Independence Mr Fred Catherxood, the former evangelical industrialist who now heads the industrial section of Mr George Brown's Department of Economic Affairs, is not the only...

Spectator's Notebook I CAN'T recall a single instance of pettyImindedness in the hour of victory to compare . wu1h Mr Wilson's childish behaviour towards the BBC. Just how...

Intimidation Wilson's charge, in fact. could hardly be more absurd. But it is sinister, too. Because although he would never dare to introduce new legislation to shackle the...

Easter My Easter present to myself this year is the new recording by the New York Philharmonic of Rossini's Stabat Mater. I'm ashamed to admit that until I first heard this...

I Hvland fling Mr Wilson's allegation about the bias in the BBC,, personnel is at once the most absurd and the most sinister of them all. Last year. much to Mr WVilson's...

Tailpiece Those seven recounts at Peterborough, ending with a Tory majority of three, were a mite too tense for my taste. In a rash moment I'd placed a fair-sized bet with...

Red Army I've always been fascinated by The Times's demographic map of the general election-the one in which all the lines are straight and kinky and the constituencies look...

Meet the Saint Pascal. Bv Jean Steinmnann. Translated and edited by Martin Turnell. (Burns and Oates, 42s.) JEAN STEINMANN has drawn an extremely unpleasant portrait of a...

Copying Shaggesbard The Great Shakespeare Forgery. By Bernard Grebanier. (Heinemann, 30s.) OF all the richly ignorant nonsense that has, inevitably, gathered around the...

The Fleas 'Domestic pets grow dull Without the stimulus of fleas.' Accepting, if we must, the parallel, Which irritation can we least afford to lose? Sex, do you think: the...

Dry Season Sanitized for Your Protection. By George Crow. ther. (Secker and Warburg, 25s.) At the Crossroads. By Evan S. Connell, Jr. (Heinemann, 25s.) Sabres on the Sand....

T The reccnt correspondence in The Times about misleading ad ertiising reminded of a tale told me about a well-known make of electric kettle. The ad. said that it wvould boil...

If anvoile supposed that the campaign by Shopper's Guide so many years ago had succeeded in abolishing guarantees intended to deprive consumers of their legal rights. they...

British Railways at one time made a big effort to improve standards and service in their diningcars. From a recent exchange between a waiter and my taible companion, it would...

The Scandal of Parkhurst Jail SIR.-NMy previous letter on this subject was written in a moment of anger. which I now regret. Apart from that. as soon as I had posted it I...

'Les Femmes savantes' SIR.- Cotinratulations to Hilary Spurling on her apprc-iativc comments on the outilstanding produclion of' Les 1Femmc'. aIvontus h% 1LI Comedie de l'Ouest...

S',,-John Rowan Wilson has missed the point about i -iifrldation. He and its other advocates should ask c to- selves: why is dental caries so widespread in the c fihAt place?...

-~N. w do you not present the case for the Iluoridation ot salt.'-which has been in use in some Continernta! countries for several years, and which gives a pattern of caries...

J. B. S. Haldane SIR.-! am at work on a biography of the late Profesor J. B. S. Haldane. and wvould be glad to hcar from anv of sour readers who could let me have remini:cences...

Utterly Absurd SIR.-l am surprised that none of the readers of Mr Tihor Szamuelv s article ('The Prophet of the Utterly Absurd,' in your issue of March II) has asked why he. a...

Fluoridation Si, -Having read Alan Brien's latest Afterthought,' otn the same page as John Rowan Wilson's thoughtful I a-iicle on fluoridation, I have just had a real brainWt...

SIR.-- I am sorry' that ()onaTgh L.atir is so bitter. Perhaps she has good cause to be. Nevertheless. it is a pit% that her unfortunate experience sho0ul1d so cloud her...

SIR,--PIle.se include me. a reader of our paper for the last fort! %ears. in the lunatic fringe who oppose the compulsory fluoridation of water. I do not propose to repeat the...

I DEl FGATES TO THE tWenty-third party congre's s in Moscow heard the 'International' reltyed to them from the first man-made satellite ever to circle the moon. General de...

L Portrait of the Week-- I LABO\UR GOT BACK with a majority of ninety- I seven. The Liberals gained tour seats and lost two, the Conservatives gained none and lost fifty-one....

A Time for Goodwill THE election has come and gone, going the way that seemed almost inevitable and for the reasons that were set out in these columns last week. For the...

Posr.ciipt to Jam,'!es Bond: How 007 Got His I Name, by Mary Wickham Bond (Collins, | IOs. 6d.). A4uthorfictional character/actor-a triple James Bond, yet the first is the...

It's a Crime ONE soon reaches saturation point with the flood of cold-war thrillers pouring off the press. This month there is a welcome antidote in Evil Intent, by John...

The Bloody Wood. by Michael Innes ((iollancz, I 18s.). In this thoughtfully contrived thriller, the words 'exactly as on the pre\ious night' hold illumination and reveal the...

Hidden Land, by Simon Harvester (Jarrolds, 2Is.). Sinkiang is an autonomous region in China I sxith an area of about 700,000 square miles, meaning very little to the average...

