VIEWPOINT Lord Poole's leaky theory GEORGE GALE A general election is a far more accurate public opinion poll than any public opinion poll: and this being so, we are never to...

The case for law and order Sir: It is mournful to discover that two of your correspondents should evidently be incapable of understanding what they read. In my letter about the...

Publication date Sir: Times Newspapers Ltd say that their Guide to the House of Commons is on sale now at the 'pre-publication' price of 60s. whereas after publication date (I...

Metrication mania Sir: I must insist on the fact that metrication is good, and I am going to give a better reason. In 1939, during winter, I was attached to the BEF and we have...

Blacker shades of black Sir: Fortunately, such critical reviews of my film Cromn well, as the unsigned one which appeared in your paper recently, are in a minority. It is a...

Guessing games Sir: Robert Skidelsky (25 July) in his review of The Diplomatic Diaries of Oliver Harvey 1937-1940, finds it 'strange' that the diarist, having repeatedly...

BALLET East beats west CLEMENT CRISP However odious comparisons may be, they have been inevitable during the past sseek %kith the Kirov at the Royal Festival Hall playing...

THEATRE Couples ROBERT CUSHMAN 1le Two of Us (Garrick) Hofloe (Apollo) Oh' Calcutta! (Roundhouse) kIichael Frayn's theatrical debut as author of The Two of Us might be...

AtTTHOIRS Waiting for Lord Eccles GILES GORDON Gl(7v G'dt th iv editwrial dirccn r (it V ictor Gollaczc. In 1951 the novelist John Brophy outlined a practical scheme \'...

CUBA Castro's confessions confessions JEAN FRANCO 'Our apprenticeship has cost Is dear', Castro declared in a three-and-a-half-hour speech on 26 July. On the seventeenth...

ARTS The wilder shores of Bergman PENELOPE HOUSTON Is it, just possibly, time that Ingmar Bergman moved off his island and back to the mainland? Later events on this bleakest...

Bird in the bush TREVOR GROVE A Curious Life for a Ladys: The Story of Isabella Bird Pat Barr (Macmifflanl 'John Murray 4gns) At the age of seven (surprised reading earnestly...

Fine flowering JOHN JULIUS NORWICH 1Tle Last Byzantine Renaissance Steven Runciman (cup 22s) Ior the final two hundred years of its existcnce, the history of the Christian...

MONEY --- A 9d tip for Mr Barber NICHOLAS DAVENPORT There is always a tremendous sense of relief in the City when the Westminster boys rise for their holidays and this time...

AMERICA Unsatisfactory if not yet unhealthy MURRAY KEMPTON New York City-Someone noticed the other day that all through July the city's Department of Air Resources-it used to...

His lordship CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS The citizens of Swadlincote Gave Mr Smith a Tory vote, Yet in that proud and famous town They still remember Mr Brown. Forbidding him to...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY A case of political blight PETER PATERSON Sometimes it is called planning blight, or more specifically, airport or motorway blight. But as the residents...

LETTERS From Frank Hung, Mark Brady, Gileh Ilayfair, Ken Hu-thes, Commonander Edgar P. Young, RN (Reid), Leonard Allen, Robert lM. Zakovitch. Saying the unsayable Sir: George...

The liquidity crisis Sir: I always enjoy Nicholas Davenport's column but I really think he has been unfair to Professor Friedman (I August). First, he has not drawn a...

TABLE TALK Making amends to Boz DENIS BROGAN A few weeks ago I went on pilgrimage to Rochester, a city I had once or twice passed through but in which I had never set foot. I...

Barbirolli CHARLES REID Sir John Barbirolli's death leaves a gap not so much in English music (although the gap there is by no means negligible) as in what Cardus once called,...

MUSIC Home Prom GILLIAN WIDDICOMBE This is London's holiday from music; and thank goodness, for August humidity often makes an audience antipathetic if not actually sick in...

NEW NOVELS Hair brained J. G. FARRELL In Watermelon Sugar Richard Brautigan (Cape 21 s) Trout Fishing in America Richard Brautigan (Cape 21 s) The Book of Giuliano Sansevero...

Houses of the dead STUART HOOD Men in Prison Victor Serge (Gollancz 42s) The Night of the New Moon Laurens van der Post (The Hogarth Press 25s) Prisons and prisoner-of-war...

BOOKS And providence his guide MAURICE ASHLEY Oliver Cromwell is one of the most remarkable and controversial figures in British history and indeed in the history of the...

THE COUNTRYSIDE No rain for St Edmund RAWLE KNOX When even the Bury St Edmunds hotel keepers start looking for rain, you can say that the farmers of Suffolk are having a...

THE PRESS Mr Wilson makes a deal DONALD McLACHLAN I reckon the price payable to Mr Harold Wilson by the Thomson organisation for his book about the six years he spent in...

Jaw-jaw across the Canal A prominent Egyptian commentator S?umlinied up the Middle East situation succinctly last week: 'Egpt and Israel', he said, 'can't make peace, and the...

AFTERTHOUGHT * Matters of great pith JOHN WELLS A White House spokesman today strenuously denied' that any legal pressure hld been brought to bear on Great mangelwurzel...

Noisy son Maurice CAPITANCHIK Brendan Behan Ulick O'Connor (Hamish Hamilton 50s) Ulick O'Connor has written a smooth Irish biography of a wild Irish boy. Slum-bred. but...

THE ENVIRONMENT A colder climate LIONEL BRETT if we define the professional as one who subordinates his ego to the needs of other people, then the traditional architect...

PERSONAL COLUMN On foaming at the mouth BRIAN CROZIER Writing in a statesmanlike weekly recently, Corinna Adam sensibly called for 'a moratorium on the use of this overworked...