1957 was a year of stagnation, and 1958 will be a year of recession. That is the picture of the economy laboriously built up by many pundits during the last few months. The...

SPECTATOR

By RICHARD H. ROVERE B EGGING the Editor's pardon, I rise to the de- /fence of the American automobile. Every- body seems to be knocking it. In a bold assault on conspicuous...

By ROBERT BLAKE H ISTORY, we are told by austere experts, con- trary to popular myth, never repeats itself. No conclusions for the future can be drawn from the pattern of the...

SOME pestilential fellow has sent me a quotation from Mr. Vincent Brome's recent book, Six Studies in Quarrelling. It is a passage from a diatribe by H. G. Wells against Shaw,...

THE London Symphony Orchestra . . . was respond- ing with sluggish unpunctuality to the batonless mesmeric passes made by Mr. Laszlo Somogyi, who had previously done his best to...

given by Cassandra's conclusion: Before the 1939 war I reported the war in Spain when the Italians were bombing Barcelona. I was detained by the Gestapo at Tempelhof aerodrome...

to Mark Bonham Carter on his appearance in the House of Commons, where he was greeted by members of the two main parties with embarrassed silence : surely they might have had...

Bonham Carter would abolish bureaucracy, lower the cost of living or prevent Rent Act evictions. Theirs was a gesture of un- planned defiance. So was the Aldermaston march. Of...

read for a long time was Cassandra's column in Wednesday's Mirror. He had been smeared by John Gordon for his 'John Bull's Schooldays' article in the Spectator a couple of weeks...

with hypocritical cant, have tome at an appropriate moment; nobody, having read them, is likely to regard as sincere his present line on the H-bomb. In our correspon- dence...

I NEVER supposed that Mr. Philip Toynbee's declared intention of walking all the way to Hungary at the time of the revolution would come to much. But he might at least, on Good...

sensible than most of the stuff which has appeared on the Left recently; but its chief proposal—that Britain should on her own and without waiting for an international agree-...

* * * FROM THE World's Press News: When is a newspaper office not a newspaper office? . . . Mr. Simes, a member of the Land Tribunal, heard an appeal by Kemsley News- papers...

it could no longer be ignored, the Liberals were threatened with the withdrawal of the pacts in Bolton and Huddersfield by which the party has secured representation at the last...

The Road to Rornilly By PHILIP TOYNBEE 4t-r• meN-beeeee!' The jeering cry of many hostile I voices still rings in my dreams, and the ease with which the name can he turned to...

too dangerous By BERNARD LEVIN L A ST Christmas, feeling rather irresponsible, I wandered into the room of the Spectator's Literary Editor to see if there was anything I might...

By STRIX HAVE an idea, though I may be wrong, that I when autumn comes round the huge panto- mime-casts are partly made up by allotting to men loosely if at all connected with...

Composing for Fun By COLIN MASON IN his youth Vaughan Williams declared that he would never attempt a symphony. Last week his Ninth was given its first perfor- mance. He was...

Laughter in Court By ALAN BRIEN A Resounding Tinkle, and The Hole. By N. F. Simpson. (Court.) —All My Own Work. By Rom illy Cavan. (Bristol Old Vic.) ALL the best jokes are...

Speaking the Language By JOHN BRAINE TONY HANCOCK, Jimmy Edwards and Bernard Braden are the three most reliable guides I know into that realm of comedy north of Custard Pie...

Instead of a Miracle QUI , GLY By ISAB,EL Cabiria. (Cameo-Polytechnic.) Tun oddly named Cabiria of the film's title (director : Federico Fellini; X certificate) is a...

The Chemical Dragon By LESLIE ADRIAN With much of what Mrs. Grant says 1 am in entire agreement. The trouble with our chemists today is that in their pursuit of cures for in-...

pleasure I get through driving my Ohio Roadwonder. I have owned a considerable number of cars, the first of which was a Clyno with bassinet body, back in 1921. After this came a...

fore- cast a much bigger margin for Mr. Bonham Carte r, so far out?' Which forecasts? Were the polls really 'so far out As far as the Gallup Poll is concerned, we d not attempt...

driving habits? She never drove on the pavement. Mr. Waugh supplied her with 'an enormous limousine of dove-grey and silver,' an Hispano Suiza, driven by a chauffeur. It was...

not knoW my homework. 1 had in fact noticed what he describes as a 'glaring error' in Mr. Kerbys article, and indeed some other mistakes which M r. Hunt has not pointed out. But...

SIR,—Is Pharos a committee? Or is he just naturally inconsistent? In his first paragraph last week he accused the Daily Mirror of 'going quite batty' about Mr. K.'s 'Suspend...

is fair that 'a do-it-yourself conversion of a motor-van into a shooting brake should attract purchase tax' (Mr. Hunt). I wonder if it is even expedient: I know it is silly....

Torrington Desmond Donnelly, MP Automobilia John Gloag, H. M. Malies Khrushchev and the Bomb Christopher Driver Converted Vans and Purchase Tax B. A. Hobson, Maurice Nockles...

