`I'm afraid, owing to a technical error in the warrant, there's not much we can do.' T he announcement of Prince Andrew's engagement to Miss Sarah Ferguson was reported to be...

P RIVATE EYE is so Useful in the expo- sure of crooks, both political and financial, that the trouble attending the resignation of Richard Ingrains, the editor for the last...

STILL UNBROKEN MOULD r Sherlock Holmes, whose remarks on the Fulham by-election are reported, exclusively, by the Spectator's political correspondent on page six, has said the...

WE DID not so soon expect, after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, that Dublin would begin to describe the British Government as 'incompetent'. But after the Glenholmes...

`US WAR Jets Hit Libya' (Daily Tele- graph). 'US jet attack on Libyan missile base' (Times). 'US attacks Libyan patrol boat and missile base' (Financial Times). The headline is...

The Singular Experience of Harold Laski House FERDINAND MOUNT brick, creeper-clad house in Lavender Gar- dens, Clapham. `So this is where she used to live. Excellent,' my...

R eaders of the Spectator have already heard something of the great battle over the Henley cinema. Its importance is that it shows the extent to which small country towns, and...

A fate worse than Marx for suffering Nicaragua AUBERON WAUGH P erhaps I was alone in finding Mr Graham Greene's suggestion that the gov- ernment of Nicaragua might be Catholic...

Mary Kenny on the growing belief among teachers that they are not respected, and the growing belief among parents that teachers do not deserve respect MY GRANDPARENTS were...

aroused anguished debate about why so many blacks do so badly Washington A FEW years ago, the National Press Club of this city decided upon a special testimo- nial dinner for...

Stephen Robinson on the government of Namibia, and the powers that negotiate over its head Windhoek DRIVING around Katutura, Windhoek's black township, is a nostalgic...

Andrew Alexander on the catastrophic results to be expected from an independent Ulster THE farce of the Glenholmes affair at the weekend should not be allowed to divert...

Vincent Hanna on the by-products of the by-election business IT OUGHT to be known as Frindal- McKenzie's syndrome. 'Did you know,' said the helpful man on the telephone, `that...

General Sir John Bagot Glubb, desert soldier, who died last week TO ANY Briton with a deep and long- standing association with the Middle East and the Arab world in general...

The right of the 'pit-girls' of Lan- cashire to work for their living, which is just coming up before Parliament, in- volves a great many more fates than their own. It is the...

The press: Paul Johnson on the balance of advantage at Wapping THE 'siege of Wapping', as Rupert Mur- doch's newspaper competitors call it, be- comes more absurd every week....

WELCOME back to the City for Charles Goodhart, the Bank of England's guide and philosopher through the rise and hey - day of monetarism. Nowadays a professor in a...

How television's quango makes its charges worth more dead than alive CH RISTOPHER FILDES T he affairs of Granada make required reading for anyone interested to know whether...

MAX Beerbohm laid it down that there could be no such boast as 'I dined last night with the Borgias' — who could have lived to make it? The same, clearly, goes for: q have just...

Sir: John Mortimer (Diary, 15 March) trots o ut that old tag from Blackstone about the jury being the palladium of English liber- ties: but the jury which Blackstone com- mended...

Sir: Richard Bassett (`Waldheim and the N azis', 15 March) is unwise to drag in the Czechs in order to denigrate Waldheim. Whether or not his family was once Waz- lavek...

Sir: I was surprised that only one person fell asleep during the performance Peter Ackroyd attended of Kurosawa's Ran (Cinema, 15 March). When I saw the film here in Tokyo last...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I cheque for f enclose my (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES: 12 Months 6 Months UK/Eire 0 £41.00 0...

Sir: A footnote to your excellent profile of Victor Sassie (15 March). When he opened the Gay Hussar in 1953 I was living and working round the corner, in Soho Square. I must...

Sir: The charge, first made by Gladstone and most recently by Paul Johnson (The press, 4 January, and Letters, 15 February) that Macaulay's review of Croker's Boswell was an act...

Sir: Certainly our ancestors would have been puzzled at our indignation over the appearance of a 12-year-old Iranian bride in Britain (Leader page, 15 March). They would have...

Sir: Jeff Ferry's letter (8 March) about Franklin Roosevelt made very curious reading indeed. Roosevelt, contrary to myth, was a fiscal conservative through and through. Only...

A mischievous outsider Robert Blake WARFARE, DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS: ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF A. J. P. TAYLOR edited by Chris Wrigley A lan Taylor is the doyen of modern...

