THE SPEGIAOR The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WCIN 2LL Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 WAUGH v. ALDINGTON On 23 May 1945, the Times published a...

P___LOI TTI CCS Sir Anthony brings us back to unreality NOEL MALCOLM T o the learned comments on the nature of a stalking horse published in these pages last week, I would...

ANOTHER VOICE Mickey Mouse is drunk and Tolstoy must be saved AUBERON WAUGH The award of £1 1/2 million in damages to Lord Aldington by a London jury cannot be interpreted as...

THE KING OF B OHEMIA Timothy Garton Ash on Vdclav Havel, the leader of the Czech revolution Prague A MORE unlikely leader of a revolution it would be hard to imagine. The...

JUST OBEYING ORDERS John Simpson sees the turncoats revolting at Czechoslovak television Prague THE singing and chanting faded into the distance. The red, white and blue...

SCENES FROM SCIENCE About caesareans The New Englanid Journdl of Medicinle has reported a study during 1982-83 on the medical care of women in childbirth. It was based on...

AUTHORS AND NATURAL JUSTICE The Press: Paul Johnson makes a plea for more disinterested reviewing PUBLISHERS send newspapers free Copies of their books in the hope that they...

Banker bets COMING shortly are the new appointments at the top of the Bank of England. Eddie George, the home finance director, for long my recommended short-priced bet for...

Savoy right on course RACEGOERS must raise their glasses to the reconciliation scene which has brought down the curtain on the Savoy opera. I can now reveal that I, in my...

Facing charges, paying costs I ADMIRE the spirit of County NatWest, which, seeing former directors and staff facing charges over the Blue Arrow affair, is offering to help with...

Last election Sir: I was surprised to see Alan Watkins suggesting that 'Mrs Margaret Thatcher had not actually said what the Sunday Correspondent claimed she had said: that she...

Sir: Victor Lyon's apoplectic response tLetters, 2 December) to my article on standards at the junior bar will not, I fear, advance the cause he espouses. I do not know what he...

L E T T E R S Europe's Treaties Sir: The Moscow Communist Party may lose a general election. Nuclear fusion may be demonstrated in a test tube. But when Paul Johnson is...

Night thoughts Sir: Surely your correspondent Mr Farrell ('The hard cell', 11 November) must realise that in these times you cannot walk about the gardens behind houses in 'a...

Heresy Sir: Oh dear! Christopher Fildes is off again with his proposal to give company managers totalitarian powers to sell part of their shareholders' business without so much...

Founding the Eye Sir: As far as I remember, Private Eye was not founded by David Frost in his mother's kitchen in Beccles (Letters, 11 November) but by William Rushton who was...

Corked Sir: I was interested to read Edward Whitley on corks and their strong Portu- I guese connections (11 November). However, I would point out that, although several port...

Anti-Armenian Sir: The Armenian National Committee (Letters, 18 November) 'believes that ... historical facts . . . will have to be put and discussed in the right perspective'...

The most offending soul alive Andrew Robinson BE CAREFUL WITH MUHAMMAD!: THE SALMAN RUSHDIE AFFAIR bv Shabbir Akhtar Bellew, f6.95, pp.144 Earlier this year, at the height...

A state of mind, not a minding state Jon Halliday THE ENIGMA OF JAPANESE POWER by Karel van Wolferen Macmi/lan, 16.95, pp. 474 Over the past year, the world has been treated...

Telling it like it was and still is Anatol Lieven ABOUT FACE by Colonel David H. Hackworth and Julie Sherman Sidgwick & Jackson, £16.95, pp. 875 it is a rare professional...

Showing flair in the blackout Alan Ross TAMBIMUTTU: BRIDGE BETWEEN TWO WORLDS edited by Jane Williams Peter Owen, £25, pp. 296 Tambimuttu's career, in its brief wartime...

Sale-rooms Smelling of 'Irises' Peter Watson 'Relations between Christie's and Sotheby's have never been so bad', I am told by someone in a position to know. 'It is as if the...

Cinema Field of Dreams ('PG', Cannon Haymarket) Soft corn Hilary Mantel O ccasionally, along comes a film which seems bad in an important way. This one begins with a swift...

Television Dirty old man Wendy Cope S omebody asked me the other day if I'd noticed that the House of Commons is on television now. Yes, yes - I've even Watched bits of it....

Low life Lamb to the slaughter Jeffrey Bernard I bought a big shoulder of lamb the other day and the person I had hoped to share it with failed to show, so I was saddled with...

N~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~eeD~~~~~~~~9 -. -1-mom- Imperative cooking: the Smellies Ir I K mI Lo JIo I I . - a 'IS Ali. IT'S bad enough to hear that Mr Selwyn Gurnmer is about to spend...