e Czechs are used to betrayal. This time y know they have exposed the Russians to contempt—indeed the ridicule—of the ole world. Now their leaders have accepted indefinite...

The sheer tedium of the Republicans' con- vention carried with it the advantage, from the party's point of view, of offering Ameri- cans a party apparently united behind a...

We will have to take some temporary measures which will reduce the degree of de- mocracy we already have,' Mr Alexander Dubcek told the people of Czechoslovakia. `But I beg you...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY TADPOLE Years ago, in the days when the inimitable Jim Hagerty handled press relations for President Eisenhower, Art Buchwald wrote a spoof about the...

CZECHOSLOVAKIA DAVID BRYSON David Bryson is a computer systems analyst employed by Shellmex and BP; he was visiting Czechoslovakia when the Warsaw Pact troops invaded. I would...

THE PRESS BILL GRUNDY The wilds of Connemara are not the-best place for studying what the press is doing. Oh, there's time enough; it feels eternal. But there is one...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS `Man from the beginning of science has had an incorrect conception of time. CP0950 is a star that ticks like a clock . . . where Professor Sadeh is probing...

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN About ten days ago, I decided to return to my native land for a brief—and workless—visit. I had recently been in Scotland opening or dedi- cating the...

STRIX People forget that this is not the second but the third time in the first half-century of her existence as an independent state that Czecho- slovakia has occupied the...

PERSONAL COLUMN PETER ALLEN Sir Peter Allen is Chairman of to. In this melancholy month of August, which sees the end of steam on British Rail, with one small and honourable...

RACING CAPTAIN THREADNEEDLE Fred Archer's braces, richly embroidered with designs of wild flowers, are among the attrac- tions of the York races. They were worked for him by...

MEDICINE JOHN ROWAN WILSON The Ministry of Health is growing a little concerned about out-patients. The word has got around that patients are having to wait rather a long time,...

A MORAL PRIMER SIMON RAVEN This is the concluding extract from Simon Raven's 'substantial primer of moral and social instruction for the adolescent young.' "Do you ever think...

by Harold Acton In Part I of 'The Operation' the ageing matinee idol Aubrey Vernon underwent obscure but expensive treatments from the fashionable Professor Nagler; he...

'MARI( SPURLING 'What on earth you are serious about I haven't got the remotest idea. About everything. I fancy. You have such an absolutely trivial nature.' Thus Algernon...

Press 42s) Tory story ROBERT BLAKE The years leading up to and following the second Reform Act have gone a good way to displace the period around 1832 as a focus of interest...

PATRICK ANDERSON The Story of My Days, An Autobiography 1888-1922 Ernest Raymond (Cassell 36s) In The Story of My Days the octogenarian novelist, Mr Ernest Raymond, has written...

ROBERT BIRLEY This is a collection of ephemera, some fifty short pieces written between 1958 and 1967, most of them on contemporary events, for two South African journals with...

Unreal city HENRY TUBE Girltrap Charlotte Crozet translated by Brian and Sylvette Scragg (Hodder and Stoughton 30s) A Literary Lion Anthony Masters (Secker and Warburg 30s)...

Corkers PETER PARLEY Black Champagne George B. Mair (Jarrolds 22s 643) - Cast a Yellow Shadow Ross Thomas (Hodder and Stoughton 25s) Lie Down, I Want to Talk to You William...

KENNETH ALLSOP Making It Norman Podhoretz (Cape 36s) The eminent editor and critic is taking the pulse of the state of English literature and western civilised values. 'Did...

Nelson and his World Tom Pocock (Thames and Hudson 35s). An excellent short life, good on the early influences which shaped Nelson's strange character, and well illustrated with...

MICHAEL NYMAN It has been left to Harrison Birtwistle to hold the fort for 'progressive' English music this week. While the Proms are indulging a Walton mini-festival,...

EXPORT ANTHONY LIVESEY Works of art to the value of more than £27 million were exported from this country during the twelve months from July 1966 to June 1967. Since this...

