T was asked this week to attend a debate 1 at the Institute of Contemporary Art on 'The Revival of the Political Journal'. I went along partly because the title sounded...

The stock market took a nose-dive, wiping £5,000 million off the value of shares in the worst fall since 1976. Dealers were responding to the Government's efforts to restore...

The day of the Thatcherites Ferdinand Mount During all the commotion, Mr Michael Hese!tine, untouched by the hiring and firing, was back in Liverpool .opening something. This...

Endangered elephants Auberon Waugh A friend walking down Regent Street the other day was surprised to see a notice in the Russian Intourist Agency window advertising trips to...

Sam White Paris Things are beginning to go badly for France's four-month-old Socialist government. Even though no one expected miracles from it — though miracles, if not...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington It appears that Congress is going to stop Mr Reagan from selling his fancy radar planes to the Saudis. This should not be taken as a sign of...

Timothy Garton Ash Berlin 'C afe Chaos' is painted in psychedelic colours on the crumbling facade. A summons to the violent 'Anti-Haig-Demo' still hangs in the window. It shows...

Murray Sayle Putting in my claim for Sir James Goldsmith's new 00,000 journalism prize this early is, I know, going to be criticised in some quarters as jumping the gun. Sir...

The situation in Tunis is becoming a little clearer. Besides the 32,000 men in Algeria, the French have now 33,000 in Tunis, and 5,000 more are to arrive before 1 October. The...

Peter Paterson The humiliation of Mr John Silkin is not the least of the crimes to be laid at the door of Mr Alex Kitson, temporarily the leader of the Transport and General...

Caesar's organ Paul Johnson `Sir, your wife, under pretence of keeping a bawdy house, is a receiver of stolen goods.' It is not yet clear whether Dr Johnson's famous riposte...

The pound in crisis Tony Rudd Every British government since the war has had to cope with a sterling crisis and it is now clear that Mrs Thatcher's government is going to be...

Judgment at Klagenfurt Sir: Count Tolstoy rightly points out (19 September) that if German officials were the ones who had been involved in sending off millions to Stalin's...

Sir: I was deeply astonished by your illinformed statement in your 29 August issue in the Notebook to the effect that in New Zealand the anti-Springbok rioters are being...

Sir: At first sight the appointment of Jim Prior to the post of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland looks like a good joke played by Mrs Thatcher at the expense of Messrs...

Sir: A correspondent was recently regretting in your columns (30 May) that Forbidden Journey by Ella Maillart was out of print. Some of your readers may be interested to know...

Sir: Mr Howse's suggestion (Letters, 12 September) that `the accepted wisdom of the majority is already making life in our society so loathsome that there would soon be a queue...

Victorians in armour Harold Acton The Return to Camelot: Chivalry and the English Gentleman Mark Girouard (Yale University Press pp.312, £12.50) At a first glance I imagined...

Francis King Life Stories A. L. Barker (Hogarth pp. 319, £6.95) Like V. S. Pritchett — with whose work, quirky and poetic, hers has much in common — A. L. Barker is a good...

Christopher Hibbert King Charles I Pauline Gregg (Dent pp. 496, £12.50) 'Upon my word!' the Prince Regent once exclaimed after scrutinising one of Van Dyck's pictures of his...

A. L. Rowse A Devon Family: The Story of the Aclands Anne Acland (Phillimore pp. 192, £7.50) Thousands of biographies are published; family histories are few and far between....

Paul Foot The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain: Volume I, The Nineteenth Century Stephen Koss (Hamish Hamilton, pp. 480 £20) One cannot hope to bribe or twist,...

Patrick Leigh Fermor Literary Lifelines: The Richard AldingtonLawrence Durrell Correspondence ed. Ian S. Macniven and Harry T. Moore (Faber pp. 236, £8.95) Aldington's share in...

Richard Shone Diana Cooper Philip Ziegler (Hamish Hamilton pp. 336, £9.95) I do not think Philip Ziegler was welladvised to publish this book during the life time of its...

Fantasies Peter ALkroyd City of Women ('X', selected cinemas) Frederico Fellini doesn't have ideas, he has sensations instead. He finds extravagant or colourful images to...

uestions Mark Amory Hamlet (Aldwych) The Witch of Edmonton (The Other Place) The Country Wife (On tour) The Case of David Anderson QC (Lyric Studio) Michael Pennington is the...

Open-minded John McEwen British Sculpture in the 20th Century. Part I: Image and Form, 1901-1950 (Whitechapel Art Gallery till 1 November) is the first half of an exhibition...

At home Alan Gibson I am not going to write about the Test matches, memorable though they were, because nearly every other contributor to this paper seems to have done so...

No sense Richard In grams I have been following with some enjoyment the BBC's Sunday thriller serial Blood Money. The story is a standard kidnap one featuring a group of...

Happy days Taki Mykonos Mykonos may have the rudest waiters this side of Qum, the greatest number of Gays this side of Fire Island, the worst plumbing since Watergate, but...