Mrs Thatcher visits an inner city T he chairman of British Telecom, Sir George Jefferson, is to resign. He made his unexpected announcement at the com- pany's annual meeting,...

TALKING MONEY T he old English idea of not talking money is definitely a no-no. England is waking up.' Thus 22-year-old 'Fashion tycoon' Mr Marcus Figueirado, talking to the...

The Liberals turn inwards in search of happiness FERDINAND MOUNT Harrogate A s dusk falls on the Welsh marches, in some bosky thicket or abandoned barn, small, dark,...

Harrogate w aswas in a neighbouring seat to Mr Clive Jenkins, the new president of the TUC, as we both travelled first class back to Lon- don from Blackpool in a rhymthically...

How the thickness factor begins to threaten every aspect of our private lives AUBERON WAUGH I accept you are a man of excellent character, but what sort of distinction am I to...

Richard Attenborough's new film romanticises the relationship between Donald Woods and Steve Biko. Stephen Robinson reveals its true nature Cape Town A LESSER man than Sir...

Ian Buruma finds Korean politics imbued with ideas of national homogeneity Seoul WITH peace still very much in mind I set off from Hiroshima to catch an overnight ferry to...

A SCENE greatly to be regretted occur- red in the House of Commons on Tuesday. The Lords' amendments to the Coal-Mines Regulation Bill were being discussed at a very late hour,...

Bohdan Nahaylo has pancakes and syrup with Mr Dobrokhotov IT IS not every day that a senior Soviet official comes up to your table and asks if he can join you for breakfast....

Michael Trend meets separatist English and Muslim parents involved in the education row Dewsbury ALTHOUGH the press stories coming out of the Dewsbury school row have been...

The destruction of ozone by chemical pollution threatens our planet, writes Myles Harris FOR many years now scientists in the Antarctic have been paying particular attention to...

The most extraordinary family reunion Miles Kington has ever been to LAST Saturday, 12 September, about 170 descendants of the Rev. Cornelius Cardew gathered at Exeter College,...

that the re-born Listener must be a different infant THE decision of the BBC and ITV to re-launch a jointly owned Listener resur- rects an ancient controversy, albeit in a new...

TIM CONGDON I t is no exaggeration to say that the 'Big Bang' has become a standard phrase to explain any recent development on the financial scene. This is very convenient, as...

Buy quality and do not borrow to do so BILL JAMIESON A fter the summer shake-out, where do share prices go from here? Following a rise of 46 per cent in the first six months...

Easy to apply, but tough to sell LORNA BOURKE O ver a million would-be investors have already registered their interest in the forthcoming offer of BP shares, due, to be...

One year on, the plums have stopped falling from the City's trees CHRISTOPHER FILDES so plainly destined to end in tears, or Hambros, happily turning its back on the...

ROBERT Apfel, from New York, is a consultant to banks and financial businesses who has an unusual qualifica- tion. Working in early life for a Wall Street firm, he pushed...

THE Stock Exchange's old-fashioned film My Word Is My Bond has acquired what appears to be an up-to-the minute sequel, entitled, simply, The Big Bang. Available from...

THE biggest loser of all? That unhappy distinction goes, oddly enough, to the Stock Exchange. See what it has lost in the Year of the Bang. First, and more than symbolically, it...

Sir: Your printers made a nonsense of the first paragraph of my last week's letter about the meanderings of your television critic. What I actually wrote was: Your television...

Sir: Christopher Booker (Books, 18 July) says it is hard to grasp what living in a totalitarian society is like. He is right, but does he? He writes that a 'totalitarian system'...

case of the Disappearing Duck? The mystery occurred on 29 August in line 6 of my poem tucked away at the bottom of page 28, and I'm still pondering its philosophical...

Sir: I have only recently seen the essay 'All the world's a book' by Paul Johnson (27 June) and wish to draw your attention to some unfortunate consequences of the current trend...

party orga- nisation in Ulster, was incorrectly printed. It referred to the recent Coopers & Lyb- rand opinion poll, and should have read: 'But, more specifically, it found that...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY - Save 15% on the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for £ (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES 12...

Sir: Max Hastings's observations about Charterhouse (Diary, 1 August) strike a true note. Those who were prominent at that formidable institution in my day were seldom heard of...

Sir: The BBC has rightly appointed , staunch supporters of Mr Kinnock and Mr Steel as spokesman for their parties in the coverage of all three forthcoming party conferences. It...

