'I say, isn't that Salman Rushdie?' A blizzard halted traffic in much of central and northern Britain, leaving more than 1,000 motorists stranded in cars on blocked Motorways,...

56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex: 27124; Fax: 071-242 0603 BRITTAN'S SOVEREIGNTY To our first three questions, about the nature of sovereignty...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY — Save 18% on the Cover Price! RATES 12 Months 6 Months UK 0 £66.00 0 £33.00 Europe (airmail) CI £77.00 0 £38.50 USA Airspeed 0 US $99 0 $49.50 Rest of Airmail...

The Hurd instinct to follow the ascent of European man NOEL MALCOLM It would be a mistake for anyone to suppose that, because the leader of the Government has changed, the...

ALLAN MASSIE P oland and freedom owe much to Lech Walesa. Historians may well date the crumbling of the communist empire from the establishment, and triumphant surviv- al, of...

Blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout AUBERON WAUGH I read about the recent cold snap sitting in the warm sunshine of the Tamar riviera in Cornwall on Sunday morning....

Murray Sayle on the tree frogs in space, their Japanese sponsor, and what this all means for international economic rivalry Tokyo WAS IT a bird? Was it a plane? No, it was...

John Simpson on the dangers and benefits of talking to Iraq LEAVING for difficult assignments is always a melancholy business: the shock of the early alarm call, the hasty,...

Michael Heath

Leon Britton likens the sovereignty of the United Kingdom to mediaeval astronomy WHEN Dominic Lawson asked whether I would submit to an interview, I was cau- tious. A...

A GREAT meeting was held in the Guildhall on Wednesday to express sympathy with Jews under the renewed persecution of their race in Russia. The meeting had the approval of a...

Richard Body is optimistic that the Prime Minister might end the pernicious system of protectionism WHEN John Major came to the Queen Elizabeth Conference Hall for what some...

over £30 on The Spectator If you're forced to share The Spectator with fellow students, then you'll know how difficult it can be to track a copy down. Now you can save yourself...

Sandra Barwick on a new variant of public-school violence ON THE playing fields of Marlborough an episode of bullying recently took place. It was a serious incident. If it had...

JUDGE Tumim, I read in the newspap- ers, has discovered that the Prison Medic- al Service does not, on the whole, employ the cream of the medical profession. I could have told...

Sousa Jamba attacks Western leftists who give comfort to Third World oppressors DURING the promotion of my novel, Patriots, I was a guest of the BBC's Start the Week...

The media: Paul Johnson on the disadvantages which face public women IN A BID to increase its female read- ership, the Independent has been asking Why more women are not...

FOR a touching evocation of the European spirit, I commend Grants from Europe: How to get money and influence policy. Published at 0.95 (but you might get a grant) by the...

I BLOW a kiss to Sarah Hogg in Downing Street — but what I find instructive are the appointments that John Major might have made instead, and didn't. A tremendous swirling and...

The dogs bark and the caravans move in it's humbug time in Rome CHRISTOPHER FILDES B ah! Humbug! A fine display of sea- sonal sanctimony and hypocrisy is on view this week at...

JOHN Wakeham's great electric bran tub is ending in self-parody. Everybody gets a prize, almost everybody gets the same prize, an instant gain which can be turned into cash —...

THE feeling of Alan Bond's collar prompts a City friend of mine to promulgate Bond's Law: Never invest on a west coast. In Western Australia, all the cronies who seemed to have...

Sir: I suppose any grumbles about the extraordinary assertion of Jeffrey Klinke of the Daily Mail should properly be directed at John Murray (Advertisement). Still, you took the...

Sir: Whether Auberon Waugh enjoys 'a taste of poverty' (Letters, 1 December) or not, would you please encourage him to resume weekly instead of fortnightly con- tributions to...

Sir: There is only one thing I don't under- stand about the 'European issue'. Why are so many expensively educated and even intelligent people willing to put their com- plete...

Sir: I am at a loss to help Allan Massie, who has been dreaming (Diary, 8 Decem- ber) of obituaries in the Independent. In the four years since the newspaper began publishing,...

Sir: Tim Congdon (Ecunomical with the truth', 1 December) is mistaken when he writes, 'Paper money. . . depends on legal backing for it to have any value.' Bank of England...

Sir: I have just received a testy letter from an organisation calling itself the 'National Television Licence Records Office' (NTLRO) telling me to register with them as a...

Sir: Your editorial of 1 December, 'Un- finished business', went a little way to assuage my foreboding of the last few weeks. For many, the initial shock and horror of Mrs...

day earlier)) INext week's Christmas Doubles ?Issue will be on sale a day earlier)) than usual, and will cost £2.50 ilaftamsomaavanamagetayeagastmessiona k

The southern belle who told James Buchan FANNY KEMBLE: THE AMERICAN JOURNALS edited by Elizabeth Mayor Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 115, pp.216 R oute 17 runs down from Savannah...

