The Fall S enator George Mitchell continued talks in Northern Ireland into the ninth week of his review of the Good Friday Agreement; Mr Mitchell flew to Dublin, London and...

Mr Hague has a problem with bestiality, and with the facts of life BRUCE ANDERSON T he monkeys are chattering, the birds are screeching. The very undergrowth is tense; the...

CHARLES SPENCER I have been ever mindful of the wisdom that came from my then stepmother's lips, as she applied make-up to them at Althorp's dining-room table, 20 years ago....

Snap out of it, Twigg: show Charles the tolerance you demand for yourself BORIS JOHNSON A astair Campbell has not yet told us what transpired between the Prince of Wales and...

Rowan Pelling wonders how Britain's censor-in-chief remains uncorrupted by the filth and violence he is paid to watch 'ASK him if he wears ladies' underwear,' says a hack who...

Dominic Hobson says William Hague should abandon his Poujadism and embrace the global free market ON 17 November, England will play Scot- land at Wembley. The match, one of two...

EVERY time I meet Alice Thomas Ellis she says, 'You must do may and might. It drives me mad.' Well, it drives me mad, too. I boggle when I hear sen- tences such as: Their lives...

Everyone has a yarn about Jeffrey Archer. In a spirit of humble duty Jasper Gerard launches an anthology IT WAS one of those slow, hungover days on the Times's diary column when...

Robert Shrimsley on how the Portillistas stitched it up for their man THE well-heeled, cut-glass and, let's face it, a touch self-satisfied elite of the Royal Borough of...

South African whites are forced to accept black lawlessness and victimisation by the new governing correctness, says Alec Russell Johannesburg THE world's unofficial murder...

When the Berlin Wall fell 10 years ago, not everyone was singing an ode to joy, says Anne Applebaum BY the time we got to Berlin, it was four o'clock in the morning. We hadn't...

Julian Manyon reveals how archaeologists are undermining Israel's biblical territorial claims Jerusalem IF much of the Middle East is built on oil, Israel is built on argument....

Because of confusion between two easily- muddled books, one of the books offered to readers in our issue of 23 October was wrongly described. Millennium — a History of Our Last...

I KNOW the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, of course, and have witnessed even more startling transformations, thanks to the wonders, if not necessarily the wisdom, of modern...

A Chinese invention, a Hippocratic therapy, a French import and a sinister metaphor PAUL JOHNSON F rom time to time Nancy, a lady from the Philippines, comes to our house to...

Alas, the Eurosceptic press failed to serve up much red meat in the beef war STEPHEN GLOVER I am beginning to think that Europhiles may not always tell the absolute truth. It...

Mosley's 'third force' From Lady Mosley Sir: Paul Johnson (And another thing, 23 October) writes that in the Thirties Sir Oswald Mosley was willing actively to sup- port Hitler...

From Mr William Field Sir: I have worked as a doorman/bouncer for a number of years and agree almost entirely with Damien McCrystal's portrait of how the trade is changing...

From Mr John Bowis, OBE, MEP Sir: Is The Spectator losing its spinal column (Leader, 30 October)? We should not be vetoing the withholding tax until the beef ban — or anything...

breed of bouncers who abuse their authority as self- declared 'security consultants', Damien McCrystal might recall the lament of Mus- solini-era Italians. This was: 'The...

From Sir Kenneth Warren Sir: Paul Webb's fascinating biography of Ivor Novello, reviewed by Jonathan Cecil (Books, 23 October), attributes the writing of 'Keep the Home Fires...

From Professor Eric Fernie Sir: David Lee ('You've been framed', 30 October) is right to question the monopoly hold which conceptual artists and their sup- porters appear to...

From Mr James Srodes Sir: John Laughland's disclosure ('The mas- sacres that never were', 30 October) of the huge gap between actual Kosovo casualties and the Clinton-Blair...

Mr Brown's conversion to a world safe for canapes and champagne FRANK JOHNSON M r Gordon Brown, in a speech to the CBI annual conference this week, invoked the Thatcher years....

Let's get in a stew Sion Simon on a great British institution THERE are few foods quite so universal as stew. Throwing some tough meat and hard vegetables into a pot and...

Why I want to be a pudding Andrew Roberts HAVING reached the age of 36, one's thoughts naturally turn towards one's mon- ument to posterity. Statues seem passe and Mohamed...

How to get a rise Katie Dashwood I LOVE souffles. The fact that they com- bine simplicity with style and charisma places them in a league of their own. They delight whether...

The pleasures of winter Simon Courtauld NOW that the clocks have gone back may we never abandon Greenwich Mean Time — and autumnal October is past, we can get down to the...

Wining and dying James Langton New York WINE is good for you, or at least in this household it is. Try getting through an evening of three sets of homework, piano and clarinet...

Lifting the spirits Petronella Wyatt AS THE governor of North Carolina said to the governor of South Carolina, 'It's a long time between drinks.' I never quite understood the...

Norman conquest Rebecca Fraser UNTIL the foodie explosion of the last ten years the English were not known for their cuisine. Our most famous culinary inven- tion is, after...

God bless Burgundy Harry Coen HERE are two linked assertions to provide us with food — or rather wine — for thought, as Christmas and New Year cele- brations loom in the shadow...

Take him for all in all Norman Lebrecht BERLIOZ, VOLUME II by David Cairns Allen Lane, £25, pp, 895 B it of a misfit, Berlioz. Not so much in character, which was a good deal...

Daniel Hannan LINCOLN by Jan Morris Viking, £19.99, pp. 216 H ere is a little jewel-box of a book, not so much a biography as an exercise in trav- el writing decorated with...

Mark Archer FROM EMPIRE TO EUROPE by Geoffrey Owen HarperCollins, £19.99, pp. 517 O ne of my abiding memories, as an eight-year-old in 1968, is of my father proudly showing...

