Daily Brand X A Spectator's Notebook The Gravediggers Constantine FitzGibbon Berlioz Triumphant COLIN MACINNES on Andre Gide

to the public at half a crown a time, and the police appealing for anyone seeing 'large holes being dug in the countryside' to tell them, it seemed possible that the Great Train...

W HETHER or not the. West German Foreign Minister was as completely satisfied with the results of his visit to Lon- don last week as he is said to have been, his conversations...

No. 7052 Established 1828 FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 1963

T HE Stra'ford by-election result has come as a severe shock to a good many Conservatives, the morr so since all the ingredients of a brilliant recovery appeared to be present....

Development and Planning raises all the right questions. It stresses a commitment to and faith in the NEDC stronger than that felt by many members of the Government and some...

From SARAH GAINHAM BONN TN the exaggerated internal political weights _Vied to the agreement to the test-ban treaty by the Federal Government, the treaty's very limited...

By CLIVE IRVING N EWSPAPERS usually die in one night, but the Daily Herald has been sentenced to a slow, lingering death. Mr. Cecil King wants to kill it off, probably early...

When I was driving up through the South Mid- lands and into Lincolnshire last week I was constantly reminded of America's very odd dis- pute with the Common Market by the sight...

announced last week. 'has swept into Private Eye ... like a gust of bracing wind.' The issue of August 9 was, however, much the mixture as before. Its cover was decorated with...

T is a little sad to see the vision of itself that 'Oxford still seems to love best: to judge by the iconographic evidence, the ideal city exists in a perpetual summer morning,...

What ails Oxford, and perhaps England too, is epitomised by the proposals for squeezing the new science centre of the university into a few bits and pieces of vacant ground as...

European market open to this most loathsome of her farm products is, of course, that poultry are effective conversion units for turning part of her immense grain surpluses into...

By DESMOND STEWART UMMER, 1963, marks a new phase in the de- velopment of the Middle East. The struggle for the future is no longer one between Nasser and the feudal kings, but...

John Clare festival, which is to be held at Peter- borough this year. I can't help feeling that this is getting very near the end of the festival route. One of this year's music...

THE GRAVEDIGGERS By CONSTANTINE FITZGIBBON C ERTAIN dates are ominous and magical, not because of themselves but because of the date that follows, France 1788, Europe 1913,...

Waiting for the Chopper By a HEAD TEACHER COME day I am going to receive a visit from the local inspector or, if I am especially privileged, from the Director of Education him-...

SIR,—May I briefly correct a few points in Mr. Michael Slater's article on the Victorian Theatre (Spectator, August 9)? The theatre to which Robertson's comedies re- called...

Terence Bendixson, Nikolaus Pevsner and the Victoria County History. I hope Mr. Bendixson's article will have made more people realise—especially Twickenham resi- dents—what...

he feels it Is more important now to find £500,000 for a contractor than commis- sions for Welsh writers. The plan for this Welsh National Theatre de- signed by Elidir Davies,...

Sir Albert Richardson, Valerie Dobson, Jack Ellis End of Federation Alison Marsden Old Lines For New Dame Edith Sitwell The Victorians W. M. Tydeman Welsh National Theatre •...

SIR,—Was the performance at the Royal Festival Hall which I, and 3,000 other people, attended last autumn, given to acclaim the genius of a Mr. Julian Symons—whoever he may be?...

have tended to welcome the plan which, according to Terence Bendixson, 'fails to reinterpret the architecture.' It is a long time since Mr, Mac- millan, as Housing Minister,...

SIR,— Forgive my lateness, but the Spectator takes some time to arrive here. The article, 'Dying at the Falls,' in the Spectator on July 5 was biased and mis- represented and...

Sin,—With reference to your correspondent's com- ments on sherry in your issue of August 2, I would like to make the following observations. Oloroso, in Spanish, means fragrant...

is misinformed in thinking that the Roman pavement at Woodchcster needs financing from official sources. The entrance money received from visitors produces a considerable sum.....

