not only a general election likely but also a contest for the Oxford chair of poetry (between Robert Lowell and Edmund Blunden) in prospect. Lord Attlee celebrated his...

to no one's surprise) entailed no by-election. Mr. Heath, on tour around Asia with an entourage of journalists, adjusted his itinerary to include Saigon. Mr. Wilson went no...

deadly blow'? And yet the first days saw President Johnson's doves airborne around the globe, while the American bombers stayed grounded in Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh, alas, seemed...

A s this issue of the SPECTATOR goes to iipress, the pause in the American bomb- ing of North Vietnam continues and the Indo-Pakistani summit meeting enters its third day. The...

Friday January 7 1966

Nothing but a Masquerade? By P. J. HONEY Co many strands are now inextricably inter- twined in the Gordian knot of Vietnam that it is hardly to be wondered at if President...

From OSBERT HASTINGS ROME Q UITE shortly now the Italian coalition is due by mutual agreement among the parties comprising it to take a look at itself and make whatever...

Medicine Today A New Feature JOHN ROWAN WILSON After the Raj D. W. BROGAN One year's subscription to the 'Spectator': f3 15s. (including postage) in the United Kingdom and...

From DEV MURARKA TASHKENT T HE Soviet leaders are taking a justifiable pride in simply bringing off the Tashkent meeting, whatever may happen here. They are not even very...

The State of the Tories By ALAN WATKINS Now that Christmas is over and the shortest day is behind us we shall soon be looking forward In the spring and even to our summer...

King Henry VI fills in the form on university costs for the University Grants Committee. 0 God, methinks it were a happy life To be no better than a candidate, To sit behind a...

Q UOODLE has departed. But I am glad to be able to begin my first Notebook by recording a last, posthumous, victory. Some weeks ago in these columns he drew attention to the...

So Jo Grimond has officially announced that he may retire from the leadership of the Liberal party later this year—that is, assuming (as Lad- broke's do) that there is an...

Talking of honours, the Government's last- minute rescue operation on Fairfield's shipyard should certainly be worth a gong or two. But was it worth doing at all? Last year the...

in coin-in-the-slot television will start in 3,000 London homes this weekend, rising to 10,000 homes by the summer. You pays your money and you takes your choice. Six bob for an...

worries me most about the Lawson Affair—infinitely more than the handful of abusive letters, and more even than the occasional mildly obscene anony- mous telephone call to my...

January 6. 1866 The Fenian trials have ended. The last ring- leader has been sentenced to five years' imprisonment, and the Government. it is said. do not intend to prosecute...

If sterling is stronger this week it must surely be something to do with the knighthood awarded to the Bank of England's Maurice Parsons, that formidable pillar of financial...

Office issue might well compel the Liberal party to vote against the Government or forgo for ever its claim to speak for freedont:—Mr. Grimond at Scarborough, September 25,...

Brothers in Print By CHARLES CURRAN S m national dailies quoted it simultaneously this week. Between them, they gave it sixty-six column-inches of their space; an area about...

The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen By GRAHAM GREENE T HERE were eight Japanese gentlemen having a fish-dinner at Bentley's. They spoke to each other rarely in their...

I look on Johnson's latest ploy Like all his other wheezes: He only does it to Hanoi Because he knows it teases. ANTONY JAY 27 Southdown Avenue, London, W7

(December 31) illustrates clearly the tendency deplored by Lord Fisher recently in a letter to The Times: the tendency to speak of decisions taken in this country as expressions...

SIR,—S0 Quoodle has passed away. Hard to believe, and even harder to accept. May one reader, a non- Tory, be allowed a last tribute? For over two years, the prospect of...

SIR,—On the eve of the meeting at Tashkent be- tween Ayub Khan and Shastri, President Ayub Khan says that he would be all friends with India if India would allow Kashmir to...

SIR,—Mr. Kenneth MacKenzie's partisan feelings seem to have got the better of his logic. He asserts that because right-wing double standards exist I have no right to indicate...

From : Angus Maude, MP, Cicely Howells, Roy Boulting, Ludovic Kennedy, H. Sen. Antony Jay, Alfred Sherman, David Ashton, M. W. Palmer, Diana Atwood, David Wise, Amy Tube. Zenka...

