I f there is one thing the Conservatives, and especially Conservatives of the school represented by Mr James Prior, pride themselves on, it is statecraft. This quality is...

Inflation of rights Colin Welch L ooking back over the conferences, one thing stands out like Jo Grimond among the Liberals. This is that the Tories are now unarguably the...

found this week on page 37.

A friendship formed at Cambridge 23 , Years ago first brought me into con- t act with a remarkable family, the M cEwens of Marchmont in Berwickshire. 1is family at that time...

UK Eire Surface mail Air mail 6 months: £15.50 IRE17.75 £18 . 50 £24.50 One year: E31.00 IRE35.50 £37 . 00 £49.00 US subscription price: $65.00 (Cheques to be made payable to...

Times out of MIND Auberon Waugh A big step forward' was how Mr Simon Hebditch, assistant director of MIND, described a new clause which has been added to the Mental Health...

Murray Sayle Tokyo A ll the angels in heaven weep, we know, when a single sparrow falls. But J apanese prime ministers? Inscrutable as B uddhas, these men with unmemorable...

Daniel Farson am number one man in Istanbul,' Yusuf informed me when we left the tourist office after he had been chosen as my guide. `Twenty per cent of Istanbul knows me. I...

A new political movement has broken out in Spain. The Liberals of almost all shades think S. Sagasta, though nominally a Liberal, far too reactionary, and have asked Marshal...

Richard West N ot long ago, the Jewish terrorists of the Irgun Zwei Leumi who blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem 35 years ago, killing some 100 English, Arabs and Jews,...

Gore Vidal V ladimir Nabokov affected a perfect indifference when his novels were ?raised or dispraised; but attack his learn- i ng, 'and I reach for my dictionary'. In this at...

Peter Ackroyd 'W e are far from confident that we can accurately foresee future develop- ments ... Cable television is in many ways a leap into the dark.' (Report of the...

aul Johnson T he powerful monopolies who have a . t . r esen TV set-up from the assault of cable C have skilfully sought to present the thee-for-all commercialism. They hope by...

Sir: When I read Colin Welch's hilar i°1j3 , 5 diatribe (16 October) against the SPI decentralisation proposals, I could not 1 1 _, wondering how on earth the Swiss ma n gy to...

Sir: Mr David Taylor's grumbles about Ox- ford (9 October) betray the fact that he misunderstands the purpose of undergraduate life there, as so many people do all over the...

Sir: Your correspondent D. H. Ca m tt (16 October) sheds a new light c ' A '" I languors of childhood, in dee" por l longueurs. But even with some like ography to help the days...

Sir: Perhaps you could inform Mr - -1c ,, o ssi West that Nasenschleimhaut means 1 ! mucous membrane and not nose -0 10 (9 October). Could you, at the same ti t o, inform him...

I well recall Sir Paul Chambers aP pealing for second-class minds to come to the assistance of British industry in 1965' the year in which I graduated from Oxford. At the time I...

Private inconvenience Sir: Professor Wain in his article Parson's Displeasure' (16 October) offered a perfect paradigm of someone making a dutiful obeisance to change, whilst...

The reluctant socialist J. Enoch Powell The Diary of Beatrice Webb: Volume 1: Glitter Around and Darkness Within Edited and introduced by Norman and Jeanne MacKenzie (Virago...

Agatha Ramm Gladstone : Vol 1 : 1809 - 1865 Richard Shannon (Hamish Hamilton £18) T he accumulation of material available to the public about Gladstone, welcome though it is,...

Brian Masters Eccentric Travellers John Keay (John Murray, BBC £9.50) ccentric behaviour', writes John -L . /Keay, 'is not the result of ignoring logic but of pursuing it to...

THE OBSCURE BIRD OF NIGHT by J. Donoso, translated by H. St Martin and L. Mades (Cape). Write to Duncan Fallowell, The Old Boat House, Shooters Hill, Pangbourne, Berks. SPIRIT...

Lucy Hughes-Hallett `rr he white-washed house, so looped with 1 purple clematis and wistaria, looked a transitory residence, . . . a house without reality or experience, from...

Terence de Vere White James Joyce Richard Ellmann (New and revised edition O.U.P. £25) ichard Ellmann's biography of Joyce was universally praised when it was published in...

Anthony Huxley T here are two major classes of gardening book — the reference work and the discursive one. The first treats its subjects alphabetically, maybe with tabulations...

James Michie I first read Don Juan on a transatlantic liner. I was young, I was leaving England for a year, rather ingloriously, and I was in disgrace on board, having been...

James Hughes-Onslow Memories Frances Partridge (Robin Clark £2.95). A first-hand account of Bloomsbury by a member of the Group. Frances Marshall married Ralph Partridge,...

Umbrella coverage Jann Parry Dance Umbrella (Riverside Studios) (The Place) (Almeida) D ance Umbrella is the party conference of experimental dance. It brings together...

Attention please Mark Amory Other Places (Cottesloe) I t is desirable for an audience to be not only awake but alert. At the first night of Other Places by Harold Pinter,...

Superior Richard Ingrams W aking up in the middle of the night last Friday I came downstairs and watched the final part of Laurence Olivier's Hamlet film on ITV. Despite the...

Twists and turns Peter Ackroyd Deathtrap ('A', selected cinemas) I saw Deathtrap on the stage some years ago: it didn't make a bit of sense, and I forgot the plot as soon as...

Fight fright Taki Athens I have a sneaking suspicion that my time 1. has come. It will have by Sunday anyway, and in Zurich of all places. I'm fly- ing there on Friday,...

Prize folly Jeffrey Bernard W a load of old nonsense this 13 0°1 ‘,,, V er Prize business is. And what a 1 1 9 1 11 .' cow the novel is. But few will agree me, I know....

Little old ladies Patrick Marnham R eaders who write to the editor of the Spectator always have something im- portant to say, but the most interesting points generally appear...

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for a poem with 16 given rhymes (they were, in fact, from Don Juan, Canto XVI, 32-3). There were so many good entries that...

No. 1241: De luxe Set by Jaspistos: You are invited to produce advertisement copy (maximum 150 words) aimed to sell some very ordinary but in this case tarted up article (a box...

'A U ' F VI'lE . 0 E R ' S4 4 HIE . :N 'C ° I A ab R 0 n S 0 P• H I L A I< I 4\1 A . L 9 R I OE E "A C "'A T % T U D ErP A L L RI RI CI RI H A R H SCURE ROUSE R N 9‹. El ULEI I...

A Prize of ten pounds will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 8 November. Entries to: Crossword 580, The Spectator, 5 6 Doughty Street, London WCIN 2LL. 9 -...

Raymond Keene A expected, Karpov emerged at the head of this year's super-tournament at Tilburg. He had initially set the hot pace of 6/8, but then slowed down, coasting home...

T he annual rate of inflation fell to 7.3 per cent last month, just beating (by 0.1 per cent) the lowest figure achieved by the last Labour government. Interest rates fell to...

E ach set of three questions leads to a place somewhere in the British Isles. Remember the three questions all have the same answer. 1) One English King lies here, struck down...

now until the Christmas issue (18 December) will carry a clue. Each clue will be made up of three separate questions, designed (except where stated) to give the same answer; all...

Answer How does each question lead to the answer? Name . Address: Company (if eligible for special prize) Important: Please keep this answer form, as you will need to keep a...

T his issue of The Spectator has the third clue in the Great Spec- tator Treasure Hunt. The Treasure Hunt will last for nine more weeks, and the winners will receive the most...