on international flights thought to be at risk from hijacking, according to Mr David Blunkett, the Home Secretary. and Mr Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Transport....

lyv hen, at the insistence of the US Department of Homeland Security, the first armed 'sky marshals' take to British transatlantic flights, it is to be hoped that the in-flight...

of people who have declined honours in the past 50 or 60 years was fascinating. Contrary to the usual interpretation, it showed that the system is actually fairer than I...

ithin the next few weeks Lord Hutton will publish his inquiry. None of us can know where, if anywhere, his axe will fall. Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, may be feeling his...

Theodore Dalrymple says he is turning his back on the ugliness and emptiness of Britain and moving to France, which for all its faults he considers a more civilised country than...

Donald von Rumsfeld, the sinisterly bespectacled US defence secretary, has won a gobbledygook award from the Plain English campaign for the following (paraphrased) apergu:...

Norman Tebbit does not like the idea of armed marshals on British flights, but believes that they are necessary T here is in this unpredictable world some comfort to be found...

Peter °borne had a bet with Lord Marshall that there would be no euro referendum in 2003. He won, and was treated to a slightly edgy dinner at Brown's T his interview came about...

Sam Leith has a facial — and is troubled to find that he has to remove all his clothes I haven't felt like this since I last went to visit the dental hygienist with my mum. I'm...

David Pryce-Jones on the danger to Iraq of the Arabist tradition at the Foreign Office T he capture of Saddam Hussein clears the way to self-government in Iraq. due to be...

So many much-loved books have been badly done on television — The Irish RM, and just now The Young Visiters, which anyone could have seen would be difficult to do well on telly...

Wacko Jacko Leo McKinstry explains why he has the gravest doubts about the charges brought against the weird and plastic Michael Jackson I n Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie described...

Sad to relate, none of our utterances will be remembered after our deaths, for all the passion with which we uttered them: unless, that is, we happen to belong to one of the...

Matthew Norman I was on a semi-working holiday. My idea was to investigate the South African phenomenon of 'family suicide', in which the depressed Afrikaner father would shoot...

From Patrick Beeley Sir: Correlli Barnett's article on the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq ('Why alQa'cda is winning', 13/20 December) continues the theme of defeatist gloom...

to refer to me in his latest rant in your journal ('The triumph of George W. Bush', 27 December) he might have checked his facts first: I am not, and have never been, a...

From Christopher Hen eghan Sir: Robert Gore-Langton ('Organ minders', 27 December) seems not to appreciate how offensive it is to suggest that a surgeon might make less effort...

From Hugh Russell Sir: In 'Africa isn't dying of Aids' (13/20 December), Rian Malan pours scorn on my piece 'Aids: It's worse than you imagined' (1 March), and I hope to God...

report, which no doubt will generate furious reactions. Having researched this field for 10 years, I can confirm that his conclusions make sense. In reality, the situation is...

story is true. But Rian Malan's polemic is little more than a selective view of the precision of estimates, and has as much urgency and reality for people affected by Aids as a...

From Kevin Myers Sir: Gus Alexander wonders whether too much Health and Safety is bad for you (Arts, 13/20 December 2003) and cites the papertrail response by the construction...

From Nick Georgano Sir: I was interested in Geoffrey Wheatcroft's comment in his review of Conrad Black's biography of FDR (Books, 13/20 December) that 'during Roosevelt's...

From Digby Anderson Sir: When I wrote about the Epiphany (`Go to work on Christmas Day', 13/20 December) I quoted a certain 'Knox'. I meant Ronald Knox. Somewhere in the haste...

From John Laughland Sir: Having initially pretended that my review of his book contained '22 errors and misrepresentations', Christopher Booker is now reduced to defending a...

hould liberal internationalists feel irritated when neoconservative hawks piggyback on to the successes of our own approach, and take the credit for them se Ives? No, we should...

T he sudden death of Glynn Boyd Harte, aged only 55 and at the height of his considerable powers, is a tragedy for British art, already in a desperately anaemic condition under...

et us greet the new year with an olive. 2004 may yet be the year of the two-dollar martini, with our chances brighter and the dollar cheaper than at any time tor a decade and...

Anita Brookner THE AMATEUR MARRIAGE by Anne Tyler Chatto,iI6.99, pp. 306, ISBN 0701177349 A nnc Tyler has written 15 excellent novels — this is her 16th — which proceed...

