DIARY 2000 £15 Plain £16 Initialled The Spectator 2000 Diary, bound in soft red goatskin leather, is now available. Laid out with a whole week to view, Monday to Sunday, the...

r Charles Kennedy was elected lead- er of the Liberal Democrats after a compli- cated vote in which he finally got 56.6 per cent against 43A per cent for Mr Simon Hughes, who is...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 0171-405 1706; Fax 0171-242 0603 DARKNESS VISIBLE Yes, this was just three spheres which happened to be...

T he annual English pilgrimage to Scotland has imbued unlikely places with romance for a century and a half. Framed in our loo is a characteristic piece of dog- gerel, written...

John Major tried to persuade the lunatics not to pull down the asylum but he failed BRUCE ANDERSON N o prime minister was ever treated so shabbily by his own party. For most...

Duke shoots cowboy, hits Indian FRANK JOHNSON F or once, a Buckingham Palace spokesman's explanation was plausible. According to the Times, 'A senior royal source later...

Alan Cochrane exposes the Scottish parliament's plans for a reign of terror IT IS said that during the height of the boycott of South African goods a posh, middle-class woman...

THERE is an old prison adage: if you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Like most sententious adages, it is excel- lent in theory, but not always put into practice. Quite a...

Charles Moore recalls the idiosyncratic genius of Jennifer Paterson ONE summer afternoon I was sitting in the garden of The Spectator when the sash from the top-floor kitchen...

Julian Manyon fears that the main threat to Russian democracy is now inside the Kremlin Moscow SERGEI Stepashin has the puffy, expres- sionless face of the typical Russian...

Michael Henderson believes that football represents all that is most repugnant about modern Britain FOOTBALL returned to the towns of England last week with a reassuring pre-...

A.A. Gill deplores our national obsession with jokes FOR the benefit of foreign visitors, I'm thinking of compiling a list of commonly used phrases that mean exactly the oppo-...

Michael Heath

Tom Walker explains how Cupid's darts are more lethal than bullets ALAS for the girls of Kosovo, and their inevitable summer of heartache. The British paratroopers are gone...

`ARE you saying,' began my husband in a dangerously cheerful tone, 'that the Encarta dictionary spelled angstrom wrong?' `No, no, I spelled that wrong myself. It's just that...

It's not so easy as the envious suppose to flaunt your riches PAUL JOHNSON T here is a whiff of envy in the air again as continuing prosperity focuses eyes on the antics of...

I fear my old friend Mr Stothard has met a tougher cookie than himself STEPHEN GLOVER I am a little anxious for my old friend Peter Stothard, editor of the Times. I was away...

From Mr Simon Caldwell Sir: James McDonald's letter (7 August) merely confirms that anti-Catholic preju- dice is alive and well. His distorted attack on my article seems to...

From Mr Wynn Wheldon Sir: Some years ago my father, Huw Whel- don, found himself sitting next to a German broadcaster at a large international televi- sion bash in New York. The...

From Sir Ian Fraser Sir: Hugh Thomas's thought-provoking profile of Alexander of Yugoslavia (`King's move', 31 July) brings back other memories of the extraordinary behaviour of...

From Mr David J. Kidd Sir: Re Professor Vincent's letter (7 August) about the Germans' natural ten- dency to atrocity': George Orwell records in his wartime diary for 21...

to Hugh Lawson-Tancred for his generous review (Books, 31 July) of Almost Like a Whale, my attempt to update The Origin of Species. However, I must dis- claim any credit for the...

From Mr Nicholas Lunt Sir: I am a non-executive director of a high- ly successful chain of 'specialist massage' parlours here in Brussels. One of my main non-executive tasks is...

From Mr Christopher Butler Sir: No self-respecting Baltic or Slavic lan- guage would be without its diacritics (Mind your language, 7 August); largely, it seems to me, because...

From Mr Alan Rusbridger Sir: I was surprised to read Stephen Glover's detailed, if inaccurate, account of Martin Walker's resignation from the Guardian (Media studies, 7...

avoid further abuse of timber we would be happy to arrange a duel between your two petits garcons. Considering their affectation of fearless sportsmanship, locomotives from...

AIR ZULU may be repainting its tailplanes in British Airways' colours, but there is an obstinate streak of red in the profit and loss account. It shows up in the figures for the...

I HAD been lunching in France on St Valen- tine's Day when I was hailed by a reader on the platform at Lille station. 'Backward lot, they are here,' he observed. 'Sunday, and...

Searching for clues in the Bank's twilit landscape, I think that our luck's running out CHRISTOPHER FILDES T he eclipse overtook the Bank of Eng- land on Wednesday morning and...

I MAY be an unrepresentative shopper (though an accurate monitor of fishcakes) but, if there is a cosy conspiracy in the High Street, I have missed it. All I can see is...

BANGALORE in India is the world's capi- tal of wiring. Its technicians are in a class of their own and, where accuracy and the command of modern systems count, draw business to...

RUSSIA may not be as bust as it looks, which is good news for the International Monetary Fund, which would otherwise be bust, too. A year ago Russia welshed on its debts,...

An amused student of empire Philip Hensher J. G. FARRELL: THE MAKING OF A WRITER by Lavinia Greacen Bloomsbury, £25, pp. 264 T here is a view of the English novel that claims...

SPECTATOR BOOKSHOP Tel: 0541 557 288

Rory O'Keeffe h ose of us who happily discovered Flight Without End and then impatiently tracked down every other book that Joseph Roth had written, becoming as we thought a...

David Caute PROPERTY AND FREEDOM by Richard Pipes Hamill, £22.50, pp. 352 A remarkable proportion of end-of- century political thought carries a lingering odour of mid-century...

