remain subjects of the Crown than were the citizens of Gibraltar. Yet in spite of this they were in grave danger of transfer to Argen- tinian sovereignty : and maybe they still...

The Czechs are rigorous critics of themselves. In 1956, they used to say, the Hungarians behaved like Poles, the Poles like Czechs— and the Czechs like swine. This time, how-...

Hell, said the Chancellor of the Exchequer, might be just around the corner. This view he offered the TUC, who were asking for a 6 per cent growth rate and getting half that. He...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGII Hugh Scanlon, president of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering and Foundry Workers (the AEF), has been described as the man with the future...

AMERICA MURRAY KEMPTON New York—Governor Rockefeller's abandon- ment of the Republican contest was performed with the dignity and charm which candidates this season seem to...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS At Oxford freedom's friends are fond Of throwing speakers in the pond. At Cambridge they prefer by far To overturn their motor-car. While Bristol's notiop...

STUDENTS-1 MARK R. KILLINGSWORTH The most unfortunate aspects of the current wave of student protests in this country are not their occasional violence or misdirection but...

CUBA LORD WALSTON Lord Walston is a regular visilOr to Cuba and has just returned from the island. Cuba today is a communist country. The Prime Minister, Dr Fidel Castro, says...

STUDENTS-2 CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS The Irish enjoy their grievances. If any Irish politician were to tell his constituents that they had never had it so good, he would be hounded...

Front the ',Spectato, Zs March, I868—The American Senate formally called on the President to appear and take his trial on the 23rd. Mr. Johnson did not appeal but sent six...

STATE & CITIZEN MALCOLM SHAW Malcolm Shaw, an American, is Lecturer in Anglo-Anzerican Comparative Studies at the University of Exeter. In The case for a written constitution'...

PARLIAMENT J. ENOCH POWELL, MP It really is aggravating if ose has a good theory set up about the fundamental changes which have occurred in the working of the British...

J. W. M. THOMPSON Apocalyptic developments at the Treasury have had the side-effect of making the present tinker- ing with the role of the Department of Econo- mic Affairs...

PERSONAL COLUMN ROBERT HUGHES I was born in Sydney and have lived there most of my life. It throws up images which distance cannot efface. The disconcerting thing is how many...

MEDICINE JOHN ROWAN WILSON My heart was warmed the other day when I opened my Lancet and read the title of one of the learned scientific reports it prints for the benefit and...

THE PRESS DONALD McLACHLAN Punditry corrupts and continuous punditry corrupts continuously. That is the lesson I draw after eighteen months of writing a regular personal column...

RACING CAPTAIN TIIREADNEEDLE Melting the sleet out of their windward ears, habitues of the National Hunt meeting were long accustomed to fortifying themselves with special...

CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN Friends in New Zealand tell me that the transition to decimal currency, which began there last summer, has proved unexpectedly smooth. One of...

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN Columbia, South Carolina—As we all know, the Cooper and Ashley rivers commemorate the great (not the good) Earl of Shaftesbury and, meeting at...

HENRY TUBE Spare a thought for those who awarded the first International Publishers' Prize in 1961. They divided $10,000 between two authors. Did they fear the world would end...

PETER FLEMING The Last Ditch David Lampe (Cassell 36s) In this book the author re-examines the scanty and by now fairly familiar evidence of Get- man plans for the...

MARTIN SEYMOUR-SMITH The Vision of Jean Genet Richard Coe (Peter Owen 50s) Fragments of a Journal Eugene Ionesco trans- lated by Jean Stewart (Faber 30s) A Madman's Defence...

GEORGE HUTCHINSON The early part of this little book of memoirs has all the charm of the author himself, when Mr Grisewood is describing his childhood at Thame, in a gay and...

RAYNER HEPPENSTALL Colonel Sun : a James Bond Adventure Robert Markham (Cape 21s) The fact that 'Robert Markham' is a pseudonym adopted by Mr Kingsley Amis has been pub-...

LORD EGREMONT The Aristocrats Roy Perrott (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 42s) 'What is that for?' said Ethel to Fred, who had a golf tee in his hand. Fred said that you put your...

DONALD McLACHLAN Naval Policy Between the Wars 1. The. Period of Anglo-American Antagonism Stephen Roskill (Coffins 70s) The British Admiralty Leslie Gardiner (William...

ANTHONY BURGESS One is never satisfied. Able these days to get anything in paperback (Pelican treatise on Aztec prepuce taboos nestling in Smith's among the doylies), one...

BRYAN ROBERTSON Eustace Chisholm and the Works James Purdy (Cape 25s) Like that delicately bird-like touch on the Wrist from a lady whose restraining gesture, during an...

TIBOR SZAMUELY The Alliluyev Memoirs Translated and edited by David Tutaev (Michael Joseph 50s) One of the distinctive features of our age is the ubiquity of the spy, the...

Unwin 42s) Simple saint MALCOLM RUTHERFORD Che Guevara was held a hero in his lifetime and has become a martyr since, though not perhaps among the peasantry and the econo-...

