TA-TA-TA, TA-TA-TA, ta-ta-tiddle-ti-tum-pom-pom. Tchaikovsky never dreamed of providing the music for a pas seal of the kind that Dame Margot Fonteyn has been dancing this...

U SUALLY it is the noisy debates which are held to reflect discredit on the House of Com- mons : the occasions, not rare, when Members behave like schoolboys from a Frank...

FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 1959

By T. R. M. CREIGHTON C ENTRAL AFRICA has vanished from the C headlines almost as suddenly as it appeared in them. In the Federation all representative in- digenous leaders...

THE current dispute between printing trade unions and the Master Printers has led to a limitation of overtime working. Some readers may find that, during this dispute, copies of...

`WHAT I would really like,' said the Minister of Housing and Local Government in the Divi- sion Lobby, 'is a department where one could think.' A scep- tic might wonder exactly...

THE OBSCENE PUBLICATIONS Bill, after negotiating more, and crueller, fences than any at Aintree, is in danger of being disqualified (though not for boring) at the last moment....

coolness of London's welcome to their President. I hope they notice what a success the Mayor of Berlin is having, on television and at his press conferences. Having a pretty...

Housing the Arts in Great Britain is that Inigo Jones's Banqueting House in Whitehall should revert from its present dingy use as a services museum to become a setting—as it was...

unjustifiable intrusion into the private life of an individual . . . and declared that in its opinion the People had performed a public service.' Perhaps, on the occasion...

for TV coverage of the General Election are or are not legal : they are too feeble to worry over. Neither the BBC nor the ITA likes them, for the obvious reason that they are...

doing last week—for going into such detail about the illness of Mr. Dulles. The breakdown of the convention whereby certain illnesses were never described in the press (some,...

to elicit the answer to the question I posed a few weeks ago: is it, or is it not, an offence against the Official Secrets Act to have a copy of The Black Diaries? But as Mr....

Mr. Smyllie, Sir By PATRICK CAMPBELL W HEN, in these trying times, it's possible to work on the lower slopes of a national newspaper for several weeks without discovering...

By KENNETH ALLSOP W RY don't people read more? Do they hate or fear books? Do they even know that there are books? So far as I know the publishing trade has made no serious...

By KENNETH GREGORY C OUNTY cricket, like the provincial music hall, is an anachronism—the main difference being that music halls are not subsidised by football pools. To state...

All's Well That Ends Well By ALAN BRIEN All's Well That Ends Well. (Stratford - upon - Avon.) Dark Halo. (Arts.) Ar Stratford-upon-Avon this week there was a revival of a...

can writer, looks like a ■ decided to disguise him- self self as a retired English colonel. The Russian Jew who has camouflages a The moustache mild authority. eyes bulge with...

Method Singing By DAVID CAIRNS Personally I am prepared to forgive Madame Callas everything, even the witless pomposity of her television pronouncements about her Art. I will...

To judge by the first two nights of Die Fleder- maus, the audience at the Coliseum is a musical- comedy audience. It waves to its friends, eats chocolates noisily, welcomes each...

Warm Comfort By LESLIE ADRIAN The Institute of British Launderers (1.6-17 Lancaster Gate, W2 : Paddington 2454) will supply anyone who telephones or writes to their public...

All's Welles By ISABEL QUIG•LY Compulsion. (Carlton.) — Some Came Running. (Empire.) Kicks is a loose translation of their attitude. The boys are Nietzscheans, and believe in...

A PS on Psi By MILES HOWARD THE New Yorker, thinking it was time someone took a look into Psi, sent one of their men —Kevin Wallace—to scan the field. Psi (in case you were in...

APRIL 26, 1834 THE House-tax is to be abolished; and as it is grossly unequal, and the Whigs lacked the sense and spirit to equalize it, in such a manner as to give it the fair...

By STRIX 7 1 11E dictionary's definition ('abstinence from 1 speech or noise') suggests that our forebears regarded silence as a man-made commodity, a preserve which the...

published an article entitled 'Bournemouth on a Shoestring,' by Mr. David Cairns. A statement made in the article con- cerning the part played by a 'few rich patrons' in the...

SIR,—In contrasting American DDD (Direct Distance Dialling) with British STD (Subscriber Trunk Dial- ling) Leslie Adrian fails to mention some points in favour of this country's...

