PHILBY: The Egyptian Mob OLIVER STEWART: The MIG Mystery SIR RONALD STORRS : On Christopher Sykes REX WARNER: The European Mind

N O Monarch ever came to the throne so buoyed up by general popularity and affectionate interest as Elizabeth II. The impress of her personality had long before been made, her...

France is still deep in the political crisis. M, Reynaud„ facing the Assembly as Prime Minister-designate for the first time since 1940, failed to rally even the full potential...

No. 6 5 1 8 FRIDAY, MAY 29, 1953 PRICE 7d.

For some years the Spectator has published occasional articles on sporting subjects. They have been mostly of a reflective and leisurely character, although quite frequently...

As the United N'ations makes new and more peaceable proposals to General Nam 11 in Panmunjom, President Syng- man Rhee is hotting up the background to these weary negotiations....

The General Council of the Trades Union Congress itself suggested three years ago that the statutory board of control over private industry was a commendable alternative to...

The successful firing of an atomic shell from an American gun with a range of twenty miles marks a major development in the arts of war. Missiles of this formidable kind will,...

Bermuda meeting between Sir Winston Churchill and President Eisenhower is swamped by the rising tide of Coronation high-spirits, it is necessary to look particularly Closely at...

more delightful essay than that on "The Enjoyment of Wine" contributed to The Times Wines of France and Germany Supplement by Mr. Orbo Williams. It is of the very first quality....

I T is odd to reflect that this week a great many people are worrying simultaneously about weather in the past and weather in the future. We hope it will be fine for the...

I last saw David Fraser, a man of great integrity, kindliness and resource. He died last week at the age of eighty-three, and after I had read his obituary in The Times (for...

Dr. Kinsey's book, called Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male, which I am afraid I did not read, sold 300,000 copies: and now he has almost completed a companion volume deal. ing...

given by a smashing blonde to celebrate her seventh birthday. There were ten guests of about the same age. After tea the principal diversions were a very small coracle on the...

As for the Coronation weather, everyone hopes for the best, but opinions are divided as to what the worst would be. The choice obviously lies between a very wet day and a very...

By ROBERT TOWNELEY Washington. F the many international problems that prompted President Eisenhower to call a Big Three meeting none was more pressing than the need to...

By H. A. R. PHILBY ti VERY BODY was afoot, and the multitudes—in some places assembled and in others dispersed—produced noises like the gurgle of a camel." Thus a Moslem...

BY D. W. BROGAN cc HE country," so I learn from the French Press, is -tired of the French Parliament. This is hardly to be wondered at, since the sovereign Assembly is in-...

By LAIN HAMILTON I 4 YING on the sun-dried rock, which gently exhaled the mild essence of the sea, I peered into a small pool where the ebb had deposited a lonely octopus. The...

By OLIVER STEWART I F the truth has been told about its air performance, the MIG is the world's best fighter; if the truth has been told about air-battle losses, it is the...

ART Sutherland and Moore IT would be an over-simplification to say that Henry Moore has turned the human figure into landscape, and that Graham Sutherland has turned landscape...

THERE is probably no more unfortunate figure in our musical life than Alan Bush. As a composer he is an outstanding talent even in a generation that includes Walton, Rubbra,...

IN this perfectly harmless and quite tasteless bit of twaddle Master Will Shakespeare is exhibited in Stratford during a jaunt down from London. He is, it seems, in search of...

The extraordinary Rashomon was an exception among Japanese films, as it would have been anywhere. A more conventional—and on its home ground more popular—production, The...

H.M.V., Vol. II. Early Mediaeval iVjusic up to 1300. Vol. III. Ars Nova and the Renaissance, c.1300-1540. THESE two volumes, containing twenty-two "78" discs, are the first...

Over the Moon. Lyrics and music by Vivian Ellis and others. (Piccadilly.) NOTHING bovine about this 'twentieth-century Boadicea who carves her way through acres of...

Music and lyrics by Ross Parker. (Princes.) AMERICAN musical comedies are better than British ones and have been for several decades : nobody questions that. The argument...

• Young Bess. (Empire.)—Stalag 17. (Carlton.) Young Bess is being shown on a screen of such vast proportions that it takes a full ten minutes before one can find one's way...

Why do you grieve ? I do not grieve. Death and decay are my beginning. Birth and growth and death but weave The pattern from the lifeline spinning Endlessly, the line whose end...

A Bob's Worth By J. P. W. MALLALIEU I NSIDE, the third boxing show of the day was nearly over, and, standing on the wooden platform which runs across the front of Alf Stewart's...

SIR, —If I may be permitted to take up any more of your valuable space I would add this. I am only concerned with the matter and method of fine art, not the inward sensations...

SIR,—II is always a pleasant experience to a novice when he is able to correct an expert. Shortly before reading Mr. John Home's letter In your issue of May 15th, I had been...

