T he Test matches are becoming a bit ridiculous. England have done it again — Mike Brearley has once more worked his Houdini act, as several cricket correspondents have put it —...

Britain finally furled its flags after the Wedding, as the Prince and Princess of Wales began their honeymoon at Broadlands, home of the late Lord Mountbatten, from where the...

Christopher Walker Jerusalem While shares on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange enjoyed an unseasonal boom following news that Menachem Begin had succeeded in forming his second...

Andrew Brown Gothenburg 'Fascism with a human face' is how an American lawyer described Sweden after spending two years in this country. While this is unwarranted — who are the...

Richard West Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh The whole of Ireland, South and North, is Still in a state of excitement about the IRA hunger strikers; but now they are more of a worry...

John Stewart Collis There are two routes by which we should approach the Grand Canyon: from the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest; or from Phoenix, Flagstaff, and Sedona....

Roy Kerndge A terrible one for remembering street names, I never realised until now that I had ever been to Upper Parliament Street, Toxteth, before the riots broke out. I read...

Wilfred De'Ath High summer doldrums in Archbishop's House, Westminster. Waiting in the cavernous entrance chamber, furnished with that curious absence of good taste so...

George Gale The 19-year-old daughter of a friend of mine was complaining about how difficult it was for young people like her to get jobs. She had been expensively and...

C.H. Sisson Conscience is a very sophisticated conception, but it can also be a very simple one. A casuist may think condescendingly of a conscience not instructed by himself;...

Alistair Home The cruel and unnatural punishment of air travel is not always the fault of the muchabused air traffic controllers. Having been a Guest Fellow at the Wilson...

The making of a martyr Paul Johnson Since the Reagan victory the pacifist Left, with strong support from official Communism, have been making well-coordinated efforts to get...

The Thirteenth District To Rudd The reality of the present situation in London's markets is that practically everything is determined by what is happening in America. In...

James McGrath and James McKevitt were tried on Tuesday at Liverpool for their attempt to blow up the Liverpool Town Hall, were found guilty, and were sentenced to penal...

Sir: Excessive retaliation is a legitimate target for criticism as is, indeed, any form of extreme immoderation. I would not bother to quarrel with Nicholas von Hoffman for...

Sir: Taki is perhaps a little harsh on the newspaper reporter whom he accuses (25 July) of oversimplifying his comparison between the ancient Romans and the modern Russians....

Sir: The announced rate increase for GLC ratepayers demonstrates the underlying irrationality of Western political systems. The fact is that the political set-up has...

Sir: As one who has never comprehended Picasso's non-representative work, I would like to thank Mr John McEwen for the clarity and intuition of his article (25 July). I did,...

Sir: Having sat through that awful commen tary on the Royal Fireworks with mY teenage daughter picking up and enlarging on every fatuity when she wasn't in hysterics at the...

Sibyl,Muse and Delphic oracle Harold Acton Edith Sitwell: A Unicorn Among Lions Victoria Glendinning (Weidenfeld & Nicolson pp. 393 , £9 . 95) The adjective 'unique' is so...

Duncan Fallo well Itte Opium-Eater: A Life of Thomas De Quincey Grevel Lindop (Dent pp. 433, £12). De Quincey (1785-1859) was the first writer to turn himself into a...

Edward Norman God Alive: Priorities in Pastoral Theology Graham Leonard (Darton, Longman & Todd pp. 88, £2.50) Dr Graham Leonard is perhaps best known to those outside Church...

Fitzroy Maclean The Story of the Lovat Scouts 1900-1980 Michael Leslie Melville (The Saint Andrew Press pp. 132,£6.75) The story is told of an old lady in Skye who remarked...

John Jolhffe The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police George Leggett (Clarendon Press pp. 514, £22.50) Between its formation by Lenin in December 1917 and the transfer of its major...

Paul Ableman On The Yankee Station William Boyd (Hamish Hamilton pp. 184, £7.95). Here is a collection of short stories which • are, with one exception, formidably...

The Duchess of Windsor Diana Mosley (Sidgwick & Jackson pp. 174, £1.75). A sympathetic biography by someone who knew the Duke and Duchess well in Paris. If their controversial...

Cautionary tale Rodney Manes Orange, Aix and Buxton Festivals The designation 'Festival' is, heaven knows, no guarantee of excellence, and occasional forays abroad suggest...

Boys' own Peter Ackroyd Raiders of the Lost Ark ('A', selected cinemas) Dr Indiana Jones is trying to rescue the Lost Ark of the Covenant from a contingent of Nazis. 'I'm...

Fox hunting Mark Amory Quartermaine's Terms (Queen's) If I were you I would not read this. Far more enjoyable to go to Quartermaine's Terms in complete ignorance and have only...

Dry eyes Richard In grams

say goodbye to the Royal Wedding. Successive news bulletins were used to advertise a special BBC video of the ceremony and also to tell us that far more people watched it on the...

Uninvited Tala After ten weeks in England I am about to take a holiday in the birthplace of presidential bruised egos and non-operative deodorants. It is very warm in Greece...

Not so good Jeffrey Bernard The quality of life is plummeting at such a rate that I confidently predict piped music in the London Library and Space Invader machines in the...