live with Nixon The latest American public opinion poll tells us that, although in last May 75 per cent of the American electorate wanted their President to remain in office,...

The most encouraging thing about the latest Greek coup is that is has been welcomed by such exiled Greek conservatives as Mrs Helen Vlachos, and denounced by such exiled...

Our religious affairs correspondent, Dr Martin Sullivan, the Dean of St Paul's, is to be congratulated for refusing to allow the Archbishop of Canterbury to proceed with a...

Sir: Mr Chowdharay-Best (Letters, November 14) is not quite right when he states that to allow the monarch to confer a limited number of hereditary peers would mean the...

Sir: I think it would be a pity if your readers in England remained unaware of the significance of the Govan byelection result. This has been written off variously as a...

Sir: The strongest, best led, most united and determined trade union in Britain is again confronting the Government and once again raising the question how British governments...

Sir: Viewing, in your journal, Dr Linklater's article and the ensuing correspondence on vivisection, I have come to the conclusion that the whole controversy is an emotional...

Wylie on vivisection (November 24) that it is not worth replying to it all. Let me simply destroy the myth he creates of the; dedicated and ill-used medical research worker. The...

Sir: Miss Rayner's vitriolic letter (November 24) in response to the concern expressed in Dr John Linklater's article on forms of sex education and the growing abuse of the law...

Sir: Contrary to the statement in your leader on the legal profession (November 17) it should be possible to sue a barrister or solicitor who acts negligently outside the field...

Sir: Those who took part in the mass lobby of Parliament organised by the SPUC had the opportunity of seeing, if not meeting, some of the opposition. One such young lady marched...

Sir: Mr Philip Kestelman (November 24) asks for an explanation from ” anti-abortionists" of 'what they mean by a person." That is easy, for defines a " person " in law as " A...

on two errors in logic: "one reason for opposing abortion is bad, therefore all reasons for opposing abortion are bad" and "one society that prohibited abortion was Nazi,...

Sir: I am delighted to be reproved for my ignorance of music by Mr Bayliss, who apparently believes it proper to describe Dame Ethel Smyth (1 trust some helpful printer does not...

Sir: Now that Nancy Mitford's U nonsense seems to be getting a second wind, it was reassuring to find Beverley Nichols (Notebook, November 24) disposing, with ducal authority,...

Sir: I am writing the official biography of Raymond Chandler and would like to get on touch with people who knew him and to see letters written by him. I would be grateful if...

Factions right, left and centre Patrick Cosgrave The Chancellor of the Exchequer recently sent for the officers of one of his backbench committees concerned with economics and...

Let us consider words, for words, after all, are our sole means of communication in this distressful world. Words are the antennae of thought. And let us begin with the word...

Tidings of comfort? Rawle Knox You seldom see anyone in Ireland open a letter without first carefully examining the envelope, the handwriting on it, and the postmark; a custom...

My friend Doctor Cranhe. believes titat ye Farkk is flat and tilt 'DA( is now cone to .ircyress Ills Vim wpm ye 5Inte 11,7can skew that 1Vrercator's ?rojection sob antairly wpon...

Drugs and the Chinese needle George Patterson The Chinese expression used to describe the inhaling of the twisting spiral of smoke rising from the mixture of heroin and...

Vipers in the nest Rhodes Boyson The fact that the Communist Party MarxistLeninist candidate in the Hove by-election polled 128 votes, one in every 300 cast, while no official...

Puzzle knows little of anthropology, and is much intrigued by witchcraft. It is therefore with some pride that he imparts knowledge of the former, and experience of the latter,...

'Hustling for bread' Mervyn Harris Mervyn Harris is a South African writer who is investigating various aspects of contemporary British Society. This is the second of three...

The strange case of William Goatley John Linklater The general practitioner has the unique privilege of being involved in practically every family problem of magnitude. As the...

Foundations of faith Martin Sullivan _. From time to time it is important that we should try to discover the real roots and foundations of our personal religion, apart...

