`I didn't know you were interested in politics.' m r Jeffrey Archer resigned his post as deputy chairman of the Conservative party after a Sunday newspaper alleged he had...

PRATFALL I n Mr Jeffrey Archer's novel First Among Equals, Raymond Gould, a rising Young junior minister 'stuck with a small- town wife' (the paperback blurb), is return- Mg...

Pop go the secrets in the parliamentary lobby FERDINAND MOUNT Y et another traditional way of life with its warm kinship network, its shared rituals, its esoteric taboos —...

PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE M y delight in Kinglsey Amis's Booker prize has been rather spoilt by the snide comments which the various profilers have made about his second wife,...

The vital question of whether Aids can be transmitted by insect bites AUBERON WAUGH One might have thought that it was a fairly uncontentious measure which would pass through...

The pressure of work has changed young people's attitudes to love. Sex is governed by 'sensibleness' and HERE is a modern tableau: six friends in their late twenties having...

not tested in court during the trial of the convicted Syrian bomber THE most striking aspect of the strange case of Regina v. Nizar Hindawi is the discrepancy between the...

Many of the proceedings of Parliament go unreported in the press. This is the first of our weekly (verbatim) attempts to remedy this unjust neglect. Salmon Bill (23 October)...

Peter Kemp remembers his days in Hungary during the revolution 30 years ago For I would rather have my sweet, Though roses die of grieving, Than do high deeds in Hungary To...

Christopher Hitchens reports on the Hong Kong authorities' opposition to democracy as 1997 approaches Hong Kong TIMES may be uncertain in this most exotic and populous of our...

Profile: Mark Boxer, cartoonist to the powerful and editor of the Tatler AS Mark Boxer hurried upwards to collect his award as editor of the year from the Periodical...

Digby Anderson rues the disappearance of fireworks worth setting off AT FIRST SIGHT, it is a social phe- nomenon only explained by the Combe Florey school of sociology. Our...

the Archer case as the tip of a constitutional iceberg THE karate chop administered by the News of the World to the reborn political career of Jeffrey Archer was an impressive...

THE Commissioner of Police in the City has prohibited the Socialist proces- sion on Lord Mayor's Day. The prohibi- tion is absolute, the Social Democratic Federation being...

A WAVE to the Securities and Invest- ments Board, watchdog in chief, as it watches the Financial Services Bill scrape into law. Any day now it will be empo- wered to watch its...

Brownie points for good practice and the cure for a fine old conflict CHRISTOPHER FILDES T he case of the AE pension fund shows how far we still are from guiding these huge...

NOT so much a Big Bang, more a touch of coitus interruptus. Some people enjoyed it, though. I know an investor who, in Mon- day morning's muddle, caused four simul- taneous...

The Prime Minister looked down the list of prospective members of the SIB and ob- jected. Not, as was said, to the presence of a critic of her tax policies (that blackball was...

Conversion on the road to Loughborough JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE I n one of Graham Greene's novels the heroine keeps the ashes of her former lover in an urn on her mantlepiece. So it...

in receiving the 18 October issue, and to news-stand buyers for the late distribution of the 25 October issue. Both stemmed from breakdowns at the printers.

Sir: Nigel Dempster shows in his piece about Peter McKay's 'book' Inside Private Eye that he is as ill-fitted to review books as McHackey is to write them. I was surprised that...

Sir: Propaganda can be in the mind of the beholder. I have canvassed a widish circle of family and friends, yet not one of them has been able to detect political bias in BBC...

London's gospel Sir: Your excellent Profile of the Bishop of London (25 October) does not say where he finds a single word of the Lord that justifies his opposing women's...

Sir: The Suez Affair recalled by Lord Deedes in last week's Spectator occasioned something unique in parliamentary history: the collective resignation of the party whip by a...

Sir: John Cooke Moog to rain over us', 11 October) says 'There is no statue of any kind to poor (Jonas) Hanway.' In any event, a monument to him was erected in Westminster Abbey...

Sir: Red vests and red topi-linings may, alas, be now part of history (Letters, 18 October) — but they had had a good run as a prophylactic, even before John Gaddes- ton...

