The world stage M rs Thatcher announced that Mr Gorbachev would visit Britain in Decem- ber. He will take tea with the Queen. The Queen sued the Sun for damages for publishing a...

ON 17 September The Spectator published an open letter to President Ceausescu of Rumania written by Doina Cornea, a former lecturer at Cluj university in which she appealed to...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 TO BE PRECISE he lament that standards have declined is so universal in...

Time for Mrs Thatcher to consummate her Union NOEL MALCOLM A secret memorandum from Con- servative Central Office landed on my desk last week. Its contents, if genuine, will...

T here is a fashion for sado-masochism and general kinkiness growing in English theatre, particularly in productions of Shakespeare and opera. The latest exam- ple I have...

Birds in their little nests agree with Chinamen, but not with me AUBERON WAUGH Taipei The government of the Republic of China, based in Taiwan, holds sway over 20 million...

Timothy Garton Ash runs up against the Czechoslovak secret police, who are trying to turn back the tide of history in Eastern Europe Prague A LADY with a red flower would meet...

John Ralston Saul sees no reason to suppose democracy will triumph over misgovernment IT IS hard to have a revolution when you haven't got a country. And Burma hasn't been...

THE report to which we alluded last week unhappily turned out true. The terrible miscreant known as 'the Whitechapel murderer', who, if insane, differs from all other insane...

Anthony Daniels experiences crime in the Soviet Union I LEFT my hotel in Riga one evening for a stroll in the city. I was in a mellow mood, one of deep satisfaction: I had just...

Simon Blow meets the survivors of the Sicilian aristocracy WHAT has happened to Sicily's aristocra- cy since Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa wrote his famous novel The Leopard?...

Nicholas Bethell on a post-war wrong righted at last A SMALL piece of history was made last Sunday at the Cenotaph. It was mentioned in Mrs Thatcher's speech in Warsaw two...

Myles Harris rues the deterioration of the BBC World Service I REMEMBER it well. It was dawn in Ethiopia in a hideous hotel. There was a piazza, some colonnades, a square of...

Nigel Cousins left the west for a new life in east London THE voice of necessity tells people when they have to migrate. I first heard it in the oily tones of a Bristol head...

week.

What has Mr Bush done to deserve it? JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE M any people nowadays,' A. A. Milne's King who liked butter for breakfast was sternly informed by his dairymaid, `many...

WHEN I came to the City you could keep out of the rain by taking a short cut through the Bank of England. Stride in through the double doors at Princes Street, over the mosaic...

A CITY friend has confided to me the secret of his successful investment policy. Never, he says, invest in a country which has previously been governed by Spain. This principle...

The Prime Minister throws an egg at an over-regulated City... CHRISTOPHER FILDES I have discovered, late in the day, a newly reliable source. This is the City informant who...

HER concern has two causes — for the City as a cost-conscious exporter in a competitive world, and for the small inves- tors, in whose interest, or at any rate in whose name,...

According to plan Sir: In the criticism levelled at architect- designed buildings it is often overlooked that many non-architect-designed buildings are themselves very poor. I...

Sir: I was on the editorial staff of The Spectator from 1958 to 1962: is there no one there these days to verify references? I refer to Jennifer Paterson's Diary (5 November)....

our towns and cities in his private train at the invitation of the BBC, passing scornful judgment on their post- war architecture, was, to say the least, unedifying. As he...

ORAL cancer caused nearly as many deaths . . . (1,266 in 1983) as cervical cancer (1,959). (Letter from the Oral & Dental Research Trust to the Times, 1 Novem- ber) The oral...

aural pollu- tion (Letters, 5 November). I recommend a combination of megaphones and ear- trumpets to further conversation when dining out inadvertently in such hazardous places.

Sir: I was in distant parts when you published (29 October) Nikolai Tolstoy's latest piece 'Death without Glory'. Hold- ing a dialogue with Mr Tolstoy is like getting bogged...

Sir: One way of impeding the scourge of muzak (Letters, 12 November) is to make any reservation at a restaurant or hotel conditional upon the services being un- accompanied....

Sir: The idea that animals cannot go to heaven (Diary, 8 October) is a pagan inter- polation into Christianity. St Thomas took over the Aristotelian idea that animals do not...

Sir: Apropos of Neal Ascherson's article in the Observer (23 October), I should like to assure you that although I've never been near a public school I find The Spectator fun....

