'You're a lucky man, Mrs Thatcher was going to hang you herself.' T he Commons voted by a majority of 123 not to re-introduce the death penalty. Mr Neil Kinnock apparently...

Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 OPIUM AND THE PEOPLE Recently, more and more people have come to share the heresy, put forward from time to time in The...

THE timing of book reviews has long rested on a gentlemen's agreement; now we have run out of gentlemen. The estab- lished system is that the publisher sends a copy perhaps two,...

Butch Hattersley and the Sundance Kid NOEL MALCOLM Five years ago it was easy to say what Mr Hattersley was for. He was a component of that peculiar balance of reveries which...

RICHARD COBB P ublic events have been in the habit of brushing against me every now and then over the years. In 1935, rushing to get the last metro, Rond-Point-des-Champs-...

Why there is no reason to consult the Women's Institute about sewers AUBERON WAUGH Blake's reference to building Jerusalem in England, which used to be sung at every meeting...

The superpowers are on Centre Court, in East-West relations. Britain is on 'AT LAST, the difficulties begin.' This, from a clever Frenchman, neatly captures the paradox of the...

LORD CADOGAN on Thursday stated in the Lords that a Bill enabling the Government to appoint Life-Peers, and the House of Lords to expel black sheep, would be introduced next...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on how the Democratic candidate fits the Zeitgeist Washington IT'S the old one-two punch, as they say in America. Jesse Jackson (the closet prag- matist)...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY — Save 15% on the Cover Price! RATES 12 Months 6 Months UK 0 £45.00 0 £23.00 Europe (airmail) 0 £55.00 El £28.00 USA Airspeed 0 US 890 0 1..TS$45 Rest of...

'Sex abuse and battering of women causes [sic] two or three times as much mental disorder in adulthood as finan- cial hardship or marital problems . . . 'The survey . . . took...

Mira Stout looks at Korea's tentative steps towards press freedom Seoul ALTHOUGH the press was surprised by the ruling party's defeat in Seoul's recent Parliamentary...

Myles Harris reports on violence within marriage I STOOD looking at the long Georgian room. A discreet Cheltenham sun peered through the curtains. Two expensive cats lay...

Gavin Stamp on the end of a line haunted by past achievements WE BREAKFASTED at eight o'clock. At a quarter past, the Viceroy signed the declaration of war with Burmah . .' So...

Sousa Jamba goes in search of the upper class I HAVE heard many unpleasant things said about the British upper class. I had been told that they thought of ignorance as a...

Anthony Daniels visits a small Dorset town where fear stalks the streets NEARLY everyone is familiar with the genre of horror films in which a small and peaceful community is...

The press: Paul Johnson examines the decline of the leading article IS THE leading article doomed? I am beginning to think so. Some of the quality nationals had several on...

LORD Donoghue is following Lord Tenby out of Kleinwort Benson, Lord Limerick has become non-executive — what is hap- pening to the lordly house of Kleinwort? Michael Hawkes, the...

IN his spare time from these manoeuvrings with the markets, Nigel Lawson has done me a kindness. He has stood up to draw fire which would otherwise be aimed at me. It always is,...

THE goods yard at King's Cross now awaits Godfrey Bradman's developing hands, and another prison has boiled over. I hope that Mr Bradman will soon be offered eight more plum...

The election party has gone on for a year, but it's over now CHRISTOPHER FILDES 0 ne year behind schedule, here comes the tightening up which was supposed to have followed the...

my frustration and summed up in general what I have come across in particu- lar. As a rather simple junior doctor, I have often wondered why nurses have such a good public...

Sir: I refer to the article 'Eyeless in Gaza' by A. N. Wilson (9 April). Mr Wilson makes a number of allega- tions concerning what he calls 'the very anti-Christian bias of the...

Sir: For how much longer do we all have to endure Mr Paul Johnson's obsessional vendetta against the telly? Does he really believe, as he said on 28 May, that it is 'a dangerous...

can only have been written by someone with inside information. The basic contradiction between demanding high academic status, whilst at the same time advocating lower entry...

Sir: Seldom have I read such a nasty and inaccurate piece of invective as your lead- ing article of 28 May, and can only hope that some balance will be struck by allow- ing a...

Sir: Christopher Fildes (City and sub- urban, 28 May) cited correctly T.S. Eliot's original Waste Land note: 'The currants were quoted at a price carriage and insur- ance free...

Sir: Mr Wheatcroft's account of why intel- lectuals were glamourised by Stalin (Murderous charm', 28 May) omits one factor of some significance. Why did those eminent communists...

Sir: could I tell Jonathan Cecil (Books, 21 May) something else that has a 'Wodehousian ring to it'? The snappy LETTERS character judgment that he attributed to John Le...

in the communist ferment in Cambridge University from 1936 to 1940 comment on Geoffrey Wheatcroft's article on Philby. Accepting that Philby was a traitorous rascal, it...

Sir: Your leader (`The City's sweet tooth', 4 June) was kind enough to welcome the main thrust of my proposals in Pensions and Privilege. But you go on to argue that the...

Sir: What is a Paisley kiss (Letters, 14 May)? I lived there for years and never heard the phrase. Is it the same as facefull of dandruff perhaps? a W. S. Brownlie Orchard...

Sir: With mounting trepidation I have been awaiting Lord Montagu's response to my letter in your columns of 30 April. Alas, it appears that I am correct in believing that...

The wilder loves of Shaw Colin Welch BERNARD SHAW: COLLECTED LETTERS VOLUME IV, 1926-1950 edited by Dan H. Laurence Max Reinhardt, £30, pp. 946 0 t the first volume, Walter...

