D Lana, Princess of Wales was buried on an island in the park at Althorp, not in the Spencer family chapel of the parish church nearby. The day before her funeral the Queen made...

0171-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 0171-242 0603 THE MISSING VOICE I t has been a sad week for that ancient institution. Bemused by the modern world, outpaced in an age of mass...

Mercedes Benz advertising in last week's issue was due to printing circum- stances beyond both our control and that of Mercedes Benz.

Many people feel that they no longer understand their countrymen BRUCE ANDERSON T he appearance of near-unanimity among the media has been deceptive. In its assessment of the...

PETRONELLA WYATT T he last time I saw Diana, Princess of Wales was in the early summer. I had just written an article for the Daily Telegraph on the advantages of remaining...

Tony Blair may be monarchist, but Blairism is not. Derek Draper explains THE FABIANS are not used to rebellions, but that is what happened last Friday. Deep in the Oxfordshire...

But Nicholas Farrell says that, amid those rumours, vital details emerge, and the Al Fayed version unravels Paris. HER BODY buried, the time has come for recrimination and...

I'VE found two bits of evidence recently of how much fun life could be for chil- dren in a Victorian family — quite unlike the dark mahogany and mutton fat atmosphere that...

Rory Knight Bruce talks to those still grieving outside Kensington Palace THE FLOWERS are talking, and they are whispering for reform. On Thursday, the bouquets laid for...

EMERGING from Saturday's historic fes- tival of the emotions inside Westminster Abbey, I had two encounters which remain as embedded in the mind as `that service'. First was the...

I HAD been a schoolteacher for seven years before I took up my first job in a uni- versity, at Cambridge in 1974. I was direct- ing a project sponsored by the Joint Association...

. . . in New Labour, that is. SUM Simon points out the Blairites' hitherto unnoticed Zionism Then they said to him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could...

Tristan Garel-Jones marks the anniversary of a great bullfighter's death with a plea for the ritual a nation reveres FIFTY years ago Manuel Rodriguez `Manolete', perhaps the...

Elisabeth Anderson, editor of the pages containing 'Low life', talks with Jeffrey Bernard the day before his death IT WAS Michael Heath, The Spectator's cartoon editor, who...

Some years ago, Taki and Jeffrey Bernard each wrote the other's obituary. Now it is time for one of them to appear IN REAL life Jeffrey Bernard was much the same as he was in...

The late Elizabeth Smart wrote this poem to mark Jeffrey Bernard's 50th birthday. It first appeared in The Spectator in 1986 My Dear Jeff, I can't say enough how much I admire...

Enjoying the delectable mountains from the shores of Lake Como PAUL JOHNSON T he phrase 'delectable mountains' makes me think of those around Lake Como. I have been painting...

ECONOMISTS talk about discretionary spending: parting with money when you want to and not when you have to. This boom is notably heavy on spending and light on discretion. Most...

TRANSLATE into French: 'So sorry to hear about your fire last week, old boy.' `Psst, you fool — it's next week.' This exer- cise for underwriters (`Je suis &sole, mon vieux...

I HOPE that the Commonwealth's finance ministers will observe a moment's silence in honour of the late Mobutu Sese Soko of Zaire. Their annual boondoggle convenes in Mauritius...

I HAVE a tip for the Monetary Policy Committee: the chap with the right idea about inflation was King Henry I. In his reign the price of corn rose sharply because, as the...

It's a boom, it's the Gastrodome Factor in action the British economy is overeating CHRISTOPHER FILDES I have been vouchsafed a new insight into the British economy. It's...

ANY arrangement that does not favour Scotland, said the Scotsman, will be per- ceived as unfair. On this principle the Trea- sury arranges to raise money in England and spend it...

forced to jump through a hoop in order to satisfy the public's self- righteous demand for some sort of atone- ment for Diana's death. The institution of monarchy — based on a...

brilliant and wonder- fully sane: from the leader and Trevor McDonald's Diary (excellent man) through to Taki (High life) and Leanda de Lisle (Country life) the writing, not...

