T he Jaguar flotation was eight times over-subscribed. The company soon afterwards reported its best July sales ever. The number of unemployed rose in July by 71,000 to...

The Big Bang theory O ne of the unwritten rules of our mysterious Lobby system is that 'spokesmen' and 'authoritative sources' must always speak through it in a specially...

A lthou g h the 'Tory' press have done their best to find out unattractive thin g s about Mr Arthur Scar g ill — witness e slightly lame story in Monday's Daily e xpress about a...

O ur Government seems oddly reluctant to nail its colours to the mast when those colours are True Blue. As part of the current restoration of the Palace of West- minster, in...

F ollowin g the vote by the House of Lords last year that its proceedin g s should be televised for an 'experimental period', the Lords' Select Committee on Sound Broadcastin g...

M r Ken Livingstone and three of his colleagues have resigned their seats to fi g ht by-elections, a move uneasily described by Tory leaders as a g immick, and boycotted by...

UK Eire Surface mail Air mail 6 months: L17.25 E17.25 £20.50 £26.50 One year: £34.50 £34.50 £41.00 E53.00 For special offer turn to p.26 Name Address US Subscriptions: $75.00...

A s I spent most of June and July in the United States it was natural for peo- ple to ask me on my return how the presidential election was going and who would win. The answer...

Christopher Reed A t a low point during the opening cere- mony at the Coliseum here, as we reached Togo in the alphabetical march of 140 nations' Olympic teams, and Zaire,...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington rrhis summer Americans - antiquarians 1 and nostalgiacs excepted — have had to accept that a beloved institution, the quadrennial national...

Richard West Dublin T he disastrous collapse of the Irish economy has taken its toll this week of two of the most famous businesses in Dublin: Boland's, the largest bakery in...

Gerda Cohen In the second of two articles from Northern Ireland, Gerda Cohen visits Londonderry. A fter walking half an hour round Der- ry, the poor, maimed, defiled town, I...

Oliver Knox perhaps we too easily shrug our shoul- ders at the absurdity of much of the aid which is funnelled through international agencies. We have all heard (haven't we?)...

Who speaks for Britain? Paul Johnson N igel Lawson is surely correct in calcu- lating that, even on a narrow financial basis, the nation cannot afford to give way over the...

is looking for an efficient and methodical person to run the Subscriptions Department part-time. An ability to type is essential. Please apply in writing enclosing c.v. (with...

A magic circle - Ft is time to break the magic circle — the 'merchant banks which have cornered the market in sellin g the state's assets. There are barely half a dozen of...

T he City loves its buzz-words, and bui- ziest of the moment is the Chinese wall. This ima g inary fortification is built across people's offices, or in extreme cases inside...

T o be fair to the merchant banks, it would be hard to do better than Hill, Samuel has done in settin g off a stampede for Ja g uar. The last time a maker of q uality cars came...

T he City, as is well known, wears it heart in its pocket. In City terms, therefore, a failure is an offer for sale which can be refused, except by the under- writers, who...

Singin' in the rain Jock Bruce-Gardyne I t must be something to do with the weather. No sooner does the Minister of Drought shake out his umbrella to ward off the August...

The Honourable W. H. Fitzwilliam is to retire from the representation of the South-West Riding at the next Dissolu- tion; and in a letter to his constituents has explained his...

Sir: Dame Mary Warnock, in a Channel 4 discussion of her Committee's report, re- jected Professor Scarisbrick's statement that a human embryo is a human being. Will she or her...

Sir: What settled the docks dispute was not the lorry drivers' threat of violence (Notes, 28 July) but the dockers' respect for the threat. It did not occur to them to follow...

Sir John Soane Sir: I feel obliged to comment on the Note provocatively headed 'Soane betrayed' in your issue of 21 July. The Soane Museum, you say, is 'not what it was'...

Sir: Presumably Paul Johnson has been misled by Hollywood when, in his correc- tive article on Lillian Hellman (The press, 14 July), he refers to the ' "Thin Man" stories'. In...

Sir: If Soane has been betrayed, so have others. Soane designed the anteroom for the gallery in Chantrey's house to show the latter's models and sculptures. Lady Chan- trey gave...