Sunny side up Bill Grundy No news is good news, they say. Not many editors would agree. But they might agree with the mirror image of the saying — that good news is no news....

The Glastonbury thorn Denis Wood , Many legends surround the Glastonbury Thorn which bears flowers in winter and again in summer, legends which began as threads of gold...

When Voltaire came to summarise French achievements during the reign of Louis XIV he laid an entirely proper stress on what had been accomplished in the arts; martial triumphs...

Peter Ackroyd The Poor Mouth Flann O'Brien (Hart-Davis McGibbon £2.75) Recovery John Barryman (Faber £2.50) Memoirs of a. Female Thief Dacia Maraini (Abelard-Schuman £2.95) If...

Quentin Bell Poiret Palmer White (Studio Vista £6.95) "Corsets are quite exploded," exclaimed a fashion journal of the early nineteenth century. Other equally dramatic things...

Magnus Magnusson The First Great Civilisations — Life in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and Egypt. Jacquetta Hawkes (Hutchinson £5.50). Quite simply, this is a splendid book....

Duncan. Fallowell Marilyn Norman Mailer (Hodder and Stoughton £4.95) *Marilyn Monroe is forty-seven this year. Like Oscar Wilde who for years after his assumed death was seen...

Bits of Fitz Benny Green In reading Bits of Paradise (Bodley Head, 0.50), I found myself wondering, every twenty pages or so, whether I was wasting my time. The question is of...

Bookend There may be smiles of self-satisfaction on certain bookish faces this week. And frowns of shame on others. Not for the first time it is the Scots and the Welsh who...

Michael Blakemore, an astute and perceptive director in most of his work, seems to have found himself baffled by Design for Living, Noel Coward's 1933 comedy presently revived...

Per ardua ad astra Duncan Fallowell'Y In their determination to prove that there's no business like show business, and no entertainer like this entertainer, Brian Ferry, Gary...

Pure Korn Rodney Milnes, christmas, I am reliably Informed, Is coming, so allow me to commend to your notice, not altogether light-heartedly, a record of either the best bad...

Snakes, no ladders Christopher Hudson There is a splendid exuberance about many American horror films which makes up for the dimwittedness with which they are put together....

W aspe Waspe is constantly amazed by — not to say breathless with admiration for — the aplomb of actors in concealing, while they are acting with each other, the traumas that...

Blue riband Clive Gammon We three million or so fishermen are pathetically pleased when television condescends to notice the biggest sport in Britain, which normally doesn't...

Flora and fauna Evan Anthony Having committed itself to a theme, the Tate is running no risk that you won't get it. Its efforts to put you in the mood for its Landscape in...

Nicholas Davenport As it is now certain that Japan. and Europe will be running into a recession in 1974 — they have themselves to blame as well as the Arabs — we should watch...

It's a sad fact that my more inspired betting coups rarely make the Frolic. Last week, for instance, of two eachway, ante-post splashes, the published one Spanish Steps, failed...

Poor Mrs Edwina Coven was first elected and then rejected two weeks a g o as the City's first woman Alderman. Mrs Coven's sin, in the Lord Mayor's eyes, was to say in a letter...

The Crown Estate Commissioners say that they are havin g increasin g difficulty in findin g opportunities for investment in further freehold ac q uisitions in their report of...

National Savin g s showed a deficit of £21 million last month. This is the amount withdrawals exceeded new savin g s before addin g back accrued_ interest. Before too many more...

Nephew Wilde My broker, Wotherspool, could at least feel pleased on one score in it week that has spelt g loom for most investors. He did make the prophecy that the price of...

A slugger , s notebook "Twenty years ago,” asked a friend recently, "what would you have bet that one day, for a fattish fee, you'd write an article on Scotch that would be...

Mrs Elizabeth David has recently been given the Andre Simon Memorial Award "for services to gastronomy over twenty-five Years." It is possible that, in this quarter-century, she...

Rupert Butler It isn't just cut-price plonk that is being bought in Wandsworth these days. A fair amount of vodka gets on the credit card bill; all part of what shuddering...