S everal bodies were found at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, and police began looking for more nearby; newspapers implied that a man charged with murdering three women was...

Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 BREAKING OF A PRESIDENT L et us say it clearly: the Clinton presi- dency is finished. But it is not finished in the...

Decay all around I see, and possibly even change SIMON HEFFER L ast month I interviewed Mr Enoch Powell before an audience of about 150 members of the Conservative Party....

T here have always been two sides to the Labour Party, the grim Puritans who would like to see pleasure severely rationed and the left-wing Cavaliers who would have it spread...

We should not sit in judgment on Chinese penis-hunters CHARLES MOORE S wap the Vietnamese jungle for Cana- dian icefields, and it is like a scene out of Apocalypse Now as the...

Andrew Kenny argues that the misguided belief in global warming will cost billions of pounds — and hundreds of lives Richard's Bay, Natal COMPARE these two apocalyptic pro-...

Matt Frei investigates the electioneering tactics of Europe's most modem and bizarre political party Rome THE CANDIDATE clutched the micro- phone clumsily with both hands,...

Anne Applebaum is not surprised that there are no rules governing who wins fame and fortune in post-communist Poland Warsaw NIKODEM DYZMA has lost his job as a dancing master....

'MOAB is my wash-pot; over Philistia will I triumph,' says the Psalmist in the name of the Lord. It seems that tri- umph, like vengeance, is the Lord's, for triumphalism has...

Martin Vander Weyer, who advised Dr Mahathir on the privatisation of the Malaysian national airline, reflects on Malay anti-Britishness 'You blighters don't know how lucky you...

IT IS alleged that the problem of apply- ing an electric motor to a wheeled vehi- cle has at last been solved, and that the electric parcels-van which has been driv- ing about...

Alasdair Palmer interviews Jack Hewit, who was once, among other things, Guy Burgess's lover `A WOMAN once swore to me that I was a Wykehamist. She was absolutely certain. The...

persist.. . I HAPPENED to be visiting friends in Gloucestershire last weekend when the remains of the fourth and fifth bodies were found at No 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester....

A strong stench of putrefaction from a curried Parliament PAUL JOHNSON O ne of my possessions which gives me constant pleasure is a framed crudely print- ed handbill from the...

IF YOU can't have a summit you can always have a conference. This penny has dropped with the Organisation for Eco- nomic Co-operation and Development, which is rather on its...

Bang, bang, you're off the dole in Detroit it's the unemployment summit CHRISTOPHER FILDES D etroit has evolved its own way to deal with unemployment. It's murder. There is a...

BOND PRICES have come down like an express lift, bondholders (like your bank or pension fund) are feeling queasy, so here come UBS, the brokers, with a message of comfort:...

THE BATTERED ship Newspaper Pub- lishing — 'Old Indie' — alters course, with Tony O'Reilly's Zero still embedded in her funnel. Mr O'Reilly (as I noted at the time) staged...

MICHAEL HESELTINE must now decide whether, as a condition of his blessing on the deal, he wants to see independent (or Independent) directors on Newspaper Pub- lishing's board,...

Predictable Pergau Sir: Your editorial of 26 February propos- ing that the British aid programme should be abolished and transferred to the Department of Trade and Industry was...

Sir: I am one who has parachuted into for- mer Yugoslavia ten times in the last two- and-a-half years. Over that period I have made more than 40 short documentary films for...

12 Months 6 Months UK ❑ £77.00 ❑ £39.00 Europe (airmail) ❑ £88.00 ❑ £44.00 USA Airspeed ❑ US$125.00 ❑ US$63.00 USA Airmail ❑ US$175.00 ❑ US$88.00 Rest of...

Sir: Of course Mr Dawkins' irreverent and atheistic views (Letters, 19 February) are absolutely right, but does he not realise that a gentleman keeps such thoughts to him-...

Sir: Three weeks ago, during that bout of rather severe weather, I took out a mort- gage on a small one-bedroom igloo. My estate agent had assured me that, given the imminent...

Sir: Paul Johnson is quite right about the desirability of editors being thrashed by their victims (And another thing, 26 Febru- ary); I can only assume that it is Mr Major's...

Sir: Can any of your Roman Catholic corre- spondents explain something for me? Two ministers have publicly explained that they have left the Church of England for the Roman...

Sir: Since either charity or shortage of space forced Dr Noel Malcolm to curtail his indictment of Douglas Hurd, perhaps I could take up some of the slack relating to his...

Sir: Notwithstanding my boundless admira- tion for all Spectator articles written by Anne Applebaum to date, I feel compelled to correct erroneous details she wrote about...

Sir: Judy Garland did not say, as Sheridan Morley wrote last week (Arts, 12 Febru- ary), 'We are . . . a long way from Kansas City.' The line, perhaps the greatest in liter-...

Sir: There is a new exception to the general rule of ladies first (Letters, 26 February). `I'd definitely support "youthanasia" . . The Eastern Orient Express from Singa- pore...

Harder than hard times Paul Foot DICKENS'S JOURNALISM: VOLUME I, SKETCHES BY BOZ AND OTHER EARLY PAPERS, 1833-1839 edited by Michael Slater Dent, 1...30, pp. 580 I f...

