'Oh, my God, look! Half of Ian Paisley has rubbed off on Major.' M r John Major, the Prime Minister, made a little joke in the Commons calling Mr John Smith, the leader of the...

Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 LESSON IN LAW L et's kill all the lawyers!' Listening to some of the evidence at the Scott Inquiry, it is hard not to...

Johnny Major beats up Johnny Foreigner: always a vote-winner SIMON HEFFER I t is touching that so many of you obvi- ously read as far as the end of last week's column — or,...

I was fascinated by reports that women's struggle, too long delayed, for equality has resulted in them taking over the pastime, and some of the potential humiliations, of men....

Give us the tools and we will finish the job CHARLES MOORE P eople in Britain are more frightened of crime than ever before, according to an opinion poll. The two most notable...

In the past two years, 300 criminal prosecutions have judicial cancer of witness intimidation HEATHER CHAPPELL'S friends and family don't know where she is or what has happened...

MISS Diane Abbott, the Labour MP, said the other day that being a mother helped her career in the Commons 'because I can put up with a lot of child- ish babble'. I know exactly...

Johnathan Sunley explains how Russia subverts the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union Tiraspol, Dniestr Republic, Moldova GENERAL LEBED is the consummate...

persist. . . WHY CAN'T the English learn their children how to speak? Only last week I was consulted by an 18-year-old man of normal though not brilliant intelligence who had...

William Cash joins Los Angeles' leading hunt clubs, and witnesses their peculiar interpretations of British blood sports Los Angeles AT THE Oscar awards ceremony, a din-...

Returning home after five years in Brussels, Boris Johnson argues that London house prices are still crazily high THERE USED to be an iron law of eco- nomics, I think, that...

Sheridan Morley discusses the problems and advantages of growing old in the theatre with Sir John Gielgud, who is 90 next month A COUPLE of years ago, when I was just starting...

Take your seats on the White Cliffs for the coming Continental earthquake PAUL JOHNSON F or the benefit of their Eurosceptic crit- ics within the Conservative Party, John...

HARRODS USED to have a splendid banking hall, with acres of green leather benches where the better class of customer could rest from her exertions. Punch once drew two of them...

THE LORD Mayor of London, Paul Newall, is beating the drum for the export industry all around him. It brings in a net £19 billion a year — and not, as some underbriefed minister...

TO LORD Inchcape goes the credit of frustrating what may be the silliest takeover ever seriously meant. This was P & O's bid, 20 years ago, for Bovis the builders, to secure the...

THE SIX-LEGGED yurt must be extinct in Africa, for the World Bank reports no trace of it. There are ghosts, though. I am sorry about the yurt, which (as you may recall) was...

CREDIT LYONNAIS, France's answer to Barclays, has turned to its shareholder for new capital. Like Air France, it is lucky to belong to a soft-touch government with a deep...

A feeding frenzy for paying the gas bill — it's just what the Chancellor wants CHRISTOPHER FILDES L ke fish, markets have feeding fren- zies, sudden rushes of money to the...

Sir: Matthew Parris praises the Prime Min- ister's 'very English' middle position on Maastricht — between the Europhobes, who want to keep our national sovereignty, and the...

Sir: I have just seen Andrew Kenny's inter- esting article on CFCs and the ozone layer ('The earth is fine; the problem is the greens', 12 March). He is quite right about the...

Sir: Kenneth Roberts purports to be an enemy of Nazism. Yet in his article accus- ing Croatia of subscribing to this ideology, he displays a mastery of the techniques of...

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Sir: Charles Moore's paean of praise for penis-hunters (Another voice, 12 March) is objectionable not so much because it is an apologia for aphrodisia nor because it is a...

Sir: Concerning English counties, J. Enoch Powell writes: 'Staffordshire is not a place of its own. It is an oblong slab of country situat- ed in the West Midlands, in between...

Sir: In the 40 years Roald Dahl was my neighbour and friend he never showed me anything but kindness, hospitality, generosi- ty and sagacity (Books, 19 March). He was the mental...

Sir: Let me point Dot Wordsworth to the origin of the use of the name Lynch in its relation to lynch law (Mind your language, 26 February). The Anglo-Norman mayor of the city of...

blend of sensitivity and common sense. His description of the Balliol 'handshaking' ceremony (Long life, 19 February) remind- ed me of a similar ritual that took place at the...

Sir: It is an interesting day when your esteemed wine correspondent Mr Auberon Waugh suggests that it would be difficult to distinguish a 15-year-old shiraz or syrah from a...

Sir: Anne Applebaum (`The lesser of two evils?', 12 February) is right to point up our selectiveness in remembering the horrors of our age. Try asking people this question:...

As political counsellor and later Charge d'Affaires in Peking from 1966 to 1969, Sir Percy Cradock saw the worst of the Cultural Rev- olution; as ambassador there from 1978 to...

AS IS natural in an age like this, when fervid minds will believe anything except Christianity, plans for creating Utopias are pretty common. Some Austrians are founding a...

The sadness of a sick generation Rupert Christiansen BAUDELAIRE by Joanna Richardson John Murray, £30, pp. 602 B audelaire once asked his publisher to send Tennyson a...

