T he author of an anonymous attack on the Archbishop of Canterbury in the pre- face to Crockford's Clerical Directory was found dead in circumstances that suggested suicide. The...

THE much abused architectural profession may be right to argue, in response to the criticisms of the Prince of Wales last week, that society gets the architecture it de- serves....

THE CHURCH'S SUICIDE NOTE T he anonymity of the preface to Crock- ford's Clerical Dictionary is traditional. It is a survival from an age in which most journalism was...

CND's rose-tinted spectacles: or, seeing through a glasnost darkly NOEL MALCOLM 0 n Tuesday evening, the initials CND acquired a new meaning: Champagne for Nuclear...

I must be very careful what I say about dining last Saturday at All Souls, since in an earlier Spectator diary I was indiscreet enough to complain about a lecherous visiting...

Who will rid us of this demented Nanny in the attic? AUBERON WAUGH I t used to be a distressing but fairly frequent occurrence in even the best-run households that one of the...

Reagan is now supported by Democrats, attacked the INF treaty turns American politics upside down Washington CLARITY is the word that comes to mind. His step, his gestures, his...

Sam White on a dark horse in the French race for President Paris FIVE months before the French presiden- tial elections, one of its principal conten- ders, Jacques Chirac, the...

among Serbs for the Albanians who are supplanting them Prishtina, Yugoslavia ONE of the Serbs I got to know here showed me a poem he had written on Kosovo: . . Where there once...

Robert Haupt remembers some of the characteristic utterances of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen Chook is the admirable Australian word for a domestic fowl. Although essentially a...

Alistair Home finds a new guerrilla threat to the whole Andean region Lima THE Lima government of 37-year-old Alan Garcia, already wobbly from a com- bination of strikes,...

Mr Goschen's presidential address to the Statistical Society on Tuesday, was devoted to proving by a convergent train of indications that the lower mid- dle class has been...

Paul Barker had his radio programme banned last week. He had been here before ONE of the many ways in which England resembles the Venetian Republic after the Doges lost their...

Sir Peter Walters who this week swooped on Britoil This is one of a series of profiles of men whom the Prime Minister admires. IN THE same week — the last of Novem- ber 1981 —...

Alexandra Artley explains national affection for the NHS and compares it with the soulless private sector RECENTLY, as I was crossing Parliament Square, I noticed a crowd of...

analyses a clerical comedy that turned into tragedy IT IS one of the ironies of modern Britain that the Church of England, an institution in manifest decline, none the less has...

- THANK you for the cardinal virtues. Asked what I looked for in assessing a company, and feeling that my answers honesty, competence, flair — had left something out, I appealed...

THE sales have begun early, and earliest, of course, in the stock market. One third- off a wide range of British equities — last spring's fashions reduced by more than half...

Time for the airlines' tetchy trustee to get out of competition's way CHRISTOPHER FILDES A flying circus — but whose? Paul Channon's, Lord Young's, Lord King's, the...

THE scene is in a tropical country, by the side of a dam. Enter dancing girls. They are performing in honour of Barber Con- able, chairman of the World Bank, which has financed...

Sir: While glad to see for the first time an article on jazz in The Spectator (Arts, 24 October), I was dismayed by Michael Heath's inclusion of Clifford Brown in his list of...

Sir: In 'The Current Favourite' (28 Novem- ber) it is implied that, in some way, the CEGB was to be blamed for what you describe as the 'humiliating climbdown' by the Government...

Sir: Charles Glass writes (`The hostage market', 5 December) that, in bargaining for the release of French hostages in Beirut, M. Jacques Chirac followed 'the honoured Lebanese...

Sir: In his review of Mr J.I.M. Stewart's autobiography (Books, 7 November), Pro- fessor Peter Levi suggests that Mr Stewart made an 'odd mistake' when he referred to A.H....

Sir: Gavin Stamp's article (`Taking the tube to task', 28 November) echoes the thoughts that many of us have over the deterioration of the Underground. Howev- er I believe the...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY - Save 15% on the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for £ (Equivalent SUS & Eurotheques accepted) RATES 12 Months...

