Yobbery with violence. F ive convicted terrorists belonging to the Irish Republican Army and another prisoner, who had helped in an escape from Gartree prison in 1987, broke...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 KICKING AGAINST THE PICTS T he Prime Minister's anguished recog-...

Mr Jeremy Hanley unwittingly reveals the Aristotelian limitations of John Major BORIS JOHNSON I t does not require inside information to know that it will be a turbulent Tory...

MARK AMORY W here most people have a waste- paper basket, literary editors need a dust- bin, grey plastic in my case. It strikes a jar- ring note in my pleasant book-lined...

Moguls of mass entertainment, titans of tripe AUBERON WAUGH B efore writing about new developments in the United States of America, I had bet- ter once again declare an...

Melanie Phillips is accused by the Left of being a traitor to the cause. She argues that it is the Left which has betrayed the ideals of the Sixties A FEW YEARS ago, something...

A READER from Frome has asked me to consider 'the only serious defect in the language: the lack of a unisex pro- noun. To avoid saying he or she, his or her, or him or her,...

Michael Heath

William Cash investigates the real reasons behind the forthcoming sale of Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Los Angeles WHEN JOAN WEISS inherited over $16 million in 1989, as the heir...

Michael Moran says that there are two politically convenient myths about Irish Americans, and demolishes both of them TWO WEEKS ago, just a day after the Irish Republican...

Harriet Sergeant discovers the erotic pleasures of being a man in Japan THE FIRST TIME I visited Japan, I went as a man. Kanebo, a cosmetics company, had invited me, one other...

estate agents will be about as much in demand as taxidermists LAST TUESDAY was the fifth anniver- sary of the day I bought my house. This week, with everyone back from their...

persist. . . THERE COMES a time in the life of every criminal — or of nearly every crim- inal — when he acknowledges at last the truth of two great propositions. The first...

Anne Applebaum is amazed by the skills of British journalists, as they turn dullness into drama THE ONE skill journalists must possess if, that is, journalists can be said to...

THOSE WHO know Cannes will hear with regret of the forest-fire which has swept bare the beautiful hill-side which rises above the Californie quarter. The whole of the ridge up...

Missing a magical voice from somewhere east of the Pennines PAUL JOHNSON Such were Dr Samuel Johnson in his day or, in the mid-19th century, Dickens and Thackeray and Tennyson...

THE OIL fields may be on strike and the elected president in jail, but in Nigeria it is business as usual. Prince Ndidi Henry writes to me from his palace at 8 Sabo Road with a...

Clarke pops up with a September Budget, and up pops the price of money CHRISTOPHER FILDES B udget day has come early this year. It is formally timed for the end of November,...

MOVING SOONER rather than later, the Chancellor startled one of his advisers, who had explained only that morning why such a thing could not possibly happen, and explained a few...

MY TEST case for business ethics comes not from Body Shop but from New York. I have it at first hand from a City banker who, wanting to meet his opposite number on Wall Street,...

I FEAR the worst for Foss and Harbottle, Giles Shepard's learned goldfish, now that he is not at the Savoy to protect them. A friend claims to have seen them in the Grill on...

Sir: The claim made by MPs Sir Nicholas Fairbairn and Richard Ottoway that the cri- sis in Rwanda is in some part caused by overpopulation (Letters, 10 September) is by far and...

Sir: As a vulgar fellow involved in 'trade', I found parts of Charles Powell's article ('A fundamental incompatibility?' 3 Septem- ber) quite hilarious. He says that, in the...

that 'because we all have to share spaceship earth, everybody's reproductive behaviour is the legitimate concern of everybody else'. May I remind him of the 'legitimate concern'...

Sir: A respected Christian lady is impressed by my arguments on religion and challenges Paul Johnson (And another thing, 3 September) to refute them. His idea of a refutation is...

Sir: It's not hard to show that Sir Arthur Bryant was politically incorrect. Why, then, does Mr Andrew Roberts misrepresent him? CA Nazi sympathiser and supreme toady,' 23...

12 Months 6 Months UK 0 £80.00 El £41.00 Europe (airmail) 0 £91.00 0 £46.00 USA Airspeed El US$130 El US$66.00 USA Airmail 0 US$175 El US$88 Rest of Airmail 0 £111.00 0...

Sir: Reading F.G. Miles's ingenious disqui- sition on `Why?' (from what cause?) and `Quhy?' (for what purpose?) (Letters, 27 August) and A. Ivereigh's learned Spanish reply (10...

Sir: Paul Johnson (10 September) rightly praises women and their superiority in many fields of human endeavour. The late Lady Violet Bonham Carter was, I believe, the first...

Sir: Both Jane Russell and the nameless lady referred to in Theodore Dalrymple's column (10 September) would have just reason to be proud possessors of 'bosoms'. Despite any...

Sir: Mr Martin Vander Weyer asserts that `the Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, ... instructed his Chancellor, Peter Thorn- eycroft, . . . to put a stop to Clore. Thorney-...

Sir: Richard Cockett (Arts, 10 September) must have been too obsessed with the inanities of the last night of the Proms to check with the office library. Elgar was not a...

Sir: Mark Steyn (Arts, 3 September) won- ders which events will inspire Irish Republi- can songsters when they come to celebrate their feats of arms over the last 25 years; he...

The flinching of Fatty; in which the Hon. Nicholas Soames is made to look silly by the ministry boys SIMON JENKINS T he Honourable Nicholas Soames is a jovial chap. Eton and...