Alan Ross ARCTIC CONVOYS by Richard Woodman John Murray, £25, pp. 532 T he June 1941 German invasion of Russia, which wrote off 1,000 Russian air- craft by noon on the first...

Alasdair Palmer THE DEATH OF ECONOMICS by Paul Ormerod Faber, £14.99, pp. 230 C harles II, one of the shrewdest individuals ever to rule England, took a keen interest in...

Anita Brookner A CHANGE OF CLIMATE by Hilary Mantel Viking, £15, pp. 342 H ilary Mantel's new novel — by far her most assured — deals with no less a subject than good and evil....

Peter Levi GREECE: A LITERARY COMPANION by Martin Garrett John Murray, £30, pp. 16.99, pp. 228 T his is the kind of book that looks easy to write but is not — not in the least....

Patrick Skene Catling THE PUGILIST AT REST by Thom Jones Faber, £14.99, pp. 230 T estosterone gushes abundantly through these short stories about death in war, deep-sea diving...

Adam Zamoyski THE GLANCE OF COUNTESS HAHN-HAHN by Peter Esterhazy Weidenfeld, £14.95, pp. 246 P eter Esterhazy does not like the concept of 'Central Europe', which he sees as a...

man in a donkey jacket Ian Aitken MICHAEL FOOT by Mervyn Jones Gollancz, £20, pp. 570 P eople who assert that poor John Major has been the victim of uniquely brutal treatment...

Where our path emerged from Gradbach Wood To upland and March-turbid skies, A lonely gritstone hill-farm stood. And curlews, hear. Across the moor The east wind brought their...

Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser is reassessed by Rhoda Koenig T he American Dream — of comfort, power, freedom, beauty, pink Cadillacs, love unending — has been pursued by...

The jellyfish are drifting to the land: Fluttered by faint currents they have reached The clear shallows already, the ramps of sand — A fleet of liquid cupolas, sliding,...

Exhibitions Goya: Truth and Fantasy — the Small Paintings (Royal Academy, till 12 June) Show of strength Giles Auty E en from 30,000 feet, Spain bears lit- tle resemblance...

Twyla Tharp Dance (Riverside Studios) Ballet Cristina Hoyos, Compania Nacional de Danze (Sadler's Wells) At sixes and sevens Sophie Constanti T he American choreographer...

The Birthday Party (National Theatre) Glyn and It (Richmond) Democracy (Bush) Hippy Birthday Sheridan Morley P inter's The Birthday Party, now on the National's Lyttelton...

FAA11115 MA A monthly selection of forthcoming events recommended by The Spectator's regular critics OPERA La Rondine, Grand Theatre, Leeds (0532 459351) from 14 April. Long...

Sister Act 2 ('PG', Selected cinemas) Of dog-collars and wimples Mark Steyn A busy week for Beethoven, both the distinguished composer (1770-1827) and his canine namesake (b....

'Never, never drive a Volvo' Martyn Harris C ar programmes used just to mean Top Gear and Wilf Woollard in string-back driving gloves, but they have gone all post- modern...

Bravest of the brave Taki A ndrew Fraser, the youngest of Lord Lovat's children, was a friend of long standing. Last week he was charged by a wounded buffalo while on safari...

Serves you right Jeffrey Bernard T he idleness which has been forced upon me and which I have always wanted so much is beginning to bore the arse off me. Only visitors and...

Loveliest of pulsatillas Nigel Nicolson W hen I was 15 or so, we were visited by the famous Cretan rebel, Eleutherios Venizelos, who became Prime Minister of Greece. He was...

Save yourself a spell in purgatory Auberon Waugh N ethergate, which older punters may remember as Redpath and Thackray, always strong in hefty Rh6ne wines, is back after a...

c/o Nethergate Wines Ltd. 11/13 High Street, Clare, Suffolk C010 8NY. Tel: (0787) 277244 Fax: (0787) 277123 White Cotes du Rh6ne Prieure St Julien Price No. Value...

L.4.0 1 Lit"1—)PALJOLAL.0 WE HAVE HAD St Patrick and dear St Joseph, who I always think is the best saint to help out — such good connections. Now we are in purple Passion week,...

'TeaUMMOND's PURE MALT , S U(nrii WHIMO Villanelle Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1822 you were invited to write a villanelle about a once heavenly place that is now...

SPAIN'S FINEST= 4 0 The Greatest? Raymond Keene KARPOV'S RESULT at Linares has fuel- led considerable speculation as to whether it was the greatest single tournament per-...

'If Descartes were alive today, he'd be the first one to see the potential of 2,700 acres of prime development site, buried in the heart of a vibrant capital city and fronted by...

CROSSWORD (GRAHAM'S PORT GRAHAM'S PORT A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 11 April, with two...

Y SI A SA I '.1) A FI R I O APITALI%E_ VIECL INAT aDRAT IPG A J T H I 201. W 1 R ANC H, L E- lt E •A DSON A EF I r C uj EIN- 171EIEI E ILON,28SHORE IRA E 'UBEI FIEI R L F Il dr...

Caribbean princes Frank Keating THE DAILY reports from the Caribbean are somehow more gruesome than ever because we invested Master Atherton's young guard with such new-leaf...

a tipping dilemma (17 March). For future reference she might follow the example of the Japanese, many of whom cam ready-wrapped presents of small items, such as leather wallets,...