By Ronald Bryden Coalition in Italy Michael Adams In the Steps ,of Odysseus Simon Raven Alan Brien Elizabeth David Sarah Gainham David Holbrook

M k. IRUSHCHEV'S suggestion of an eighteen-nation . meeting of Heads of State to open disarmament talks in Geneva is nicely ,calculated to put Western governments on the spot....

From MICHAEL ADAMS ROME F OR two weeks the Italian newspapers have been full of contradictory bulletins on the progress of 'la crisi,' which it would be mis- leading to...

In our issue for the 26th January we published, a review by Peter Forster, the first paragraph of which, had it been read only as a review of the TV series to which it referred,...

From SARAH GAINHAM BONN r r HE Christian Democrats have brought them- 1 selves, or have brought their chief, to the crucial decision that the party must have a chair- man who...

By RONALD BRYDEN O o the morning of August 6, 1945, Claude Robert Fatherly , a twenty-six-year-old pilot from Van Aistyne, Texas, was at the controls of Straight flush, the...

By DAVID HOLBROOK W E spend £600,000,000 a year on education. There are tens of thousands of schools, and in them tens of thousands of English teachers who are supposedly...

By SIMON RAVEN F you are travelling between Italy and Greece 1 and are in no hurry, you may follow, for part of your journey, the exact route taken by Odysseus on his last lap...

From JOHN LAMBERT . BRUSSELS L ESS than an hour away by Caravelle, the Brussels pre-negotiations go serenely on their way untroubled by the 'anti-Market' fall-out, from last...

your readers the idea that Sweden is full of neurotics and Communists in embryo, I should be grateful if you would let me erase that misguided impression from their minds and...

in your issue of February 9 and was rather surprised at the anti-Swedish slant which it displayed practically throughout. 1 have studied conditions in the Scandinavian...

Goodbye to Summer Douglas Matthews, N. C. Fretwell, Agnes H. Hicks The Breath of Life John Dobbing Epilogue Ian McIntyre Advertising and People Miss Nora S. Howe, D. A. Paterson...

SIR,—Dr. Timbury is right. The Spectator has a bad record for giving space to prejudiced and ill-informed comment on medical matters by faddists. Such articles as the recent one...

Professor Tawney. All speak of his scholarship, and of his gifts as teacher and writer; of his quality as a person; of his services in the cause of Socialism. One emphasises the...

specific narrowly defined function, when there .:an be only slight physical differences, that their tdvertising is forced and sometimes silly. I don't hink anybody in the...

of particular interest to certain members of this Association who formed a group recently to study the use of advertising in our society. The establishment of a...

as a four-act comedy. Later, at the request of George Alexander, it was cut to a three- act play. The alterations were made at the typescript stage. The original manuscript...

Layton regarding Napoleon Brandy, but that from Mr. Raymond Postgate has depressed me no end. Some twelve months ago a number of papers carried stories about 1811 Napoleon...

century Raymond Postgate makes dogmatic statements of fact based on no concrete evidence whatsoever. I am looking now at an opened bottle, perhaps three-quarters full of brandy...

ITV had dropped its nightly Epilogues? Does he watch television, or just review it? IAN MCINTYRE Programme Services Officer Independent Television Authority, 70 Brompton...

some weeks ago I mentioned that I had broken up a pistol which the police had threatened to seize in exchange for an 'amnesty,' in order to prevent a sound weapon falling into...

you states that resort to juries in divorce suits would not deprive the peeping Toms of their Sunday sport; he says there would still be speeches by counsel, examina- tions of...

Shaftesbury Avenue and 45th Street By BAMBER GASCOIGNE WHEN Garrick was managing the Drury Lane in the mid- eighteenth century, the conventional run for a new play was nine...

Domenico By ISABEL QUIGLY H Posto and Innocent Sor- o cerers. (Curzon.)—One, Two, • Three. (Odeon, Marble 0 • Arch.) o E IN Italy cheerfulness is not • considered, as it is...

Bless 'em All By MORDECAI RICHLER would do what the ordinary viewer, bless him, does—just watch it.' Roy Thomson has sub- mitted to an interview with John Freeman. Sid- ney...

Swans' Way By CLIVE BARNES AMONG the intriguing differ- ences between the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden and its touring brother is that at Covent Garden they have Le Lac des...

Stooping to Comedy By DAVID CAIRNS IF only more of Strauss's music were as good as Don Quixote. That it is the perfect—in my opinion the only perfect—ex- pression of his...

A Clean, Well-Lighted Mind BY ALAN BR LEN G EORGE BERNARD SHAW must have been the last British intellectual above pigmy height to believe in common sense. He was confident that...

A BATTLE, says the dictionary, is a 'combat, esp. between large organised forces.' The Battle of Britain was a good deal more than that. The main protagonists--RAF Fighter...

New Poems 1961: A PEN Anthology. Edited by William Plomer, Hilary Corke and Anthony Thwaite. (Hutchinson, 18s.) The Railings : Poems. By Alan Brownjohn. (Digby Press, 12s. 6d.)...

Learning and Living, 1790-1960. By J. F. C. Harrison. (Routledge, Kegan Paul, 45s.) THE English adult education movement which Professor Harrison writes about has given count-...

Auto da Fe. By Elias Canetti. Translated by C. V. Wedgwood. (Cape, 21s.) 'Ma. CarvErri,' wrote Walter Allen, when this novel first appeared in English in 1946, 'has created a...

Arthur Hugh Clough: The Uncommitted Mind. By Katharine Chorley. (O.U.P., 45s.) SIR HAROLD NICOLSON, reviewing this book in the Observer, found it 'curious that [Clough] should...

The Man-Eater of Malgudi. By R. K. Narayan. (Heinemann, 16s.) Front Line Stalingrad. By Victor Nekrassov. (Collins, I8s.) THE blurb-writers are at it again. On the front cover...

By CUSTOS T was a clever move on the part of Mr. Paul I Chambers to offer the shareholders of cowl- TAULDS the alternative of £25 of new 6+ per cent. convertible unsecured loan...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT 'There is no doubt whatever,' said Mr. Barber to the bankers at Liverpool, 'that the oppor- tunities for British exports in 1962 are excellent.' There had...

F Rom Mr. F. L. Chapman, the new chairman of Woolworths, we learn that very consider, able sums are going to be spent on capital account during the next few years. The expan-...

South Wind By ELIZABETH DAVID WHEN I met him first, Norman Douglas was The place Norman chose when he fancied a pasta meal was in a narrow street near the old port. 'We'll...

Uphill Work Ity KFNNETH J, ROBINSON EVERY working day one thousand families in England move into newly finished• houses or flats. That, according to our new Housing Minister....

ev , set on going to Croft's, any- . way : it takes me all my time a dozen people. let alone that of seven thousand. three hund- red and clesen dogs. The de- to enjoy the...

First Choice By LESLIE ADRIAN AT 6.20 this Friday even- ing we shall get our first look at the iceberg, at least that part visible above the calm, unruffled surface of...