Here, winter tricks us: sun and calm, small summer, to make the unsuspecting almonds bloom. Then wind-stripped petals, snow to blight the bud. Who sees the world like this is...

Main de Botton VIOLETTA AND HER SISTERS: THE LADY OF THE CAMELLIAS, RESPONSES TO THE MYTH edited by Nicholas John Faber, £8.99, pp. 305 E ver since Alexandre Dumas fits penned...

Anita Brookner LAND GIRLS by Angela Huth Sinclair-Stevenson, f14.99, pp. 308 O ne settles down with a smile of plea- surable anticipation as the scene is set: an elderly woman...

Peter Levi WINTER POLLEN by Ted Hughes Faber, f17.50, pp. 465 T here are nearly all the essential pieces of an autobiography of this most surprising and entertaining of poets...

Caroline Moorehead THE GREAT UMBILICAL: MOTHER, DAUGHTER, MOTHER, THE UNBREAKABLE BOND by Rachel Billington Hutchinson, £17.99, pp. 238 M others — those with daughters, that...

Albert Read DESPERADOES by Joseph O'Connor Flamingo, f14.99, pp. 426 J oseph O'Connor's second novel needs ruthless editing. The story is concentrated at either end of the...

Jane Ridley LETTERS OF BENJAMIN DISRAELI, VOLUME V: 1848-1851 edited by M. G. Wiebe, J. B. Conacher, John Matthews and Mary S. Millar University of Toronto Press, f61.75, pp....

Mark Almond SEASONS IN HELL: UNDERSTANDING BOSNIA'S WAR by Ed Vulliamy Simon & Schuster, f6.99, pp. 370 N ot since the Crimean War have the hacks won out so clearly over the...

J. L. Carr Ursula Buchan T here are four remarkable figures in niches above the north porch of Kettering's parish church. They look mediaeval but were in fact carved by the...

Architecture Looking after the human spirit Alan Powers suggests that a training in architecture should include some manual skills W hat is architecture and how do you get it?...

Peer Gynt (Barbican) The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol (Riverside) Elsewhere (King's Head) End of the Peer Sheridan Morley P eer Gynt is the big one: shipwrecks, Troll Kings,...

Passing over the crossover Peter Phillips M uch to my horror it is becoming apparent that the kind of music I direct is lending itself to a cliché. I don't know how widely...

Forcing the issue Ursula Buchan I am very much a member of the genera- tion which grew to adulthood in the Seven- ties. I have a concentration span which has been shortened...

Unbound: Possibilities in Painting, Salvador Dali: the Early Years (Hayward Gallery, till 30 May) Ansel Krut (Gillian Jason Gallery, till 31 March) A tug on the chain Giles...

Short Cuts (`18', Selected cinemas) Great bits and small butts Mark Steyn R obert Altman opens with the omi- nous whirring of approaching helicopters. But this isn't Vietnam,...

The making of a star Martyn Harris A few years ago I interviewed Robert de Niro for a magazine. A photographer De Niro liked was flown in from New York, accompanied by a...

R How to save 51 trips to . .. or over The Spectator yourself the library £30 on If you're forced to share fellow students, then you'll can be to track a copy yourself...

Come and get it Jeffrey Bernard I tried my artificial leg out for the first time last week at Charing Cross Hospital near Fulham, and was told that I had done remarkably well...

Skiless in Gstaad Taki Gstaad L ife in Gstaad is very lively right now, what with the snows fading faster than Major Hewitt's chances for promotion and the jet-set getting...

Tricks of the memory Nigel Nicolson sonably, as he had seen the Emperor only from ground-level, and the frost may have whitened his podgy features and the upper part of his...

know about food, cook rather well and keep a good table every day, a pukka five courses? Let's take the smile off your face. Even we good cooks need a cold shower now and then....

CHESS SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA Anatoly rides again Raymond Keene AFTER EIGHT ROUNDS of the Linares tournament Karpov's domination appeared complete. He had blown away seven of...

01( 11 ‘111i11 , N COMPETITION Salute to the Master Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1820 you were invited to write a poem in the manner of Ogden Nash on one of these...

GRAHAM'S PORT r , W. & J. CROSSWORD GRAHAM'S — 1 PORT A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on...

N illiflelliNnel MEMO( 0 A SEIM LE Al N ill A S Al AN. R N N A D Dom ‘. V E AD ' 61 N r G i 6 ° N VI I 6 1 1 RI al N E P Ej.. E: R T RIEIU kl P T IT . H1C 1 1 U I E I 1 1...

You are invited to provide a very short story (maximum 250 words) in which the remark 'The art of losing isn't hard to master' occurs in the last sentence. Entries to...

Settling scores FranlaCeating THE MODERN penalty shoot-out may be a deplorably unfair way to settle a soccer Cup tie, but there can be no doubt that this ersatz,...

Q. Some time ago I was invited to the Cotswolds by friends for the weekend. We were somewhat irked latterly to receive the news that we had been 'booked in' to a charming...