How will they get Major out? M r John Major, the Prime Minister, wore a cable-knit jumper at a meeting of the Cabinet at Chequers held to decide upon which policies to fight...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 0171-405 1706; Fax 0171-242 0603 THE THIN BLURRED LINE T he Prime Minister's ' detractors are asking why he does...

Just when Mr Portillo was looking seaworthy again, he's fallen overboard BRUCE ANDERSON Assuming that there was to be a replace- ment for Britannia, the question was who...

JEREMY ISAACS F rom snow in Suffolk to the coast of Coromandel — to get away from it all. There was only one board member of the Royal Opera House in the hotel. Madras, capital...

The row over the royal yacht illustrates nothing more than the ignorance of the British public PETRONELLA WYATT W hat a yacht of fuss! What a yacht of discord! According to...

But how many votes? SIR James Goldsmith breezed into Britain's European debate in September 1995, announcing that he intended to field candidates against any MPs of all parties...

Sandy Gall, on the campaign trail with the cricketer-politician, finds him disdaining extra security Lahore THE FIVE small boys, aged at a guess between eight and ten, had...

On the fiftieth anniversary of Al Capone's the underworld's outstanding statesman AL CAPONE, the most famous gangster of the 20th century, died 50 years ago this month. He was...

'MUMMY'S made a mistake!' chanted Veronica. 'Do shut up, 0 Scrapings of my Womb,' I replied. 'It is not surprising with you jigging around the kitchen when I'm trying to write....

The Labour Leader's welfare reforms, says Conrad Russell, amount to an unacceptable proposal for moral tyranny His gentle spirit rolls In the melody of souls - Which is...

THE British Medical Journal these days is obsessed with inequalities in health. The Christmas edition of that august publication was largely devoted to the subject, to which it...

Surprisingly, Alan Clark won because of the Wets who were for Nicholas Scott. THE FOUR final candidates for Kensing- ton and Chelsea's Conservative candidacy had addressed the...

Eurocrats rush in where Hitler and Verwoerd feared to tread PAUL JOHNSON 13 ritain is quite right to veto the propos- al to establish the 'European Union Centre for Monitoring...

MOST bankers (says the poet Ogden Nash) dwell in marble halls, Which they do to encourage deposits and discourage with- drawals. Now that they have got plenty of money and would...

YEAR by year in BZW's pages I follow the piteous fate of the soldier who, returning from the wars in 1945, patriotically lent his gratuity back to the government. He invest- ed...

TRY this way of thinking on Barclays de Zoete Wedd and you find that they see no trouble with prosperity at all. In fact, they rather enjoy it. Their annual Equity-Gilt Study,...

I RESPOND with apprehension to the Deutsche Bank's new advertising slogan: `EM Europa, eine Bank — Deutsche'. Uber alles, I suppose. Or alles except the insubor- dinate Nicola...

As between Goldilocks and the three bears, I'm on the side of the bears CHRISTOPHER FILDES B oston ladies of a certain age complain about the modern thunderstorm. It does not,...

I DO not care for yachts, finding them draughty and ineffectually plumbed, but for Britannia I make an exception. She is my kind of yacht. I last boarded her in New York...

Sir: Sir Peter Hall is not alone (`Censorship: then and now', 11 January), but at least he managed to get his series off the ground. We have been trying for some time to raise...

Sir: I like The Spectator and usually like Petronella Wyatt. However, I bridled a lit- tle when I read the item in her Diary (25 January) about the von Trapp daughters, five of...

Sir: In your leader of 25 January, you repeated a number of inaccurate and out- dated assertions concerning the Referen- dum Party first reported by the London Evening Standard...

Sir: Knowing nothing about this creature called Petronella Wyatt — sounds vaguely similar to that other animal Cruella De Vil — I feel compelled to put pen to paper in response...

Sir: It's ironic to have my Lawrence Durrell biography attacked for inaccuracy by an ex- Oxford professor of poetry who makes so many errors of his own in the space of so short...

The Spout, Gratton, Bakewell, Derbyshire

Sir: Regarding the identity of Alastair Forbes, perhaps D.P. Dick (Letters, 11 Jan- uary) is on to something. The proven tech- nique of anagram analysis reveals that while...

Sir: Not long ago you published a story by a woman who claimed to have been the vic- tim of a rape attempt by a geisha in Japan (`Girls will be boys', 17 September 1994). Now...

godfather, Francis Pike, expects of me, even if I no longer know what to expect of him. Kimiko Barber 11 Chepstow Villas, London W11

Sir: For Lindsey Platt to accuse me of `descending to personal abuse' (Letters, 11 January) is pretty rich, considering that his very first letter accused me of being informed...

Sir: I am shocked and saddened that this is Mass's final crossword in your paper. Mass is my favourite of all crossword setters; I am always assured of several hours of plea-...

Sir: I was sad to read Paul Johnson's per- sonal attack on Ted Heath (And another thing, 25 January). Ted Heath may be cur- mudgeonly, but he is also a loyal, kind and patriotic...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY— RATES 12 Months 6 Months UK 0 £88.00 0 £45.00 Europe (airmail) U £99.00 0 £51.00 USA Airspeed U US$141 12 US$71 Rest of Airmail U £115.00 £58.00 World...

A grammar school judge, and having to be in Woolwich on a Friday. Is Max to be spared nothing? STEPHEN GLOVER It was a year ago that he gathered up the reins at the Standard,...

Something I said made the Prince of Wales put his head in his hands, but I think I've been proved right PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE S hould the Prince of Wales break the habit of his...

