Defenceless. T he Defence Secretary, Mr Malcolm Rifkind, announced the cancellation of a tactical nuclear weapon system for the RAF, thus saving about £1,000 million. He met...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 END OF THE AFFAIR hat do western Europe and America have in common?...

The old human error of confusing the message with the messenger MATTHEW PARRIS T he world has now been informed by Lady Thatcher that Peter Lilley did not stand by her at the...

W hen I was appointed chairman of Associated Newspapers, I asked Lord Rothermere for a job description. He replied, 'David, you know very well what a newspaper chairman's job...

How the search for lost innocence ended in Shepherd Market AUBER ON WAUGH citing about the decriminalisation of all narcotic drugs (which has mysteriously become a chattering...

Politicians at Westminster seem to think the Commonwealth is now of little political or IT WAS a perfect Central African after- noon. Vast white clouds were building up above...

Philip Gourevitch on the new levels of hypocrisy being plumbed by would-be mayors of New York New York AS New York's mayoral campaign began heating up a few weeks ago, a joke...

I ACTUALLY learnt something this week. I had been to a wedding where my husband was getting increasingly restive next to me on the bench as he detected each updating of the...

persist. . . I WENT to Indonesia recently — even servants of humanity need a break from their labours sometimes — and while there made some slight attempt to learn...

Anne Applebaum on how the British defence industry could be thrown a lifeline by South Africa IMAGINE THAT a Russian mining com- pany has suddenly announced its desire to...

SPARROWS Sir, — Your correspondent, "F.C.," in the Spectator of August 26th, refers to the singular fancy which sparrows occa- sionally betray for admiring themselves in a...

Martin Vander Weyer talks to Lord Palumbo, a tycoon with much to be defensive about LORD PALUMBO was somehow not quite as I had imagined him. In pho- tographs, the millionaire...

Damian Thompson on how some Anglican bishops are closing down large parts of their church NO ONE who missed the first run of Rac- ing Demon, David Hare's play about the Church...

Alasdair Palmer on how a hard case has exposed a bad law about cannabis `NOT GUILTY.' The jury foreman pro- nounced the words with an appropriate solemnity. Anne Biezanek, the...

When the men in wigs start treating justice as a joke PAUL JOHNSON T he Observer, which has become a real newspaper since it changed owner and edi- tor, did an excellent job...

MY QUEST for the six-legged yurt of Kazakhstan, hexapodus ineredibilis banco- mundialis (City and Suburban, 9 October) has been joined by Mr F.R. Cannings, who writes to say...

MY SAINTED forerunner Nicholas Dav- enport met a duke in Brooks's Club who asked him what he did. 'Well', said Nicholas, 'I'm on the board of an insurance company.' Funny thing,...

DINNER AT Salters Hall this week marks the hundredth birthday of the family firm with the best address m the City — Number One, Royal Exchange. This is Searle's, the...

BARCLAYS' NEW head office is the worst thing the banks have done for the environment lately. They do not pollute rivers or drop acid rain on Scandinavia or disturb the bats in...

Solomon sets out to bind the Belgians, and Kenneth Clarke's options narrow CHRISTOPHER FILDES S olomon Binding is alive and living in Belgium. This discredited figure has not...

A CENTRAL banker's life, as Mr Ver- plaetse can confirm, is full of hazards. Mar- garet Thatcher thought the Bank of Eng- 12ind was a nest of wets and crypto-Keyne- sians. She...

Sir: In Dr Madsen Pirie's excellent article (`Stop the cheats', 9 October) on the need to revolutionise the welfare state, he men- tions the proposals made by the No Turn- ing...

Sir: I am no lawyer, but I cannot believe that Con Coughlin is correct when he says, in his sour review (Books, 2 October) of Terry Waite's memoirs, Taken on Trust, that if Mr...

Sir: I suppose we can only gain from know- ing about the opinions and nrejudices of our Secretary of State for Education; and therefore you are to be commended for finding space...

Sir: As a member of the British Board of Christian Solidarity International, I must correct a very serious misrepresentation of our position portrayed in the letter by Chris-...

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Sir: Does Geoffrey Wheatcroft (Books, 9 October) dismiss the nuances of Latin gen- der as some ancient form of political cor- rectness? Or is his use of inter alias, while...

Sir: Concerning Miss Troughton's article (The smack of firm governesses', 9 Octo- ber), one is immediately appalled: Will this do? No, this will not do. The entire article is...

Sir: If Christopher Fildes finds himself in the happy position of being invited into a yurt (City and suburban, 9 October) I do urge him to observe two vital social conven-...

should really get their facts right if they want to be taken seriously. Quite apart from the botched attempts to discredit the reporting (in a very mixed club, it's amazing that...

Sir: Should Jeffrey Bernard expire before my Speccie subscription, would I be able to get a rebate? Janette M Brantley 52 Elmleigh, Midhurst, West Sussex

Sir: Surely not the least of the many puz- zling aspects of Frederic Raphael's ram- bling and in all too many senses ad hominem review (Books, 9 October) of the latest...

Jolly decent Fellows and others Raymond Carr ALL SOULS IN MY TIME by A. L Rowse Duckworth, £14.99, pp. 214 O f a historian whose scholarly books 'had no success beyond their...

