`Britain's balance of payments is now improving after a period of deficit. A sus- tained improvement is essential whether we enter the EEC or not . . . In the long term pressure...

Mr Heath's incomplete striptease AUBERON WAUGH Naked cynicism in politics is always refresh- ing, and might even be what passes for in- tellectual honesty in the democratic...

The machine breaks down MURRAY KEMPTON New York—'I can't tell you when it will happen, but happen to us it will,' one of Mayor Lindsay's assistants said the other day....

A new view of the future MARC ULLMANN Paris — The decade started thirty-eight days late for Europe. It was not until Saturday last, 7 February, at seven in the morning, that...

From the 'Spectator, 12 February 1870—Mr. Bright has broken down just at the commence- ment of the Session, and is ordered to abstain absolutely from all mental labour for at...

The prince and the pop singer STANLEY JOHNSON Strasbourg—The most significant event here wasn't even on the programme. There was no room in the official documents for Europe's...

The great Concorde brainwash PETER J. SMITH Few with any aesthetic sensibility would deny that Concorde is a very beautiful aeroplane. To say that it rises into the air like a...

Men without women GEORGE GALE • There have always been men who have set themselves apart, or been set apart by their fellows, because they believe themselves or are believed...

NIGEL LAWSON I was surprised to see that most of the published obituaries and tributes omitted all mention of one of the more curious phases of Bertrand Russell's...

Education without reason TIBOR SZAMUELY Four months have passed since the appear- ance of Black Paper Two: The Crisis in Education, to which I was a contributor. As many...

The battle of the philosophers MERCURIUS OXONIENSIS GOOD BROTHER LONDINIENSIS, I am heartily sorry to have left your last letter so long unanswered, but time has been hard on...

Paying the price BILL GRUNDY Whatever you can say about the Prices and Incomes Board—and I could say plenty—its report this week on the costs and revenue of national...

The last of the Grand Whigs DENIS BROGAN My first connection—and a very remote one —with the late Lord Russell took place in 1919 when I was one of the eighty students of...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS `The landlord has just turned a village pub into scampi-and-wine joint . . . Brewers and licensees are in business to make money . . . As our pubs are tarted...

J. W. M. THOMPSON Samuel Johnson's own opinion of his Rambler essays was unequivocal. 'My other works are wine and water,' he once said, 'but my Rambler is pure wine.' The...

ROBERT BIRLEY The Face of the Third Reich Joachim C. Fest translated by Michael Bullock (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 65s) The best pages in this book are, perhaps, the first two....

ASHLEY BROWN Selected Poems John Crowe Ransom (Eyre and Spottiswoode 40s) This third edition of Mr Ransom's Selected Poems is presumably the final version that he will...

DAVID KNOWLES Philip the Good Richard Vaughan (Long- mans 110s) This is the third volume of Professor Vaughan's quadrilogy of Burgundian history, which in scope and range of...

Martin JARRETT-KERR The Roman Catholic Church John L. McKenzie, SJ (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 63s) How do you write a book on a living faith for a series called, like this one,...

PETER VANSITTART Edward Thomas: A Critical Biography William Cooke (Faber 50s) My Life and Times: Octave 9 Compton Mackenzie (Chatto and Windus 45s) My Father: Joseph Conrad...

R. A. CLINE The Trial of Dr Spock Jessica Mitford (Mac- donald 30s) Dr Spock and four less well-known figures deeply believed, and no doubt still believe, that the United...

Shelter and Society edited by Paul Oliver (Barrie and Rockliff: 1 he Cresset Press 63s). This is a fascinating collection of essays on vernacular housing (or 'shelter', as it is...

BRYAN ROBERTSON The only sculptor among the younger generation in this country who keeps up the same pressure on invention as Moore and Hepworth and, however uneven the...

Fancy wraps PENELOPE HOUSTON Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Carl- ton, 'A') Pookie (Plaza, 'X') The Lost Man (Odeon, St Martin's Lane. `A') Butch Cassidy and the Sundance...

Stags at bay HILARY SPURLING The Battle of Shrivings (Lyric). Peter Shaffer is a problem playwright. His problems—war and peace and the hereafter, not to mention youth, old...

Thumbs up JOHN HIGGINS Given a tenor and soprano of good staying power, there are few pieces better calculated to send the customers home happy than the final duet of Andrea...

JOHN BULL Among the flow of new products being launched by the savings institutions one which deserves special attention is the Abbey National Property Growth Bond. Its cum-...

Mr Wilson and the City NICHOLAS D AVENPORT If Mr Harold Wilson loses the coming elec- tion it will go down to history as an ex- traordinary fact that his government did...

From Professor Hugh Cameron McLaren, Randolph Vigne, Carl I. Hammer, lr, Chaim Raphael, 'Maurice Pierson, Philip Dudley Hawkins, the Rev Richard leans, P. S. Falla, P. I....

Sir: I should like to differ 'with' Sir Denis Brogan (31 January)—and his informant— on a point of midwestern sociology. As a native Minnesotan of impeccable Scandin- avian...

Sir: During the Springbok rugby tour Mr Hain and his committee appeared (a) non- violent in action as well as in principle; (b) always careful not to provoke clashes with...

No. 592: Suffer not gladly Set by W. F. N. Watson: 'Bright as the day, and as the morning fair, Such Clod is—and common as the air.' The sharply satirical epigram, or...

Sir: Ferdinand Mount in 'Personal column' (31 January) characterises Governor Reagan's 'seen one redwood, seen 'em all' as immortal words. But the Governor merely paraphrases...

Sir: Meddlers with ancient saws, pray pause— For 'thine' sounds more divine than 'yours' And 'thou' and 'Thee', than 'you', to me. Leave me a little poetry— Change just for the...

Sir: Mr Auberon Waugh (31 January) ad- mits that Parliament does not represent general public opinion on the Common Market, hanging or immigration. This, of course, is perfectly...

Sir: Professor Clarence Brown, in his review of a book on Tolstoy (7 February), raises a point about the nature of translation, and indeed of language, when he says: 'Obvi-...

Sir: Is not your reviewer, Carola Oman (7 February), rather hard on Countess Bertrand when she dubs her 'this silly Creole'? On the debit side, perhaps, there is her love of...

PHILIDOR A. Fossum (1st Prize, Postsjakk, 1967). White to play and mate in three moves; solution next week. Solution to No. 477 (Neukomm 7n/2p2p2/...

Across 1 Take the posture for being counted (5,2) 5 Does one encounter him in Brook Street? (7) 9 Counterfeit for want of a better by the sound of it (5) 10 'Now for the gay '...