'Roll up! Roll up! See the pictures they tried to ban!' T he Sunday and Daily Mirror published pictures of the Princess of Wales taken with a secret camera by Mr Bryce Taylor,...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 THE MIRROR CRACK'D M r David Banks, the editor of the Daily Mirror,...

In which Mr Major may find something to his advantage SIMON IIEFFER N o ritual these days is so pre-empted by leak as the Queen's Speech. Her Majesty will be delivering this...

STEPHEN FRY I have always been of the opinion that a man should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know?' I know nothing, Lady Bracknell.' I am pleased to hear it....

Perhaps it is time to put a leg-press machine in the Garrick Club CHARLES MOORE T he club is instituted for the general patronage of the drama; for the purpose of combining...

Government's dash for cash is sabotaging the Child Support Act, and betraying natural justice 'The Child Support Agency will trace absent parents and assess, collect, and,...

Stephen Dunstan argues that the Governor of Hong Kong is covering shame with a cling-film of humour Hong Kong IMAGINE YOURSELF appointed Her Majesty's Ambassador to China....

I USED TO think it was just me. You see, like so many word-watchers I have frequent recourse to H.W. Fowler's Modern English Usage, an estimable book indeed. But I find some of...

John Simpson returns to the land where absurdity mixes easily with fear Kinshasa THE Congo River boiled up around our stern like beer in a jungle clearing, brack- ish and...

available. sw-monthly comprehensive alphabetical listing blects, titles and contributors is a necessity for ries, schools, researchers and all who keep files ID )pc , # of The...

Adam Nicolson believes that the British press is mean and short-sighted in its pack-like attack on all things Greek A NEW VIEW of Greece is being propa- gated by the English...

Ian Thomson finds himself twice, on the same Cubana Airlines flight as Mrs Arthur Scargill and friends 'ANY IDEA what the miners are doing on board?' `Haven't the faintest,'...

persist. . . LAST WEEK, I went to a lecture given by a man who studies juvenile delin- quents for a living. I thought his lecture would be amusing, in a way. He was a...

Mark Urban argues that the police's investigation into alleged Falkland war crimes by British troops is both necessary and proper THE BIG GUNS of the Conservative press are,...

THE sudden growth of such a subtle and deadly disease as diphtheria, and its permanent establishment in London, is most discouraging. There is no ground for panic; but the very...

DIARY 1994 T he Spectator 1994 Diary, bound in soft burgundy leather, will shortly be available. With a new layout and a whole week to view, Monday to Sunday, the diary is 5" x...

However odd it seems, the best kind of editor is a happy one PAUL JOHNSON survey of national newspaper editors in one of the Sundays claims they now ° command more power than...

MY LAW OF non-execs says that a man is known by the companies that keep him, and for ministers, that goes double. So a retired chancellor has nothing to fear from going on the...

THIS IS THE City's cue to promote its own honours list, and to honour its own worthies. The new Lord Mayor, whose theme is the international City, would want to honour those who...

The Lord Mayor has trumpets and musketeers and pikemen, but no handle CHRISTOPHER FILDES R olling through the City in his golden coach, Paul Newall succeeds this weekend as...

I BEGIN TO think of Michael Portillo as the Treasury's answer to Lord Lundy: We had intended you to be The next Prime Minister but three — The stock was sold, the press was...

AN UNSCHEDULED entr'acte in the Savoy opera has delayed the climactic moment when the directors pick a chair- man — patricians v. plebeians, like the great council-chamber scene...

Sir: As I expect your readers are aware, Radio 5 is to become a 'rolling sports and news' channel, and children's programmes are to be moreorless abandoned (a spokesman told me...

Sir: At the close of his article (The trick of that voice', 30 October) Mr J. Enoch Pow- ell asks, 'What happened to create the black hole between Hamlet (printed in quarto in...

Sir: In my zeal to nail Gore Vidal's etymo- logical pretensions (Books, 9 October), I now realise that I struck myself on the thumb in one regard: as Patrick Leigh Fer- mor...

Sir: Poor Alan Watkins (Diary, 9 October) must have suffered an unusually flaccid or frustrated time at Cambridge in the carly Fifties: 'accounted a sexual triumph if a girl...

Sir: Book jackets and, sometimes, press articles will illustrate their authors; for some odd reason we find it interesting, if not helpful, to associate a portrait with its...

RATES 12 Months 6 Months UK 0 07.00 0 09.00 Europe (airmail) 0 £88.00 0 £44.00 USA Airspeed 0 US$125.00 0 US$63.00 USA Airmail 0 US$175.00 0 US$88.00 Rest of Airmail 0...

Sir: May I enlighten Vicki Woods about Braine l'Alleud, to whose twinning with Basingstoke she objects (Diary, 21 August). Far from being obscure, Braine l'Alleud is in fact the...

Sir: David Wright in his review of Paul Fer- ris's Caitlin (Books, 16 October) refers to his subject's father as a 'bon viveur'. He should be informed that this usage is pseu-...

Sir: No wonder that at the end of Hobbs's last innings (Sport, 28 August) 'you could hear the cavernous gasp as the balls fell'. The cavernous gasp came from Hobbs. It's bad...

Sir: It is alarming that you believe public schools are like late-mediaeval monaster- ies . . ripe for dissolution' (Leader, 18 September). I am sure I recall that under several...

Sir: On 4 January I wrote you a letter sug- gesting that your cookery expert was wrong in using rump steak for steak and kidney Pudding and pointing out that the right choice...

