24 JULY 1959

Page 1

Disillusionment in Spain

The Spectator

T HERE are stirrings in Spain. The head and 1 the heart of the resistance to Franco are no longer among the ageing Liberals in exile but in Spain itself. Not, as might have been...

THE PODOLA AFFAIR

The Spectator

T HE London police have done themselves a bad turn by their handling of the Podola arrest. Whatever happened after detectives broke into his bedroom should have been immediately...

Page 2

Jews and Gentlemen

The Spectator

TT seems many years ago now since British readers could be rightly, and righteously, shocked by newspaper evidence of colour prejudice in America. Notting Hill and Nottingham...

Page 3

The Fruits of Folly

The Spectator

By IAN GILMOUR H ow do we prevent the Middle East going Communist? is the question which should be, but is not, preoccupying the West. Those who think the right answer is to...

Page 4

Westminster Commentary

The Spectator

In one sense, this is fortunate. If we do not hang out banners extolling the virtues of our Members of Parliament, it should be remembered that neither do we hang out the...

Page 5

I WOULD LIKE TO THANK the many readers who have

The Spectator

written to say how much they approve of the looks of the present 'emergency' Spectator. Some of them have urged that we should stay this way: but the difficulties, technical and...

1 HAVE BEEN WATCHING With interest the controversy in The

The Spectator

Times correspondence columns about the discomfort suffered by tourist class passengers in air liners— especially tall ones, who have no room for their elbows or their feet. Lord...

MR. GERALD GARDINER argues that it would be more sensible

The Spectator

if, instead of every- one concentrating the hue and cry after murderers, we tried to reduce the number of murders by limiting the availability of firearms. Agreed: the law...

A Spectator's Notebook

The Spectator

THE 1958 parliamentary re- turns for offences relating to motor vehicles is as de- pressing a document as I have seen for a long time, with its revelation that the number of...

IT AS UNWORTHY of the Minister of Health to ease

The Spectator

himself lazily out of answering an awkward but pertinent question by a grimy old parliamentary expedient. The question was on why doctors who have been fined for negligence in...

Page 6

Looking Ahead

The Spectator

By CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS W E need a much franker debate about nuclear policy than any we have had up to now. The danger of the nuclear debate is that it is always lagging a year...

ANOTHER or Lord Douglas's assertions—that 'it just is not true'

The Spectator

that use of older, slower aircraft can bring down fares—should also be refuted. I was talking recently to Ronald Orme of Icelandic Airlines—a company set up after the war, which...

Page 8

Come Here Till I Tell You

The Spectator

Sean Tar at Sea By PATRICK CAMPBELL 'D EAR SIRS,' I wrote to the British Board of Trade, 'for the past four years, twenty-four hours on and forty-eight off, I have been in...

Page 10

On Prima Donnas

The Spectator

By STRIX I N a small community—in a village say— the prima donna is a nuisance; but not, perhaps, an unmitigated nuisance. The taker of umbrage, the writer of letters beginning...

Page 11

Theatre

The Spectator

Less Music, Maestro, Please By ALAN BRIEN Ages of Man. (Queen's)— , ----., Once More, With Feeling. (New)—The Rope Dancers. (Arts). SIR JOHN GIELGUD once described his...

Roundabout

The Spectator

'FLORAL', said the badge in the floral dress of the elderly lady officiating near the platform of the Llangollen International Eisteddfod. The task of identifying some of ; the...

Page 13

Television

The Spectator

Scofield for King By PETER FORSTER THE rival inscrutabilities of the East and the BBC cer- tainly came face to face with the latter's decision to withdraw a half-hour American...

Page 14

Ballet

The Spectator

Noel and Christopher Robin By CLIVE BARNES WHAT, as the psychiatrist might put it, do you think of when I say the word 'ballet'? Pretty girls in billowing white tarlatan,...

Page 15

Cinema

The Spectator

Love and Amusement By ISABEL QUIGLY The Man who Understood Women. (Leicester Square Theatre.)—Tempest. ( Plaza. )—Journey into Autumn. (Paris-Pullman.) IT isn't (as we all...

Art

The Spectator

Public Agonies By SIMON HODGSON THE Romantic Movement exhibition extends beyond the Tate, to the Arts Coun- cil Gallery in St. James's Square, where water- colours, drawings,...

Page 16

Consuming Interest

The Spectator

Pictures for the Poor By LESLIE ADRIAN 'Too CHEAP' is not a phrase one meets every day in these mercenary times, but there are some objects which people hesitate to buy if...

Page 17

'SUNDAY BREAK'

The Spectator

SIR,—What an admirable programme The Sunday Break seems to be whenever I am not watching! Frankly, I am a little surprised that after the last exchange Mr. Penry Jones has the...

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE SIR,—Miles Howard, in a book review, says

The Spectator

that health service administration is in- efficient. It would be interesting to know whether he has any concrete information on this point or whether he is subscribing to...

The British Radical Lt.-Col. Patrick Lort-Phillips

The Spectator

National Health Service A. J. Blake Leucotomy Norman Scwires Sunday Break Peter Forster Leaves in Vallombrosa Ian Blake 'Roots' Lisa Hughes The Legitimacy Bill G. W. R. Thompson...

LEUCOTOMY

The Spectator

SIR,—You recently published a letter over the signature 'J. W. Affleck'. I have to inform you that Dr. Affleck was not responsible for that communication. I was its author. My...

