W ith the British system of government, nothing is impossible. The rules are made up as it goes along, and if there seem to be a great many ancient rules, this is because it has...

From iron to steel Colin Welch T ottering into Harrods a few weeks ago to have my Footworthy locks cut, I found the whole place infested with Christmas decorations. I deceived...

S ignor Amintore Fanfani is famous for , h aving miraculously short legs. He is ap- '' ; r° xiMately the same height standing up as s ' t ; i ng down, and that height is...

Air mail £24.50 £49.00 UK Etre 6 months: £15.50 IRL17.75 One year: £31.00 1R£35.50 US subscription price: $65.00 (Cheques to be made payable to the Spectator) Subscription...

The lesson of Lucie Gates Auberon Waugh (In 31 May 1979 Miss Linda Gates was a V 28-year-old spinster living alone in a council flat in Welling with her three children — a boy...

C hristopher Booker 'Stali n ' s death shook our life to its found- ation s. Lessons in school virtually came to a halt, the teachers wept openly and verYbody went around with...

Bohdan Nahaylo T he demise of Soviet leader Leonid Brez- hnev had been expected for years, yet when the end suddenly came last week it took everyone by surprise. For 26 hours...

Christopher Hitchens T he Great Mall in Washington, which stretches between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, used to be a very impressive place for mass...

Timothy Garton Ash Hagen, West Germany D ear women friends and men friends! I welcome you to our fifth Federal Assembly .. ! How so me? How so one wel- comes the many? We all...

The recent performances of the English Fleet off Alexandria have drawn attention to the British Navy, and to the various undecided questions concerning the construction and...

Andrew Brown Gothenburg T here are all sorts of reasons for the growth of the fostering industry in Sweden. One of the simplest is money. Last year the farmers' organisation...

Geoffrey Wansell Hollywood T hepavements of Hollywood Boulevard, from the Chinese Theatre to the corner of Vine Street, still have gold 'stars' set into the cement as...

This Christmas give the Spectator to your friends and receive FREE signed copies of books by A. N. Wilson and Shiva Naipaul. See next week's issue for details

Roy Kerridge A n old sailing ship, still seaworthy, lies An by a quayside timber yard at Littlehampton, presented to the merchant in settlement of a bad debt. Seen in the ear-...

Richard West Wisbech, Cambridgeshire Th e screech of the jet fighters makes life alarming here as everywhere in East Anglia. The Royal Air Force is blamed for all sorts of...

8100d libels ul Johnson T he m ythology generated by the media t i n about the recent killings in Beirut con- C H II „ e s to become more dense and sinister. no-silTV, with its...

to your rea cle h is e to have the opinion of your art critic ori t il e two main prizes, the Lavery valued whom ?) at £3,000 and the Orpen at ° 7..„. Would they be exchangeable...

New words for old Sir: I have only just seen your 'Notebook' article (30 October) about Hymns for Today's Church of which I am the Words Editor. May I make three points? First,...

Sir: I was pleased to see from your last issue (Notebook, 13 November) that you gave at- tention to the symposium Anti-semitism Today published by our Institute. However, I find...

Sir: There is a number of factual errors and misleading statements on points of history in Mr Richard West's 'The cycle of ter- rorism' (30 October), to rectify which one would...

Crowing and roaring Hugh Trevor-Roper The Goebbels Diaries 1939-41 T ranslated ranslated and edited by Fred Taylor (Hamish Hamilton £9.95) Whatever their value as evidence,...

Richard West White Mischief James Fox (Jonathan Cape £8.95) T he murder of Josslyn Hay, the Earl of Erroll, some time in the small hours of 24 January 1941, remained, until...

Jonathan Loake Rare Books and Rarer People 0. F. Snelling (Werner Shaw £9.50) Mumby's Publishing and Bookselling in the Twentieth Century Sixth Edition Ian Norrie (Bell &...

people Mr Davis has written about come out of this book pretty badly. One notable exception is our own Duke of Devonshire who is quoted as saying, 'I am one of the most...

Elizabeth Jenkins Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner Edited by William Maxwell (Chatto & Windus £15) I n the 1930s, when one was young, three writers seemed to be of...

Great Hostesses Brian Masters (Constable £8.95) A dumpy woman, with a slight look of Mrs Ronnie Greville, stands bemused in the middle of a room, a dog at her feet, while an...

Duncan Fallowell Baudelaire the Damned F. W. J. Hemmings (Harnish Hamilton £15) I am convinced,' wrote Baudelaire, 'that inY life has been damned from the start, d b' always...

James Hughes-Onslow The Reason Why Cecil Woodham-Smith (Constable £4.95) How (and whyj the Brudenells and the Binghams pursued their obscure family feuds from Dublin.so London...

Sublime, and less so Rodney Milnes From the House of the Dead Andrea Chenier (Welsh National Opera, Cardiff) Fidelio (Kent Opera) Xerxes (Handel Opera, Sadler's Wells) J...

Fine figures John McEwen I vor Abrahams sculptures 1972-82 is the twelfth in the series of mini-retro- spectives ('appraisals' is, perhaps, a fairer description) of the work...

Girl talk Peter Ackroyd Scrubbers (`AA', selected cinemas) T wo g irls have run away from borstal; within minutes, one of them is having sex with a truck driver and talking...

Not so thrilling Richard Ingrams A an Bennett was accorded a big se nd. / off by the BBC to launch his series ° iv six plays which started last week. Not tni mi l did he get...

The last hero Mark Amory A Handful of Dust (Lyric Hammersmith) Yakety Yak (Half Moon) Ladies in Retirement (Fortune Thriller Theatre) O bjecting to a play being adapted from...

Telling tales Taki T hank God for anorexia, Channel 4, and speculation — by hacks who should know better — about whether the butcher of Budapest has lost his taste for human...

Think or swim Jeffrey Bernard A ter a surprisingly good party upstairs in the Coach and Horses to launch the wretched book last week, certain people have made some rather...

War at work Patrick Marnham Mews has arrived from Peking til f ar 31 factory manager found guilty ha s offences of sexual harassment at wo in p , been executed. Reaction to...

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for a verse self-portrait, physical and/or psychological, such as a well-known poet might have attempted in a light-hearted mood. One...

No. 1245: Brighter weather Set by Jaspistos: Supposing the weathermen on BBC or ITV have been in- structed to make their reports more colour- ful, more entertaining, more...

A prize of ten pounds will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 6 December. Entries to: Crossword 584, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL. 1 2...

Andrew Whiteley O n the day of Brezhnev's funeral the Russian chess teams performed a lap of honour in Lucerne. Both had won the gold medals with a round to spare. The final...

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M r Y. V. Andropov was 'unanimously elected' to succeed President L. I. br ezhnev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. Mr Brezhnev had held the highest office for...

THE GREATNESS OF OLIVER CROMWELL by Maurice Ashley (Jonathan Cape 1960?). J. Bernard, c/o The Spectator, 56 Doughty St, London WCI N 2LL. THE PUPIL by W. Monk-Gibbon. J. Le...

ach issue of The Spectator until the L./Christmas issue (18 December) will carry a clue. Each clue is made up of three separate questions, designed (except where stated) to...

T reasure Hunt Set by Christopher Booker of There are over 100 other prizes, which include signed coRl e-s „hi books by Sir Fitzroy Maclean, Piers Paul Read, Shiva Nall*...

Answer How does each question lead to the answer? Name . Address: Company (if eligible for special prize) Important: Please keep this answer form, as you will need to keep a...

E ach set of three questions leads to a place somewhere in the British Isles. Remember the three questions all have the same answer. 1) Habuit Papem. 2) Eroica (anag.)! You...