Organised games have always been a not- able feature of university life. Student teams, often of a high standard, play each other at everything from cricket to chess. But there...

Are you hooked on EEC? DAVID WALDER There can hardly be anyone who has served in Parliament who has not at some time found himself harbouring a rather disturbing thought. It...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS Sing a song of sixpence, One fortieth of a pound A pocketful of sixpences To scatter them around. They stuff a traffic meter, They're useful on a bus; And...

A victory for proper manners MURRAY KEMPTON New York—The conviction of those disturbers of the peace known even to their enemies as 'the Chicago seven' was a victory for...

Anglo-Rhodesian attitudes CRABRO There has been a batty consistency about the British government's attitude towards Mr Smith's Rhodesia right through to the bitter end. Civil...

Brandt image Malcolm RUTHERFORD Bonn—Chancellor Willy Brandt, whose visit to London this week has been given a great deal more attention in Britain than it has here, says he...

The rape of Dartmoor STANLEY JOHNSON Last Sunday, the engineers arrived at Meldon. By the time these words are read—if all goes to plan—they will (to quote the exact words...

Storm in a test-tube JOHN ROWAN WILSON It his been said that scientific discovery in any particular field moves in a kind of natural cycle. First there are the sowers, who lay...

Power and its price GEORGE GALE Rhodesia has now declared itself to be a republic, or, to be more precise, Mr Clif- ford Dupont, the Officer Administering the Government of...

J. W. M. THOMPSON There has been at least one intervention in the great Healey-Wigg-Mountbatten argu- ment over defence policy which expressed, in the most unequivocal way,...

New York revisited LUDOVIC KENNEDY 'Welcome to our dirty city', ran my agent's note, and you didn't have to stray far from Fifth Avenue to see it : sidewalks thick with dogs'...

On fanatiques and files MERCURIUS OXONIENSIS GOOD BROTHER LONDINIENSIS I was about to indite a long letter about the Old-soules Club but am stayed suddenly in my tracks by...

Sunday Sunrise? BILL GRUNDY It was, I think, dear old Sam Johnson who once remarked that we would . do well to remember from time to time that the ma- jestic-sounding...

Red for a girl CLAYRE RIDLEY The Womens' Movement died fifty-six years ago. To anyone interested in the suffragettes the news that a 'women's week-end' was happening now, in...

The good Queen in the Highlands DENIS BROGAN A re-reading of that once famous royal work of literature (We authors', as Dizzy said), Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the...

JAMES CORNFORD Mr Critchley's book—The Conquest of Vio4 lence: Order and Liberty in Britain (Cont stable 45s)—is at once topical and un- fashionable. Topical since the...

PATRICK ANDERSON The Literary Life: A Scrapbook Almanac of the Anglo-American Literary Scene from 1900 to 1950 Robert Phelps and Peter Deane (Chatto and Windus 45s) The Modern...

HENRY TUBE The Stones of Le Thoronet Fernand Pouillon translated by Edward Gillott (Cape 35s) One of the less strident and therefore largely unnoticed themes in contemporary...

C. HUGH LAWRENCE An Age of Ambition F, R. H. DuBoulay, (Nelson 42s) `The charm which the relics of mediaeval art have woven around the later middle ages must be resolutely,...

JOHN TERRAINE The Mighty Endeavour: American Armed Forces in the European Theater in World War II Charles M. MacDonald (Oxford Uni- versity Press 100s) Was this fairly...

BARRY COLE Places Where They Sing Simon Raven (Anthony Blond 30s) Places Where They Sing is the sixth novel in Simon Raven's 'Alms for Oblivion' series. It is implied that the...

G. A. FORREST The Book of British Birds published by Drive Publications Ltd, for the Readers' Digest Association Ltd and the Automobile Association (63s including postage) At...

J. G. FARRELL Witchcraft at Salem Chadwick ITansen (Hutchinson 35s) One rainy day in New York last year, in the course of a kerbside dispute over a taxi, a bizarrely dressed...

JAMES STEVENS CURL The Buckminster Fuller Reader edited and introduced by James Meller (Cape 48s) `Beginning in 1917, I determined to make myself the guinea pig in a lifelong...

A merry old soul HILARY SPURLING Happiness is not granted to everyone, or not at any rate in such full measure, as it was to Kenneth Tynan when, 'one May evening in 1956 at...

Seeing double PENELOPE HOUSTON Medium Cool (Academy Two, 'X') Prologue (Paris-Pullman, 'X') Anne of the Thousand Days (Odeon, Leices- ter Square, 'A') 'Look out, Haskell, it's...

Mark Rothko BRYAN ROBERTSON Last week in his studio in New York, Mark Rothko killed himself by slashing his wrists in what can doubtless be termed a path. ological state of...

From the 'Spectator', 5 March 1870—Mr Card- well presented the Army Estimates on Thurs- day. As usual, he smothered himself in details, but it would appear that under his...

Second opinion On 15 November Stephen Gardiner wrote an article about the new University of Surrey buildings at Guildford. We now appreciate that the article may have suggested...

JOHN BULL How are the City's morals at the moment? Two problems are causing trouble—the casino-like quality of dealings in some Australian mining shares, and the conflicts...

Sir: How we all fall for slogans: 'equal pay for equal work'! But is it equal work? If men had to cope with menstruation, pregnancy, confinement, child nursing and rearing,...

From Z. R. Prvulocich, Archibald Tober, E. W. Wilton, H. W. Belmore, Dr Israel Shahak, Philip Larkin, David Mills Daniel, R. E. Williams, Derek Hudson, the Rev G. V. R. Grant,...

Sir: Your Mr Gale prompts me to write again; I see (`Viewpoint', 28 February) he has been to Amman. So many journalists and politicians spend a day or two in Am- man and other...

Sir: As a former teacher and as an elected member for many years of education com- mittees, I should like to comment briefly on Mr Michael Smith's letter (28 February). I do not...

Sir: The letter of Dr E. J. Mishan (21 February) about the 'responsibilities' of Negroes is both ambiguous and dangerous. First, the ambiguity. What means the con- clusion 'that...

Sir: Mr Bendixson, in his interesting article 'Lines blocked' (21 February), writes of 'diesels double-headed as in the days of steam', in order that trains can surge up over...

Sir: The kind review of my book All What Jazz (28 February) by your correspondent Mr Booker contains one factual error. I never gave my jazz column up: it is alive and well and...

Sir: Hurrah for Mr R. L. Traverse of the Army and Navy Club whose letter appeared in your issue of 21 February. I retired from 'gainful employment' in 1948 at the age of fifty,...

TV-tube doctors JOHN WELLS Scientists now believe that it may soon be possible to produce doctors actually inside the cathode ray tube. This shock revela- tion, which is the...

Sir: In the interests of accuracy may I state that Mr Braham has misunderstood what I wrote. In his letter Mr Braham says: 'I would question too Mr Grant's statement that the...

Sir: Mr Philip Dudley Hawkins' letter (24 February), asserts that, in the interests of democracy. the general public should always be assumed to be correct. Such an attitude is...

No. 595: Memoranda Most readers will agree with Mr Peter Hordern, MP, that 'It is a ridiculous situa- tion when the Minister responsible for civil aviation is also the Minister...

PHILIDOR F. Giegold (Stern, 1967). White to play and mate in four moves; solution next week. Solution to No. 480 (ten Cate 8/78/2N2bRB/ 3Ppkqp/5P213R1p1p/5K2ilQ5b): P x P,...

Across 1 Is the century concerned with matters of principle? (6) 4 Shattered by low degree? (8) 9 Looking closely might seem to be skin-deep (6) 10 The dirty British way of...