Dr. Monica Fisher Answering the Telephone T. A. O'Brien Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Kenneth Matchett Beer and the Budget R. E. Langhant Telling the World Norman Tiptaft The...

may I defend myself on the other side from my friends in England? The Rev. K. MacKenzie doesn't like the Examiner's view of the economics of Nyasaland. But it makes sense to us...

Sut,—The Rev. Austin Lee says in your issue of April 17 that he does not understand Mr. Hollis's letter perfectly, but so far as he does he considers 'it unworthy of him. In my...

SIR,-1 trust that there will be a wide •measure of protest against the offensive statement by Pharos in your current issue where he describes Portugal as 'our oldest (and...

article on Pakistan's land reforms. I feel it is only necessary to point out that the so-called reforms are not so far-reaching as this article might lead you to think. The...

April 17, writing from Tulane University, New Orleans, criticises what I said at an English-Speaking Union meeting in a recent tour in the USA. He objects to my account of the...

SIR.—Is your printer secretly in league with the Immigration Authorities in the matter of separating the sheep from the goats? By printing 'the' for 'her' in the final phrase of...

April 17 suggests that the reduction in the beer duty was connected with the fact that the Colonial Secretary is a member of Her Majesty's Government. This allegation of grossly...

Prophecy Under Arms By SIMON RAVEN P URITANISM,' remarks Christopher Sykes early in his biography of Major-General Wingate,* 'is an abiding force in British affairs'; and...

Portraits of a nd Personalities between Reform and Revolution. By Richard Hare. (O.U.P., 42s.) MR. HARE'S portraits . include writers, political theorists and agitators,...

Somerset Maugham: A Candid Portrait. By Karl G. Pfeiffer. (Gollancz, I8s.) I SHOULD not have thought it possible to write a totally uninteresting book on Somerset Maugham, and...

The Idea of a Social Science. By Peter Winch. (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 12s. 6d.) Contemporary Sociology. Edited by Jacob Roucek. (Peter Owen, 70s.) The Curious Strength of...

Stewart's Byzantine Legacy, which is a classic and has just been deservedly reprinted, concerned itself with Constantinople, Greece and Italy. His latest book reveals that the...

Russia Explored. By John Brown. (Hodder and Stoughton, 16s.) An unusually and refreshingly objective and good-humoured second look at the Soviet Union (Central Asian republics...

18s.) Some men fall in love with the desert, as others fall in love with the sea. Philippe Diold loves both, and follows his books on under- water exploration with a strange...

To sea under sail. Sometimes the author writes amateurishly (`the lambent air was as pellucid as treacle'), but often he captures with considerable effect the wonder and...

A cheerful, chatty expedition to East and Central Africa, by an author who is detached about black men and rather sardonic about the whites, who shot an elephant illegally and...

lazy, and too proud,' was why nobody in England walked, either for pleasure or for profit. So Pastor Moritz was told—and by an Englishman—in the 1780s. But pedestrianism as a...

9 Trochee. 10 Tendril. 11 Diminution. 12 Chic. 13 Auk. 14 Spontaneous. 17 Fire- lighter. 19 Pas. 20 Arch. 22 Interprets. 26 Craters. 27 Chelsea. 28 Dimples. 29 Overrun. DOWN. —...

'THE fishing was carried out successful: except for the loss of the vessel,' is how Slocum's eldest son later described his parents' honeymoon trip in the ill-charted waters...

the Spirit of British Administration. By C. H. Sisson. (Faber, 21s.) THE question about the Civil Service is whether it is worthily unique or merely uniquely old- fashioned. Out...

ACROSS 1 Noble examples of the illumin- ator's art? (8) 5 Mum's gone back to the labora- tory for a remedy (6) 9 Downing Street is so very UI (5, 3) 10 Thus return about an...

THE most interesting new book of the week, The Centre of the Green, documents several forms of inadequacy. The four principals of this curious and intelligent novel are Charles....

THOUGH Purcell may not be in into as great a composer as Byrd, he was probably more richly endowed with creative genius than any British musician; both what he achieved and what...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT MR. AMORY'S Budget has Under- written the bull market in British industrial equity shares. For this we must all be thankful. It is far better for a Stock...

By CUSTOS rinHE Stock Exchange has been moving up I again in a fairly heavy volume of trading and even the gilt-edged market recovered a little from the shock of the LCC 5 per...

T HOMAS TILLING has maintained the ordinary dividend of 131 per cent. for 1958 which may be a little disappointing to some; but there is an assurance from the chairman, Mr....