No jam for steel Mrs Thatcher was remarkably chirpy about the steel strike on Sunday, under the impression that sensible men would soon reach a settlement. But there was no...

Political commentary Strikescape with figures Ferdinand Mount The big men in donkey jackets warming their hands round the brazier, the lorrydriver leaning out of his cab to...

Notebook We think our police are wonderful. But they would be even nicer if more people emerged alive from their custody. James Kelly's death in a Liverpool police cell last...

Another voice Gold and democracy Auberon Waugh For five years I have been waiting for the world to come to its.senses. Now, as I count my krugerrands and Maria Theresa...

- India's taste for tyranny Nirad C. Chaudhuri What the outside world should ponder over in connection with the phenomenon that has amazed it, is not what would result from...

Mrs Thatcher's bitter pill Xan Smiley Salisbury The ban on reading Sithole's obscurer scribblings was lifted just last week -nearly two years after his 'internal settlement'...

Whom is Carter hurting? Nicholas von Hoffman Washington We cannot sell the Russians computers but we can play games with them in Moscow next summer, if they behave themselves...

Boycotting the Olympics Roger Boyes and Simon Freeman The West always found it difficult to respond coherently to Soviet barbarities. But now, for the first time, it has the...

A civilised man? Tim Garton Ash Heidelberg The elderly gentleman who receives you so courteously has the manner of a retired professor, one among many who live in Heidelberg....

Apocalypse Then Richard West Our critic, Peter Ackroyd, has already assessed the artistic worth of Apocalypse Now and our Far East correspondent, Murray Sayle, has assessed...

Cold comfort for the Scottish Tories Allan Massie Edinburgh Scottish politics are in winter quarters. The excitement of five years ago has drained away; we no longer play...

Mr Murray's takeover Peter Paterson It is not at all clear from the newspapers - or from the result - that Sir Charles Villiers (or Mr Pastry, as the unions call him) was...

Gold standards Tim Congdon The latest insane pursuit of useless lumps of metal has brought on feelings of nostalgia. Last week the gold price touched $6.30 an ounce. As the...

Understanding the Persians Sir: I have just read your re-run of Harold Nicolson's perceptive and poetic article 'Understanding the Persians' (22-29 December). How shrewd of you...

Letters Who's who? Sir: It was with dismay that I read in the Christmas issue of the Spectator of Mr Lucian Freud's opinion that I bear a strong physical resemblance to his...

Senators, Rangers and Twins Sir: Much as I enjoyed the Spectator's Christmas Quiz (how nice to be reminded of 'inside home', so infrequently used these days) I must regretfully...

Furtwangler's morality Sir: In journalism, alas, anything goes: on his couch in front of the television set, the critic associates freely, yet printably. I was happy to be able...

Selina Cooper Sir: I am writing a biography of the suffragist Selina Cooper, to be published by Virago, and would be grateful to hear from any reader with information about...

Books Inadequacies and trivia Christopher Booker Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (Third Edition) (Oxford £12.50) The need for a massive revision of the Oxford Dictionary of...

An art? Hans Keller The Art of Psychotherapy Anthony Storr (Secker/Heinemann Medical £7.95, £3.95) Much heart and brain has gone into Anthony Storr's latest, rich collection...

Beulah land Kenneth 0. Morgan The Search for Beulah Land Gwyn A. Williams (Croom Helm £8.95) Emigration is evocative of much emotion in Wales. Each year, the national...

Egocentrics Benny Green London Yankees Stanley Weintraub (W.H. Allen £7.95). In justification of his own exhaustive text Weintraub writes, at the end of his long journey...

January SF Alex de Jonge In her introduction to Shikasta (Cape £5.95) Doris Lessing makes a claim for the possibilities of science fiction with its imaginative and mythopeic...

All that . . m Paul Ableman Jazz Patrick Skene Catging (Muller/Blond & Briggs £6.95) As someone who would be reluctant to exchange Mozart's 'Synfonia Concertante' for all...

Theatre Much ado about everything Peter Jenkins Heroes (New End) Much Ado About Nothing (RSC, Warehouse) When We Are Married (Lyttieton) You would have to hurry to catch...

Opera Semi-precious Rodney Milnes La Traviata (Covent Garden) The Pig Organ (Round House) The Merry Widow (Leeds) There must be something wrong with an international...

Cinema Mother's boy Peter Ackroyd La Luna CX') Time After Time ('AA') The opera looked enchanting. from a distance. Cascades of water splashed around the diva as she...

High life Marxist Taki Gstaad They started popping Valium early in this picturesque, if somehow deodorised, alpine hide-away of the rich, as early as last weekend. The...

Television Collectors Richard Ingrams I find more and more nowadays that I am distracted while watching TV by things in the background and props. On Sunday morning for...

Low life Cold comfort Jeffrey Bernard There's a damp, still greyness in the country in January which, combined with the cold, makes me bury my head for half the day in the...

Postscript Ripponese John McEwen It was pleasing to read a joky paragraph in one of last Sunday's papers taking Angela Rippon to task for her excruciating attempts on the...