Sir: I thought it particularly hollow for Jeffrey Bernard, friend and confidant of millionaire playboy Taki and associate of the wealthy and influential in all walks of life, to...

Sir: Unlike Geoffrey Wheatcroft (Diary 28 July) I rarely, with the exception of certain politicians, draw amusement at the passing of another human being. Jim Fixx was simply...

Tits and politicometers Colin Welch N ot long ago in these pages Mr Ferdi- nand Mount charmingly likened Mr Francis Pym to some tit or nuthatch, 'one of those small...

Practice and principle George Walden The Grenada Intervention William C. Gilmore (Mansell £5.95) Grenada Hugh O'Shaughnessy (Hamish Hamilton £12.95) Tn a democracy, foreign...

Peter Levi Charlotte Mew and Her Friends Penelope Fitzgerald (Collins £12.95) S ince it happened that I read this book Oonly after reading several reviews of it, it may be...

Norman Stone Napoleon: the Myth of the Saviour Jean Tulard Translated by Teresa Waugh (Weidenfeld & Nicolson £14.95) S tendhal is quoted in this book, to the effect that a new...

Gavin Stamp Georgian Model Farms John Martin Robinson (OUP £35) T he subtitle of this elegant, well illus- trated and excessively expensive book is 'A Study of Decorative and...

Andrew Brown Atlantis C ome years ago I read an article on ,...Ivarieties of certainty that so impressed me that I dreamed about it twice, and when I met the author summoned up...

Julian Jebb Oxford, China and Italy: Writings in Honour of Sir Harold Acton Edited by Edward Chaney and Neil Ritchie (Thames & Hudson £18) W ho will buy this book? Presumably...

Scottish Poetry Competition Report by Ferdinand Mount T Mlle entries came not in single spies but in battalions – 330 of them from 200 poets. Several views of Scotland were...

The Spectator for twelve months and receive free THE GAMES WAR A Moscow Journal by Christopher Booker Open to non-subscribers or to those who want to take out a gift...

Melbourne age Peter Ackroyd Lonely Hearts ('PG', Academy One) I begins with a funeral which goes 'slightly, and farcically, awry: thus setting the tone for a film which,...

Edinburgh '84 Allan Massie T his year's is an optimistic Festival. The reason is not hard to seek: there is a new Director. The Edinburgh Festival is a fickle jade, who...

Restoration Rodney Milnes Med& and Giasone (Buxton Festival) Q imply as an act of restoration, Buxton's v..3 eagerly awaited staging of Cherubini's Medee was in no sense a...

Eye contact Giles Gordon The Way of the World and The Merchant of Venice (Chichester) American Buffalo (Duke of York's) W illiam Gaskill gently mocks the Chichester ambience...

Travesties Peter Levi 1\To one wants to hear what anyone else 1 1 thinks of the Olympic Games on television, but there has been almost no- thing else on, and the opening of...

Caviar Jeffrey Bernard T went to Goodwood last Thursday with 1 Henry Porter of the Sunday Times and then to Newmarket on Saturday to have lunch with Charles St George and then...

Docked Taki T he cruelest blow of all was dealt to me last weekend. There I was looking forward to one more week of debauchery and decadence when the telephone rang and it was...

No.1333: Deuced awkward Set by Jaspistos: As a guest at a grand country house you have been discovered by your host in an embarrassing and apparently inexplicable position...

Comparably incalculable P. J. Kavanagh perhaps words used by hard-pressed 1 journalists should not be picked upon too beadily - who should 'scape whipping? - but someone has...

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for an enlightening verse reply to Freud's baffled question: 'What do women want?' 'Was will das Weib?' The original sug - gests...

T he world of food is inhabited by two classes of person — chaps and girls. You can tell a chap by the way that he or she addresses the plate, alert and businesslike with a firm...

The unclued lights, like 19D and PEEN, are or were synonyms of pi to( (13D could also be DECORATE and 34D ctiN8). Winner: Michael R. Edinburgh. Po tts.

Black arts Raymond Keene A fter eight fiercely contested rounds the leading scores in the Grieveson Grant British Championship at Brighton were: Plaskett, Short and Speelman...

Prize: £10 - or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, 1983 edition (ring the word 'Dictionary' under name and address) - for the first correct solution opened on 28 August. Entries to:...