I n a new attempt to lower the total of 3,200,000 unemployed the Employment Secretary announced a voluntary `share-a- job scheme'. Under this any arrangement which took one...

Her way with words Charles Moore T hose who are paid to survey the wicked world of politics make their easiest money from pointing out the disparity bet- ween 'rhetoric' and...

I don't think I have ever praised Dr Runcie for anything, but I do so now. In his ser- !non in St. Paul's Cathedral on Monday he Showed a far clearer understanding of the...

UK Eire Surface null Air mail 6 months: £15.50 111f17.75 .08.50 £24.50 One year: £31.00 IRE35.50 £37.00 £49.00 US subscription price: $65.00 (Cheques to be made payable to...

Hark, the dogs don't bark Auberon Waugh Miami Beach, Florida A s I left England, the Daily Mirror was running an excellent series on child prostitution in Britain, centred...

Anthony Mockler I t was 1964, in the Congo, and I was on my first foreign assignment. But he could not have been less like the 'Mad Mike' I had imagined and secretly had been...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington I n a nation that worships physical beauty as it hasn't been worshipped since the time of the Athenians, this kid would surely be elected least...

Sam White Paris A lthough in office for little more than a year President Mitterrand is beginning to make the kind of mistake that marked the last years of his predecessor's...

Peter Kemp T f it is true that revolutions devour their young, then in Nicaragua the moderates have provided a meal for the extremists. The process has been gradual because...

Richard West A report in The Times says that John Aspinall, the zoo keeper, is sending gorillas to Franceville, in the Gabon, where it is hoped to train them for a return to...

Roy Kerridge Belfast S andy Row, in Belfast, is now a ghost of its former self. Broken are the walls where King Billy, in painted splendour, fought the Battle of the Boyne....

Arabi Pasha's letter to Mr Gladstone, received through Mr Wilfrid Blunt, has been published. It is hardly the kind of thing which a Mahommedan would have written, and has...

Raymond Carr T he campaign against fox-hunting may provide future historians with yet another example of the Jacobin effect. A sect of fanatics, replete with the self-...

Hugh Mon tgomery-Massingberd E ven so uncompromising a pessimist as Evelyn Waugh had to admit in 1959 that his evocation of the past glories of aristocratic life in Brideshead...

Epistolary wisdom Paul Johnson O n a quality newspaper, the most impor- tant feature is, or ought to be, the Let- ters to the Editor. I suspect that very few editors really...

Credit ladder .Tony Rudd G old is on the move again; having droP" ped below $300 an ounce, it has re- bounded to over $350. That is instead of going down to $250 where most...

A face at the window Sir: As curious as the story of the shadowy figure at the window in the empty building opposite Patrick Marnham's hotel in Guatemala City (17 July) is the...

Dear Sir: I was glad to see your Notebook item about staff at the Charing Cross Hospital (24 July), which entirely resembles. my own experience at St Stephen's Hospital in...

could bear, and I write this with the 'pseudo patience' which is the symptom of exasperation. Could anyone blame Mrs Thatcher if she were suffering from this at present? And...

Sir: In your issue of 17 July, under the heading 'Fooling Foyles', Richard West thinks fit to make a number of false allega- tions about us. He refers to our 'Bookshop'. In fact...

Sir: You printed on 17 July a letter from Mr R.E.G. Simmerson alleging that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office had destroyed papers relevant to the work of the Falklands Review...

Sir: As a supporter of the Pius X Society, founded by Archbishop Lefebvre, I declare my interest in questioning David Gollob's statement (10 July) that Juan Fernandez Krohn, the...

Sir: I am flattered that in my absence a phrase in one of my articles should have provoked Richard West into such a fine frenzy-of denunciation (17 July), but I can- not help...

Memories of a genius friend John Stewart Collis The Book of Ebenezer Le Page G. B. Ed- wards, introduced by John Fowles (Penguin Books £1.95) 'T hat Elizabeth Jane Farfrae be...

B.S. JOHNSON: any novel before 'Christie Malry's', 'The Strange River' by Julian Green and any early novels by James Hanley. Thomas McGonigle, 239 East 5th Street 4D NY, NY...

A. N. Wilson Ginger, You're Barmy David Lodge (Seeker & Warburg £7.95) Ginger, You're Barmy David Lodge (Seeker & Warburg £7.95) D avid Lodge is a perfectionist. He is also a...

Alastair Best I first came across Elizabeth David on the 1. front page of The Times. Those were the days when the front page of The Times car- ried sensational material, and...

Peter Quennell A Human Comedy: Physiognomy and Caricature in 19th-Century Paris Judith Wechsler (Thames and Hudson £18.50) 'T he cross, clever French', as their keen admirer...

Richard In grams Diary of a Year Lord Longford (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £10) A it happened, I was reading this book alternately with A.J. Wentworth B.A. and found the...

Bel Mooney Continuing our occasional series, Bel Mooney discusses Beowulf 15 years after She first read it as an undergraduate. I t is not perhaps the most attractive of poems...

Anthony Blond I n the Sixties a group of well-meaning people, disturbed at the effect of 'economic censorship', resolved to form a non-profit making society to publish those...

The latest edition Mark Amory Gamblers (Upstream Theatre Club) I f 1 came out of Windy City singing a tune of the same name from a Doris Day musical, it was with the...

Bruiser Peter Ackroyd Rocky III ('A', selected cinemas) W efirst see Rocky Balboa in the ring, the blood streaming down his face; it is a hard face, streaked with red like a...

Spoiled John McEwen T he present exhibition of Soutine's paintings (Hayward Gallery till 22 August), unlike its predecessor 20 years ago, is a touring one that does not owe...

Memory lane Rodney Milnes Munich Festival T he last time 1 attended the Munich Opera Festival some quarter of a cen- tury ago there were twelve marks to the Pound; now there...

Criticisms Richard In grams A nthony Howard has been doing a series of biographical portraits for the BBC spread over many years. His subjects have almost all been politicians...

Right or wrong? Jeffrey Bernard D ear Laura, A word in your ear, so to speak, if I may, about your search for Lord Right or even the Duke of Right. For starters I can tell you...

No. 1229: Customer's curse Set by Jaspistos: A poem, please (maximum 16 lines), in the form of a curse called down by a customer on the head of someone pro- viding bad service....

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked to expand a well-known nursery rhyme, limerick or clerihew in the style of a well- known poet. G. K. Chesterton's virtuoso variations...

Cernamommad OTS &papal uori EMBETRip nommumns um a wang9nm nem m me se sti unnungamommaimo The tit e hinted at ...last words' , and the unclued lights (in italicS) make...

Resurgence Raymond Keene T have often stated that world champions I are not just in competition with their contemporaries, but also have to maintain their record against those...

A prize of ten pounds will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 16 August. Entries to: Crossword 568, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL....