T he Maastricht Bill received the royal assent. The Government sought to avert defeat on a motion to include the Social Chapter in the treaty by claiming that the Chapter would...

Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 ERM . . . THAT'S IT I t is business as usual in Brussels. As the House of Commons indulges in what might or might not be...

Mr Smith prepares to fight the hand that bleeds him SIMON HEFFER N o one seems to have noted a com- pelling case for Mr Major to call a snap election. At its 1991 conference...

A journalists, we all indulge a wide range of petty conceits, but few irritate me as much as the abuse of the definite article. Whenever one reads in a magazine profile, 'lie is...

Boring for Britain CHARLES MOORE T here are now two chief arguments being made for the Maastricht Treaty in this country. They are, first, that the treaty is so flawed that it...

Anatole Kaletsky argues that John Major and Kenneth Clarke are failing lamentably to take advantage of the prospects for economic recovery JOHN MAJOR is right. After another...

Noel Malcolm says that British politicians and journalists are not merely wrong about Bosnia — they are ignorant, too MOUNTAINEERS and polar explorers have given vivid...

On Monday night and in the small hours of Tuesday, the strength of the London Fire Brigade was taxed to its utmost by three bad fires, — one in St. Mary-Axe, one in Aldgate,...

is an infection which must not be allowed Xi'an LAST WEEK, in a smoky little restaurant in the shadow of the Ming dynasty walls of this former capital of China, I dined...

IT IS hard for most people to be fun- nier than they are when at their most earnest. So we laughed when the Inde- pendent referred to `London's homosex- ual sado-masochistic...

Anatol Lieven returns to the expropriated and vandalised estates of his Baltic German ancestors Mezotne UNTIL I was in my late twenties, the house where the head of my family...

How to save yourself 51 trips to the library . . . or over £35 on The Spectator If you're forced to share The Spectator with fellow students, then you'll know how difficult it...

Tabitha Troughton talks to men from the Devonshire and Dorset regiment as they patrol the streets of Belfast Belfast I LIFTED the rifle and looked through the telescopic...

Michael Heath

FROM time to time I am called to testi- fy in court, and I must say it gives me a great deal of pleasure to cook the goose of some of my more obnoxious patients. It is some...

A useful idiot joins the long- running BBC hate-soap PAUL JOHNSON I t must be admitted that the BBC's long- running internal soap, Get John Bin', is addictive, for me at...

All aboard the economic slowcoach to ever closer union CHRISTOPHER FILDES M r Major (Huntingdon): Madam Speaker, this great debate is now at the point of decision. In a sense...

Sir: In his article on the Sherlock Holmes stories (Books, 17 July), Mr Lerner refers to P. D. James' detective, Adam Dalgliesh, and his assistant, Sergeant 'Brer' Fox. Is this...

Sir: The Prime Minister's reported vision of `a classless society' prompts me to wonder how this might affect the structure of own- ership and management of the countryside....

12 Months 6 Months UK 0 £77.00 0 £39.00 Europe (airmail) 0 £88.00 0 £44.00 USA Airspeed 0 US$125 0 US$63.00 USA Airmail 0 US$175 0 US$88 Rest of Airmail 0 £111.00 El...

Sir: K.C. Roberts describes the British press in Bosnia as being 'unwilling or unable to get out and about among the var- ious factions and report the facts' (Letters, 3 July)....

Sir: Like Dr Niall Ferguson (Wake war, not peace', 10 July), I am mystified at the failure of our service chiefs and politicians to seize the opportunity of acting as an...

Sir: I have been intrigued by the recent cor- respondence concerning the ingredients of an authentic Buck's Fizz. In his reply to James Rolls, Mr P. L. Dickinson, in his let-...

Sir: Nigel Nicolson (Long life, 19 June) tells us, 'Only at Eton is the title [Head Master] written thus.' Eton is doubtless unique in many respects, but Westminster's Head...

Sir: Charles Moore (Another voice, 10 July) attacks the condom in the name of God via the Vatican. Have the sexual habits of a single Spectator - reading couple been altered by...

An American classic Anita Brookner WRITING DANGEROUSLY: MARY MCCARTHY AND HER WORLD by Carol Brightman Lime Tree, £20, pp. 714 N o one, but no one, had a more dis- graced and...

He lifts up her face and she lets him, she lets him smooth it like a finely rumpled sheet, stroking out from the eyes, their dusty corners, down the cheek, easing ten years away...

John Cornwell MURDER IN THE HEART by Alexandra Artley Hamish Hamilton, f15.99, pp. 268 T here will be scenes, as they say, that may disturb our readers. In November 1988 two...