Sir: Thirty-one years ago, I was mildly sur- prised to see my name on the front page of The Spectator, alongside the heavyweights of the scientific and literary Establishment....

How did he grow up so nasty? James Buchan GOEBBELS by Ralf Georg Reuth Constable, £19.95, pp. 472 I n an article for Das Reich on 25 Febru- ary. 1945. a fortnight after the...

Times roll Magnus Linklater THE HISTORY OF THE TIMES: THE THOMSON YEARS 1966-1981 by John Grigg Times Books, £25, pp. 632 hen the official history of the Times was begun in...

Frances Partridge SELECTED =ERS OF VANESSA BELL edited by Regina Marler Bloomsbury, 125, pp. 593 W hat is one to do,' writes Vanessa Bell to her sister Virginia after reading...

Janet Barron CONFUSION by Elizabeth Jane Howard Macmillan, £14.99, pp. 385 I t's a nice little book you can read lying on your back,' a character in Confusion says to her...

Jane Ridley DISRAELI by Stanley Weintraub Hamish Hamilton, £25," pp. 717 I am the blank page between the Old Testament and the New,' Disraeli once declared, and with this fat...

Special breaks for Spectator readers Shown here are just three of the nearly 200 hotels, inns and private country houses that are offering Spectator read- ers the opportunity...

Miranda Seymour THE BUCCANEERS by Edith Wharton, completed by Marion Mainwaring Fourth Estate, 114.99, pp. 469 he l ast, still uncompleted draft of The Buccaneers, the novel on...

Harriet Waugh • Ruth Rendell's unfolding tale of a girl growing up with a sympathetic but psycho- pathic mother is decidedly odd. The Crocodile Bird (Hutchinson, £ 14.99)...

Tom Shone EDUCATING WILLIAM by William Cash Simon & Schuster, £15.99, pp. 293 h e talking points of this book about Hollywood by William Cash, until recently the LA...

Nature fulfils two human needs which we are loath to name: that things change constantly; that they stay they same. In the secret garden I stumble on the spectrum of all flower...

William Cash A nd lastly, William' said the inter- viewer, 'if I may, I would like to ask about Your writing methods.' No, I am not having a fantasy about being interviewed...

Art Beautiful wounds T hough Michael Clark's new portrait is of the singer Lisa Stansfield, its title is Nanitas'. And, considering that its reverse side shows a bleeding...

Ray Atkins Howard Hodgkin (Anthony d'Offay, till 24 November Leonard McComb (Browse & Darby, till 27 November) Ra'anan Levy (Crane Kalman, till 27 November Whiff of paint...

Gaps on the musical map Peter Phillips A t a lunch held recently at The Specta- tor to introduce the American conductor Leonard Slatkin to your more musically inclined...

Exact Change (Lyric Hammersmith) Carousel (Shaftesbury) Lyric splendour Sheridan Morley E xact Change is the world premiere of a play by a young American writer called David...

Architecture and Childhood (RIBA Heinz Gallery, till 18 December) Child's play Alan Powers T he ages of Englishmen can be dated as accurately by the construction toys they...

The Remains of the Day ('U', selected cinemas) The remains of the book Mark Steyn I don't suppose it was difficult, but the best decision P.G. Wodehouse ever made was to...

A proper job Ursula Buchan S tringing onions and putting together glass cloches are workaday enough tasks, yet they acquire a fascination, almost a glamour, in the hands of...

Soft targets Martyn Harris reader called Mr G. Stone, of ‘Greenacres', Arcot Road, Sidmouth, writes to complain of the 'unrivalled fatu- ity' of the political comment in this...

Strong medicine Taki A Chinese gentleman, an old friend of Jeffrey Bernard, asked my Low life col- league to introduce him to one of the many doctors who have been treating...

The beautiful Crawleys Nigel Nicolson T he most beautiful young woman I have ever known lay beside me on the only occa- sion in my life when I tried to kill a man. Her name...

AMEX E DINERS 0 I enclose my cheque/money order for payable to The Spectator. CI Please charge my credit card for Please tick: VISA 0 ACCESS Card no: Expiry Date• I I 1 1 1...

Big Night Out BIG NIGHT OUT does not, I admit, sound like the sort of restaurant you would expect to see featured in these pages. It may be of small comfort to find that it...

NUAL THE BOOK OF 7HE YElle Edited by Dominic Lawson 'Mr Mellor should, of course, have remembered the advice of Arthur Hugh Clough: "Do not adultery commit, Advantage rarely...

Feint praise Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1804 you were invited to write a respectful, even flattering obituary of an imaginary person whose death is clearly a blessing to the...

Life of Bryan Raymond Keene ONCE THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP was decided, after game 20, Kasparov and Short continued to entertain the public at the Savoy Theatre (as well as a...

PORT CROSSWORD W. A J. fl R P A O H R A T M'S 1135: Footlights by Columba A first prize of 125 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct...

You are invited to add a maximum of 150 words and a maximum of surprise, to the opening of a murder mystery which begins: 'This was a most unusual case. The body was. . .'...

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Keepers of the flame Frank Keating DALLIERS around that heroic shrine, the always scrupulously tended 'Double Inter- national Memorial Gardens', keenly await the selection of...

Dear Mary. . . Q. Your advice is urgently required. Our new Scottish nanny appeared to be utterly Charming and to really like us and our baby daughter. My husband kept saying...