IRVINE by Dominic Egan Mainstream, f15.99, pp. 256 I n this case, m'lud, Mr Dominic Egan appears for the prosecution. He will seek to persuade the jury that the Lord Chancel-...

John Vincent REFLECTIONS ON A RAVAGED CENTURY: THE RULE OF ROGUE IDEOLOGIES by Robert Conquest John Murray, f25, pp. 317 L ike the paladin in the Victorian bal- lad who could...

M. R. D. Foot FIVE DAYS IN LONDON, MAY 1940 by John Lukacs Yale, £12.95, pp. 229 T he nation's solidarity in the summer crisis of 1940 — 'the Dunkirk spirit' — has become part...

Richard Whittington ELIZABETH DAVID by Artemis Cooper Michael Joseph, 120, pp. 363 E lizabeth David was the first gastro- Pornographer, albeit an elegant one, for her earliest...

Nicholas Fearn TIME by Alexander Waugh Headline, £18.99, pp. 277 PIP PIP by Jay Griffiths Flamingo, £12.99, pp. 290 I n the age of the professional, one would not think that...

Michael Vestey ALISTAIR COOKE by Nick Clarke Weidenfeld, f20, pp. 405 MEMORIES OF THE GREAT AND THE GOOD by Alistair Cooke Pavilion Books, £16.99, pp. 255 O ne of the greatest...

John Bowen PRIVATE FACES by Sign Phillips Hodder, 318.99, pp. 294 S ian Phillips's memoir could do with an editor — 'proud as punch', 'rooted to the spot': cliche has settled...

Philip Glazebrook GALILEO'S DAUGHTER by Dava Sobel Fourth Estate, L16.99, pp 429 D ava Sobel has done it again. Having made a human drama out of the search for a means of...

Nunn's crack troupe Charles Spencer on the most outstanding theatrical achievement in Britain this year W en Trevor Nunn was first announced as the new director of the National...

Chardin (Grand Palais, Paris, till 22 November) Only the best Martin Gayford Y ou can tell a great deal about a nation from its greengrocers' displays — or so it struck me as...

King Lear (Barbican) The Taming of the Shrew (Barbican Pit) 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (Young Vic) Japanese lessons Sheridan Morley I seem to be missing something here: the hail...

John Percival explains how Roland Petit based his new ballet on a play by Goethe 0 nce upon a time, or about the middle of the 18th century to be exact, a young man called Jose...

Swan Lake (Sadler's Wells) What about the drama? Giannandrea Poesio S tylistic consistency has never been one of Swan Lake's outstanding qualities. Even the celebrated 1895...

Alceste (Barbican) We want Gluck Michael Tanner G luck remains the greatest under-per- formed composer whose major creative effort went into opera. People are always...

The Sixth Sense (12, selected cinemas) Truly spooky Mark Steyn R eluctant to join Toby Young in danc- ing on Tina Brown's grave ('Talk of the town', 16 October), I've so far...

Solo Spices Marcus Berkmann A utumn has arrived, and the leaves fall from trees like so many Spice Girl solo albums. What is it with these girls? This was supposed to be their...

Hearing the truth Peter Phillips T he construction of the Globe Theatre some five years ago gave an enormous boost to everyone's understanding of the style and atmosphere of...

Big heads Michael Vestey T here is something absurd and nerd- like about Mensa, the high-IQ society, a view confirmed when I heard one of its members on Radio Four last week...

Too many cooks . . . Simon Hoggart G ary Rhodes is back, on the front cover of the Radio Times, with a series called New British Classics (BBC 1), which sounds like those...

Terrible lessons Gavin Stamp A though millions of words — both well- and ill-informed, objective and preju- diced — have already been written on the subject, I must discuss the...

An old favourite Robin Oakley A Canada, in my brief experience nipping over to Toronto and back last week, tend to employ as their air-hostesses not the mane-tossing 'coffee,...

Lost dignity Taki Now I read that this same David Rem- nick has visited England hawking his opus on Muhammad Ali, and has, of course, been seen in the company of the unread-...

Speaking up Leanda de Lisle I 'd been looking forward to the Calf and Lamb Rearing Society dinner at the New- bold Verdon Working Man's Club. Like, I suspect, many of you, I'd...

Romantic excuses Petronella Wyatt A few years ago I was in Venice with a party of friends. It included a distinguished male journalist who was then single. In the bar of the...

Sterner stuff Andrew Robson THERE IS a modern trend amongst experts to gamble 3NT after an opponent has preempted. There is sound logic to this — the preemptor can often be...

Robert Har d man THEY are still arguing about who first came up with 'The Beach' as the name for that increasingly fashionable Chelsea sec- tion of the Fulham Road between the...

Pleasing paupers and plutocrats Auberon Waugh AFTER a most strenuous process, which involved rejecting more than 40 bottles in three tastings, the panel has come up with what...

,r SINGLE SINGLE ISLAY MALT SCOTCH WHISKY CHESS Nimzo witsch project Raymond Keene WITH Nimzowitsch back in the news as a result of this year's British Chess Federation...

Hudibrastics Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 2109 you were asked for some octosyllabic couplets in the ingeniously rhyming style of Samuel Butler's Hudibras. Life's too short to...

A first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham's Six Grapes Port for the first correct solution opened on 22 November, with two run- ners-up prizes of £20 (or, for UK solvers, the...

Francophiles for an afternoon Simon Barnes T1ENS, que c'est drole. Here we are in the middle of a trade war with France, the papers full of ordure and xenophobia, and I find...

Dear Mary.. . Q. My husband and I have quite recently acquired a yacht which affords us much plea- sure. We enjoy inviting friends to accompany us on cruises in various parts...