T he Foreign and Commonwealth Office never allows itself the time to ask what is Britain's interest in the Commonwealth. It asks, of course, what is Britain's interest in each...

The Browning version Charles Moore 'Meyer glad confident morning again,' said Paul Johnson, and Mrs Thatcher fled to India. But was the morning ever all that confident or...

M r Graham Walton, the father of the Liverpool sextuplets, has shown en- viable cheerfulness in the face of the terrify- ing domestic upheaval which he now faces. Has he thought...

UK Eire Surface mail Air mail 6 months: 07.25 1R.07.25 £20.50 £26.50 One year: £34.50 1RL34.50 £41.00 £53.00 Cheques to be made payable to the Spectator and sent to...

Timothy Garton Ash recently in Warsaw T he Spectator is a small, barely legible magazine. It measures about six inches by four and contains some 130 hand-cut pages of smudged...

Christopher Hitchens I n 1955, the year that the Greek Cypriots began their revolt against the British oc- cupation, Charles Foley was editor of the Times of Cyprus. In his...

This week's question, set by Kingsley Amis, is to be found on page 41.

James Hughes-Onslow t is a little known fact that Harold Holt, It Australian Prime Minister who disap- peared while swimming in 1967, had a lesser misfortune three years...

Simon Courtauld Madrid inurin g the first weeks of the Civil War, in the hills of the Sierra Morena, a village priest was taken from his church to the local bull-ring. A bull...

Andrew Brown Belfast T he day after the Armagh murders I stopped to buy some cigarettes in a peaceful bohemian part of town. The shopkeeper, a healthy-looking bespectacled man...

Mr Shaw Lefevre should look still more narrowly into the proposal of the Metropolitan Railway to connect Praed Street with Westminster. The line would be invaluable, if it could...

Pearson Phillips e's got a speaking engagement at -11..Yarrow,' said Monsignor Bruce Kent's secretary, who is called Judy. Yarrow? Where's that? 'In the North-East,...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington T n 1863 a force of Confederate irregulars 'under William Quantrill captured Lawrence, Kansas, burned it and put its in- habitants to the sword....

Paul Johnson However, the real money-spinning gim- mick in this particular TV show was that, though billed under the category of 'Theatre', it was also what American TV men...

295/297 New Cross Road, , London SE14 Tel: 01 - 892 8993 We are one of London's remaining traditional curers of smoked salmon and are still using smoke holes which date back to...

Mr Lawson lays it on the line Jock Bruce-Gardyne T he other day, in the run-up to the Chancellor's autumn statement, 1 was asked to talk to a conference organised by a leading...

Sir: One does not have to be a sycophantic admirer of the Archbishop of Canterbury to find the article on him by A. N. Wilson (`Doing the Lambeth walk', 12 November) extremely...

of the Tablet (12 November), he seems to have hoped to revisit Brideshead . What a disappointment! And then he struck a snide review of the biographY of his own grandfather,...

Waugh on want Sir: Auberon Waugh believes he has found a new means of identifying political subver- sives — apparently they have a tendency to abbreviate their Christian names....

Sir: Paul Johnson writing on 'Epistolary dons' (19 November) evidently lives a very sheltered life insulated from the harsh realities of the academic world if he really thinks...

a cover-to-cover reader. I do not expect to agree with everything that appears in it, indeed I hold that in a civilised society a difference of opinion adds to the spice of...

pen on a point which has concerned me for a long time. It has always struck me as unfair that someone with a prestigious address but mundane name should get away with having...

Sir: Listening to a radio programme about the great and growing problem of youth unemployment, an elegant scheme presented itself to me, and one which I think might recommend...

religiously when Douglas Woodruff was the editor. It then had a splendid masthead motto. It deserves capitals: 'PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGINA, ET PRO PATRIA'. What better...

Sir: You write (Notebook, I October) that Sir Ernest Debenham, the department store magnate, bequeathed his collection of Korean and Chinese ceramics to the Victoria and Albert...

A policeman's lot Colin Welch I f I were Sir Kenneth Newman, Com- missioner of the Metropolitan Police, I would not thank my predecessor, Sir David McNee, for his poisoned...

A political Prince J. Enoch Powell Albert, Prince Consort Robert Rhodes James (Hamish Hamilton £12.50) W hat a compulsive author the honour- able Member for Cambridge is....

