'Parliament cannot go on legislating forever,' Palmerston said, but of course he was wrong, as the Queen's Speech annually reminds us. Modern governments would feel their lives...

A letter to Sid Auberon Waugh A week ago I had occasion to buy a copy of the Daily Express, something few people do nowadays, because a friend advised me that I was libelled...

Peter Ackroyd Tripoli And so what is this nonsense about Bashevis Singer and the Nobel Prize? You are a literary man; why give it to him? His books are worth nothing, they are...

Sam White Paris The recent death of Jean Prouvost, the newspaper proprietor, has provoked s Peculation as to whether the character of the French press would have been greatly...

Cecil Parrott It is sometimes said that diplomatic memoirs are nearly always 'non-literature', but if this is true in general it certainly does not apply to the diaries of...

George Gale Mrs Thatcher and her colleagues must have been feeling very pleased with themselves as they observed the Labour Party seeming to tear itself apart at Blackpool last...

Christopher Booker Imagine a cartoon film showing the evolution of an idealised European city over the past six hundred years — a kind of animated version of Osbert Lancaster's...

William Wigmore A few weeks ago assorted doctors, politicians and health service officials stood around sipping wine on the lawn of St Mary Abbott's Hospital in Kensington to...

Dollar despair Nicholas Davenport Far be it from me to dim the mounting lustre of our political correspondent but when he has lived as long as I have in the monetary world he...

Sir: Geoffrey Wheatcroft rightly complains of the stupefying complication of the postcodes. I wonder, however, whether it is really necessary to use the shift key when tYPing...

Sir: What, apropos the proposed European Monetary System (EMS), is a 'useful union, i to Nicholas Davenport (28 October) s to F erdinand Mount, in the same issue, a sinister'...

Sir: When Silone died I was in Italy and read many tributes to him by eminent Italian writers and critics — but none so subtle and impinging as Michael Foot ' s masterly...

Sir: Like Auberon Waugh, I am not a disciple of Thomas Szasz. Unlike Mr Waugh, however, I confine my jokes to things I understand, if only because the success of jokes about...

Sir: Much as I usually look forward to read ing the Spectator, I shall consider doing without it if you continue to print Geoffrey Wheatcroft ' s unpleasant rigmaroles about...

Sir: Richard West ' s enjoyable account (21 October) of stinginess over the bath - water in a Pontefract boarding - house is a remin der of a favourite story of the late Sir...

Sir: It is all very well for Richard lngrams to complain about the sloppy attention to documented historical detail in some tele vision productions, but his criticism would be a...

Sir: I have been asked by the literary executors of the late Colin MacInnes to write his biography, and I wonder if I might, through your columns, appeal to anyone who knew him...

A culture that went wrong Richard Cobb Germany 1866-1945 Gordon A. Craig (Oxford £10) This is indeed a book in the grand manner, old-fashioned perhaps. in that it gives full...

Raymond Carr Republican Portugal: A Political History 1910-26 Douglas L. Wheeler (Wisconsin £14) Portugal: Birth of a Democracy Robert Harvey (Macmillan £3.95) On the European...

Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd Margaret Countess of Jersey Violet Powell (Heinemann £5.90) Lady Violet Powell, sister of the Earl of Longford, is perhaps the most underrated of...

Benny Green London and the Life of Literature in Late Victorian London: The Diary of George Gissing Edited by Pierre Coustillas (Harvester £28) Gissing kept a journal for...

Francis King And Never Said A Word Heinrich Boll Pecker £4.50) This, the third of Heinrich Boll's novels, was first published in Germany in 1953, under the title 'Und sagte...

Wordless musical analysis Hans Keller On Saturday evening (4 November) Radio 3 is broadcasting Hans Keller's latest 'functional analysis' — of Mozart's String Quintet in G...

Still beautiful Rodney Mimes The Two Widows, Tiefland, II mondo della luna (Wexford Festival) Sets for the three operas mounted at Wexford this year were built for around...

Painstaking John McEwen Alan Johnston is currently showing six pencil drawings at Nigel Greenwood (till 11 November) under the inclusive title 'River Plain'. From a distance,...

Saboteurs Richard Ingrams One of my few natural advantages is that I very seldom miss anything and subsequently regret the fact. For example I knew at once when listening to...

Poetess Ted Whitehead Stevie (Classic, Oxford Street) 'Are you enjoying it, dear?' says Freddie to Stevie in the middle of intercourse. Or so we learn from Stevie's tirade...

Caligula's horse Patrick Marnham This autumn has seen an impressive series of advertisements headed 'Put Animals into Politics!'one has even been placed in the Spectator. The...

Side-kicks Taki In the winter of 1970 I had the misfortune to share a chalet with my older and far richer brother. I say misfortune because of his then wife, a typical...

In the nick Jeffrey Bernard In one way and another I spent most of last weekend in the nick. On Saturday afternoon I took my daughter to the Tower of London and on Sunday...

Full of noises Geoffrey Wheatcroft Last week I began this column by describing a recent court case. To do so again might seem uninspired or samey. But it is not every day that...

Mariana David Levy As 1 am writing this article at the Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires, where everr thing happens mahana (literally `tornor• row', but in reality meaning 'in...