Mark Amory ROBERT MY FATHER by Sheridan Morley Weidenfeld, £16.99, pp. 240 middle age, men often become inter- ested in their fathers and, if they are writ- ers, write about...

Special breaks for Spectator readers Shown here are just three of the nearly 200 hotels, inns and private country houses that are offering Spectator read- ers the opportunity...

Anita Brookner MIGRAINE by Oliver Sacks Picador, £20, pp. 338 W hen a physician of the quality of Oliver Sacks addresses the phenomenon of migraine, the condition miraculously...

A. L. Rowse THE CHATTO BOOK OF CATS edited by Francis Wheen Chatto, f15.99, pp. 406 C ats are distinctly literary creatures, and have been written about a great deal, perhaps...

Nicholas Fleming THE LITERARY COMPANION TO DOGS edited by Christopher Hawtree Sinclair-Stevenson, £20, pp. 320 T he world is divided into two: those who don't care for dogs...

Francis King THE CONFESSIONS OF AUBREY BEARDSLEY by Donald S. Olson Bantam, £15.99, pp. 398 M argaret Forster did it, Peter Ackroyd did it. Now Donald S. Olson, an American,...

Janet Barron FELLINI S ome people fear God,' Federico Fellini declared, 'I fear women'. It is one of the few true things he said about himself. An interview, for Fellini, is a...

CHRISTMAS GIFT SUBSCRIPTION Give a gift subscription of The Spectator to a friend and we wi 1 give you a full size bottle of ten year old Glenmorangie Single Highland Malt. But...

Tom Pocock T he correspondent as hero was a Fleet Street concept and in the second world war, with Alan Moorehead to set stan- dards, it had some substance. Even in the...

Geoffrey Wheatcroft DE VALERA: LONG FELLOW, LONG SHADOW by Tim Pat Coogan Hutchinson, £20, pp. 772 'Great hatred, little room': Yeats caught the time and place with a phrase....

Non-fiction: Epstein by Stephen Gardiner, Flamingo, £8.99 Journey to Khiva by Philip Glazebrook, Flamingo, £7.99 5001 Nights at the Movies by Pauline Kael, Marion Boyars,...

DIARY 1994 £12 Plain £13 Initialled T he Spectator 1994 Diary, bound in soft burgundy leather, will shortly be available. With a new layout and a whole week to view, Monday...

Japan and Europa 1543-1929 (Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, till 12 December) Big is beautiful Celina Fox admires European skill and panache in presenting large-scale exhibitions...

Ben Nicholson (Tate Gallery, till 9 January) Elegant modernist Giles Auty ith the exception of Naum Gabo, Ben Nicholson (1894-1982) was the only major figure of post-war art...

Limeys unite! Alan Powers on a new generation of lime enthusiasts B efore architecture there was building, and one nourishes the other. One of the fundamental ideas of modern...

Canaletto and England (Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery, till 9 January) Canaletto's England Roderick Conway Morris C analetto, like claret, was substantially an English...

A practical Utopia Anthony Gardner on the brave new future of an abandoned carpet mill A a young man in the Fifties, Ernest Hall dreamt he saw a weaving shed filled with grand...

Prime time Robin Holloway T o turn 50, as I did this week, is to put away young fogeydom and hopefully (in the old fogey sense) to enter one's prime. Too early for...

Where there's a will ... Alistair McAlpine H ow gullible rich men are. They try so hard to dictate the fate of their possessions after their deaths, yet however much trou- ble...

Machinal (Lyttelton) Looking Through a Glass Onion (Criterion) It's a Great Big Shame (Stratford East) Machine tool Sheridan Morley H aving taken one great play and (in my...

Mr Wonderful (`12', selected cinemas) Wonderfully ordinary Mark Steyn B eing mostly middle-class, Britain's star actors invariably seem, whenever they play working-class, as...

Write on Martyn Harris T his week I have driven Kurt Vonnegut and Marianne Wiggins from the country• They were at the Cheltenham Literary Fes- tival when my profile of Ms...

Hard work Taki I find it rather funny that Peter McKay, the Sunday Times hack, always refers to me as a playboy. Play I do, but I've also Worked most of my life, especially of...

From the original Nigel Nicolson I was not in a strong position to protest against the possible sale of the Churchill papers to America, because I did exactly the same with...

Lesser evils Jeffrey Bernard H ow odd it is that one of the few bits of Latin that I can remember from my schooldays, 'lam veniat tacito curva senecta pede' =Then came bent old...

AGE IS a great divider. The gulf between decently aged people and yoof has never been wider. But age also divides cooks. First there is the mass of Britons who regu- larly cook...

SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA Too late Raymond Keene AT LAST A DIRECT HIT, after so many excellent positions had slipped out of Nigel Short's grasp. Week six of the Times World Chess...

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A first prize of £20 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 8 November, With two runners-up prizes of £10 (or, for UK...

Self-review Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1801 you were invited to supply a review of his or her own work, in characteristic style, by a well- known writer, dead or alive....

Your are invited to write a respectful, even flattering obituary of an imaginary person whose death is clearly a blessing to the public. Maximum 150 words. Entries to...

Missing out Frank Keating SANE observers are mighty relieved at England's almost certain failure to qualify for next year's World Cup soccer finals in the United States. If...

Dear Mary.. . Q. En route to Scotland last week, I stayed ov ernight with a friend who has a house in the Lake District. My son's nanny, who was travelling with us, was given a...