been made to Oxford University since 1214 in partial restitution for the deaths of two students at the hands of an angry mob of townees. The miners' strike entered its 17th...

Peter Walker's progress W here is Peter Walker's book? It is a delicious mystery. There was a time when it was expected any day. Testament of a Wet, A Consensus Manifesto, A...

'W as so much nobility ever afloat?' The Poet Laureate's description of the water picnic in Sir John Piers would have done nicely for his own memorial ser- vice in Westminster...

W hen Ken Livin g stone first used the parapet of County Hall as a poster site, even he can scarcely have g uessed how successful the tease would be. Tory MPs takin g tea on the...

N ow that many serious criminals use g uns, the Metropolitan police have a dan g erous as well as difficult job. They are understandably nervous of bein g shot. This may...

T he Soviet proposal to hold ne g otiations in Vienna this September on bannin g all weapons in space has caused undue ex- citement. Arms control talks are often seen as the...

UK Eire Surface mail Air mail 6 months: £17.25 £17.25 £20.50 £26.50 One year: £34.50 £34.50 £41.00 £53.00 Name Address ................ US Subscriptions: $75. 00...

Prospects for revolution Auberon Waugh P nobody in Britain talks as if 1. the danger of revolution were anything to be taken seriously, but I suspect that quite a large number...

T spent last Saturday at an all-day pop 1 festival at the Wembley Stadium in what can only be described as terminal discom- fort. For 11 hours a crowd of 70,000 fans were...

Christopher Hitchens Washington T he United States is a country with very few taboos. You can telephone the Pentagon, on a Sunday morning, with a request for information and a...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Tegucigalpa, Honduras I t rains here at five o'clock: sometimes It little later, sometimes a little earlier, but by and large at tea-time every day....

Dhiren Bhagat A mritsar O n Sunday, along with some 25,000 others, I went to pray in the Golden Temple between six and nine in the morn- ing, the only hours pilgrims are...

Robert Kaplan Van, Turkey T n strategic terms, Eastern Turkey, an leerie moonscape of mud-hut villages and Kurdish nomads, is more remarkable even than it looks. Astride three...

Peter Paterson T he unfortunate malaise which overtook Mr Len Murray while marching in pro- cession at Tolpuddle, Dorset, last weekend, cannot possibly be presented as a...

Simon Blow S eldom has the spirit of conservation directed itself so wholeheartedly towards the plight of the landed class as in the last year. With an unprecedented £8...

Matthew Parris T eke all little boys I used to think La romance was soppy. They said it was just a stage I was going through. The trou- ble is, I'm still in it. This is...

is looking for someone to sell advertising and to help with the marketing of the magazine. A love of selling is most important. Previous ex- perience would be a help but is not...

The wicked lady Paul Johnson O ne of the hazards of being murdered nowadays is that, at the subsequent trial, your character is likely to be posthumously assassinated by the...

he next bi g offer of shares for sale looks I like Mirror Group Newspapers (Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and others) — bein g spun off by its owner, Reed International. Mirror,...

he people with the winnin g ideas, this time round, are undoubtedly the old firm of N. M. Rothschild. Theirs was the plan which set Rio Tinto-Zinc raidin g Enterprise. Now,...

Cut price sales S avour the scene amon g the merchant bankers when, the other day, a round robin came in from the Treasury. Dear Sirs (this ran), We are g etting worried about...

T he Treasury, if frustrated by its mer- chant bankers, can at least take it out on frauds. Already Lord Roskill's in q uiry is broodin g on better ways to run fraud trials, and...

T he moral of Enterprise is that these state asset sales serve, not just one policy, but a lar g e number of different pur- poses, some of which are always likely to trip over...

Dog days come early Jock Bruce-Gardyne T he dog days seem to have come upon us early this season. High summer is trad- itionally the time of year when governments get their...

Miss Muller has allowed a writing- table and an escritoire to be carried away from Cadogan Place, by way of distraint, in place of the taxes which she refuses to pay until she...

Sir: It is ironic that the word 'nigger', employed as a term of abuse (Letters, 30 June), was a favourite of both Marx and Engels — the mentors of many of those who have...

Sir: John Wain was not the first to use the term `Young Fogey' (Letters, 26 May). Dornford Yates's Maiden Stakes, published in 1928, opens with Adam Boleyn, wounded 12 years...

Farm reply Sir: It is not surprising that Enoch Powell (Books, 9 June) is attracted by the author's puritanism in Richard Body's latest book Farming in the Clouds. However,...

Sir: Teddy Taylor (`Finding a Euro-stance', 26 May) uses figures given in Hansard to substantiate a claim that Britain's GDP is £10,500 million lower than it would have been if...

Sir: Perhaps Nicholas Coleridge (Diary, 23 June) would explain to us the difference between pilfering notepaper, blotting paper etc and shoplifting. A week ago a man in Cornwall...

