ilidePendent Czechoslovakia came into being sixty years a go. This year sees too the anniversary of three other e i. vents in that country's short and melancholy history: the...

Well before his death this week, Jomo Kenyatta appeared to be losing his grip. A year ago an influential white farmer, who was a friend of his, decided to leave Kenya where he...

The house of the dead Auberon Waugh In the lon g and protracted discussion of Solzhenitsyn's critique of Western society Much has been enthralling Spectator reade rs througho...

Xan Smiley He was an old-fashioned Kikuyu nationalist. His real beliefs would have amazed and shocked the smiling English do-gooders with whom, in the Thirties, he discussed...

C hristopher Booker hope that this week of the tenth annivers ary of the crushing of the most celebrated attempt in our century to give 'Communism a human face' may seem an...

Richard West Dublin In last week's article I described how Dublin Corporation plans to demolish and make into a car-park most of the inner city immortalised by Sean O'Casey in...

Jan Morris Great News! Last week they crossed the Atlantic by balloon! Never mind that they have been crossing it in aeroplanes and airships for half a century. Never mind that...

Patrick Cosgrave Speaking as somebody who has been divorced I could, if I wanted to, work up a logically based lather of rage at the Home Office's proposal (supported, informed...

Who needs the Press Council? The f • irst duty of the Press Council • is to Protect the freedom of the Press. In view of recent developments one must conclude that the Council...

One of Professor Hiodey's remarks on the awful stupidity evinced by mankind in sticking to any groove of intellectual habit which had once been found useful, received a curious...

The long revolution Nicholas Davenport James Morell, the economist of the Charterhouse Group, who is not averse to making highly tentative optimistic forecasts, has become...

S ir: I have just read Alexander Chancellor's a ccount of his unfortunate brush with the National Health Service and it would be i nteresting to know why my story is so very d...

T , L agree with Colin Brewer (5 August) mat if the IUD is conclusively proved to be abortifacient rather than contraceptive it Ivshhooulsdeebk o e to condemned by . all T r...

Sir: Reference Germaine Greer's article `Cheechee and bandicoot' the past participle of the German verb 'be ten' (to pray) is `gebetet' , 1) beten, betete, gebetet — to pray. 2)...

Sir: That, as he writes, Mr Richard Ingrams has a prejudice against homosexuals (almost certainly learned rather than 'natural') must long have been evident to readers of...

Sir: 1 see from her letter to you (11 August) that Miss Victoria Schofield, who contributed an article only a fortnight earlier to your columns on the subject of Mr Bhutto's...

Sir: I have been asked to edit a volume of paintings and drawings by my mother, Sylvia Pankhurst, and would be grateful to hear from any reader owning or knowing the whereabouts...

Love's spell and black magic Francis King The Sea, The Sea Iris Murdoch (Chatto £5.50) The hero and narrator of Iris Murdoch's new novel is one of the leading theatrical...

Richard Ingrams tLiving with a Stranger: A Discourse on "e,.. Human Body John Stewart Collis R acdonald E6.50) l it is always tempting to over-praise negected writers and John...

Benny Green Charlie e525 lieChaplin John McCabe (Robson Bo John McCabe is a bold biographer as well as an honest one. His previous experiments in the genre, particularly his...

Alex de Jonge I don't know whether it is the time of year but the science fiction I've seen over the last months has either been dull or consisted of c ollections of short...

Summer treats Peter Jenkins Vieux Carrie (Piccadilly Theatre) Love's Labour's Lost (RSC, Stratford) There's no telling quite what will and wh et won't work in the theatre....

Star music Ted Whitehead FM (Plaza) I suppose we should deplore the idea of film being used to promote music, but there's a nice irony in the fact that the current wave of...

Slav gloom Richard Ingrams In recent months a lot of people have become much more anti-Russia than they were a year or two ago. This is not a factor of a general swing to the...

Two Yorkists Alan Gibson I have had some long and wearying journeys lately, not improved by crowded and dallying trains, frequently wet and gloomy Weather, and cricket which...

Whitewashing Taki In the autumn of 1962 Oleg Cassini, Jacqueline Kennedy's dress designer, rang me at the Sherry Netherland Hotel in New York. There was to be a party in his...

Making hay Jeffrey Bernard Recent investigations into rural low life lead me to believe that my neighbours could do far better if they really tried. They love to tell an...

Opera's future Geoffrey Wheatcroft Last week I talked about the operas which I had seen at the Bayreuth, Munich and Salzburg Festivals. In fact they have be come more and more...

It is not really surprising that the obituaries failed to do justice to Nicolas Bentley who died after a short illness last week. He was such a self-effacing and genuinely...