Christopher Hawtree Required Writing Philip Larkin (Faber & Faber £4.95) f I seem good, it's because everyone else is so bad,' Philip Larkin once observ- ed. 'Well, almost...

John Stewart Collis The Human Body Jonathan Miller and David Pelham (Cape £7.95) D r Jonathan Miller, the author of this book, is a man of parts, though not a man apart. The...

William Camp F.E. Smith, First Earl of Birkenhead John Campbell (Jonathan Cape £30) c onsidering that he was the cleverest and most fascinating public man of his time, it is...

William Camp is the author of The Glittering Prizes, a life of F.E. Smith. Francis King's most recent novel, Act of Darkness, was published earlier this year. Caroline...

Francis King Woman Beware Woman Emma Tennant (Jonathan Cape £7.95) A s its title, echoing that of a tragedy by Middleton, would suggest, this short, allusive, packed novel is...

Caroline Moorehead Outback Thomas Keneally (Hodder & Stoughton £12.95) In Search of the Sahara Quentin Crewe (Michael Joseph £12.95) Tt is hoped', writes Thomas Keneally in a...

Peter Levi The New Testament in Scots W. L. Lorimer (Canongate £17.50) Acts and Letters of the Apostles Richmond Lattimore (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux £10.95) . L. Lorimer was...

Peter Quennell Paris John Russell (Thames & Hudson £25) The Crazy Years: Paris in the Twenties William Wiser (Thames & Hudson £8.95) D uring the 18th century, itinerant...

Dog days Peter Ackroyd Cujo (`18', selected cinemas) S tephen King must take the primary responsibility for Cujo, since he wrote it. His novels have often been successful in...

Watcher John McEwen Reg Butler (Tate Gallery till 15 January 1984) w hen Reg Butler died at the age of 68 in October 1981, plans were already underfoot for him to have a show...

Points of view Peter Phillips T he Great British Music Festival has now presented three of its six concerts in this its first ever season, and a second round for next year was...

Song and dance Giles Gordon Dancin' (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane) Dear Anyone (Cambridge) Sleeping Policemen (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs) Outlaw (Arts) T he grandest show of...

Show business Taki New York A rabella Pollen is a 22-year-old English girl who, like everyone else these days, designs clothes for women. Although I'm a friend of hers, I was...

Devil-worship Richard Ingrams I it possible that the BBC's God Slot on 'Sunday has now been replaced by a Devil Slot? The question occurred to me while watching a documentary...

Favourites Jeffrey Bernard t's been a particularly soft and unin- teresting week. So I shall have to diver- sify. Firstly, foremost and most awful, John Le Mesurier died....

All Saints' P.J. Kavanagh ?The otherwise admirable Miles Kin g ton 1 came up with a rum radio pro g ramme to mark All Saints' Day and I have been ponderin g it, off and on,...

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for a poem or a piece of prose putting the case that the Devil is female. The Devil is a woman. How the devil do I know? A woman's...

Grim reaper Raymond Keene Age has struck its first blow against youth .1 - 1.in the Acorn Computer World Cham- pionship semi-finals. Curiously, both mat- ches see venerable...

No. 1297: Christmas story Set by Jaspistos: You are invited to write a Christmas story of approximately 750 words in a Christmassy or any other spirit. There will be one prize...

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A prize of len pounds will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 12 December. Entries to: Crossword 635, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 21.1. 1...

If you missed the previous weeks' issues, it is still possible to enter the competition. Back numbers arc available from: The Spectator, Competition Back Numbers, 56 Doughty...

The first prize is a magnificent 1934 'hinder Saloon, which is illustrated above. It is fully licensed and in excellent condition having had only two owners. The car is valued...

1. Dame Edna Everage will introduce one question by a different person in each issue of The Spectator from now until the 10 December issue. 2. Do not send in your replies each...

with Dame Edna Everage Hello Possums! When I first began my miracle career, the front rank of Melbourne's top drama -critics in describing me invariably used the adverb:...

F ollowing the decision of the Bundestag in Bonn to allow the siting of American Pershing 2 missiles in West Ger- many, Russia walked out of the arms con- trol negotiations with...

BARTLETT'S UNFAMILIAR QUOTATIONS by L. L. Levinson and 'A World Treasury of Proverbs' by H. Davidoff. Patrick Hughes, 14 Thornhill Square, London NI. THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF...