D r David Owen was cheered by Tory backbenchers when he demanded that legal action be taken against second- ary picketing in the miners' dispute. Min- ers' leaders in South...

Naught for Aidan Comfort W e are already familiar with those popular political characters, Solo- mon Binding, a Labour man, and Laura Norder, a definitely Conservative lady....

A new poster advertisement for Harp lager says: 'We are talking domestic sessions on the celestial banjo'. The picture is of these words and a can of Harp and nothing else. An...

M r Henry Neuberger, an adviser to Mr Neil Kinnock, last spring advanced the very attractive theory that higher wages usually lead to increased employment (Un- employment: Are...

A certain ambiguity': the hounds of Fleet Street yet again dug their teeth into Mr Roy Hattersley after he had answered questions on television about the Labour Party's new...

E very release of an unjustly imprisoned man is a good thing, and we are therefore bound to welcome the Polish amnesty which includes some 650 political prisoners. We...

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'There is no human activity but that I sooner or later some public fathead won't get up to demand that it should be banned. Every pleasure has its enemies. The puritan in...

Andrew Brown S hame and confusion were present from the beginning, when the barmaid in the Duke of York said 'Two large vodkas?' as I approached the bar, and I had stammering...

George Galloway Tel Aviv T ike the whiting and the snail in Lewis LiCarroll's Alice in Wonderland, Israel's political parties circle each other swither- ing and dithering...

Campbell Gordon rianada is having an election, too. Cana- dian election campaigns are very long — about three months — a remnant of the days when it actually took that long to...

Roy Kerridge The third of four pieces in which Roy Kerridge describes visits to the North, South, East and West of England As a Bird is known by his Note, So is a Man by his...

James Naylor T he Superintendent has an air of friendly authority. 'I'm not going to tell you where you're going tonight, and most of the men don't know either. But I think...

is looking for an efficient and methodical person to run the Subscriptions Department part-time. An ability to type is essential. Please apply in writing enclosing c. v. (with...

Fenton Bresler I never thought that I would live to see the day when a Lord Chief Justice of Eng- land would wish to preside over the dis- mantling of any part of our ancient...

Seasonal tales Paul Johnson O ne can't complain: the silly season is phenomenally late this year, with plenty of stories still knocking around Scargill and his stormtroopers,...

W anted: a Campaign for Real Brokers. The stock market is going the way of the pubs. Too many free houses are falling, tied, into the hands of the suppliers, who will cause them...

rr he underwriters of Lloyd's of London insure the world from their boxes which are something between schoolroom benches and tall squirearchical pews. The inmates add their...

T et Jaguar roar off. Don't hang on for L./Telecom. The jolliest prospectus now going round the City is designed to float a new club - The Groucho Club London PLC. Guidehouse,...

Invest and insure T he World Bank is one of Keynes's better ideas, which is saying some- thing. It lends in the world's developing countries, at no cost to the rest of us. It...

Off to the seaside Jock Bruce-Gardyne N ow that Parliament has at long last packed its bags and departed for the seaside we can relax. Mr Paul Volcker has revealed — to the...

European civilisation cannot be grafted on a Mussulman stock. Mohamedanism has been in the world for twelve centuries, and its capacity for civilisation has been tested among...

Sir: Whether Matthew Parris ('The origin of sex', 7 July) is justified in claiming Wilhelm Reich's work 'discredited' is de- batable, but whether Reich 'died in a mental asylum...

Sir: I am sure your readers were enter- tained by the Wood MacKenzie poem quoted in Christopher Fildes's column (City and Suburban, 14 July), in spite of its arcane subject...

important points about research on test-tube babies — and the matter of donors. The Warnock Report has emphasised some of these points. But the future decisions on the...

Zeppelin, fly! Sir: Forty years on and the few survivors of Bomber Command still have to put up with the carping critics, such as Murray Sayle (Books, 28 July), of our wartime...

Sir: Harry Eyres states (7 July) that the Wimbledon courts look bigger in real life than on TV. On the opposite page Alexan- der Chancellor says they look smaller. What is...

Kaiser personally for un- leashing, in 1915, the first strategic bomb- ing offensive. All the combatant nations were quickly alert to the possibilities of aerial bombardment....

