In his reminiscing moments the Prime Minis- ter likes to recall with pride the time when. as a young President of the Board of Trade in the Attlee administration, he flew to...

The publication this week of the latest of several Rhodesian constitutions since tan ought to mark the end of the three-and-a- half-year struggle to reach a negotiated...

Britain's attempts to take her place in the Community of western Europe have suffered from a mistiming which has been so per- sistent that it might have been comic had it not...

Three astronauts were launched from Cape Kennedy in an attempt to approach within 50,000 feet of the moon in dress rehearsal for a landing on the moon's surface later this year....

POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH Seven months ago, we all rejoiced to hear of Mrs Judith Hart's appointment to the Cabinet as Paymaster-General. Those of us who in- quired...

AMERICA GEOFFREY WAGNER Geoffrey Wagner is an Associate Professor at the City College of New York. New York—`You can't have a revolution every day,' said the SOS (Students for...

From the 'Spectator', 22 May, 1869—The efficiency of the Naval Reserve has been tested by a cruise, and so far with the greatest success. Two thousand men, more than were...

MIDDLE EAST TUFTON BEAMISH, MP A recent visit to Iran and the Arab countries convinced me that although Marxist ideology makes little appeal to Moslem hearts and minds,...

MALAYSIA DICK WILSON Tunku Abdul Rahman, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, once proclaimed in a New Year message to his nation that 'Everyone in Malaya is free to live his life...

GOVERNMENT JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE, MP As with the comedian of the silent screen whose trousers were fated to fall down from the moment they were put on, there is a fas- cination in...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS An amendment to the Divorce Reform Bill has proposed the establishment of two sorts of marriage—the one sort liable to the new divorce regulations, the other...

J. W. M. THOMPSON It will be a great comfort to many, I am sure, to know that they will be able to obtain news of the next sterling crisis or devaluation from a choice of no...

PERSONAL COLUMN CHRISTOPHER BOOKER I recently had the bizarre experience of listen- ing to a conversation between Malcolm Mug- geridge and Aneurin Bevan on the subject of...

THE PRESS BILL GRUNDY Although I had never actually met him, I somehow did not much like Mr John Osborne, the playwright. I have, in the past, -thought up many possible...

TELEVISION STUART HOOD There was a time when the Independent Tele- vision schedules used to include a quota of ninety-minute plays. Ninety minutes was natur- ally a...

HOUSING NEIL WATES Subsidised housing has been the political panacea of the postwar decades. There is now increasing awareness amongst, both political parties --that...

CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN When fixed prices began to die their. lingering death, there were many who thought that the country would be turned into one vast orien- tal...

TAXATION RICHARD LYNN Richard Lynn is Professor of Psychology at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin. Dublin—A yawning tax loophole for writers and artists...

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN Pope Paul VI has surprised me and upset me again—with something even more serious than his trousers. For he is downgrading saints, limiting the...

HUGH TREVOR-ROPER In 1944, when he returned from America to England, Bertrand Russell was more respect- able than he had ever been since the outbreak of the First World War....

Freud's boy HENRY TUBE A Family Romance Richard Wollheim (Cape 30s) Termush Sven Holm translated by Sylvia Clayton (Faber 21s) Felix Barbara Levinge (John Murray 25s) When...

OLIVER WARNER Gordon at Khartum—is there any fresh news? The answer is that while there is little now to be discovered, there is always more to say. For Gordon was an...

PAT BARR One of the more extraordinary episodes in the vigorous, acrid saga of East-West contact concerns the activities of the Netherlands East India Company (the Jan...

TIBOR SZAMUELY The View from Lenin Hills William Taubman (Hamish Hamilton 30s) Russian Peasants and Soviet Power M. Lewin (Allen and Unwin 70s) Despite the vast volume of...

and Warburg 50s) Prelude to Hitler ELIZABETH WISKEMANN This book is a fascinating study for anyone with any experience of the Weimar period, although one cannot help asking...

FRANCIS WATSON Icelandic Journals William Morris (Centaur Press 126s) The travelling writer' is a somewhat different animal from the writing traveller. Of the two volumes...

DENNIS J. DUNCANSON This is not a general analysis of the rise -and fall of Chinese dynasties, nor a full his- tory of the Chinese civil war either. It is a former American...

DAVID WILLIAMS They say that if you fly very high the land un- derneath you, while getting smaller, yields fresh significances: patterns of ancient husbandry, for example, may,...

BRYAN ROBERTSON The Royal Collection of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci at Windsor Castle consists of about two thirds of all his surviving studies; the ex- hibition at the...

