Cheaper In Biarritz

NOW THAT the French have given up on the ten-franc kir, I suppose that I must fol- low their example. This will placate those readers who have patiently explained to me that......

Once And Future King

SCOTCH in one airport bag, socks in another, I reach the departure gate, where a bizarre sight awaits me. Has my aircraft been camouflaged, or has it been painted in British......

. Razor-toothed Lawyers

FIRST the good news: British Telecom has won itself a £3 billion discount on its excit- ing new purchase in America. Clearing the deal with the regulators took so long that BT......

Gaswork

I LIKE the notion of celebrating the mil- lennium on the Heights of Abraham. They are (of course) near Matlock, and the plan is to make them 250 feet higher. A tower with a......

City And Suburban

Poor, nasty, brutish and not even solitary it's a dog's life for Theo CHRISTOPHER FILDES A finance minister's life, said Ronnie de Mel of Sri Lanka, who tried it, is poor,......

Rubber Bands And . . .

THE FIRST Mr Smith had a really good business idea. In 1828, so he noticed, The Spectator was refounded. The London & Birmingham Railway followed nine years later. Put the two......