'Well, father, we'll come and see you again as soon as we can.' M ore than 700 rioting prisoners caused £20 million damage at Wymott Prison in Lancashire during a night of...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 LABOUR PAINS E xtremes of tactfulness are a fault of the British. The...

The Conservative Party's golden future that never was ANDREW GIMSON 0 ne of the most gruelling tasks in the otherwise cushy life of a political columnist is to read, or at...

WILSON A clerical acquaintance of mine in Gloucestershire who had married a rich woman called Grace Something always used to recite the General Thanksgiving at every service in...

Better for this man if he had changed sex AUBERON WAUGH I n a single, 20-line paragraph of his bril- liant 'Diary' in last week's Spectator, A.N. Wilson disposed of a matter...

Martin Vander Weyer predicts that the distasteful commercial packaging of Lady Thatcher's forthcoming memoirs will produce a book that is not worth reading `OF COURSE this...

threats to King Hussein and his people from the deal between Israel and the Palestinians Amman HISTORY AND geography have lashed Jordan and Palestine together like Orpheus and...

ON FRIDAY week, Mr. Asquith received a deputation from the London cabmen. Mr. Lough,' M.P., their spokesman, gave some curious facts as to the cab-industry. There are eleven...

MY HUSBAND interrupted my break- fast the other day by reading out bits of a front-page scoop by the 'media corre- spondent' of the Times. It was the text of a 'keynote address...

Con Coughlin reports on the Israelis of Gaza, previously thrown out of Sinai, who are refusing to be dispossessed again Gush Katif, Gaza APART FROM the fully-loaded revolver...

William Cash learns of the number of people falsely accused of child abuse Los Angeles THERE IS a war against child abuse in the United States which is fast approach- ing a...

persist.. . THE TRUE university of these days,' said Carlyle, 'is a collection of books.' Times have changed, however: the true university of these days is a collection of...

Simon Courtauld describes the enduring character of Cornwall's landscape and people the first in a series on English counties From Padstow Point to Hartland Light Is a watery...

Alasdair Palmer says we are all guilty of dishonesty — but it may be preferable to telling the truth LAST WEEK, an acquaintance called to cancel a lunch engagement. He said he...

The not-so-Dirty Digger throws a sacrilegious fire-cracker PAUL JOHNSON I n assessing a famous man, it always helps to know his parents. Having met that delightful couple,...

DIARY 1994 £12 Plain f13 Initialled T he Spectator 1994 Diary, bound in soft burgundy leather, will shortly be available. With a new layout and a whole week to view, Monday to...

The Chief Secretary talks a good game but has yet to play one CHRISTOPHER FILDES A nong the malign consequences of an autumn Budget is that the preliminary skir- mishing goes...

NORMAN LAMONT never made much of a dent in his cushion at New Court. Still, he was N. M. Rothschild's first Chancellor or second, if you stretch a point and count Disraeli — and...

`SOME DAY,' grumbled Northcliffe, 'there will come a limit to my capacity to stand Times annoyance.' The figures were dismal and, to compound his misery, the paper had printed...

IT'S ALL GO at the Office of Fair Trading. A team of its dauntless investigators has just got back from a week in Paris, where they have been checking out the Bourse. You might...

THE REVOLVO merger, like most merg- ers, looks more like a takeover to me. Renault has the advantage of being backed by the French state, Volvo has been losing its Swedish...

DEVALUATION is spreading. First the pound, then the franc, now the Times. The paper's economic pundit, Anatole Kaletsky, always eager to urge devaluation on others, will...

Sir: Your report (Portrait of the week, 28 August) of the discovery of the late King Boris's heart in a glass jar in the grounds of his old palace is interesting. If I am right,...

Sir: Writing from the chief town of Brabant (which he has the grace to spell in its English version 'Brussels' rather than its ludicrous French distortion 'Bruxelles'), John...

Sir: As the recently retired headmaster of Ampleforth, I am indignant that Martin Vander Weyer (`Marketing the old school tie', 4 September) should refer to my suc- cessor's...

Sir: Paul Johnson is wrong to say (And another thing, 5 June) that the Chinese government is kept in power by a conscript army. The People's Liberation Army is composed entirely...

Sir: John Plender's article ('In the name of God, go', 4 September) was fine as far as it went but it could have gone farther. It could have asked: who are the Church...

Sir: Your reviewer Mark Archer (Books, 4 September) shouldn't knock the Economist as the equivalent of an in-flight magazine. Last week I endured a British Airways flight from...

Sir: Dr Dalrymple's proposal (Deserving and undeserving suicides', 28 August) that patients should pay for their own treatment would only make matters far worse. Far from it...

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Sir: Adam Nicolson (`Clever dickies', 28 August) attacks bow ties for all sorts of rea- sons but does not realise their design is strictly utilitarian for many men. My late...

Sir: A few weeks ago (Letters, 26 June), a reader criticised an affectation which had crept into your food columns — namely, the use of receipt instead of recipe. This prompted...

Sir: Robert Davies is no Wodehouse scholar (Letters, 4 September). Nicholas Coleridge was perfectly correct: Aunt Dahlia did indeed have her chef Anatole head-hunted. Sir Watkyn...

