A n intruder who broke into Buckingham Palace and spent ten minutes with the Queen in her bedroom provided the nation with an unexpected glimpse of royal life behind the scenes....

An evil and mighty force Stephen Fay O n Monday the monitor showing the business of the moment in the House of Commons described the remarkable hap- pening in Her Majesty's...

I t so happened that today there landed on my desk the July issue of a magazine call- ed Journalism Studies Review, which is Published from time to time by the Centre for...

6 months: One year: UK £15.50 E31.00 Eire Surface mail 1R£17.75 £ 18 . 50 1R£35.50 £3 7 . 00 Air mail £24.50 E49.00 US subscription price: $65.00 (Cheques to he made payable...

Thoughts on privilege Auberon Waugh eople may suppose that it is a pretty thin 1. week when a fellow decides to write about the Social Democratic Party Green Paper on...

Patrick Marnham `T like Guatemala' said the European 1businessman. 'It could be a paradise ex- cept for the Guatemalans.' The identical remark is made by westerners in tropical...

Nicholas von Hoffman H elmholtz rose from his pneumatic chair. "I should like a thoroughly bad climate," he answered. "I believe one would write better if the climate were bad....

Derek Davies O n Monday, 27 March, the Daily Mirror featured a story on its front page by its chief foreign correspondent, 1979 'Jour- nalist of the Year' John Pilger. A...

Paisal Sricharatchanya Bangkok W hen the Thai Labour Department summoned a press conference in May to refute John Pilger's child-slavery article published in the Daily Mirror,...

Alexander has ceased to exist. The British Admiral, suspicious of the of- ficial assurances, instituted inquiries for himself, and became satisfied that armaments were still...

Richard West W hich side does one take in the battle between Foyles, the enormous Lon- don bookshop, and the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, who have fought...

David Taylor S haw Street, Liverpool, lies on the fringes of Toxteth, a wide, grimy highway lined with decaying Georgian houses and flyblown shops. Perhaps one out of every...

Roy Kerridge Belfast M idnight on Sandy Row, Belfast! At last it was 12 July in the heart of Ulster Protestantism. From where I was sit- ting in a little caa crammed with...

Give a girl a break Paul Johnson T he new edition of Elizabeth Longford's splendid historical whodunnit, Jameson's Raid, reminds one of a certain conversation which took place...

Uncorking Cork Tony Rudd rr he contents of the Cork Report I don't exactly bubble and fizz in the glass like champagne. But then that's not necessarily Sir Kenneth Cork's...

Sir: May I be permitted to correct a factual error in the otherwise excellent article by Mr Patrick Desmond, entitled 'The Sunnier Side' (10 July 1982)? In tracing the border...

to Mr Day's letter (Spectator 26 June) which calls for the following observa- tions: In each of my broadcast reports since the first day of the crisis I have used the names...

Sir: Having just returned after a month in firstly Burma and then Thailand, I picked up your May 1 issue and saw both countries mentioned by the honourable Mr Waugh. Please...

The Falklands Sir: The arrogance of the Foreign Office is Positively breath-taking! After its atrocious advice on the possibili- ty of Argentine invasion of the Falklands it...

the South Atlantic I must write to inform you of the three civilising pleasures Which keep me sane during our long and tedious days spent on patrol in the grey, in- hospitable...

Sir: Mr Harounoff's letter (Spectator 3 Ju- ly) is rather inadequate and his final simile absurd: 'Just as the Jews were the whipping boys of the Nazi's in the 30's, so the...

Sir: Your issue of July 3 included a page of cartoons that have appeared in the press over the years about Aims of Industry. These included an amusing cartoon by Mark Boxer...

Beasts with background Eric Christiansen A mong the slumbering volcanoes which darken the horizon of English conversation there is one inscribed 'My School Experiences.' When...

Mary Whitehouse The Subversive Family Ferdinand Mount (Jonathan Cape £9.50) A nyone who starts a book with the words 'The family is a subversive organisation' must be aiming at...

A. N. Wilson 'There is a city full, as are all cities, of halt and maimed, blind and evil and the rest; but it is the City of God. There are not two such Cities on earth. There...

Michal Levin Collected Stories Isaac Bashevis Singer (Cape £10.50) am the Primeval Snake, the Evil One, 11 Satan. The Cabala refers to me as Samalael and the Jews sometimes...

Catherine Peters K athleen Raine's new book consists of 11 papers, all but one (an essay on the painter Charles Collins) given as lectures on various occasions during the past...

Simon Blow T hea Kronborg is a settler child of the American West. Moonstone, her home - Town, lies far south, in Colorado, and is lapped by desert plains. The inhabitants are...

THE COLLAPSE OF BRITISH POWER by Correlli Barnett (1972) and 'The Quest for National Efficiency' by Geoffrey Searle (Blackwell 1971). R.P.T. Davenport- Hines, 3 Pembridge...

David Williams N o biographer of Laurence Oliphant could ever conceivably be gravelled for lack of matter. He was an outstanding 19th- century weirdo, one of the wildest, most...

The pursuit of love Mark Amory The Beggar's Opera (Cottesloe) H arriet Walter is peculiarly skilful at conveying an agony of uncertain emo- tion, often a love not confident...

Perspectives Jann Parry A n officious man with an armband holds up a line of hooting cars in order to allow a line of runners to pass. As the last stragglers lurch across the...

Dusty John McEwen A Century of Modern Drawing from the Museum of Modern Art New York (British Museum till 12 September) has been praised to the skies, but your reviewer found...

Hyped Rodney Milnes Falstaff (Covent Garden) I remember Friedelind Wagner once being asked (in public) what she thought of Carlo Maria Giulini; she replied that he em- ployed...

Teutonic Peter Ackroyd Eitzcarraldo ('A', Camden Plaza) D isaster has surrounded this film from the start. Its original leading players, Mick Jagger and Jason Robards, packed...

Thankful Richard Ingrams T he BBC likes to celebrate any anniver- saries it can muster during the summer months as it gives them a good excuse to show a lot of repeats under...

Anything goes Taki o ne of the horrors of modern life is the inordinate amount of letters that pile up after an absence of more than three months. And I don't mean letters...

Half measures Jeffrey Bernard ▪ im getting a little sick of Soho. There ▪ was a time when you could always find somebody there to talk to — your actual conversation I mean —...

No. 1227: Bedside manners Set by Jaspistos: Earlier this week it was reported that an intruder into Buckingham Palace had found his way into the Queen's bedroom and had ten...

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for a poem describing the obnoxious characteristics of a nation they had never been able to warm to. I hope you all noticed that an...

by Doc A prize of ten pounds will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 2 August. Entries to: Crossword 566, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WCIN 211....

Into Europe Raymond Keene E ngland have quali fi ed for the final of the 8th European Team Championship (to be held in Plovdiv or Moscow 1983) by defeating Iceland 81/2 -71/2...

The chain of words is: ear, ras e. Aries, satire, realist, recita ls ' clarinets, centralise, credentials. Winner: Miss J. de Rhe-PhiliP e ' Paddock Gate, Upton Scudarno re '...