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RECENT events have illuminated one of th e recurring problems of international relations: what to do with deposed dicta- i p. France has got landed with 'Baby c 'c' Duvalier,...

GORBACHEV'S MODEL M r Gorbachev has opened the new era in characteristic Soviet fashion: by denouncing his predecessor, without ever actually naming him. Once again, the...

Ireland: the toughening of the South FERDINAND MOUNT T here was something familiar about the man in the dinner jacket in the second or third row. The face started out of the...

CHARLES MOORE I t occurred to me last week that the Spectator should carry a little more reflec- tion on the journalistic, as well as the commercial and political implications...

Parent Power is no cure for the mess left by Shirley Williams AUBERON WAUGH M rs Jane Tarr, headmistress of Kings- ton St Mary Primary School in the good old days, used never...

Peregrine Worsthorne on the chance for Fleet Street to return to high quality writing after the battle of Wapping has been won UNTIL recently there seemed no hope for very...

Stephen Robinson on the problems of releasing South Africa's most famous prisoner Cape Town A FEW weeks before he resigned as leader of the opposition, Dr Frederick Van Zyl S...

John Ralston Saul on the American takeover of French culture Paris THE veil of confusion which is dropping Over France has been woven out of far more than anticipation of the...

Christopher Hitchens on the anti-Soviet broadcasts that are also anti-semitic Washington I DON'T know precisely where Anatoly Shcharansky was on 21 April 1984. But if he was...

LESS THAN HALF PRICE More stimulating than any lecture, funnier than the set books, The Spectator should be required reading for every student. With Student Subscriptions...

Oliver Letwin on the inspiration behind Messrs Heath and Hattersley's brilliant industrial ideas PATRIOTISM is back in fashion. Mr Heath and Mr Hattersley have been pros-...

Outsiders: a profile of Max Hastings, the wildest man ever to edit the Daily Telegraph WHEN Queen magazine ran a feature on The Most Hated Man in Fleet Street The Editor' in...

Broadcasting: limit sex and violence MOST of the debates of principle in present-day society come down to the question of authority. In every sphere of life authority is being...

Wild Men of the Woods conspire to blunt the axe CHRISTOPHER FILDES T axman, spare that tree! Lop not its rotten bough! From you it shelters me So I'll protect it now! That...

RICH, if not enviable, in its friends, the Forestry Commission is also strong (as it has shown once again) in that greatest of all organisational skills: survival. It has...

NO DOUBT some lobbyist will say that we must have British wood to provide British pulp for British paper-mills (Portals, actually) for British banknotes, to keep the money...

WOULD the Commission raise £1,500 million for a government which plucked up courage and sold it off? The answer would be in that government's own hands, for the value of British...

First Clue A) JOHN. John Wilkes loosed the Satanic baboon into a black mass held by the Hell-fire Club, and satirised Dr Johnson's dictum that the letter H 'seldom, perhaps...

Sir: I would like you to know of the impact the Spectator Game of Consequences (Answers, p. 20) made on a small town on the Moray Firth. It brought a sparkle to the dark winter...

Sir: Ludovic Kennedy's pleasure in his 'colonoscopy' ('A voyage round my colon', 15 February) would have been diminished, I fear, had he taken the trouble to read up something...

Sir: Without the full facts I cannot com- ment in detail about the article in your 8 February issue (Diary, Nicholas Coleridge) about the difficulties encountered by a passenger...

Sir: In my last article from the Philippines (`Mr Marcos rigs the poll', 15 February) I reported that Stanley Kamow predicted a Marcos claim to election victory with 54.4 per...

Sir: I have just read Dhiren Bhagat's article on Nepal in the 22 February edition of the Spectator. Bertrand Russell, I think, remarked that Christianity 'has been, and s till...

Sir: May I thank you for printing the kind words written by ECH (Teddy Hodgkin), a friend and colleague of my late husband (Leader page, 25 Janauary). It was good to read his...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for f (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES: 12 Months 6 Months UK/Eire ❑ £41.00 ❑...

A Godless innocent Piers Paul Read SEXUAL DESIRE: A PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION by Roger Scruton T he spectacle of sex under the scrutiny of the intellect is something like...

