O ne mile below ground in Taiwan, a trapped miner spent the four days before he was rescued living on water from the floor of a tunnel and flesh carved off a dead colleague. The...

Mrs Chalker sinks low M rsLynda Chalker, the Minister of State at the Department of Trans- port, has already been criticised for her new campaign to stop people from drink-...

Thanks to the generosity of Highland I Park whisky, more than a hundred politicians and journalists sat down to luncheon at the Savoy Hotel last Thursday for the presentation of...

UK Eire Surface mail Air mail 6 months: £17.25 £17.25 f20.50 £26.50 One year: £34.50 £34.50 £41.00 £53.00 Name .................................................. Address...

last issue before the New Year. In order to make sure that readers can secure copies before starting their Christmas holiday, we are going to press two days early. The 72 pages...

Dolphins Auberon Waugh rr aken by a friend to the dress rehearsal of Peter Hall's magnificent Coriolanus at the Olivier theatre last week, I have since spent my time urging...

T he great merit of Dr Johnson is that people have strong views about him. Mr A. J. P. Taylor wrote once than any author of today, asked whether he would have preferred to write...

Dhiren Bhagat Bhopal A nees Chishti is a mild-mannered liter- ary hack with greying sideburns, a one-time student of chemistry who has served his time on Delhi's respectable...

Christopher Hitchens Washington I Vs brass monkey weather on Mas- sachusetts Avenue, especially on that posh but exposed section which features the embassies of Britain, Brazil...

Richard West Lichfield, Staffs A visit to Samuel Johnson's birthplace serves to remind that he talked good sense, and about the same topics that we consider modern. He was...

It is one hundred years ago today since Samuel Johnson died. Since that time the world has moved with a rapid- ity of which he could not even have dreamed. It may be almost...

Robert Silver M r Ken Livingstone's remark, made to a paper published by the Israeli Labour Federation, that the leader of the Board of Deputies of British Jews were...

Ronald Butt W hat Dr Jowett of Balliol didn't know asn't knowledge. It now seems that what the 'radicals' at the Sunday Times thought and wrote from the middle of the Sixties...

A. M. Daniels W hen I was a student in the early Seventies I lived with three of my contemporaries in a slum house which we neglected so badly — we thought of our neglect as...

Le Monde out of joint Paul Johnson T he financial crisis which has overtaken Le Monde this year, and threatens to destroy it completely by Christmas, has been building up for...

Lord Weinstock's g reat stock market coup. The same g ambit landed him in court. Mr Slater had fallen foul of the Companies Acts, which forbade a com- pany to finance the...

Street, Ni g el 1–,P Lawson kneels. He is postin g letters up the chimney to Santa. 'Dear Father Christmas,' they run, in that vi g orous cursive hand, 'if you love me at all,...

the lucky g irl for whom Goldman Sachs has just raised $175 million from investors around the world. In full, Sallie Mae is the Student Loans Marketing Asso- ciation, described...

where Guardian Royal Ex- change Assurance is trying to tack itself two extra storeys on top of the Royal Exchange. GRE does not own the Ex- change, though you mi g ht think it...

Wolfing pensions y ou can't g et owt for nowt, cry the pension funds, sensin g the Chancel- lor's hot breath on their necks. Quite ri g ht, you can't, but whose fault is it if...

Nonsense questions Jock Bruce-Gardyne T ord (Joel) Barnett is a citizen of credit Land renown. And, unlike some, de- servedly so. From the back benches he used to be one of...

Sir: As a comment on Dileep Padgaonkar's letter ('New Unesco order', 24 November) let me quote (after L. Unger of Kultura), the response of the head of the organisa- tion which...

Sir: If the GLC is considering placing 'homosexual' blue discs on the house walls of their late occupants (Colin Welch, Cen- trepiece, 1 December) why not go the whole hog? With...

Sir: I refer to Lord Stockton's tear-jerker, that the miners are 'the men who took on the armies of Hitler and the Kaiser'. Taken in a literal sense, probably the only person...

Sir: May I correct Ferdinand Mount (Books, 8 December) on the subject of alienation and displaced people? 'Happier to think of everyone around them as being displaced too, if...

Human victims Sir: Seldom have I read such an unin- formed article as Roy Kerridge's 'Moonies are human' (10 November). Not just unin- formed but dangerous. He gives the im-...

Sir: My wife and I endorse Mr Almond's words (Letters, 8 December). We buy the Spectator because it is, or was, the weekly voice of the Right. We do not want anti-Thatcher,...

Sir: Alan Watkins may not care (Diary, 8 December) for best and worst competi- tions for authors of hardback books. But he must surely be the winner of this year's prize...

Sir: The basic reason for Bulgarian apricot jam being superior to ours (Alan Watkins, Diary, 1 December) is that we do not grow apricots. The truth is that Australian IXL...

Wanting a Winston Colin Welch T praise the firm restraint with which 'Michael Howard, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, writes. Yet, unlike the poor South African...

