G eneral Augusto Pinochet, the former ruler of Chile, was put under arrest at the London Clinic, where he had gone for an operation on his spine, because Spain had issued a...

• The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 0171-405 1706; Fax 0171-242 0603 POLICE WARNING F . irst Blue Peter presenters, now the boys in blue. Cops,...

Perhaps Philip Gould should have stayed in the wardrobe BRUCE ANDERSON T o judge by the extracts which have already appeared, Philip Gould's new book, The Forthcoming...

irst I must say that I am estopped, as the lawyers put it, from writing about that other Wyatt diary. This is because the Sun- day Times has decided to continue the seri-...

At last, arguments against Mr Blair with which people in the pub might agree MATTHEW PARRIS A ly writer will tell you, one can check and recheck a finished article, confident...

IT IS PERHAPS a measure of the man's remarkable rehabilitation that, compared to a little more than a year ago, the Prince Of Wales is now being taken very seriously in at least...

THE writer of a letter to the Times the other day began, 'Reference your front- page report.. . . ' This not only was scarcely English, but also made it look as though the...

Paris THE AUTUMN has long been the season of strikes in France. `ca bouge' — 'it moves' — is the public's ironic comment, in the sense of 'if it moves, call it out on strike'....

Tahir Shah describes the unbelievable feats to be seen in many an Indian village THE AUDIENCE quaked with fear. The man standing before them was astounding, even by Indian...

Jennie Bristow says that a world safe for women could also be their prison IT IS BETTER to be safe than sorry — one of those time-honoured pieces of motherly advice that once...

James Srodes on an arrest which flouts the rules by which spymasters protect their spies Washington DC LAST WEEK saw another of those grey one-day stories in the press. A...

A chance meeting on the London Tube makes Sheila Gunn wonder why Conservative women are not normal GOING home on the Northern Line, minding my own business, I became aware of...

John Redwood says Mr Mandelson's blundering over Pinochet is further proof that he is an embarrassment to the government I DO NOT like dictators. I have no time for politicians...

Alistair Home recalls the pause and the reply, the day he asked General Pinochet about torture IN NOVEMBER 1987, I had a long inter- view with General Pinochet in Santiago for...

Ruth Dudley Edwards, from a Catholic background in the Republic, offers a different view of the Unionist leader ON A WALL in David Trimble's West- minster office is a cartoon...

On Robin Day's 75th birthday, Brian Masters points out some of the innovations for which he should be better known ONE DAY in 1955 a rather zestful, com- bative young man in...

Michael Heath

England's a fen of stagnant waters but autumn turns all to gold PAUL JOHNSON E arly on Sunday morning I struggled up a lane made horribly muddy by the cows and set up my...

TRAVEL NOTE: an exciting new experi- ence is on offer from United Airlines. You arrive at the airport, check in, say goodbye to your luggage, and make your way to the gate. Then...

Yes, Goldilocks, there is a free lunch, but the bad news is that it's you CHRISTOPHER FILDES P New York oor little Goldilocks. Now we know how the story ended. The bears ate...

EVEN Alan Greenspan's stock is not all it was. The wise owl of the Federal Reserve has lost a feather or two. He got mobbed when the Fed intervened to stave off the collapse of...

TRADERS will bet on two drops of rain rolling down a windowpane, and the traders at Merrill Lynch, true to their instincts, are making a market in rain. This being Ameri- ca, it...

MICHEL CAMDESSUS, the International Monetary Fund's managing director, bobs up like the rubber duck which he so closely resembles. He has wheedled the money he wants out of...

THE QUEUE outside the New York Stock Exchange has shrunk. In the market's palmy days it would stretch round the cor- ner into Wall Street and sometimes got as far as Broadway....

Sir: M a heretical Protestant, it would appear to me that Piers Paul Read's con- cern for Paul Johnson's orthodoxy (`The danger to Paul', 17 October) stems from Mr Johnson's...

Sir: Paul Johnson (And another thing, 17 October) tells us that 'on a famous occasion' Darwin 'politely but firmly refused Marx's invitation to strike a Faustian bargain'. Pre-...

Sir: Concerning gossip (Shared opinion, 17 October), surely the way out of Frank Johnson's predicament is to drop sufficient hints about the identity of the two persons...

since was ever held in such affec- tion,' how was it that Elizabeth I never dared to set foot across the Trent throughout her reign? That the film Elizabeth features Durham...

Sir: Simon Hoggart (`The thirty years war', 10 October) says that the Observer was the only paper interested in Ulster affairs before 1969. That may be. But in 1968, when I was...

es in which she spoke of the love of her subjects does not mean that she was loved by them. May I congratulate Alison Weir (`The Queen who still rules us', 17 Octo- ber) on...

Sir: I am obliged gently to rebuke my for- mer colleague, John Keegan, not only for insisting (Letters, 17 October) that General Gallieni's name is not spelled with an acute...

