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A temporary bad smell on the media scene AUBERON WAUGH S omeone called Peter Bowman, media research director of WCRS (whatever that may be), has commented on the Henley...

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Mr. Digby Pigott, writing to the Times of Thursday, gives a charming idyll of the lake in St. James's Park. On the 8th of this month a dabchick's nest, "made fast to the dipping...

Michael Heath

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Mark Amory anticipates the — slightly delayed — coronation of the Kabaka of Buganda Buganda You are probably in mid-air by now, but I wanted to tell you, in case you haven't...

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ONE OF the hazards of Italian commercial life is suicide. It must date back to the Bor- gias, or the emperors. Raul Gardini, the sugar baron, appears to have shot himself, but...

Sir: Martyn Harris (Arts, 10 July) leaves out of his litany of the sins of John D. Rockefeller one that just may be at the base of the pyramid, and not only in his case. To...

Sir: Those of us involved with London Docklands in whatever capacity — profes- sional, voluntary or, as in my case, both expect better of Max Hastings (Diary, 24 July) than to...

Sir: May I thank and congratulate you on retaining the excellent cartoon series '3 Pointless Things To Do This Week'? This series brought me and my fiancée much pleasure, and...

Sir: Nothing brings journalists down to earth so much as having a baby and being burgled. News from these distant existential shores must instantly be brought to a stunned world...

Sir: `So we few . . . will go on boring . . . until we have bored Maastricht into the ground'. (Another voice, 24 July). Sunday Telegraph boss Mr Moore, Proudly boasts of his...

OR SUBSCRIBE TODAY - UK Europe (airmail) USA USA Rest of World Students: £39.00 Please state college. Please enter a subscription I enclose my cheque (Equivalent 1:1 Please...

Sir: When I read the opening line of Anita Brookner's review (Books, 24 July) — `No one, but no one, had a more disgraced and intimidating childhood than Mary McCarthy' — I...

Sir: Your Portrait of the Week (10 July) records an event the news of which has not otherwise been reported on American shores: 'Fifteen women climbed over the walls of...

Sir: In complete agreement with the sug- gestion of Dov Midalia (Letters, 10 July) that The Spectator should form the next government may I put forward the name of Digby...

Sir: As the result of disclosures made recently in the name of 'openness', I find myself fancying the Head of MI5. Were we perhaps better off under the old dispensation?...

Sir: Alec Guinness complains (Diary, 10 July) of waiters asking 'if everything was to his satisfaction'. In the United States this practice is almost de rigueur. There it almost...

Sir: I have long been an admirer of Charles Moore's contributions to your magazine and have reason to be grateful for his abili- ty to expose our tendency to choose the path of...

Sir: The financial attractions of wind-farms are considerable so long as the UK con- sumer is providing the subsidy (And anoth- er thing, 17 July.) UK power generators are...

Marriage and division Simon Heifer THE COLLECTED LETTERS OF THOMAS AND JANE WELSH CARLYLE: VOLUME 19 (January-December 1845, pp. 263) VOLUME 20 (October 1845-July 1846, pp....

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Julie Burchill BLOOMSBURY GUIDE TO GOOD MANNERS by Nigel Rees Bloomsbury, £9.99, pp. 360 T he title, Bloomsbury Guide to Good Manners, is immediately intriguing. Quite what...

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of the 'community' of Europe is this: as it becomes easier and faster to visit other European countries, there is less and less point in doing so. For they are increasingly the...

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Q. How can I stop my wife from prattling on the telephone to her friends? Each time I come home I find her lying back on the sofa, gazing out of the window and just talking...