Yeltsun E aster was celebrated in the now tradi- tional manner with the Bishop of Durham saying that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was not a physical. event. At their annual...

1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 THE CONS OF FUSION W hen Rutherford first split the atom, he said he was certain that his achievement was of no practical application whatever....

THE extraordinary victory of Mr Boris Yeltsin in the elections to the new Soviet parliament should not obscure the fact that he has no coherent programme of his own. He has...

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...

Not so great inflationary expectations NOEL MALCOLM T he most striking thing about last week's shock horror inflation figure of 7.8 per cent was how little shock or horror it...

BRIAN INGLIS W atching or listening to broadcasts in which ministers defend their actions, as so many have been doing over the past few weeks, has brought back to mind an...

Back to the revolting new class of ignorant, bossy proletarians AUBERON WAUGH A few weeks ago, while brooding about the poor state of Britain despite its apparent prosperity,...

Timothy Garton Ash tries not to worry about West Germany as it enters its mid-life crisis Bonn THE Federal Republic of Germany is 40 this year. Happy Birthday. But is it...

MESSRS Triibner have just issued a new and illustrated edition of a book which probably delights schoolboys as much as any book that was ever written, and makes other people as...

In the wake of the Soviet elections leader on the eve of his visit to London LAST month Mikhail Sergeyevich Gor- bachev completed four full years as. Party secretary. By now it...

Edward Whitley wades through the figures, and the sewers, of Thames Water THE reassuring whoosh of the lavatory flushing is an integral part of the process of pulling up...

april GIRL of the month is Rachel ,(14), seen here.after a poor day at the year's first Gashford Hunt Pony Club One Day Event. She Ls BOY MAD. PONY of the month is Sultan:14...

Soldiers are leaving the colours in legions. Robert Fox reports THE ARMY has a fondness, a mania even, for acronyms, but Marilyn (Man- power And Recruiting In the Lean Years...

James Michie examines the uncertainties of polite and impolite behaviour GOOD manners are easy to define. They are considerateness, the less obtrusive the better, towards...

Diana Geddes puts her foot in the intricacies of etiquette in France Paris OH, the agonies of French etiquette! I have lived here for nearly seven years now and continue to make...

Candida Crewe watched the wealthy queueing for the dole LAST Saturday at 2.30 pm about 300 people converged on a large early 19th- century house in Tichborne, Hampshire. Every...

Michael Heath

Importing is fun; exporting is for fools JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE D uring the week before Easter I was rung up by the men from Thames TV's This Week programme. They were, they told...

TORIES v. Brewers? Whatever next, Fortnum v. Mason? The theory is abroad that the Thatcher government is where the Wilson government was 20 years ago confronting its own...

Merchant bankers take a bath in a chemical solution CHRISTOPHER FILDES T he man with good advice for his City advisers is Denys Henderson, chairman of Imperial Chemical...

THE shocks come through at this time of year, as the merchant banks sidle up to say a word or two about their figures. A word or three, this time, for the banks' privilege of...

I AM obliged to friends in the National Westminster Bank, who followed my tip for their new chairman, and now send me a tape of military band music, featuring a rousing...

Sir: Reading Ferdinand Mount's review of Peter Brown's book on Christian chastity (4 March), I am reminded of the Persian Jalal ud-Din Rumi's argument against Christian...

Sir: In reference to Stephen Spender on Louis MacNeice (`Seal of approval', 4 March), I learned of MacNeice's death from a two-line obituary in a Chicago newspaper column...

Sir: In urging that it is 'Time to turn to Labour', A. N. Wilson (11 March) suggests that deterioration in Britain's public ser- vices, from the railways to the NHS, is a...

Sir: We regret that Mihir Bose's name was erroneously added to the list of signatories to the World Statement in defence of Salman Rushdie and his publishers ('Rent- a-mob for...

Sir: Jeffrey Bernard (Low life, 18 March) reminds us of Terry Lawless's advice to Frank Bruno 'that he musn't have sex before the fight with Mike Tyson'. Howev- er, I am...

Sir: Mr Martin's letter (11 March) is a good one, vitiated by another of those nuclear canards. You do have to balance risks against benefits, in nuclear power as in every other...

The chaos beneath the myth Colin Welch THE BRITISH ISLES : A HISTORY OF FOUR NATIONS by Hugh Kearney CUP, f17.50, pp.236 S ome giddy persons may be deluded by the bright...

Nicholas Lezard THE CLOSEST POSSIBLE UNION by Joanna Scott Bodley Head, £12.95, pp. 290 B yron hated Keats because the latter was always 'soliciting his imagination', and...

Geoffrey Wheatcroft THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY SECOND EDITION prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner Clarendon Press, 20 volumes, £1,500 THE RANDOM HOUSE...

Be voyeurs at the keyhole then; tell all; Your no-holds-barred biography will pay. Set down the artist's whines, his lusts, BO, And insecurities and feet of clay. Through...

Paul Johnson A HISTORY OF PARLIAMENT: THE MIDDLE AGES by Ronald Butt Constable, BO. pp.6O2 T he English parliament has had more influence in the world than any other...

Anthony Blond HOW TO GROW OLD DISGRACEFULLY by Hermione Gingold Gollancz, £12.95, pp.224 In another play, I was a bullfrog. The BBC had no library of recorded sound effects...

C.H. Sisson A HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES by Ford Madox Ford Carcanet, £25, pp.262 A s a writer I have always bothered my head so little about politics', Ford wrote, 'that I have...

David Wright MacDIARMID by Alan Bold John Murray, £17.95, pp.482 M y job as I see it has never been to lay a tit's egg, but to erupt like a volcano, emitting not only flame,...

Exhibitions The brick-man cometh Giles Auty Carl Andre (Anthony d'Offay, till 15 April) John Stezaker (Salama-Caro, till 28 April) Trevor Bell (New Art Centre, till 8 April)...

Kenny Davern (touring, till 16 April) Free spirit Martin Gayford K enny Davern, the volatile, witty, mustachioed, virtuoso clarinettist now on his annual British tour, is a...

Jerome Robbins' Broadway (Imperial Theatre) Back where he belongs Douglas Colby F or 20 glorious years, directing and choreographing the Broadway musical, Jerome Robbins...

Don Carlos (Covent Garden) Far too good to lose Rodney MIlnes 0 ne of the best running jokes of the 1970s was the number of times that Sad- ler's Wells Opera/ENO announced...

Madame Sousatzka ('PG', Curzon West End) Bring auntie Hilary Mantel M adame Sousatzka is a monstrous piano teacher. She lives in a flat in a crumbling London house and gives...

Elusive news Wendy Cope O n Saturdays, Sundays and bank holi- days it's very difficult to catch the news on television. Squeezed in at unpredictable times, it is almost...

A monthly selection of forthcoming events recommended by The Spectator's regular critics. POP MUSIC Duran Duran, London Arena, 22 April. 1 look forward to seeing this latest...

Palace coup Taki fter the polluted and corrupt hell- hole that is Greece, Switzerland seems even more of a paradise, a textbook example of a functioning democracy if ever...

Video idiots Alice Thomas Ellis T he dream sequence, in my view, is the last resort of the artist who can't think of what to say next. Crouched over his word processor devoid...

At the finishing post Jeffrey Bernard T he grim reaper is certainly thinning out the fields of Soho. Last week Tom O'Keefe died and he was a good compan- ion and a gentleman...

cuisine, let alone that it was sufficient- ly large to construct a regularly changing menu around it. But at My Old Flower, London's first Brummie — or as chef- patron Wayne...

C/o Corney & Barrow Limited 12 Helmet Row, London EC1V 3QJ. Telephone: 01-251 4051 White Price Number Total Santa Helena Fume Blanc 1988 12 bts. £47.76 Pokolbin...

A last dip into the honeypot Auberon Waugh s a result of a slight contretemps over Corney and Barrow's delivery charges, the prices quoted, which are for single-case...

Champing Raymond Keene I wonder whether there is not some connection between Cubism in art and the Hypermodern movement in chess. Both represented a radically different way of...

Bouts limes Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1567 you were asked for a piece of verse with a given rhyme- scheme. The first 12 rhyme-words I took from MacNeice's Autumn Sequel...

You are invited to tell a story in three consecutive limericks, which -need be con- ventional only in the matter of rhyme- scheme and metre. Entries to 'Competition No. 1570' by...

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...

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To enable competitors to economise on postage, entries for one or more weeks of the competition and crossword may be posted together under one cover addressed 'Competition...