A programme celebrating the life and work of Geoffrey Grigson will take place on Friday, 7 March, 7.30 pm at the Festival Hall (`Bookspace'. Third Level). Those reading from his...

Peter Kemp JOURNAL OF A VIETCONG by Truong Nhu Tang Cape, f10.95 . . . L lnd to my betrayed comrades, who believed they were sacrificing them- selves for a humane liberation of...

Isabel Colegate AFIER A FUNERAL by Diana Athill Jonathan Cape, f9.50 T ruthfulness is by no means the first priority of an autobiographer. Leaving aside those who write...

Patrick Skene Catling LAKE WOBEGON DAYS by Garrison Keillor Faber & Faber, £9.95 G et this book. I guarantee that you will enjoy it. Don't be put off by the fact that it was a...

Eric Christiansen TREASON IN TUDOR ENGLAND: POLITICS AND PARANOIA by Lacey Baldwin Smith Jonathan Cape, 176 I n Tudor times, as readers of Shakespeare will know, people were...

Cressida Connolly WATERLOO, WATERLOO by Teresa Waugh Hamish Hamilton, f9.95 T eresa Waugh excels at unhappy fami- lies. She made wry use of one in her first novel, Painting...

Mark Amory THE RIXI MARKUS BOOK OF BRIDGE Collins Willow, f9.95 A book was published recently called Why Women Lose at Bridge. The most convincing explanation I have heard...

Louis Heren EDDIE SHAH AND THE NEWSPAPER REVOLUTION by David Goodhart and Patrick Wintour Coronet, f2.95 T here was an historical precedent for moving the Times and three other...

Miranda Seymour THE HOUSE OF THE SOLITARY MAGGOT by James Purdy Peter Owen, £11.95 P aul Bailey once said that he found Purdy's studies in passion about as stimu- lating as a...

Exhibitions Retiring Modernist Giles Auty T he current Tate exhibition marks the retirement of Ronald Alley who has given 34 years of committed service to the gallery. Since...

The Apple Cart (Haymarket) Personality cult Christopher Edwards T he revival of Bernard Shaw's 1929 play offers another occasion to consider the Shavian 'play of ideas'. It...

Agnes of God (15', Odeon, Haymarket) Nun of the above Peter Ackroyd T here are certain people who cannot look at a nun without bursting out in laughter; with the possible...

Fierrabras (Playhouse, Oxford) Die Loreley (Bloomsbury) On the fringe Rodney Milnes D uring a slack period in London's opera houses — a bewhiskered Salome at the Garden and a...

Wally's warning Alexander Chancellor M y esteemed colleague Nina Mys- kow, the television critic of the News of the World, has named Selina Scott her 'Wally of the Week'. So,...

Rotten Apple Taki There is no city in the world, with the exception of Teheran, and perhaps Athens, in which public barbarism, lack of Your piece has been spiked.' manners,...

Generation gap Alice Thomas Ellis T he daughter (12) has just had her rubella injection and has had to sign a form declaring that she realises she mustn't get pregnant in the...

Badge of suffering Jeffrey Bernard A young American arrived in the Coach and Horses last Monday to seek me out. He had been given my name and address by the girl I sailed up...

Larkin and embarrassment P. J. Kavanagh The difficulty is particularly noticeable at funerals. The Church of England can hardly go the whole hog over someone who would have...

COMPETITION I n Competition No. 1409 you were asked for a poem, serious or light, either for or against the month of February. Something, or somebody, tells me that I set...

Diplomacy Raymond Keene 0 ver the past few months the British Chess Federation has trodden a frighten- ingly narrow path in its efforts to ensure that, first of all, Kasparov...

make foods into their God and they are proudest of something they should think shameful.' Words from last Sunday's epistle. Wow! that's telling us. Foodies beware. The only...

13 cot, 19 rug, 30 dish, 35 bed, 40 pot; (Dn) 1 curtain, 2 plate, 9 cabinet, 10 cup. Winners: W. L. Edge, Musselburgh (£20); Mrs Alfred Baker, Cobham, Kent; Mrs B. Sim- monds,...

You are invited to compose a plausible piece of prose which includes the following words, in any order: zip, by-product, wid- dershins, ergo, tartan, technicality, quid- nunc,...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, now price £12.95 — ring the words `Chambers Dictionary' above) will be awarded for the...