Vox pop T he government published the report by Professor Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medi- cal Officer, which recommends the legalisa- tion of the cloning of material taken from...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 020-7405 1706; Fax 020-7242 0603 SEX OFFENSIVE T he British have rarely been completely at ease with sex, and...

Mr Gore is still being economical with the charisma BRUCE ANDERSON his Democratic Convention is a curi- ous, inchoate business. The problems began at the beginning, when a...

ROWENA WILLIAMS T hat brief wet spell we call 'the summer term' seems a distant memory. It began with newly polished shoes, fast becoming murky as they swarmed up trees into the...

We're talking shock horreur: Justin Marozzi discovers that the French government is very cross about the huge numbers of its citizens who are settling here to avoid high taxes...

Boris Johnson talks to P.D. James about crime, punishment and the BBC BEFORE I meet P.D. James I stay up late with one of her 14 bestsellers, much warped from a poolside...

Mark Steyn finds the Democrats making fools of themselves as they try to launch a moral crusade in Hollywood Los Angeles WELL, the torch has been passed. It was a piece of...

WHY is it that people now say 'the 1900s' to mean the whole of the century, and not just the first 10 years of it? This new fashion is, unfortunately, especially common in...

Theodore Dalrymple, a medical writer, says that medical journalism is bad for you 1 HESITATE to bite the hand that feeds me, but I doubt that it will take much notice of my...

Simon Freeman on why not even the street-smart feel safe in boarded-up, crime-ridden Johannesburg Johannesburg PHOPHI Junior, a 32-year-old reformed criminal, was so...

I WAS walking along my road the other day when I slid and nearly fell over. I saw that I had slipped on a used condom, cast off on to the pavement. It was an even more...

Anne Applebaum says forget the Net, forget McDonald's, forget CNN: we still live in a world of foreigners YOU hear it on the news, you see it in the press, you hear it in the...

Michael Heath

Mick Hume recalls his experiences as a student chicken-killer in the days before animal rights were invented THE supervisor told three of us summer- job students to empty a...

What happened when Lord Palmerston was ticked off for smoking PAUL JOHNSON L ast week, on an expedition concerning carpet underlay, I found myself in a little Somerset town...

Patriot games From Mr Andrew Marr Sir: Just on the off-chance that a Spectator reader might take him seriously, I thought I'd better correct Andrew Neil's silly assertions...

From Mr Richard Clayton Sir: I think I can offer a clue to the high sales figures (something like half a million) for Tony Parsons's novel Man and Boy (`Babe friendly', 15...

From Adele King Sir: Stephen Glover writes (Media studies, 29 July): 'All civilised people have reviled Rebekah Wade . . . for publishing a "name and shame" list of paedophiles....

From Mr Piers Wauchope Sir: As one who fought a Scottish seat (and came third) on the Unionist ticket in the 1997 general election, I very much hope that Allan Massie (`Scottish...

Option, i.e. the setting up of an autonomous party, as a possible route forward for Scots Tories to help solve one of its problems — its perceived lack of Scottish roots and...

studies, 12 August) referred to Robin Day as the pio- neer of adversarial television interviewing. That may be true, but I am sure that he was horrified by the standards — if...

From Dr P.G. Urben Sir: The least effectual and less learned denizens of academe love to contrast the mediaeval purities of gentlemanly educa- tion with today's vocationalism...

From Mr Kevin Winstain Sir: Just before I opened my latest issue of The Spectator I had been looking through Have You Anything to Declare? by Maurice Baring (published in 1936)....

From Mr E.G. Wells Sir: Leo Cooper (Letters, 5 August) is mis- taken in confining membership of the Royal Automobile Club to proles. The RAC is flourishing because many VIPs can...

From Mr Roger Simpson Sir: Week after week your writers deride the Dome at Greenwich, and it is about time you stopped your carping. It has its short- comings but it is not...

From Mr David Nicholls Sir: Does it not behove the relativism of our age that Leo McKinstry On defence of treason', 12 August) should see fit to ask `Where is the shame, in...

ROBERT Maxwell stole from his compa- ny's pension funds. Some years after he bolted with the cash, ministers came along, as they do, to fasten the wrong stable door. They gave...

AUGUST is the Bank of England's tradi- tional month for waiting to see how things look after the holidays. This time tradition won, but only by a short head. Four of the...

KEEP faith with the revolution — idolise a central banker! I am inspired to learn that Che Guevara, pin-up of successive student radicals and activists, was briefly Governor of...

I ENJOY watching the Financial Times's efforts as it whistles to keep the euro's spir- its up. It has had a busy few days. When Europe's single currency was launched, the FT...

After all these years, my pension has turned up, but it's hardly worth the effort CHRISTOPHER FILDES I t is like finding a five-pound note in a dis- carded pair of trousers....

I WOULD have thought that supplying water to South Wales would not be diffi- cult. You just wait for it to rain, as it does. Even so, the management at Hyder has got into...

A most uncommon woman Alan Watkins DARING TO HOPE: THE DIARIES AND LETTERS OF VIOLET BONHAM CARTER, 1946-1969 edited by Mark Pottle Weidenfeld, £25, pp. 431 0 ne of the...

Jan Morris THE WILDEST DREAM: MALLORY, HIS LIFE AND CONFLICTING PASSIONS by Peter and Leni Gillman Headline, £18.99, pp. 320 W e've knocked the bastard off,' famously said Ed...