Antony Lambton DAVID CECIL BEST FRIENDS H annah Cranborne set herself a diffi- cult task when she decided to collect memories of friends of her great uncle by marriage, the...

P. J. Kavanagh EDMUND BLUNDEN by Barry Webb Yale, £18.50, pp. 360 A rtists need not be rebels; think of T. S. Eliot, sombre in his bank, Emily Dickinson, prim in her bedroom....

Artemi.s bathing and he spied upon her. To punish him she turned him into a stag and he was torn to pieces by his own hounds. Afterwards we came upon the letters — About a...

Christopher Hawtree RED LETTER DAYS by Andrew Croft Lawrence &Wishart, £19.95, pp. 352 ubtitled 'British fiction in the 1930s', this is a study of some novels published in...

All my plans for suicide are ridiculous: I can never remember the heart's location. Too cheap to smash the car, too queasy to slash a wrist — once jumped off a bridge, almost...

Richard Ingrams T he task of reviewing the funny books at Christmas becomes yearly more onerous and depressing. Television radio scripts, re-heated newspaper columns,...

William Jo11 KEITH VAUGHAN by Malcolm Yorke Constable, £25, pp.288 T his being England, there would be little point in asking the man on the Clapham omnibus what he thought of...

Jonathan Cecil BEATRICE LILLIE: THE FUNNIEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD by Bruce Laffey Robson Books, £16.95, pp.296 A small chic lady stands by a grand piano. Peering demurely over a...

William Scammell BERTOLT BRECHT: LETTERS 1913-1956 translated by Ralph Manheim, edited by John Willett Methuen, .00, pp.720 BERTOLT BRECHT: POEMS AND SONGS FROM THE PLAYS...

Gregory Martin PETER SAENREDAM: THE PAINTER AND HIS TIME by Gary Schwartz and Marten Jan Bok Thames & Hudson, £38, pp.356 I n the late 1930s, on the basis of an analysis of a...

Juliet Townsend A few years ago my mother sent a box of books to the local hospital, only to have them rejected on the grounds that 'people nowadays only like paperbacks'. At...

Museums Melancholy victory h e moment you walk into the National Museum of Modern Art in Munich, you realise that something doesn't fit. It is mostly a matter of proportions:...

Emil Torday and the Art of the Congo 1900-1909 (Museum of Mankind, till November 1992) Art of Africa Giles Auty T hose who bemoan, occasionally, the absence of exhibitions...

Three Sisters (Queen's) Time and the Conways (Old Vic) Relative values Christopher Edwards A s a marketing device, the casting of members of the Redgrave clan in the roles of...

Time of the Gypsies ('15', Chelsea Cinema, Camden Plaza) A dash of poetry Mark Amory A fat, ugly bride is crying because the groom is so drunk that he has to be carried...

The Royal Ballet (Covent Garden) Balanchine act Deirdre McMahon A month ago the Birmingham Royal Ballet staged the company premiere of Balanchine's Symphony in Three Move-...

Ordeal by camera Peter Phillips B arring what we in England call force majeure, in this case some overriding poli- tical event, a programme about music on another channel at...

The gift of a garden Ursula Buchan W e are as likely as our children to confuse want with need. For, 'I need a Lego Pirate Ship with matching Desert Island,' read, 'I need a...

Tuneless wonder Martyn Harris W hen I was a teenager my father always sat drumming his fingers through Bob Dylan documentaries and Beatles biopics. Why didn't they sing proper...

Aga saga Taki Athens Aga Khan's fight with the Jockey Club is that he's always been an extremely sore loser. For example: 32 years ago, when he was already Aga but finishing...

A crying shame Jeffrey Bernard O n Tuesday evening there was a terri- ble noise of sobbing from the basement flat. At first I thought that it must be the result of a lover's...

Bible belt-up Zenga Longmore W henever I hear the word 'Jubila- tion! spring from Olumba's lips early on a Sunday morning, it can mean only one thing. Uncle Bisi is on his...

COMPETITION e vaVAS 12 YEAR OLD SCOTCH WHISKY Re sv Pansy Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1655 you were in- vited to write a modern ' Pansy ' , following D. H. Lawrence ' s...

Tit for tat Raymond Keene T he championship match has suddenly entered a most exciting phase after what appeared to be very much a phoney war from games 8 to 15. Last week I...

- EITE.CHAMAIEL E03HIV VAEGUSODLP A NOOR A AV1 7 1 3 rRtK INK'bENIC 11 0 0 IL E 719 I OUrS1 LI K y ft L IORA 2 eR 2 V EN A I L L E E CER T AI AIN A TI El R !ILI 0 0741 , 1' I...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers English Dictionary — ring the word 'Dictionary') for the first three correct solutions...

You all know those super-intelligent quiz- zes that are set in organs such as The Spectator over Christmas. You are invited to provide a parody of them in the form of various...

The grim umpire Frank Keating JOHN Currie died in a train as it ploughed through Saturday's blizzards in the Mid- lands. He was half of English rugby union's most enduring and...