M r Kenneth Clarke, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, indicated that public sector workers would not get pay rises if they did not improve productivity. Headline infla- tion fell...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WCIN 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706: Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 MUST DO BETTER E ach September some 200 amiable, middle-aged men...

SIMON HEFFER E arlier this week the Daily Telegraph published a pointless Gallup poll: pointless because there cannot have been a man, woman, child or even domestic pet who...

I n my experience, journalists are far less unkind than the other two professional groups I have known well — dons and cler- gymen. Nevertheless, it is often assumed that...

Kind hearts and baronets CHARLES MOORE A s Auberon Waugh wrote in this space last week, `. . . it is extraordinary what complicated emotions titled people stir in the breasts...

billions the West is giving to Russia are being squandered This morning I paid a visit to Prince X. He is a great nobleman ... and yet he has no bed on which to lie; I mean to...

Matt Frei reports that making peace with Israel is only the start of Yasser Arafat's troubles Tunis WHEN Yasser Arafat, one of the world's leading actor-politicians, appeared...

PRONUNCIATION is a great field for one-upmanship. How do you pronounce gibberish? Evelyn Waugh is the only person I have ever heard say it with a hard g, though that is...

Anatol Lieven says we still do not understand why Armenia is at war with Azerbaijan Stepanakert THE KARABAKH government official, sitting in her shrapnel-pocked office, was...

John Simpson defends the British media against Douglas Hurd's accusations of subjectivity in foreign reporting DOUGLAS HURD is, I suppose, the most successful foreign...

persist.. . I HAVE a patient to whom I give half an hour's appointment every month not because he is ill, but because he would otherwise plague me with his presence every day...

DURING the week, inquests were held on the bodies of two of the men shot by the soldiers in the Featherstone riots. In the case of James Duggan, which was inquired into at...

Alasdair Palmer on the ease with which you can acquire your own heavy armaments 'YEAH, I CAN get you a bazooka: a rock- et launcher would be more difficult, but not...

The Queen, Mr Keating and the case of the fraudulent historian PAUL JOHNSON I f the Queen wants to needle Paul Keat- ing, the uppity Australian Prime Minister who is her...

I ALWAYS expected to see Stephen Mer- rett as Chairman of Lloyd's, and I dare say he did too. His father was a hero of Lloyd's, and he himself led the market and stood on his...

THE CITY of London has pitched for Europe's central bank in rather the same way that the City of Manchester has pitched for the Olympics. The campaign has been a good...

THIS WEEK'S candidate for the Told- You-So Club is Robin Angus of County NatWest (or, as he and I might prefer to call it, Wood Mackenzie.) 'The rate chosen for sterling's entry...

One year on, we still have a policy that fits like a bell-tent CHRISTOPHER FILDES T his time last year we had an economic policy. In fact, we had two, both wrong, with the...

KENNETH CLARICE has to start some- where, but the cash freeze he proposes for public sector pay is a ragged start at best. This Government works on the over-simple notion that...

THE DAY when the old policy collapsed was at once terrifying and crazy. A friend of mine knew the jig was up when he saw a high official of the Bank of England, beck- oned by...

Sir: Max Hastings is correct to draw atten- tion to the profligate manner in which the RSPCA spends money given to them for worthier purposes (Diary, 7 August). A short while...

Sir: Catching up, on my return from holi- day, on the back issues of The Spectator, I read with interest Simon Heffer's article on David Hunt (Politics, 14 August). I can tes-...

Sir: From observation from 8,000 miles away, I think that Roderick Smart is doing a good job (`Cutting the old school tie', 21 August). My impression is that the Oxford and...

Sir: Martin Vander Weyer (`The indignity of elder statesmanship', 11 September) claims it is 'no secret' the Sunday Times sent back the first draft of Margaret Thatcher's...

Sir: In common with other UK subscribers on this side of the Atlantic, I hugely enjoy reading Mr Waugh's eccentric and, one has always assumed, largely fictitious accounts of...

Sir: What a susceptible man poor A. N. Wilson must be. I am sure that no knight's widow wants him to be in pain — actually wincing, in fact — when he hears the prefix to her...

Sir: It is a truth universally acknowledged that pundits exist to be reviled save only when they manage to get something com- pletely and utterly wrong; only then, like the...

Sir: `. . Like Northcliffe before him, he [Mr Rupert Murdoch] is determined to have a go and see how a cheap Times will fare. I think he will be proved wrong, as of course...

Sir: This is a last call for copies of letters from my father John Betjeman. I wonder if any readers might have any which I could include in my edition? Candida Lycett Green...

Sir: In Hilary Corke's review (Books, 28 August) `. . all creative endeavour is a sort of cock-snooking at the dark'. How does one snook a cock, how would it respond, and what...

Sir: Your correspondent Mr Nikolic offers two isolated quotations from the writings of President Izetbegovic which, he would like readers to believe, express sinister plans for...

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Mad, bad, dangerous to read James Buchan MY IDEA OF FUN by Will Self Bloomsbury, £15.99, pp. 309 T his novel, which is Will Self's first at a conventional length, introduces...

Hugh Trevor-Roper CODEBREAKERS: THE INSIDE STORY OF BLETCHLEY PARK edited by F.H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp OUP, f17.95, pp. 321 T he wartime achievements of Bletchley Park,...

NOWADAYS, it is fashionable to use big words and to mention large numbers when speaking of aid for Eastern Europe. West- ern leaders talk of suppporting democracy with billions...

David Profumo THE BLUE AFTERNOON by William Boyd Sinclair-Stevenson, f14.99, pp. 324 C astigating an author for not produc- ing a book that is as good as his last one is a...

