Cloning: how it works M r Kenneth Clarke, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said on television that he agreed with the opinion of some presidents of the Bundesbank, past and...

Telephone: 0171-405 1706; Fax 0171-242 0603 CHINESE MYTHOLOGY O n hearing that the allegedly inani- mate and certainly taciturn President Calvin Coolidge was dead, the wit...

Derek Lewis: big job, little man, inaccurate book BRUCE ANDERSON I f a book were to be written on declining standards in British public life during recent decades, Derek Lewis...

I f journalism is the first draft of history, then I suppose the newspaper profile must be the first sketch of a biography. Though In my case it's gone well beyond first draft....

. . . said the publisher after mishearing Dorrell, a Tory, for Dorrill, a Leftist. When corrected, he calmed down. Peter Oborne on book trade bias IT IS a well-known fact that...

John Charmley says the new US Secretary of State misunderstands 1938, but may know better if she has to face a hostile China ARTICLES in the British press about the new...

of East Anglia. His books include Chamberlain and the Lost Peace (Hodder and Stoughton) and most recently Conserva- tive Politics, 1900-1996 (Macmillan).

It's what Gordon Brown says when fund-raising for Labour in modish New York IT WAS an unseasonably warm February evening as guests convened at the 'exclusive' Century Club in...

. . . that is, murders that will not go away. Douglas Johnson on two that have come back once again WHILE Britian talks of the Bridgewater Three and Hanratty, France still...

University.

Worriers about health, clothes, holidays, cars, weather BO, sex and the single currency. Frederick Forsyth on the Germans THE IMAGE of Germany portrayed here in Britain is...

suggests that the cultured live longer than the uncul- tured. This is good news for the people of Sweden, no doubt, but bad news for the people round here. For if it's cul- ture...

WHEN a writer in the Frankfurter Allge- meine Zeitung referred to the British Foreign Secretary as 'the Jew Rifkind' she was not meaning to be kind to him; whether she was...

Nicholas Farrell on a court case which hinges on what 'them' means in each of the European Union's 11 languages A STRANGE legal suit comes before the European Court of Justice...

The Jew Rifkind and a dangerous old Parsifal in a hurry PAUL JOHNSON T he affair of 'the Jew Rifkind' is disturb- ing but not for the reasons which have been advanced. It is...

THE Energy Group, which is powered by Eastern Electricity, is brought to the stock market and makes a flying start. Yorkshire Electricity finds an American suitor who is anxious...

IT IS a pity that Mr Wolfensohn fell out with his crisp chief of staff, Rachel Lomax, who had arrived from the Treasury by way of Downing Street and has now returned to bide her...

THE Union Discount Company of London cannot be long for this world, and I shall miss it. For more than a century it was the money market's right marker. Arthur Trinder, its...

NOW that Deng Xiaoping has found his place in a crematorium for heroes, it would be indelicate to ask what length of time elapsed between his death and its announcement, or what...

K INGSLEY Amis records that his contem- porary Phili p Toynbee was inspired to write an epic in blank verse. He was then 'inspired to go through the verse again, ma king it...

The demon king moves back to centre stage, bathed in a soft pink spotlight CHRISTOPHER FILDES N ew Labour, new demons. In Old Labour's demonology a special place in the ninth...

that in the film world he cannot compete with beefcakes. What beefcakes , for goodness sake, are there in Hollywoo d these days? Woody Allen? Dustin Hoffman? Harrison Ford? Mark...

is always a pleasure, but I do wonder if the first phrase of a column headed 'Mind your language' (15 February) should be quite so cavalier with a gerund. `My husband doesn't...

Sir: It has come to my knowledge, through Sunday morning misadventure, that if 3 drop of eucalyptus oil is placed on a Specta - tor page the print ink is immediately lique -...

Sir: Sarah Gainham (Letters, 8 February) does not make it quite clear what she is working up to with her contention that some great truth about the first world war is being...

Sir: How timely that The Rules of Civility should fall into the hands of Paul Johnso n (And another thing, 15 February). PerhaP s he should have read it more careful l .Y before...

Sir: Why is it that even The Spectator suf- fers from such inaccurate coverage as the piece on Hugh Grant (`The decline from Cary Grant to Hugh Grant', 15 February)? The idea...

Sir: Thank goodness we don't all like the same things. I remember being quite shocked when your food critic, David Fingleton, wrote with enthusiasm about the food he had had on...

Sir: Gandhi's personal third-class carriag e continued after Independence (AnotheT voice, 15 February). In fact it was said . 11 cost India a fortune to keep Gandhi ry poverty....

Sir: Pace Mr James Hogg (Letters, 22 February), 1 am a long-standing admirer of Kenneth Rose's historical and biographical work and rejoiced in his Wolfson Prize. But...

in the Iron Mask, the Tichborne Claimant, Jack the Ripper, to name but a few. But no one has excited the curiosity of readers (Letters, 22 February) more than the prankster who...

Sir: In reference to the letter from Jennifer Miller (25 January), King George, on the contrary, did too little too late. In the early spring of 1917, Kerensky and t he...

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

It looks as if the expansionist phase of the Egyptian empire has ended before it began STEPHEN GLOVER W hat has happened to the ambitions of Mohamed Al Fayed, the...

Let us hope that Deng's death will mean a new dawn for despotism in that vast country PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE H opes that China might now travel down the path of freedom seem to...

