T housands prepared to march to Hyde Park in London to demonstrate opposition to war against Iraq; they included Mr Charles Kennedy, the leader of the Liberal Democrat party....

T he government has a thing about the mediaeval period. Charles Clarke complains that universities 'have governance systems that stretch back to mediaeval times'. David Blunkett...

MINETTE MARRIN I f diaries are all about name-dropping and indiscretion, and they usually are, perhaps I should say that I had lunch on Tuesday with the Prime Minister at No....

No backwoods, octogenarian, crypto-fascist Tory is more obscurantist than Lord Irvine ROD LIDDLE A. 'cording to Gordon Brown at the weekend, Derry Irvine was so aghast at the...

VICTORY FOR SADDAM Lloyd Evans had an open mind until he joined the peace movement and met Bianca Jagger I'M bursting with excitement. I can hardly get the words down fast...

WHETHER war against Iraq is justified or not, hardly a day goes by without someone condemning it because (a) the enemy will be crushingly defeated and (b) the West will seize...

Conrad Black says that Tony Blair is acting in the national interest by being George W Bush's principal ally THE President of the United States said on the evening of 11...

I AM excited by a letter from Kensington, but before that let me notice a fear ful symmetry between Martin Bashir's interview with Michael Jackson and the advertisements that...

Jonathan Maitland says that the popularity of Scrabble is at an all-time high WHAT is the greatest board game in the world? It's a tough one. Chess, with its infinite variety,...

A weekly survey of world restrictions on freedom and free trade JAMES TOOLEY recently wrote in these pages of the success of private schools in Africa and India, which in the...

Phil Craig marched against cruise missiles, but now believes that Bush will be vindicated WE were there for peace. We were there to confront the American cowboy warmonger. We...

Matthew Leeming visits an Afghan death row and finds the inmates surprisingly cheerful WALKING down the Panjshir Valley with my guide Tayub, I was followed by a long skein of...

From wild boar piglets to the dray horse's battering sandal PAUL JOHNSON W hich is the most striking representation of an animal in art? I ask this after having been ravished...

If only more prominent people dared to be pompous FRANK JOHNSON I n common with millions of other Irvineists up and down the country, I sometimes wonder whether we, as a...

From Dr Andrew D. Lawson Sir: The inability to discuss racial difference without being pilloried as a racist is well illustrated by Rod Liddle's article on black athletes...

From Mr Oleg Gordievsky Sir: Analysis of the 20th century's history makes me entirely agree with Mark Steyn's conclusions ('Let's quit the UN', 8 February). The UN's foundation...

From Mr Ronald Harrison Sir: Count Capponi (Letters, 8 February) typifies the reaction of so many Italians when confronted with home truths — they prefer not to believe them and...

From Mr Kenneth Beecham Sir: Much as one despises Hitler for the misery he inflicted, Andrew Roberts (Books, 8 February) is surely at fault in describing Adolf as a coward....

From F. Gxynplaine MacIniyre Sir: Andrew Lambirth (Arts, 1 February) has speculated as to the meaning of the railway engine in Giorgio de Chirico's paintings. It is true that...

From Mr Alasdair Ogilvy Sir: Your correspondent Dr Metzger (Letters, 8 February) is one of the Old Europeans whom The Simpsons refers to as 'surrender monkeys'. His pessimistic...

From Mr Ron West Sir: Matthew Parris's brilliant suggestion (Another voice. 8 February) about Tony Blair leading the Tories occurred to me many months ago when I read a...

From Mr Walter Kennedy Sir: At a crucial presentation at the UN, Colin Powell produced a phial of look-alike anthrax and described the harm done by an equivalent amount in the...

From Mr Paul Sornmelfeld and Dr Peter Davies Sir: Your cover story by Anthony Browne ('How the government endangers British lives', 25 January) was deeply depressing and...

From Mr George Fleet Sir: Please could I beg you to keep up your coverage of the troubles in Zimbabwe? In the past week two single and elderly women have been harassed in their...

From Dr Robert Grant Sir: As the official biographer of the philosopher Michael Oakeshott (1901-90), I should be most grateful for any information or reminiscences your readers...

Charge and counter-charge Ken puts a spoke in the wheel of Gavyn Arthur's coach CHRISTOPHER FILDES L ord Mayor Gavyn Arthur has to keep his golden coach in the Museum of...

British editors are in a quandary: can they back the war if their readers don't? STEPHEN GLOVER W ar is traditionally good for newspapers. Of course, if newsprint is rationed...

Robert Macfarlane A DEVIL'S CHAPLAIN by Richard Dawkins Weidenfeld, £16.99, pp. 264, ISBN 0297829734 R ichard Dawkins loves fighting. More precisely, he loves winning. To be...

Nicky Haslam DIANA VREELAND by Eleanor Dwight HamerCollins Inc/Morrow, £30, pp. 320, ISBN 0688167381 Jr udging by her own ideals of beauty and drama. Diana Dalziel's arrival in...

