M rs Thatcher addressed the nation on the 'Jimmy Young Show' and announced that the Coal Board would never surrender. The search for mediators in the dispute gained urgency as...

Moral pitfalls I n a speech at West Hartlepool, the Bishop of Durham, avoiding what he called '. . .the usual cant and compliment', had denounced the miner, for striking and...

'There are now at least two sitting MPs who have recently been convicted of quite serious crimes. Dr Roger Thomas, the Labour MP for Carmarthen, was found guilty of a sexual...

B y the standards of Sun readers, Anthony McQuone is a genius, not least because he can quote Shakespeare. 'To be or not be' he says; and 'Now is the winter of our discontent'....

P resident Mitterrand and Chancellor Kohl looked solemnly embarrassed as they stood holding hands on the field of Verdun last Saturday. After all, in north-, ern Europe grown...

W as it illegal? Was it cruel? And where did they get the sheep? Last week's e mbarrassment in Roehampton has brought out the worst in both countries concerned: the sentimental...

(15 .September) was wrongly ordered. The fifth and sixth para- graphs should have followed the paragraph which was printed ninth.

UK Eire Surface mail Air mail 6 months: £17.25 £17.25 £20.50 £26.50 One year: £34.50 £34.50 L41.00 £53 00 Name Address US Subscriptions: $75.00 (Airspeed). The Spectator is...

Gathering the threads Auberon Waugh O ne never knows quite how seriously one should take the acid rain scare. Looking out over the Somerset country- side, it is hard to see...

N ormally I get ideas, or whatever you wish to call them, for this diary, while walking. But having just developed gout, walking, or rather limping, has become a full-time...

John Ralston Saul he King of Morocco has just proved, 1 yet again, that he is the world cham- pion in creative political opportunism; whether measured by longevity or skill....

announces another fiendish Treasure Hunt In keeping with the tradition of recent years, the Spectator is launching — in the 13 October issue — another extremely difficult...

Charles Glass Beirut D o years after the departure of the LO from Beirut, Baalbek has super- seded Beirut as the ostensible terrorist capital of the world. Shi'ites have...

George Szamuely H appy days are here again! This week, Mr Gromyko pops round to see Presi- dent Reagan; and even as he does so the air is thick with talk of future summits...

John Sutro Monte Carlo O n the occasion of Graham Greene's 80th birthday I am attempting to summarise some aspects of a friendship which, starting through our mutual friend...

The American Presidential campaign is this time a most miserable business. So equal are the parties, that every American not bemused by party feeling admits that the result...

William Deedes L ike so many famous battles of the past, Arnhem after 40 years has become a rich field for the 'if only' sort of arugment. There has been a lot of it about this...

Alan Rusbridger H ello and welcome. . . . Good news about young Prince Henry. Do you approve of the name? (Cheer). Good, good. Well, today a change of tack.' Sarah Kennedy,...

No more cleft sticks Paul Johnson T he fear among some journalists that the bingo war may mean a reduction in the professional quality of newspapers obviously has some...

Donald's duck Mothing is more valuable, in financial 1 markets, than to find someone who is reliably wrong — which is another reason to worry about Donald Regan, Secretary of...

The bank loan of the week involves Michele Sindona — 'God's banker' before Roberto Calvi took over the account. Sindona is being lent by the New York jail where he is serving 25...

T he strange case of the wandering Oliv- er has taken a new twist. This is the celebrated biscuit invented in Bath by Dr Oliver, who said that, eaten in moderation, it was good...

T he biggest victims of financial fraud do not seem to have any ideas about the way their exploiters should be prosecuted and tried — or, if they have, are too shy to put them...

Outguessing the market Peter Brimelow Lake Lanier, USA A ny ny eort to understand the United has to begin with its enormous size and physical abundance. One day recently, I...

Sir: I am not generally a friend of boring letters, but at the risk of sounding like Mr Pooter after the Lord Mayor's reception, I should like to point out that I am not, as you...

Sir: Your contributor P.J. Kavanagh (Post- script, 8 September) asks for a remedy against moles. I have. in my long time, tried many elaborate schemes for disposing of these...

Sir: I have been commissioned to write the biography of the late John Stewart Collis. I would be grateful to hear from any of your readers who can help me with information or...

Sir: The pinyin version of Peking is Beijing (re Geoffrey Wheatcroft's Diary, 11 Au- gust); the word in Chinese means 'North- ern Capital'. Several years ago the Chinese...