The aweful prospects Paul Johnson The Letters of Samuel Johnson Edited by R. W. Chapman (Oxford, 3 vols £19.50 each) T he Oxford University Press have marked the 200th...

Christopher Hawtree The Oxford Authors: Samuel Johnson Edited by Donald Greene (Oxford £15, £6.95) Samuel Johnson Walter Jackson Bate (Hogarth £6.95) Samuel Johnson 1709 - 84...

Richard Ingrams James Boswell: The Later Years 1769-1795 Frank Brady (Heinemann £20) I t is easy and tempting to have a low opinion of James Boswell. Despite the wealth of...

Allan Massie The Moth and The Candle: A Life of James Boswell lain Finlayson (Constable £9.95) oswell was the sort of man often described as his own worst enemy, though he...

Golliwogg and Gulliver Patrick Skene Catling T his yuletide '(God Bless Shoppers, Every One!) there is an even richer abundance of good children's books than ever, including...

Ronald Hingley Nomenklatura Michael Koslensky (Bodley Head £12.50) M any people know that the USSR is run by and for a powerful Establish- ment. But they often do not know how...

Frank Johnson Charles de Gaulle: A Biography Don Cook (Secker and Warburg £15) The French Army and Politics: 1870 - 1970 Alistair Horne (Macmillan £15, £4.95) D e Gaulle was...

Jennifer Paterson Lady Maclean's Second Helpings Lady Maclean (Collins £12.95) E very self-respecting hostess should have this book for Christmas. It is more of a coffee than...

Patrick Cosgrave De Gaulle Sam White (Harrap £9.95) T he first piece I wrote for the Spectator was about de Gaulle and it was pub- lished in, I think, 1966. Thereafter I was...

Directionless Rodney Milnes Der Rosenkavalier (Covent Garden) G eorg Solti first conducted Rosen- kavalier for the Royal Opera a quar- ter of a century ago. I didn't go in...

Christmas spirits Peter Ackroyd A Christmas Carol ('U', selected cinemas) Ghostbusters (PG', selected cinemas) Gremlins (`15', Warner Leicester Square) A nd so A Christmas...

Transgressor Christopher Edwards The Pope's Wedding (Royal Court) T he Pope's Wedding was Edward Bond's first play, written when he was 28 years old, and performed at the...

Old Boys David Ekserdjian Art — Commerce — Scholarship: A Win- dow onto the Art World — Colnagbi 1760-1984 (Colnaghi till 15 December) Q chools invariably endeavour to impress...

In the family Giles Auty Diana Armfield (Browse & Darby till 21 December) Adrian Frost and Alyson Hunter (Pentonville Gallery till 27 December) A rtists who are the children...

Unappealing Alexander Chancellor A lthough it was nice to see Laurence Olivier in such good form, I could not share in the general enthusiasm for The Ebony Tower (ITV,...

Weeds Ursula Buchan rZardeners need weeds. Without than our victories would be small, Oil trials commonplace and our failures &al it ; ing indeed. They unite gardeners in t"d...

Word power Taki T his is probably my penultimate column so I thought it a good idea with Christmas coming up to do a bad taste Column for Yule's sake. It all has to do with...

Part and parcel Jeffrey Bernard O ne of the more boring, sickening and sad things about becoming a more and more middle-aged hack is the business of having to write more and...

Praise P. J. Kavanagh This will be hopelessly out of date by the 1 time it hits the news-stands (in snow, perhaps) but all week we have been driving through bucketing rain. At...

No. 1351: Wisdom of the elders Set by Jaspistos: In A. E. Housman's parody, 'Fragment of a Greek Tragedy', the Chorus sagely address a young man: And, 0 my son, be, on the one...

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were given an extract from Frank Harris's Autobiogra - phy and asked to imagine it after 'improve - ment' by Henry James's editorial hand. I...

noon E a LE arum Er F Sin% 1-‘%1 A' s it F CI! 13 L' En 0 EID A NEM INACO N"Dri A lin IE R Cr1010 GIMEON OUNCE 2 i ES L Or 13 OreSir r D wo o . Ed F Ella L iia , WIC A 5...

Sterling silver Raymond Keene rr he full impact of the British achieve- '. ment at the Salonika Olympics is hard to grasp. Not only did the English team gain comfortable...

Prize: £10 (or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, 1983 edition, value £11.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first correct solution opened on 7 January....

I t is interesting to think what Christ himself would have made of the modern festival which bears his name. Its only saving grace for him, perhaps, would be (as it is for most...

CARTER AND MEARS: 'A History of Britain Book IV 1815 — Present Day'. Mrs M. Mason, Ridge House, Jonas Lane, Wadhurst, East Sussex TN5 6RG. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT. T....

Treasure Hunt Set by Caroline Moore The first prize is a pair of 18th century hand-coloured aquatints by Thomas and William Daniell illustrating views of India. (see picture...