The Mind of a Mnemonist A. R. Luria (Cape 25s). A. R. Luria is Professor of Psychology at Moscow University. His brief, straightforward account concerns the case history of a...

Nunn's tale HILARY SPURLING The Winter's Tale (Stratford-upon-Avon), The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Chichester) Honour and Offer (Fortune) Perhaps the most auspicious, certainly...

CINEMA Star billing ROBERT CUSHMAN Nicol Williamson is the only actor known to me who relies primarily not on his eyes or voice but on the creases in a permanently furrowed...

DOMINIC GILL Three years ago, when the first Brighton Festi- val came to town, there were whispers—some of them deafening—that here at last was England's answer to Royan. A...

All dates and programmes in this guide are, of course, subject to alteration. CAMDEN: ends 1 June This year's festival has concentrated in par- ticular on Berlioz, it being the...

MONEY WILLIAM JANEWAY `Money' and 'crisis'—the words have become virtually inseparable. But the twice-yearly financial farragos which send speculators into orbit and central...

CUSTOS We seem to be in the middle of a classic bear market, short rallies (last Friday and Mon, day's movements were an example) quickly giving way to prolonged declines....

PORTFOLIO JOHN BULL Bad week though it has been for equities, three of my more speculative, second portfolio shares have begun to pick up steam again. I refer to British...

LETTERS From the Rev Peter Curgenven, the Rev J. A. H. Bell. Peter Cloft, D. A. N. Jones, Peter Cadogan, Sir Dents Brogan, David Pugh. W. H. F. Barklam, M S. E. Grime, Roger...

May) in his complaint that Anglican services do not easily 'communi- cate' with a worshipper? The Anglican liturgy is a work of art; and will communicate best when it is...

Sir: Mr Wiggs reports (Letters, 16 May) tHat student representation in Southampton Uni- versity is not working: that the left is packing and prolonging the meetings to secure...

is even worse than Richard West (16 May) makes it out to be. My own conclusion, after trying to make the Biafran case intelligible to my erstwhile left wing friends, is that the...

Sir: I should like to begin by pointing out to Mr Richard Walker that I am not a Roman Catholic, although 1 was brought up as one. I am in the position of John Calvin, Martin...

Sir- Richard West's article (16 May) on Biafra and the left seems to me unfair on the left. Of course, it depends what he means by the left. If he means merely the editor of the...

the only Frenchman 'wearing an Old Etonian tie to which he is not entitled—vide Sir Denis Brogan, 2 May, and your competi- tion No. 552. Two years ago, I spent a short holiday...

Sir: I see that in a review of a book about Puccini (9 May) Mr Charles Reid writes: 'Mr Ashbrooke writes: 'This is the obverse of deli- cacy . . ." Perhaps so.' And perhaps, if...

Sir: 'I was therefore intrigued when I read in the "Miscellany" column of the Guardian that Mr Jenkins was to replace George Gale as the Mirror regular columnist. "Miscellany"...

Sir : Surely your contributor Mr Skidelsky (9 May) is guilty of a serious lapse in assuming that we have no machinery or intent of the much-abused politicians here, to obtain...

exactly one quarter-century into the nuclear age, and very lucky to have survived that far, and Tibor Szamuely seems to have learned nothing (see his article on Czechoslovakia,...

Sir:- I hope that I am not the only admirer of Oscar Wilde's writings who resented Mr Barry Humphries's nasty little piece (9 May). Mr Humphries's literary discrimination is...

Sir: If the cautionary tale contained in R. A. Cline's article (9 May) is followed to its con- clusion it is at least probable that the characters involved in it will be seen to...

Sir: Referring to Rolf Hochhuth's play about the bombing of Dresden and other cities, Lord Chandos (9 May) comments on the symbolic- satiric Sikorsky theme as follows:...

AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS Hopping mad. That anyway is how one observer this week described brilliant and amusing young Horatio Nelson, hero of St Vincent and Aboukir Bay, idol...

COMPETITION Readers may have noticed our guide to festivals in Great Britain which we publish in this issue on page 695. A brief scan through it will reveal the not very...

Trevor Grove reports: 'Now lesser men will "creep out again to feel the sun" ' wrote Sir Denis Brogan in his 'Table talk' of 2 May, reflecting on the passing of 'Good King...

Across 1 He's in love with company and that's sticking together! (8) 5 In this way I prohibit the pressure-line (6) 9 Gets aboard and carries along (8) 10 Woolly beast met with...

PHILIDOR Black White 8 men 8 men J. Fridliius (1st prize, St Petersburg Zeilung, 1898). White to play and mate in three moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 439...