Mon semblable, mon frere David Sexton AS IF by Blake Morrison Granta, £14.99, pp. 256 M e too! Me too! Here's a thriving new literary genre, taking up the slack left by the...

Carole Angier THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL: ANNE FRANK THE DEFINITIVE EDITION edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler Viking £16, pp. 338 I s this new edition of Anne Frank's...

William Fiennes CLINT EASTWOOD by Richard Schickel Cape, £17.99, pp. 557 C lint Eastwood's face, which Norman Mailer has called 'presidential', is ageing well. It is, if...

Peter Jones THRESHOLD OF FIRE by Hella S. Haasse Allison & Busby, f8.99, pp. 255 A nyone who tottered up to Martin Amis and ordered him to write a novel featuring these...

Philip Mansel 1815: THE ROADS TO WATERLOO by Gregor Dallas Richard Cohen, £25, pp. 544 T he present mood of insolent national - ism is only one Conservative tradition. As...

Christa D'Souza WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE by Nicholas Coleridge Orion, £16.99, pp. 374 S et in the world of magazines, Nicholas Coleridge's first novel, With Friends Like These,...

Teresa Waugh THE LAST THING HE WANTED by Joan Didion Flamingo, £15.99, pp. 227 T o those who are unused to reading very much American literature, the open- ing few pages of...

Allan Mallinson A HISTORY OF THE BRITISH CAVALRY, 1816-1919, VOLUME VIII by the Marquess of Anglesey Leo Cooper, £40, pp. 397 A lan Clark shares, or did, Luden- dorff's opinion...

Blair Worden UNNATURAL MURDER: POISON AT THE COURT OF JAMES I by Anne Somerset Weidenfeld, £20, pp. 434 T he death of Sir Thomas Overbury, apparently from poison, in the Tower...

Patrick Skene Catling THE PARDON OF SAINT ANNE by William Palmer Cape, £9.99, pp. 252 R eality may seem more manageable in still, two-dimensional slices. Like Isher- wood in...

When words lose all meaning Michael Henderson regrets the elevation of pop music journalism to such heights I t was the late Frank Zappa who thought that pop music journalism...

Braque: The Late Works (Royal Academy, till 6 April) Meditative calm Martin Gayford A cross many of Georges Braque's later works there flaps a huge bird. It means nothing,...

Houghton Hall: T he Prime Minister, the Empress and the Heritage (Kenwood House, till 20 April) Stately grandeur Annabel Ricketts his Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, was...

Looking for Richard (15, selected cinemas) Al's cry for help Mark Steyn A Pacino has appeared on stage as Richard III several times, so presumably, if he'd wanted, he could...

Actions, not (many) words Giannandrea Pomo N ot unlike contemporary dance, the art of mime, within the last 20 years, has become a multi-layered theatre genre that encompasses...

The Homecoming (National) Fascinating Aida (Vaudeville) Territorial imperative Sheridan Morley W hy were we always so afraid to laugh at, or at any rate with, Harold Pin-...

Breakfast shambles Marcus Berkmann 'Exalting trivia to the level of profun- dity' isn't the sole preserve of pop critics (thanks, Michael). When it comes to the employment...

The two Arthurs Michael Vestey W hen Irene Thomas reminded us on Desert Island Discs last Sunday that Round Britain Quiz had been dropped from Radio Four, the fearful symmetry...

Motty, our pal Simon Hoggart I watched two big football matches last Sunday. The first was Chelsea versus Liver- pool. At half-time, Liverpool were winning 2-0, but Chelsea...

He wasn't seduced Gavin Stamp t remains to use the motor-car as a challenge to our houses and our great buildings,' wrote that sinister beguiler, Le Corbusier, in Towards a...

Hons and rebels Robin Oakley I do, occasionally, find myself bothered by the sort of people with whom you would be careful not to share a railway carriage• Conspiratorial...

Call in the clowns Taki New York This is my last week in the Bagel, but for the first time in donkey's years, I am sad to be going to good old Helvetia. There's something...

Back inside Jeffrey Bernard L ast Friday I came in here to the Mid- dlesex Hospital for a routine dialysis ses- sion and they decided to keep me in because the entry point,...

No more to say Andrew Robson IT is a sound rule of bidding that when you have described your hand to partner, you should leave bidding decisions to him. Thus, if you have...

SOME YEARS ago now, before the Wall came down, I went to West Berlin, and While there visited the city's largest depart- ment store, KdW, which had the then unique distinction...

CHESS SIMPSON ' S IN-THE-STRAND Natural selection Raymond Keene KIRSAN Ilumzinov, the President of the autonomous Russian Republic of Kal- mykia, has now been president of...

URA COMPETITION II ISLE Of RA sma msu swum w siso One rhyme only Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1967 you were invited to write a verse fable using only one rhyme. This...

eiriejIMMIZIIVICIEcirim mayoral ircirmr , . rawsneEllHA nemoro Ever . if., I Er NE sreirl Nnriz IMMO Or N ram ur jearamnErr jrB °Celan A kil 1 ri prong:1e mil , aro , S A...

Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village' (`sweet Auburn') powerfully describes the degen- eration of the quality of life in a rural com- munity of his day. You are invited to do the same...

A first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 1990 Port for the first correct solution opened on 17 February, with two runners-up prizes of £20 (or, for UK...

The stuff of novels Simon Barnes SPORT? How can you possibly spend your life writing about sport? To admit to liking s port is to declare yourself an intellectual PYgmy....

Dear Mary.. . Q. My husband has an old friend who is not very keen on me. This does not worry me unduly except that I know they would like to see each other. My husband misses...