`Trick or treat?' M r John Major, the Prime Minister, told the Commons that he had sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions notes of a meeting with someone he took to be a...

SPECTATOR The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WCIN 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 GETTING SERIOUS The Walker trial was the result of three...

Is the word of an Egyptian grocer worth more than that of a minister of the Crown? BORIS JOHNSON T hanks to Mr Major's populist instincts we have all been granted — at last! —...

ALAN WATKINS O ne of the most interesting wheezes thought up by the Conservative Euro- phobes is that the Government should push through a Supremacy of Parliament Act. Some of...

It is often a mistake for exiles to return AUBERON WAUGH A fter Bangladesh, Taiwan, South Korea and Holland, England is the fifth most densely populated country (of more than...

of all the main American agents within the Soviet system, as well as some of the British and European ones. Less than two years afterwards he was recruited by the Russians. I...

to be sworn enemies of Fascism spoke publicly of the profound relationship which they felt between them- selves and the constructive initiative of these new generations.' If he...

If the Jews were proscribed from enter- ing the real corridors of gentility and status in America, the movies offered an inge- nious option,' wrote Gabler. 'Within the studios...

of Jewish cabal behind the building of the 21st-Century Entertainment Super- highway is difficult to assess. Jews, always compulsive story-tellers and talented nego- tiators,...

Martin Vander Weyer reveals how Tyneside's last shipbuilder was scuttled by the Government IN 1907, Swan Hunter's Wallsend and Nep- tune yards on north Tyneside built 15 per...

in both Britain and America. He compares the two experiences `HELLO THERE, my friends!' I said. The two men stared at me. One had a shaved head, the other a small moustache....

as the Queen re-embarked on Bri- tannia. I will never forget the farewell look of the huge President. He was a man who had made a new friend and was now saying goodbye to her,...

you B usiness is business. When that loftiest of viceroys, Curzon, first came into Parlia- ment, a clutch of directorships followed him. He picked up an insurance company...

of the hysterical com- ment has attributed to Prince Charles words that are, in fact, written as interpre- tation by the biographer. I studied the Sun- day Times extracts...

of a strategic authority. A boom in tourism, government and finan- cial jobs has coincided with a property price surge (soon to recommence) primed by tax breaks for the rich and...

supposed collapse from Six- ties 'innocence' into Nineties cynicism and decay could have been traced at any point in history. He deplores the 'veneer of modernity on an ageing...

sprawl of Metroland, the supercinemas, the Great West Road facto- ries and the garden suburbs that he now places in the warp and woof of London his- tory. He would have opposed...

We expect London to deliver life's groceries to our back door. If it fails, we accuse it of terminal decline I once heard Cyril Ray tell a group of friends that, after living...

than it was in Porter's rose- tinted Sixties. The buildings have been q; : s 41 , 0 62,4 \I \\ `Well, there it is in a nutshell.' cleaned. New architecture is more sensitive to...

ridiculous. The fogeyism of middle age has Porter by his vitals. Like many an aging commentator, he finds the London of his youth no longer an exhilarating place of novelty,...

on the ambivalent morality of the day. As an actress, an illegitimate daughter, an unmarried mother three times around and a Royal mistress, Mrs Jordan knew she inhabited a...

warns us in the introduction to this altogether enthralling biography that there is a special tone which creeps into eulogies of actress- es, presenting them as lovable wayward...

Helen Osborne MRS JORDAN'S PROFESSION by Claire Tomalin Viking £18, pp. 413

which, though short has a certain roundness and embonpoint which is very graceful. Her voice is harmony itself — and it has certain little breaks and undescribable tones which...

mid-thigh, ribboned uniform, plumed hat, sword and rapier: a sensational effect for the 1790s brother, the Prince of Wales would taunt him with, 'Who would many you?' Dora took...

her venal son-in-law running up astronomical debts in her name and, indirectly, to her own impulsive generosity to her family. She died two days before an equally debt-ridden...

being illuminating. Does the narra- tor — and does the reader — mature and extend his understanding of the Russian world as a result of this record of heat and meetings and...

makes the book passionate and per - sonal, a report from the front line, with the excitable young narrator bunging down everything that happens, in the present tense for maximum...

book appear to learn nothing from each other, you become less sympathetic towards their complaints. Of course Dima, and all the other Russians who appear in the book, retain the...

