A n IRA bomb at Royal Army Educa- tional Corps offices in south London in- jured seven civilians. Michael Heseltine, commonly regarded as wishing to lead the Conservative Party,...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 FREE MARKET FOR SOUTH AFRICA few months ago an official visit by the...

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The doctor and the colonel still wait for Mr Heseltine's apotheosis SIMON HEFFER M ore than a fortnight ago, just before the local government elections, one or two members of...

A.N. WILSON M y part of Camden Town has a number of Irish pubs where, often at quite unusual hours of day, you can find any number of Cardinal Tomas 0 Fiaich look- alikes...

How the RSPB is contriving to drive us all mad AUBERON WAUGH W hatever one may have against but- terflies — and I agree that in the present plague affecting the entire West...

As the Soviet empire breaks up, anti-semitism is consequences of strongly felt national pride IT IS the fate of empires that when, finally, thaw sets in, nasty weeds spring...

John Simpson leaves Baghdad a wiser man, but minus all his film THEY seem to be thinking of turning the Hanging Gardens of Babylon into a recrea- tion area. They might as well;...

W e doctors have wonderful self- control. Our careers span four decades, yet never once in all that time do we tell our patients how disgusting they are. Is there another...

Simon Sebag-Montefiore finds William F. Buckley wistfully recalling the Reagan years New York WILLIAM F. Buckley was once the seer who faced the enviable curse of seeing all...

Michael Heath

THE Times' correspondent declares that so bitter has anti-Jewish feeling become in Paris, that its leaders are beginning to pay for assassinations. Indeed, an agent who had been...

There was a printing error in last week's Issue. The title of Michael Lewis's book is Liar's Poker.

William Dalrymple describes the passing of the New Delhi which Lutyens created ONE of the great pleasures of living in New Delhi is that it is quite possible to forget that...

Sandra Barwick meets Judge Tumim, the Chief Inspector of Prisons EYE of newt, toe of frog; these, or at least a convergence of similar demonic essences, were bubbling on the...

Vicki Woods on a social revolution in Forthcoming Marriages THE first job I ever had that wasn't paid by the day and in cash was as a junior , sub-editor on Harpers & Queen. I...

The press: Paul Johnson on the survival-chances of a new venture DO WE need a paper specifically devoted to Europe, or rather to 'Europe', the whole concept of our unified...

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 1) ANITA BROOKNER 2) EDWIN E (BUZZ) ALDRIN 3) NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV 4) ARIZONA 5) EMILE ZOLA 6) NO BULLS ARE COLOUR BLIND 7) FIDELIO 8) LAC LEMAN 9) THE...

CANARY-FANCIERS can cross the Lon- don International Financial Futures Ex- change off their list of prospective tenants at the Wharf. The member firms, so I understand, would...

THE Chancellor and I seem to be in a minority. We neither of us think that the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System has magical properties. Nor does the Prime...

The Palace needs better advice, and looks for it in the City CHRISTOPHER FILDES I watch with fascination as the Palace opens up its lines to the City. This was borne in on me...

until the weekend, crossed Ludgate Hill and framed the western approach to St Paul's. It gave the City something of a formal gateway, and Monet was not ashamed to paint it. Now...

I SUPPOSE that if the Charity Commis- sioners find that times are hard, they could always register themselves as a charity. Times not long ago were very hard, and the Commission...

Destroying the disabled Sir: James Le Fanu's letter (5 May) sug- gesting that prenatal screening for disabil- ity and selective abortion is 'preferable' to embryo biopsy is...

April and 5 May) are both content to make use of the notion of prevention in discussing the merits or otherwise of embryo research. But it is prevention in the same sense that,...

Sir: Harry Phibbs (`Friendship in adversi- ty', 5 May) drew attention to the ideologic- al difficulties faced by various obscure organisations which supported the regimes in...

the styles of worship favoured by the Royal Family CA service fit for the Queen', 5 May). As a Roman Catholic himself Mr Thompson can be excused for possibly not knowing that...

Sir: In his diatribe against Nicholas Gar- land (The media, 12 May) Paul Johnson generously , refers to me as `a charitable soul'. It is not a description I instantly recognise,...

Sir: It is not correct to say that the Prince of Wales has 'never' attended the main Sunday service at Tetbury parish church CA service fit for the Queen', 5 May). He has done...

Sir: You wrote some weeks ago, with reference to The Satanic Verses, that it was surprising that there had not been earlier protests about other books offensive to Islam. These...

Sir: Ruth Rees did well to get a reply from her MP (`l-low not to win friends', 14 April). I wrote to our (Tory) MP asking that he support Sir Anthony Meyer and saying that I...

Sir: Rory Knight Bruce's article (`Give me back my arm', 5 May) is an amusing yet no doubt painful account of the sainted editor of Londoner's Diary being savaged on the arm....

Sir: No, Neil Kinnock will not give A. N. Wilson the OM (Diary, 12 May). First, he will never be Prime Minister; secondly, the OM is in the personal gift of the Sovereign....

Sir: In the article 'Defending one's own castle' (7 April), Gavin Stamp points to a difficult aspect of listed building control, namely, prosecution for unauthorised work and...

IN THE tragic death of Dhiren Bhagat, British and Indian journalism lost one of its brightest stars. As Spectator read- ers will remember, few could match Dhiren Bhagat for his...

Those memorable scenes Ferdinand Mount THOMAS HARDY: SELECTED LETTERS edited by Michael Millgate OUP, £27.50, pp. 433 HARDY THE WRITER by F. B. Pinion Macmillan, £45, pp....

Watching the bowler hats and the swirls of hair Rising unsteadily up the spiral stair, Percy sat in the corner: Nestles milk, Champions vinegar, Enos, puckered with talk. He...