Sir: Whenever Paul Johnson bashes the BBC, he never lets us down. Last week (12 September) he asserted that the corporation was dominated 'at the decision-making levels, news,...

T his is an important and disturbing book. Since Chester Wilmot's Struggle for Europe (1952) it has been accepted that the allies won the war but lost the peace because of...

David Nokes SIR JOHN VANBRUGH A BIOGRAPHY by Kerry Downes Sidgwick & Jackson, f20 K erry Downes gives the title 'Num- bers' to an early chapter in this new biography of Sir...

Peter Quennell AN INTERPRETATION OF DUTCH CULTURE IN THE GOLDEN AGE by Simon Schama Collins f19.95 I n his preface to this extremely substan- tial book, which, with its...

Norbert Lynton THE PRIVATE DEGAS by Richard Thomson Herbert Press, £12.95 D egas is counted an Impressionist and did exhibit with them in the 1870s and 1880s. Yet his...

It seems to be very near This music that's been so elusive but so quick To offer a phrase and move into difficult silence, Hard for me I mean. I have let one phrase enter and...

strange stranger Robin Hanbury-Tenison BEHIND THE WALL: A JOURNEY THROUGH CHINA by Colin Thubron Heinemann, 110.95 C olin Thubron is a distinguished mem- ber of an honourable...

Anita Brookner TRUST ME by John Updike Andre Deutsch, f9.95 T here is a deceptive and impressive leisureliness to the higher reaches of American journalism, as if all the...

Harriet Waugh THE HEARTS AND LIVES OF MEN by Fay Weldon Heinemann, £10.95 THE RULES OF LIFE by Fay Weldon Hutchinson, £7.95 L ike most of Dickens's novels The Hearts and...

David Profumo THE DAY OF CREATION by J.G. Ballard Gollancz, £10.95 T he two most likely questions about the latest Ballard novel will be: is it similar to his supremely...

I f August is an arid month for art reviewers, September is one when the sluice-gates reopen, each day bringing a tidal rush of invitations to new openings. Gallery owners have...

Thursday's Ladies (Apollo) The Importance of Being Earnest (Royalty) All girls together Christopher Edwards T his generously cast West End produc- tion offers an early piece...

Spot the connection Peter Phillips O ne of these days, when the Proms are over and Richard Hadlee and Clive Rice have returned to their respective homelands, I intend putting...

Burlington House Fair (Royal Academy, till 20 September) Fun of the fair Alistair Hicks 6 Do you have any proof that that table is fr_om Strawberry Hill?' I asked Daniel...

Rita, Sue and Bob Too (`18', selected cinemas) Bonkers in Bradford Hilary Mantel S uppose you lived in Bradford, on the Buttershaw Estate. You could — accord- ing to this...

Nothing like a dame Wendy Cope A nice item at the end of ITN News on Sunday evening showed an American sena- tor called Joseph Biden delivering, with an air of grave...

Season of mists . Ursula Buchan N o one seems to grow much fruit any more. All over the country people are throwing out their strawberries, failing to net their whitecurrants,...

Nice little earners Marcus Berkmann P erhaps it's just me, but it does seem that much of the best pop music of the moment is coming from old lags and journeymen musos who...

Publicans' holiday Jeffrey Bernard T here's a splendid woman who is the landlady of a good pub in Islington and who always has something a little odd to tell me when I drop in...

Captains courageous Taki ouboulina is a Greek heroine of our war of independence against the Ottoman Empire. She was born in an Istanbul jail while her mother was visiting her...

Birthday blues Alice Thomas Ellis I mostly forget anniversaries — or I try to. Too many are sorrowful and the others are a nuisance, necessitating awful, ghast- ly, boring...

the interests of ecology .) 11 %ft An apology, in fact two. First, I have persistently and robustly defended meat eating in this column and sung the joys not only of beef,...

D uring the first two weeks of Septem- ber London was supposed to have been the scene of the biggest and most glamorous chess tournament ever held in the UK. The organiser was...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

Alphabetical dozen Charles Seaton I n Competition No. 1489 you were in- vited to include the following words, in any order, in a plausible piece of prose: apha- sia, buff,...

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An enterprising house agent's advertise- ment, please, offering a property (house, cottage, stately home or whatever) in a maximum of 16 lines of verse. Entries to 'Competition...