While Miss Bernadette Devlin is in America devoting herself to the noble task of strengthening the British balance of payments by extracting a million valu- able dollars for...

Politics is about platitudes AUBERON WAUGH 'We want both reforms that are more re- volutionary in their implications for the future than any Socialist dreams of, and defences...

Mr Nixon plays Disraeli MURRAY KEMPTON Well/lees, Mass.—The country, this August, is curiously like Paris in any August, its public life suspended. Mr Nixon is in Orange...

ome and abroad CRABRO he present Parliament at Westminster has tnessed a massacre of reputations. It is rd to think of a leading politician whose • inding in public esteem...

Orange bitters MARTIN WALLACE 'There is absolutely no change in the con- stitutional position in Northern Ireland and no diminuation in the powers of the Northern Ireland...

From the 'Spectator'. 28 August 1869—In the dearth of better subjects, the discussion on the propriety of Formosa has been going on all the week without any particular result,...

General Gowon smells trouble PETER ENAHORO eter Enahoro, brother of the Federal igeriatt Information and Labour Minister hid f Enahoro, is a former editor-in-chief f the Lagos...

Bosses' truce KULDIP NAYAR Delhi—It proved very difficult for Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to get her own party's nominee for the Indian Presidency defeated last week, and...

After Blaiberg JOHN ROWAN WILSON Whether Professor Barnard admits it or not, the death of Philip Blaiberg is an event of major significance as far as heart trans- plantation...

JOHN HOLLOWAY Co. Mayo—The days are past, over here, when an Englishman and a black Protestant could seem all part of the same thing, so the people I know talk readily enough...

Entertaining Mr Kuznetsov AUBERON HERBERT Four days after his escape from the Soviet authorities, Anatoli Kuznetsov was taken by David Floyd, of the 'Daily Telegraph', to stay...

Team spirit BILL GRUN DY No one can deny that Mr Robert Maxwell is a fellow of flair. One of the ways he demonstrates this is by getting his face as the papers more often than...

Your verdict R. A. CLINE man is said to be languishing in jail onvicted of a murder he did not commit. l e victim of the murder, who apparently .1 not die at once of his stab...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS Seated people tend to drop litter; and we want to keep the station clean and tidy— Spokesman for the London Midland Region, defending the refusal to...

Violent days GEORGE SCOTT Coverage of the situation in Northern Ire- land has exposed the limitations of TV. Some of those limitations are inherent; some are imposed by...

Ghosts in the treasure house DENIS BROGAN The appearance of the fourteenth edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is, of course, a deserved tribute to a great American...

Joining method with emotion L. D. ETTLINGER While he was Professor of Sculpture John Flaxman delivered every year before the Royal Academy a series of nine lectures on his...

RODNEY ACKLAND Novel on Yellow Paper or Work it out for yourself Stevie Smith (Cape 30s) A packed house at the Grand Archetypal Ideal World Theatre of Varieties. Star turn...

JOHN ROWAN WILSON The New Dimensions of Medicine Alan Norton (Hodder and Stoughton 50s) In recent years a healthy realisation has grown up that medicine is no longer a mys-...

MICHAEL BORRIE Europe in the Dark Ages Jean Hubert, Jean Porcher, W. F. Volbach (Thames and Hud- son 210s) Bishop Burnet remarked, in his Travels (1687), that in the great...

G. A. FORREST The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward Sir F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland (cut' 2 vols 65s each) This work, now re-issued with an intro- duction by...

H. G. PITT 'The Best Men': Liberal Reformers in the Gilded Age John G. Sproat (out' 64s) The victory of the North in the American civil war revealed simultaneously that...

TIBOR SZAMUELY The Game of Nations Miles Copeland (Weidenfeld and Nicholson 50s) The main argument against this book being an elaborate hoax is that a hoaxer would have been...

Pop from the Beginning Nik Cohn (Weiden- feld and Nicolson 36s). Slick, snide but still just perceptibly swinging, Mr C,ohn's history of pop provides some handy grid references...

STEPHEN GARDINER 'Today, as for a long time past, 1 believe that architecture has little or nothing to do with the invention ot interesting forms or with personal inclinations....

A man is a man PENELOPE HOUSTON The Wild Bunch (Warner, 'X') L'Asfragale (Curzon, 'X') Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch arrived here from America with a reputation—per- haps...

Mixed sweets BRYAN ROBERTSON Prevented by time and space from giving an account of the small but important show- ing of Matisse bronzes at Victor Wadding- ton's gallery some...

Nightfall HILARY SPURLING Twelfth Night (Stratford) Devotees of the spectacular, or for that matter of pantomime and magic spangles, must have been especially pleased by the...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT The circumstances surrounding the dropping of the £25 million bid for Mr Robert Max- well's Pergamon Press by Leasco Data Pro- cessing Corporation, the...

JOHN BULL In the month which has elapsed since I last published a valuation of my portfolio there has been a French devaluation (which has removed some but not all of the small...

Sir: John Rowan Wilson's observations on the Oppenheimer case in his review article on N. P. Davis's book Lawrence and Oppenheimer (2 August) call for com- ment. They reflect an...

From Peter Oppenheimer, Professor P. T. Batter, Richard Luce, W. If. F. Barklam, K. S. Walsh Brennan, Ian Hamilton Finlay, I. F. Wilkinson, Bernard Kops, Trudie Morris. A...

Sir: Auberon Waugh's analysis of Conser- vative candidates fighting the marginal seats (23 August) makes entertaining reading but otherwise appears to be shallow in judg- ment,...

Sir: My attention has been drawn to the review of The Biafra Story (2 August) in which Auberon Waugh alleges that 'the BBC'S Africa Service continues to this day as one of the...

Sir: Under the Northern Ireland Special Powers Act, British citizens in Ulster can be arrested without warrant, denied recourse to a court of law, denied claim to a trial by...

The merchant venturer JOHN WELLS Socialist me Mr John Silver is a bluff, jolly man in his middle fifties, with a won- derfully roguish twinkle in his eye. The other is covered...

Sir: With regard to Mr Cole's review of my book (23 August), By the Waters of Whitechapel, I would like to point out that Senrab actually exists, in the East End of London. If...

Sir: Mr Grimond (9 August), in dealing with Lord Haldane's life, seems to use his review as another vehicle to whip the Tories rather than give his readers a real apprecia-...

Sir: You recently printed a letter (2 August) in which I made certain charges against the present publisher of my collection of poems, The Dancers Inherit The Party. I would now...

No. 568: Onward Rhodesia The problem of finding a new national anthem for Rhodesia has been solved: a specially appointed national anthem judging committee has chosen a...

PHILIDOR E. M. Hassberg (1st Prize, Alain White Tourney, 1951). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to No. 453 (Chicco): Q - R 1, threat 2Q-B1...

Across 1 Dark deed in the shoe cupboard? (8) 5 Musical score in the ball game (6) 9 No places, perhaps, for those seeking spiri- tual advancement (8) 10 Helen's brilliant...