Bound to crash .-<; A Politician who is not ambitious is not much of a politician. Politicians seek power and therefore strive mightily for office. There are occasional...

Political commentary Breakfast with the governor Ferdinand Mount Hair matters to politicians. Whenever Dr Adenauer, then in his eighties, appeared on television, m, landlady...

Notebook The refusal ot Mrs Shirley Williams to contenmplate participation in a new centre party was couched in startlingly aggressive language. Such a party, she said, would...

Another voice Lord Rothschild is innocent Auberon Waugh About ten years ago a man called James Cameron - no relation to the doyen of left-wing newspaper correspondents who...

The siege mentality Simon Courtauld Gibraltar In the magistrates' court off Main Street the ceiling fan pushed the warm air slowly round the room; a branch from the...

Insecurity and the use of force Edward Mortimer 'Anvone you catch outside, you first beat with the clubs all over his body, except the head. Have no mercy, break all his...

Walking taller Peter Nichols Rome The average Italian is getting a tiny bit taller every year. by a matter of some 0.1 3333333 centimetres which must be all to the good...

Where have the people gone? John Morgan To put it plainly, and properly to declare an interest, I was on the lam last weekend, escaping from the fury of the new crisis in the...

Chichester tales Richard West Chichester When John Keats went to Chichester iri 1819, an outside seat on the coach (he could not afford a place inside) cost eight shillings....

Sir: The trouble with the proposed Euro- pean initiative is that it is the wrong initiative. It is not just that it is based on the misunderstandings expressed in your leading...

Gallicats Sir: Blue and white cats are still with us although they are not common (Letters. 17 May). Unfortunately in the cat world 'blue' means a light pewter grey. In the...

Letters Making Israel behave Sir: Your leading article of 7 June deeply distressed me. Any such biased statement in a delicate situation like that in the Middle East at the...

Comparisons with Spain Sir: Paul Barker claims (7 June) that Sir Keith Joseph's speeches show him to be 'living in a world of his own', and also, by diametrical contrast,...

Bonnke's sermon Sir: Like Roy Kerridge I attended the 57th Annual Conference of the Assemblies of God at Minehead, and as a Pentecostal believer I am bound to object to the...

Another translation Sir: Gai Eaton says in his review of Muhammad Asad's Message of the QAran (7 June) that 'English-speaking readers have access for the first time to the...

...'tis nobler Sir: I am sorry that Richard Ingrains can find only faint praise for the BBC Hamlet. I have lived with that play ever since I 'did' it for Higher School...

Pentecostal joke Sir: There were roars of laughter at our staff meal table when a colleague read to us Roy Kerridge's report of his visit to our conference (Pentecost at...

Personal views Sir: Alexander Chancellor professes to find it 'feeble, even contemptible' of the Observer to describe John le Carr's article on the Iranian embassy siege as 'a...

Books Rational man in S.W.1 Alan Watkins Change and Fortune Douglas Jay ir" - - - (Hutch- flnson £1 6) Mr Douglas Jay is noted for several things: for coining 'the...

Another world Gavin Stamp Artist, Architect and Patron Alexandra Art ley (Architectural Press £10.95) The title is not informative. The Artist, it should be explained,is...

Travellers Simon Raven Travellers in Europe Private Records of Journeys by the Great and the Forgotten from Horace to Pepys J.G. Links (Bodley Head £10) I and many of my...

Classes and differences Shirley Robin Letwin Class: Image and Reality Arthur Marwick (Collins £9.95) Learned academics keep telling us that Britain is obsessed and ruined by...

Two-sided Benny Green The Story of Sylvie and Bruno Lewis Carroll (Macmillan £3.95) In one of Alan Lerner's stage works, the heroine addresses herself to the difficult...

Reflections on the novel PaUl Ableman Leaves of the Banyan Tree Albert-Wendt (Allen Lane £6.50) Where do old art forms go to die? Into Mass-market kitsch. Representational...

Old Soldiers Paul Bailey (Cape £4.95) A Quiet Drink Deborah Moggach (Collins £5.95) Living Arrows Gillian Martin (Heinemann £5.95) Family Matters: 16 Stories Elizabeth...

Arts Game of chance Peter Jenkins Sisterly Feelings (Olivier) Anna Christie (RSC, Warehouse) There were two first nights for the new Ayckbourn at the National and the...

Art Puritan John McEwen All the publicity in the visual arts at the moment is centred on the retrospective of Andrew Wyeth's tempera panels and watercolours at the Royal...

Opera Encouraging Rodney Milnes Simon Boccanegra (Covent Garden) Falstaff (Glyndeboume) Filippo Sanjust's new production of Boccanegra for the Royal Opera could hardly be...

Television Switched off Richard Ingrams I was away in Wales for most of last week walking along Offa's Dyke and therefore saw no television at all. I find I slightly miss not...

High life Moles Taki A mole is defined bv Webster as a srnal' insectivorous mammal living chiefly underground and having very small eyes. John le Carr6, who was the first...

Postscript Golly Patrick Marnham If one were to criticise Paul Barker's absorbing comparison between 'the British disease' and the fate of 1 7th-century Spain in last week's...

Low life Favourite I_ ,. Jeffrey Bernard 7:, I think I've discovered why the suicide rate in Sweden is so high. Would you believe the equivalent in sterling of £4.50 for a...