Stn,—Some years ,ago at Oxford while researching for an essay for my tutor (and your reviewer) Christopher Hill, I came across an alleged example of Charles l's marital...

was pleased to read in Leslie Adrian's column last week that there is at least one retailer with an imaginative appre- ciation of the coffee he sells. The encroachment of...

because it shows that there are Frenchmen who are not prepared to accept their Government's version of the Algerian War. But where, I believe, he is mis- taken is in his...

SIR,—Dr. Standing feels that I misunderstand much of the nature of Dr. Montessori's work. Be that as it may, he has certainly misread my review. I dealt with one aspect. only of...

APRIL 13, 1833 A GREAT deal of secrecy is affected at the Treasury in regard to the Budget. Why? Because the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself has no plan, and what he knows...

Favourable Variations BY MAGNUS PYKE THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CHARLES DARWIN, 1809- 1882 Edited by Nora Bailow. (Collins, 16s.) 1HE DARWIN READER. Edited by M. Bates and P. S....

The Modern Prince, and other writings. BY Antonio Gramsci, translated by Dr. Louis Marks. (Lawrence and Wishart, 21s.) ANTONIO GRAMSCI was secretary of the exiguous . Italian...

The Conscience of the Rich. By C. P. Snow. (MaCmillan, 15s.) THIS is the seventh book to appear in the Strangers and Brothers sequence, but chronologically it follows the...

ANYONE who has stood before the Isenheim altar- piece in the museum. of. Colmar will know how little of the terror and beauty of this extraordinary work reproductions and words...

Siemens Brothers 1858-1958. By J. D. Scott. (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 35s.) WHEN great business houses take to patronising the arts—if only by way of commissioning com- pany...

A Dog's Life I'm Not Stiller. By Max Frisch. (Abelard-Schuman, 18s.) The Birth of a Grandfather. By May Sarton. (Gollancz, I 5s.) UNLIKE Animal Farm, which is nothing to do...

Watt. By Samuel Beckett. (Zwemmer, 15s.) Malone Dies. By Samuel Beckett. (Calder, 10s. 6d.)* CHRIST, what a planet!' cries Mrs. Rooney in Beckett's radio play, All That Fall,...

The Natural Philosophy of Love. By Remy e Gourmont. (Spearman, 16s.) CERTAIN books seem predestined to be remain - dered. Remy de Gourmont's Physique de l'Arnoor (first...

The plot is as donnish as ever—a ,, R akespeare discovery leads to death in the tihrarY—but not the style: indeed, Mr. Innes per- °I ns himself 'contact' as a transitive verb,...

Log, well-organised, solid event ug ually, fast and n exciting novel of action ; Which a couple of nationalist leaders from just r Ilh place as Cyprus are exiled to bare, lonely...

Laconic, fast-moving er of pursuit in the Mediterranean (and I don't think there is a murder, despite the title). e • rY good indeed; this second novel would have little...

a new way of nobbling the favourite 1 1 -t hreatening his trainer's wife and daughter after he has won the Guineas and the Derby, and unless e is scratched from the Leger. Very...

t „ u e Pastiche (Ernest Bramah's Kai Lung) to the teal thing, as being tastier, faster and funnier. 1,, T he Golden Horse. By Alan Kennington. (Hale,

Bedside Manners I WAS encouraged to read a report about how the surgeons of a Croydon group of hospitals, before an operation, sit by the patipt's bed and chat with him,...

° w t . B e.* Dead. By James Byrom. (Chatto. and I du13s. 6d.) Echoes of a baccarat case of t he Nineties reverberate through this quite bril- fl an t tale, as a journalist digs...

By PHILIDOR No. 148. A. KARLSTROM ('British Chess Magazine,' 1939) fiLACK (9 men) WHITE (I I men) WHITE to play and mate in two moves: solution next week. Solution to last...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT AFTER studying the Economic Survey for 1958 the City is look- ing forward to the Budget with pleasurable anticipation. For this cautious Treasury document...

By CUSTOS NA-Easter feeling in Throgmorton Street as uninspired as the weather, except in the 1 'edged market which goes from strength to j a ' e ngth. The irredeemables were...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 423 Report by Herbert B. Grimsditch In view of the current situation in the Arab world and Kashmir, competitors were invited to rewrite the famous...

of Conversation,' recalled hal . . heard the following: 'My dear, what was I to 11) 1 , It either meant hurling the baby through tiro dow or using it as a hammer.' Competitors...

SPECTATOR ACROSS 1 Little Tommy obviousl y supper for a song (6). 4 'I would hate that death eyes' (Browning) (8). 9 King over the Trent? (6) 10 Where Dr. Johnson gets...

11 A thousand not retained in Is Alliance, 22 .Rowdies. 23 Elegies. 24 7 Plethora. C 8rIEK/I I I:. PRIZEWINNERS ,-.„ Brechin Angus, and Mts. E. NINA