An accident waiting to happen G unmen, macabrely shouting 'Trick or treat' shot dead six Catholics and a Protes- tant in a bar at Greysteel in County Lon- donderry. That brought...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 IT'S FOR YOU C apitalism is a much-maligned eco- nomic system, and...

Those spending cuts in full: or not, as the case may be SIMON HEFFER W ere you to seek the minister who most typifies the character of this Govern- ment, Mr John MacGregor,...

STEPHEN FRY I t has been my custom over the last few Saturdays to go about the country dispens- ing what I hope is an inspiring message to the young people of towns like Leeds,...

It can't be very long before they come to their senses AUBERON WAUGH I have seen very little publicity indeed given to the fact of Britain's participation in the blockade of...

Jonathan Eyal argues that Nato is being undermined by its own members' disregard for reality For some time now, the end of the Cold War has been slowly melting down all...

MR. HEALY contributes to Thursday's Westminster Gazette the beginning of a study of Mr. Parnell, which represents him as full of supersititions derived from an old nurse, Mrs...

Christopher Coker argues that the Government's justified search for defence economies is going too far DURING THE Crimean war, a company was set up to tender for the siege of...

AS IF PATIENTS were not bad enough, doctors now have to deal with managers. They are ubiquitous these days, measur- ing everyone's efficiency but their own. Gone is the golden...

ONE OF THE criticisms of Jean Chre- tien, the new Prime Minister of Canada, is that his use of French is rather feeble. I was interested to find in my Cham- baud's Dictionary...

Irwin Stelzer on the corruption of a supopower a year after Bill Clinton's election Washington ONE YEAR AGO, Americans decided to turn their government over to Bill and...

ARMISTICE DAY 1918, and Private Horace Ham should have been on duty, looking after the horses at the army depot In Southampton. After months of fighting In the front line in...

Candida Crewe talks to Tory black sheep, Rupert Allason, about his undisciplined double life `ARE YOU a spy yourself?' There is no point beating around the bush when it comes...

Continuing our series on English counties, Julian Critchley describes the contrasts of Hampshire THERE IS still something rather smart about Hampshire. When I was first...

Thoughts on lifting the spirits of a superannuated man PAUL JOHNSON P aradoxically, the wet, sunless summer has produced autumn colours of exception- al glory. And, wandering...

SENSATIONAL INVESTMENT opportu- nity ; never before on offer, buy now while stocks last — who would have guessed from the patter that this was Lloyd's of London? The City's most...

A GOOD WEEK for Euronomics. London may have lost the European central bank but Britain is to get an agency for evaluat- ing medicines, and this will create jobs. It sounds like...

IF YOU THINK of Lloyd's as the City's version of a cottage industry, you may pre- fer the real thing. That investment opportu- nity presents itself this month, when a com- pany...

IN THE OFFICE, as in war and in bridge, some of the most important engagements are fought not against one's allies but against the enemy. When office warriors find civil war...

Another bright idea left over from Whosis it's time to think again CHRISTOPHER Fl LDES T he Inflation Report, like the Unified Budget, is a bright idea left over from the...

Sir: Could you please ask your literarY reviewer Caroline Moore (Books, 30 Octo- ber) to try and refrain from using words like 'alembic', `eirenic', `parisonic' and 'aux- esis'...

Sir: Should you not warn your television correspondent that if you continue to allow him to replace television criticism with political comment of unrivalled fatuity We may even...

Sir: I write not to refute J Enoch Powell's arguments (`The trick of that voice', 30 October), but to consider the possibilities of his contention being true. First, I suspect...

Sir: I refer to an article by Damian Thomp- son (Not so divine intervention', 23 Octo- ber). A similar article by him in the Daily Telegraph was soundly rebuffed in a short...

Sir: John Simpson believes ('Once an empire, now an embarrassment', 23 Octo- ber) that politicians who think that the Commonwealth is now of little political or economic...

12 Months 6 Months UK D £77.00 0 £39.00 Europe (airmail) D £88.00 0 £44.00 USA Airspeed 0 US$125.00 0 US$63.00 USA Airmail 0 US$175.00 0 US$88.00 Rest of Airmail 0 US$111.00 0...

Getting one's just desserts Lisa Chaney IN THE dining halls of Oxbridge, the dons still abandon their undergraduates and descend from high table to take dessert and wine in...

Conservation piece Max Egremont I HAVE been involved with game for much of my life. Having farmed deer and dealt in pheasants for over 20 years, I find myself speaking often...

ANNUAL Edited by DOMINIC LAWSON Foreword by P.D. James 'One chilly night... an attractive middle-aged lady was wrapped in a fur coat. "Do you realise how many animals had to...

Eastern ales Adam Zamoyski THE FALL OF the Berlin Wall opened up new fields for tourists and culture-vultures, but it did little to excite the Western palate, Particularly...

Fish Absolutely brill Simon Courtauld LAST SUNDAY morning the shingle beach at Aldeburgh in Suffolk was a jumble of fishing boats, nets, ropes, wires and winches. In the...

. . or over £35 on The Spectator If you're forced to share The Spectator with fellow students, then you'll know how difficult it can be to track a copy down. Now you can save...

Argentine Angus Tom Bruce Gardyne THERE IS NOTHING reticent about Argentina. We would have heard a lot more about her wines had there been any to spare. Of the small amount...

Make mine Milan Jennifer Paterson MY FRIEND Ian Scott telephoned me last week wanting to know how to cook osso- buco, which to my amazement was not in my book, as I had...

Wine Club Good news for the paupers Auberon Waugh FOR OUR TRADITIONAL bumper Christmas offer from Avery's — on which work has been proceeding all year — I will once again go...

c/o Averys of Bristol, 7, Park Street, Bristol BS1 5NG. Tel: (0272) 214141 Fax: (0272) 221729 Code No. White Price No. Value 704 I. Undurraga Sauvignon Blanc 1993 12 Bats....