Sir: I have been commissioned to write the life of the late James Agate, drama critic and essayist, and would be grateful indeed to hear from anyone with personal memories of...

Sir: How nice to hear from a member of the cast of the epoch-making Oxford Poppea of 1927 (Letters, 23 June). But I didn't write that I wanted Nero to be sung by a woman: I...

Gin and limelight Peter Ackroyd Mrs Pat: The Life of Mrs Patrick Campbell Margot Peters (Bodley Head £15) T he most striking characteristics of the young Mrs Patrick...

Douglas Johnson Continuity and Change in France Edited by Vincent Wright (Allen and Unwin £18) T his book suffers from the considerable disadvantage of having been written...

Francis King Him with His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories Saul Bellow (Alison Press/Secker & Warburg £8.95) Q ince, of the five stories here collected, L3 two — the...

Aidan Carl Mathews Celtic Dawn: A Portrait of the Irish Literary Renaissance Ulick O'Connor (Hamish Hamilton £12.95) Y eats liked to think of his cronies as Olympians, not...

Fitzroy Maclean Moscow: A Traveller's Companion Laurence Kelly (Constable £9.95) Among the Russians Colin Thubron (Heinemann £8.95) 'Th• ussia' wrote Maurice Baring from...

Jeffrey Meyers Caste Marks: Style and Status in the USA Paul Fussell (Heinemann £8.95) R ssell started as a conventional 18th- entury scholar, became known for his fine book,...

Patrick Skene Catling Far Out Isn't Far Enough Tomi Ungerer (MethUen £15, £6.95) J ust as even the most grievously afflicted mourner at a funeral may come away from the...

Wilfred De' Ath Country Voices: Life and Lore in Farm and Village Charles Kightly (Thames & Hudson £8.95) P rofessor Laurie Taylor would not like this book. Recently given his...

Mark Amory Tt must have seemed such a good idea. _L.The subtitle is One Year in the Lives of Laurence Oliver and Vivien Leigh and refers to the ten-and-a-half month tour they...

King of kings Giles Gordon Richard III Golden Girls (The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon) Intimate Exchanges: A Garden Fete (Greenwich) W illiam Dudley's set for Bill Alexan-...

Court classics David Wakefield From Borso to Cesare d'Este 1450-1628 (Matthiesen Gallery till 14 August) Mantegna to Meryon (Colnaghi till 14 July) he most significant of all...

Déj a view Peter Ackroyd Sunday in the Country (PG', Chelsea) A nd as the first words resound - 'When will you stop asking so much of life, Irene?' - one knows that the mood...

Off the beaten track Peter Phillips Czerny and Field: piano concertos (Felicja Blumental; Vienna Chamber Orchestra) Mozart: Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments (Nikolaus...

Champions Harry Eyres O n arrival at the press office beneath the stands of the Centre Court, I presented myself rather diffidently to the Wimbledon Press Officer, Mr Richard...

Playing the game Taki I 'd forgotten how pleasant England can be in summer. Especially after a muggy New York and an overnight flight which I can safely call the worst since...

Illusory Alexander Chancellor Tf you actually go to Wimbledon, it is Isurprising how small the courts seem. They seem far too small for the huge louts who are banging balls...

Cruise news Jeffrey Bernard T couldn't address you last week because I was stuck in a Norwegian fjord aboard a luxury cruise liner and the radio signals that transmit the...

Rumpled P. J. Kavanagh T took an old friend, newly arrived from the US, into the garden yesterday and he stopped and said, 'What garden? Where's the flowers?' For a moment I...

Charles Seaton reports: Competitors were invited to provide extracts from The Diary of a Mad , the occupation being of their choice. Though there was a mad jogger en route from...

No. 1328: Going, going, gong Set by Charles Seaton: Falklands medals, it is reported, are finding their way onto the commercial market and fetching good prices. A verse...

red as a Newspaper at the GPO, London, Published by the Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL. Typesetting by Saffron Graphics Limited, 60-66 Saffron Hill, London E.C.1....

World's end Raymond Keene I n spite of a late rally by the international team, the Russians took overall victory by the score of 21-19 in their match against the World in...

Prize: 10 — or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, 1983 edition (ring the word 'Dictionary' under name and address) — for the first correct solution opened on 23 July. Entries...

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T he news from Bordeaux is that the 1983 vintage may have turned out to be a very good one after all. Last August there was talk of red spider, mildew and heaven knows what...

THE FIVE WAYS by Anthony Kenny and 'The Mandarin's Kite' by George Edward Farrow. Mrs McCartney, Cwmllife, Llansadwrn, Llan- wrda, Dyfed SA19 8NH. ERNST ROTH: 'A Tale of Three...