Orthodox Jews used not to celebrate their birthdays: they Were ignorant of the day on which they were born. That was Part of the Jewish tradition of plaintive self-abasement and...

The end of Vulgar Pessimism Ferdinand Mount Armageddon was never like this. As a scenario for the end-of-civilisation-aswe-knowit the present situation lacks something. A...

It Was depressing to read that a fourteenYear-old boy, Paul Kerr, has committed so anY crimes since the age of eleven that the Juvenile court felt obliged to send him to the Old...

Save the children Auberon Waugh After all the recent hysteria about the Child Protection Bill, when Mr Ian Mikardo was practically accused of supporting the vile trade in...

Sam White Path Coming as it does on the heels of the defeat of the left in the March general elections, the tenth anniversary of May '68 could not have come at a worse time for...

Richard West The recent report that Soviet warships had Shelled dissident troops in the Ethiopian interior, brought to mind that sinister episode in Conrad's Heart of Darkness...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington After entertaining the prime minister of Japan and the prime minister of Israel, who seems to spend more time here than in his own capital,...

peter Nichols Rome Why the almost physical horror? Moro's death was in no way unexpected. The terrorists who kidnapped him on 16 March had brutally murdered his whole bodyguard...

Christopher Booker Last week, in the course of a Cobbett-style 'urban ride' through Britain's major provincial cities, I tried to give a brief sketch of how Glasgow, Newcastle...

Ferdinand Mount The experiences of Leslie Chapman are Worth a dawn Royal Commissions on the Civil Service. His position is unique. He is the one senior civil servant in living...

Peter Ackroyd Although advertising now encroaches upon us like some continuous, pervasive theatrein-the-round, few people admit to being interested in it — and even fewer to...

Money moans Nicholas Davenport From time to time the moaning and groaning in the City becomes unbearable. The cry that went up over the biggest ever drop in our reserves last...

Sir: Your article 'Going metric' (29 April) raises issues to which both the Metrication Board and Parliament are completely indifferent, but of very great importance to...

Sir: Your article (29 April) on the rise of small businesses, whilst interesting to the general reader, once more causes those of us who work in the independent, unquoted...

businesses', I am astonished that the Liberal Party has been passed off as having 'had a respectable track record for some time now.' Mr Black fails to mention that the Labour...

Sir: To describe the by-election record of the Heath Government as disastrous (Dennis Kavanagh, 6 May) is rather misleading. Admittedly four seats were lost to the Liberals...

Sir: One may admire Dr Leavis and deplore his treatment by Cambridge without giving him credits he would never have claimed. Dr Leavis did not invent the steam engine nor did he...

Sir: Mr Henry Adler's letter (29 April) much interested me, as I was one of many 'British Fascists' in the 'thirties. We did not 'support Hitler', but opposed the war because we...

Sir: Your reviewer Mr Benny Green, writing about my book Henry Irving and the Victorian Theatre (with a kind foreword by John Gielgud), castigates me as 'solemn and implies that...

Sir: The world is complex and consequently most arguments about it are complicated. It is perfectly legitimate, when debating some issue, to simplify a protagonist's views In...

Sir: With reference to 'Moro, the con ciliator', by Peter Nichols (22 April), I would like to point out that Moro was not famous for his 'converging parallels', as the author...

Dwellers in limbo Paul Ablem an The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman J. P. Donleavy (Allen Lane £4.95) Ah, the new Donleavy! Happy the reviewer's lot. Imagine being paid...

Richard West Dispatches Michael Herr (Picador £1.25) Naples '44 Norman Lewis (Collins E4.95) Ten,years ago to this week, the Vietnamese Communists launched a general offensive...

James Michie Charged by the music police With issuing false notes The hangdog oboist Scuttles on tropical ice Viewed from sofas on cliffs With raptest inattention By a superb...

Ian Gilmour War and the Liberal Conscience Michael Howard (Temple Smith £4.75) During the last five hundred years, some have gloried in war; some have regarded it as a...

'HUNTING SKETCHES by Anthony Trollops; 'Jorrocks Country' r by Uvedale Lambert; 'The England of Nimrod and Surtees. 11815-54' and 'English Country Life, 1780-1830 by E.W....

Alex de Jonge A captive of Time: My Years with Pasternak Olga IvInskaya Translated and Introduced by Max Hayward (Collins £7.50) The early twentieth century is known as the...

Frank Johnson The British Experience 1945-75 Peter Calvocoressi (Bodley Head £6.50) Mr Calvocoressi's book is interesting not so much for what it says (although it is a useful...

Patrick Cosgrave The Chelsea Murders Lionel Davidson (Cape £3.95) The Sun Chemist Lionel Davidson (Penguin 85p) To me, as to Graham Greene, Lionel Davidson is simply the best...

Rodney Milnes Festivals need three things: anniversaries to give shape to their programmes, visitors , and money. This year's centenaries include Schubert, Vivaldi, Janacek,...

Teeth 'n' glassy smiles Benny Green Annie (Victoria Palace) A few minutes before the curtain was due to rise, I went down to the orchestra rail and peered into the pit in...

Palimpsests John McEwen Frank Auerbach, a retrospective of whose paintings and drawings is at the Hayward Gallery till 2 July, may not be that well known outside painting...

Closer to man Mary Kenny For many young 'people in Britain today, Arabs are people who hi-jack aeroplanes, spit on the floor and offer young women a lot of money in exchange...

Plain men Richard Ingrams The South Bank Show (LWT) promised an exclusive and intimate look at the Austrian-born conductor Herbert 'von' Karajan but in the event we got...

Cup finals Hans Keller One of them has just happened. The next will have happened by the time the reader peruses these lines—so! propose to preview it in a way that makes my...