Sir: Might I beseech your readers for their help in my search for where notables are buried (not cremated)? All achievers would be of interest; the more curious the better. Any...

Sir: I have long mistrusted Digby Ander- son's credentials. Ever since, some years ago, he had the temerity to disparage the cuisine of the Alsace, land of foie gras, ele-...

Sir: I am very grateful to Boris Johnson for his article k'Congratulations, it's a Belgian', 31 July) about his daughter being Belgian. I am appalled — but not at all surprised...

The older the better Francis King THE HOUSE OF DOCTOR DEE by Peter Ackroyd Hamish Hamilton, £14.95, pp.277 S cientist, mathematician, geographer, astronomer, antiquarian,...

Patrick Skene Catling THE IRON WOMAN by Ted Hughes Faber, £9.99, pp.87 T d Hughes's most popular book for children, The Iron Man, published first in 1968, has attained the...

Michael Hulse AN EMPIRE OF THE EAST: TRAVELS IN INDONESIA by Norman Lewis Cape, £16.99, pp.240 a rsons of great power and influence,' notes Norman Lewis among the Dani peo- ple...

Adam Zamoyski THE GINGERBREAD RACE by Andrei Navrozov Picador Original, £17.99, pp.344 I am naturally wary of people who start publishing autobiography before the age of...

Raymond Carr CONVERSATION IN THE CATHEDRAL C onversation in the Cathedral is the War and Peace of Peru in the 1950s: an histori- cal novel on the grand scale in which real...

Jessica Douglas Home LAOGAI—THE CHINESE GULAG by Hongda Harry Wu Wesiview, £11.95, pp.247 I n March the South China Morning Post reported The President of the Supreme People's...

Albert Read A dwarf sits on the roof and gazes at the stars twinkling above Ireland. The reader takes a deep breath, unsure whether to expect a lengthy discourse on astromony...

Fifty years! He's old and out of sorts But still he smiles to see them on the screen, The lads they were, tin hats, enormous shorts As big as bivouacs; full magazine, One up the...

Roger Gard A cademic 'theorists' — but also gen- uine literary critics — are chronically unde- cided about the importance of real things to imaginative literature. Histories?...

John McEwen FIN DE SIECLE: THE ILLUSTRATORS OF THE NINETIES by Simon Houfe Barrie & Jenkins, f.35, pp.200 T his book is a trap-door into a past when picture books and...

after Mandelstam Manured and trodden, worked to a fine tilth, combed and quickened as a stallion's mane the earth casts up its spume of solid wealth, the stuff of freedom, my...

Music Clap if you're happy Anthea Hall on taking the snobbery out of concert-going I once accompanied the German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter to a concert at the Royal...

Firm favourite Mark Amory I have a Tom Cruise problem. If you ignore the muscular action freaks and bor- ing Kevin Costner he is the leading youngish male star of our time; he...

Is Disneyland builded here? Alan Powers raises a subject unfashionable with architects: housing developments B uilding houses might be thought to be a major part of any...

Petnajst-trideset (15-30) From Slovenia, Giles Auty reflects that art, like tennis, needs clear-cut rules A t the risk of straining the credulity of readers and the patience of...

Whacking Jacko Marcus Berkmann P oor Michael Jackson. One minute he's the world's most beloved pop star, an icon of musical excellence, a magical and elusive figure with a...

An Irish answer Martyn Harris Y ou quite often hear people say, `If an IRA man killed one of my kids I'd track him down and kill him myself' — and the fantasy is the basis for...

Invalidity benefits Jeffrey Bernard I don't have a lot to tell you today. I have been in bed or lying on my sofa for a week and all I have observed is the ceiling, the walls,...

Drama on the high seas Taki I f this isn't the best royal scandal of the summer, I'm the financial adviser to Princess Margaret. And it took place right here, on the island of...

The even tenor of our ways Nigel Nicolson M y first duty on becoming a parlia- mentary candidate for Falmouth in 1950 was to open a village fête. The Cornish- men, apart from...

13th of this month. He used to be cele- brated in January but, as with so many oth- ers, he has been pushed around and is now in September. St John Chrysostom, Arch- bishop of...

III RI NI‘I I ,S( 011'11 NN Weirdo Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1795 you were invited to write a surrealist sonnet or a sonnet about Surrealism. The earliest poem to qualify...

SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA New order Raymond Keene ON TUESDAY 7 SEPTEMBER Nigel Short sat down to play his first game at the Savoy Theatre against Garri Kasparov in the first full...

C 1 GRAHAM ' S PORT CROSSWORD W. & J. GRAHAM'S PORT A first prize of £20 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 27...

The unclued lights are the classical rivers of the infernal world (15, 24A, 1, 5, 28D) and various names for the region they encompass (25, 36, 38A, 53D). First prize: Mrs A....

The cookery writer, Delia Smith, is re- ported to be about to venture into football journalism. You are invited to produce a description of a sporting event by an ex-cookery...

Fighting talk Frank Keating ALTHOUGH the selectors will doubtless have totally opposing views when they announce the official list next week, I reck- on there are ten dead...

Q. The kitchen window of my flat faces the bathroom window of a flat in the next-door building. The plumbing arrangements in my neighbour's flat are such that every morning,...