John Major has had cosmetic treatment on his teeth. News item M ore than 200 people in Scotland went down with the 0157 strain of Escherichia call food poisoning thought to come...

Europe is graven on John Major's heart. Ken Clarke was one of the engravers BRUCE ANDERSON T en days ago, Kenneth Clarke tried to help his party to win the next election. In...

JENNIFER PATERSON T he terrible editor is making me write the diary again, as if I didn't have enough on my plate already what with various Christmas copy being demanded at this...

The truth about manners in the good old days (they were bad) PETRONELLA WYATT T he other day, while staying with friends, I was knocked down by a very elderly fellow-guest, a...

Junk bonds, Trump, Maxwells, Ernest Saunders. All survive. Some flourish anew. There's even a Saatchi in the Lords. Simon Sebag Montefiore welcomes them back ON THE weekend of...

One man who doesn't entirely welcome the return of the Eighties is Mark Archer. He mourns the end of the civilised recession DO you recall that delightful time a few years...

Anne McElva) , describes how and why Nicholas Scott lost. It was the Wets who did it SIR NICHOLAS Scott lost Kensington and Chelsea, not because the Right turned on him, but...

THE TIME of year is fast approaching when my husband suddenly has to put in an appearance at emergency surg- eries, leaving me to do the last-minute and most crowd-plagued...

Finns were not insulted by comments about blonde, blue-eyed nurses, says 0111 Kivinen. They rather enjoyed the rare attention. Helsinki FINNS have been both amused and aston-...

Apropos of Paul Johnson's attack on homo- sexuality in the Church of England, William Oddie recalls a place once renowned for it WELL, he said it, and the consequence foretold...

Sarah Whitebloom lives in the unlikely part of Britain ruled by pure democracy. She doesn't recommend it THERE is such a thing as too much democracy. The nation as a whole...

The Spectator asked Douglas Johnson for an opinion on two disputed texts THE differences that exist between Sir James Goldsmith's book, Le Piege, pub- lished in Paris (1993),...

I WAS on the train to London recently to attend an important conference lamenting the state of modern Britain (lamentation being my vocation and my forte) when I noticed the...

Simon Blow tells how a legendary Duke of Westminster was the cause of his parent becoming an alcoholic MY FATHER was a self-destructive alco- holic. I envied the stable fathers...

After revelations that German Jews fought for Hitler, Nicholas Farrell on the Jews for Mussolini THE Daily Telegraph has published details of new research on Jews who fought...

Charles Moore has discovered a painless way in which many shareholders can give to charity TWO years ago, I had been asked to help with the Centenary Appeal for Westmin- ster...

How New York's Governor, Pataki, compels teachers to lie to kids PAUL JOHNSON W ho now merits the title of the Greatest Liar in America, left vacant by the late and unlamented...

Britain's most incorrect company chairman lands himself in a steel scrap CHRISTOPHER FILDES W e haven't had a good steel scrap for ages, and Andrew Cook is a scrapper after my...

Sir: In his article about Peter McKay's departure from Punch (Media studies, 30 November), Stephen Glover states that, 'The marvellous thing is that everyone seems much happier,...

Sir: Stuart Campbell's commendably sensi- tive appreciation of Franz Josef I is never- theless flawed. To say that Austria's 'military occupation of Bosnia in 1878, and its...

Sir: Isn't Michael Harrington, in his spirited `defence of J. Edgar Hoover (Alger Hiss: a postscript', Nov 30), pushing the joke a lit- tle too far? He concedes, after all, that...

Sir: There is a contradiction at the heart of Sue Cameron's 'On air in two minutes, Sir Humphrey' (30 November). If, as she sug- gests, civil servants have usurped so much power...

was also Honorary Colonel -If the King's Dragoon Guards, senior British -avalry regiment of the line. The regiment's -ap badge, gra- ciously conferred by Franz Josef himself,...

Sir: Thousands have no doubt already writ- ten to deny Digby Anderson's impetuous condemnation of what he calls 'plungers' and which most of us call the cafetiere (Food, 30...

Sir: Even from the perspective of distant Australia, Edward Lucie-Smith's claim in your pages (Arts, 30 November) that 'now Francis Bacon is dead, David Hockney is Britain's...

Sir: Andrew Roberts's letter of 23 Novem- ber misrepresents what I wrote. I did not say I believe, because 'a German colonel' once told me, that 'the July conspirators were in a...

Sir: Despite Dr Jaffe's distinguished career as Mayor of Bournemouth, author of Promiscuity and GP for 45 years, he is unqualified to undertake post mortems. His tiresome...

Sir: Readers should be grateful to Mr Lowenthal (Letters, 30 November) for so graphically recreating the Alice in Wonder- land atmosphere that surrounded the Hiss case at the...

Sir: The Times used to be the best newspaper in the world. Here are some headlines to articles printed in it today: 7 October: 'Snow-white gets mini-camera to keep bodice...

The press isn't free in Mr Mugabe's country but it's freer than in Mr Ian Smith's STEPHEN GLOVER A Harare I am spending a few days in Zim- babwe, I thought it might be a good...

Martians and Venusians David Sexton THE SIBLING SOCIETY by Robert Bly Hamish Hamilton, £18, pp.336 R obert Bly is easy to ridicule. Five years ago, his exposition of a...

Susan Crosland MAD COWS by Kathy Lette Picador, £12.99, pp. 294 M ad Cows is my first go at a Kathy Lette novel, a tardiness saying more about me than the acclaimed humourist...