Fruit, 3 Vols. By 'the Author of Lady Audley's 'Secret, &c. (Whrd, "Lock, and Tyler.)—No writer can hope to escape the penalties which await over- production. It seems to_ us...

EDINBURGH ART BRYAN ROBERTSON Apart from the vigorous Canadian show at Edinburgh, the Festival boasts at least three other major exhibitions, two of which are sched- uled for...

OPERA CHARLES REID As-an opera house_the Coliseum works after all; but we had to wait.until The Mastersingers on Saturday to be sure of it. Three nights earlier The opening...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT On his return from a sterling holiday in Cyprus Mr Roy Jenkins almost immediately saw Professor Schiller, the German Economics Minister. This opened yet...

PORTFOLIO JOHN BULL Associated British Picture looks to be a much underrated share. There are two reasons for this, both of which I think are misconceived. In the first place,...

CHRISTOPHER FILDES Signs of a Whitehall bypass under construc- tion are already there to be seen. The Con- federation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress have let...

TECHNOLOGY REX MALIK At the recent Edinburgh Congress of the International Federation for Information Pro- cessing (probably the dullest title that could have been thought up...

AMERICAN VIEWPOINT ADELAIDE ENGLISH Washington—In the heart of the Bedford Stuyvesant ghetto in New York stands um's latest manufacturing plant. For a month now ninety-six men...

with great authority (Letters, 9 and August), but some of his declarations are -not in line with facts. After the first massacre of civilians of Eastern origin, assident in...

LETTERS From: John Braine, Grenville Jones, Joan Mellors, Lord Goodman, Nameer Ali Jawdat, Colin Rickards, Giles Gordon, Vernon Bogdanor, John Prickett, R. L. Travers, C. P....

SI . : Your correspondent Mr Martelli (Letters, 16 August) does not seem to 'be very conver- sant with The background to the current Nigeria/Biafran conflict. As one whose firm...

Sir: Writing as one who admired your cour- age in proposing devaluation as an alternative to deflation in 1966, I was surprised and dis- appointed by your editorial, 'Patience...

Sir : Having been on holiday, I have just seen Donald McLachlan's article, 'George tells all' (16 August). There are two factual errors: we have commissioned two books from Mr...

Sir: I have always taken the view that when an author writes a book he sets himself up as a target for the approval, or otherwise, of his readers, and especially of his...

Sir : One needs to be grateful to Mr Nicholas Davenport for devoting the whole of his article (16 August) to the finances of the British film industry—a topic sadly neglected...

Sir : Censorship, being an infringement on liberty, is always deplorable, and Mr John Calder, who published Last Exit to Brooklyn, is therefore to be congratulated on the fact...

Sir: Professor Brogan's 'Table Talk' in your issue of 23 August is an example of the ten- dency that I pointed out in my letter of the previous week of academic Catholics to...

Sir: Mr W. Atton's oblique criticism •of Sir Denis Brogan (Letters, 23 August) strikes me as odd. The juxtaposition of that well-known Scotch canker (of English insertion?) of...

Sir : The basic philosophy of Mr Simon Raven's articles is clearly revealed in the first paragraph of number 4 in your last issue. 'Food,' he tells us, 'in the long run, is a...

AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS London, Thursday—Mystery still surrounds 'the thinking of top party officials here follow- ing the British invasion and partial military occupation of...

PHILIDOR L. I. Loshinski (first prize, Turin 1958). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 401 (Holladay): R - K 3, no threat. 1 . . . P x...

COMPETITION Competitors are invited to use the ten following words, taken from the opening passages of a well-known work of literature, in the order given, to construct part of...

Charles Seaton reports: Competitors were asked to construct a piece of prose around ten given words and made a remarkably good job of it. Was the eighteenth century to be...

Across I Specialists in dramatic lightning tours of the countryside? (12) 9 lay in his way, and he found it' (Henry IV, 2) (9) 10 That never-to-be-forgotten one who takes the...