leven striking miners appeared before Pontefract magistrates and were charged in connection with a pick-axe handle attack on a working miner. Another working miner had his house...

The V.R.H.T. of U. S ome years ago, when the liberalisation of China after Mao was just beginning, a television team visited the offices of the People's Daily, and filmed its...

M rs Gandhi's death has chan g ed many thin g s, amon g them the possibility of a war this year between India and Pakis- tan, to which Dhiren Bha g at drew atten- tion several...

UK Eire Surface mail Air mail 6 months: • 07.25 £17.25 £20.50 £26.50 One year: £34.50 £34.50 £41.00 £53.00' Name ................................................. . Address...

If one accepts that politicians are at best only human it is impossible to deny that th e more their proceedings in Parliament are broadcast, the more they will be tempted to...

N one e of the names which appear on our front cover this week is to be found in the advertisement on the back, a mong the well-known cler g ymen, S w Yers, professors, writers,...

In 'Another voice' last week, the para- g raph be g innin g 'Harold Macmillan' should have continued: 'Harold Macmil- lan, as he then was, used to confide to all who would...

Yobs and loonies Auberon Waugh T am grateful to Paul Johnson for drawing 1my attention, through an article in the Daily Mail, to an excellent booklet com- piled by Leslie R....

M r Neil Kinnock can do himself noth- ing except good by his trip to Mos- cow. Communism may be disliked by the British, but the Russians remain extremely Popular, not perhaps...

George Galloway Khartoum U nder a thickly-camouflaged low roof, deep in a secret valley, a remarkable scene was taking place. On the table, his stomach ripped apart by...

Timothy Garton Ash W hen Herr von Brauchitsch came to see me . . . he brought a sum of money in an envelope. I took it, thanked him, locked it away, and gave it to the...

Dhiren Bhagat Delhi O n 9 November when the Finance Minister's wife, Mrs Pranab Mukher- jee, turned up with 200 blankets at the privately run refugee camp in Ajmal Khan Park...

Michael Trend T here will be high jinks in Tirana next week, for a remarkable anniversary is to be celebrated — Enver Hoxha's 40th year of power. Few national leaders who are...

Andrew Brown Skid Row F orty years after the Beveridge Report, the resulting mess defies belief, and makes the word 'system' look ludicrously inappropriate. It is difficult to...

Roy Kerridge W est Indians — Bottom of the Class.' In large black letters, this chapter heading, with its cruel and hurtful mes- sage, glares from the page of a school...

Cloth ear department Paul Johnson A pet theory of mine is that an obses- sive interest in politics and bad prose go together: the one produces the other. Journalists who think...

ather than arbitrate between Sir Tho- 1\mas Gresham and Professor Friedrich Hayek, I would take up umpiring in Ahmedabad. Now, though, the argument is joined by the Adam Smith...

T here's a green-eyed yellow banker to the north of Kathmandu, There's a little marble vault below the town, And nowadays they have a banking supervisor too, To see that no...

T he British public', so an investment manager was telling us this week, `have become risk-averse.' Have they just? T hey show no sign of having become re ward-averse, and if...

For whom the bell rings t's a landslide. Only when the boulders and rubble of the Telecom issue have come to rest, many months ahead, can we be sure what has been changed, and...

Ripeness is all Jock Bruce-Gardyne A ccording to Mr Alastair Cooke, as I discovered in my bath last Sunday morning (the repeat of his weekly `letter' Provides the ideal...

The Bishop of Peterborough, who presided at Leicester, on Tuesday night, at a meeting of the Church of England Temperance Society for the diocese of Peterborough, referred, with...

Sir: Richard West's `Shanghai'd' (3 Nov- ember) certainly brought back memories of the Thirties. A 21st birthday present: London to Vladivostok by Glen Line — Glenbeg — in...

`Bethel! is bad people' Sir: Soon after hostilities were over (1945) I was handling a small camp of Russian displaced persons held under casual milit- ary guard on the Via...

Sir: I have read much recently about confrontation between mine workers and their employers and now a Consumers' Council appears to have entered the dis- pute. Surely the time...

Sir: Well, anyhow, here it's called witlof and not witloof since the masses took over, and previous to that it was called Brussels lof, and it consists of the leaves of the...

Sir: A Welsh soldier, Frank Richards, who worked in the mines as a boy, writes in his army memoirs (Old-Soldier Sahib, 1937): I had well passed my fourteenth birthday when the...

Sir: Alan Watkins's snarl at the present foodie cult (Diary, 17 November) may b e justified but please could he keep his fang s out of me? He really shouldn't charge 0 1 with...

Sir: You are right to be exasperated by the BBC's failure to grasp the opportunity of carrying advertising (Notes, 24 Novem - ber). But the BBC is not the only institu - tion to...

Sir: How I agree with my fellow Glaswe- gian Martin Roberts (Letters, 10 Novem- ber) about the influence of university teaching in the 1960s! I am sure that I too, like Colin...

