Mr Callaghan's contribution It is Unquestionably fortunate for Mrs Thatcher and her Conservative administration, and probably also for the Country, that Her Majesty's...

Political commentary What the window-cleaner saw Ferdinand Mount Blackpool The little makeshift screen shows a cartoon of a grumpy harridan saying 'Well, if I get my natural...

Notebook In a promotional pamphlet published earlier this year, Mr Timothy West declared: The Old Vie is London's best-loved theatre, Wlith a time-honoured policy of offering...

Another voice Lessons from Poland Auberon Waugh The point is well made, and if I were a man of the Left - which by some fluke of hereditN, or other happy accident I do not...

Victim of Ramadan Shiva Naipaul Trhe idea was simple enough and, on the face of it, harmless: to spend a few days in Fez and write a short piece about it. Idly, I Set off for...

The communist quandary Sam White Paris Recently I wrote in these columns about the problems that the French Communist Party was having trying to live w ith its past. These....

Evading the nuclear issue Andrew Brown NUclear power is a perfect issue for modern demlocratic politics, offering a kernel of !ncomprehensibility thickly wrapped in Ignorance...

Three days in Greenland Peter Ackroyd Nvarssarssuaq Firsi das The first sight of Greenland, from the air. is of a vast and ancient wedding-cake; as though the sea had turned...

The death of King Cotton Richard West A 1(lallcht's!C Thc closure last Nkcck of a further eight textile mills has brought close to extinction the once mright' domain of King...

The decline of fashion Mary Kenny Whcn I %cunt to church last SundLay, I noticcd that I was practically thc only woman thrrc w\ho was wxcaring a hat. Thc church wias a lar-gC....

The Jerusalem question Sir: An ancient tradition describes Jerusalem as the centre of the earth. There is a stone set in the middle of the floor of the nave of the Catholicon...

Interpreting history Sir: In slating Patrick Marnham for criticising Zionists, Messrs Henriques and Gewirtz (3() August) raise the bogey of Holocaust 'revisionism'. It should...

Letters No pampered hedonism Sir: I regret that Peter Paterson did not check his facts before accusing The Times reporters who covered the TUC conference of pampered hedonism....

Wrong town Sir: Richard West is wrong when he writes (3( August) that Felixstowe was a port in the Middle Ages. There were dozens of fllediaeval ports on the East Anglian...

A question of hubris Sir: I've no doubt this will bore those of your readers that it does not mystify, but Mr Hastings might be interested to know that at I 1.00 am on 1 8...

Autumn books I Adrift in the sea of politics Alan Watkins The Meaning of Conservatism Roaer Scruton (Macmillan £12 Penguin £1 .95) Mr Scruton is a brave and, up to a...

Diagnostician or accusor? Thomas Szasz Freud: The Man and the Cause Ronald W. Clark (Cape and Weidenfeld £9.95) On the wall of Freud's study hung an engraving of Pierre...

Devilment Nicolas Walter The Satanic Cult Gerhard Zacharias (Allen & U nwi n £1 0.95) Religion concerns cvil just as much as it not more than good. It exprcsscs on one side...

The Russells Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd Woburn and the Russells Georgiana Blakiston (Constable £9.95) Walking up St James's during the latest hiatus in the publication of...

Highlanders Fitzroy Maclean A Highland History The Earl of Cromarlie (The Gavin Press £l 2.50) The Making of the Scottish Countryside Ed. M. L. Parry and T. R. Slater...

Reductionist Geoffrey Marshall Punishment, Danger and Stigma: The Morality of Criminal Justice Nigel Walker (Blackwell £9.95) Professor Nigel Walker is a man familiar with...

Big shots Francis King The Shooting Party Isabel Colegate (Hamish Hamilton £5.95) We live in an age when, on the Twelfth, peopie compete to be the first to get a grouse on...

Pas de Deux Olivier Beer (Gollancz £5.95) The Birds of the Air Alice Thomas Ellis (Duckworth £6.95) Proud Lady in a Cage Fred Urquhart (Paul Harris £5.95) Events Beyond...

Art Pastiches John McEwen A most revealing juxtaposition of exhibitions can be seen in London at the moment: a retrospective of the work of Roland Penrose at the Institute of...

Arts Shakespearian tragedy Peter Jenkins Macbeth (Old Vic) Taking Steps (Lyric) Wielopole Wielopoie (Riverside Studios) O'Toole's Macbeth looks like being the riOSt...

Cinema Three people Peter Ackroyd Heart Beat ('X' Gate Two, Russell Square) Heart Beal is, ostensibly, the story of Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and the woman who moved...

Cricket Looking back Alan Gibson I suppose that if, at the beginning of the season, English cricketers had been asked if we would settle for losing the rubber against the...

Television Grinding Richard Ingrams When one hears a politician strenuously arguing that people should concentrate on the issues' and suppress their regrettable fascination...

Postscript Spotted Patrick Marnham Sympathy is in order for Mr William" Traugh, who may well be the most bemused man of the year, and who is the director of refugee...

High life The Greatest Taki Salonika If he were alive today 99.99 per cent of the world's ills Nould not exist, and his face would be regularly on the cover of Time...