J. Enoch Powell OCCASION, CHANCE AND CHANGE by Henry Colyton Michael Russell, (16.95, pp.264 We played a lot of bridge for low stakes, we skated, we danced, and I hope at least...

Frances Partridge ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BRITAIN by Bamber Gascoigne Macmillan, £29.95, pp.720 M ost people covet reference books of some description, and one or more are sure to be...

Deryla Murphy CITY OF DJINNS: A YEAR IN DELHI by William Dalrymple HarperCollins, £16.99, pp. 352 O ver the millennia, ghastly and glori- ous things happened in Delhi, often...

Alan Ross A len Ginsberg, writing to Jack Ker- ouac and quoted by Andrew Sinclair, described Francis Bacon as having the aspect of an English schoolboy and the soul of a...

Michael Carver LIGHT DRAGOONS: THE ORIGINS OF A NEW REGIMENT by Allan Mallinson Leo Cooper, £18.50, pp. 352 W riting a regimental history is not an easy task. The book has to...

Our leader's lines. Now I, the poor Boy playing queen, tell what I saw. The hall lay dark and icy, Its scarlet rugs rubbed bare. No word or gesture came from The prince,...

Looking up through leaves at the blue of the sky I am taken out of myself through the light in my eye. Francis Harvey

Penelope Lively BIRDSONG T he first world war generated remark- able literature, at the time. Decades later, it continues to inspire some fine fiction: Pat Barker's...

Hugo Vickers ELEANOR by Julian Fane Constable, £14.99, pp.246 T his is a charming novel about a lovable heroine, whose adventures in love are con- trary to those of many of her...

A. N. Wilson THE GREEN KNIGHT by Iris Murdoch Chatto & Windus, £15.99, pp.472 T he story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, narrated by an anonymous contem- porary of...

The Spectator and Johansens, publishers of the exclusive hotel guides, are pleased to offer you the opportunity of a special break this winter and spring. Starting 2 October,...

Alastair Forbes LOVE FROM NANCY: THE LETTERS OF NANCY MITFORD edited by Charlotte Mosley Hodder & Stoughton, £20, pp. 538 here is nothing so inferior as a gentlewoman who has...

DIARY 1994 £12 Plain £13 Initialled T he Spectator 1994 Diary, bound in soft burgundy leather, will shortly be available. With a new layout and a whole week to view, Monday to...

Eric Christiansen BROTHER JACOB by Henrik Stangerup, translated by Anne Born Marion Boyars, f15.95, pp. 301 C hristianity's first and foremost duty is to return to the...

Exhibitions Lucian Freud: Recent Work (Whitechapel Art Gallery, till 21 Novem- Portrait of an ageing existentialist Giles Auty T he exhibition of Lucian Freud's work...

The Golden City: The Architecture and Imagination of Beresford Pite (1861-1934) (RIBA Heinz Gallery, till 23 October) Architect with a mission Alan Powers The wind, the wind,...

Well done, carry on Peter Phillips W ith the passing of the 99th Last Night — I suppose the early years had Last Nights, when the words of the great patri- otic songs were...

Self-inflicted wound Ursula Buchan 0 ne day, many years ago, on hearing the telephone ring while gardening, I rammed my large garden fork with great energy but little accuracy...

Moonlight (Almeida) Hysteria (Royal Court) Three Hotels (Tricycle) A Going Concern (Hampstead) Pinter power Sheridan Morley M oonlight certainly becomes Harold Pinter. His...

Still at sea Taki y story of last week about Princess Michael, Robert de Balkany and the fight that saw the former being asked to vacate his boat's premises would not bear...

How not to do it Martyn Harris H ow can you go wrong with Alec Gui- ness, Lauren Bacall, Geraldine Chaplin, Leo McKern and Jeanne Moreau? That is the question the accountant...

Our too stately homes Nigel Nicolson I t is a national habit to abuse what we hold most dear, and a frequent target is the National Trust. Its critics always preface their...

Sober in Soho Jeffrey Bernard I was paid a visit yesterday by Vernon Scannell, a good man and an excellent writ- er, who called with a BBC producer who taped us talking about...

A really cheap pleasure Auberon Waugh T his offer comes, in fact, from our old friends Hedley Wright, of Bishops Stort- ford, but for reasons which I only partially...

c/o Lay & Wheeler Freepost, 6 Culver Street West, Colchester, Essex CO1 1BR. Tel: (0206) 764446 Fax: (0206) 560002 Price No. Value White I. Villa Montes Sauvignon 1993 12...

• ;Dry rift SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA Short of time Raymond Keene THERE HAVE BEEN three players in the world championship at the Savoy Theatre, Kasparov, Short...

PORT r W&J CROSSWORD GRAHAM'S L I PORT r 1127: In tune together by Doc A first prize of £20 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first .correct...

A nagrammatic Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1796 you were invited to compose a dialogue in which the words of each speaker in turn contain anagrams — of single words or phrases...

E IMPIRICAD"AURIC NIIIP,GNORANTINE J 6 R 0 W S L1 Grb- 0 1RSE N I X ICECUTE • I 71 NEN E A N dATEA '1 ,TTE E N E ' L ' I R V E 1 A S L N P 1 _ 1 ( 1 Ey; P 34 E M E I ÷ I 1...

In Etherege's play, The Man of Mode, a character sings, 'It is not that I love you less/Than when before your feet I lay', and then stops. You are invited to continue, in...

A golfer needs a loving wife Frank Keating I'LL TELL YOU what age-old certainty the Ryder Cup has shattered in the past ten years — this one biennial tournament has...

Q. Unlike some of your correspondents, I cannot stretch to a handmade suit from Savile Row, yet I do like to splash out on wildly expensive ties. I would be interested to hear...