Thursday, August 26: As Harold Wilson criticised Tory handling of the Ulster situation on radio and TV, Northera Ireland's Labour party proposed a Coalition Government. A...

Those of an optimistic or progressive cast of mind frequently assure themselves and others that human society is, on the whole, improving itself; that the world is becoming less...

Manchester, at the weekend was, I suppose, a striking tribute to the missionary zeal of this American cult. Meeting them on their home ground in Salt Lake City I found them...

After a politically tempestuous July and the usual August lull it will be interesting to see in September if the Common Market, Northern Ireland or the world monetary situation...

HUGH REAY To be a trade unionist and to be a peer is, from the point of view of loyalty, of course, an impossible problem. How each trade unionist peer deals with this problem...

Rate for the E AN ECONOMIST What has been really striking about the last three weeks in the foreign exchange market is not the gradual devaluation of the dollar as much as the...

1. We Porn-probing zealots GILES BRANDRETH Much have I travelled in realms of fantasy, but never in my wildest dreams or most outlandish nightmares did I visualize myself as...

2. The Press DENNIS HACKETT Three weeks of reading the Cork Examiner — a good, functional provincial paper that doesn't assume its readers to be idiots — brought me back to...

Slow boat to Grenada GEOFFREY WAGNER Neither my wife nor I had particularly felt the lure of the freighter way. We had read the few books and brochures — now mostly dated and...

John Wood on 'the balance of payments' Reviews by Nicholas Richardson Robin Holloway and Auberon Waugh The riddle of Arnold Toynbee has grown with the volumes written about...

Why England Sleeps John Cockcroft (Arlington Books £2.25) Britain's Economic Prospects Reconsidered edited by Sir Alec Cairncross (Allen and Unwin £3.25) The ball and chain...

Dig the Grave and Let him Lie John Wainwright (Macmillan £1.50). Grim Death and the Barrow Boys Joan Fleming (Collins £1.25). Cold War in a Country Garden Lindsay Gutteridge...

Schoenberg Willi Reich (Longman £3.50) Letters to His Wife Alban Berg (Faber £4.50) The German edition of Reich's book bore the title Schoenberg or the Revolutionary...

October Ferry to Gabriola Malcolm Lowry (Cape £2.25) The Bitter Harvest William Haggard (Cassell £1.50) The Charlestown Scheme Richard Akerman (Eyre and Spottiswoode £2.50) To...

Scots and Florentines RODNEY MILNES Just to be in Edinburgh is enough; to expect Kulchur as well seems impertinent. Few European cities have so atmospheric an old town, and...

The flowering, fruity fringe NICHOLAS DE JONGH The divided self of Edinburgh drama continues to exist easily in its three-week context of official festival and unofficial...

ROBIN YOUNG There is an idea abroad that the second biggest company in any centre of dancing should become the balletic equivalent of the Alternative Society. It upsets some...

EVAN ANTHONY I have a friend who, when she laughs, looks as though she is experi encing excruciating pain. It could be that the Director of the British Museum, Sir John...

KENNETH HURREN Benevolence is a winning virtue, but its translation into bland dishonesty can be a costly vice: flatter your geese in private, but "don't call them swans in the...

Participatory art has its snags — as the Tate Gallery found earlier this year when the Robert Morris exhibition was more or less wrecked by overenthusiastic participators. But...

THEATRE Opening in London: The Last Sweet Days of Isaac, the American rock musical by Gretchen Cryer and Nancy Ford, brought to the Old Vic for a week by the company of the...

Sir: My old friend Christopher Sykes has got it wrong. Peter Fleming's Oxford career was sufficiently brilliant (President of the OUDS, Editor of the Isis, a First in English),...

Sir: With regard to the article on Princess Anne, you should not be too hard on her escorts, or put ideas into their heads. Am I not right in thinking that it Is still an act...

From General Sir Horatius Murray Sir: I think there is an aspect of affairs in Palestine in the early part of 1948 that needs to be stated. I was commanding the 1st Division in...

sir: Magna Charta is acknowledged to be the basis of English liberty, Among a host of provisions contained therein are the inviolability of the rights of the City of London and...

Sir: If I tell my branch to buy another 400 ICI, the manager, or whoever I speak to, immediately rings my broker in London without putting the order through Head Office. The...

From the Rev Edward Peel Sir: 1 have been commissioned to write' the history of this old and famous school, and have begun my researches. I should be most grateful if any of...

Sir: While not agreeing with the anti-abortion advertisement in your last issue, I am delighted that you did not ban it, as Richard Crossman did in his New Statesman. Recently,...

Sir: I break a long-standing resolution — never again to write a 'letter to the editor' — to comment upon the not-so-recent contributions by John Vaizey and others on...

The investment prospect NICHOLAS DAVENPORT As we can now see the beginning of the far-off end of the currency crisis — the yen having agreed to float — we may as well take...

My predecessor, Captain Threadneedle, persuaded his long-suffering family to take me racing at York, so that I could see for myself how Major Petch has made that course the envy...

Sherlock Holmes, as I remember, had a masterful way with maps. When he gave his mind to a case in a part of the country which he had never visited, he immersed himself in...

Among the time-honoured tropes and figures utilized by drill-sergeants in their profession (some folklorist should be getting them on tape before it's too late) is the one about...

Sometimes, so as to attempt to stop myself grappling with the insoluble, such as money (lack of), ironing basket (three feet deep), car (midden-like condition of back and boot...

Miss R, of that personality ilk TONY PALMER The inane in pursuit of the inept — that's about the size of it when it comes to Esther Rantzen. The name Rantzen may mean nothing...