A s plansfor the TUC's Day of Inaction on 22 September unfolded, it remained uncertain whether trains would be running to carry a claimed 250,000 trade unionists to a mass rally...

Paradise for windbags Colin Welch S o the Social Democrats' Britain will be both centralised and decentralised. How do they propose to avoid the resultant harsh grinding and...

available, price £5.00.

N ext door to the TUC conference in Brighton last week the Provisional world Parliament was holding its annual meeting. Only three members were in e vidence — an African in a...

UK Eire Surface mail Air mail 6 months: £15.50 1Rf17.75 £18.50 £24.50 One year: £31.00 112f35.50 £37.00 £49.00 US subscription price: $65.00 (Cheques to be made payable to the...

Tale of two solicitors Auberon Waugh E xactly a year ago this week, the news- .L/ papers and television news were full of a story which, as presented, seemed to mark a...

Bargaining in the Baltic Andrew Brown Gothenburg I t's nearly a year now since a Russian sub- marine, Whisky 137, was discovered so e mbarrassingly stuck on a skerry outside...

Roy Kerridge 'H e travels fastest who travels alone,' as Kipling remarks; yet if we have books as our travelling companions we en- joy the best of both worlds. Gogol's Dead...

James Hughes-Onslow or the second time in four years I have " just done two weeks' jury service. The first time this happened, in 1978, I thought beforehand that my...

Gavin Stamp `N othing is more symptomatic of the sentimental aimlessness of our criticism than the inordinate reverence we now pay to the architectural production of Wren,'...

Richard West Wells, Somerset A lthough northern Somerset has been made into something called Avon, under the Heath-Walker local government Act, nobody here respects the...

The Czar has broken, for an instant, through his rigid seclusion. On the 11th inst., the fete of St Alexander Newsky, the Emperor and Empress left Peterhoff, and drove into St...

Looking for leadership Paul Johnson U nions Head for New Winter of Dis- content' was the 'splash' in the Sun- day Times. 'Privately' , the Observer r eported, 'most union...

Raiders of the lost money Tony Rudd T he problem with debts that are very large is that they become unreal; they ascend into the world of telephone numbers. This seems to be...

Sir: Nicholas von Hoffman (4 September) is critical of President Reagan for telling the world that a de facto state of war exists bet- ween the United States and the Soviet...

Threatened churches Sir: Readers of Gavin Stamp's excellent ar- ticle on the threatened closure of St Bar- nabas, Pimlico (4 September) will be depressed to know that things...

Sir: If and when Mr Jeffrey Bernard of `Low life', (28 August) is able to persuade the American jockey, Steve Cauthen, to teach American tourists manners, I suggest he includes...

Sir: Richard West appropriately touches upon the sad mutilations of Warwick (11 September). Thrice-fold have they occur- red: naturally by the Great Fire of the late 18th...

Sir: Gavin Stamp (11 September), while rightly pointing to Arup Associates's dignified facade as the only reasonable pro- posal so far for the building on the site ad- joining...

S e ptember ), With reference to an article by `Taki' (4 Williams, I have never met Mr Harrison Williams, former Senator from New Jersey. I Judge the remainder of this article...

Sir: Colin Welch's interesting articles about the SDP (4 and 11 September) have ap- peared shortly after a senior civil servant to ld me that he and his colleagues sup- ported...

The South Bank Show A. N. Wilson C hristian autobiography ought to be a contradiction in terms. People who subscribe to an ideal of self-forgetting should surely be repelled...

Eric Christiansen A Charterhouse Miscellany ed. R. L. Arrowsmith (Gentry Books £9.95) O ne of the difficulties of late summer is finding a good long novel with a plot and a...

Jeffrey Bernard The Pornbrokers Martin Tomkinson (Virgin Books £1.95) E ver since this book was published a few L/ weeks ago the joke in Soho has been that the author is now...

Terence de Vere White T he name Gissing has a warning sound, suggestive of complaint and noxious fumes. It could have been invented to define the joyless quality of Gissing's...

Anthony Mockler P rolific Arthur Marshall, the favourite ageing literary cherub of the English middle classes, features prominently on the jackets of both his new books wearing...

Anthony Storr Stuff of Sleep and Dreams Leon Edel (Chatto & Windus £15.00) A A s a critic, Leon Edel stands at the op- .i.posite pole to the structuralists and their...

Francis King Company Parade and Women Against Men Storm Jameson (Virago £3.50 each). L ike Ivy Compton-Burnett and Lettice Cooper, Storm Jameson is a woman novelist whose...

Aparna Jack Pleasure City Kamala Markandaya (Chatto £7.95) Kamal Kamala Markandaya has written before first novel was published in 1954) of personal relationships between...

All-American horror Peter Ackroyd Poltergeist ('X', selected cinemas) p oltergeist has been inspired, at least in part, by Stephen Spielberg, customarily referred to as the...

Suisside John McEwen T he retrospective of Jean Tinguely's motorised sculpture comes to the Tate Gallery (till 28 November) from the Musee d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva, where...

Handel for the crime of being a great opera com- poser knows no end. After two centuries of total neglect, his works are at last being per- formed regularly by major companies...

Duncan Fallowell I n conversation with Celestin Deliege a few years years ago, Pierre Boulez said t hat he believes 'we are entering an er a .. in which the burden of history...

Re-hashed Richard Ingrams A bout a year ago Jonathan Dimbleby did a series for Yorkshire Television called In Evidence. I saw only one of the programmes, which was devoted to...

Revealing Taki Athens Co, my old friend Richard John Bing- ham, better known as the seventh Earl of Lucan, will not be left in peace by the press. I don't know why but I...

Martyred Jeffrey Bernard w hen you dream, as I did last night' that you've been picked to open th .i e batting for the MCC against Australia all u come the great day you can't...

No. 1236: Old favourite Set by Jaspistos: Over 20 years ago, in a New Statesman competition, Desmond Skirrow barbarously boiled down Keats's 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' to: Gods...

Jaspistos reports: 'Shall I compare a sum- mer's day to you?' The Poetry Critical Ser- vice exists in order to put misquoters right. Competitors were asked to rewrite the...

Power play Raymond Keene Moscow A s might be expected, the most enter- taining play in the Moscow Interzonal has been provided by the firm favourite, Gary Kasparov. Kasparov's...

for one or more weeks of the competition and crossword may be posted together under one cover addressed 'Competition Entries' provided each entry is enclosed in a separate...

A prize of ten pounds will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 4 October. Entries to: Crossword 575, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WCIN 2LL. The puzz...

fo cr oss. Winner: Dr J. E. Davies, 27 Chilto n Drive, Hale, Altrincham, Cheshire.