M rs Thatcher reshuffled the middle ranks of the Government, but made no changes to her Cabinet. The changes affected 33 MPs and peers, and they were generally thought to have...

THE MUTINOUS BBC T he genesis of the story about the BBC's drama The Monocled Mutineer is rather strange. About ten days ago, the newspapers carried stories, presumably put...

THE contrast is painfully eloquent: in Poland, virtually all political prisoners, including the leaders of Solidarity and several other opposition movements, are released under...

IN OUR issue of 8 March, Gavin Stamp complained about the plan of the Bishop of Stepney to close Hawksmoor's great church of St George-in-the-East, which stands in an area full...

Wuthering Middles a moorland romance FERDINAND MOUNT n the little tray of snacks in the hotel room, there are teabags of Taylor's York- shire Tea, 'blended in Yorkshire to...

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER ack in the mid-Sixties, when I briefly succeeded Randolph Churchill as the Spec- tator's press columnist, this paper was just about the only place where...

Scientists find link between vegetarianism and Hodgkinson's Disease AUBERON WAUGH 0 n the seventh day, the Lord decreed that we should abstain from servile labour and spend...

the last ten years has just been published by Sidgwick and Jack- son: Another Voice, An Alternative Ana- tomy of Britain (£9.95).

The Daniloff affair was an unwelcome surprise the forces conspiring against Mikhail Gorbachev 'THE WORRY in my mind is that Mr Gorbachev's new broom risks being smashed by old...

Rise of Gor- bachev was published this week (Victor Gollancz, f12.95). Mr Owen was Moscow correspondent of the Times from 1982 to 1985.

Charles Glass examines a ferocious debate about the 'American empire' and Israel Positano, Italy IN THE village of Ravello, a few miles form here, lives the most famous...

Stephen Robinson reports from Molesworth, where extreme feminists are attacking peace campers THE Eirene All Faiths Peace Chapel once occupied a central position in the mytho-...

John Benedict Baignard on life in a nursing home for clergymen awaiting the greatest adventure OF COURSE it could all too easily be boring — deadly boring. That's up to the...

WHY I DON'T FEEL WELL Anthony Daniels examines the wishful thinking behind alternative medicine AROUND the year 1900, according to some historians of the subject, a momen-...

Sheila Hutchins goes in secret to catch a French delicacy CHEF spends a lot of his spare time fishing. 'Pike mostly, madame,' he said, 'and of course the little ecrevisses . ....

AN odd little incident marked the Parliamentary chat on Monday night. Mr Clancy moved the abolition of the Ulster King-at-Arms, and Sir M. Hicks- Beach said he really did not...

Bogus budgies, feathered nests we need a better way to sell shares CHRISTOPHER FILDES I hope you got your morning paper on Tuesday. That was the day of the Trustee Savings...

THE public monopoly's weapon (I was arguing last week) is the waiting list. The longest and cruellest waiting lists of all are those of the Health Service, and, in a new Hobart...

WHAT (asks the Sun Alliance, advertising an insurance policy) would you do with £20,000 in the year 2000? Blow it and see the world, spend it on home improve- ments, save it...

Sir: Stan Gebler Davies complains that 'the Irish cannot speak Irish' (Dear acid ton- gue', 6 September). He might be cheered to know that some Poles are learning 'the trumpet...

Sir: I read with much interest an article in the Chicago Sun-Times about your club of 'young fogeys in Britain'. I must admit I found it fascinating. Perhaps I share some of...

Sir: May one of A. N. Wilson's fellow passengers be allowed to disassociate him- self from the extraordinarily offensive arti- cle ('Cruising with the Bishop') you pub- lished...

Sir: It was, I think, Mr Michael Ivens who coined the expression left-wing entre- preneur', and it is this which springs to mind when contemplating the Institute of Race...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY — At 20% off the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for f (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES: 12...