Funnier than he knows Colin Welch MEMOIRS: THE MAKING OF A PRIME MINISTER 1916-1964 by Harold Wilson Weidenfeld & NicolsonlMichael Joseph, £14.95 H ugh (Gaitskell) did not...

Philip Knightley THE TARGET IS DESTROYED by Seymour Hersh Faber & Faber, £9.95 T his is the sixth book on the shooting down of Korean Air Line's flight 007 by a Soviet jet...

Robert Blake THE ENIGMATIC EDWARDIAN: THE LIFE OF REGINALD 2nd VISCOUNT ESHER by James Lees-Milne Sidgwick & Jackson, f15 R eginald (Regy) Brett second Vis- count Esher, son...

Hugh Thomas DESCENT TO SUEZ: DIARIES 1951-56 by Evelyn Shuckburgh, edited by John Charmley Weidenfeld & Nicolson, f14.95 CUTTING THROUGH THE LION'S TAIL by Mohamed H. Helical...

stet his I will love you, come what may, Until the end of time. I never will forget the day you said you would beinine: - David Cram

Byron Rogers CAITLIN by Caitlin Thomas with George Tremlett Sacker & Warburg, £10.95 M y father's apprentice told me the story when I was about 12, and he some years older....

Francis King THE REAL LIFE OF ALEJANDRO MAYTA by Mario Vargas Liosa Faber & Faber, L9.95 T he present of this novel is a future in which Peru is about to suffer the fate of...

John Jolliffe DVOIIAK IN LOVE by Josef Skvorceky Chaco & Windus, f10.95 A ntonin Dvotak (1841-1904) appears in several different accounts as one of the most personally...

Gavin Stamp PRIVATE PALACES: LIFE IN THE GREAT LONDON HOUSES by Christopher Simon Sykes Chatto & Windus, £15.95 LONDON'S MANSIONS: THE PALATIAL HOUSES OF THE NOBILITY by...

Dance Symphonic Variations Galanteries (Royal Opera House) Power and personality Julie Kavanagh ymphonic Variations is the ballet Frederick Ashton never lets out of his...

Weird and wonderful Rodney MI lnes N ow, I must be very grown up and get through a whole column without mention- ing super-titles. (Incidentally, how darkly ironic it is that...

Breaking the Code (Theatre Royal, Haymarket) Scenes from a Marriage (Barbican) Breaking the rules Christopher Edwards H ugh Whitemore's new play at the Theatre Royal,...

Gilles Sacksick (Bruton till 29 November) Charles Beauchamp (Gimpel Fils till 15 November) Gaston Chaissac (Fischer Fine Art till 21 November) French collection Giles Auty D...

The great escape Ursula Buchan I would be the last to deny that our lives are immeasurably enriched by our capacity to grow herbs. How else could we make good spaghetti...

In the real world Wendy Cope I didn't know it until Sunday but I may soon be an Aunt Agatha. This, as many readers will already be aware, is the patronising appellation...

High and low Taki I New York 'ye been very high all week. And when I say high, I mean really high — 30,000 feet to be exact, and for the better part of a whole week. And no,...

Beatitude and the beasts Jeffrey Bernard yen the Germans couldn't be bothered to invade this island during the war and it is to be hoped that their tourist corps have no...

retail price (equivalent to 10 issues FREE) Subscription rates are being held at the old price for a limited period only. Take advantage of this special offer now! I would...

Facing facts Alice Thomas Ellis T he daughter's karate teacher at her convent school has instructed her that if she is attacked in the street she must throw her assailant to...

Slon Ranger David Levy T he ebullient Soviet Grandmaster Eduard Gufeld is well known for having a penchant for the black king's bishop. His opening preferences with the black...

Phoney Jaspistos In Competition No. 1444 you were in- vited to write a poem addressed to or about a telephone directory. `Marvellous characters, but poor plot' is an old lit....

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £12.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the...

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You are invited to produce a dialogue in prose in which each speaker in turn uses heavy alliteration (the letter overworked should vary in each speech). Maximum 150 words....