I t is not surprising that Sovietologists have been entranced by this book. Their careers depend on an ability to forage for bits and pieces that might help them put together a...

T here are so few Christmas funnies nowadays that aren't reprints or rip-offs of one kind or another, that someone like Craig Brown who has actually sat down and written an...

Marie-Alice de Beaumarchais A LITLE TOUR IN FRANCE by Henry James Sidgwick & Jackson, £12.95 I t is a pity that this delightful guide is only available when the holiday...

James Teacher THOUGHTS ON HUNTING by Peter Beckford J. A. Allen, £9.95 (Available from The Horseman's Bookshop, 1 Lower Grosvenor Place, London SWI) E arly 18th-century...

Christopher Alhnand HENRY V AS WARLORD by Desmond Seward Sidgwick & Jackson, £15 T he recent 600th anniversary (in September) of one of England's most famous kings passed...

I t would no doubt be extremely useful for the human to be able to grow a new arm, if one were inadvertently cut off, or grow a complete person from an arm stuck in the ground,...

and J. L. Carr

Arnold Goodman THE LIFE OF HENRY MOORE by Roger Berthoud Faber, £14.95 H enry Moore was not kind to biog- raphers. Outside his artistic career and the manifestations of genius,...

Liliana Brisby CROWN OF THORNS: THE REIGN OF KING BORIS III OF BULGARIA 1918-1943 by Stephane Groueff Madison Books, £19.50 A n older generation of English read- ers may dimly...

In the bottom shed, a Guerlain bottle of rare Capacity, still briefly perfumed, across Evaporating decades, and a low chair Crippled with nursing, solaced in swaddling moss,...

A season which was meant to cele- brate LCDT's 21st anniversary turned out to be more of a knell for a company heading for the rocks. Towards the end of the third and final week...

Twelfth Night (Riverside Studios) In festive spirit Christopher Edwards T oo much has been made of the sup- posed bitterness of Shakespeare's Arcadia. For instance, to Auden,...

Edward Burra (Lefevre, till 18 December) James Cowie (Bourne Fine Art, till 18 December) Eric Robertson (Piccadilly Gallery, till 24 December) Putting on the style Giles Auty...

Recording perfection Peter Phillips I n the second of his six Reith Lectures, currently being broadcast on Radio 4, Alexander Goehr gave a description of some of the motives...

Cry Freedom (`PG', Empire Leicester Square) Magnificent clichés Hilary Mantel Y ou could take issue, first of all, with the title of the latest effort from the epic...

How to say no Wendy Cope I t so happens that the subject of pensions is one of my current obsessions. It came on about a month ago and with any luck it will fade away soon,...

Plant early for Christmas Ursula Buchan P reparations for Christmas do not begin nearly early enough. It is true, women's magazines are filled in November with breathless...

Behind the throne Taki s is often the case, I remember the smallest detail of that day 41 years ago as if it were yesterday. It was a beautiful spring morning, and my father...

Where next? Jeffrey Bernard I 'd like to be able to say that it's good to be home again. It isn't. I miss the servants terribly. Instead of the smiling black faces of the...

Ruined castle Alice Thomas Ellis I 'm writing this on the train — 15 minutes late. The one down was late too. Object on the line. Someone tells me that the word is used here...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

A Seville fter a series of draws here I take the opportunity to round off my report of Tilburg. Apart from the outstanding suc- cess of Jan Timman it is worth drawing attention...

Theme hotel Jaspistos I N Competition No. 1501 you were asked for an extract from the brochure of a hotel 'with an unusual theme as its attrac- tion'. . The oddest hotel I...

Anna's Place and Garbo's ONE of the drawbacks of writing a res- taurant column (and there are more than is commonly supposed) is that people are forever telling me which...

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves. . .'. You are invited to add your own three or four stanzas to Carroll's famous opening one. No Jabberwocks please, and there's no need to...

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some got cracking in August: a short paragraph asking if we're a little tired of the same old menus and offering the answer — why not try game for a change. Then we are treated...