for the sin of buying a tele- vision set, it was denied that Mrs Jacqueline Kennedy is to become engaged to the Spanish Ambassador to the Vatican, and Miss Barbra Streisand...

ON MONDAY the new Members began swearing in, Dr Horace King was re-elected Speaker and on Thursday the Queen opened the new ses- sion, the sixteenth of her reign. The Leader of...

that there was no immedi- ate prospect of receiving oil through Beira and announcing the closure of the residual British mission in Salisbury. Rhodesia, however, con- tinued to...

I T is widely supposed that the present Government, whatever mistakes it may make in the management of the nation's finances, is at least trying to run the eco- nomy in a new...

The Enochs of the Left By ALAN WATKINS M R HAROLD WILSON is said to hold the view that if he fell under the proverbial political bus, his successor would be Mr James...

'Son, if you want to represent people you must love them first.'—Advice given by his father to the young Lyndon Johnson at the commence- ment of his career. Tell me not (Sweet)...

Liberty's Muddy Fountain By LUDOVIC KENNEDY IKE some hidden but slowly festering sore, of L i whose existence we have all been aware for some time, the evidence in the Moors...

All Are Guilty By TIBOR SZAMUELY A DREI SINYAVSKY and 1 were students together at Moscow University in 1948-50: he at the Philological, and 1 at the Historical Faculty....

An Academy Goes to War From MURRAY KEMPTON NEW PORK HE higher learning in America accepted its I social responsibilities in the 'thirties, its military responsibilities in...

By WILFRED BECKERMAN rr'llERE is a danger that, in about two weeks' I time, commentators on the budget will have nothing more interesting to say than whether it provides the...

Everyone—except those in a position to do something about it—agrees that the reform of Parliament, and in particular the growth of specialist, professionally staffed,...

It's good, too, to see Mr Quintin Hogg, a humane man, as Shadow Home Secretary: a thoroughly worthy opponent for Mr Roy Jen- kins. With the loss of so much of the old guard (and...

line in last Tuesday's Daily Express : 'South Africa has issued a grim warning.to Britain on the havoc that would hit world gold markets. in- cluding London, if trade sanctions...

by the Ten Per Cent Census. Happily, all the form- filling has at least been made relatively easy thanks to Somerset House's ingenious crib: a facsimile census form, all...

Tr is now just over five months since the Rho- idesian government made its unilateral declaration of independence It is just over three months since Mr Wilson told the...

Instant Zen By JOI-IN ROWAN WILSON T ()Nice knew a man who was an alcoholic. After la while he grew alarmed at his state of health and tried to cure himself, unwisely, by...

Sensual Pleasures By ALAN BRIEN I'vn always thought my- self, in a quiet way, some kind of connoisseur of 'sensual pleasure. There seems to me hardly any activity, if savoured...

SIR,—An error in stating the broadcast time has enabled the BBC to produce an analysis of a French-language broadcast quite different from the one of which I complain. This is...

SIR,—I'm" interested to read that Rossini's Stahel! Mater has got a riveting grip on you ('Spectator's Notebook,' April 8), but horrified that the recording you've gone and...

Sta,—As one who bears some responsibility for the memorandum recently submitted to the Chancellor by the Wider Share Ownership Council, I hope Mr Nicholas Davenport is right in...

Sta,—The best of verse will surely jar If Pennsylvania's known as Pa. For over here, as all will say. _Pennsylvania's called—pee-ay., 'JAW(' MEREDITH 1015 W. Cherry Hill...

SIR,—My -book Starting Out in the Thirties, so crudely made an excuse for an attack on 'New York Intellectuals' by Mr Arnold Beichman of New York. is not—as the unwary reader of...

Brien is disposed to retract his words and to write appreciatively of Evelyn Waugh. While in this retrospective and penitent mood, is he prepared also to review his opinions on...

Sis.- -If I were an effective writer there is one task I would like to undertake: that of refuting the popular impression of Evelyn Waugh having been an idolater of the...

Henry Jones. John Biggs- . i3on, MP, David Meredith. Alfred Kazin, M ft. Thompson. E. W. I. Palamountain, L. G. Pine, Charles Hamblett. In Defence of Oxbridge Sts.-1 find it...

Alperovitz. Mr D. C. Watt de- scribes the author's thesis that the US decision to drop the A-bomb was directed against the USSR as much as against Japan as 'new and startling.'...

