`Is this your first trip to Chappaquiddick, Mr Adams?' M r John Major, the Prime Minister, sent Mr Michael Mates, the disgraced for- mer Northern Ireland minister, to the Unit-...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 COLD—BLOODED KILLER F or the second time in nine months, Gerry Adams...

A rail fiasco impends, and the Government will naturally try to blame it on Jimmy Knapp BORIS JOHNSON I find it hard to believe that the Govern- ment can take much real joy in...

VICKI WOODS I ate the first eel of my life last week, when I went to the annual conference of the Liberal Democrats in Brighton. I'd asked for lobster, at English's fish restau-...

Towards a penal system attuned to our national character AUBERON WAUGH I n a fortnight when 'Howard gets tough' headlines have been jostling with 'Major confirms economic...

On the eve of the annual Labour Party conference, Noreen Taylor tracks Tony Blair to his lair in the House of Commons and attempts to find out if the Labour leader is as nice...

The boom in Russian crime is blamed on the introduction of capitalism. Nothing could be further from the truth, argues Stephen Handelman NOT LONG AGO, I found myself sitting in...

MR TIM LANGHORN of Leatherhead is annoyed by the Times not being able to spell any more. His particular gripe is verbs ending in -ize, which it now happi- ly spells with -ise,...

Michael Heath

persist.. . I ARRIVED on the ward last week to discover three of our nurses seated at a desk, writing on pink paper. This was the colour favoured by patients who fell in love...

Conflict prevention is the fashionable new geopolitical theory. Unfortunately it can never work, argues Jonathan Eyal THE PROPOSITION is compelling: pre- vent a war from...

George Brock discusses, at the sharp end, the farcical aspects of Nato's `Partnership for Peace' Szczecin AMIDST THE thronging concentric com- mittees and councils of the...

The British publishing industry has been taken over by Philistines — or were they always in WHO WOULD be a publisher? Next week, less than a month after the unedify- ing...

Sebastian Shakespeare describes what happened after his car was involved with that of an Austrian diplomat DR K. paced up and down the pavement alongside his Volvo. A blonde...

Make sure of your copy of The Spectator every week by asking your local newsagent to save or deliver it. Complete the form below and hand it to your newsagent Please...

THE GERMAN Emperor appears to be dissatisfied with his Polish subjects, or pos- sibly with the aristocratic section of them. Speaking at Thorn on Saturday, his Majesty...

Off for a spot of dragon-hunting in the land of Political Correctness PAUL JOHNSON I n some ways we can approach the mil- lennium in good spirits, secure in the knowledge that...

Selling gold to help the world's worst governments I'm sorry, I'll lend that again CHRISTOPHER FILDES T ouching down in Malta on his way to Madrid, Kenneth Clarke put forward...

THE ECONOMY, stupid — as an elec- tion-winning slogan, it is hard to beat. It did the trick for Bill Clinton, and no wonder Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have bor- rowed it. What...

MY READER on an £18-a-month pension from Beecham can think himself lucky that he did not work for Glaxo. There, the pen- sion fund has to carry the burden of looking after Sir...

SIRING IS tiring. Europe's ministers meet- ing in Brussels have recognised that, but Swift got there first. 'He bears the gal- lantries of his lady' (Swift wrote of the...

another thing, 24 September) is fascinating. His philoso- pher 'ought to be a thinker of pure and penetrating intelligence who uses it both to seek truth and acquire wisdom and...

Sir: The vitriolic article on Armand Ham- mer and the Leonardo Codex by William Cash (`A. sordid saga of greed and Weiss', 17 September) made good reading. Family feuds,...

Sir: I am having a problem with Paul John- son's thinking. In his recent intellectual engagement with Richard Dawkins your columnist simply asserted the existence of God. Now Mr...

Sir: My attention has been drawn to a letter from Mr Mullen (Letters, 24 September) about some research I did some 46 years ago on the physiology of pain. Mr Mullen would do...

Sir: Melanie Phillips is to be congratulated on her stringent criticism of educational lib- eralism in our time (`The strange death of liberal Britain', 17 September) and the...

Sir: Mary Killen (Your problems solved, 17 September) suggests a truly tactful stratagem by which a favour may be returned and I marvel at it. However, I cannot help reflecting...

Sir: Charles Moore was naughty to suggest (Another voice, 24 September) that the whole of my article in the Observer, `Scroungers at the Top', was about Lord Cholmondeley....

Sir: N. Samengo-Turner (Letters, 17 September) doesn't know his bosoms from his bottom. It is patently untrue that 'all women are supplied by our divine maker with two breasts'....

Sir: Christopher Fildes (City and suburban, 17 September) says that Nigerians have written to him offering to cut him in on money exported out of their country in return for...

Sir: Has anyone else noticed after reading `Playing with an Archetype'in last week's Spectator a new poem by Ted Hughes, how much his style of writing has come to resemble that...

12 Months 6 Months UK 0 £80.00 0 £41.00 Europe (airmail) 0 £91.00 0 £46.00 USA Airspeed ❑ US$130 D US$66.00 USA Airmail D US$175 D US$88 Rest of Airmail El £111.00 CI £55.50...