Emma Tennant THE BOTANICAL GARDEN VOLUME L TREES AND SHRUBS, VOLUME II: PERENNIALS AND ANNUALS by Roger Phillips and Marlyn Rix Macmillan, £50 each T his is the time of year...

Robert Oakeshott BEYOND NAB END by William Woodruff Abacus, £6.99. pp. 312, ISBN 0349116229 Woodruff you have not come to Oxford to take examinations, you have come to learn....

Miranda France THE EMPRESS OF SOUTH AMERICA by Nigel Cawthorne Heinemann, 112.99, pp. 314, ISBN 0434008982 THE SHADOWS OF ELISA LYNCH by Sian Rees Review. £14.99, pp. 343,...

Andrew Gimson ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DESTRUCTION by W. G. Sebald Hamish Hamilton, £16.99, pp. 206, ISBN 0241141265 S ebald is perturbed by the almost complete failure of...

Lloyd Evans THE HONEY GATHERERS: A BOOK OF LOVE POEMS edited by Maura Dooley Bloodaxe, 19.95, pp. 320, ISBN 1852243597 loodaxe, Britain's leading independent publisher of...

Kevin Jackson PRETTY GIRL IN CRIMSON ROSE (8) by Sandy Balfour Atlantic Books. £1299, pp. 198, ISBN 1843540363 I f you happen to be one of those maddeningly quick-witted or...

Simon Heifer PLAYING THE GAME by Sarah Sands Macmillan, 110.99, pp. 247, ISBN 0333905547 S ometimes I have lounged in other people's bathrooms and read a few pages of what I...

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto HOW RUSSIA SHAPED THE MODERN WORLD: FROM ART TO ANTISEMITISM, BALLET TO BOLSHEVISM by Steven G. Marks Princeton, £19.95, pp. 393. ISBN 0691096848 T he...

Susan Moore on one of the great unsung art collections in America C a d'Zan? Even the most seasoned traveller looks puzzled. For this Venetian Gothic edifice — its name means...

King of Fairyland Laura Gascoigne T his year, two giants of modern British book illustration usher Dulwich Picture Gallery's programme in and out: Arthur Rackham (1867-1939)...

Artist and visionary Mark Glazebrook W hen the Whitechapel mounted retrospectives of giants such as Pollock and Rothko in the late Fifties and Sixties, these painters seemed...

Alan Powers 'H ow do people get here?' asked one of the press corps who had come by coach from central London last week to a special viewing of the new Laban Centre at Deptford...

Subversive power Michael Tanner f the various kinds of bore I've dreaded becoming, especially as an opera reviewer, a Tosca-bore (for or against) seemed to be one of the least...

A Passage to India (Riverside) Black Milk (Royal Court) Peer Gynt (Arcola) From elephant to rocks Toby Young I n his memoirs, the Broadway playwright S.N. Behrman claims that...

The Hours (12A, selected cinemas) Acting sad Mark Steyn W ell, The Hours managed a Best Picture nomination, but come the big night it will lose to Chicago. Offered the choice...

Money talked Michael Vestey I f everything in life is politics, as the former Archbishop Desmond Tutu declared emphatically on Radio Four last Saturday, then the world is...

Final demand James Delingpole I do so hate those must-see Sunday/Monday TV dramas. You can't not watch the first part because what if it turns out to be really good and you're...

Up in America Charles Moore J et-lagged, 1 wake with the dawn, and think of Sir Thomas Browne's words about drowsiness and time difference: 'The huntsmen are up in America,...

English talent Robin Oakley I t was definitely not my day at Newbury on Saturday. It is a bit of a giveaway when you are seen visiting the cash machine after the first four...

For the rustics Simon Courtauld O ver the centuries, leeks have had a bad press. The Oxford Dictionary gives several references in literature to something 'not worth a leek',...

Alan Judd A few gusts of snow, enough to decorate the trees and sting your cheeks but not enough to settle on London's roads; it melted there. Then the clouds cleared, the...

Superior living Taki w Paris hy do the French have to be so bloody-minded?' asked a Daily Telegraph headline last week. Well, sitting in Café Flore, sipping a very good white...

Woo Woos and woe Jeremy Clarke F or my birthday treat, we started off at a trendy cocktail bar in Covent Garden. We were there bang on opening time. Were we eating, said the...

Petronella Wyatt I am not in the least bit surprised that the Americans are furious and bewildered by the churlish actions of France and Germany which are now threatening to...

New life of Brian Michael Henderson Cape Town THE cricket World Cup, which is being staged in South Africa for the first time, got off to a flying start at Newlands, the...

Dear Mary. . . Q. I have a very dear friend who lives in increasingly bohemian circumstances in the country. He and his wife have repeatedly asked us to stay with them on one...