Old jokes are the best Colin Welch THE OXFORD BOOK OF POLITICAL ANECDOTES edited by Paul Johnson OUP, £10.95 A book like this ought to be hugely enjoyable, stuffed with...

Blake on Auberon Waugh, Frances Partridge on Enid Bag- nold, Victoria Glendinning on H. G. Wells and Peter Levi on Robert Graves.

David Sexton NO LAUGHING MATTER by Joseph Heller and Speed Vogel Cape, £10.95 There were lymph glands that might do him in. There were kidneys, nerve sheaths and corpuscles....

Duncan FaHowell LETTERS FROM HOLLYWOOD by Michael Moorcock, drawings by Michael Foreman Harrap, £10.95 T he shaggy old whore of Hollywood continues to cast her fascination...

looks, rather like our Alfred, skinny and bald, no girls will grieve him, a head full of books, at seventeen he was forty years old. He did not go for life, and thought of...

Peter Quennell A TALENT TO ANNOY: Essays, Articles and Reviews 1929 — 1968 By Nancy Mitford, edited by Charlotte Mosley Hamish Hamilton, £12.50 I n March 1929, Nancy...

Noel Malcolm ORIENTATIONS: COLLECTED WRITINGS by Pierre Boulez, edited by Jean-Jacques Nattiez, translated by Martin Cooper Faber & Faber, £25 I n 1954 two distinguished...

Anita Brookner THE FREE FRENCHMAN by Piers Paul Read Seeker & Warburg (The Alison Press), £10.95 H ere is a marvellous novel. Its subject is nothing less than 40 years of...

Francis Kin g FOE J. M. Coetzee Secker & Warburg, £9.95 L ike the relationship between Prospero and Caliban, that between Robinson Cru- soe and Man Friday has, in recent years,...

Exhibitions Je suis le Cahier: The Sketchbooks of Picasso (Royal Academy till 19 November) Michael Rothenstein (Redfern till 8 October) Gabriel White (Sally Hunter & Patrick...

The House of Bernarda Alba (Lyric, Hammersmith) Spanish excellence Christopher Edwards D uring the early days of the Spanish Civil War, Federico Garcia Lorca, who had taken...

Talking dirty Peter Ackroyd I t begins with the notion that history 'is not a moral subject' — the phrase issuing from the plump lips of a French-Canadian academic. And when...

Don Giovanni (Deutsche Grammophon) Lords and masters Rodney Miles W hat are we to do about the ruling classes on stage now that we don't have any in real life? I remember the...

Twinkle, twinkle Peter Levi elevision is famous for creating stars who would not be stars of anything else. The thought that the next election may be won or lost on the...

Sir David Scott Ursula Buchan I t is by no means unusual for a person of exceptional qualities, who has already en- joyed a career of distinction in one field, to take to...

Ageing gracefully Taki The good thing about these courses is that one gets to practise against unknowns, and to be taught by various teachers. In karate everyone quickly...

Where there's a will Jeffrey Bernard W hen I study the wills column in the Times over the tea and toast every morning I can't for the life of me understand why people don't...

Drawing the line Alice Thomas Ellis T wo ancient sayings have run together in my mind: 'Don't you know there's a war on?' and 'Get in the queue.' Don't you know there's a...

I NOTICED in the Times a couple of weeks ago an article by Shona Crawford Poole (such a lovely name). She was hav- ing a terrible time trying to find a properly poached egg....

Fourth Leader Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1438 you were asked to imitate a Times Fourth Leader on one of three subjects: the return of the mini-skirt, the scoring of two...

Peter's plan Raymond Keene SLeningrad t Petersburg was founded in 1703 by the Russian Czar Peter Veliki (The Great). Faced with nothing but swampy marshland (which still...

You are invited to write a piece of plausi- ble prose (maximum 150 words) incorpor- ating at least six of the clues in this week's Spectator crossword. (Punctuation may be...

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) will be...

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