Sir: I am disappointed in you. I have been a loyal reader and subscriber for many years. The Spectator always prompts great discus- sion in our household, and frequently chal-...

for Mr Roberts's article (`The Princess and the Royal Stan- dard', 6 September). After days of a crescendo of mass hysteria, in which people have given vent to the most...

Glover (Media studies, 6 September) attributes powers to him that I would never claim if he thinks Mr Al Fayed is capable of making any two people devel- op an affection for one...

the royal family on their `concession' to the nebulous villain of 'PR values'. Public relations does not impose a value per se: it is, according to the Institute of Public...

Sir: A puzzle that I have never seen or heard addressed is this: did the French or British really have no inkling of the Schlief- fen Plan? The Plan was devised when Alfred von...

Sir: I have acted for Captain Kojo Tsikata for about four years in his litigation with the Independent. Since the publication in LETTERS the Mail on Sunday of 24 August of...

Sir: Peter Duffell's letter of 6 September quotes T.S. Eliot's 'Somebody said, "The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did. . . . " I have...

Sir: Much has been said of the late Princess of Wales's modem approach to the monar- chy. In some respects, however, she appeared to put the clock back by her refusal to accept...

Sir: Lord Wyatt's interesting article (Even his fasts were a fraud', 9 August) reminded me of conversations we had about Gandhi while Lord Wyatt and I were both fellow guests at...

feeling of dejd vu. Finally another week of mourning came back to me: namely that which took place in the Soviet Union in March 1953 after the death of Joseph Stalin, when a...

Sir: Richard Ingrams (Letters, 6 Septem- ber) and I differ in that I grew up in that tradition of journalism where the writer is expected to check his facts, even to the extent...

competitions to call upon readers to provide details of the conversation which must have ensued last Friday when Jeffrey Bernard and Mother Teresa both arrived at the Pearly...

it is not possible for The Spectator to arrange for Jeff to start a new column, 'After life'. Ian Jordan 3 Terrapins, Lovelace Road, Surbiton, Surrey

Sir: I feel I must write to express my great sadness at hearing the news of the death of Jeffrey Bernard. He will be much missed, not only by me, but I imagine by thousands of...

Lord Rothermere bans the paparazzi it costs him commercially unless STEPHEN GLOVER H ave the tabloids changed? Have they been shamed by Lord Spencer and public opinion? It...

Shopping for gods Raymond Carr THE CONVERSION OF EUROPE by Richard Fletcher HarperCollins, £25, pp.550 cp rofessional historians today', Richard Fletcher writes, 'are...

Anita Brookner WOMEN WITH MEN by Richard Ford Harvill, f14.99, pp. 255 R ichard Ford's heroes, markedly _unheroic, live through a series of glum but sweet-natured intentions,...

Penelope Lively ME, THE MOON AND ELVIS PRESLEY by Christopher Hope Macmillan, £15.99, pp. 263 C hristopher Hope is a master of robustly inventive black satire. This has been...

John Jolliffe MUSSOLINI AND THE BRITISH by Richard Lamb John Murray, £25, pp. 340 T his book analyses, with a mass of detailed evidence, the dreadful misjudg- ment of...

Bevis Hillier JOYCE AND GINNIE: THE LETTERS OF JOYCE GRENFELL AND VIRGINIA GRAHAM edited by Janie Hampton Hodder & Stoughton, £20, pp. 513 I n several of these letters, Joyce...

Michael Scott LUCIANO PAVAROTTI: THE MYTH OF THE TENOR by Jurgen Kesting Robson Books, £16.95, pp. 246 J urgen Kesting claims that this is a study of Pavarotti's fame, 'an...

Michael Carlson BEATNIKS by Toby Litt Secker & Warburg, £9.99, pp. 325 J ack and Neal aren't really the Jack and Neal. They're pathetic wannabe hipsters in Bedford, who hook up...

Anthony Curtis M ortmere was a private literary fanta- sy invented by Edward Upward and Christopher Isherwood when they were Cambridge undergraduates. It went public in 1938 in...

