In the wilderness PENELOPE HOUSTON Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friernd Is Laid Malcolm Lowry edited by Douglas Day and Margerie Lowry (Cape 35s) In December 1945 Malcolm...

PRIVATE PRESSES Binding spell PAUL GRINKE The, PlIat Iesscs Colin [Franklin (Studio Vista 84s) In an l iiht/eent>ilh Centiury Kite th (Cecil and Ameblia Wooll 2Ss) (Gra/phz,-...

TABLE TALK Dealing with the foreigner DENIS BROGAN I turn away from endless postmortems on the political and, indeed, the private career of Senator Edward Kennedy to consider...

TELEVISION Confrontations GEORGE SCOTT l producers are easily excited by the prospects of a 'live' confrontation, particularly Ihere the battle is between, on my left, The...

THE PRESS Travellers' tales BILL GRUNDY I do wish things would stop happening for a bit, otherwise I shall have to take a rapid reading course just to keep up with it all. It...

ACADEMICS fow to- wreck a university D. C. WATT This has, God knows, been a difficult enough year for the universities. But now. as the session ends, a new threat looms. For...

ARCHITECTS Cut price fees STEPHEN GARDINER In May, 1968. the Prices and Incomes Board, as part of its policy of bringing professions in line with industry, published the...

BBC and the public interest Sir: I have no intention of trespassing on your courtesy by dealing with all the points raised by Mrs Yvonne Brock (Letters, 26 July)-though I must...

New hope for Biafra? Sir: Mr David Olajide (Letters, 2 August) elects to deal only with the last sentence of my letter (12 July) and he does not dispute my preceding statement...

The need for a Bill of Rights Sir: Mr Fletcher-Cooke's argument (Letters, 26 July) against the possibility of entrenchment in the UK Constitution would have the strange result...

No final solution Sir: One recommendation of the recent book Color and Citzenslhip by Mr E. J. 6. Rose and others seems not to have attracted much notice, though its...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY Grand autumn whist drive AUBERON WAUGH For observers of the political scene, there is something almost unbearably poignant about the Labour party...

Great Scot JO GRIMOND, MP Lord Haldane: Scapegoat for Liberalism Stephen E. Koss (Columbia up 81s) Lord Haldane was not a Liberal scapegoat-whatever that means-but a Tory...

ARTS Conservative Muscovites CLEMENT CRISP The Bolshoi Ballet season just ended at Covent Garden has been a disappointment; even our pleasure at welcoming back the company on...

RECORDS Mass production CHRISTOPHER BOOKER Anyone listening to Hiydn's late masterpieces /he Creaiion, the last quartets, the six last great masses - might well conclude from...

SCIENCE The Jensen bomb PETER J. SMITH William Shockley, Nobel laureate in physics and Stanford University professor, is guaranteed a public audience by virtue of his...

No small talk ANNETTE LAVERS Con venvsations with Claude Letvi-Strauss Georges Charbonnier (Cape Editions 21s cloth, 8s paper) If we look back on Levi-Strauss's career, we...

LETTERS From Giles Playfair, Peter Clarke. John pioulis, George Scott-Moncriefl, Douglas HoigUIhOn. MP, F. H. Amphlett Mickle,, ri/lht, Terence 1. Steel, Bronwen LloydWilliams,...

New Sarum Sir: Aime Mellors Wigg's article (2 August) is very welcome for its correction of some of the careless talk about the Redistribution Bill, and it underlines the fact...

Behind the Brooke affair Sir: We can make Russia safe for British tourists if we make Britain safer for Russian spies. Instead of putting them on trial we should put them on...

The last Senator Kennedy Sir: I should like to take this opportunity of congratIulating vou on the charity of your article 'The last Senator Kennedy' by Murray Kempton (2...

Numb and vague Sir: It may not be valid for the writer to appeal against a destructive verdict on his work. Perhaps he should simply leave his readers to make up their own...

Eighty years on Sir: Mr George Chowdharay-Best (Letters. 5 July),. argues against population control in the UK on the grounds that, by world standards, our rate of population...

Counterblast from the clergy Sir: The letter from the Rev J. Stanton Jeans (19 July), following that spirited correspondence initiated a little while ago by Melvin Lasky (25...

JAPAN Asian questions PETER HOBDAY Tokyvo---NMr Bhuito of Pakistan recently commentcd that 'the Japanese are economic animals'. The phrase irked the Japanese more than they...

ENVIRONMENT Local options BARBARA MAUDE Mr Arthur Skeffington is honest and devoted; we hoped for great things from his committee's work on Public Participation in Planning'....

The case of the upside-down man A week which has seen President Nixon daiicing a jig in Bucharest and the British Foreign Secretary expressing the hope that 'better relations'...

To an actress CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS For the past ten years plays have been written for men-if not boys . . . Women are totally different from men. They make a great mistake when...

PERSONAL COLUMN My life with the BBC GILES PLAYFAIR Once upon a time, in the golden age of Lord Reith, I arrived at Broadcasting House to deliver a talk. and was met in the...

ART Honeyed Greeks BRYAN ROBERTSON The newly opened rooms at the British Museum, serving as a setting for Greek and Roman antiquities, are superb: a visit is imperative. As...

THEATRE Grey matter JOHN HIGGINS Back to Methuselah (Old Vic) On a Foggy Day (St Martin's) 'Do you see my white hair? It was hardly grey when I landed . . .' The speaker is...

BOOKS Marcuse and the gospel of hate JOHN SPARROW Herbert Marcuse is an elderly Professor of Political Thought at San Diego in California who hates American society as it is...

NEW THRILLERS Happy ending CYRIL RAY A Plague on Both Your Causes John Brunner (Hodder and Stoughton 25s) Despatch of a Dove Rhona Petrie (Gollancz 25s) A Plate of Red...

Smoker's delight STUART HOOD Further Confessions of Zeno Italo Svevo (Secker and Warburg 42s) Son of an Italian mother and an Austrian father, the writer we know as Italo...