'That will be PO million and 50 cents, sir.' he Government agreed to award nurses an average 15.3 per cent pay in- crease and promised to fund it in full from Treasury...

Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 GORBACHEV AND US Oon it will be upon us again: summit fever, with all the attendant brouhaha, the saturation media coverage...

Mr Brown rattles the skeletons in Labour's cupboard NOEL MALCOLM It is not my intention to speculate about what Mr Brown thought he was doing when he threw his papers at the...

amadan, the Muslim month of fast- ing, and the heat of the Syrian spring arrived together in Damascus. Devout Muslims and those who want merely to show a seasonal devotion to...

Mrs Pring and the permissive path to patronising power AUBERON WAUGH 0 n the property where I live there is a small lake at the bottom of the park — others, I suppose, might...

Ferdinand Mount welcomes the Kingman Report's demand for the revival of Standard English in the classroom WHEN scenting success, one is supposed to wipe the smirk off one's...

Sam White on how the leader of the extreme Right was set up by the Socialist President Paris IT now looks certain that President Mitter- rand will win the second round of the...

LATE on Tuesday night, the philan- thropists carried a strong resolution calling upon the Government to sup- press the sale of intoxicants among native races in the Colonies. Mr...

Robert Cottrell charts the Foreign Office manoeuvres that gave away Hong Kong Hong Kong 'THE history of foreign diplomacy with China', proposed one Victorian commen- tator,...

Gerda Cohen reports on the oddities and emotions of the uprising against Israel Jerusalem IT is clear now: the army cannot put down the uprising by force, nor can the Palesti-...

Anthony Daniels finds out why Guatemalans are right to fear the forces of revolution Santiago I HAVE done everything possible, in an informal kind of way, to meet the Guate-...

'On a gloomier note, 55 is the time when most men commit suicide....' (Virginia Ironside, Woman, 23 April) What Miss Ironside presumably meant was not that the majority of men...

Rupert Scott on the difficulties facing the new Italian Prime Minister Rome SOMETHING terrible happened in Italy recently, something that shocked the whole country. It was not...

Francis Beckett on the death of the left- wing periodicals SINCE Labour's conference last year, the Left has lost three of its four weekly publications: Labour Weekly, News on...

library . . . or almost £30 on The Spectator If you're forced to share The Spectator with fellow students, then you'll know how difficult it can be to track a copy down. Now you...

A prize for proving that PROFESSOR Peter Levi would have the literary world believe that a handful of poems hitherto attributed to John Marston are in fact the work of William...

The media: Paul Johnson begs the Government to keep politics out of advertising THE use of public money to advertise the doings of authority first became a major issue in the...

Alack, A-Day, what a muddled way to be the plain man's friend CIIR I STOPHER FI LDES A very happy A-Day to all my read- ers, and congratulations to those few who can work out...

THE City needs its radicals — Nicholas Davenport, my sainted predecessor, wrote the Memoirs of a City Radical — and when I first met Malcolm Pearson he was a radical at Lloyd's...

A SPLENDID spectacle awaits the City on Monday, when the Lord Mayor, Alderman Spratt, takes to the water.- The state barge he sits in will be rowed by ten oarsmen and followed...

WHILE all this pantomime is being carried on in the name of investor protection, there are 100,000 investors waiting to hear from a protector. They have their money in...

Sir: Thank you. I am now able to cancel my subscriptions to the Jewish Chronicle as your coverage of the affairs of the Hebrew race is so comprehensive. Out of a total of 14...

the response by Lord Monta- gu to my personal criticism of English Heritage is so spurious that, despite his assurances as to the future of Kenwood, his comments have to be...

Sir: Mr Gavin Stamp's article (`The de- basement of heritage', 2 April) and the recent correspondence in your columns unfortunately does little to enhance Ken- wood as an...

Sir: Mr Charles Glass's article 'When Clubs are Trumps' (19 March), and that of Mr A. N. Wilson, 'Eyeless in Gaza' (9 April), are biased distortions of the truth. The truth is...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY — Save 15% on the Cover Price! RATES 12 Months 6 Months UK 0 £45.00 0 £23.00 Europe (airmail) 0 £55.00 0 £28.00 USA Airspeed 0 US $90 0 US$45 Rest of Airmail!:...

Sir: Taki got a bit confused. He pays homage (High life, 12 March) to the marvellous Bruce Kennedy. The marvel in question is not Bruce Kennedy (he sends his thanks in any...

Sir: I was surprised to find an inaccuracy in the article by Charles Moore on 5 March (`To the Cape and back'). I took Mr Moore to Rondebosch in my taxi. He reports that I was...

Sir: I am a little offended that Auberon Waugh (Letters, 23 April) should find my possible flatulence disgusting and sad. It isn't. I drink vodka and am not a glutton or wine...

Sir: I failed to appreciate the point of Auberon Waugh's dotty column (Another voice, 16 April) rejoicing in the 'exposure' of my revered colleague Paul Halloran in the Sunday...

Sir: Jennifer Paterson (Restaurant, 12 March): '. . . I had two types of goats' cheese in prime condition, chevre and a little round one'. Are we next going to have Auberon...

