It is well-known that a campaign has been started to prevent the National Front from putting out party political broadcasts at the next general election; 'campaign' is Perhaps...

The gorge also rises Ferdinand Mount Halfway along the low corridor running round the hall stand six or seven men in dark suits bending' forward, craning their necks in unison...

Not to worry Auberon Waugh Three years ago I received a letter out of the blue from a lady living at the other end of country. She claimed to detect a resemblance between me...

Luigi Barzini Rome Not only those who believe that the Church : like everything else in this low world, is securely commanded from above, and that Whatever happens is part of...

Sam White Paris The death of Jacques Brel produced such striking outward signs of national mourning that one was almost surprised to see that the flags on public buildings were...

Graham Greene This is a new introduction to Graham Greene's Journey Without Maps, an account of Mr Greene's first visit to Africa. It was originally published in 7936, and is...

The season of burglaries has set in with some vigour, and the Chief Constable of Surrey has issued a printed "caution" to "the occupiers of country houses," in which, however,...

A parcel of rogues Geoffrey Wheatcroft Scottish politics, like Scottish history, is a land of myths. The nationalist movement has been checked but it has produced as bastard...

Boycott and the strangler Richard West I knew I was back in Yorkshire when I read the notice in the bedroom: 'In order to keep the tariff down, would residents kindly use...

Christopher Booker As we consider the recent startling political and journalistic career of Mr Paul Johnson, an image which may spring irresistibly to mind is that of a river...

Frank Johnson These are condensed versions of four columns written by Frank Johnson, the parliamentary sketch-writer of the Daily Telegraph, at last week's Conservattve...

One, two, three . . • It was probably one of the most exciting weeks in Eric Morley's life. He left Mecca with £200,000, the third highest golden handshake a British company...

Untoward money events Nicholas Davenport The Americans, enjoying free enterprise and having thick skins, are the greatest money-makers in the world and yet they seem incapable...

Sir: May I congratulate you on Hugh Fraser MP's excellent article 'The challenge of Camp David' (14 October). Mr Fraser came to the conclusion that the unprecedented assaults of...

Sir: I have no real wish to disagree with a Man whose heart is patently in the right place and whose spirit is mighty enough to wrestle with the rhetorical questions he raised...

Sir: The clinching comment on the letter of mine which you kindly printed (30 Sep tember) praising the editorship of Walter Taplin runs as follows, and should be made public:...

Sir: It is unjust of Patrick Mannham to criticise the Daily Mail's coverage of Carl Bridgewater's murder while neglecting to mention the far grosser journalism of the three...

Sir: I deplore equally the Sunday Times's crowd of rentajoggers and Geoffrey Wheatcroft's muddled justification for his own laziness (Spectator, 7 October). The whole point is...

Sir: I was moved to choked sobs by the affectionate, warts and all, self-portrait that my life-long friend, the late Jeffrey Bernard, had the forethought to leave behind (14...

Sir: It's a little hard for Ferdinand Mount to accuse me of retrospectively writing off all the recent defectors from Labour's cause, when the main point of my little item was...

Sir: In an endeavour to create a useful record of at least part of our national heritage, I am currently compiling an inventory, or list, of woodcarvings in the United Kingdom....

An unillumined sensuality Germaine Greer Woman of Letters: A Life of Virginia Woolf Phyllis Rose (Routledge £7.95) Once in Bulstrode Gardens it befell me, as it has befallen...

Alan Watkins The Other Revolution Arianna Stassinopoulos (Michael Joseph £6.95) There are few more adept at spotting a trend than Miss Stassinopoulos (hereinafter referred to,...

Alistair Horne Harding of Petherton Michael Carver (Weidenfeld £8.50) I vividly remember first meeting FieldMarshal Harding as a young foreign correspondent in Germany almost...

Peter Kemp March Past Lord Lovat (Weidenfeld £7.95) _Some ten 3rears ago someone wrote in a tetter to The Times that 'these days Daddy, Instead of being asked by the children...

Christine Verity In the Office of Constable Robert Mark (Collins £6.95) I found the opening pages of Sir Robert Mark's memoirs not unevocative of that much more famous...

George Hutchinson The Honour of St Valery Nicholas DevenPort (Scolar £7.95) Our old friend Nicholas Davenport is a man of many accomplishments. He is a writer, an a ntiquarian,...

Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative Party: The Political Journals of Lord Stanley Ed. J. R. Vincent (Harvester £18.50). Stanley was the son of the prime minister, Lord Derby:...

Benny Green Pages from the Goncourt Journal Edited by Robert Bald ick (Oxford paperbacks e2.95) There is something richly comic about the Goncourt Journal, and it is not just...

Francis King The World According to Garp John Irving (Gollancz £5.95) Whereas, in the days before efficient contraception, many women would worry about how to have a man...

A tale of two worlds Peter Jenkins Antony and Cleopatra (RSC, Stratford) The Changeling (RSC, Aldwych) Such is Peter Brook's reputation that his choice of Glenda Jackson as...

Figurative John McEwen It is much harder these days to paint figuratively than otherwise, and many painters do otherwise more out of resignation than conviction. Figurative...

Tributes Bryan Robertson The Royal Ballet's season at Sadlers Wells introduced a new work by Kenneth MacMillan conceived as a tribute to Dame Ninette de Valois: 6.6.78, the...

Sententious Ted Whitehead Watership Down (London release) Second Chance (Cinecenta) Those rabbits are here again. As I'm one of the few million who never read Richard Adams's...

Degradation Richard Ingrams After a brief respite spent in a house with no telephone and no television —surely the best Possible recipe for the prevention nervous breakdowns —...

Yorkshiremen Alan Gibson There are those who derive pleasure from the sight of Yorkshire cricket tearing itself apart, in its best Latin American style. I am not one of them....

Fighting on Taki He is the single largest taxpayer in the United States, having earned more than fifty million dollars for approximately twenty-four hours of work during the...

Doctor Death Jeffrey Bernard The medical profession is a constant source of irritation to me and, seeing as much of it as I do, I can't say that either it or I improve with...

Bad language Geoffrey Wheatcroft Class is like sex, a subject at once endlessly e mbarrassing and endlessly fascinating. That is particularly true of class as expressed...