Sir: In his entertaining and generally well- founded article ('Arms and the men', 10 October), Chapman Pincher states that Eisenhower's wartime infidelity is well docu- mented....

October advocates young girls starving themselves until they resemble stick insects, thus slight- ly prolonging their lives at the cost of ruin- ing them. It's not that I...

Sir: As many of your readers will know, the army is a deeply hierarchical institution. It seems that the tiresome desire to pull rank has not deserted my 'slightly superior'...

Sir: Irfon Roberts and Michael McAllen (Letters, 17 October), like Frank Johnson, fight the corner for the pro-Munichites. However, Irfon Roberts overlooks the fact that in...

Sir: I was painfully astonished to read (Books, 17 October) an alleged 'review' of the biography of Sir Isaiah Berlin by a Canadian journalist, prolific and respected, which I...

Sir: The answer to Max von Reimann's question (Letters, 10 October) is 'never'. If any records were kept by the troops of the Soviet Interior Ministry of its immense drive from...

He may be wild, but the Guardian shouldn't be underhanded about him STEPHEN GLOVER I met Jonathan Boyd Hunt a year ago. He is an agreeable, blond-headed fellow of about 40 who...

Now we know what the Blairites' game is, do not despair! PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE For populist purposes the goal will be described as modernisation, or the creation of a classless...

Managing a global empire Raymond Carr THE GRAND STRATEGY OF PHILIP II by Geoffrey Parker Yale, £25, pp. 464 h e historian's task, as Professor Parker rightly asserts, is to...

RATES 12 Months 6 Months (52 issues) (26 issues) UK 0 £97.00 0 £49.00 Europe CI £109.00 0 £55.00 USA 0 US$161 0 US$82 Australia U Aus$225 U Aus$113 Rest of World 0 £119.00 0...

SPECTATOR BOOKSHOP Tel: 0541 557 288

Francis King ANDRE GIDE by Alan Sheridan Hamish Hamilton, .£25, pp. 709 A s Alan Sheridan demonstrates in this exhaustive and meticulously researched biography, Andre Gide felt...

Not all fiction titles of H. G. Wells Ring bells. Hands up Anyone who's read The Bulpington of Blup. James Michie

Anita Brookner BIRDS OF AMERICA by Lorrie Moore Faber, £9.99, pp. 291 I n Hollywood films of the late 1940s and 1950s there was always a substantial role for the heroine's...

Jane Ridley FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, AVENGING ANGEL by Hugh Small Constable, £18.99, pp. 221 H istory has not been kind to Florence Nightingale. Ever since Lytton Strachey...

Giannandrea Poesio LIFE IN DANCE by Darcey Bussell with Judith Mackrell Century, £17.99, pp. 247 DANCING AWAY: A COVENT GARDEN DIARY by Deborah Bull Methuen, £16.99, pp. 218 I...

John Grigg SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES: THE PERSONAL LETIVRS OF WINSTON AND CLEMENTINE CHURCHILL edited by Mary Soames Doubleday, £25, pp. 702 W ith very rare exceptions, men of...

BookoftheWeek Florence Nightingale Avenging Angel by Hugh Small Florence Nightingale (1820 — 1910) achieved fame for her leadership of a group of British nurses during the...

Katie Grant THE ALL-TRUE TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES OF LIDIE NEWTON by Jane Smiley Flamingo, £17.99, pp. 452 C omparisons, I know, are odious. How- ever, when a book never quite...

Teresa Waugh DAUGHTER OF THE RIVER by Hong Ying Bloomsbury, £16.99, pp. 278 S o removed are we in the West from the kind of deprivation, misery and filth of a Chinese slum, so...

Andrew Barrow WOOLF AT THE DOOR: DUCKWORTH, 100 YEARS OF BLOOMSBURY BEHAVIOUR by John Jolliffe Duckworth, £16.95, pp. 105 he extraordinarily glamorous party at which this slip...

PERSONAL HEADED NOTEPAPER & CORRESPONDENCE CARDS Each set of Correspondence Cards contains: • 60 beautifully-printed A6 cards (5.3/4" x 4" approx.) in your choice of colour...

Michael Portillo AN APPETITE FOR POWER: A HISTORY OF THE CONSERVA- TIVE PARTY SINCE 1830 by John Ramsden HarperCollins, 124.99, pp. 512 A party that has been so very...

Bryan Appleyard LEONARDO'S MOUNTAIN OF CLAMS AND THE DIET OF WORMS: ESSAYS ON NATURAL HISTORY by Stephen Jay Gould Cape, £17.99, pp. 405 h is is Gould's eighth volume of essays...

D.J. Taylor THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION by Gore Vidal Little, Brown. £16.99, pp. 260 • How do the books you see e ewed get read by their reviewers? Well, I picked up Gore...

