T he Queen opened the new Parliament. Seventeen Bills were outlined in her speech from the throne: these included a far-reaching new education bill, proposals to regenerate the...

THE long struggle by Mr Peter Palumbo to build an architectural monument on the site next to the Mansion House that he and his father have acquired has become both tragedy and...

THE PRICE OF PANIC T he Middlesbrough case shows the terrible power of fashion. Just as advertis- ers hope to sell their product by creating a buzz of excitement about it, so...

Steel so sharp he might cut himself FE RDINAND MOUNT D uring the debate on the Queen's Speech, the Liberal leader alerted us to what sounded like a new form of social...

MARY SOAMES I n the 15 years we have lived in Kensing- ton, Christopher and I have become great- ly attached to our particular 'village'. My dog (the Tudor Hound, Jubilee) and I...

The Udenopticon: a libertarian direction for crime and punishment AUBERON WAUGH N othing is more repugnant to true Britons than the idea of freedom, as Mr Peregrine Worsthorne...

More and more children are brought up without a full family. Alexandra Artley examines the often painful results ONE evening this spring I sat in the quiet and austere...

WE may frankly say that we fear very much that M. Pasteur's system of inocu- lating by way of protection against attacks of rabies, has been shown by the Royal Commission...

Nicholas Shakespeare visits a Peruvian village caught in a war over cocaine `You should have been here 20 years ago,' is a common cry among Limenos. Darwin found them saying...

Sousa Jamba remembers his boyhood trek through war-torn tropical forest WHEN I was ten the Cuban tanks drove into Huambo and my family fled in differ- ent directions. I went...

STUDENTS ARE TWICE AS LIKELY TO ENJOY THE SPECTATOR AT LESS THAN HALF-PRICE More stimulating than any lecture, funnier than the set books, The Spectator should be required...

Michael Trend investigates the frustrations that privatised telephones still provoke AT the beginning of May the Spectator began a difficult page in its long history when the...

of design changes to solve inner-city depression IT is comforting to know that as Mrs Thatcher draws up her strategy for revita- lising the inner cities, I may at last get my...

of Middlesbrough's madness in American experience THE fury in Middlesbrough over the more than 200 children seized from their parents under suspicion of sexual abuse, bears an...

The media: Paul Johnson identifies doom-merchanting as the Left's big turn-off AS THE Left is at present engaged in a `What went wrong?' reappraisal, with the object of...

Everyone's still out of step but our Maggie JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE Brussels wenty-five years ago- in Brussels, I witnessed Ted Heath's reception by the Anglo-Saxon press corps on...

Sir: I do like the Spectator. It keeps me so well informed. Like telling me, for exam- ple, that Willy Brandt was Mayor of East Berlin (`Rock against the wall', 20 June)....

Sir: The Thai restaurant that so delighted Deborah Devonshire (Food and wine, 20 June) is called Bahn Thai and it's at 35 Marloes Road, W8 (937 9960). Lindsey Btireham 26...

Sir: Cesare Borgia's execution of his Gov- ernor, Ramiro de Lorqua, was not merely a rather violent exercise in public relations as James Hill (Letters, 20 June), following, I...

Sir: Political activism has not replaced preaching on right and wrong. Having no regard to inner city decay is wrong. Turning your back on youth unemploy- ment is wrong....

Sir: There has been a good deal of talk in the press, and elsewhere, of Mrs Thatch- er's personal unpopularity, quite apart from any feelings aroused by her policies. I think...

Sir: Stephen Robinson wrote (`The fall of Enoch', 20 June) that in time any Unionist would lose South Down because it 'has a natural Catholic majority'. Non sequitur. John...

Sir: I refer to an article in the Daily Telegraph by a Miss Aitken in which she says that she was advised by a complaints officer of British Telecom to vote socialist when she...

Sir: I was amused to read Taki's descrip- tion of his dinner with Jimmy Carter (High life, 13 June). Not many people can make one feel sorry for ex-President Carter. May I...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY - Save 15% on the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for £ (Equivalent SUS & Eurochequcs accepted) RATES 12 Months...

William Cooper, the novelist best known for his tetralogy beginning with Scenes from Pro- vincial Life, recalls his child- hood before and during the Great War. I HAVE always...

