`I want you to nip over to Berlin, bomb the Bundesbank and nip back again.' I nterest rates rose by 5 per cent; earlier Mr Major had cancelled at the last moment a visit to...

Don't panic: it's just another one of those triumphs for Mr Major SIMON HEFFER M r Major had no doubt hoped the French referendum would happen before his currency, his policy,...

MAX HASTINGS I t has been a prickly summer at the Tele- graph. Week after week, we have found ourselves debating some new instalment of the question: if it's all over the front...

Mystery of the missing Labour voters AUBERON WAUGH S unday is the day of the week when Britons are in a better position than anyone else on earth to decide that world events...

Edward Whitley reports that the bottom is dropping out of the diamond market, with painful consequences for De Beers THERE ARE TOO many myths about diamonds — that they are...

John Simpson reveals how good old-fashioned policing helped trap Peru's top terrorist Limo 'WASN'T THAT a shot?' I asked, as we sat in our hotel. We stopped to listen, and...

persist.. . WHENEVER I hear the word compas- sion, I reach for my . . . for my syringe. Quite what I do with it afterwards, I am not sure: jab it into the buttocks of the...

Amity Shlaes argues that the International Monetary Fund's record suggests it will fail Russia Bretton Woods ON A MISTY September morning in 1992, New Hampshire's grand Mount...

Michael Heath

THE REPORTS of the week on cholera show that the virulence of the epidemic is abating on the Continent : 'Marked decrease, even on the Volga. is the report of Thursday from...

Fiammetta Rocco on why American religious fundamentalists are praying for a 'non' in France IT IS NOT just 50 million French who are eagerly waiting to hear whether 'non' is...

Roderick Smart argues that the traditional public schools are a waste of parents' money MY FRIEND, Roger, is a bachelor house- master at a boys' minor public school. Thirty...

When two and two make ten trillion h e other day on a campaign stop in Texas the President of the United States announced that he had agreed to sell 150 of the nation's F-16...

Tivolijournalist reports heavy trouble in Sweden PAUL JOHNSON But, being engaged in launching the Swedish edition of my latest book, I had other things on my mind. So had the...

Ce que je dis au peuple francais: votez non, votez souvent CHRISTOPHER FILDES T he markets have voted already. A week before the French, they staged their own referendum on...

Sir: Patrick Leigh Fermor's article CA clean sheet for Paeonia', 12 September) was like an elaborate version of the many abusive letters I have received during the last cou- ple...

Sir: Your German correspondent, Gerhard Lorenz (Letters, 5 September), gives us an admirably concise summary of the school of historical revisionism propagated by that...

Sir: The point of the rather old pudding dedicated to Eric Anderson (Food, 12 September) was that it is College Pudding and comes from Eton according to legend. Jennifer...

Sir: Of various points from which I dissent in Stephen Fay's account of affairs at the Royal Opera House (`Sticking up for Jere- my Isaacs', 12 September), I take issue on one:...

A place at table James Buchan STORM COMMAND: A PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF THE GULF WAR by General Sir Peter de la Billiere HarperCollins, 178, pp. 348 T he story of how a small...

Anita Brookner THE CHILDREN OF MEN by P.D. James Faber, £14.99, pp. 239 educed by the charms of Adam Dalgliesh, and the complicated, plots which he so expertly unravels, one...

Celestria Noel SIN by Josephine Hart Chatto, £11.99, pp. 163 J osephine Hart follows her successful first novel, Damage, with another snappy one-word title, Sin. Like Damage it...

J. Enoch Powell BRITONS: FORGING THE NATION, 1707-1837 by Linda Colley Yale, £19.95, pp. 432 A remarkable amount of light is shed upon current and coming events by a new study...

Alan Clark SOME OF US: PEOPLE WHO DID WELL UNDER THATCHER by Julian Critchley John Murray. £14.95, pp. 188 T he majority of back-benchers, for at least a decade of their lives...

A.N. Wilson WRITTEN ON THE BODY by Jeannette Winterson Cape, £13.99, pp. 190 hat a disappointment! Jeannette Winterson is one of the most original and incisive writers at work...

Drusilla Beyfus THE MIDDLE CLASSES, 1900-1950 by Alan A. Jackson David St John Thomas, 122.50, pp. 368 F uture generations are likely to face a teaser in assessing whether...

Raymond Carr A TWENTIETH CENTURY LIFE by Frances Donaldson Weidenfeld & Nicolson, f18, pp. 256 T here is an essential message in this book. Love and cherish your friends and...

Doris Lessing E thel Richardson decided to test the contention that it is easy to see when a book is written by a woman. She wrote Maurice Guest as a man, and proved her point....

Memories of Evelyn Waugh Richard Acton M y parents, John and Daphne Acton, were friends of Evelyn Waugh from 1936 until the writer's death 30 years later. I knew nothing of...

Exhibitions 1 London — World City 1800 - 1840 (Villa Hugel, Essen, till 8 November) Portrait of a city Alan Powers I t seems perverse to go to Essen in the Ruhr to see an...

The Best of Torvill and Dean (Sheffield Arena, and touring) Ice lollies Sophie Constanti T he Best of Torvill and Dean is exactly the kind of ice show that John Curry decid-...

Bob Roberts ('15', selected cinemas) Les Amants du Pont - Neuf (`18', Lumiere) Too bad Vanessa Letts A film with low aims which achieves them can be described as a good bad...

Power of persuasion Peter Phillips S omebody recently said that the good thing about the launching of Classic FM was that it doubled the amount of serious music available to...

Patrick Heron (Waddington Galleries, till 26 September) Bridget Riley (Hayward Gallery, till 6 December) Limbos of theory Giles Auty L ast week I wrote of the way a funda-...

June Moon (Hampstead) Gamblers (Tricycle) When the Past is Still to Come (Finborough Arms) Vita and Virginia (Chichester) Warm and wonderful Sheridan Morley I t has taken...

What I did in the holidays Ursula Buchan I f there is one thing worse than going on holiday, it is coming home again. No gar- dener likes to leave behind the maturing fruits...

Funny business Martyn Harris I comics are bullies in that they com- pel you by force of personality to share a more or less twisted vision of the world: extreme examples are...

Revenge is late Taki T hey say revenge is a dish best served cold, especially after 35 years. It was back in 1957, in the Glamorgan championships two weeks before Wimbledon,...

View from a single cabin Nigel Nicolson N o sooner have people returned from this year's cruise than they are bombarded by brochures advertising next year's. Some travellers...

Carpet bag Jeffrey Bernard I have received several letters recently, two even from as far afield as Australia, from incredulous readers who doubt the veracity of my stories...

Jenny Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1745 you were asked for a new version of Leigh Hunt's 'Jenny kissed me', substituting another word or words for 'kissed me'. As a boy, I...

Raymond Keene G ame 5 in my blow-by-blow account of the Fischer-Spassky match saw Spassky complete an impressive double by un- ravelling Fischer's favourite Ruy Lopez with an...

A first prize of £20 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 5 October, with two runners-up prizes of £10 (or, for UK...

The two deadly sins Frank Keating THE HULLABALOO surrounding David Gower's omission from the England cricket team would suggest to any of you who sel- dom so much as glance at...

Dear Mary. . Q. At a dinner party recently a not so close acquaintance of mine amused us all with a somewhat ribald attack on cosmetic surgery, particularly the practices of...