Page 18

THE LEGITIMACY BILL

The Spectator

SIR,—The House of Lords was right in re- jecting clause one of Lord Chorley's Legitimacy Bill. The principle is that an illegitimate child is legitimated by the sub- sequent...

LEAVES IN VALLOMBROSA

The Spectator

SIR,—Taper usually throws a most reward- ing light into the darker recesses of West- minster, so it is a little sadly that I seek enlightenment about a remark in his latest...

DAILY BREAD

The Spectator

SIR,—And for those of us who find it really awkward to get fresh yeast regularly there is now dried baking yeast, in tins or in 2 oz. sachets. It is as easy to use as the fresh:...

' ROOTS '

The Spectator

SIR,—Seldom is one not entertained by Alan Brien's criticism and rarely does one quarrel with his opinions, but he seems to have been blinded by the art of Joan Plowright in...

Page 19

Established Lovers

The Spectator

The established lovers of an elder generation Dead from the waist down, every man of them, Have now expired for sure And, after nine days' public threnody, Lapse to oblivion, or...

BOOKS

The Spectator

Chez de Gaulle By D. W. BROGAN T am not an admirer of the historical I doctrines of Dr. Arnold Toynbee, but one of his favourite principles has been brilliantly exemplified in...

Page 20

Pleasure Principles

The Spectator

Love and the French. By Nina Epton. (Cassell, 25s.) Tie trouble is that ever since the Symposium all theoreticians who wish to uphold love, as opposed to those who, like Proust,...

The Hand of the Master

The Spectator

ONCE, when I was fourteen and he was forty-five, I wap taken to visit Edward Johnston at Ditchling. I had lately won an 'Art' prize at school with an illuminated collect the...

Page 22

Ends of the Earth

The Spectator

ASTONISHING how little has been written on Berlin in English. Isherwood, of course, and that scene in Agents and Patients; some in- teresting war-time adventures with Christian...

Aqueduct

The Spectator

Let it stand A stone guest In an unhospitable land, Its speech, the well's speech, The unsealed sources, Bringing from thence Its own sustenance. Its grace Must be the match...

Page 23

Up for Air

The Spectator

'The character of John,' his first school- master wrote when Durham was six, 'is very uncommon. I think he is capable of going as far in good or bad as any human being I have...

Page 24

Poor Scott

The Spectator

Beloved Infidel. By Sheilah Graham and Gerold Frank. (Cassell, 21s.) ANYONE who hires Gerold Frank, the trusted back-seat driver in more than one winning story of a woman's...

Page 25

Young People and Old Places

The Spectator

The Horses of the Sun. By Oriel Malet. (Gollancz, 16s.) Exam settings are a great cover-up for nullity and the species of fine feeling that has never bumped into a thought—which...

Page 26

The Verb to Contribute

The Spectator

By MARIUS BEWLEY L EAVING aside the critical prefaces to his novels, about which perhaps too much has already been said when one considers how little they themselves say in...

Page 27

Catkind

The Spectator

Through the window, Listening carefully, I overheard a low Moonlight murmur from an olive-tree- Three cats rehearsed the virtues of catkind: Catkind's silky tread and devious...

Page 28

Letters from Paris

The Spectator

Selected Journalism. By Stendhal. Edited and Introduced by Geoffrey Strickland. (Calder, 30s.) IN France the study of a major writer has a way of turning into a minor industry....

Page 30

The House of Silence. By H. Wood Jarvis. (Muller, 15s.)

The Spectator

A clean-limbed Englishman among sinister 'Orientals' (by which the author means Levantines); and an English gentlewoman with candid blue eyes in the harem of an Egyptian husband...

drawn-out murder story distinguished by its Zanzibar setting, with the

The Spectator

characters popping out on cue to buy cuttle fish or mangoes, and thus allowing the author to get in her descriptive bits. Nice, summery read, with some of the appeal of a good...

Death Watch by John and Ward Hawkins (Eyre and Spottiswoode,

The Spectator

12s. 6d.). consists of two stories. In the first a woman knows that one of the policemen guarding her has been suborned to kill her. The question is which—and how to catch and...

Only Connect

The Spectator

I AM AN untidy man, and like all untidy men, I have fits and spasms of excessive tidiness. One of those recurring fits consists of a furious assault on my bookshelves, in a vain...

It's a Crime

The Spectator

Shadow of Guilt. By Patrick Quentin. (Gollancz, I2s. 6d.) No novel could be as good as its Gollancz blurb, but this neat string of red herrings—one suspect after another proving...

Crowded and Dangerous. By Anthony Lejeune. (Macdonald, 10s. 6d.) The

The Spectator

plot may be pretty unlikely, but the young and agreeable Londoners involved in it are such as you might meet at anyone's sherry party, and the blackjacking, blackmailing, and...

Page 31

solving had not Victorian papa been shot by masked stranger

The Spectator

when he needed to utter only one more word of the family secret and thus make everything plain. Not a true detective story, for other vital clues are hidden from the reader, and...

THE OLD LADY REPORTS

The Spectator

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT THE Old Lady of Thread- needle Street has actually begun to dress herself a little more in the fashion. She is still wearing an old- fashioned veil to hide...

Page 32

Investment Notes

The Spectator

The debate goes on as to whether brewery shares are 'growth' stocks or not. The answer seems to be that this is not a 'growth' industry but that some energetic and well- managed...

Page 35

Company Notes

The Spectator

GENE .RAL ELECTRIC have produced profits before tax of £4.25 million against last year's gross profits of £4.76 million; and in spite of the cut in the interim dividend in...