The man behind the beard Colin Welch SALISBURY, THE MAN AND HIS POLICIES edited by Lord Blake and Hugh Cecil Macmillan, f29.50 W hat those great bushy gravy- encrusted...

Raymond Carr AMAZON FRONTIER: THE DEFEAT OF THE BRAZILIAN INDIANS by John Hemming Macmillan, £19.95 t is a pity that this book is so long and repetitive. Tribe after tribe is...

Jeremy Hardie APOCALYPSE 2000 by Peter Jay and Michael Stewart Sidgwick & Jackson, £12.95 F or a book which is meant to be about the Apocalypse, this is at heart rather a...

Non-fiction Marriage and Love in England, 1300 - 1840 by Alan Macfarlane, Blackwell, £8.95 Lord Haw - Haw by J. A. Cole, Faber, £4.95 Less than One: Selected Essays by Joseph...

John Charmley NIXON: THE EDUCATION OF A POLITICIAN 1913-1962 by Stephen Ambrose Simon & Schuster, £16 I n an era when appearances count for so much in politics, especially the...

Digby Anderson THE POLITICS OF FOOD: THE SECRET WORLD OF WHITEHALL AND THE FOOD GIANTS WHICH THREATEN YOUR HEALTH by Geoffrey Cannon Century Hutchinson, £14.95 M r Cannon is a...

Anthony Sampson HAMMER: WITNESS TO HISTORY by Armand Hammer (with Neil Lyndon) Simon & Schuster, £14.95 I t must be the most extraordinary story of any living entrepreneur....

Juliet Townsend L ooking through a recent Heinemann Children's Books Catalogue, I was amused to see that the compilers had adopted a method of coding to describe their wares....

hello is that you look I just wanted to say for my sake as much as yours things I have not said but should have and so should you things our ones would not say to your ones in...

Music festivals Styriarte (Graz) Proof of excellence Rodney Milnes W hile the fact that the Hohenems Schubertiade is attended by so many Brit- ish visitors should not...

Chronicle of a Death Foretold ('15', Lumiere, St Martins Lane; Gate, Notting Hill Gate) Spanish tragedy Hilary Mantel D irector Francesco Rosi has made a reputation with what...

For love or money Peter Watson A rt auctions are a source of endless fascination these days. Like the divisions in the Alliance, they are not quite frivolous and not quite...

Melon (Haymarket) The Lover/A Slight Ache (Young Vic) Erotic whodunnit Christopher Edwards A lan Bates steps out as yet another Simon Gray hero in the playwright's latest...

Quentin Bell (Sally Hunter Fine Art, till 10 July) Bell époque Giles Auty P ainters often make good, if impure, decorators of pots. By 'impure' I do not necessarily imply...

Peeping David Wendy Cope F irst the good news: a musical friend told me that Tony Cash's series of films for Channel 4, Man and Music: Classical Vienna, is wonderful and not...

Over the hill . . . Ferdinand Mount C ourt number one is like I imagine most people thought the world was before Columbus discovered America: flattish but sloping away at the...

. . . and on to victory Taki I t is amazing what laying off the booze for one night will do. As well as a little cheer — coming from a few hons and a lady or two. Most amazing...

Getting warmer Alice Thomas Ellis I can't help it. I'm going to talk about the weather. I can't think of anything else. It seems that Greece has got the sun — all of it — and...

Baby talk Jeffrey Bernard W hatever happened to herpes? Now that Aids is with us it barely gets a look-in. I don't feel as sorry for it as I would for a man whose obituary was...

WE lost our dear Andrew Gimson last week, he of the cherubic face and maniacal laughter. He has gone off to Ireland and then to join the Independent and the other ex-Spectator...

Tennisonian Jaspistos I N Competition No. 1478 you were invited to write a poem on any aspect of Wimbledon. After the war (you know the one I mean) I used to sleep on the...

Logical Raymond Keene I f Star Trek's Mr Spock had devoted himself to three-dimensional chess (rather than concentrating on a career in Star Fleet) he would have played like...

To enable competitors to economise on postage, entries for one or more weeks of the competition and crossword may be posted together under one cover addressed 'Competition...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

You are invited to reduce some blank verse of Shakespeare (please specify the pas- sage) to banal heroic couplets typical of poor. 18th-century poetry (maximum 16 lines)....

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