'We've got a headache.' T he Soviet-US mini-summit ended in disagreement in Reykjavik over the issue of American development of the Star Wars weapon system. Mr Gorbachev, who...

WHAT SUMMIT FAILURE? A certain idea of 'failure' has been circling the globe ever since Mr Reagan and Mr Gorbachev parted, sped on its way by such means as Le Monde's first...

THE Queen's visit to the Great Wall of China brings to mind this passage from Boswell's Life of Johnson: '10 April 1778. He talked with an uncommon animation of travelling into...

The heresy of inflation is preached once more FERDINAND MOUNT I n the better sort of religious novel there is often a passage in which the hero, on the surface a decent,...

by 31 October 1986.

PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE T he BBC really does ask for trouble. On Sunday night I was maddened to hear the television newscaster suggest that the Reykjavik summit had been wrecked by...

Western Europe ripe to be raped and lowering its defences AUBERON WAUGH I have often suspected that Mrs Thatcher has a higher opinion of the British electo- rate than I do. In...

The change in Stock Exchange rules next week has made a noise outside the City. Tim Congdon compares it to an even louder explosion that has hit London THE Big Bang in the...

IT WILL be extremely difficult for the Great Sobranje to discover a possible candidate for the Bulgarian throne. Half of those suggested in the newspap- ers are prohibited by...

Andrew Manderstam reports on the freezing of summit expectations Washington FROM the outset, Mr Gorbachev's invita- tion to President Reagan to meet him in Reykjavik had posed...

Tom Bethel! explains why Britain would be better off with America's low tax rates 'THOSE who love America will weep for Washington,' Peter Jay wrote in the Spec- tator...

Richard West compares South African mines with Soviet ones THE demented campaign against all things South African has turned to the subject of safety in gold mines. This week...

Hungarian artists who have dared to mark the uprising of 1956 IN THE summer of this year a letter came from Budapest inviting artists, both in Hungary and the West, to enter a...

Patrick Leigh Fermor recalls an afternoon's diversion on his path to Constantinople 50 years ago ONE day when we were invited to lun- cheon by some neighbours, Istvan said,...

Digby Anderson wades through Motor Show brochures in search of a car he wants PEUGEOT have a hatchback at the Birm- ingham Motor Show which is 'definitive'. That appears to be...

retail price (equivalent to 10 issues FREE) Subscription rates are being held at the old price for a limited period only. Take advantage of this special offer now! I would...

that Britain's new quality newspaper needs a more forceful tone 'THATCHER declares next election no contest' was the arresting main headline on Saturday's Independent. Golly!...

Mr Lawson's return to the Mansion House JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE A 'good and early guide to changing financial conditions' Chancellor Lawson told the merchants and bankers of the...

Sir: Anthony Daniels's examination of alternative medicine ('Why I don't feel well', 20 September) mentions the advice given in The Seven Levels of Healing, 'wear red...

Sir: My warmest admiration for your con- cept of polling the lop people' (The Spectator Poll, 11 October). This should provide us with great enjoyment and amusement as the...

Sir: Your readers may be aware that Stephen Gardiner and Christopher Knight, the architects of the new home for Sir John Baring at Stratton Park, instituted libel Proceedings...

Sir: Philip Larkin's death at the end of last year was a deep grief to his family, his friends, to other poets and to librarian colleagues. But many who knew him only through...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY — At 20 0 /D off the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for f (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES: 12...

Sir: So Peregrine Worsthorne found no- thing in the first issue of the Independent he really wanted to read (Diary, 11 Octo- ber). What Mr Worsthorne chooses to read is, of...

Sir: I am not a vegetarian, food faddist or one of the 'nut-cutlet' brigade so gloriously parodied by George Orwell. Nevertheless, I wonder if other readers were as horrified as...

Sir: Statues with umbrellas ('Long to rain over us', John Cooke, 11 October). A poem of mine contains the information that there is one just outside Reading of Mr Palmer...

Sir: In Mr Chancellor's day someone who didn't know the difference bettween [sic] `refute' and 'deny' (Television, 11 Octo- ber) wouldn't have been employed by the Spectator as...

Sir: Far be it from me, a mere 'slipshod' Times correspondent (Letters, 11 October) to disabuse a well-informed reader of the Spectator, but a jammed propeller seems to have...