Sir: Mr Zametica (Letters, 5 November) hauls me, somewhat laboriously, over the coals for my assertion that the mob in Serbia is 'particularly disagreeable'. Quite how someone...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY - Save 15% on the Cover Price! RATES 12 Months 6 Months UK 0 £49.50 0 £26.00 Europe (airmail) 0 £60.50 0 £31.00 USA Airspeed 0 US $99 0 US$50 Rest of...

Murdered by `nobody' Ferdinand Mount TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND by Gareth Bennett Churchman, f5.95, pp.256 CONFESSIONS OF A CONSERVATIVE LIBERAL by John Habgood SPCK f6.95,...

Karan Thapar DAUGHTER OF THE EAST: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Benazir Bhutto Hamish Hamilton, £12.95, pp. 333 L et me begin with an admission. I know Benazir, I like her and she...

of the romantic variety Peter Henderson O f making books about C. S. Lewis (or 'Jack' to his friends) there is no end: the archives are so huge, the unpublished material so...

Michael Kitson THE ETCHINGS OF CLAUDE LORRAIN by Lino Mannocci Yale, £50, pp.310 F or all the supposed modern preference for assertiveness in art and despite the neglect of...

Richard Cobb PRELUDE TO TERROR: THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY AND THE FAILURE OF CONSENSUS 1789-1791 by Norman Hampson Blackwell, f19.50, pp.199 hen, despite so much early prom-...

The vast ruined nave is famous for its blackberries. Here the abbot was put to the sword: a stone Hidden among brambles marks the spot. A ghost's batteries Run down just like...

Byron Rogers CHARLES by Anthony Holden Weidenfeld, f12.95, pp.242 THE REAL CHARLES by Alan Hamilton Collins, £10.95, pp.222 CECIL BEATON: THE ROYAL PORTRAITS edited by Roy...

Exhibitions 1 Travels in Italy 1776-1783 (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, till 10 December) Scenes from a magic land D avid Wakefield T homas Jones, born in 1742, the...

Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien (Palais Gamier) Good red herring Adrian Dannatt T he Palais Gamier is probably the last Opera house, if not the last place in the world, where it...

The Fallen (MoMA, Oxford, till 15 January) The Renaissance of Gravure: The Art of S. W. Hayter (Ashmolean, Oxford, till 27 November) Oxford reflections Giles Auty D riving to...

Waiting for Godot (Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, Lincoln Center) Little light from the stars Douglas Colby T he great paradox of Samuel Beckett as a dramatist is that he uses...

Robust masterpiece Robin Holloway I looked forward all day to the recent live broadcast of Scottish Opera's new production of Tippett's Midsummer Mar- riage. Anticipatory glow...

Colors ('18', selected cinemas) Too late for liberals Hilary Mantel S ometimes Los Angeles is seen from above, from the whirling, swooping police helicopter. Sometimes it is...

Going ape Wendy Cope P oor little silkworms. I've scarcely given them a moment's thought before now, nor have I heard them mentioned by animal liberationists. Sunday's edition...

Among the lions Taki New York The election night party chez les Wil- liam F. Buckleys was as civilised an affair as I had expected it to be. As the good news began to come in...

Dead end Jeffrey Bernard H ow I wish life was like playing in repertory. Sadly, it isn't. I feel as though I have had a walk-on part in, say, The Mousetrap ever since its...

Open- Alice Thomas Ellis T hings keep surprising me. We are told to retain our childlike sense of wonder and I can't understand why. You look neither intelligent nor dignified...

A first prize of f20 and two further prizes of £10 for the first three correct solutions opened on 5 December. Entries to Crossword 885, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street,...

Gold diggers of 1988 Raymond Keene E ngland, which competes separately from Scotland and Wales in international chess, is widely acclaimed as the number two chess nation to...

Tricky ten Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1549 you were in- vited to write a plausible piece of prose containing ten given words (with a hidden common factor). About 20 of you...

••■111■■■• The unclued lights are (across) French and (down) English CHANNEL PORTS. Winners: T.S. Stewart, Newbury (£20); Chris Feetenby, Leeds; Jack Walton,...

lines), written in the style of a well-known poet, the first letters of each line spelling out the poet's name or names (initials allowed). Entries to 'Competition No. 1552' by...

Christmas chance for old burgundy Auberon Waugh The idea is not as mad as it sounds. The year 1985 was a brilliant one for burgundy, easily the best of this decade, and the...