Strange Harp, Strange Symphony John Walsh (W. H. Allen 63s). Francis Thompson nearly became a Catholic priest and studied to be a doctor: instead he ate opium, lived for a while...

HILARY SPURLING 'What did you think of what you saw, asked Miss Stein . . . Only that Picassos were rather awful and the others were not. Sure, she said, as Pablo once...

TELEVISION STUART HOOD I once knew a house-painter who was a pro- fessional ballroom dancer. The need to keep in practice meant that he could only paint one's flat at odd...

Thin grue PENELOPE HOUSTON In Cold Blood (Curzon, 'X') Planet of the Apes (Carlton, 'A') The murders at the Clutter Farm are already part of American folklore. Even if Truman...

ART PAUL GRINKE The political content of art is always hard to gauge, and more often than not a red herring. Paintings and sculpture naturally reflect the tempo of the times...

Across 1 Literally all over the place (6) 4 The charity-boy, said Mr Weller, had his doubts about its worth (8) 10 Does this disguise the fisherman as a slippery customer? (7)...

PORTFOLIO JOHN BULL As I write, share prices have reached a new - . peak : the Financial Times- index is over , 430, compared with 403 at the close of business on budget day....

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT Although the cruel deflation of the budget was welcomed in every select establishment in the City there was one aspect of it which alarmed and distressed the...

CHRISTOPHER FILDES 'The whole question of the gold market,' said the bullion dealer, 'is in the melting pot.' After the fortnight's holiday that the Americans enforced, it...

BUSINESS VIEWPOINT PETER OPPENHEIMER Peter Oppenheimer is a Student of Christ Church, Oxford. More nonsense has been written about the gold crisis than about any other...

ADVERTISING ROGER PEMBERTON 'If you've still got some fight left in you, fight with the Express.' Thus the latest advertising campaign from Fleet Street. Lord Beaverbrook was...

LETTERS From: Brian A. Kelsey, A. I. L. Barnes, H. W. Gawthrop, Claude C. I. Simmonds, L. E. Weld- berg, J. Mottram, R. G. W. Rickcord, Lester W. Mather, the Rev James Owen,...

Sir : In his article 'Tories in opposition: The lessons of 1945-1951' (15 March), Mr Blake repeats the old canard that Neville Chamberlain founded the Conservative Research...

CUSTOS The stock market has soared straight upwards into the blue. A week's improvement of more than thirty points in the Financial Thnes index has taken it to hitherto...

Sir: I hesitate to cross swords with Tibor Szatnuely (15 March) even on a tangential issue, partly because it is impossible not to respond favourably to his articles and partly...

article 'Tories in opposition' (15 March) is at fault on one point of fact. For the sake of historical accuracy it is not correct that Sir Stafford Cripps was a 'non- smoking,...

Sir: In the harsh world of realities in which we live, it is generally conceded that it is the first duty of a politician to remain in office, and that his second duty is to...

in Opposition (15 March), refers to the problem of the party's name. Is it really not time that 'Conservative' and 'Tory' as poli- tical labels were abandoned? The true meaning...

Sir: While not wishing to resurrect ancient his- tory, I feel that Mr Wilson (Letters, 22 March) must not be allowed to get away with his attack on the utcc concerning the...

Sir : In his recent contribution 'On pornography and censorship' (1 March), Denis Brogan notes that many cultures lytive a rich store of sex jokes.' He adds: 'True, there are...

Sir: Your printed version of my letter about cats (22 March) has nearly persuaded me to buy a typewriter, as my writing (in Latin and Greek at any rate) is unreadable. To set...

Sir: While heartily endorsing Arthur Shen- field's general, attitude to recent economic theorists I think it necessary to point out that his remarks on Henry George are...

AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS Mr Plumleigh Coughdrop, brother of the dis- tinguished quizmaster and radio personality Chumleigh Coughdrop, has thrown his cat among the pigeons this...

of Mr Gittings's John Keats, appears to ignore the period in which the poet's twenty-five years were lived. Not only was it a time of mental transition and much physical change...

his senses would quarrel with as generous a review of his book as that given by Mr Seymour-Smith to my John Keats (22 March); but, since Mr Seymour-Smith so kindly praises me...

Sir: I am planning to write a book about my late husband, Sir Steuart Wilson, and wonder if any of your readers can help. Any material, e.g. concert programmes, letters, notes,...

his bad economists (22 March). Whether the distinguishing mark of G. D. H. Cole was or was not 'a fecund and facile mediocrity' is I suppose a matter of opinion; but will you...

Signor Direttore: In questo mondo cosi travag- liato da crisi di qualsiasi genere, e' salutare, anche se con ritardo, leggere Lord - Egremont's 'Dolce Francesca Adami' (9...

Trevor Grove reports: Competitors were asked to compose an octet on one of the following subjects: a new Arcadia; a recipe for a haggis; lament for the Green Belt. This is a...

COMPETITION Competitors are invited to use the following ten words, taken from the opening passages of a well-known work of literature, in the order given, to construct part of...

PHILIDOR Black White 11 men 8 men J. E. Driver (The Field, 1960). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 379 (Mansfield): Q – R 1, threat Q x...