Down Among the Dead Men By HILARY SPURLING O F all human plants,' said Proust, 'habit requires the least fostering, and is the first to appear on the seeming desolation of the...

Snt,—I really do not mind being shot at for genuine inaccuracies, especially when the brave critic has the shield, which I never employ, of anonymity, but I do object to being...

Sm,—I am gathering material for a book on censor- ship in the theatre, cinema, television and publishing. would be pleased to hear from authors, directors, producers and actors...

The Beady Eye A ATER watching Sir Kenneth Clark talking on Courbet (ATV—Monday, 11.10 p.m.), I am confirmed in my suspicion that I am basically a sucker for the electronic...

Braving the Deluge W ITHIN a matter of eight weeks, from mid- April to early June, London will have heard seven of Mahler's ten symphonies, Nos. 1, 6 and 10 being the odd men...

Solar Eclipse T YIELD to no one in my admiration for 'Western Theatre Ballet and in my pleasure at seeing them at last installed at Sadler's Wells, but to find them moved in...

By ROBERT RHODES JAMES 'ruts has taken everyone by surprise.' With I these words James Stephens opened his daily narrative of the Easter Rising in Dublin in April 1916.* It...

HENRY JAMES once contributed an essay to a symposium on life after death. He thought there might be some form of after-life, but this surely must be reserved for people of...

The Formation of the Liberal Party 1857-1868. By John Vincent. (Constable, 42s.) IN spite of the amount written about ,nineteenth- century Britain, great tracts of its history...

The Mandarin and Other Stories. By Eva de Queiroz. (Bodley Head, 21s.) The Seed. By Tarjei Vesaas. (Peter Owen, 25s.) The Ballad of Oliver Powell. By Stead Jones. (Bles, 18s.)...

To compress the history of Europe from 1919 to 1945 into 70,000 words, to be thorough yet lively, to combine a high level of scholarship with a simplicity which will attract the...

Voices from the Sky. By Arthur C. Clarke. (Gollancz, 25s.) THE best science-fiction is always that which we doubt is really fiction at all, rather a reality which we believe may...

The Abdication of King Edward VIII. By Lord Beaverbrook. Edited, with an introduction, by A. I. P. Taylor. (Hamish Hamilton, 16s.) `CHURCHILL,' wrote Mr A. J. P Taylor, in his...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT B FIORP. the election. Mr Callaghan saw no need for any 'severe increase' in taxation. But our foreign creditors are doubtless watch- ing the trade...

By CUSTOS T um not-so-good trade returns had little effect upon security prices because they had been generally anticipated. Brokers are mostly hold- ing their investment fire...

By. LOTHBURY T HE results, before tax, of Thomas Tilling, the industrial holding company, are little different from those of 1964, itself a record, but the second interim of 20...

the copper market had flared up. The aggressive buying of RST came from America, which got wind of the sensational rise of £160 in Chilean copper to £496 a ton. When the...

inde- pendently run, but with 25 per cent of the equity held by the Sugar Board and 114 per cent by the Government.The company was originally formed to buy the UK crop of sugar...

By PHILIDOR B. J. DE C. ANDRADI, (The Star, 1953' WHITE to play ani mate in three moves solution ne,ct week Solution to No. 278 (Kubbel). K- Kt 5 !, threat Q R. 1. ..P-B5ch: 2...

minutes, demanded his pudding of the waiter with evident anxiety. 'You've got plenty of time, sir,' was the reply. 'I have not,' complained the passenger, 'we arrive in three...

Getting the Balance Right By LESLIE ADRIAN Elsewhere in the book she points out that the manufacturer knows his product intimately (after all, he makes it, and he makes it to...

ACROSS I. Old fellows who help to soften the blow (7) 5. Water-jumps? (7) 9. Old Moor (7) 10. Artist and friend, look. Where? In Daly (7) 11. Cooks take umbrage-with a chopper?...

10 Opossum. 11 Repulse. 12 Fairy money. 13 Amid. 15 Authors. 17 Evolved. 19 Elected. 21 Sadness. 23 Iota. 24 Stirrup- cup. 27 Stamina. 28 Extreme. 29 Tin- tacks. 30 Crater....

By LORD EGREMONT I WAS messing about in my muniment room the other day and dusting off e , various old papers and my old friend, Mr Francis Steer, the county archivist, who...

From Balfour to Sir Alec : by lain Macleod Spring Books-2 One year's subscription to the 'Spectator': f3 15s. (including postage) in the United Kingdom and Eire-By surface mail...