French fish queuing for visas to enter Britain T he Government won a vote on new plans for the closure of coal-mines entailing at least the temporary reprieve of 12 pits out of...

Some not very healthy attitudes badly in need of an urgent cure SIMON HEFFER h e weekend after the last election, as Mr Major was putting together the Cabinet to lead Britain...

JEREMY PAXMAN Budapest h avehave been in eastern Europe, making a film for Newsnight on the growing problem of European migration. The sight of the huddled masses on the...

The good intentions of Mr Gordon Wilson are worse than useless CHARLES MOORE I t was characteristically disgusting of the Sunday Times to serialise the story of Annie Murphy,...

Edmund Glentworth, who served with the Foreign Office in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, argues that British diplomacy's claim to global influence is a charade IN NOVEMBER...

OH DEAR, I think we are in the mid- dle of a semantic shift. Let me explain what I mean. Sex used to mean whether you were a man or a woman: the fair sex, the stronger sex, and...

Max Easterman discovers the horrific consequences of the Soviet Union's experiments with nuclear weapons Semipalatinsk IF ANY NATION can be said to have suf- fered most from...

persist. . . A MIDDLE-AGED lady appeared in my consulting room last week with a black eye. Her cheek was reddened not by rouge, but by a fist. `My husband's an agoraholic,...

Anne Applebaum reports on the Italians' increasing admiration for all things British Parma HOWEVER YOU measure it, the good citizens of Parma enjoy one of the world's highest...

John Simpson recalls his meeting with Emperor Bokassa, whose 'cher cousin' is once more in the running for the French presidency Paris THE POLITICAL graves are yielding up...

Simon Sebag Montefiore on being an extra in the film that was too shocking for Hollywood's most risque actress LAST WEEK, the voluptuous actress Kim Basinger, 39, who...

The Potter calls the Digger black and the custard pies fly PAUL JOHNSON T here is a silent Laurel-and-Hardy short called Fight of the Century, which develops into a...

France has an optional crisis, so the Germans will have to make up their minds CHRISTOPHER FILDES E douard Balladur knows the first rule of chairmanship: blame your...

(27 August 1939) , `There will be no war.' He did not. It was R.H. Naylor ('England's greatest astrologer') in the Sunday Express. Beaver- brook sacked him on 4 September and he...

out against the Govern- ment's woeful environment record. In Oxford we have just been informed of the Department of Transport's plans to build a bypass through the green belt...

Sir: Petronella Wyatt's fine piece on astrol- ogomania, (`Signs of the times', 6 March) stirred old memories. Some decades ago when I was a struggling writer, a chum on the now...

Sir: So intent is Charles Clover (`The ungreening of Britain', 27 March) on laying about anyone within reach like some demented green Punch that he rarely allows argument to...

Sir: I note from Vicki Woods's Diary of 13 March that Bradfield College is teeming with candidates for my job as Brigade Major of the British forces deployed in Bosnia and...

Sir: It is a sad fact that in journalism sweep- ing generalisations are often inevitable. I was, therefore, not amazed to read Emma Forrest's article 'Eating Pop Tarts, watch-...

Sir: If, as William Oddie claims (An addi- tional curate's egg', 20 March), the Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure indicates a 'radical tampering' with the ancient orders of...

Sir: 'I am only a joker who has understood his epoch and has extracted all he possibly could from the stupidity, greed and vanity of his contemporaries.' Pablo Picasso's crit-...

Sir: Peter Levi (Letters, 27 March) may have walked round only two Jura Paps, but he is wrong to suggest that 'any third protu- berance is too small to be called a Pap'. The...

Sir: Reviewing a restaurant in Upper Street (Restaurant, 20 March), Nigella Lawson writes 'I never, ever thought I'd envy people living in Islington.' I am sure that Charles...

Sir: The answer to the question posed by H. Mayer Brown and reported by Peter Phillips (Arts, 13 March) concerning the `point' of elaborate polyphonic church music in...

Sir: We Germans may not be good in bed ('We might as well make love', 13 March) but at least we have our sense of humour . Renate Ogilvie The Rampart, Castlecrag, NSW 2068,...

Sir: May I, through these pages, enquire as to the addresses of the branches of Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's and Europa at which Andrew Neil shops (Letters, 20 March) so that...