(the Drones of the Nation according to Cobbett) mingled with the masses. It was unquestionably a golden age in the English theatre and now Dora was at the very heart of it. She...

Fergal Keane closely considers the roles and characters of President Mandela, Mr de Klerk and Chief Buthelezi, basing his comments on regular meetings with all three. He is,...

writings on Cuba from 1968 to 1993. But everything he writes is 'on Cuba', even when it seems to be on something else. As he himself puts it: The exile is full of noises,...

MP and his gambler's streak illustrate in grotesque caricature the com- bination of limited ability with all- consuming ambition which Peter Riddell describes in his perceptive...

current undignified scramble for media coverage, has rivalled the Bonapartes in the field of self-promotion. Launching his Second Empire, Napoleon III had evident- ly learned a...

Juvenile crime, homelessness, child abuse, adultery, racism and riots — social ills of today; yes, but how common were they in pre- war Britain? Discover how the facts were...

The movies Why are films so long? Alasdair Palmer believes too many directors have confused Art and entertainment I s size important? In art, size has often been associated...

heroes of these tales as they arrive too late to do anything but give a valedicto- ry' glance at the outcome of murder and ma yhem. Their deductive ability is set at naught....

von Stroheim have been por- trayed as bean-counting barbarians whose meanness prevented great Artists from pursuing their visual concept. That is what they were when dealing...

The Reluctant King (Opera North, Theatre Royal, Nottingham and The Palace Theatre, Manchester) dodo Robin Holloway C habrier's monster cornucopia — that Ravel said he'd...

but their own hopes and dreams, for this is both architecturally and musically a fascinating theatrical folly in itself, still oddly unfinished as James Gold- man's book, which...

The Client (`15', selected cinemas) A legal sweetener Mark Steyn T ruth isn't stranger than fiction, it's just less sentimental. In real life, tarts don't have hearts — and...

rising from their chains and added a threatening bit of his own about how there were many of them and very few of 'the culturati'. Office life Power of incompetence Holly...

house was one John Gutfre- und, on a scholarship, mind you, but he proved himself quite smart later on. Gut- freund became head of Solomon Brothers, made trillions, but...

decorum is no longer. Teach- ers allow themselves to be interrupted, students look like clochards — especially when out of class, and everybody, but everybody, wears baseball...

at the Old Vic, I walked into the canteen and found a young woman who had been thrown in to the deep end. The night before she had opened in Antony and Cleopatra and was quite...

'4 7 A -7 "-. Free 1 ItIOIW EURRI MMERWE "■.:! En A 4111111 Not that anyone there lacks confidence now. Nor should they. Clive Greenhalgh (ex-Brackenbury) is front of...

Brackenbury and he s certainly delivered the goods here. A £14- bottle of fruity, grassy Alsace white could take you through all three courses pleasur - ably. And you'd probably...

— you stake out your own territory and defend it stoutly, but you welcome neighbours and do not resent a passer-by looking in. There is another type of American sub- urb that I...

and urineee Tel: 071 370 0778 (by appointment only) • IMPOTENCE PROBLEMS SOLVED The Most Advanced Range of Medical Treatment Options Available. Highly Qualified Medical...

travelled, linguist (Malay, Spanish), articulate, reliable, numerate, seeks chal- lenging work in UK or abroad. Anything considered. Box No: JB 352 BUSINESS TRIPLET FATHER,...

ubiquitous in the public prints these days. You know the sort of thing: Favourite food? Favourite film? Supersti- tions? And so on. There was a gem in the Guardian's unmissable...