SIR,—With reference to the opening article, " urope's New Com- mander," in your issue of May 22nd, it is to be hoped that you do not intend it to be inferred that the Supreme...

SIR,—No one could have read Mr. Graham Dukes on the problems of the Western Isles in your issue of May 22nd without feelings of profound sympathy. Sometimes, in these cases, the...

Sta,—I would like to submit a friendly letter after reading Mr. Henn's latest article. I enjoyed every word of it very much, having lived in Saskatchewan for a number of years,...

SIR,—The British Prime Minister may have been "at his best hitting nails on the head . . " as far as his eloquence was concerned in his recent foreign policy speech, but there...

The Haworth Moors SIR,—Haworth Moors and their symbolical impact on the minds of the Brontes . and others may well be debatable land, but when the Rev. B. Scholfield moves to...

Ever since I turned over a stone in my boyhood to discover th slow worm, I have been a turner of stones and boulders, and hay been fascinated by the things that live in the...

During the week I discovered two dead shrews at ,the foot of ; rotting post, and it seemed likely that they had been dropped by ai owl. Last year I had the same sort of puzzle,...

take place in the warme months, and such things as the carrot and onion fly cannot bc remedied. Prevention is the only way. Dust cabbage and onior with calomel, and dress...

Close to the laurels I could see something hopping in the shadow; and when 1 approached 1 found two young blackbirds. They wer tame as all young blackbirds ,are. One hopped...

How easy it is to put things off until they become appalling tasks. About seven weeks ago I noticed the dandelions in the plot beyond the cottage. I had thoughts of trying the...

It7 English mansions were roofed as some bee-houses are, with glass, and if some being as superior to ourselves as we are to the manu- facturers of honey could cast his...

said that certain newspapers are ready to apply for commercial television licences. Competitors are invited to offer a sample day's programme from the stations operated by any...

Report by Richard Usborne Readers were invited to describe in cricket terms (and criticise) ik Grecian Urn, Dickens' Bleak House, the Mona Lisa, a primrose bY a river bank, the...

Follow, dancer, the measure in and out, Tall velvet dancer : dressed in black. Your only partner, on the green meadow, A queer, twisting, monkey-like shadow. Lissom leg : knee,...

Two Studies in Virtue. By Christopher Sykes. (Collins. 16s.) ANY studies in the interplay of Roman with Anglican Catholicisnl and, even more, in the history of the Balfour...

Our Local History Middlesex. (A New Survey of England.) By Michael Robbins. (Collins. 42s.) HERE.is an event of obvious importance—the launching of a serious enterprise in...

The European Mind (1680-1715). By Paul Hazard. (Hollis and Carter. 35s.) THE late Dr. Paul Hazard wrote not only La Crise de la Conscience Europeenne, now translated under the...

Safety Last. By Col. W. F. Stirling. (Hollis & Carter. 18s.) THERE is hardly a page in this book which does not read like something rout of G. A. Henty or John Buchan. For...

Call Back Yesterday: Memoirs, 1887-1931. By Hugh Dalton. (Muller. 21s.) Born to Believe: An Autobiography. By Lord Pakenham. (Cape. 18s.) HUGH DALTON went to Eton in 1901 and...

Orson. By H. Montgomery Hyde. (Heinemann. 25s.) PHILIP GUEDALLA once wrote that "silence is posterity's one repartee to Anglo-Indian reminiscences," and today this remark can be...

IN The Weeping and the Laughter,- the first volume of a trilogy, Mr. Maclaren-Ross describes his childhood up to the age often. "Those readers," his publishers tell us, " who...

My Brother, 0 My Brother. By Harold Kampf. (Chapman and Hall. 9s. 6d.) Now and then Mr. Waugh seems to pause in his longer novels to write a long short story on the side, and...

THE publishers say on the jacket of this book that Sir Walford Selby "writes with great authority and strong emotion." The emotion is certainly much in evidence. Sir Walford...

Edward Marsh, K.C.V.O. C.B., C.M.G. Compiled by Christopher Hassall and Denis Mathews. (Lund Humphries, for the Contemporary Art Society. 7s. 6d.) FRIENDS as varied as Graham...

CAPTAIN CHIPPENDALE was born at sea in 1879 on board a whaler, of which his father was captain. Shortly afterwards the latter became American Consul in St. Helena, an...

Law of Libel and Slander" by Oswald S. Hickson and P. F. Carter- Ruck ; Maurice Cranston " Locke's Travels in France," edited by John Lough ; and A. G. Street "Wiltshire...

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L4 Book Token for one guinea will he awarded to the sender of the first correct ' , I opened alter noon on Tuesday week, June 9111, addressed Crossword. OW bearing NUMBER of the...

By CUSTOS Tim pre-Coronation atmosphere has had a mildly tonic effect on the stock markets. General Neguib, Senator McCarthy and the Communists may possibly have felt its...