I t's rarely the inventors who profit most from their discoveries. Thomas Harris is the genius of the modern thriller, if you take as a definition of genius expanding the very...

Tom Hiney FISH SHOW by James Delingpole Penguin, £6.99, pp. 203 hen he was once asked why he had never written a novel about Hollywood, having spent four years there working...

Richard Lamb CHURCHILL'S SECRET WAR: DIPLOMATIC DECRYPTS: THE FOREIGN OFFICE AND TURKEY, 1942-44 by Robin Denniston Sutton, £25, pp. 208 W hy was Churchill so convinced that...

Teresa Waugh PYTHAGORAS' TROUSERS: GOD, PHYSICS AND THE GENDER WARS by Margaret Wertheim Fourth Estate, £9.99, pp. 297 .t would be hard to imagine a more enjoyable book than...

David Gilmour MARY CURZON by Nigel Nicolson Weidenfeld, £20, pp. 227 0 n seeing Mary Curzon in India in 1905, a young Englishman was so struck by this 'vision of loveliness'...

Theodore Dalrymple MASTERS OF BEDLAM: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE MAD-DOCTORING TRADE by Andrew Scull, Charlotte MacKenzie and Nicholas Hervey Princeton, £35, pp. 376 I t is...

Thomas Fleming CONFESSIONS OF A SPY: THE REAL STORY OF ALDRICH AMES by Peter Early Hodder, £20, pp. 364 T he life of Aldrich Ames followed the trajectory of America's rise to...

Jane Ridley VICTORIAN GIRLS: LORD INTTELTON'S DAUGHTERS by Sheila Fletcher Hambledon, £25, pp. 249 ary Glynne, the wife of George Lord Lyttelton, died tragically in 1857...

Norman Tebbit MICHAEL HESELTINE by Michael Crick Hamish Hamilton, £20, pp. 480 ichael Crick's book is hardly a literary masterpiece. The pedestrian style is singularly...

cording to the late Sir Frederick Ashton, Marius Petipa's 1890 ballet The Sleeping Beauty was a 'lesson in style'. Simi- l arly, George Balanchine, the father of American...

The Marriage of Figaro The Pearl Fishers (English Touring Opera) A modern marriage Michael Tanner T he Cambridge Arts Theatre, only 150 yards from where I live, is ideally...

Nicholas Kenyon replies to Michael Kennedy's criticism of him and Radio Three A t the end of an exhilarating week which saw the launch of one of Radio Three's most important...

Paula Rego (Tate Gallery Liverpool, till 13 April) On the rise Andrew Lambirth P aula Rego (born Lisbon 1935) is very hot property. A much-acclaimed painter, her work is...

Ivanov (Almeida) American Buffalo (Young Vic) Cardiff East (National Theatre) A doctor in the house Sheridan Morley O ur definition of the supremacy of the British theatre...

The Crucible (12, selected cinemas) Simple minds Mark Steyn A the saying goes, only the mediocre are always at their best. Even so, The Por- trait of a Lady and The Crucible...

Cash and curry Simon Hoggart R ecently we had three new Granada cable channels added to our local service. Then the other day I had a call from Granada Talk TV: would I appear...

Hung up on Nick Ross Michael Vestey I n announcing the departure of Nick Ross from Call Nick Ross, Radio Four described the programme as the 'most important phone-in on...

A welome shock Gavin Stamp A rriving on the ferry from Stranraer in 1973 on my first visit to Northern Ireland, Larne Station provided a welcoming shock as we boarded...

Taken to the cleaners Robin Oakley T he Captain of the French Rugby side Brive said after their 47-11 drubbing by the touring Auckland side at the weekend that it had been...

In the sack with Sartre Taki Gstaad Mind you, for the father of existential - ism to be lousy in the sack is pretty ridiculous. As Joseph Moncure March wrote in his sexy jazz...

Thank you for the days Jeffrey Bernard I now consider my odd days at home as being on leave from the Middlesex Hospi- tal, where I have been for the last month with just a...

Sick as a dog Leanda de Lisle I spent lunch looking mournfully up at my hostess, with my limp hair framing my face and slowly filled my mouth with Sevru- ga while she chatted...

Second success Andrew Robson TWO years ago Britain set up a Premier Bridge League, giving top players a chance to play regularly against one another. Played in a friendly but...

Marco Pierre White, a young Leeds-born chef who had never been to France, was causing a sensation as chef-patron of a small French restaurant on Wandsworth Common called...

IN-THE-STRAND KASPAROV'S performances in the two super-tournaments at Las Palmas and Linares must rank amongst the very finest in the history of chess. Preliminary calcula-...

Over the top Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1971 you were invited to supply an imaginary example of an embarrassingly effusive, flattering or otiose author's Acknowledgments...

You are invited to write a poem (maximum 16 lines) in praise of brand-names and brand-images, past or present, that special- ly please you. Entries to 'Competition No. 1974' by...

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1300: Lucky number by Columba A first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 1991 Port for the first correct solution opened on 17 March, with two...

IF YOU seek to be a sportswriter of taste and discernment, it is a smart idea to avoid national stereotyping. Do not, for example, Write about the ruthlessly efficient German...

Q. What should one do when one opens the door to find masked men on the doorstep who then push their way into the house Intent on robbery? D.P., Moreton-in-Marsh A. Greet them...