T he Provisional IRA declared their tra- ditional 72-hour Christmas truce, but did not extend it in response to the peace over- tures of London and Dublin which they said they...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 THE CASE FOR LIQUIDATION T he year of 1993 was a terrible one for...

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KEITH WATERHOUSE P assing briefly through New York immediately after Christmas, I had no diffi- culty at all, and inconvenienced nobody, in making three business appointments...

James Buchan considers the diverging paths of the stock market and the inflation rate, and announces that a new golden age has begun A woman is the only infallible thing in...

EDWARD WINDSOR has written to me, asking that I 'allow us to try to carry on our lives as normal'. I have given due consideration to this plea. I hope it will not prevent the...

against the rising tide of anti-white larceny and murder in New York Brooklyn Heights, New York WINTER IS a merry time in . Brooklyn Heights and this one has been particularly...

persist.. . I ENCOUNTER so much suffering every day that, in the immortal words of a prisoner of my acquaintance, 'my head's been cabbaged'. I try to think of important matters...

MR. GLADSTONE completed yester- day his eighty fourth year, and is now older than any of our Monarchs or any of our Prime Ministers, — in short, than any one who could in any...

Simon Jenkins argues that Downing Street has got its Northern Ireland all wrong: its future can only be a segregated one DRIVE OVER Ulster's Sperrin hills, descend into the...

series on England with a jaundiced view of the county in which she grew up IT TOOK a spell of living in California for me to get the point, or the pointlessness, of Surrey, the...

A New Year curse on John Major and all his mendacious administration PAUL JOHNSON T he coming year will witness the end, I predict and hope, of the Major Govern- ment, the...

Sir: People often use the expression 'a storm in a teacup' when referring to some event which they believe has been blown up out of all proportion. In other words, they are...

Sir: Your correspondent, Nicholas Mostyn (Letters, 20 November), refers dismissively in his letter to 'parents simply obtaining a rubber stamp to their private arrangement by a...

Sir: Much as I welcome the break in Fide's stranglehold on world chess and the humili- ation of its autocratic president, it is tire- some to have to suffer Raymond Keene's...

Sir: The fine for smoking on a London Transport bus is now £1,000. Under the sentencing guidelines issued recently, you can do the following (provid- ed you are not in an...

Sir: K. F. E. Daniel suggests (Letters, 11 December) that the correct name for the human fundament is neither ass, nor arse, but anus. Is this not a confusion of the hole with...

Sir: I suspect that a particularly enjoyable Spectator office party came between my article and the page last week (The God- parents boom', 18/25 December). The New York...

The blues and the bluest James Buchan THE BLUEST EYE SU LA SONG OF SOLOMON TAR BABY BELOVED JAZZ by Toni Morrison Chatto & Windus, £12.99 each, pp. 164, pp. 174, pp. 337, pp....

Simon Heller MICROCOSMOGRAPHIA ACADEMICA by F. M. Cornford Mainsail Press,clo Queens' College, Cambridge, f8.99, pp. 64 am getting to an age where a few of my I contemporaries...

Francis King A FANTASTIC JOURNEY: THE LIFE AND LITERATURE OF LAFCADIO HEARN by Paul Murray Japan Library, f19.99, pp. 398 L ittle read now in the West except by Japanophiles,...

I am the wind that stirs the thoughts of sails And sends the bright flags fluttering in your heart; I am the gull that's blown on last year's gales To slice the present and the...

Hugh Lawson-Tancred WRINKLES IN TIME by George Smoot and Keay Davidson Little Brown, £18.99, pp. 321 are invited to imagine an infinites- We imal pinpoint of limitless...

When it snows the farmers have nowhere to go; their wives take them to shops and cafés like dull sons. Escaping to sheds or bedrooms they wish they could read a comic or watch...

John Patten THE COMMONPLACE BOOK OF MONSIGNOR A. N. GILBEY Libri £13.95, pp. 192 T he phrase 'living treasure' might have been invented for Mgr A. N. Gilbey; he would certainly...

Samantha Weinberg THE GREAT SAFARI: THE LIVES OF GEORGE AND JOY ADAMSON, CREATORS OF THE BORN FREE LEGEND by Adrian House Harvill, £20, pp.465 I f George Adamson was like a...

Anita Brookner B iographical and autobiographical elements abounded in the French novels published this season, which was no doubt reassuring to readers who must have felt...

a time A waiting time, a stretching time, Before we take off boots and climb Wearily to bed. Meshed in rules, encased in armour, We shall try, we may indeed contain The...

Art Time to see some sense O nce a year the long-standing cold war which prevails in British art breaks out into skirmishing. Blood is spilled as cheeks and knuckles get cut...

Paradise regained Rupert Christiansen I t's been a bad autumn here. Dull stag- ings of Lohengrin and Meistersinger. A mis- fired Zauberflfite, a misconceived Boheme. The...

Me and Mamie O'Rourke (Strand) Macbeth (Barbican) Piaf (Piccadilly) Feeble thane Sheridan Morley A drian Noble's admirable RSC policy of bringing the big stars back to Shake-...

Ms American Pie Mark Steyn I t may be time to re-think at least the front half of the old injunction against working with children or animals. In, respectively, A Perfect World...

A monthly selection of forthcoming events recommended by The Spectator's regular critics DANCE Royal Ballet, Covent Garden (071 240 1066), from 26 January. Revival of Kenneth...

Snow showers Taki Gstaad everyone who has ever heard of Gstaad knows, few people go there to ski. Although the picture-perfect village is set at a rather low altitude for a...

Christmas rave Martyn Harris P eople who are fundamentally con- tent,' according to Quentin Crisp (Camp Christmas, Channel Four, Friday, 10 p.m.) 'have no need of festivity.'...

A new Ice Age sets in Nigel Nlcolson Y ou're not going to believe this,' said the young woman to her friend as we col- lected our coats. 'The man sitting next to me at dinner...

Spare ribbing Jeffrey Bernard I suddenly thought: Hang on a moment, it was never like this. The one sounding off like a Mrs Beeton I met in a pub in the Portobello Road in...

L.1119LAJALJAvkiAL: I JANUARY, 1994: the Feast of the Cir- cumcision, now banished, and a very happy New Year to you all. I like the sound of 1994; perhaps everything will...

SCOTCH WHISIO COMPETITION Fake antique Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1810 you were given a start of one and a half lines of blank verse and invited to continue in convincing...

1 40 0 I CHESS SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA , Janus Raymond Keene AS ALWAYS, THE TOURNAMENT at Hastings ends the old chess year and starts the new chess calendar. In the past. Hast-...

Last year the Oddest of the Odd Book Titles award was won by Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice, with, as runners-up, Big and Very Big Hole Drilling,...

[ j GRAHAM'S PORT CROSSWORD W&J iGRAHAM'S L 1 L -- ) PORT f' A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened...

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Dear Mary.. . Q. My husband is a member of a well- known Middle Eastern family. For some reason, this gives those of my friends who would not normally dream of touching someone...

As bright as a new ball Frank Keating THE PASSING mention in this corner a few weeks ago of my visit to Harold Lar- wood in Australia brought a flurry of phone calls and...