Sir: Christopher Hitchens writes (The US election, 21 July): The Democrats have declared themselves opposed to what they keep calling Social Darwinism.' Yet on the question of...

Maidenly moderation Colin Welch Can the Democracies Survive?' is the V-../sombre title of a sombre article by Jean-Francois Revel in the June Commen- tary, the as always...

Under the blue lamp Kay Dick The Collected Stories of Colette Edited by Robert Phelps (Secker & Warburg £12.50) T his great artist of the French paradox, Colette, wrote...

David Sexton . . somebody's husband, somebody's son': The story of Peter Sutcliffe Gordon Burn (Heinemann £9.95) Un Homme Nomme Zapolski Nicole Ward Jouve (Des Femmes, Paris...

of Waldo Francis King Relative Successes A. L. Barker (Chatto & Windus/The Hogarth Press £8.95) • I t is six years since A. L. Barker last published a novel. This may explain...

Philip Warner Cambridge Commemorated: An Anthology of University Life Compiled by Laurence and Helen Fowler (CUP £12.95) rr he aim of this pleasing anthology is 1 given in the...

George Szamuely The Idea of Poverty: England in the Early Industrial Age Gertrude Himmelfarb (Faber & Faber f20) or ye have the poor always with you.' Well, they may always...

Elizabeth Jennings T he publication of Amy Clampitt's The Kingfisher marks an important change In the relationship between English and American poetry. With the deaths of...

John Jolliffe Ena: Spain's English Queen Gerard Noel (Constable £10.95) T he life of Queen Ena, the only English queen of Spain in history, is a gripping and affecting human...

But how naive? Giles Auty New Frontiers of Naive Art in Europe (Royal Festival Hall till 19 August) Naifspeak: The Best of British Naive Pain- ters in 1984. (Barbican Centre...

Prophetic Peter Phillips Sir Michael Tippett The Mask of Time Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto A mark of greatness in a composer is that he can define and represent those...

Yet another frontier Peter Ackroyd Star Trek III — The Search for Spock ('PG', selected cinemas) 4 Tim, the Enterprise is 20 years old. We J feel her days are over. . . ....

Vaudeville Giles Gordon Red Star (RSC: The Pit) The Happiest Days of Your Life (RSC: Barbican) A Little Like Drowning (Hampstead) I n Charles Wood's Red Star, Richard...

I spy Peter Levi W hat is the machine doing when you are not watching it? To know that might reveal its nature. I have discovered a continuous undertone of programmes about...

Great failures Taki T didn't think it possible, but I have just 'finished reading yet another book about F. Scott Fitzgerald, this one by Andre Le Vot, and once again the...

Rose-tinted Jeffrey Bernard M y landlady says that I commute be- tween high life and low life and looking back on last Saturday at Ascot I s uppose she has a point. Looking...

Aesthete P. J. Kavanagh G rey and yellow syenite, green and black diorite, baleful basalt, piebald breccia, alabaster, nummulitic limestone and striped aragonite — the ancient...

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for a statement from the 94-year-old Mr Molotov, who has just been readmitted to the Soviet Communist Party, announcing what he...

No.1332: Bicentennial Set by Jaspistos: It is 200 years since the death of Dr Johnson. You are invited to provide verses (maximum 16 lines) on the modern scene in a richly...

Via In MI 0 UN T . F I D'Orlaria E ari 0 n I lal E RICO 013 1:1 A T 11 0 DEC Eilariaci arin R E "A R I© L 13 Ela U mode IGNEL A cim E EIDE A C C ODD . El N e ia L A 110E11 S...

Prize: f 10 — or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, 1983 edition (rings the word 'Dictionary' under name and address) — for the first correct solution opened on 20 August. Entries...

Old master Raymond Keene M y reports on the USSR-World match have necessarily eclipsed many other fine events which would normally have merited a column to themselves. From...

The Spectator for twelve months and receive free THE GAMES WAR A Moscow Journal by Christopher Booker Open to non-subscribers or to those who want to take out a gift...

‘111 Grindrod's shadow T he first reading is from Ortega y Gasset: Wine is of cosmic significance. You smile, but your smile gives assent. Even our age has not been able to...