THE SPEGIAFOR.- The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 SHERPAS' DELIGHT This week, the leaders of the...

Extraordinary non-meeting | AN EXTRAORDINARY general nonmeeting of NABC (Not Another Bloody Committee) has been non-convened this week for anywhere except Naples. This will...

CITY AND SUBURBAN What every good investor needs a Bad Investment Guide CHRISTOPHER FILDES W)ell, hello again, Exco, and welcome back to the stock market. You were a...

Prrr, bzzz, glug, tick CATS PURR, merchant bankers tick. Brokers and lawyers and accountants buzz like bees. Public relations men and security printers make faint lapping...

Sir Terence asks around I AM not sure that I want a user-friendly Treasury: rather like having a lovable auditor. Still, Sir Terence Burns, its introspective Permanent...

L E T T E R S Preposterous distinctions Sir: When Paul Johnson savagely attacks the present Prime Minister and his Cabinet (And another thing, 2 July), he regards it as a...

Key to the costs Sir: Mr Nigel Dempster refers inaccuratelyto my client Miss Sara Keays and my firm in his diary column of 11 June. The photograph over which Miss Keays was...

Loony lines Sir: Further to Andrew Kenny ('Armstrong, Newton and God', 2 July), Neil Armstrong's lunar announcement was not merely excruciating. He was meant to say that it was...

Old friends Sir: I was dismayed to read Roger Kirby's tantrum of ritualised tabloid abuse directed at Bill Clinton (Letters, 11 June). I remember that when we were at school...

Animal crackers Sir: There's more to the League Against Cruel Sports than the attempted 'militant' style hi-jacking of the National Trust, so well documented by Ross Clark last...

CENTRE POINT The Serve-and-Volley scandal about which Something Must be Done SIMON JENKINS They must, as the world's greatest tennis player often said, be joking. They were...

Pyrrhic victories and bad temper Anthony Howard THE AGENDA: INSIDE THE CLINTON WHITE HOUSE by Bob Woodward Silmon & Schustei; £14.99, pp. 352 'V riting in the New Republic...

What dreams may come Patrick Skene Catling THE KILCOLMAN NOTEBOOK by Robert Welch Brandon, £6. 95, pp. 128 Other people's dreams are notoriously boring. However, it may be...

In Your Dreams Choosing between Jung and Freud revealed, I was told, the kind of father I'd have preferred. My affinity, I confess, ever with the twinkling eyed one: so much...

Heavy themes with a light touch Peregrine Hodson DEEP RIVER by Shusaku Endo Peter Owen, £15.95, pp. 216 Shusaku Endo is a strong candidate to win Japan's next Nobel prize for...

Still divided by a language that is far from common Dean Godson MADE IN AMERICA by Bill Bryson Secker. £15. pp. 464 One of the few traces of modesty in this popular history...

After Cavafy The people had grown neglectful Concerning the day set apart as holy, For theirs, as the priests conceded, Was a highly mobile and leisure-orientated Existence,...

Theatre The Browning Version (Greenwich) The Cryptogram (Ambassadors) Fiddler on the Roof (Palladium) One long puzzle Sheridan Morley For those of us who fervently believe...

Pop music Jukebox jury Marcus Berkmann A decent jukebox is hard to find these days, and it's getting rarer. Last week I chanced upon one in an out-of-the-way Suffolk pub, and...

High life Who am I? Taki N ot so long ago, a man on trial for rape in Arizona, took the witness stand in a skirt, high heels and wearing a wig. James Carlson, the alleged...

SPECTATOR SPORT Vital statistics Frank Keating NOT CONTENT with resting on the exceptional springtime of Brian Lara, cricket continues to muscle in on the midsummer headlines...