John Mortimer THE OXFORD BOOK OF HUMOROUS PROSE a conducted tour by Frank Muir OUP, £17.95, pp. 1198 T he only sure and uncontroversial judgment of humorous writing is that one...

Mark Illis POODLE SPRINGS by Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker Macdonald, f12.95, pp. 268 A dangerous honour, to be asked to finish the work of a master. Parker, the...

Francis King THE LAST WORLD by Christoph Ransmayr Chatto & Windus, £12.95, pp. 202 F rom the first two or three pages of this novel, describing the gruelling 17-day voyage of...

Samantha Weinberg MY TRAITOR'S HEART by Rian Malan Bodley Head, £14.95, pp. 349 I n 1985, Simon Mpungose, the Empangeni Hammerman, murdered four white people in their beds,...

There's no satisfaction either side of the grave. Succubi, fairies, houris, ghoulish sex can't give me what I nightly crave: make me whole again; assuage my soulish aches. The...

Lord, you who can make the Australian desert flower with a single rainfall once in seventy years remember me, whose three score years and ten are running out. Diana Hendry

C.H. Sisson THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANGLICAN LITURGY, 1662-1980 by R.C. D. Jasper SPCK, £19.95, pp. 384 A good sermon morning and even- ing, and no bloody nonsense about Holy...

The sun was setting as I struggled Up here to the Lonely Pass Where, for a grip between bare rock, Stunt trees and ragged grass Struggle with the same dry fierceness As, between...

Sara Paton WOOLLEY OF UR: THE LIFE OF SIR LEONARD WOOLLEY by H. V. F. Winstone Secker & Warburg, f16.95, pp. 314 N o successful career can have had a more casual start than...

Brian Gear I n 1971 Anthony Powell gave the title Books Do Furnish a Room to one of the novels in his series A Dance to the Music of Time. Today he might have considered...

Exhibitions 1 Vincent Van Gogh: Paintings (Rijksmuseum Vincent Van Gogh, Amsterdam, till 29 July) Vincent Van Gogh: Drawings (Rijksmuseum KrOiler-Milner, Otterlo, till 29...

Modernism's heir Tanya Harrod reviews the career of the great letter-carver of Coventry Cathedral I n 1937 a young German boy came to study at Eric Gill's workship in Bucking-...

Traffic Art: Rickshaw Painting from Bangladesh (Museum of Mankind, till May 1991) Transport of delight John Henshall 0 f all the myriad art forms of the modern world, the...

No books please, we're British Peter Watson W ith the ever-increasing ascendancy of the auction houses, diatribes from the dealers are becoming as frequent as hazard warning...

Rehearsing Clarissa Robin Holloway sees his musical ideas translated into stage action E very account of Clarissa has for ob- vious reasons stressed the opera's fun- damental...

Sweetie ('15', Metro) Natural disaster Hilary Mantel T hink of an Australian suburb. Think of Neighbours. Think of Neighbours on crack. Even then, you will have only a slight...

Verse and worse Christopher Edwards R acine's four greatest plays are studies of women: Phedre, 1phigenie, Athalie and the play we now find at the Cottesloe, Berenice. In this...

Regular temptations Wendy Cope hat do we want?' `Revolution!' `When do we want it?' `After Neighbours has finished and be- fore Inspector Morse!' That exchange, which made...

Wot scorcher? Ursula Buchan P anning' is perhaps too strong a word. As my overplanted garden has evolved, from time to time I have been unable to bear a particularly...

Still in business Taki N igel Pollitzer is known as 'the Rat' by t hose of us who know the difference between Bertie and Bunter Wooster, and Which of the two will one day...

On the trail of the Wallaby Zenga Longmore A s a special treat,' announced Boko to her three children last Saturday, 'Y" can go out shopping with Aunty.' Rousing hoorays rent...

A slap in the belly Jeffrey Bernard R ichards, the fresh and wet fishmon- ger in Brewer Street, was forced to close down last week and it is a minor tragedy. A preservation...

11.61410 741 011M t ..) .1441 rnWeal"Lj t' 1111 1 _, I WAS sorry to read that the Times cookery columnist Frances Bissell has been ill and hope she is now fully recovered. She...

Trying to keep prices down Auberon Waugh M y feelings about the 1988 Rose- mount Show Reserve Chardonnay ()) have swung violently backwards and forwards since first tasting...

Spectator Wine Club, do Chateaux Wines, The Green, Olveston, Bristol BS12 3DN. Telephone: (0454) 613959 Price No. Value White 1. Rosemount Show Reserve Chardonnay 1988 12...

French attack Raymond Keene W ho will succeed the duopoly of Gary Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov? Ob- vious contenders include our own Michael Adams, at 18 the youngest ever...

12 YEAR OLD SCOTCH WHISKY COMPETITION CS 1VAS R EGAL 12 YEAR OLD SCOTCH WHISKY Baker's dozen Jaspistos n Competition No. 1625 you were asked I to incorporate 13 given...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers English Dictionary — ring the word 'Dictionary') for the first three correct solutions...

Ryden wrote an epitaph on a nameless tyrant. You are invited to write one (max- imum 8 lines) on a named tyrant of this century (tyrants still alive can be assumed to be dead,...

Unclued radicals are dogs; circuit words (from radials 2, 6, 9, 12, 17, 21, 25, 29, 33, 37) are synonyms suggested by 'dog'. Winners: Mrs D. Waller, Rayleigh, Essex (£20); John...

Clerics at the crease Frank Keating T he BBC, if not the bookies, seem to rather fancy the transfer to Canterbury of the Bishop of Liverpool, that religious, leftie-evangelist...