Charles Moore HOLY SMOKE by Libby Purves Hodder, .04.99, pp. 200 h ere are aspects of this book which may put the reader off, particularly The Spectator reader. To start with,...

TWO EXCLUSIVE FESTIVE TOURS FOR READERS OF THE SPECTATOR SPECTATOR READERS ARE INVITED BY TRAVEL FOR THE ARTS TO SELECT A CHRISTMAS OR NEW YEAR HOLIDAY TO COMBINE OPERA AND...

Opera: to stage or not to stage? Michael Tanner on the merits of staged, semi-staged and concert performances N ow that the cessation of staged oper- atic performances of an...

Good news, bad news Alastair Macaulay T he new Sadler's Wells is a good thing; the Rambert Dance Company is a bad thing; too bad that, to see the opening of the one, you had...

School for Scandal (Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford) Look and learn Patrick Carnegy T here's no problem about the topicality of The School for Scandal, with which the...

Love! Valor! Compassion! (Tristan Bates) An Experiment with an Air Pump (Hampstead) Filumena (Piccadilly) They didn't dare Sheridan Morley A rthur Miller once said that, if...

A perfect gentleman Mark Steyn T he first rule of Gene Autry's Cowboy Code is: 'The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.' So, mindful of...

Tom Sutcliffe goes to Wexford and finds Guinness and convivial company plus three operas nly in Ireland, surely, would a suc- cessful opera festival be based on reviving...

John Singer Sargent (Tate Gallery, till 17 January) Good vibrations Martin Gayford I don't know whether it's the autumn Weather or the labyrinthine complexities of the...

I Maya (Palazzo Grassi, Venice, till 16 May 1999) A lost world Robin Simon T he Maya had a famous ball game, to which they would invite rival teams: 'Let them come here...

Jenufa; Madams Butterfly; Un Ballo in Maschera (Welsh National Opera, Swansea) Love and betrayal Michael Tanner W elsh National Opera is taking on tour three very meaty...

Islamic discovery Susan Moore E veryone tells me that there is not much left worth buying in Britain. They may be right, but exceptional works of art do still pop up out of...

A tax-payer writes Michael Vestey O ne Friday evening some years ago, I was driving my daughter to the cinema in London and as we chatted Any Questions? was burbling away on...

It's part of the culture James Delmgpole 0 ne of the nicest people I know is a policeman. If you met him off duty, you'd never guess what he did for a living. He's...

Do you need cranking? Alan Judd One who clearly doesn't need cranking is Simon Draper, proprietor of the Palawan Press and publisher thereby of rare, expen- sive books about...

Make or break Robin Oakley C ongratulations to Lady Herries on her 66-1 victory in Australia's Caulfield Cup with Taufan's Melody. Sweet compensation for the problems she has...

A bunch of hypocrites Taki T New York alk about perfidious Albion. Or shame. Shame is a word that helps define the Blair government. A great friend of perfidious Albion comes...

Don't forget who's boss Leanda de Lisle T hose keenest to rebrand Britain as a modern, go-getting, steel and sycamore kind of place are often not merely conser- vative, but...

Sweet dreams Andrew Robson AN odd number of missing cards rate to split as evenly as possible — five missing cards are better than 2:1 on to split 3-2. But an even number of...

'restaurants du quartier' left in London: those simple establish- ments, usually with the owner as chef, or at least looking after the room, with decent, unpretentious cooking,...

Wrightson & Company Manfield Grange, Manfield, Near Darlington, N. Yorks DL2 2RE Tel: (01325) 374134 Fax: (01325) 374135 White Honore de Berticot 1997, Cotes Price No....

From our friend in the north Auberon Waugh AS AN INNOVATION with this offer, those who would like to taste the wines without venturing so far as Mr Wrightson's North Yorkshire...

Teach-in Raymond Keene SOME CHESS experts excel through play- ing results while others shine by their writ- ings and general ability to teach. It is a happy coincidence when...

Double troubles Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 2056 you were quoted the lines, 'The trouble with gerani- ums/is that they're much too red./The trou- ble with my toast is...

A first prize of 130 and a bottle of Graham's Six Grapes Port for the first correct solution opened on 9 November, with two run- ners-up prizes of £20 (or, for UK solvers, the...

The following words or phrases can all be used as expletives: coo, by George, blast, sugar, dash, gracious, mercy, dam, blow, bother, my sainted aunt, bugger. Using them...

allb R r B El %rind ring/Orrin ilefel Air Min 11 Di der NIIII as . nor riii Aron Miri V 01 T enconorir d rrii Trumne Deign jar fir lin Einimanzhanariiini3 id diargirtenr...

Picture perfect Simon Barnes 'WHEN I get home there will be a big Party,' she said after winning her gold medal at the last Olympic Games. 'People Will carry me through the...

Q. A member of the same department for nearly 25 years, I have repeatedly been turned down for promotion whilst younger colleagues have received theirs. At last I have been...