Sir: Simon Jenkins is wrong (`Raising the Belgrano', 22 September) to link David Owen with Neil Kinnock's name in deman- ding a Committee of Enquiry into the Belgrano. I know...

moles (Postscript, 8 September) he should buy one of those toy windmills that spin round on the end of a stick. You plant the base of the stick in the mole's run; and when the...

Bank statement Sir: Bruce-Gardyne's article of 8 Septem- ber purports to comment on my views on the international debt situation. Unfortu- nately, every material assertion of...

Sir: As one who reads your journal on the principle of 'know you enemy' (male chativinist snobs) could you please inform me who are Lobbs (Diary, 25 August)? Dr Maureen...

Sir: According to Jeffrey Bernard (Low life, 22 September) Sibelius said to an (unnamed) Observer reporter: 'Tell them I have a big prick.' According to my late father, Kenneth...

Sergeant Chuchu's guest Patrick Marnham Getting to Know the General Graham Greene (Bodley Head £8.95) I n the winter of 1976, Graham Greene, who was living in Antibes,...

Peter Levi T. S. Eliot Peter Ackroyd (Hamish Hamilton £12.50) w hen the lost Waste Land manuscript seemed to have surfaced late in his life, T. S. Eliot was depressed by the...

A. N. Wilson Kenneth Clark Meryle Secrest (Weidenfeld & Nicolson £12.95) F or some reason, I found the Civilisation programmes on television irresistibly amusing. Doubtless...

Francis King The Tiger Lisa St Aubin de Teran (Cape f8.95) T ike Somerset de Chair, Amber Blanc° d I White and Fredegonde Shove, Lisa St Aubin de Teran should be the sort of...

Richard West The Quality of Mercy: Cambodia, Holocaust and Modern Conscience William Shawcross (Andre Deutsch £12.95) S ince the fall of Saigon in 1975, the Osubject of...

Peter Quennell Jane Austen's Family through Five Generations Maggie Lane (Hale £11.50) G oing up or going down in the world seems often to haVe an equally bad effect upon the...

Patrick Skene Catling Automatic Vaudeville: Essays on Star Turns John Lahr (Heinemann £8.95) J ohn Lahr, a talented American writer in exile in London, son of the late Bert...

Clown with a camera Daniel Fuson T he Victoria and Albert Museum is about to recognise the remarkable talent of a most unusual man. The name of John Deakin (whose photographs...

The dark forest Peter Ackroyd The Company of Wolves ('18', Odeon Leicester Square) rr his is a film which at once creates an 1 atmosphere of mystery, as a respect- able...

Noble ethic Christopher Edwards Othello (Lyric Studio, Hammersmith) H ow seriously can we take the play Othello? I don't mean how convincing is it as a study of jealousy. The...

West meets East Peter Phillips A ccording td the latest edition of Grove's Dictionary, the English rul- ing classes in India 'did nothing' for native music all the time they...

Silver cloud Taki I was looking forward to a ball in Cheshire "that promised to have every eligible sweet young thing in the UK in attendance but it was not to be. The God...

High marks Peter Levi he BBC was close to its best. The Last 1 Night of the Proms (BBC1), elegantly conducted by Kenneth Johnson from the front row, was an orgy of good...

No. 1340: Worse than Rowse Set by Jaspistos: You are invited to trans- late a passage of Shakespearian poetry (please quote source) into a barbarous form of contemporary...

Dust P.J. Kavanagh I t came to me on the Nile my pass- Port lied/ Calling me dark who am gr e y . . . .' said Louis MacNeice. This has l happened to me yet, though I daresay...

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for a tribute, in verse or prose, to grace the memorial to a departed pet. A huge entry, proving that foreigners are right either way:...

Consolidation Raymond Keene A fter the tempestuous events of Games 2 and 3, the following two world championship games ran a considerably quieter course. In Game 4 Kasparov...

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Prize: £10 (or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, 1983 edition, value £10.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first correct solution opened on 15 October....

T ucy's dinner parties have two major defects. Both, in their way, involve chickens. First, there is the kissing busi- ness. Her guests arrive hard on each other's heels and...

A NUMBER OF PEOPLE by Sir Edward Marsh, and 'Soviet Chess: Chess and Communism in the U.S.S.R.' by D. J. Richards. M. Russell, Dungrove Farm House, Tarrant Gunville, Blandford,...