Strange but true: the British Government has drawn up a European elephant policy SIMON JENKINS Last week a conference chaired by the British environment department was held in...

DIARY 1995 £12 Plain £13 Initialled The Spectator 1995 Diary, bound in soft black leather, is now available. Laid out with a whole week to view, Monday to Sunday, the diary is...

Finding God on imperial grounds William Dalrymple THE LAST GREAT IMPERIAL ADVENTURER by Patrick French HarperCollins, £20, pp. 440 O n 5 December, 1903, Colonel Francis Edward...

Basil Davidson THESIGER by Michael Asher Viking, £20, pp. 582 I t strikes me on reading this excellent biography that Wilfred Thesiger has been the kind of strange and...

Andro Linklater AVOWED INTENT: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Lord Longford Little, Brown, £18.99, pp. 211 he last time I saw Lord Longford, he was in a pulpit, preparing to give the...

Peter Levi HENRIETTA by Henrietta Moraes Hamish Hamilton, 16.99, pp. 213 I t is nearly 40 years since I first met Henrietta. She was the centre of wild and romantic and...

Anne Applebaum IMPERIUM by Ryszard Kapuscinski, translated by Klara Glowczewska Granta, £14.99, pp. 331 I first read Imperium when it was published in Polish. I mention this...

Dissolute, undressed, indoors, we argue about the old days, how once there was a time for such pursuits and how the tender words were spiced with garlic and rosemary, like the...

Jane Charteris A SON OF THE CIRCUS by John Irving Bloomsbury, £15.95, pp. 633 S hakespeare, eat your heart out! Here we have high tragedy and low comedy, twins separated at...

Richard Lamb LOOKING FOR TROUBLE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, FROM THE SAS TO THE GULF by Peter de la Billiere HarperCollins, 179.99, pp. 449 P eter de la Billiere has become a nation-...

Nigel Dempster RICHARD INGRAMS LORD OF THE GNOMES by Harry Thompson Heinemann, f17.50, pp. 320 T here was much to admire in Richard Ingrams and arguably there was no more...

When I am I only as you recall me to your mind where else I may not be more than a name on stone a paper scrawl leaving lost things my only legacy when when is then and then you...

Composers Making music in Africa Giles Swayne describes the pleasure of writing music in the heart of Ghana our late lamented Leaderene so rightly remarked, it's a funny old...

Imaginative leaps Giles Auty B reakfast this morning, not so much at Tiffany's as at Toorak Road, South Yarra. There are times when, amid the frondiose suburbs of Melbourne or...

MD DIARY A monthly selection of forthcoming events recommended by The Spectator's regular critics MUSIC The South Bank 'Deutsche Romantik' Festival has just been launched and...

The Children's Hour (Lyttelton, National Theatre) Two Weeks with the Queen (Cottesloe, National Theatre) Poor Super Man (Hampstead) Queer acts Sheridan Morley he National...

Speed (15, selected cinemas) Bombed out Mark Steyn Y o u remember those disaster movies from the Seventies in which the plucky nun has to get the 'plane with the bomb on...

Comic asides Ian Hislop C omedy is a terribly unfair business. If you produce a mediocre drama or a dull news programme people will be much more forgiving than if you produce...

Poor old Craig Brown Taki T he mother of my children, whose birthday falls this week, is in town, and I'm taking her to good old Annabel's for a celebratory dinner. Annabel's...

Green knights Jeffrey Bernard I read this morning that a historian of sorts, a Colchester man, is claiming that King Arthur was nowhere to be seen near Tintagel and that...

Is it Duke or Dukie? Nigel Nicolson V ery occasionally I receive a letter addressed to 'Sir Nigel Nicholson'. It is usually from a foreigner who assumes that in Britain an...

of ciabatta too many. What is it with every new restaurant in town — and, increasing- ly, out of town — that they have to have the same menu, the identical ingredients? I'll...

SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA CHESS DIDDLIttila[13 SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA Timeo Danaos Raymond Keene IN THE PAST FEW DAYS Fide, the ail- ing governing body for world chess, has suf-...

i _ URA !INGLE MIll1LOTLI7 OW ISLE OF ,NCH lkii 5(011H .111S1(1 COMPETITION Spectator revived Jaspistos ,NCH lkii 5(011H .111S1(1 IN COMPETITION NO. 1849 you were given...

The Wonglu Triptych', painted by two cats, Wong Wong and Lulu, was recently auctioned for $19,000. You are invited to supply an extract (maximum 150 words) from a catalogue from...

PORT CROSSWORD j- 61 — : - Z A N A j ik M'S PORT A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 17 October,...

'R E E % 'S U 4P pu I ' P O'S E T UT C R I 'N 0 11E L E S P ijEll lel A MIME' E R E © R S El LiEl S K 131glie 2i, s Ei illii arommor d ag E lent c Br I0 in...

King of the ring Frank Keating POW! OUCH! When the unconsidered one-time sparring partner Oliver McCall reached up at Wembley on Sunday to switch off Lennox Lewis's landing...

Dear Mary. . Q. An old acquaintance is keen to come and stay with us in the country. She is an interesting and glamorous person and a lik- able one I also owe her a small debt...