Balmoral switchboard T he Daily Mirror and the Sun published pages of intimate photographs of the Duchess of York and her financial adviser, an American businessman, Mr John...

JOHN MORTIMER o r at least 15 years of my adult life I was concerned in divorcing people, not per- sonally, but as a barrister. Warring hus- bands and wives would drag up every...

The gallant Knight riding to Princess Diana's aid CHARLES MOORE A nyone reading The Spectator of 4 July should have seen what was coming. In his article in that issue (`The...

Murray Sayle investigates the moral and biological basis of military intervention in Iraq and the Balkans IN THE winter of 416 BC, the historian Thucydides tells us, the good...

Jeremy Bowen explains the conflicting emotions of film crews in a war zone Sarajevo A FEW WEEKS ago I drove, as fast as I could, from the main hospital in Sarajevo to the...

LAST FRIDAY, at nine o'clock in the evening, I was eating dinner when the telephone rang. It was the prison: an inmate had coughed up some blood and now had a fever. Would I...

Alec Russell finds that UN soldiers in Bosnia have a strange sense of priorities Sarajevo IT FEELS GOOD to leave Sarajevo. Nowhere in the Bosnian capital is safe from snipers....

A few years ago Italy was acclaimed as an economic miracle. But the sick man of Europe is sicker than ever; Wolfgang Achtner reports Rome BACK IN THE spring of 1987, Italy's...

THE AMERICANS, who are certainly much more ready in applying scientific principles to the solution of small prac- tical problems than we are, are said to have invented an...

Simon Courtauld interviews Viscount Massereene and Ferrard, one of Britain's most endearing eccentrics AS ANOTHER shooting season gets under way, a rare game bird is about to...

Michael Heath

David Herbert on how the past 60 years have changed Tangier — but not his love for it Tangier THE FIRST time I visited Tangier was in the spring of 1931. I came with my...

The strange case of thirty thousand spouses PAUL JOHNSON hen I arrived in Korea last week, for a brief visit, I found Kimpo airport at Seoul teeming with an enormous number of...

Martini time it's my moment of madness and Lamont's unhappy hour CHRISTOPHER FILDES T he two-dollar martini has brushed against my lips like an angel's kiss. At tea- time on...

Community labouring under the mis- apprehension that it was dealing with an upright, enlightened, neo-classical civilisa- tion, those of us with Turkish connections have been...

Sir: How odd of Mr Noel Malcolm CI fear the Greeks', 15 August), to waste his time on venomous, anti-Hellenic rhetoric and of your cartoonist to waste his talent defacing the...

is undoubtedly the best treatment that this neglected sub- ject has received in all the recent coverage on the Balkans. It is worth remarking that Greece indulged in 'ethnic...

nium suum Jani Allan tells us that she understood George Carman's question `Would you commit adultery with a married man?' not to mean in the imperfect sub- junctive. In other...

Sir: Jani Allan's attack on George Carman, QC CA ham that can't be cured', 22 August) was an outrageous outburst of per- sonal spite even by the standards she has now made her...

neurosis' reminded me of an experience over 30 years ago when I was commissioned to organise a public relations campaign for the Greek National Tourist Office, an opti- mistic...

Sir: I wish to call to your attention a review by Julie Burchill of my book Marilyn's Men (Books, 1 August). I was not bothered by 'I divorce thee — I divorce thee — I divorce...

Sir: When I buy The Spectator I do not expect to find plugs, especially in the main part of the front section (Another voice, 15 August). In fact, I expect not to find such...

Sir: When I read Jeffrey Bernard's two embarrassing anecdotes (Low life, 4 July), they smelled to me like 'urban legends'— mythical stories that sound plausible but on closer...

Sir: As an admirer of both P.D. James and your magazine, I was sorry to see her join- ing in the 'Spectator-spore of counsellor- bashing (Diary, 15 August). Lady James...

last week, and was as delighted with St Wulfram's Church as Charles Moore was. But it did not strike me partic- ularly as symbolising the 'warmer and more capacious bosom of the...