SIR, —On behalf of Mrs. Greta Woolf, I am organis- ing an exhibition of paintings by the late Hal Woolf. In order that this may he wholly retrospective and representative, it...

his bail, so that his sponsors have to fork out?' There are two questions here. He certainly breaks his bail since he has of his own volition made his surrender to bail...

have been established in Jerez de la Frontera since 1852, I feel I must comment on the statements made by your correspondent, Leslie Adrian, in his article 'On the Warm.Side'...

SIR.—It is difficult to believe Mr. Foot is unaware that the law is gently bent by the police from time to time and that this has been done in all countries since police were...

to the -late and unlamented Dr. Goebbels. That gentleman, among other unlovely habits, was prone to quote sentences out of context and then abuse those with whom he disagreed....

SIR,--Ready as always to spring to the aid of Mr. Brian Inglis I can tell him that my copy of the New Yorker for July 27 has its pages in order. I hope he may find a purchaser...

SIR,—I was delighted to read Dr. Mackey's letter in your last issue, suggesting the immediate return of the remains of Roger Casement to his own country for suitable interment...

Berlioz Triumphant By DAVID CAIRNS WHEN critics begin to deny, rather loudly, that there is such a thing as a Berlioz contro- versy, we are really getting somewhere. So Mr....

Big Deals By CLIFFORD HANLEY The Unshaven Check. (Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edin- burgh.)—The Rabbit Race. The Unshaven Cheek is a study in decay of industry and ideals in a...

V Burnie, By ISABEL QUIGLY Nazarin. (Academy late-night show; 'X' certificate.) THE arts are all, it goes with- out saying, alarming betrayers of the artist's kind of imagina-...

Bauchant's World By NEVILE WALLIS WHEN suddenly one perceives the sophistication of a modern master generally held to be an endearing amateur one may be tempted into...

Pork and Butter By CLIVE BARNES The rest of the repertory has been carefully pruned for respectability, for Festival Ballet, at last going cap in hand to the Arts Council for...

The soul's weather creates its weathervane. Each metal leaf swings free and yet they dance The formal figure that returna again, That slow pavane veering our way by chance,...

The Master of Arts BY COLIN M ACIN NES ' T is possible to imagine an English Marcel Proust, but never could our culture have pro- duced a writer like Andre Gide. To begin with,...

SHELBURNE has been one of the great enigmas of eighteenth-century politics; the old Whig his- torians, in spite of his radical views, regarded him with suspicion; the new Tory...

THE life of Victor Serge was one of hardship and adversity. 'Out of a little over fifty years,' he wrote, 'I have spent ten in various forms of captivity, which have usually...

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL has written that 'Dieppe occupies a place of its own in the story of war, and the grim casualty figures must not class it a failure.' Such an opinion, by...

The Dillinger Days. By John Toland. (Arthur Barker, 27s. 6d.) 'CRIME Don't Pay,' a prisoner's slogan in Kansas State Prison read„ 'But the Hours Are Sure Good.' But crime does...

The children wait eagerly, or yawn, or cry. A carriage clatters past. They wave, a hand Waves back. Wagging their paper flags they stand, Bewildered by its golden brevity....

FOR those who have not yet attempted The Tin Drum, Gunter Grass's new short novel Cat and Mouse will provide a more easily digested intro- duction to his work. It might well,...

Inside the Council. By Robert Kaiser. (Burns and Oates, 25s.) PERHAPS the outstanding question posed by the story of the Second Vatican Council is, how did it ever happen? It...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT ENTERPRISING business people have a great advantage over governments, for when they get into trouble they can put their companies into liquida- tion and...

By CUSTOS A I ventured the prophecy last week that there is more to go for in dollar stocks than in British equities at the present level of prices -and with the dollar premium...

By LOTHBURY T HE final figures from Steel and Co. are rather T better than was expected when the chair- Nit made his half-yearly report with the interim dividend of 10 per...

By LESLIE ADRIAN MANY a family holiday has been' rent asunder by the in- compatibility of sun and sand and salt water with feminine elegance. When the outdoor life has done its...

A Brand for the Burning By ELIZABETH DAVID NEVER in France have I come across that beauti- ful and celebrated dish known to us as creme. brulde. I have never met anyone who...

By ALAN BRIEN Men most boring thing about the bore is not I just that he is boring, but that he makes you boring too. You can smell him out in any group by tuning in to your...