.1 k From Professor Antony Flew Sir: In his characteristically generous review of the first volume of the Crossman diaries (December 13) Lord HatIsham notices the assurances of...

Sir: We are endeavouring to locate the many missing masterpieces among vegetable varieties that are in greater, danger than any osprey or oryx both from the EEC Regulations and...

Sir: My personal view is that some form of intervention by the British Government is necessarY to prevent the American-owned Chrysler car corporation from completely liquidating...

Sir: Your remarks (Spectator's Notebook, Decembe r 20) are timely. The BBC's failure to show films of the Australian-West Indies Test series parallels their threat last summer...

Sir: In his letter of November 29 Mr Folkes says that the Conservative Party would always predominate in an independent England — after Scotland and Wales have left us. (I take...

Into the unknown Patrick Cosgrave Whenever criticism is made of their work rate Or effectiveness, MPs normally reply by referring to the enormous amount of unsung and...

Christmas began early — all too early, it might be thought, for a nation in economic disorder and worse. Many people were already going away on the previous Monday; by Christmas...

Back to capitalism Peter Hobday There's something fascinating going on in the State of Egypt. After years of Nasserite socialism, President Anwar Sadat has been cautiously...

Divisive politics Alexander Macleod The volatility and sheer explosive power of politics in the Antipodes are astonishing many, including people in the countries concerned....

Boat show blues Oliver Stewart The Show is likely to be interesting and entertaining. It will certainly have plenty of publicity. The optimistic attendance forecasts will...

A narrow miss Humphry Berkeley In the middle of the 1976 the Seychelles wil l attain independence within the Common wealth. Ten years ago, in 1965, two by-elections very...

Passing the buck Rhodes Boyson It was in my first post as an assistant master at Ramsbottom Secondary Modern School that I made my acquaintance with school governors. They...

Auberon Waugh Churchill's despairing cry at the end of lunch at the Savoy — "This pudding' has no theme" — which was later used so cruelly as an explanation for Sir Edward...

Peter Jenkins The Collapse of Democracy Robert Moss (Temple Smith £4.95) Death of democracy books are the coming vogue. The spirit of the times is an anxious one and the...

John Mortimer Strindberg. The Plays. Introduced and translated by Michael Meyer. In two volumes (Seeker and Warburg £6.50 each) Up to the middle of the last century the...

Robert Blake Reappraisais irt British Imperial History Ronald Hyam and Ged Martin (Macmillan E10.00) The authors of these studies seek to puncture a certain mythology about the...

Denis Donoghue The :Cove/ and Revolution Alan Swingewood (Macmillan £7.95) Out of My System: Psychoanalysis, Ideology, arid Critical Method Frederick Crews (Oxford n iversity...

Hugh Lloyd-Jones Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization Arnaldo Momigliano (Cambridge University Press £.4.50) The most learned ancient historian, perhaps the most learned...

David Levy Friar Thomas crAquino: His life, thought arid works James A, Weisheipl (Blackwell £9.00) Professor Weisheipl is Professor of the History of Medieval Science at the...

Rounding up Benny Green Style in History Peter Gay (Jonathan Cape £6.00) Drawn from Memory Ernest Shepard (Penguin 50p) The Great War and Modern Memory Paul Fussell (Oxford...

Two masters T.S. Matthews It has been said, or perhaps murmured, of Cyril Connolly that none of his friends liked him. The accolade his countrymen bestow on simpler and warmer...

A strange year, 1975, in which publishers' main achievement seems to have been to publish more books than ever before. Nonetheless Bookbuyer feels impelled to give credit where...

Kenneth Hurren That was a bad year that just happened — even for the concerns of this department. I have Often found it a comforting thing, moving into another year, to look...

Rare device Kenneth Robinson The funniest event of the film-going year was the premiere of The Towering Inferno. Before the picture began, showing us the latest technique for...

Sung and Yuan John McEwen The exhibition of Sung and Yuan paintings at the British Museum (till January 4) is approaching its end. Go now before it's too late; this is one of...

Best buys Robin Young Ballet does not really lend itself to the review of the year technique which traditionally stands all critics in good stead about this time. The world of...

Epic performances Rodney Milnes The disaster of Reginald Goodall's departure from the Coliseum Ring has given fresh significance to the live-recordings made by EMI and...

Praise of songs John Bridcut Though he would hardly have welcomed it, the poems in A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad proved to be the catalyst for the revival of English song...

Nicholas Davenport LA co rrespondent has asked me whether, Ha ving written about 'What a Year!,' I could g ° °n to write about 'What a future!' It is not exactly a subject for...

Supersavers Bernard Hollowood . I haven't entered for the BBC's Nationwide Supersave competitions, chiefly because 1 don't want cameramen nosing into my home and into secrets...

Little wonder that January is named for Janus, the Roman god of doorways (no, really) who had two heads to see simultaneously the past and future (no, I don't know what that has...