Fools, hypocrites and humbugs Hugh Trevor-Roper THE REGICIDES by A. L. Rowse Duckworth 06.99, pp. 183 T wo centuries ago, the Revd Mark Noble, rector of Barming, Kent,...

DIARY 1995 £12 Plain £13 Initialled The Spectator 1995 Diary, bound in soft black leather, will shortly be available. Laid out with a whole week to view, Monday to Sunday,...

in Tom Shone IT ALL ADDS UP by Saul Bellow Seeker & Warburg, £20, pp. 327 L ike his novels, Saul Bellow's journal- ism throngs with memorable grotesques. Here's Edmund Wilson...

Married man would like to meet girl, affectionate, petite, for afternoon diversion. Vicar sighs. He'd like to meet married man. It's wrong to cheat: he hopes for a conversion....

Peter Hebblethwaite THE EVOLUTION OF THE GOSPEL by Enoch Powell Yale, £16.95, pp. 224 O ne of the great sources of comedy, from Moliere's malade imaginaire to Graham Greene's...

Albert Read RADON DAUGHTERS by lain Sinclair Cape, £15.99, pp. 458 R adon Daughters is an extraordinary piece of writing — but mostly for the wrong reasons: the feelings it...

Peregrine Hodson MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL by John Berendt Chatto & Windus, £10.99, pp. 388 M idnight in the Garden of Good and Evil has had an enthusiastic...

Eric Jacobs RUSHING TO PARADISE by J. G. Ballard Flamingo, £14.99, pp. 239 W h J. G. Ballard you never quite know where you are — in the real world or one partly or wholly...

Nigel Clive HELGA by Helga Gerhardie Virona, £6.99, pp. 433 h is rare slice of autobiography comes from Helga Zirkel, Swiss by birth and now married to an Englishman, who was...

Nobody knows Caroline Moore NONE TO ACCOMPANY ME by Nadine Gordimer Bloomsbury, £15.99, pp. 324 I sometimes wonder how those protesters that used regularly to stand in...

Being with her now is a kind of boredom, A dullness in which guilt and pain both ache, When all my childish anguish after freedom Has long since vanished. Now I wait to take Her...

Liliana Brisby TURNAROUND: A MEMOIR by Milos Forman and Jan Novak Faber, £17.50, pp. 295 ozen monkey vomit' is supposed to have been Marlon Brando's opinion of Hollywood...

Jazz Plastic records Martin Gayford is impressed by the thirst for relics from Charlie Parker's awe-inspiringly disorderly life M usical instruments have become surprisingly...

Timely arrival Giles Auty T Sydney o arrive in Sydney on the first day of the Southern spring has proved an unqual- ified privilege. In ten days since then bright sunlight and...

Stained spirit Tanya Harrod T he cluttered Friends' Room at the Royal Academy is not the ideal site for an exhibition but it is currently worth a visit. A sequence of...

Clear and Present Danger (`15' & selected cinemas) Lines of war Mark Steyn I wonder how many thrillers you can make about Colombian drug cartels. For one thing, it's hard to...

Design for Living (Donmar Warehouse) The Devil's Disciple (National Theatre, Olivier) Babies (Royal Court) Impossible lives Sheridan Morley J ohn Osborne sometimes threatens...

Hird mentality Ian Hislop W illiam Goldman, the screen-writer, said that the most important thing to remember about films was that 'no-one knows anything'. I offer this as...

Midsummer dream Ursula Buchan I knew nothing about interior design. If asked, I would probably have said that Colefax and Fowler were a variety act. All I knew about Nancy...

Say cheese Jeffrey Bernard I went back to my old school, Pang- bourne College, last week for only the sec- ond time since leaving the place in 1948. Once again I was...

Chelsea low life Taki L ast Sunday, while playing tennis in the courts of Cadogan Square, I suddenly thought a racing car had entered the gar- den and was heading for the poor...

A very special land Nigel Nicolson I t is doubtful whether I was the right candidate for Falmouth and Camborne, the constituency for which Sebastian Coe ran and now sits, for...

is 'ma non e com'era'. That it's not what it once was is etched poignantly on the photograph- studded walls. The decor alone could serve as a salutary lesson in the transience...

ji 11,11411, 01,11,1111,k1 COMPETITION ISLE OF i i SISGIE Vat SCOICH .HISK1 Updated clichés Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1847 you were invited to provide an extract from...

SPAIN'S FINES! CAIA 4). cADagilau SPAIN'S I !NEST CAVA CHESS THE SURPRISE WINNER of this year's Lloyds Bank Masters tournament held in London towards the end of August was...

The unclued lights were titles of works by SIR WALTER SCOTT. First prize: Miss S. Woodman, Oxhey, Watford; Runners-up: Molly Plumridge, Yarralumla, Australia; Jennifer...

You are invited to provide your own ques- tion and answer (maxiumum 150 words) in the manner of our columnist Mary Killen, dealing with an absurd and agonising social problem....

GRAHAM 'S CROS PORT W./kJ. GRAHAM'S PORT SWORD A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 3 October,...

Gone but not forgotten Frank Keating I WAS shocked to hear that Billy Wright had died. He was the first footballer I nabbed for my cricketer-filled autograph- book, and many...

Q. I read with interest your advice to the reader whose neighbour refused to accept payment for Spanish lessons (20 August). I too am frustrated at being unable to repay a debt...