`I'm sorry Colin Welch I was appalled to read that Mrs Elizabeth Wilson was appalled by my 'intemperate and shoddy attack on homosexuals' (Cen- trepiece, 10 November; Letters,...

Victoria's father figures Peter Quennell Queen Victoria in her Letters and Journals A Selection Christopher Hibbert (John Murray £12.95) H ere, in just under 350 pages, is a...

Eric Christiansen Henry VIII Jasper Ridley (Constable £15) H enry VIII is an interesting king be- cause nearly everything he did, or tried to do, provokes the question: how did...

Peter Levi A Traveller in Romance Uncollected Writings 1901-1964 W. Somerset Maugham Edited by John Whitehead (Muller, Blond and White £12.95) W hen Somerset Maugham died 20...

Lewis Jones Nights at the Circus Angela Carter (Hogarth/Chatto £8.95) T ike Thomas Bowdler before her, LAngela Carter has a mission: to reform the stories of the past, to...

Christopher .Hawtree Letters from the Front 1915-1917 John Masefield (Constable £12.50) Letters to Margaret Bridges 1915-1919 John Masefield (Carcanet Press £6.95) B ooks were...

Simon Blow Mr Facey Romford's Hounds R. S. Surtees (OUP Paperbacks £2.95) Market Harborough G. J. Whyte-Melville (Country Life £7.95) Diary of a Foxhunting Man Terence Carroll...

A. L. Rowse Church Treasures in the Oxford District E. B. Ford and J. S. Haywood (Alan Sutton, Gloucester £4.95) H ere is a most remarkble booklet, far more worthwhile than...

First paunch your rabbit Digby Anderson The Observer Guide to British Cookery Jane Grigson (Michael Joseph £12.95) I have just looked at my copy of Jane Grigson's Charcuterie...

Geoffrey Wheatcroft An Omelette and a Glass of Wine Elizabeth David (Robert Hale £9.95) C ocial history' has got itself a bad name, )...) thanks partly to the continued domi-...

Harry Eyres 1985 Which? Wine Guide Edited by Kathryn McWhirter (Consumers' Association and Hodder & Stoughton £7.95) Sunday Telegraph Good Wine Guide 85 John Morrell and Tom...

Jo Grimond Ever since the demise of 'Le Petit Club Francais' I have been bereft. Restaurants are as ephemeral as blossom. Even as I write the Bertorelli family are packing their...

A double image Peter Ackroyd T here have been several films about the recent wars in South. East Asia, many of them genuinely if rather coldly spectacu- lar. And it was...

Catch-all Neville Shack F ilm festivals are often not content to let an audience simply see a film; there must be a bonus of some sort. In Cannes You get showbiz aura, while...

Sidelong glance Rodney Milnes Arabella, Rusalka, Cosi fan tutte (Coliseum) T he first part of the ENO's season has not been without its ups and downs. The last-minute...

Let-down Christopher Edwards Phedra (The Old Vic) A lthough I cling to the belief that Racine's greatness can be put across in English, and always look forward eager - ly to...

Nightmares Taki T he Ancient Greeks believed that dreams carried messages from th e Gods. Sigmund Freud, the Hugh Hefner o f the psyche, claimed that they were long' dark...

Jack the Lad Alexander Chancellor he Royal Variety Performance last Sun- 1 day (BBC1) ended with what Max Bygraves said would be the greatest sing- along in the history of...

Thanksgiving Jeffrey Bernard Memphis, Tennessee T he first stop the Mississippi Queen makes after leaving New Orleans on its journey to Memphis and beyond is 265 miles up...

Illusory whelks P. J. Kavanagh H ardly a day passes without one of our representatives in the House of Com- mons accusing another member of being too dim to run a whelk-stall....

No. 1349: Santa Claws Set by Jaspistos: Please propose a catty Christmas present, and add up to 16 lines of appropriate verse, for a well-known public figure. Entries to...

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for an extract from an awful Nature Col- umn of yesteryear. D. B. J. kindly sent me a passage from Saki's 'The Jesting of Arlington...

an. .a...w I I R 2 T 0 3 0 0 S IINC 13113 el 0 nil N A S I E " E 'J 11 H " 0 A L F E E • •a ALIii,AI ia EOPARD‘ I N SOIANTENGELRES ANN E3, 1 gip • OLT V I...

Heir apparent? Andrew Whiteley B y his fifth victory in the 27th game Karpov put an end to the record- smashing run of 17 games and removed any lingering doubts that he would...

Prize: £10 (or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, 1983 edition, value £11.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 1978 Port,...

Wine Club Auberon Waugh M ost people who have watched what has been happening to Burgundy prices since 1978 must be sadly aware that in this country our days of drinking good...

c/o Berry Bros, 3 St James's Street, London SW1A lEG Telephone (01) 930 1888 PRODUCT PRICE NO. OF , VALUEI CASES 1. Savigny-les-Beaune, 12 hots £65 Les Guettes 1974 2. Morey St...

Treasure Hunt Set by Caroline Moore The first prize is a pair of 18th century hand-coloured aquatints by Thomas and William Daniell illustrating views of India. Plus two...