Margaret Forster ONE THOUSAND CHESTNUT TREES by Mira Stout Flamingo, £16.99, pp. 324 T his novel is a history lesson. It is a his- tory lesson of the best kind, lucid and con-...

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Paul Ferris AUTOBIOGRAPHIES by R. S. Thomas, translated and edited by Jason Walford Davies Dent, £20, pp. 192 T he poems that first made people out- side Wales notice R. S....

Petronella Wyatt MY AFFAIR WITH STALIN by Simon Sebag Montefiore Weidenfeld, £16.99, pp. 240 W illiam Conroy is an adolescent attending a snobbish prep school called Coverdale....

Fiction: Asylum by Patrick McGrath, Penguin, £6.99 Milton in America by Peter Ackroyd, Vintage, £6.99 Double Take by Eleanor Bron, Phoenix, £5.99 Fairy Tale by Alice Thomas...

Ring the changes at Bayreuth Is there any longer justification for the Festival's existence? Michael Tanner investigates T he Bayreuth Festival is in crisis, and in more ways...

Heartbreak House (Almeida) Chips with Everything (National Theatre) Look back in anger Sheridan Morley A Britain starts to stumble back to life from a collective,...

Under scrutiny Peter Phillips A the risk of being lynched I thought it might be of interest to list the number of tributes which the Proms alone have paid to Diana, Princess...

Alan Powers believes more questions need to be asked about the South Bank's future T he question 'What's to be done with the South Bank?', meaning the small but important parcel...

A high price to pay Michael Tanner T he first Proms performance of Han- del's final oratorio Jephtha struck me as oddly muted, both in the Albert Hall and when I listened to...

Air Force One (15, selected cinemas) Remember your morals Mark Steyn W hat is it we want in a head of state? It's something Her Majesty's subjects have been asking in the...

Life goes on Simon Hoggart T he most startling image of the funeral was the sight of the Queen Mother, walk- ing smartly down the aisle of Westminster Abbey supported only by...

The private and public persona Michael Vestey W e are not amused,' is said to have been Queen Victoria's most famous phrase, but it seems, like many other such sayings, or...

Genius for ceremony Gavin Stamp And in those two months, an extraordi- nary 'funeral car' was designed and built. Prince Albert did not think much of what William Banting, the...

Enthusiasts and Socials Robin Oakley I am lucky enough to have a job which never, ever bores. Lacking one or other of the vital qualifications for being an Eng- land wing...

A brave man Taki bummer of a week. A bummer of a year, in fact. First Jimmy Goldsmith, then the Princess of Wales and finally Mother Teresa. If this isn't the end of an era, I...

Fishy business Leanda de Lisle I 'd been told that an enormous pike lived in our lake, but I'd never believed it — not even when someone claimed to have caught it and thrown...

Timing Andrew Robson 'He who hesitates is lost' is such an appro- priate maxim at the bridge table. Cameron Small read the cards beautifully on this week's hand, taken from...

DESPITE the baking heat this has been a marvellous summer for the gastronome to spend in France, for, with very nearly ten francs to the pound, meals in the French countryside...

Misappointed man Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1999 you were invited to supply an extract from the diary of a misappointed man — one suffering in a job which is utterly...

IN-THE-STRAND CHESS SIMPSON'S IN-THE-STRAND Ozymandias Raymond Keene THERE WAS a time when any loss by Karpov was news, while a win by a British player against him would...

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The theme restaurant is an upsetting new trend. You are invited to adopt the persona of a restaurant critic and describe a visit to an imaginary and especially unappealing one....

1328: Variations by Dumpynose A first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 1991 Port for the first correct solution opened on 29 September, with two...

The rules of life Simon Barnes THE playground is supposed to be the hardest part of a child's progress towards adulthood. But even that fraught and unforgiving arena has its...

Q. I am a so-called fashionable gynaecolo- gist working in central London. My wife and I have an active social life and, in the past, I always used to enjoy our round of drinks...