of a British minister of agriculture from continental talks with nothing more than a promise that with a bit of luck we may be able to avoid further increases in the price of...

Because the freedom and security of the western world depends Upon the strength df the United States of America, the conduct Of American government is of great concern to us...

The Watergate affair makes our own domestic political problems look very tame. There has been a good deal of smugness going around, to the effect that this sort of thing...

Who's for musical chairs? Patrick Cosgrave At the beginning of a new parliamentary session there is bound to be an outburst of speculation both about the timing and charac...

Good brother Calif orniensis Mercurius Oxoniensis Good brother Californiensis, What you have heard is, alas, but too true: the Old-soules' Club has indeed been burn'd down,...

Yakir sings pavid Levy If a man talks much about honesty, you can be sure he is a crook. And if a man talks much about discretion, you can count on him to be a blabbermouth....

Sunny side up Louis Claiborne No American can escape Watergate — not even an expatriate hidden in the wilds of Essex. True, those of us who left Washington in good time, and...

"The old men say their fathers told them that soon after the fields were left to themselves a change began to be visible. It became green everywhere in the first spring, after...

George Gale The Quiet American Graham Greene Collected edition Vol II, with new introduction (Heinemann and Bodley Head £2.25). When Graham Greene went down from Oxford in the...

Jan Morris Livingstone Tim Jeal (Heinemann £3.75) That Doctor Livingstone was crazy is an old theory. That he was nasty has long been alleged. That he was incompetent has often...

People Lord Robens tiPhill All The Way Bernard Taylor (Sidgwick and Jackson £3.00) The Road from Wigan Pier Olga Cannon and J. R. L. Anderson (Gollancz £3.90) Bernard Taylor...

David Fleming 'Citizen Nader Charles McCarry (Cape 0.50). Ralph Nader refuses to sign autographs, won't walk past a building site in case he breathes in asbestos dust,...

I. F. Stone started his own newspaper in Washington in 1953. His writing is a constant reminder of what democracy should really entail. This volume contains some of his best...

Bookbuyer Spring is here and can't you tell. With that frisky optimism which the season inspires, several new publishers are beginning to blossom, or soon will. Certainly the...

On becoming music director at Covent Garden Colin Davis said he intended "to do a masterpiece once a year and try and make some positive contemporary statement about it. We...

Spaced out Christopher Hudson Space exploration in the cinema has suffered the same sort of transformation as the Western. Just as palefaces have left off kill ing Indians to...

Benny Green The movie moguls of the golden age really were a low lot. To this day the cinema industry continues to protest about the bad press its tycoons always get, but when...

Nicholas Davenport I remember Wall Street once falling ten points in a few hours when the report flew around that President Eisenhower had had a stroke. Last week it fell 41...

More from Moss John Bull The rather more optimistic tone of the market is certainly helping my recent selections with Dunlop up from 102p to 114p and Revertex now at 81ip...

Not long ago I expressed sin prise at the number of pocket electronic calculators that are being sold. Many are bought, surely, as no more than executive playthings. A Sinclair...

A particularly silly article in support of the Channel Tunnel last month appeared in the Times — a paper usually sound on this subject, which produced a devastating attack on...

Looking for a bid Nephew Wilde After a cursory glance at the headlines announcing the Slater Walker/Hill Samuel deal I suf fered a nauseous feeling which subsequently turned...

Ian Harvey Dennis Altman, American Fulbright Scholar and a lecturer at Sydney University, Australia, has written a book which some may regard as important, others reject as...

Choosing a wife Joint Rowan Wilson "She had good health," said Joyce Cary of a character in one 9f his novels, "which is the most hnportant thing in a wife." The longer I...

Resettlement snags custos The Uganda Resettlement Board reports to Parliament this week and rumour has it that they are in a self-congratulatory mood. They will have few...

Two twenty-first birthday trees Denis Wood There will be time again in November and December before the year ends, for ceremonial planting of 10 ft. deciduous trees with...

Vicarious victualising Pamela Vandyke Price Why do the British slink so apolo getically, theoretically and pseudo-scientifically towards food as .a topic? Every tinge of my...

Sir: I am much indebted to a Mr Anthony Clare who, in an article entitled "Eysenck the Controversialist" (April 21) furnishes me with one of the best examples of tendentious and...

It's not often that our 2000 Guineas attracts the leading light of the French as well as the Irish Free Han dicap, but instead of eagerly looking forward to this splendid show —...

By promoting algebraic logic, Bertrand Russell produced a philosophy divorced from ideas. The introduction of cards into the study of ESP removed from that study all the...

Sir: In your issue dated April 28, Auberon Waugh, with the pretext of reviewing two novels, treats us to a brief homily on the subject of novelreviewing. Having myself at one...

Sir: Even by her own standards, Judith Listowel's letter (April 21) whitewashing African tyranny and racialism was pretty breathtaking. She quotes the Kenyan Minister of...

Sir: Many people 'interested in education will be grateful to John H. Chambers for his sane comments on children's ' rights' (April 28). Indeed many a young teacher caught up in...

Sir: I must have read half a dozen reviews of Mr Rolph's biography of the late editor of the New Statesman and was appalled to see how they all seemed to go out of their way to...

Sir: Please allow me to apologise for an error in my letter (April 14) pointed out by Madeline Simms. I should have said that 10 schoolgirls aged 15 and under had second...

Sir: I was distressed to read the criticism of the National Trust, " Incompetence and Incivility" from a contributor to The Spectator (April 21) and, of course, I do not know...

Sir: In Rachel , Law's poem 'The Ballad of David Steel' the one and a half lines: " . . . and Hindley takes communion on her knee" strongly give the impression, in their...