Rupert Christiansen ORCHESTRA: THE LSO A CENTURY OF TRIUMPH AND TURBULENCE by Richard Morrison Faber, £20, pp. 320, ISBN 0571215831 B eing of the same age and provenance as...

P. J. Kavanagh THE ALPHABET by David Sacks Hutchinson, £12.99, pp. 395, ISBN 0091795060 A lphabets have always fascinated: Ben Jonson, Samuel Johnson (who didn't approve of his...

Graham Stewart THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLES: THE LIVES AND TIMES OF HITLER'S INNER CIRCLE by Anthony Read Cape, 125, pp. 984, ISBN 0224060082 0 ne of the Great War's consequences may...

Robert Edric THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE by Jonathan Lethem Faber, £12.99, pp. 470, ISBN 0571219330 T here is currently a vogue for the all-encompassing, minutiaecrunching,...

Simon Heffer KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS by Michael Newton BFI Film Classics, £8.99 pp. 96, ISBN 0851709648 1 t often seems that more rubbish is written about the cinema than...

Nicholas Harman THE RISE OF l'HE INDIAN ROPE TRICK by Peter Lamont Little, Brown, £1499. pp. 288, ISBN 0316724300 E verybody knows what unicorns are, and everybody knows there...

Diana Hendry MISS RANSKILL COMES HOME by Barbara Euphan Todd Persephone Books, 170, pp. 330, ISBN 1903155363 R eviewirig this novel in 1946, when it was first published,...

Patrick Skene Catling LEAVES FROM THE FIG TREE by Diana Duff Summersdale Travel, £7.99, pp. 318, ISBN 1840243635 1 rishness is perceptible almost everywhere, if you look with...

Jane Rye LONDON RECORDINGS by David Sylvester Chalk), £22, pp. 202, ISBN 0701162678 D avid Sylvester's first ambition was to be a professional cricketer, and he possessed to...

D. J. Taylor ORWELL: THE 'OBSERVER' YEARS Observer Books/ Atlantic, £12, pp. 272, ISBN 1843542609 G eorge Orwell started writing for the Observer in 1942, brought there by the...

Emma Tennant SIKKIM HIMALAYA by David Lang Pomegranate Press, £29.95, pp.200 ISBN 0953349373 D avid Lang first heard about the Himalayas when he was a little boy. As his father...

Mark Steyn Stuck On You 12A, selected cinemas decade after the Farrelly brothers' irst feature, Dumb and Dumber, they've gone back to their roots. I'm speaking of coiffures:...

Marcus Berkmann Ts it digni fi ed to remain obsessed by pop 'music well into your forties? I used to worry about this when I was about 28, but now I'm 43 I find I don't give a...

Simon Hoggart W atching an old and much-loved television programme die is like seeing the same thing happen to a favourite pet — the inevitability makes it no less sad. Take...

Michael Vestey N o doubt many people have received a digital radio as a Christmas present and are enjoying the very clear sound quality that it offers. I wrote in November that...

Charles Moore O ne of my recurring dreams is that I am driving through central London when suddenly I turn a corner and find myself among fields. The gardens of Buckingham...

Robin Oakley CD iding a horse is like dealing with a ..[Xwoman — you simply have to know which buttons to press,' said French trainer Guillaume Macaire not long ago when...

Taki Gstaad B pack up in the mountains once again, with a bit of snow for a change. It's getting close to my 50th winter up here (1956) and the place is not improving, that's...

Jeremy Clarke I t was blowing a hooligan outside. There was a knock at the door, which was open, and there was this doctor — the biggest doctor we'd ever seen — stamping his...

Petronella Wyatt Johannesburg T he South African sun is beating down on my brother's garden. We have just returned from a shopping mall in Johannesburg. Jo'burg is full of...

MICHAEL HENDERSON O ne of the world's most original paintings hangs in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (about 300 do, actually, but one in particular commends itself)....

Exmoor which came with two cottages superfluous to our needs. We have been renting these out as holiday lets. Out of six recent lettings three of the punters, all of whom...

one particular merit. If (when) one develops what the Australians call the 'veranda over the toy shop', the DBS automatically becomes single. C.B., Barkway - , Herts A. Thank...

out a picture of herself and her husband in a helicopter with their new country house in the background. How should! gently point out that this was a lapse in taste? Name and...