Sin.-Mr. Simon Raven's problem is not a new one; in 1840, Thackeray. describing 'file Fashionable Authoress, wrote: The readiest of ready pens has Lady Flum- mery . . . only it...

about important political issues should be featured fairly by the information media, but he is mistaken, surely, to suggest that 'western' or 'right-wing' wickedness is given...

intelligence and his provocative writing now earn him the title of Honorary Female. ZENKA BARTEK III Greenhill. Hampstead, London, NW3

this field. One woman began the novel, another brought it to perfection, a third tilled the single chink remaining, and a fourth let in all the tedious taradiddle which Mr....

would like to say how strongly I agree with Mr. Charles Reid's comments on the LPO Christ- mas performance of Messiah in your issue of December 24, and how much I hope his...

Sig,-Mr. Stuart Hood's sensitive and generous appreciation of Richard Dimbleby must have given pleasure to very many people, and one hopes that all the tributes to him have...

ACROSS.-1 Salvia. 2 Craduate. 10 Toppled. 11 Cotters. 12 Last. 13 Alle- gi - etto. 16 Reason. 17 Attired. 20 Cura- cao. 21 Merman. 24 Criss-cross. 25 Amen. 27 Abigail. 29...

ACROSS 28. 1. The premises of the polar club? (6. 6) 9. No, I tame an outflow (9) 10. Viva ale! But put it this way for a one-way passage (5) And, when he next doth ride...

RECORDED SOUND Coffin and Keyboards By CHARLES REID O N a corner of Russell Square, Bloomsbury (at No. 38, to be exact), there is a sign in letters so small that they amount...

I TN New York, two exhibitions of outstanding complementary interest have opened within a week of each other: a full-scale assess- ment of Rene Magritte at the Museum of Modern...

Horror My Foot Dracula. (Warner, 'X' certificate.) T ins is Horror with Hammer week, when fangs are worn longish: we celebrate a decade of gothick gore with Dracula on the...

The Deadly Arts T HE BBC has a corner in its kindly old heart for every wayward listener, and the place it has chosen to off-load most of these awkward angles is the Home...

Puffing and Blowing T HE theatre seems to be entering on another great period; 1965 was above all the year of the actor, both in individual performances and in ensemble playing...

By ANTHONY BURGESS T rTHERE was a time when reviewing was a I branch of criticism; but nowadays criticism is only a branch of reviewing. We can spare whole plains of esparto...

Castroism: Theory and Practice. By Theodore Draper. (Pall Mall Press, 35s.) THIS week Castro will be celebrating the seventh anniversary of his rise to power. The accolades are...

The Complete Plays of D. H. Lawrence. (Heinemann, 63s.) I ENJOY so much writing my plays—they come so quick and exciting from the pen—that you mustn't growl at me if you think...

'The Four Feathers' By PETER V ANSITTART W E all have a private library, not exactly Lit., but which, read in childhood, has decisively shocked the imagination. Graham Greene,...

BOOKS on China come in waves, and the present wave, now swelling fast, has its quotas of apologetics and realism. These three belong to the second category. Strictly speaking....

By PHILIDOR 264. C. G. WATIsTSY (Good Companions, 1922) BLACK (to men) WHITE (8 men) *HrrE to play and mate in two moves ; solution next week. Solution to No. 263 (Shinkman)...

By William Faulkner. (Penguin, 4s.) The Groves of Academe. By Mary McCarthy. (Panther, 3s. 6d.) The Wings of the Dove. By Henry James. (New English Library, 6s.) The Pioneers....

BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO has recently been rising and now yields under 6 per cent—in fact, 5.7 per cent at the current price of 64s. But there may be some increase in the final...

By CUSTOS B ROKERS' reviews and recommendations for 1966 are all extremely cautious and some downright pessimistic. Most of them stress the fact that the failure to stop the...

There is talk in the street that brewery shares have seen their best. They finished the year about 10 per cent down. The Financial Times index touched 103 in February, fell to...

B y 1.01HIMRY S IR DENYS LOWSON, chairman of Nelson Financial Trust, is able to report another successful year ended October 31, 1965. Income from investments has risen from...

The National Plan looked for a 14 per cent p.a. growth rate in man-made fibres and this was not unreasonable, seeing that the UK output had grown 12 per cent annually over the...

By LESLIE ADRIAN A picture of Lake Garda's shore in the Poly booklet has only two bodies, shapely, feminine. uncomfortably reclining on gravel and concrete. Both tell a slur s...

About a fortnight ago a rough-legged buzzard, the first I have ever seen, took up residence in my woods, where it has since been sighted almost daily, often at close range. It...

By STRIX To the lexicographer the word means 'avoiding ex- tremes, temperate in con- duct or expression; fairly large or good.' Applied by the meteorologist to a frost it means...

By ALAN BRIEN MANHATTAN means sky- scrapers, as everybody knows—though the word itself, originally coined to describe the top triangular sail of a yacht, and now so New...