Raymond Carr REFORMATION: CHRISTIANITY AND THE WORLD, 1500-2000 by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto and Derick Wilson Bantam, £20, pp. 324 hristus contra Mundum', 'Christ against the...

Christopher Andrew STALIN'S SPY: RICHARD SORGE AND THE TOKYO ESPIONAGE RING by Robert Whymant I. B. Tauris, £25, pp. 368 R ichard Sorge, the son of a German father and Russian...

Andrew Barrow TWO FAT LADIES: GASTRONOMIC ADVENTURES (WITH MOTORBIKE AND SIDECAR) by Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright Ebtay Press, £17.99, pp. 192 J ennifer...

Paul Sussman TIME ON FIRE by Evan Handler Souvenir, £15.99, pp. 279 A cute myelogenous leukaemia is not, on the face of it, particularly amusing. It's not particularly amusing...

Mikhail Narinski HOW FAR FOM AUSTERLITZ? NAPOLEON 1805 - 1815 by Alistair Horne Macmillan, £20, pp. 350 N apoleon . . . There is probably no other historical figure whose...

Philip Glazebrook THE RIDDLE AND THE KNIGHT by Giles Milton Allison & Busby, £14.99, pp. 230 C oncerned by the amount of home shelf-space already crammed with books of travel,...

Thomas Blaikie THE FREDDIE MERCURY STORY by David Bret Robson, £16.95, pp. 207 I n a small way Freddie Mercury added to the gaiety of nations. Alive, he was a fairly...

Michael Scott TCHAIKOVSKY'S LAST DAYS by Alexander Poznansky OUP, £20, pp. 254 W hen a famous personality dies sud- denly from natural causes before his time, there are always...

Richard Ingrams T here have been so many TV 'spin- offs' by way of comic books that I am sur- prised the BBC hasn't yet produced The Michael Fish Book of Weather Forecasts with...

Mary Keen S he can't evoke anything,' said a friend, who is a well known novelist, in conversation about a newcomer to the writing game. 'Adjectives', the WKN added, 'are not...

Changes, charges and cuts Felicity Owen on the problems and pressures facing the British Museum T he British Museum (BM) is one of this country's glories. It leads the world in...

Andrew Lambirth solves your present problems in art galleries around London Elizabethan sweetmeat course, in the Geffiye Museum's Christmas Past exhibition A bbott & Holder,...

It was Jack Tinker's personality not his writing that made him so popular, says Milton Shulman W hen Jack Tinker, the Daily Mail's theatre critic, died on 28 October, his news-...

Virginia in Wonderland John Parry have long been intrigued by Jung's the- ory of synchronicity — the attempt to explain the significance of the relationship between certain...

Latin charade Peter Phillips I have always had trouble making the connection between the antique world and modern education. Given that the survival of Latin tags in official...

Max Klapper (The Electric, Portobello Road) The Cherry Orchard (Albcry) Mixed-media message Sheridan Morley W ay up the Portobello Road, in an area now rendered almost...

Jingle All The Way (PG, selected cinemas) Home For The Holidays (15, selected cinemas) Pop forgot Mark Steyn J ingle All The Way is the story of one dad's determination to...

Royal Ballet Triple Bill (Royal Opera House) Triple trouble Giannandrea Poesio T he Royal Ballet's triple bill at the Royal Opera House focuses on three dif- ferent aspects...

Losing its nerve Michael Vestey T his week's Radio Times tells me that Radio Lives, the biographical series, is 'por- traits of great names in radio and television' (my...

Moll flounders Simon Hoggart T he fashion for putting on the classics in anachronistic settings — Richard III as a 20th-century fascist, The Duchess of Malfl in a space...

A sad case of seconditis Robin Oakley R ecounting how a chimney sweep's mistaken arrival at her home had resulted in a prize puppy running loose, a woman behind me in the...

A proud father writes Taki T wenty-one years ago last Saturday, 30 November, I found myself in Palm Beach lolling sybaritically on a beach — actually in a tennis club by the...

Nothing doing Jeffrey Bernard N ow that we are in December, every- one you meet asks, 'What are you doing for Christmas?' — most of the people I meet anyway. The answer is...

Arms and the men Leanda de Lisle M y mother-in-law learnt how to use a Shotgun when she was a child in Peru — although she was more likely to shoot peas- ants than...

BRIDGE Mirror image Andrew Robson WHEN both declarer's hand and dummy have exactly the same hand pattern, they are said to be mirrored and a disappointing trick tally almost...

Upper and lower case Auberon Waugh T he last offer of the year traditionally goes to Lay & Wheeler as a tribute not only to the high standard of their wine, but also to the...

in Cannes, it would be my good fortune to eat lunch cooked by France's 'Chef of the Year'. Just before I arrived, the Gault Millau Guide to France for 1997 had appeared and...

URA ISLE OF JURA SINGLE MALI SCOICH ‘HISICI COMPETITION Scientific breakthrough Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1961 you were invited to supply a newspaper report, more...

IN-THE-STRAND SIMPSON'S IN-THE-STRAND CHESS Anthology pieces Raymond Keene LAST WEEK, while speculating on which was the strongest chess tournament of all time in the...

A first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 1990 Port for the first correct solution opened on 6 January, with two runners-up prizes of £20 (or, for UK...

The final encounter Simon Barnes COME ON. The game's been good to you. Hang up those boots and don't spoil the dream of children, the memories of adults — all this is...

Dear Mary. . . Q. Please can you help me? Each time I give a dinner party, the guests — most of them married couples — arrive in furious tempers. The reason, I have worked...