Bill Crow SWING, SWING, SWING: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF BENNY GOODMAN by Ross Firestone Hodder, £18.99, pp. 512 B enny Goodman and his band were at the centre of the explosion of...

Lindsay Anderson THE HONOURABLE BEAST: A POSTHUMOUS AUTOBIOGRAPHY by John Dexter Nick Hem Books, £25, pp. 340 S urely we, the 'Angry Young Men' of the Royal Court Theatre...

Duncan Fallowell IT: SEX SINCE THE SIXTIES by Jonathan Green Secker, £17.99, pp. 454 J onathon Green, in the conclusion to his introduction, makes the following remark: `. . ....

Michael Hulse THE GRANDMOTHER'S TALE by R. K. Narayan Heinemann, 0.99, pp. 134 N ow in his mid-eighties, and apparent- ly set to join that select band of writers (such as...

classes of travellers J. G. Links THE BEATEN TRACK: EUROPEAN TOURISM, LITERATURE AND THE WAYS TO 'CULTURE', 1800-1918 by James Buzard Clarendon, £35, f12.95, pp. 357 T he...

Francis King THE TRUE PARADISE by Gamini Salgado Carcanet, £14.95, pp. 181 T he case of Gamini Salgado is a sad one of might-have-been. Born in Ceylon in 1929, he arrived in...

Exhibitions The Impressionist and the City: Pissarro's Series Paintings (Royal Academy, till 10 October) Pedestrian points of view Giles Auty A lthough they are plodding at...

Dance till you drop The Arts Council thinks it knows what's best for us. Susannah Herbert disagrees Y ou mustn't say multi-culturalism. The term is a little discredited. We...

Every one a dodo Robin Holloway T his month's opera season at the Almeida offered four novelties. Two one- acters on the same subject (Judith and Holofernes) received their...

Storyville (`15', selected cinemas) Too slack to be slick Mark Amory S toryville is just the kind of film I like. Immediately a profile is studying newspa- per cuttings and...

The trade in driftwood Alistair McAlpine very once in a while, you come across a lot in an auction that shows the auction houses for what they really are: not the grand...

Lust (Theatre Royal, Haymarket) Marvin's Room (Hampstead) Pickwick (Chichester) Small-scale Restoration Sheridan Morley B ack in the 1960s, and coming usually out of the...

Too bad Martyn Harris A ustralian mini-series' is a cue for the kill button in this house, but The Leav- ing of Liverpool (BBC 1, Thursday and Fri- day, 9.30 p.m.) was not so...

Paper tiger cub Taki I am back in the Olive Republic for busi- ness, but I file this from buggers' haven, the randy island of Mykonos. Four years after my daddy's death, I'm...

Explosive mixture Jeffrey Bernard I should have known that breaking my foot was on the cards when I dropped two lamb chops on the carpet that morning. Usually God's little...

Lovely and lively Nigel Nicolson T he Christchurch daily caricatured in the newspapers is not the Christchurch I remember from the 1950s when I was its by-election candidate...

Interesting and unusual Auberon Waugh A ter the immense success of the Club Red at Christmas, I thought I would give Avery's own Club White"' a bit of a whirl for summer...

c/o Avery's of Bristol Ltd 7 Park Street, Bristol BS1 5NG Tel: (0272) 214141 Fax: (0272) 221729 Price No. Value White Code 1. 368 Avery's Club White 12 Bots. f41.40 2. 369...

reviewing 192. I spent the best part of my youth — the grown-up, earning, independent part, in my early twenties — in this restaurant. I practi- cally lived here. But I kept...

Dirty dozen Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1788 you were invited to incorporate 12 given words, in any order, into a plausible and entertaining piece of prose. My apologies to...

SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA ;ADDIAMIll SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA Fide's turn Raymond Keene WHILE PREPARATIONS are proceed- ing for the Kasparov-Short world cham- pionship match in London...

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Max Beerbohm wrote a fierce and witty anti-pedestrian essay, 'Going Out for a Walk'. You are invited to follow in his footsteps with 150 words or less expressing a hearty...

GRAHAM'S PORT CROSSWORD by Mass (GRAHAM ' S L 1 PORT 1119: Circus A first prize of £20 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution...

Ave atque vale Frank Keating HIS FINAL first-class century was last month, a colourfully mellow whizzbanger against, appropriately, his former mates from Worcestershire. It...

Q. My wife and I married a month ago in a quiet ceremony which was followed by a small reception for immediate family only. Now we are planning a dance to take place at our...