Cool for cats S elkirk Sheriff Court dismissed a case brought against a man accused of selling beef on the bone. It ruled that the Beef Bones Regulations 1997 were defective...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 0171-405 1706; Fax 0171-242 0603 THE ONE-YEAR ITCH cians and journalists are picking their part- ners for an...

T he publicity is the hard bit. Even though Edna: The Spectacle is by far the most elaborate offering I have ever pre- sented in the West End, it's almost a breeze pushing the...

On its fiftieth anniversary, Israel is visited by our lucky Prime Minister BRUCE ANDERSON S uccess breeds success. It was almost inevitable that Mr Blair would have a good...

On coming to an old house as both restorer and destroyer MATTHEW PARRIS F rom the top of the cliff, as the track turned a corner, we could see the whole Mediterranean coast of...

Help! the Guardian's Head of Press and Corporate Affairs has got physical with me FRANK JOHNSON I have received a threatening letter from a well-known firm, seeking to...

Andrew Brown on who the next Pope might be, and the crisis of celibacy that he will face IT IS a mortal sin to wish for the death of a Pope, something which must have made it...

`WRONG again,' said my husband, plumping down on the kitchen table The Spectator open at the letter from Sir Julian Critchley (18 April) about my speculations on the origin of...

Andrew Neil laments the break-up of the marriage of Anna and Rupert Murdoch WHEN the Evening Standard left a mes- sage on my voice-mail early on Tuesday morning asking me to...

WOMEN are the weaker sex, but they are getting stronger, or at least more vio- lent, by the day. Strength and violence are not necessarily identical, of course, but let us not...

AWFUL Whitehall wants Peter Mandelson to have an even bigger role WHITEHALL'S attitude to ministerial reshuffles is like that of a grizzled sergeant-major towards a foolhardy...

Kenneth Powell unveils some of the even more 'bizarre' millennium projects HE MAY have taken a back seat, but John Major is keeping a close and proprietorial watch on the...

Michael Heath

Robert Shepherd on how a notorious speech affected the friendship of two renowned Tories THE DEBATE about Enoch Powell's `River Tiber' speech was revived when he died in...

How to save yourself 51 trips to the library . . . or over £41 on The Spectator If you're forced to share The Spectator with fellow students, then you'll know how difficult it...

Julian Glover visits Africa's newest state to find its inhabitants surprisingly nostalgic for the days of Mussolini's occupation Asmara THOUGH the Italian army surrendered to...

Henry McDonald finds that the Islamist party is adopting a more emollient approach particularly towards bibulous Westerners THE HEZBOLLAH spin doctor poked his mobile phone...

Song before sunrise from an irritating but unrepentant idiosyncratic PAUL JOHNSON W e are approaching the time of year when I get up really early. I like to follow the sun,...

EXPORTING is something we are good at — more than a third of our total output of goods and services is sold abroad — but you would not think so from the Queen's Awards for...

WHEN Mr George was a junior subaltern, his seniors would rush out and march inter- est rates to the top of the hill. The idea was to show that, from there, rates could only...

I THOUGHT so: it's a hold-up on the Dart Valley Railway. A few weeks ago its share- holders were startled to hear from an outfit called Value Investments, offering to buy their...

All this sitcom needs is a guest appearance by the grand old Duke of York CHRISTOPHER FILDES I t is time that the Duke of York was recalled to the colours. He is all that the...

I APPLAUD the initiative of Kishun Dhoj Karki, who has smuggled himself and three kilograms of hashish into Australia by pass- ing himself off as the finance minister of Nepal....

WHAT a versatile chap Geoffrey Robinson is. Variously active at home and abroad or offshore, as he might put it — he is the government's resident tax reformer, signs its cheques...

Sir: Peregrine Worsthorne writes of the British Empire, 'Terrible wrongs were done, not on the scale of the Holocaust but getting on that way' (As I was saying, 11 April). To...

leaves me with a grey area and perhaps he would kindly comment. Was his beautiful Geor- gian manor house in fact built from the blood and sweat of the forebears of Mr Darcus...

to his present edu- cational task touched on 'only part of a rev- olutionary daze which settled on South Yorkshire in the Blunkett era'. My abiding memory of that era was seeing...