Simple truth his utmost skill Kingsley Amis PHILIP LARKIN: A WRITER'S LIFE by Andrew Motion Faber, £20, pp. 570 T he author of this book consulted me repeatedly while...

John Grigg ROYAL THRONE by Elizabeth Longford John Curtis! Hodder, £16.99, pp. 189 E lizabeth Longford's favourite member of the royal family is the Queen Mother, whose...

soul Byron Rogers CHANGING FACES: A HISTORY OF THE GUARDIAN, 1956-1988 by Geoffrey Taylor Fourth Estate, f20, pp. 354 I have looked for it, having always assumed it was in...

Cressida Connolly LOVE YOUR ENEMIES by Nicola Barker Faber, £14.99, pp. 184 I t is easy to see Nicola Barker obtaining a cult following on the strength of this, her first...

Mary Keen HIGHGROVE: PORTRAIT OF AN ESTATE by HRH The Prince of Wales and Charles Clover Chapmans, £20, pp. 286 T he reviewer of this Royal book needs navigational skills that...

Nigel Spivey THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE by David Selbourne Sinclair-Stevenson, £20, pp. 388 T his is an alternative, Jewish history of our times.' The author's opening decla- ration...

Zenga Longmore THE PEOPLE IN THE PLAYGROUND by Iona Opie OUP, £15, pp. 250 A fter dropping my child at nursery the other day, I accidently found myself in the junior-school...

Montagu Curzon ALL MY YESTERDAYS by Cecil Lewis Element, f14.95, pp. 210 I t is cheering, two years after reviewing a 93-year-old's book, to receive another by the same author....

Cecil Lewis The following is taken from High Flyers: 30 Reminiscences to Celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the RAF, edited by Michael Fopp (Greenhill Books, £15.95) C...

Heritage A house in aspic John Henshall Mr Straw's House (Worksop, Notts) I n December 1990, the National Trust received a telephone call from a solicitor in Gainsborough,...

Pellkas et Melisande (Royal Opera House) That dreary old sameness Rupert Christiansen T here was a deranged — or perhaps uniquely sane — woman in my jam-packed Central Line...

Fires in the Mirror (Royal Court) The Europeans (Greenwich) Ruth Draper on speed Sheridan Morley A New York journalism, at the height of its current tabloid wars, gets ever...

Wittgenstein (ICA) Indochine (`12', selected cinemas) All green to me Vanessa Letts L dwig Wittgenstein is a prime target for a film biography or even a musical. The genius...

Rosemary Butcher Company (Nottingham) Yolande Snaith (The Place Theatre) Site and sound Sophie Constanti S tructure, time, colour, expression, silence. These words punctuate...

Adrian Berg: a Sense of Place (Barbican Concourse Gallery, till 17 April) Adrian Berg: the South Coast (Piccadilly Gallery, till 17 April) Jeffery Camp: Paintings and Drawings...

No home comforts John Diamond T elevision might not, like pop, eat itself, but when the best way Channel 4 can find of highlighting the housing crisis is to stage it as a TV...

Their Excellencies Taki T he draft-dodger in the White House has chosen Jean Smith, mother of Willy, sister of Ted, and aunt of Joe, as envoy to Ireland. I am outraged. During...

Tequila time Jeffrey Bernard depressed sitting here, looking out at the rain and waiting for the Social Services to deliver my wheelchair. When it comes, I shall call it...

Corner Turfy Nigel Nicolson F amily expressions, like family nick- names, are dying out. None of my children has ever had a nickname, at least not at home, and none of the...

Hendeca- Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1772 you were in - vited to write a poem in hendecasyllabics beginning '0 you . . .', addressed to some group of people. `0 Japistos,...

Raymond Keene A sure sign that Gary Kasparov and Nigel Short have made the right decision in deciding to contest their championship match outside Fide is that all the jokers in...

A first prize of £20 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 19 April, with two runners-up prizes of £10 (or, for UK...

The gallant gelding Frank Keating TWENTY years ago this week, Red Rum won the first of his three Grand Nationals. In between, he was also second on two other occasions. Some...

Dear Mary.. . Q. We have a 'new' parish priest here; he came after a vacancy in the living of some two years. He is more than 60 years of age. I only attend the 8 a.m....