Return of the monarch Blair Worden THE SIX WIVES OF HENRY VIII by Antonia Fraser Weidenfeld and Nicholson, f20, pp. 458 I t is a surprise to realise that Antonia Fraser has...

Jonathan Mirsky THE NEW EMPERORS: MAO AND DENG, by Harrison Salisbury HarperCollins, f20, pp. 544 H arrison Salisbury, who made his rep- utation during the Fifties as one of...

Anthony Daniels ANTI-AMERICANISM:CRITIQUES AT HOME AND ABROAD by Paul Hollander 0 U P ,127.50, pp. 534 P aul Hollander is the author of Political Pilgrims, the classic and...

Francis King NOW YOU KNOW by Michael Frayn Viking, f14.99, pp. 282. I n recent years there have been an increasing number of cases of civil servants breaching the Official...

Hilary Corke POEMS AND VERSIONS by David Wright Carcanet, f6.95, pp. 79. D on't being this book in the middle. If you do you may perhaps be faced on the left page with Letter...

Here in the garden, hiding from the future, Between the cranesbill and the clematis, The peonies shedding petals everyday, The sun my only guest, the pyrocanthus Putting forth...

John Spurling THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR by Gilbert Adair Heinemann, £13.99, pp. 135 T he narrator of Gilbert Adair's novel calls it 'this mendacious and mischievous and...

Anita Brookner TROLLOPE by Victoria Glendinning Hutchinson, £20, pp. 551 L et us begin with the almost unbeliev- able statistics. Imagine a man so attuned to business, or...

Pasolini (8 August), published by Quartet Books, we quoted an incorrect price. It is, in fact, £25.00.

The Fringe Not much tickling, Jock Anne Smith finds very few Fringe acts would pass the Glasgow test T ake away the Fringe,' someone said about this year's Edinburgh...

Allan Ramsay (Scottish National Portrait Gallery, till 27 September) James Pryde (Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, till 11 October) 150th Anniversary Exhibition (The...

A monthly selection of forthcoming events recommended by The Spectator's regular critics EXHIBITIONS John Heartfield, Barbican. Graphic designer and photomontagist who took on...

Low-brow swinging Martin Gayford E dinburgh, which used to have one jazz festival, now has two. First — a bit before the main Festival shebang — is the Inter- national Jazz...

Highbrow singing Rupert Christiansen O ne all-redeeming triumph: the Mark Morris Dance Group from the USA, pre - senting their version of Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas....

Acapulco (King's Head) She Stoops to Conquer (Chichester) The Winter's Tale (Stratford) Down Mexico way Sheridan Morley I n such moments as he has to spare between careers as...

Aliens 3 ('18', selected cinemas) Waterland (`15', selected cinemas) Carry on Alien Vanessa Letts T here's no point in doing a hoi polloi blockbuster unless you do it...

Going to the zoo Ian Hislop I went to London Zoo last month after seeing an item on the news about its immi- nent closure. There have been a lot of these items in recent years...

Johnny's busted flush Taki M Gstaad y spies tell me that Johnny Bryan is angry as hell with me for having written that he and I once raised hell for days and nights on end...

History from the air Nigel Nicolson O ne way to view a country, not neces- sarily the best way but an original and extravagant way, is to charter an aeroplane and fly slowly...

A NEW ACADEMIC year approaches and with it we shall have the annual bleating round. Leftie journalists and poverty lobby- ists will explain how students are now so poor they are...

World first Raymond Keene N ormally I write about chess in this column but over the past weeks draughts has captured the public imagination. This is the result of the...

Singing the people Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1742 you were invit- ed to write an anti-popular poem begin- ning with the same four words with which Roy Campbell began his....

A first prize of £20 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 14 September, with two runners-up prizes of £10 (or, for UK...

Merrie Englanders Frank Keating MRS THATCHER may be no more, but her 'moaning Minnies' continue to multi- ply. We really are a nation of bad losers. With so much practice at...

. . Dear Mary. Q. I am a racehorse trainer and my Chris- tian name is James — or Jimmy, as many of my friends call me. However, following a recent run of successes on the...