not because of any part he may t( pi rr%rita 4 in the original Watergate offence, t( pi rr%rita 4 in the original Watergate offence, and It is ho really because of his...

"THIS YEAR has been called the Year of Europe," Dr Kissinger declared in April, adding " but not because Europe was less important in 1972 or in 1969." The reasons for the...

David Windlesham's elevation to the leadership of the House of Lords, while not entirely unexpected, still seemed unlikely. I thought he was the ideal man, but I have never been...

quch ado about everything Eatrick Cosgrave if one simple question is simply answered we earl learn a great deal about the apparent tra v ail in the Labour Party which...

Where the 'Times' is wrong Louis Claiborne It is said increasingly — most recently on this side of the ocean in the Times leader of June 5 — that the President of the United...

For the defence Al Capp Watergate may not keep its glorious prornil It promised to demolish the President newly-respectable American conservati 9 " , There are disturbing...

Something about a soldier Richard Brett-Smith The difficulties of recruiting for the army in peacetime are many. Other countries may be at war, and there is therefore a need...

a 'writer of English prose' To make one's debut on the stage of the World to the plaudits of a claque is not necess arily to be placed at an advantage. For an artist such...

Tony Palmer I want to Go to Moscow Maureen . Duffy (Hodder and Stoughton £2.40) Holding On Mervyn Jones (Quartet £2.95) Shovelling Trouble Mordechai Richler (Quartet £2.50)...

G.R. Elton Cromwell, Our Chief of Men Antonia Fraser ( Weiderifeld and Nicolson.£4.95) S. R. Gardiner called Cromwell the greatest of e..nglishmen, but when he came to write...

Edward Norman The Acts of the Apostles edited by William Neil (Oliphants 0.50) It might be natural to suppose that those whose lives are given to the scholarly study of the...

Roy Hattersley When the Cheering Stopped Tommy Lawton (Golden Eagle E1.90) Fighting General Tom Pocock (Collins 0.00) I saw neither Tommy Lawton nor Walter Walker until each...

Peter Ackroyd Wyndham Lewis: Fictions and Satires R. T. Chapman (Vision 62.80) Unlucky For Pringle Wyndham Lewis (Vision 63.40) Wyndham Lewis is as they say, an enigma. He has...

Bookbuyer Phase one of the literary prize season is upon us again, and with a proper sense of priority It comes to children's books first. Bookbuyer is not agin the idea of...

It is a long time since I enjoyed myself at a musical comedy quite as much as I did at the show called Gypsy, which arrived in London last week at the Piccadilly. Its...

• Web without the spider Christopher Hudson Plot ('A ' Curzon) is a relentlessly gripping and exciting political thriller, the best of its kind since Z, or possibly The...

Pleasing though it is to learn that Christopher Hampton's play,Savages, is to come into the West End after all, it is sad that that civilised and gentle entertainment, Dear...

Mutual, I'm sure Rodney Milnes "We don't really seriously do it for the audience, we do it for ourselves." Thus spoke the general administrator of Glyndebourne on Radio 3 last...

Communicators and mice Clive Gammon "Are Maggie and Tony using each other as a means of Communication with Dr Leafer? Or are they using Dr Leafer as a means of communicating...

Benny Green The other day somebody very kindly offered me a free copy of the new Penguin edition of Dos Passos's trilogy, USA. I accepted it eagerly and with much gratitude,...

Academic and therapeutic Oliver Emerson There is probably no country in the world where education attracts more adult students than in this country. As a tutor, a lecturer, a...

Forgotten but not gone Bernard Dixon There's no more depressing spectacle than the compulsory retirement of someone who has retained to the full both professional skills and a...

The writing lark Peter Quince There are gains as well as losses in the fluctuations of the wild-life Population. Not so many years ago, the yellow-hammer was one of the...

Flowerdeluce Denis Wood In June, when the days are still lengthening, before the summer settles itself into its longuers of roses, phlox and delphiniums, the most beautiful...

Have stomach, will travel Pamela Vandyke Price Those who, like the ungastronomic Napoleon's armies, march on their stomachs, are flexing their digestions preparatory to the...

Nicholas Davenport Up goes the price of British bread but travelling abroad makes you realise that the inflationary rise in food costs is a universal, not just a British...

British Oxygen John Bull The practice in North America is for companies to produce quarterly figures but in this country, apart from the oil majors, few others report more...

American recession The South African revaluation of the rand this week poses more problems for the unhappy dollar, and the even more unhappy President Nixon. The dollar has...

Eastern promise Mr Wotherspool We tend to forget when looking at the British involvement in India the prime object was one of profit. Of course, later profit motive and that...

Sir: While Dr Rowse engages in his spirited bouts with all corners, one can quietly follow up trails as he suggest. And all the evidence about his Emilia Lanier so far...

article (June 2) your reproduction of it was a miracle of exactitude. But there were two mistakes: Gabriel Towne should of course be Thomas Towne. And my harmless little joke...

'Sir: I apologise for intruding on your columns two weeks running. But Mr D. Watkins rightly challenges my statement that" nowadays a politician would not, be forced out of...

Sir: In what passes as a review but which is in fact a peevish " hatchet job," Tony Palmer takes more than a column to attack the author of Death Cap, June Thomson, for writing...

that Tony Palmer had the effrontery to offer as a ' book-review ' of Angus Wilson's As If by Magic; and by the strange editorial indulgence which had seen fit to waste a...

In the old days, when it was run on a Friday, the Epsom Oaks had a neat habit of coinciding with halfterm holiday and was naturally a firm favourite with this hardened gambler....

Sir: In the May 26 issue of your journal Louis Claiborne comments that Louis Heren would have been wiser to have left "interpretation of the American Constitution to...

Sir: Apropos the reference to the murals at Longleat carried out by the son of the house, when may we expect to see advertising commence for "The Loins of Longleat "? Ralph...

Elisabeth Taylor 25 Spring Close, Histon, Cambridge

Sir: Kenneth Hurren is the only critic who makes me laugh out loud, even when cruelly wrong_ — as he surely is about the National Theatre's Cherry Orchard (June 2). I don't...

"a dying audience" that he camouflages as a review of No, No Nanette (May 26), Mr Kenneth Hurren, who seems to think his generation is immortal, should have passed some...

Sir: When I was a child in London, it was sometimes said pityingly that poor Londoners never saw a blade of grass growing. This made my patriotic Mum very angry, but now, I...