Free Phone 0800 214 363 12 months ( 52 issues) ❑ 197 ❑ £115 ❑ US$175 ❑ £129 ❑ Aus$240 6 months (26 issues) 0 £49 ❑ £58 ❑ US$88 ❑ £65 ❑ Aus$120 RATES UK Europe USA Canada...

Jane Ridley THE HUNTING GENE by Robin Page Bird's Farm Books, £25, pp. 240 R obin Page has had a very bumpy ride with this book. His original idea was to make a television...

William Trevor JEAN RHYS REVISIT ED ED by Alexis Lykiard Stride, £11.95, pp. 281 A mong the best short stories of the century that has just slipped away are those written by...

Rupert Christiansen ROMANTICISM AND ITS ANTECEDENTS by Anita Brookner Viking, £25, pp. 224 A mong the ranks of art historians, there can be few eyes as sharp as Anita...

John de Falbe P atience Gray was well known 40 years ago as the author of Plats du Jour, a book as influential as Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking in bringing...

Anne Chisholm THE CLIVEDEN SET by Norman Rose Cape, £20, pp. 277 A great deal of nonsense has been talked, written and believed about the `Cliveden Set'. As a label, it was...

Philip MacCann THE PLEASURE OF FINDING THINGS OUT: THE BEST SHORT WORKS OF RICHARD P. FEYNMAN by Richard P. Feynman, with a foreword by Freeman Dyson Allen Lane, £14.99, pp....

Steve King BIG CHIEF ELIZABETH by Giles Milton Hodder, £14.99, pp. 416 H oist the mainsail, ye mutinous dogs! Batten down the hatches, haul in the bow- line and brace yourself...

Big Chief Elizabeth by Giles Milton By the author of the bestselling Nathaniel's Nutmeg, this is an ambitious tale of how the aristocrats of Elizabethan England reached and...

Gavin Stamp ENGLAND: A GUIDE TO POST- WAR LISTED BUILDINGS by Elain Harwood f15, pp. 688 E llipsis publish a series of illustrated books devoted to modern architecture in...

Salzburg's touch of fatigue Tom Sutcliffe enjoys much of the festival but believes some of the directors need a rest C ould somebody please tell me what happens in Cosi fan...

House/Garden (National Theatre) The Graduate (Gielgud) Misbegotten misfits Sheridan Morley A most 40 years ago, Tom Stoppard first made his name as a dramatist by won- dering...

A Noble Art (Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, till 24 September) Masters and muses Felicity Owen 0 ur most venerable institution is to be commended for an...

X-Men (12, selected cinemas) Battle of the superpowers Mark Steyn W andering through the Democratic Convention the other day, I ran into Stan Lee, creator of the Amazing...

£15 Plain £16 Initialled The Spectator 2001 Diary, bound in soft red goatskin leather, is now available at the same price as last year. Laid Out with a whole week to view,...

French Paintings (Ranger's House, Blackheath, till 17 Sept) Timeless appeal Martin Gayford he muse of painting, Walter Sickert once remarked, had taken up residence on the...

Space invaders Ursula Buchan T wo recent and seemingly unrelated news reports have cast a dark shadow on this sunny summer's day. The first, a jokey `let's have some more fun...

Passion and principle Michael Tanner D avid Hockney's designs for and John Cox's production of Stravinsky's climactic and final neo-classical work, The Rake's Progress, are...

My advice: escape Marcus Berkmann T he teasing little trailers have started. The Fawlty Towers repeats are coming to an end. The sun may be out, the nights may not be...

Sketches from the Seine Michael Vestey W hen Jon Sopel was appointed the BBC's Paris correspondent last year, one of his first tasks was to clear out an office. He found files...

Good sports Robin Oakley O ne of my least favourite family mementoes is a honeymoon photograph of a whey-faced Oaldey propped against a palm tree on Italy's Ligurian coast,...

Wisdom and wine Taki T Rougemont here is a buzz in this beautiful old Alpine village, and that's because one of the greatest British prime ministers is com- ing to town. Lady...

Top of the crops Jeremy Clarke T . Suffolk last week, to a cousin's wed- ding. It had been a bad week for poor Alas- tair. He'd vomited after his stag night, then gone to work...

Hot and tired Leanda de Lisle F or two weeks we idled in the moun- tainous countryside of Crete, a place where they have no word that conveys quite the urgency of the Spanish...

Cool play Susanna Gross BRIDGE has undergone a distinct change of image over the past few years. Previously, when I told people it was my passion they gave me slightly pitying...

Hair today, gone tomorrow Petronella Wyatt I t really wouldn't have been the same. That scene in Roman Holiday when princess incognito Audrey Hepburn careers Gregory Peck's...

Rd b www.ardbeg.com The Ultimate Islay Malt. Resurrection Raymond Keene AFTER Julian Hodgson lost so dismally to Jon Speelman (see last week's column) I rather wrote off...

Acrostic Jaspistos IN . COMPETITION NO. 2149 you were invited to write a rhyming poem in which the first letters of the lines form the phrase THE SILLY SEASON. `Shut, shut...

A first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham's award-winning, Late- Bottled Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 4 September, with two runners-up prizes of £20...

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`Twinkle, twinkle, little star... "Little lamb, who made thee?' Poets sometimes ask irritating questions. You are invited to supply a sharp rejoinder in verse on the part of a...

Taken over by football Simon Barnes THE sporting monoculture is a fact of life: we now live in a green desert of football, in which rival forms of life are treated with pes-...

Dear Mary.. . Q. A contemporary of mine, who has always been rather bumptious and insensi- tive, has, in the last couple of years, been making rather too much of what she calls...