In his newly published book — reviewed elsewhere in this issue by Professor Robert Skidelsky — Mr Alex Rubner asks what is the 'Price of a Free Lunch'. This seemingly jocular...

Norman's conquest Ferdinand Mount What's this — four o'clock on a Thursday afternoon, a time when MPs are usually beginning to think about getting off for the weekend, and the...

The Economist has calculated that some 100,000 Indochinese refugees will die Within the next six weeks unless something is done to change the nightmare situation in the Far...

Murray Sayle Tokyo International conferences are not growing any more productive, but they may, mercifully, be getting shorter. When Henry VIII met Francis I of France on the...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington In the hours after the President gave his SALT speech to Congress the White House said it got 70 or 80 telegrams and telephone calls in support,...

Mr Henry A. Severn, of Herne Hill, has invented a very clever little instrument, called a tell-tale compass, by which the captain or master of a ship, when down in his cabin,...

Richard West Son gkhla, South-East Thailand In The Rescue, one of his novels about this part of the world, Joseph Conrad describes the tragic affair of an English yacht that...

Charles Douglas-Home What is West Europe to make of SALT II? A treaty spawned by a democratically weak President and a physically moribund dictator cannot claim good breeding,...

Ferdinand Mount Mr Jeremy Thorpe stands in the privacy of his own balcony, a free man. It is a riproaring finale — but a finale to what? Greek tragedy was never like this. Once...

Christopher Booker T . he hoardings of Britain are presently bearing.an unusually eye-catching poster. Over a picture of a Fiat car, it proclaims in large letters the legend...

Paul Ableman Last autumn. as I dragged myself through Manhattan on what was, to the natives. merely a pleasantly-mild day but seemed to me, as I feverishly licked salt from the...

Times of trouble Sir: In your Notebook last week, your carefully thought-out observations on Sir James Goldsmith were preceded by an unthinking item in which you opined that...

Mary Kenny I was — and remain — extremely sceptical when I first heard about the United Nations Year of the Child project. 'This must be the year,' I heard a child guidance...

Discriminator of distinctions Harold Acton Bernard Sorenson: The Making of a Connoisseur Ernest Samuels (Harvard £9.50) When Bernard Berenson died in 1959 at the age of 94...

Douglas Johnson is Professor of French history at University College, London and the author of France and the Dreyfus Affair and The French Revolution . Jonathan Keates has...

John Wood of the Institute of Economic Affairs sees some rough water ahead for the new Go vernmen t. As the new government is slowly and reluctantly beginning to realise, huge—...

Mike Brearley—England's Cricket Captain—draws lessons from the noblest game which may have wider importance. When England tour Australia the occasio n and the setting help...

In this article the Electricians' leader argues for more responsibility at every level of our industrial society. I am surprised that not too many people seem concerned about...

Robert Skidelsky The Price of a Free Lunch: The Perverse Relationship between Economists and Politicians Alex Rubner (Wildwood House £6.50) Alex Rubner has written a very...

Peter Paterson The Collapse of Work Clive Jenkins and Barrie Sherman (Eyre Methuen £7.50) Mr Clive Jenkins is mellowing. He has always been a great optimist, of course — how...

Taki Theodoracopu los A Short History of Modern Greece Richard Clogg (Cambridge £10.50) 'I cannot get over the undeniable fact that now, when Greece literally is starving and...

Anthony Storr Optimism Lionel Tiger (Secker £6.95) Ten years ago, Lionel Tiger, who is a professor of anthropology at Rutgers, wrote Men in Groups, an interesting study of male...

Douglas Johnson Napoleon and his Parliaments 1800-1815 Irene Collins (Edward Arnold E9.50) At first sight it is strange to associate Napoleon with parliamentary government....

Jonathan Keates _The Oxford History of English Literature vol VIII: The Mid-Eighteenth Century John Butt and Geoffrey Carnall (Oxford £14) The sole fact which absolutely needs...

Paul Ableman Beltran in Exile William Watson (Chatto £5.95) '1 am not dead. . . Who is dead?. .. Who is dead? . . . Who do you think is dead? . . . Thibaud was dead. . .Thibaud...

Out of the mouths of babes Mary Kenny 'It is fascinating to notice the difference between the books that children choose for themselves and the books that adults choose for...

Benny Green The partition of antiquity, or the great Old Rush as it is known among publishers 9f children's fiction, is a thriving business In which rivalries are keenly...

Quaint but unsentimental John McEwen As an installation, the most impressive contemporary exhibition of the moment is the matching of Harry Holland's paintings with the...

Peter Jenkins is abroad and will resume his theatre column next week. Hans Keller asks 'Is God Mozart-like?' and discusses the C major Piano Concerto K467. In the books pages...

Daredevil Ted Whitehead Moon raker (Odeon, Leicester Square) That Summer (Classic, Oxford Street) Never having seen Roger Moore in the role of James Bond. I was curious to see...

Fare better BBC Hans Keller My valediction to the BBC is not what some of my ex-bosses expect — an aggressive, 'rebellious', personal, indeed idiosyncratic list of complaints...

Post Thorpem Richard ingrams Once again, it has been a case this week of what didn't get shown on television being more interesting than what did. For months two teams...

Tennis balls Taki When Vitas Gerulaitis lost to the unknown Pat Dupre" at Wimbledon last Monday, moans of anguish and despair replaced snorting sounds throughout chic London...

Man's world Jeffrey Bernard Last Monday evening I was only able to Catch the very beginning of what looked to he a promising television programme. Inside Story had made a...

Letter-carver Geoffrey Wheatcroft Reynolds Stone died last Saturday, not long after his 70th birthday. He was the finest wood-engraver of his generation and perhaps the finest...

No. 1071: Marriage lines Set by A.J. Wyborn: Contributions, please, of about 120 words to a book on Successful Marriage from well-known husbands in literature, the advice given...

Best for whom? David Levy For at least the past ten years many of the country's strongest players have been unhappy about the way that the British Championship is organised....