Confessions of a typewriter C. B. COX I once set a group of bright Californian students to read Jane Austen's Emma. The result was complete failure. They told me she was a...

Drawing the crowds CRICKET CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS My duties this season have taken mc to threeday county mnatches when there were alnmolt as many players as spectators. Even a...

Fair comment TELEVISION STUART HOOD It was Harry Lime who said of the Swiss (unfairly) that all they had ever given to the world was the cuckoo clock. Updating this crack one...

The other telly CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN If it ever occurs to you to turn off your M1evision, I can highly recommerd the telephone as an alternative means of passive...

Market notes CUSTOS The new Stock Exchange account opened strongly with the Financial Times index going to a new 'high' for the year of 370-. Brokers do not seem to be so...

Vietnam: How to end the war LETTERS From David Winnick, MP, J. C. Evans, D. E. T. Read, the Rev S. Telley, Michael Ross, John L. Rouse, the Rev Jack A. Bramley, RN (Reid), L....

Are the British really lazy ? Sir: 1. R. Wilson's 'Are the British really lazy?' (I September) might have carried more punch if he had realised that the games-playing he...

Christ or Socrates ? Sir: Whatever we may think of the respective merits of Christ and Socrates from the records which have come down to us, there can be no doubt that our...

Sir: I read Karin Jonzen's letter (25 Aiunaf with great interest. No doubt lack of space prevented an expansion of her theme. but there are one or two points omitted that I...

Sir: If Ivan Avakumovic (I September) were to refer to Fitzroy Maclean's Eastern Approaches, he would there find considerable support for Jo Grimond's thesis that 'sometimes...

Black doings ART BRYAN ROBERTSON The fact that a nu-Imber of excellent i;t1 c (Signal', Moulton and Indica) hAie ricet 1k closed in London, hile others exist in a di;quieting...

Rentaprofit JOHN BULL The TV rental companies have a beguiling habit of finding all economic news to their advantage. Last year, when the Government was turning the screw (the...

Collected Essays Vols. III and IV Virginia Woolf Studies in purple PATRICK ANDERSON (The Hogarth Press 25s each) The present volumes complete the handsome edition of the...

Matador ELIZABETH JENNINGS He will come out with grace and music. Watch how his clothes fit him, How he struts before you, How he is proud, proud. No matter what happens,...

Fa(i,,n theic Brink: A Sndb iII ( Cisixs Dipilo cy Edward W'eintal and Charle- Bartlett On the ball DESMOND DONNELLY, MP (Hiut- chinson 35s) Mr George Ball, the former I's...

T wo for flit, Road . . CINEMA No proraphaelite PENELOPE HOUSTON (ioidn, I.cicestcr Square. It isn't often hat ne is tempted to revie" the book of tile 1rn) iatihcr than the...

i Angry scenes from provincial life ARTS HILARY SPURLING The past month has seen arrows pinging to and fro again at Nottingham, though this time mainly in the local press:...

Technology: the breaking point Sir: -Mr Pierson, on the subject of religion mad technology (18 August), writes like an .arrognint and therefore a very dangerous person. He...

Ill treatment Sir: It was with a great deal of amusement that I read John Wilson's column in the issue of 14 July. The comments relative to apathy and indifference on the part...

Jews in Russia Sir: Tibor Szamuely's excellent article on this subject (1I August) said things that cera.ainly needed saying. Perhaps I may add as a footnote a couple of points...

Racial discrimination Sir: It comes as no surprise to me to find myself pilloried in sour correspondence column by the mouthpieces of academic orthodoxy for presuming to...

I had forgotten that I w as a vice-president of the Tibet Society of Great Britain but guessed that even if I hadn't been I wouldn't have got a visa. I wrote back to Mr Chou:...

Danger: people THE ENVIRONMENT MICHAEL WATTS In all the recent discussion on the degeneration of our environment little attention has been paid to the greatest threat of...

Plotocol CHINA 2 STRIX Although I have never enjoyed diplomatic status, I once had a communication rejected by the Office of the Charge d'Affaires of the People's Republic of...

The reply came on 15 October: Dear Sir: Your letter of 29 September has been received. In view of the fact that you are a vice-president of the Tibet Society in Britain which...

SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK J. XVW. M. THOMPSON Ever since the Postmaster-General broile the nexss thitt Charlie Smith' ~sas to be !heir new chairman to the BBC's upper rank, ,\0ho N...

X la iii;, ) i "Ho pKr . it,; , , '.l : tk'*1e47 +rGot Q~ I,¢s-£rwpoi M 1`4esn~.~~~~y~ ~d o~ie sQm1e;i ) 4r i9'ote m 'L p ta, U~~QJr il0~ 17 & U#14 ~o rvt ~d. Nor, as ol~...

Biblical stint Sir: Mr Barton-Armstrong (Letters, 1 September) is mistaken if he thinks that the meaning of 'atonality' will be grasped by understanding 'tonality'; presumably...

Train of thought CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS Mr McCartney thinks Yogi J' bogey. After his initiation Into Transcendental Meditation He finds his mind expanding Into fuller and fuller...

President Thieu AMERICA MURRAY KEMPTON New York-The elections in South Vietnam, given the condition of its institutions and the temper of their managers. hardly justified in...

Ihi.sh Gtitden, Ed\\ard Hyams photegrd.phs by W. MacQuiluy Town and country KNIGHT OF GLIN , Macdonald 6 -n,) Dublin: A P1orirait V. S. Pritchett photogrtphs by EN eln...

Entitled to Mao CHINA-1 DICK WILSON 'I am a Chinese, and I w1ill not be a ghost in foreign countries.' The renmark was made by a commentator speaking over the Macao radio a...

A hundred years ago From thi 'Spectator'. 7 Sepltember 1867-Authentic accounts have been received of the execution of the Emperor Maximilian on the 19th June at Queretaro. The...

An historian's lament PERSONAL COLUMN J. H. PLUMB The world is out of joint. It has been so since man first contemplated it, an object of lamentation long before Jeremiah. As...

Khartoum diary ARAB SUMMIT-2 CHARLES COLLINGWOOD Khartouz- On the terrace of the Grand Hotcl ou can tell the Arab diplomats from the journalists by the way they dress. The...

Realism breaks in ARAB SUMMIT-1 NASIM AHMED Khariowno -The most important upshot of the Arab summit conference at Khartoum was the renunciation by Egypt of its self-appointed...

Siegfried Sassoon IN MEMORIAM CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS Critics were always confused by Siegfried Sassoon owing to common belief that the only people who are opposed to war are...

TABLE TALK D. WV. BROGAN Sir Denis Brogian. who has just retiried fI / mn Ih( chair of polini al science at (ambi i>e, todaY begins a new wieekly feature in ihe sl I Al()R....

The collapse of the centre POLITICAL COMMENTARY ALAN WATKINS Jlinie,' said Sir Thomas BroNne, Wlhich antiquates antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things, hath...