen this occasion to make an attack upon Walton, rather than...

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A liberal of the old school J. Enoch Powell PASSION AND CUNNING AND OTHER ESSAYS by Conor Cruise O'Brien Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 118 C onor Cruise O'Brien is an engaging...

Deryla Murphy NOR IRON BARS A CAGE by Penelope Tremayne Heinemann, £10.95 T he blurb suggests that Penelope Tre- mayne has led an exciting and faintly mysterious life. As a...

J. G. Links THE PAINFUL BIRTH OF THE ART BOOK by Francis Haskell Thames & Hudson, £5.95 A rtists are not like us. They live in a creative world of their own and sometimes...

J. L. Carr OUT OF THIS WORLD by Graham Swift Viking, £10.95 T his is Graham Swift's fourth published book. The third, Waterland, is in the Big League — innovatory, moving,...

Christopher Hitchens XENIA — A MEMOIR, GREECE 1919-1949 by Mary Henderson Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £14.95 I n 1841 Sir Edmund Lyons, Her Britta- Inc Majesty's Minister in...

Adam Zamoyski FOURTEEN LETTERS: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Feliks Topolski Faber paperback, £30 T opolski does not really fit in any- where, as an artist or as a man. He is neither...

Dennis O'Keeffe POWER TO THE PARENTS: REVERSING EDUCATIONAL DECLINE by Antony Flew Sherwood Press, £12.95, £6.95 A ntony Flew is at his robust and fearless best in his latest...

He had left Burma the longest way, retreating Northwards. He hardly ever spoke of it; rarely Some fragment would out-crop — the rivers, the leeches — A story told as interesting...

Anne Chisholm WOMEN AND LOVE: THE NEW HITE REPORT by Shere Hite Viking, .04.95 P erhaps the most cheering fact about the latest offering from Shere Hite, the American...

Peter Levi LETTERS OF MARSHALL McLUHAN selected and edited by Matie Molinaro, Corinne McLuhan and William Toye OUP, £25 T here are many kinds of book review; this one is...

Susanna Johnston THE COLOUR OF RAIN by Emma Tennant Faber, £3.95 T he Colour of Rain, when it first came out in 1963 under the pseudonym of Catherine Aydy, caused a...

Art Mr Bawden's birthday Giles Auty Edward Bawden: Line Engravings 1927-29 (Victoria & Albert Museum, Constable Gallery, till 10 April) T oday, supposing you get your copy of...

Sfileyman the Magnificent and the Splendour of the Ottoman Court (British Museum, till 30 May) Jewels without a setting Roderick Conway Morris E merging blinking into the...

The Last Emperor ('PG', Odeon, Leicester Square) Splendour and isolation Hilary Mantel B ernardo Bertolucci's film begins at a railway station on the border between China...

Cold shoulder Peter Phillips A t ten o'clock tomorrow morning, Monday, when the church of St John's Hackney begins to reverberate to the sound of Rogier's Mass Philippus II,...

Ransom'd, heal'd, restored Ursula Buchan M ixing a Franco Costi 2-10-0 with a Great Western City Class 4-4-0 would never do. Ask any really serious railway modeller. If a buff...

'Tis Pity She's a Whore (National: Olivier) B ase and bloody Christopher Edwards I ncest is the theme of John Ford's best known play, written around 1632. Never can this...

No laughing matter Wendy Cope t one time I was under the impres- sion that The Spectator was read by around 30,000 nasty old men, all waiting for the opportunity to pounce on...

Places in the sun Jeffrey Bernard W ell, I'm off to Thailand today and it will make a change from eating in the Rasa Sayang in Frith Street. I'll be warm tomor - row and I...

Swiss rolls Taki T Gstaad he Swissair flight from London to Geneva last Friday was noisier than usual due to the presence of a large contingent of bread-roll-throwers on their...

Tale of the unexpected Alice Thomas Ellis was wakened quite late the other morn- ing, or rather afternoon, by an awful little bird sitting on a topmost bough making a noise...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

Add the meanings Jaspistos I N Competition No. 1513 you were asked for a plausible piece of prose in which the following non-existent words appear to have some meaning:...

Dutch courage Raymond Keene M uch as a British audience would like to see Nigel Short or Jon Speelman chal- lenge Gary Kasparov in 1990, two formid- able obstacles lie in...

I GENERALLY stick to the old advice about not mixing the grape and the grain, but the malt is another matter. Malt whisky has the subtlest flavour of any spirit, and a small...

Education, they say, never ceases. Perhaps one day there will be schools for the over-80s. You are invited to supply an advertisement for such an institution, de- scribing...

' .. 1 . 11) . PrG ROCUR A TOR N PLULITTBIE B cl LBER TA E lI ON AT I VE OFINIAIP U N I SH E FISKi O TOW ✓ E R7E - FLS S E A T CIN EjW A N The unclued lights are...

Att. , z4 N -•■• • Les Trois Plats; Le Mesurier Ni' I HAD arranged to meet A.N. Wilson for lunch, time and place fixed, then to my consternation found out too late to tell...

To enable competitors to economise on postage, entries for one or more weeks of the Competition and Crossword may be posted together under one cover addressed 'Competition...