Sir: Would Jock Bruce-Gardyne (The eco- nomy, 4 October) explain why he finds it necessary continually to refer to the Japanese as `Japs'? Perhaps he means it affectionately....

Sir: Please tell Lord Gowrie (Books, 11 October) that DTI is not an acronym. Neither is BL. Alastair Ross 48 Mount Pleasant Road, London W5

Sir: Francis King asserts that even in the 1940s schoolgirls would have known about `French letters and Dutch caps' (Books, 11 October). I don't know which schoolgirls he was...

Swanning to Byzantium Alastair Forbes BETWEEN THE WOODS AND THE WATER by Patrick Leigh Fermor John Murray, £13.95 H ow often during the past decade have I taken down from my...

Hugh Cecil THE MYRIAD FACES OF WAR by Trevor Wilson Blackwell/Polity, 85.00 A s the last survivors of the first world war fade away in old folks' homes, country cottages and...

Peter Paterson THE ENEMIES WITHIN by Ian MacGregor Collins, f 1 5 LOSS WITHOUT LIMIT by Martin Adeney and John Lloyd Rout/edge & Kegan Paul, £14.95 A strange event occurred...

Rupert Christiansen ZEFFIRELLI: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCO ZEFFIRELLI Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £14.95 F ranco Zeffirelli believes that 'every public person is a miracle of...

Frances Spalding NINA HAMNETT: QUEEN OF BOHEMIA by Denise Hooker Constable, £15 0 1=11■ - W hen Nina Hamnett died the Times, in a lengthy obituary, declared that howev- er...

titles of Spike Milligan's poems were transposed

Graham Leonard THE CHURCH IN CRISIS by Charles Moore, A. N. Wilson and Gavin Stamp Hodder & Stoughton, £6.95 I have always understood that propriety demands that anyone who...

Let me read again the autumn newspapers. There are no accidents, no disasters, only a natural failure of the green. No individual sorrows, only general losing their imperium...

Anita Brookner NEWS FROM NOWHERE by David Caute Hamish Hamilton, £10.95 A man surrounded by traitors is not necessarily a hero, although he may appear to be one. Richard Stern,...

Theatre Misalliance (Barbican) Phantom of the Opera (Her Majesty's) Sense and sensuality Christopher Edwards T he only contribution that Bernard Shaw made to modern drama...

Richard Long (Anthony d'Offay till 12 November) Glenys Barton (Angela Flowers till 1 November) Ivor Abrahams (Mayor Gallery till 14 November) Sponsored walks Giles Auty U...

The Capture of Troy (Opera North, Leeds) The Mikado (Coliseum) Simon Boccanegra (Glyndebourne Touring Opera) Sound and vision Rodney Milnes A description of the decor by...

Other Halves (15, selected cinemas) The whole hog Peter Ackroyd I t begins with an unhappy housewife, obviously as bored by affluence as people in films are always meant to...

Matters of life and death Wendy Cope 0 ther television critics have been re- viewing Animal Squad (BBC1) week after week and I realise, now the series has ended, that I must...

Forgotten era Taki I t was ten years ago this week that the ex-sainted editor of the best-written week- ly in the English language, Alexander Chancellor, decided to give the...

Money matters Jeffrey Bernard I was sitting at my desk last Sunday morning, idly flicking through the papers, when I came across the most extraordinary news item. It was the...

Phrase and fable Alice Thomas Ellis P hrase books seem to be a universal and eternal source of hilarity and I think I know why. Their authors go mad in the course of compiling...

Following the leader Raymond Keene A s David Spanier reported last week, Garry Kasparov has retained his world title and is still the youngest world champion in the history of...

What the Dickens Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1442 you were in- vited to write a complaint as it might be spoken by a Dickens character aggrieved at the way the author...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £12.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

Crazy = BATS (1 8 9 43 44) and NUTS (13 14 15 30 40). Winners: Tim Moorey, Sevenoaks (£20); John Larcombe, Kettering; Mrs J. Capper, Leamington Spa. awitaimpailana. ima 0 El...

Rustication .A 0Pt Mkr. WE ARE immensely fortunate in Victoria to have not only a first class market, and an excellent fishmonger but also one of the best Italian...

You are invited to supply an extract from an after-dinner speech by a politician (unnamed) who is aiming to get into a dictionary of modern humorous quotations but is well off...