Jeffrey Bernard LESTER: THE OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY by Dick Francis Michael Joseph, £12.95 L et us start with a sentence from the press handout issued by the publishers. This book...

Requiem for China Colin Thubron BEHIND THE FORBIDDEN DOOR: TRAVELS IN CHINA by Tiziano Terzani Allen & Unwin, £11.95 T iziano Terzani lived in Peking as Fat Eastern...

In Italy over the graves Of those not yet long dead At dusk the small lights wave And each seems tenderly set To comfort a slumbering child Not used to the dark night yet....

Alan Ross THE SHAKESPEARE WALLAH by Geoffrey Kendal Sidgwick & Jackson, £12.95 G eoffrey Kendal seems so eminently suited to writing his own account of his travels as a...

Sarah Bradford HEMINGWAY: A BIOGRAPHY by Jeffrey Meyers Macmillan, f15.95 raid of nothing', the infant Hemingway would shout when asked what he was afraid of. He would go on...

One Monday, when I rushed out late for work, an empty, pale-grey plastic sack was huddled by the gate. Should I take it round to the dustbin? Later, perhaps. When I got home,...

Philip Glazebrook COUPS AND COCAINE: TWO JOURNEYS IN SOUTH AMERICA by Anthony Daniels John Murray, f10.95 IOW T his book recounts in an able and straightforward narrative...

Michael De-la-Noy MARCHES PAST by Peter Fuller Chatto & Windus, f9.95 I get the impression from Peter Fuller's autobiographical memoir that he has never been very good at...

Seeing all the tricks and crookery Of the boss-rooks in his rookery, Johnny Rook took such a fit Of laughter that his belly split. His doctor said: 'Don't laugh so much!' - A...

Architecture The real Hawksmoor Gavin Stamp I n 1709, at the instigation of Sir John Vanbrugh, the Duchess of Marlborough's agent wrote to his tiresome employer about the...

Futurists (National: Cottesloe) Too cool Christopher Edwards D usty Hughes's new play opens wth an extract from Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. Anya remarks to Trofimov that...

Parsifal (Coliseum) Pretty rum evenings Rodney Milnes T he critic's trade grows ever more hazardous. Close on the heels, should this be anatomically feasible, of the Cornwell...

Jorg Immendorff (Nigel Greenwood till 12 April) Rudolf Schlichter (Piccadilly till 12 April) Fatal flaw Giles Auty T he machinery which determines artis- tic reputations is...

Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear (PG', selected cinemas) The mysteries of Wapping Peter Ackroyd I t was clever of Steven Spielberg to choose Sherlock Holmes for...

Monkey puzzle Alexander Chancellor N o need to study those expensive Government advertisements about Aids if one watched Horizon (BBC2) last Mon- day. This told one everything...

High and mighty Taki T Washington DC he nation's capital can look very beautiful on an early spring morning from a room high up at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, The Ritz-Carlton...

Pay through the nose Jeffrey Bernard 'remain as unmoved as Mount Rush- more when I hear of hundreds of journal- ists being sacked by Mr Murdoch or whoever. Most of these...

Word over all P. J. Kavanagh I n a news bulletin about a collapsed hotel in Singapore it was announced tha t the tunnelling experts helping in the rescue were English and...

Foot fault Alice Thomas Ellis I bought some comfortable shoes the other day: white moccasin-type things with fringed tongues, and flat as a pancake. Alfie hates them to such...

Seven Dials ■ ••, s 1141E1 Mn lineI 41 lin' I IMI IT'S a funny thing that the cheaper and more wretched human life becomes, the more desperately people try to ensure their own...

into verse the poem below faithfully, loosely or freely updated: Je t'apporte, 0 Sommeil, du yin de quatre annees, Du lait, des pavots noirs aux tetes couronnees, Veuilles tes...

True Brits Raymond Keene T he GLC Chess Challenge coin- cidentally pits seven British players against seven foreign Grandmasters. As I write, the alien hordes are faring less...

There seems no end to cookery books with grotesque new angles. Title and explana- tory publisher's blurb, please, for yet another unnecessary volume. Maximum 150 words. Entries...

A.first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £12.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) will be awarded for the first...

The 'double-barrelled' lights, in the order clued, are at 23, 6, 24, 11, 25, 2, 7A & 40, 34, 12 and 39. Winners: P. R. Church, Oxford (f20); Michael Clarke, Bracknell, Berks;...