T HE best that can be said about 1963 is that it has finally come to an end. We forget very quickly. It is an illusion pro- duced by the newspapers that a crisis is acted out in...

Lee Harvey Oswald carving for himself a worthless niche in history by shooting down President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22. The world was drawn together in horror,...

No. 7070 Established 1828 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1963

S Apt_v, predictably, inevitably the last note is a grumble by Sir Roy Welensky against the Secretary of State. Mr. Sandys is in good com- pany. Over the ten years of the...

F OR most people today, Christmas is not at all festive. Refugees in Algeria or Hong Kong, sufferers under totalitarian governments in Portugal or South Africa, people in...

From MURRAY KEMPTON WASHINGTON ITH: House of Representatives prepared last week to cut $800 million from the $3.6 bil- lion the Administration had planned to spend next year...

- By HENRY FAIRLIE O NE could, of course, have relied on the BBC to do it. Its decision to withdraw TW3 was not, as some have suggested, outrageous. It was merely one of those...

From STANLEY UYS CAPE TOWN FT' tn. irony of the Transkei elections is that they have proved the opposite of what they were intended to prove. Instead of voting for Chief...

From SARAH GAINHAM BONN S C OMETHING has often bothered me, coming into Germany from any neighbouring country; other people feel it too, and its best description was given me by...

By RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL A s the old year comes to an end and a new (and we must hope better) year is about to dawn, newspaper proprietors and editors should use this interval...

By BRIAN GLANVILLE T HE thing is, now that it's happened, what'll I do? It's a strange situation, anything I do is wrong, and another thing, a guy like me has no experience of...

CHRISTMAS Still works. The opening of the Berlin Wall—not just for twelve, but for eighteen, days of Christmas—may prove a memorable act : it is going to be far more difficult...

doing? The Government, through its 50 per cent interest in British Lion, has been in the film busi- ness since 1948. And until 1958, when the Boult- ing brothers and their...

The Stamps Issue H. Maude-Roxby, Harold Inghatn Below the Bread Line S.M. The Robbins Debate W. R. van Straubenzee, Old Man Granite S. Jacobson Sukarno's War Abdul Rollin;...

There are other and more sensational ways of describing 1963, and my own may seem a little bizarre. But it has, I think, been the year of the opinion polls. Looking back, I have...

inclined to argue that the matter should be left to the free choice of individual shoppers. Those who approve should have the oppor- tunity to shop where stamps are given, and...

An anxious friend asks me what the difference is between sitting on the third and sitting on the front bench. Only the difference between economy and first-class air travel:...

the more I think that we have not yet grasped the im- portance of the Robbins Report. It is important, not only for the particular questions which it raises about education, but...

SIR,—Under the caption 'Old Age' the Spectator was good enough to publish two letters from me in the issues of July 12 and 26. In these letters I stated that I trusted my...

SIR, — Worthy institution though it is. the St. Pancras Town Hall is no place for early Verdi; indeed, in the definitive sense, it is no place for Verdi of any period. When...

Robbins Report, Helen Gardner and Angus Maude both barely make mention of the effect of the Report on teaching training colleges. One can understand Miss Gardner preferring to...

enough to print this letter inviting your readers to take part in an educational experiment. Following the success of our correspondence course based on the BBC 'Learning Welsh'...

SIR, —Mr. Stanley Uys in his article of December 13, writes With a fatalism which now seems to character- ise almost all white South Africans, even those opposed to Dr. Vermierd...

drive home the point that Indonesia's policy of 'cohfronta- tion' against Malaysia is too, successful for President Sukarno to change course (Spectator, December 13). But you...

By ISABEL QUIGLY MY son (whose entire filmgoing till now con- sisted of Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy and Henry V) came along to some of my films this week, exploring the...

By PHILIP HOPE-WALLACE The operatic parody no doubt largely escaped notice, as indeed it does even today, though just how much Gilbert and Sullivan destroyed for the British...

IT is undeniable that British painters with a specifically Christian mes- sage in their pictures tend to be individualists to the point of eccentricity. Sutherland is not a case...

By CLIVE BARNES delusion than the so-called jazz-dancing which has insidiously crept into our ballet repertory. For the most part this has been a completely unconvincing...

By MALCOLM RUTHERFORD Merry Roosters Panto (Wyndham's)—The Pan- ther and the Unicorn (New Arts)—Treasure Island (Mermaid) — Peter Pan (Scala.) CHILDREN make very good...

The Artist As Hero B Y MICHAEL AYRTON C OME talk of Alexander and some of Hercules L./and they are likely to go on doing so. Such great men as these exercise the enormous...

He wept before her face One day in sudden shame; Letting his solitude, His fear, his dry-eyed pride, Slide with the sudden flood That swept his frame the time He wept before her...

Encounters in History. By Pieter Geyl. (Collins, 35s.) PROFESSOR GEYL first issued his Encounters in New York in 1961; the English edition will be welcomed by his numerous...

The White House Years: Mandate for Change, 1953-1956. By Dwight D. Eisenhower. (Heinemann, 63s.) TtiE development of technology and the move- ment of history have suddenly...

The Contemporary Cinema. By Penelope Houston. (Penguin Books, 5s.), GOOD critics of the movies like having them both ways. They think movies should burn at both ends before the...

WHEN the first edition of this book appeared in 1953 it at once took its place as a standard work. But the difficulty which students of Soviet affairs have to face is that the...

The Trial of Marie Besnard. BY Marie Besnard. Translated by Denise Folliot. With a preface by Sybille Bedford. (Heinemann, 25s.) A policeman's job can't be very difficult to...

The Two-Ocean War. A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War. By Samuel Eliot Morison. (0.U.P., 50s.) Mosr people's reaction to the first inaccurate news...

MR. J. B. PruEs - rt.EY once wrote that he has observed in this age a will to denigrate the massive in fiction. His contention seems justified when we consider the treatment...

West wind, my heart is dry. Green water, white water, Sun, warm the orchards. The clouds gather. East wind, dry the linen. And with your cold fingers Hurry men homeward. The...

By LOTHBURY I N recommending a final dividend of 23 per cent for the year ended April 30, 1963, making a total of 38 per cent against 35 per cent, the chairman of George Nott...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT 1 RECKON that at the close of this year the apprecia- tion in the market values of the securities quoted on the London Stock Ex- change amounted to over...

Salted Away • By ELIZABETH DAVID WITH drinks, the packaged cashews and peanuts of commerce make wretched It is, goodness knows, easy enough to pre- pare almonds for salting....

By LESLIE ADRIAN It CHEATING the untutored wine-drinker has been an art in France for a num- ber of years. It has had to be very artful indeed since the stricter application of...

By, ALAN BRIEN On the authority of H. L. Mencken, he claimed that this fact demolished the linguistic snobs who prefer to believe that 'most American- isms are good old English...

Needs, 10 Palladian. 11 Gadlre. 12 Peppered. 14 Tamil. 15 Armenians. 18 SaLvation. 20 Realm. 22 Castanet. 24 Kisser. 26 Religions. 27 Sight. 28 Repines. 29 Session. DOWN.-1...

ACROSS 1 Apparatus, it seems, though somewhat dull has a sweet tone (6) 4 Give fodder to the birds, in neat stacks (8) 8 One of a secret brotherhood gets a lecture in...

Many a careerist and a climber must be grateful to Miss Nancy Mitford for guiding him so carefully and accurately through the minefields which protect the upper classes from...