Sir: I'm pleased that Peter Hitchens has such an interest in the history of Sheffield (Blunkett past and present', 18 April). However, I do take issue with his ridiculous...

Sir: Time was when the New Statesman was referred to as a 'David amongst Goliaths'. It was at a time when the paper had also clocked up a circulation of over 90,000 copies; when...

Sir: One reason for the increase in the Front National's vote at the regional elec- tions in France, to which Douglas Johnson refers in his piece, 'From Papon to Le Pen' (11...

Sir: Matthew Parris travels frequently to Barcelona (Another voice, 28 March), I and my family to Madrid. I would say that Barcelona is a `naffer' destination, but I don't think...

Sir: We all miss Alice von Schlieffen. Here is another question for the Almanach de Gotha experts: who is Claus von Billow? Michael Samuelson Harborne, Hailsham Road,...

Sir: I read Anthony Daniels's 'The Third World in Britain' (18 April) with interest and some sympathy. However, I was aston- ished to read his final sentence, 'They will find...

The letter to the Times which somehow didn't appear STEPHEN GLOVER I n war almost everyone slips up, and the Daily Telegraph has overreached itself once or twice in its battle...

Without a city wall once more Richard Lamb FAUST'S METROPOLIS by Alexandra Richie HarperCollins, £29.99, pp.1107 T his engrossing book is published at an opportune moment,...

Harry Eyres THE TELLING by Miranda Seymour John Murray, f15.99, pp. 230 T he seed was sown, or the fertiliser spread, for Miranda Seymour's fourth novel by some murky events...

Andro Linklater COLD MOUNTAIN by Charles Frazier Sceptre, £6.99, pp. 438 F or all the glamour of California, the grandeur of Montana and the glitz of Hawaii, I would rate North...

Jane Gardam THE COMPLETE AUTOBIGRAPHY by Janet Frame Women's Press, £20.00, pp.435 W hen Janet Frame returned to New Zealand aged 40, in 1964, after seven years in Europe, she...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY- I I I I I RATES 12 Months 6 Months UK 0 £93.00 U £47.00 Europe (airmail) U £104.00 U £52.00 USA Airspeed 0 US$151 CI US$76 Rest of l Airmail CI £115.00 LI...

Francis King CALAMITIES OF EXILE by Lawrence Weschler Universtiy of Chicago Press, £19.95, pp. 192 N o doubt on the principle that one might describe Flaubert's Trois Contes...

James Michie MASTER GEORGIE by Beryl Bainbridge Duckworth, £14.99, pp. 190 B eryl Bainbridge's new 'historical fiction' starts with a murky mystery in her own Liverpool, in...

Liliana Brisby KOSOVO: A SHORT HISTORY by Noel Malcolm Macmillan, £20.00, pp. 442 N oel Malcolm's eagerly awaited history of Kosovo — the first of its kind — does not...

David Irvine PARIS TRANCE by Geoff Dyer Abacus, £9.99, pp. 274 T here is an initial fear that a book called Paris Trance may join the ranks of the increasingly hackneyed...

William Scammell TOO TRUE by Blake Morrison Granta, £9.99, pp. 326 B lake Morrison's career is a standing refutation of John Gross's thesis about the death of the man of...

SPECTATOR READERS ARE INVITED BY CULTURAL TRAVEL SPECIALISTS TRAVEL FOR THE ARTS, TO SELECT A HOLIDAY AT TWO OF ITALY'S MOST FAMOUS MUSIC FESTIVALS FROM THE LIGURIAN TO THE...

Teresa Waugh A DEFENCE OF MASOCHISM by Anita Phillips Faber, £9.99, pp. 307 I t is not easy to envisage the readership at which Anita Phillips is aiming in A Defence of...

In Michael Howard's review of Jeremy Black's Why Wars Happen (18 April) refer- ence was made to 'another 11 years, and 50 years of hideously destructive conflict'. This should...

