Jobs for life The notion that a man should have a job for life, like the 'lotion that a man is entitled to live, work and die in the Place where he grew up, is deeply...

Political commentary The friendless masses Ferdinand Mount Doing no harm to a soul, sitting quietly listening to the Liberals debating energy and conservation in the Spanish...

Notebook The first anniversary of Now! magazine has got people talking about the weeklies again. It has also caused Mr Anthony Hloward to be reminded of a prediction he made in...

Another voice Death of a publisher Auberon Waugh A successful suicide, as well as causing grief' inevitable causes ripples of guilt among surviving friends and associates. If...

Curing the Turkish disease Roger Cooper The generals have finally done it. Coup is hardly the right word for last week's bloodless change from civilian to military rule in...

The silliest democracy Nicholas von Hoffman Washington Annoyed by leaks of secret and/or embarrassing information, the Administration has struck back. It has proposed a new...

The power and the glory Gavin Stamp The news that the Central Electricitv Generating Board will soon close Battersea Power Station. probably when the contract to supply...

Unhappy Liverpool ?I Richard West The man who sells the Evening Echo outside Lewis's store, makes a joke of announcing - 'Read all the bad news!', and certainly there is no...

Monetarism in a muddle Tony Rudd Monetarism in this country is in a bad way, and the monetarists are beginning to look foolish. Although a certain amount of innocent amusement...

A Southport childhood A.J.P. Taylor A.J. P. Taylor has been re-visiting, for Granada Television, four Lancashire towns in and arounlid which he spent his childhood and youth....

Sir: My attention has been drawn to a review (26 July) by Gavin Stamp of Gerald Cobb's English Cathedrals: The Forgotten Centuries. I notice Mr Cobb refers to the Sutherland...

Living cathedrals V. x Nir: May I as a - a ay1 sapractising artist and needle- woman for over 4() years. comment On Dean Le Grice's letter (30 August)? Like many layfolk I...

Phenomenally contradictory Sir: It is one thing for Nicolas Walter to contradict the ideas of most contributors to the Spectator, but it is another thing for him to contradict...

Club records Sir: I have been commissioned bv the General Committee to write a history of the Hong Kong Club, which was founded in 1846. A major problem is that all records...

Letters Fairlie ludicrous Sir: The point about British perceptions of the United States is that they are too largely derived from the New York Times and Washington Post,...

Sir: To echo the words of the deputv editor of The iTimes, I regret he did not check his facts before describing my own _pleasures at Roberts' Oyster Bar in Blackpool....

Cost effective Sir: Without the beneficence and patience of the Thomson family to sustain us, it is of course true that the Guardian has to watch its costs zealously. We tend...

Books Shadow of the gallows Graham Greene This is the first offour new essays which we shall be publishing over the next four weeks. They belong to a series of...

Freudian fantasy Anthony Storr The Psychoanalysis of Culture C.R. Badcock (Blackwell £15) In 1913, Freud published Totem and Tb,,, an exercise in anthropological...

Ogresses A. N. Wilson Remarkable Relations: The Story of the Pearsall Smith Family Barbara Strachey (Gollancz £9.95) The Pearsall Smiths have had rather a raw deal as far as...

Lost world William Fishman Rothschild Buildings Jerry White (Rout- ledge £11 .50) Victoriana is in. Immigration under permanent debate. What better focus on the two than a...

John Nash Gavin Stamp The Life and Work of John Nash, Architect John Summerson (Allen & Unwin £20) Sir John Summerson's Joh n Nash, Arch itect i0 King George IV was...

The Doctor Benny Green 'WG': Cricketing Reminiscences and Personal Recollections W. G. Grace (Hambledon Press £7 50.) In his earl! days. J.M Barrie tells us, he wrote a book...

Documentary Paul Ableman Poppie Elsa Joubert (Hodder £6.50) The word 'novel' is imprecise and is applied to many' works which are really think' disguised autobiographies....

Theatre Fragments Peter Jenkins Submariners (Royal Court, Theatre Upstairs) Baal (RSC, Warehouse) I am glad to know that absolutely nothing has changed in the Royal Navy. It...

Arts The human comedy Peter Ackroyd Miy American Uncle ('A' Academy Two, Oxford Street) Alain Resnais's most recent film opens with a profusion of voices and images but,...

Art Dreamlike John McEwen In 1978 Victor Willing, having returned to England after a long exile in Portugal. had his first one-man exhibition in London for 22 years. Even...

High life Liberation Taki A thens This is a country that's very hard on women. Although it does not openly suppress them by forcing them to wear sheets over their faces, it...

Television Less moronic Richard Ingrams In its state of decline the BBC has lost faith in the ability of a man of academic bent to hold an audience with the power of words in...

Postscript Sky larks Patrick Marnham Cheap flights across the Atlantic are becoIW ing so easy to find nowadays that the previous era of dodgy charter flights and bucketshop...

Low life Yes and no Jeffrey Bernard I read with a certain amount of disgust this last Tuesdav that a ghastly organisation who call themselves The Responsible SocietY have...