J.G. FARRELL The Making of a Writer by Lavinia Greacen Based on her access to J.G. Farrell's family and friends, as well as his notebooks and personal correspondence, Lavinia...

Robbie Millen MY PHANTOM HUSBAND by Marie Darrieussecq Faber, £9.99, pp. 153 I t has not been a glorious century for the French. The Dreyfus Affair, Verdun, the Fall of Paris,...

Jane Gardam JESUS: AUTHORS TAKE SIDES edited by Richard Ingrams HarperCollins, £16.99, pp. 186 S eated one Easter day at the organ, R ichard Ingrams became convinced of the...

John McEwen GLYN PHILPOT by J. G. P. Delaney Ashgate, £39.95, pp. 179 D elaney's previous biography was of the Edwardian painter, Charles Ricketts. Now he has written one of...

Tony Gould CATCHING COLD by Pete Davies Michael Joseph, £12.99, pp. 320 P te Davies's enthralling book presents the reviewer with a problem. The subtitle is `1918's forgotten...

RATES 12 months (52 issues) 6 months (26 issues) UK 0 597 0 £49 Europe 0 £109 0 £55 USA 0 US$161 0 US$82 Australia 0 Aus$225 0 Aus$113 Rest of World 0 £119 0 £60 Please...

Patrick Skene Catling THE HORIZONTAL INSTRUMENT by Christopher Wilkins Doubleday, £10, pp. 272 T he narrator of this marvellous novel, Robert Garrett, is a mathematical prodigy...

James Gardner THE RETURN OF LITTLE BIG MAN by Thomas Berger Harvill £15.99, £11.99, pp. 320 O n the superhighway of popular cul- ture, you will find no more spectacular...

north- Nicholas Fearn LOSING NELSON by Barry Unsworth Hamish Hamilton, £15.99, pp. 320 I n fiction as in life, the insane can make tedious companions. Yet the story of a...

Thomas Karshan A FRIEND LIKE HARVEY by Teresa Waugh Gollancz, £16.99, pp. 223 Everyone has their Harvey — a person whose charm lies in their hopeless self- mythologisation,...

Cris tina Monet W henever one reads, as one inescapably does these days, of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (voted most significant play of the millennium by the National...

Petipa's Beauty awakes Robert Greskovic on the Kirov Ballet's newly researched Sleeping Beauty E arlier in this decade of surprising occurrences within Russia, the tricolour...

Collage: The Pasted-Paper Revolution (Crane Kalman Gallery, 178 Brompton Road, SW3, till 7 September) Cut and paste Andrew Lambirth C ollage' has other meanings than sticking...

Moving Objects (Royal College of Art, till 19 September) Street culture Stephen Bayley S o, I was standing outside the Royal College of Art in the roar of Kensington traffic...

Boris Godunov; Vintage drama Michael Tanner T he Bolshoi Opera's short visit to Lon- don last week brought one undoubted suc- cess, and one interesting but utterly...

Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell (Old Vic) Easy Virtue (Chichester) Coward revealed Sheridan Morley U nquestionably the triumph of the Coward Centenary thus far, Maria Aitken's...

Wild Wild West (12, selected cinemas) With attitude Mark Steyn W ild Wild West is based on the popular TV show that no one remembers. Holly- wood's run out of big hits to...

Name dropping Ursula Buchan 0 ne of the more unfortunate conse- quences of being a professional gardener, particularly one partly trained in a botani- cal institution, is that...

How embarrassing Simon Hoggart F unny how nobody remembers Ford cars. Minis and Morris Minors all have their devotees who spend hours a week cherishing them. But who ever...

Still angry Michael Vestey M uch of women's history, until recently, has passed almost unnoticed,' said Anna Ford on Radio Four this week. Not on the BBC it hasn't, I thought....

A sorry saga Robin Oakley T he racing world is managing to keep its perspective on sex around the stables, even if the tabloids can't. At a recent Lam- bourn dinner party one...

Graveyard of ambition Gavin Stamp T he trains to Southampton are very fast as massive earthworks keep the line straight and level: all thanks to the great engineer Joseph...

Boo, Boris Taki o, this is how it ends. One telephone call from the new editor and it's all over. Twenty-two years of writing in this space wind up with the following dreaded...

Dignity in death Leanda de Lisle V iolent deaths seemed to punctuate our time in America. The first took place far away, but then, unfortunately, they began to occur closer to...

Size matters Andrew Robson THE FIRST bridge partner of my life was my brother James, who retired from the game at the tender age of 19. But James proved that bridge is like...

Party pieces Raymond Keene FOR many years now The Spectator has sponsored the annual match between the House of Lords and the House of Commons. This year's contest assumed an...

I beg your pardon? Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 2097 you were invited to supply one side of a telephone conversation composed entirely as if with the aid of an English...

A first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham ' s Six Grapes Port for the first correct solution opened on 31 August, with two runners- up prizes of £20 (or, for UK solvers, the...

LOISICIFICIECE 'ca m r gm z 9 . 13 DIEI 13 la Er, MI o Marl El II rinuma rooduijraL E On i. 11 CI El al o El i rillrl o ri ri mud neon Erl 1110111r1111 Ell an 13 14 Unn...

You are invited to supply an imaginary newspaper account of a new and bizarre feat which has won entry in The Guinness Book of Records. Maximum 150 words. Entries to...

Steroid superstars Simon Barnes LAST weekend brought us the finest sprinting performances ever seen on this damp and chilly island: the fastest man and the fastest woman ever...

Dear Mary.. . Q. Another door-opening problem. After exiting from the elevator to my office, one is almost immediately confronted by a large and heavy glass door. When leaving...