Patrick Skene Catling ASTRIDE THE WALL: A MEMOIR, 1913-1945 by Ursula Wyndham Lennard, £12.95, pp. 192 U rsula Wyndham, the only daughter of the fifth Lord Leconfield, is a...

Frances Partridge FREUD: A LIFE FOR OUR TIME by Peter Gay J. M. Dent, £16.95, pp. 810 T he hero of this impressive and ex- tremely interesting biography is not so much a man...

Jasper Griffin THE CARE OF THE SELF: HISTORY OF SEXUALITY, VOLUME III by Michel Foucault Allen Lane, £17.95, pp. 279 M ichel Foucault embarked on his History of Sexuality in...

William Scammell A SERIOUS CHARACTER: THE LIFE OF EZRA POUND by Humphrey Carpenter Faber, £20, pp. 1005 L ots of dull books have been written about Pound. Humphrey Carpenter...

Mark Bonham Carter GEORGE BALANCHINE: BALLET MASTER by Richard Buckle in collaboration with John Toras Hamish Hamilton, DS, pp. 409 F ew famous men have been more wide- ly...

Evelyn Jo11 EXTINCT BIRDS by Errol Fuller VikinglRainbird, £20, pp.256 S lightly less gloomy, perhaps, than Ex- tinct Volcanoes, this is nonetheless hardly an alluring title;...

Kingsley Amis MY favourite drink, The Macallan 10- Year-old single Highland malt Scotch whis- ky, has held that position since I first tasted it on its native Speyside in 1978,...

VODKA. Not a very imaginative choice I know, but it is the only drink that doesn't make me very ill. For years I drank whisky until it caused me to get pancreatitis and...

CUBA LIBRE is a good example of G. E. Moore's principle that the value of a whole must not be assumed to be the same as the sum of the values of its parts. I dislike Coca-Cola...

GEORGE Orwell had 11 rules for the preparation of the perfect cup of tea, every one of which he regarded as 'golden'. But a rigid adherence to the Orwellian system of tea-making...

HOT chocolate today does not conjure the visions of exotica it did in the 16th century; the cocktail has now usurped its function. The Moscow Mule, the Singapore Sling — these...

I LIKE the sound of gin and It, and the colour of pink gin, but I also believe that warning about it being mother's ruin. Vodka is nice for secret drinkers because it looks like...

IF, as is fortunately the case with me and, I trust, the other contributors, I can afford to drink what I want, then it follows that what I drink should be favourite. I ap-...

AFTER hitch-hiking from Darwin to Alice Springs and along other roads I was stand- ing in for the director of studies at Geelong Grammar. The first lesson to the fourth covered...

FOR a long time now, my favourite drink of all has been made of apple juice of one variety or another. Over the years I have got to enjoy particularly the flavour of the...

AS some of you may suspect, I drink in order to get drunk, and not because I enjoy the taste. Scotch whisky does the trick faster than, say, champagne, but if I had to name a...

Cigars Our men in Havanas Frank Gray T here is no evidence to suggest Mrs Thatcher smokes cigars, but Britain's main hand-made cigar importers agree that with- out her...

The oyster's his world Jennifer Paterson A few weeks ago I received an alluring invitation to the opening of an oyster bar at the very head of Loch Fyne near Cairn- dow,...

Wine New spirit in Chianti Harry Eyres I n Chianti in May it was difficult to concentrate on the wine, especially a wet May like this one (nearly 200mm of rain by the 24th),...

France rules at a price Tariq Ali A ll good food is the result of constant experimentation. That is why recipe books are never totally satisfactory and can some- times be...

Anna Bolena (Covent Garden) Everything in the Garden Rodney Milnes I t would be possible with perfect honesty to write any number of conflicting notices of the Royal Opera's...

Very old stagers Hilary Mantel T wo widowed sisters (Bette Davis and Lillian Gish) have spent the summers since girlhood in a house on the coast of Maine. Each August they...

Bill Jacklin (Marlborough Fine Art, till 25 June) Michael Williams (Austin Desmond, London, till 18 June) Robert Organ (Browse & Darby, till 18 June) On the seen Giles Auty...

Sign up or sign on Marcus Berkmann I t is often easy to forget, as you sit listening to yet another execrable heavy metal album by a band called Trouser- snake or whatever,...

In the eye of the beholder Ursula Buchan A a child I was thought to be deaf but, after tests, it was discovered that I suffered only from 'psychological deaf - ness', a...

Super- Wendy Cope S ince he has recently taken up so much space on the letters page of The Spectator, let's get the facts straight about Superman. His real name is Calel (or...

With one eye open Jeffrey Bernard T he combined Groucho Club and Coach and Horses Derby Day outing went very well considering the crew and the fact that the first champagne...

Pain in the neck Taki W Southampton, Long Island hoever said that solitude is to the Muse what Kinnock was to Biden was full of hot air. I have been sitting stylite-like in...

Vital statistics Alice Thomas Ellis h e daughter came in the other day and said she'd just brushed shoulders with a person bent on killing himself. She had been in one of...

Away from it all Tom Castro I n Competition No. 1526 you were asked for an extract from a brochure offering bed and breakfast accommodation at some fictional household....

Prodigious Raymond Keene T he Watson Farley and Williams Tournament, which I have already pre- viewed in this column, appears to have identified another British prodigy. When...

A first prize of 120 and two further prizes of 110 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

U/oral, 12 C/vail, 16 IC/gat, 18 0/rote, 22 0/ire, 26 E/ling, 29 G/bell, 36 G/gnat, 37 S/tin. Circuit words are synonyms of CUCKOO. Winners: A. G. Corrigan, Poole, Dorset...

In his Devil's Dictionary Ambrose Bierce defined 'overwork' as 'a dangerous dis- order affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing'. Please supply definitions of...