Sir: I say welcome to the Spectator invita- tion to include readers at the 160th birth- day `nosh' to meet the literati, at the same time recalling, with feeling, the 150th...

Sir: Auberon Waugh (Another voice, 12 March) noted that wine sales appeared to be tripling every time he looked at them and remarked that the greatest threat to the nation's...

Ambiguity of a good German A. L. Rowse A NOBLE COMBAT: THE LETTERS OF SHEILA GRANT DUFF AND ADAM VON TROTT, 1932-1939 edited by K. von Klemperer Clarendon Press, Oxford,...

Anita Brookner 'S'. A NOVEL by John Updike Deutsch, £10.95, pp. 244 B y an enormous mischance John Up- dike's new novel explores the same subject as that dealt with by Ruth...

Mark Shivas BERTOLUCCI BY BERTOLUCCI Plexus, £15.95, pp. 303 I s it, or are these, the Last Emperor's New Clothes? Books of interviews with film directors are legion, some of...

Francis King BLUEBEARD by Kurt Vonnegut Cape, £10.95, pp. 300 0 ne of the oddest features of both the economic and artistic history of this cen- tury has been the way in...

Isabel Colegate MARY AND RICHARD: THE STORY OF RICHARD HILLARY AND MARY BOOKER by Michael Burn Deutsch, £12.95, pp. 249 I was seven when the second world war began. We lived...

You come like anger, harsh-propelled, Too large, too close, too loud, too rough. I think I should reach out to hold Your long, hard limbs which cannot mould. I don't make time,...

Antony Lambton SUMMER'S LEASE by John Mortimer Viking, E11.95, pp. 289 I have always admired Mr John Mortim- er's portrait of his father and was sorry to be away last year...

week. It is The First Austrian Republic 1918-1938.

Harold Acton THE KING IN LOVE: EDWARD VII'S MISTRESSES by Theo Aronson John Murray, £13.95, pp. 301 W hen I was an undergraduate mem- ber of the Oxford University Railway...

Christopher Hitchens MIAMI by Joan Didion Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £12.95, pp. 238 T he other day at Johns Hopkins Uni- versity I found myself on a panel with one of the...

The kitschy statues bleed. This theatre of God Acts out a Latin poetry A heretic can't translate. I think of pitch pine pews A northern childhood knew. I wrestled with John Knox...

Exhibitions Unresolved questions Giles Auty Edward Middleditch (Serpentine Gallery, till 15 May) Paule Vezelay (Michael Parkin, till 27 May) T en years ago, a lecture...

Cobra Verde ('15', Renoir; Gate Notting Hill) An eye for the grotesque Hilary Mantel I n the introduction to his book The Viceroy of Ouidah, Bruce Chatwin gives a concise and...

Faust, Part I (Lyric, Hammersmith) Journey's End (Whitehall) Easy Virtue (Garrick) The devil to pay Christopher Edwards s last week's column came from Scotland I have only...

Arise, Sir Sandy Peter Levi I n the past Week I have been making television, watching television, and was the absent subject of a BBC television item of pitiful frivolity; no...

The mugs and the cookie jars Peter Watson ust on five o'clock last Sunday after- noon, the auctioneer on the rostrum at Sotheby's made a public announcement. 'Ladies and...

forthcoming events recommended by The Spectator's regular critics THEATRE Married Love, Wyndhams (836 3028). Peter Luke's play about Marie Stopes — pioneer of birth control and...

Fawn raider Taki long with the forsythia, the pansies were out in force last week, as were the hacks of the White House press corps, for this was the 74th annual White House...

Cat and mouse Jeffrey Bernard T he disgusting little cameos of life today that I glimpse with more and more frequency are merging to make a vast and revolting canvas. I have...

Buffet garrn Alice Thomas Ellis I saw a man recently on television suggesting that chimpanzees should be reclassified as hominids. When I men- tioned this in passing to my...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

Low and unlikely Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1520 you were in- vited to provide an extract from an imagin- ary column by Jeffrey Bernard writing in highly untypical...

Fisherman's tale Raymond Keene A lthough Jon Speelman set the field ablaze in the first few rounds of the Brussels World Cup, his challenge faded towards the middle and it was...

washing on the Siegfried Line. . the song assured us during the war. No doubt the Germans were singing equally silly songs. You are invited to supply an imaginary lyric, in...

4 E V E 5 R L ° A N O 9 PEIIILEI r IJMENISE BIlIft UT'10lTEL'A S 1 '1 3 S 'L E A N T '8 A N 0 N AINILIEll I 11151 E SLLI A T TER N 1!) NEIRIC 2 i BITES EMANN ' t HEEN H A E A M...

Not one but two Auberon Waugh B , onhomme's Macon Vire' ) will be familiar to all who were fortunate enough to buy the splendid 1983, one of the best bargains I have ever...

c/o Grape Ideas, 3-5 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford OX! 2EW Telephone (0865) 722137 No. Va lue White 1. Macon Vire 1986 (Domaine Andre Bonhomme) 12 bots. £71.40 2. Rully la Chaume...