Week in, Week out

before Christmas we set aside a full column of each issue to lengthy and appealing pleas to our readers to give a year's subscription to the Spectator, at less than half-price, to any of their friends or relatives who are not already regular

readers. We also remind them that with the first issue, arriving just before Christmas, we send a greeting card to the new reader, telling him the name of his subscription donor.

Other things are stressed, too, in these touch- ing appeals. Of course, we give a list of the regu- lar contributors to the magazine whose work will spill over the pages in the coming year. Denis Brogan, Christopher Hollis, Evelyn Waugh

and William Golding write for us regularly:.

Henry Fairlie, Desmond Donnelly and Julian Critchley write on politics. The Spectator is justly

proud that it has the best hand of arts critics to be found anywhere in journalism : Isabel Quigly on films, Bamber Gascoigne on theatre, David Cairns on music, Clive Barnes on ballet, Nevile Wallis on art and Clifford Hanley on the goggle- box. In these advertisements we stress our shrewd

foreign commentators, such as Darsie Gillie in

Paris, Sarah Gainham in Bonn, Murray Kemp- ton in New York, Chanchal Sarkar in Delhi and Michael Adams somewhere in the Mediterranean.

But this is not all that readers are told in this column. We whisper in their ear that Leslie

Adrian is Guardian Angel No. 1 to every con- sumer in England and that we keep a special file for letters from readers expressing thanks for his/her excellent pearls of advice.

And naturally a vast amount of space is re- served for telling readers of our book reviewers, who regularly include Kingsley Amis, Ronald

Bryden, Robert Conquest, John Daniel and so on through the alphabet, including, among others, Simon Raven, John Mortimer, David Rees and Bernard Williams. And no advertisement would be complete w:thout a special word for Nicholas Davenport, the writer on economics and the City that all the rest follow.

But this time everything is changed. We print no appeals, no exhortations, no dire warnings that you will be too late if you do not hurry.

We see how busy you are and we will not waste your time by asking you to read a long blurb

on our contributors. instead, we just print, below, the coupon which you should fill in and return with 30s. (instead of 65s.) for each subscription that you wish to send. We do all the rest.

•••

To: The Spectator,

99 Gower Street, London, WC1

Please send the Spectator for a year as my gift to my friends listed below.

I enclose £ : s. .d.

I. Name

(Please use capital letters throughout) Address

2. Name Address

3. Name Address My name and address are: PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS FORM TO RENEW CURRENT SUBSCRIPTIONS