Chairing from the front Douglas Hurd THE DOWNING STREET YEARS by Margaret Thatcher HarperCollins, £25, pp. 914 I know that I can save this country and that no one else can.'...

James Simmons PADDY AND MR PUNCH by R. F. Foster Allen Lane, £22.50, pp. 380 A good blurb is a good place to start. Here we have a ripe quotation from Eliza- beth Bowen, who...

Gaia Servadio VERDI: A BIOGRAPHY by Mary Jane Phillips-Matz OUP, £.30, pp. 997 O ne would not expect revelations in a new biography of Verdi, a composer who has already enjoyed...

Karl Miller B rian Clough's retirement from foot - ball has been clouded by a series of allega - tions. Journalists are charging that he has been greedy for money, while giving...

The Spectator to a friend and we will give you a full size bottle of ten year old Glenmorangie Single Highland Malt. But hurry, we have only a limited number of bottles to give...

No sound but the heated throb of a mower And nothing in my head but a tick of fear As cogged eyes clock the three long hours of lawn. But what this whirring locust can't devour...

Simon Courtauld FRANCO by Paul Preston HatperCollins, £25, pp. 1002 T he story goes — though not told in this book — that during Franco's last illness in 1975 he was talking to...

Rowland Ryder D enis Hills' deeds and misdeeds at King Edward's Birmingham have become part of the school folklore: flicking off the hats of railway porters; retrieving tennis...

Special breaks for Spectator readers Shown here are just three of the nearly 200 hotels, inns and private country houses that are offering Spectator read- ers the opportunity...

Francis King WHERE I'M CALLING FROM by Raymond Carver Harvill, £8.99, pp.431 E ven in his earliest stories, written in the Seventies, Raymond Carver had already set his...

Francis Wheen ASKING AROUND: BACKGROUND TO THE DAVID HARE TRILOGY by David Hare Faber, £8.99, pp. 250 I n the days before pocket calculators and computers, pupils sitting maths...

The Spectator index for January to June 1993 is now available. This six monthly comprehensive alphabetical listing of subjects, titles and contributors is a necessity for...

Daniel Johnson IN EUROPE'S NAME by Timothy Garton Ash Caoe, £25, pp. 680 D uring the last decade of the evil empire, Timothy Garton Ash was one of the shrewdest observers of...

Radio Memo to the Controller Alan Brownjohn tuned in to the revamped Radio 3, and did not like what he heard A recent concert programme advertise- ment for Radio 3 plugged...

From Cezanne to Matisse: Masterpieces from the Barnes Foundation (Musee d'Orsay, Paris, till 2 January) Nabis 1888 - 1900 (Grand Palais, Paris, till 2 January) Scarcity value...

Live Like Pigs (Royal Court) Mr Director (Richmond Orange Tree) All's Well That Ends Well (Barbican Pit) Court circles Sheridan Morley W hen Live Like Pigs first opened at...

Royal Ballet (Covent Garden) Second Stride (Salisbury Playhouse, and touring) Uncertain Juliet Sophie Constanti T his season, the Royal Ballet's run of Kenneth MacMillan's...

Worthy of Wales Clare Rendell urges a national museum to concentrate on local, not international artists T he National Museum of Wales is crammed with archaeology, botany,...

Dave ('12', selected cinemas) Dirty Weekend ('18', selected cinemas) Dead meat Mark Steyn I van Reitman's Dave is a story about a look-alike and also a look-alike story: it...

Sperm wails Martyn Harris W henever, in the future, I lie awake worrying about imminent social collapse I will take comfort from the knowledge that there are people out there...

Rock of ages Marcus Berkmann A s Jeff Bridges once memorably said, 'Phew! Rock 'n' roll!' In those days, though, Bridges was a young man, and rock 'n' roll was a young man's...

Hackette job Taki C harles Benson is a very large, pink man who would have been my fag had I gone to Eton. He loves free food and drink more than life itself, and last week he...

DIARY 1994 /12 Plain £13 Initialled T he Spectator 1994 Diary, bound in soft burgundy leather, will shortly be available. With a new layout and a whole week to view, Monday to...

Down the slippery slope Jeffrey Bernard S ometimes, in the middle of the night, usually at 3.30 a.m., I am woken up by the noise of the dust-cart clearing up Berwick Street...

Three cheers for committees Nigel Nicolson A l of us have joined committees from time to time, and been sufferers from the enormous wastage of round-table debate. Perhaps we...

.C.coortuti SPAM'S FINEST CAVA CHESS c.opttAII SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA In flames Raymond Keene FOR THE PAST ei g ht weeks I have concentrated on the real world cham- pionship...

DUI" M M 0 ND :5 ''a. 01 VM1111. 05 ' -- 1 . 1 RE MU I ' S( 1 ( 11 111Sh.‘ „ On the ball Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1803 you were invited to provide some Gazzaes q ue...

You are invited to incorporate the follow- ing words, in any order, into a plausible piece of prose (maximum 150 words): deciduous, fudge, costively, splurge, eclec- tic,...

CROSSWORD W. J. GRAHAM'S L I PORT r A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 22 November, with two...

14, 18, 24, 27, 31, 35, 39, and the four circuit lights (starting in radials 3, 10, 21, 33) were BIRDS, with ROTOR-PLANE (i.e. helicopter) in the central circuit. First prize:...

Sporting hacks never die hard Frank Keating AROUND A DOZEN years ago, on the way to cover a Saturday soccer match in London, you could begin to make a decent day of it by...

Q. My husband is an ambassador and fond of telling anecdotes at the dinner table, but his declamatory style is more suited to ancient Greece than to a typical social audience of...