A mong voluminous column inches devoted to the Ulster peace process, President Clinton's over-indulgence in what the Italians call 'Turkish practices' or the circumambient...

Weekend with Wagner Michael Tanner goes to Berlin and hears one of the best Meistersingers ever E ach of Berlin's three opera houses had a Wagner opera on over the Easter...

Aalto appeal Alan Powers T o judge a building, there is no substi- tute for seeing the real thing. To see the most important works of the Finnish archi- tect Alvar Aalto...

U-Turn (18, selected cinemas) Farce for acid freaks Mark Steyn V anity Fair's James Wolcott calls the genre `scuzz cinema', which sounds about right. You know the sort of...

John Wonnacott's East Anglian Coast (Wolsey Art Gallery, Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich, till 10 May) Essex man Martin Gayford S t Ives is not the only spot in the United...

The Iceman Cometh (Almeida) Our Lady of Sligo (National Theatre, Cottesloe) Shared terror Sheridan Morley T he Iceman Cometh, Eugene O'Neill's great, flawed masterpiece,...

Stressed out James Delingpole A part from The Adam and Joe Show, the best thing I've seen on television this week is Tomb Raider. As the sadder among you will be aware, this...

Famous faces Michael Vestey I t was almost a shock to hear Kate Adie's measured tones linking despatches in the newly extended From Our Own Correspon- dent on Radio Four...

Plane talk Gavin Stamp A 'rports are not places to linger as the experience of air travel on the ground is usually anxious, confusing — and ugly. As buildings (`architecture'...

My flat favourites Robin Oakley P yramus never yearned for Thisbe nor even Bunter for his postal order with quite the ardour with which each year I await my first glimpse of...

Artistic antics Taki uring the late-Fifties, I was a regular at El Morocco, the trendiest and chicest nightspot of the Bagel. Elmo's was zebra- striped, had a strict hierarchy...

Excuses, excuses Leanda de Lisle L ast year I praised Anthony O'Hear's essay 'Against Nature', which was pub- lished by the Social Affairs Unit. It attacked environmentalists...

Discouraging Andrew Robson WHEN a defence has gone astray, it is more constructive to ask `What could I have done to make it easier for partner?' than 'Why am I playing with...

Some like it old Auberon Waugh IF I had not insisted on including the last wine on the list — the Château Tourteran 1989 — we could have kept the average price of the mixed...

cio C.G. Bull & Taylor 2F Hewlett House, Havelock Terrace, London SW8 4AS Tel: (0171) 498 8022 Fax: (0171) 498 7851 White Domaine de la Croix Senaillet, Price No. Value...

By David Fingleton Paris THIS is the time to be dining in Paris. When I wrote about Parisian restaurants early last year there were just eight and a half francs to the pound,...

Title deeds Raymond Keene THE WORLD chess championship does matter. That is, unless one accepts the cyni- cal view of Viswanathan Anand that after Kasparov's defeat by Deep...

Funny ha-ha Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 2030 you were challenged to write a comic piece ending with a given, apparently tragic sentence taken from a modern novel. The...

W. & J. GRAHAM'S PORT A first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham's Six Grapes Port for the first correct solution opened on 11 May, with two runners-up prizes of £20 (or,...

You are invited to supply a sonnet with these end-rhymes in this order: swarm, Paul, all, harm, alarm, relief, beef, gen- darmes, fraud, any, many, king, thing, out- lawed....

To enable competitors to economise on postage, entries for one or more weeks of the competition and/or crossword may be posted together under one cover addressed 'Competition...

N S e C H 7 1 9 5 T 9 R D 10 A T111_ Al 13 . 741 55l. ' 9 1 LIDO VE 1 EL N 0 L i b L A hEIS O N E T L AP AIT LE URe 1E E U T A D RI AD , lAtS R13 I P ' . b A AR S 7...

Au revoir, Eric Simon Barnes THE football season is on its last knock- ings, and across the land football's follow- ers sort out the Man of the Season from the rest. It seems...

Q. I have trouble remembering names of the 300 to 500 students who take my classes each year. I feel badly when we meet on campu s — and years later — and see faces fall when I...