Investment Notes Bv CUsTOS T HF election result haid been so well anlicipated that no change in investment positions on the itock Exchan-ge % as necessary. I le unit trusts...

Legal and General Investment in wie asmiuHnce i11as receIvei l a shock from the I I (I ^NI) GDI Ni t tl. NNhich hals failed to increasc its di\ idond on its triennial...

Mail-Order Shares I have been reading a lonr tnd fascinatinpg report by a leading firm of hrokers on the mijlorder industry. These comlptnie sNpend Iat great deal on their...

L~f _ ThXJ-- H 1ly UE HOJIV ............- The City and the Prime Minister N ICHOLAS DAVENPORT By To the uniniiia.ted it might seem strange that the Stock Fxchainge should...

MUSIC Ears Pinned Back ON consecutive nights at Covent Garden I heard two scores, Richard Strauss's one-act Elektra (nearly sixty years old) and Stravinsky's ballet Les Noces...

THEA TRE Because He Knows It Teases Sir Chlaracters ill Search of an Autalhor and The Riles of the Game . (Compagnia dei Giovani at the Aldwych.) MAN placed in front of a...

1k, :he ;Ourist< iciing . --, i; wine dhinkl lisi, .,-- tdrawn from a 7 d v- u eiw - ,hc 2 iS o by. BuLt. hilc 1 . .\ ithil e., (;n . TOLP'o part of' the \\ o ,I ' ine is oniv,...

Company Notes By LOTHBURY O NE or two points worth mentioning from the report of Lombard Banking are: (a) 20 per cent of profits were earned outside the UK; (b) another...

The 'Agency' Companies ... .. .. Although the two giants ot the industryi REAT UNIVERSAL STORES with 30 per cent of ,he market and LITTLEWOODS with around 25 per cent-dominate...

In the Wilderness SIR.-'It is not unnatural that a party smarting under the consciousness of defeat should evince a scanty appreciation of the virtue- of their conqueror....

LEVENTTF ,f® ¶I1O nEoDP® - From: Oliver Stutch bury, G. L. Bromley, J. Ta v/or, Henry Jones, J. F. Standish, Alfred Sherman, Mrs F. M. Farthinig,, S. A. Crofts, L. M....

BBC Impartiality SIR,-On Radio Newsreel on April 2 Mr John Sherwood. head of the BBC French Language Service, claiming the impartiality of the BBC in Southern African affairs,...

Why Labour Won SIR.-In your article 'Why Labour Won. you are nigrignting one factor that is operating among many others,. and suggesting that this is tie explanation for the...

SIR.-The graphs under your editorial of-ah, yes, April I-seem much more to reflect unemployment depending on business confidence depending on the 'firmness' of the government's...

The Big Lie I SIR,-Mr Bo-well is being less than honest with W and is beginning to re-write history. I have carefully r*-rc.d the 1964 manifesto Nowhere could i find. % \lr...

AMEDICINE TODA Y Is General Practice Outmoded? By JOHN ROWAN WILSON IT*S very easy to take it for granted that a system to which we are accustomed is a natural fact of life,...

THE PRESS The Morning After By JOHN WELLS JOlIN MORG(kN. ;\ hose elegantly modulated Welsh diction and romantic Socialist idcalismil -unblunted. it seenls. by the recent...

POST-ELECTION SYMPOSIUM 1.-THE CONSER VA TI VES Towards the Helping Hand SIR EDWARD BOYLE, By MP OF course one always realised from the start that the Conservatives entered...

2.-LA BOUR The Class Barriers Crumble By SHIRLEY WILLIAMS. MIP IGHTING a constituency gives one a wornm Feve view of an election. hardly the best vantage-point. I used to...

kOLIJTICAL COMMENTARY The Old Firm Again By ALAN WATKINS NI the past few days we have all heard a great ideal about Mr Harold \Wilson and Mr Edward Heath and their relative...

The Bald Alliance The British Gotverninent has avreed, in response to American requests, to forbid the export to the United States of wigs made from hair fromn North...

THE BOWATER PAPER CORPORATI ON Extracts from the Chairman's Statement-Sir Christopher Chancellor, C.M.G. T HE foliowing are extracts from the Statement to shareholders by the...

. -Fp) I LDJ K Uncle Willie By SIMON RAVEN T HAT versatile figure. Robin Maugham. has now undertaken an exercise which combines genealogy and biogr:aphy.* Having investigated...

|(ll % mu2E 1EOHU &RV CINEMA Ugly Undertaking By ISABEL QUIGLY Tue Loved One. (Empire, 'X certificate.) T HE term 'black comedy was once a raiser of Thopes and eyebrows a...

TELEVISION The Great Vendetta IF I believed in the conspiratorial theory of history-which, by and large, I don't-I should see a most diabolical plot in the timing of the...

AMERICA Eros Denied-Yet Again From MURRAY KEMPTON NEW YORK TIjE Supreme Court of the United States has surprised us all by discovering that there are limits to what is...

ART Buy British I you are not familiar with the work of Jean Dubuffet, then a visit to the ICA Gallery is essential, where a small show of drawings now serves as a...

Dybbukism and the American Intellectual By ARNOLD BEICHNIAN Tlils is an unreal book* about an unreal time about unreal people living in an unreal world. In other w-ords. it's...