THE SPECTATOR SUMMIT PRIMITIVISM In earlier and more primitive times, great battles were preceded by an indiVidual contest between the leaders or champions of each side....

TOO MUTCH READING the letters page of the Guardian or the Observer, one sometimes wonders whether correspondents are running a competition, using pseudonyms, to see who can get...

P O L I T I C S Not so much a pendulum, more a sort of hair dve FERDINAND MOUNT Is it imagination, or does the Queen's voice alter, ever so fractionally, when she finishes...

Syringe-driver Sir: A. N. Wilson writes that 'Most of us will hope to meet the end in hospital' meaning I suppose '. . . are likely to meet . . .'. A neat little piece of...

The fact of life Sir: Your new habit of offering a precis of articles is very helpful to those who do not have time to read them. But it can also be misleading. Last week you...

L E T T E R S --- I Master Aryee Sir: In attempting to enlist 'Ghana's attache to the UN' in his 'Cast of Villains' (High life, 5 October), Taki makes an allegation which...

Imported seconds Sir: In his admirable review of ENO's Don Carlos (26 October), Rodney Milnes aomadverts on the Royal Opera's failure to use the talents of Jonathan Summers...

Sod the public Sir: Your picture shown on the cover of the 19 October Spectator illustrating KingsleY Amis's excellent 'Sod the public' article lacks one person I really think...

Burnham and Booker Sir: Your article 'Burnham and Booker' (Leader, 12 October), revealed more about the correspondent than anything else. With the legal protection afforded by...

XB O OKS Explaining blacks and whites Colin Welch OUT IN THE MIDDAY SUN: MY KENYA by Elspeth Huxley Chatto & Windus, £12.95 You could say of Mrs Huxley, as Johnson said of...

Mindless, prolix and pretentious A. N. Wilson MONUMENTS AND MAIDENS: THE ALLEGORY OF THE FEMALE FORM by Marina Warner Weidenfeld & Nicolson1 £16.95 One can imagine the...

Clay pipes Here is the box with the pieces of clay pipe, stems like twigs, bowls swagged and ribbed, all cracked and chipped, but neatly docketed in your schoolboy hand. They...

The monstrous boy Sarah Bradford ORSON WELLES: A BIOGRAPHY by Barbara Leaming Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £14.95 Orson Welles was 18 months old and in his cradle when he first...

The sheer awfulness of Ireland Harriet Waugh ARROWS OF LONGING by Virginia Moriconi Duckworth, f9.95 'Virginia Moriconi is an elderly expatriate American writer who has lived...

Misty dawn on the Grand Canal Evelyn Joll TURNER'S VENICE by Lindsay Stainton British Museum PublicationsjIS (16.95 in 1986) Venice remains the most beautiful city in Europe,...

A worthy if disparate group Gavin Stamp THE ARCHITECTURAL OUTSIDERS edited by Roderick Brown Waterstone & Co., distributed by Thames & Hudson, f28 | TRUMPET AT A DISTANT...

'The patient search and vigil long' John Sweetman NEMO'S ALMANAC 1986 edited by John Fuller Sycamore Press, 4 Benson Place, Oxford OX2 6QH, £1.25 T he succinct description on...

The Avenue (after Hobbema) This land is so flat the people who till these fields still secretly refuse to believe the world is round. They plant cabbages and potatoes. They...

Opera Faqiiqt (Coliseum) La Traviata and The Merry Widow (Sadler's Wells) La Wally and Mahagonny (Wexford Festival) Faust strikes camp Rodney Milnes In a rambling...

Gardens Grass roots opinions Ursula Buchan There are times when I wish no one knew that I was a gardener for there is scarcely a party when I am not pinned against a wall to...

Theatre Same Time Next Year (Old Vic) The Castle (Pit) Perilous paradox Kathy O'Shaughnessy Same Time Next Year is about an adulterous American couple, George and Doris, who...

High life Hammer and sickle Taki New York | A .rmand Hammer is a billionaire, all art collector, a friend of Prince Charles, an intimate of Gorbachev, and the greatest...

Home life Potbound Alice Thomas Ellis I have far too much kitchen equipment, most of it seldom used, and I am never going to buy any more so I should like to advise the...

Low life Childabuse Jeffrey Bernard Just one final word about the Booker Prize. Talk about money for old rope. As soon as I heard that The Bone People had first been...

Postscript A dry time P. J. Kavanagh The Italian writer Primo Levi was asked on television, rather surprisingly, whether his experience in the concentration camp had affected...

eeo Ad How to survive with central heating I l ~ t i ~ r W ! < n w I n I . I -Th - ~ I " I WOULDN'T like you to think that our wonderful Patrick Kavanagh is the only film star...