he session of Parliament that has now will almost certainly be the last be- re the next general election. It is this that es this week's Queen's speech its special merest. For...

Surbiton shows the way AUBERON WAUGH God moves in a mysterious way his won- ders to perform. The day after the Times newspaper announced that, according to its Marplan survey,...

Damn your principles! GEORGE GALE It has always been my presumption that Tories were serious about power, and if a man is in the business of politics, then to be serious about...

A Bonn diary Malcolm RUTHERFORD Bonn—Chancellor Brandt and his new government have got off to so good a start that one wonders how long the honeymoon can last. The Chancellor...

The dustbin economy RALPH HARRIS For the economist who sticks to his last in posing awkward questions, the recent dust- men's strike presented a number of funda- mental issues...

The test for comprehensives RHODES BOYSON Dr Rhodes Boyson is the headmaster of Highbuty Grove, a London comprehensive school. The announcement of Mr Short's compre- hensive...

J. W. M. THOMPSON By drawing attention this week to the possibility of a snap election in November, Mr Hogg may be considered to have formally opened the true Silly Season of...

A reply to Peregrine Worsthorne EDWARD BOYLE to Perry, .er since I read your open letter to me last week's SPECTATOR, I have been ndering about that curious episode which...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS They burnt the new pavilion down And chased the umpire round the town, And, when the other side might win, Saw that the match should not begin. An old...

Sweet and sour JOHN ROWAN WILSON The affair of the cyclamates is typical of the confusion which surrounds all toxicity test- ing of drugs and food additives. To an outside...

More means les s BILL GRUNDY It's only just over a week since the Ti, went up twopence to become once again Top Price Paper for the Top Class Per , (the Financial Times, being...

If music be the food of love . . DENIS BROGAN hingion — I have been much subjected in ent weeks to music (and Musak), being most cases a captive audience in res- rants, bars,...

From the 'Spectator', 30 October 1869—Earl Grey keenly disapproves the disastrous Colonial policy of the Government, and warmly approves the design of summoning a great colonial...

TONY TANNER The fourth volume of Leon Edel's biography, Henry James: The Treacherous Years (Hart- Davis, 84s), covers the final decade of the last century, a period when James...

PENRY WILLIAMS Shaping of the Elizabethan Regime: bethan Politics, 1558-72 Wallace affrey (Cape 63s) fessor MacCaffrey views the first o years of the reign of Elizabeth I a...

DONALD McLACHAN Press Power: A Study of Axel Springer Hans Dieter Midler (Macdonald 42s) Axel Springer, who controls an astonish- ingly large slice of the West German press,...

ANTONIA FRASER Tudor and Jacobean Portraits Roy Strong (Hmso 2 vols 15 gns) Rich as the external appearance of these two mighty and heraldic-looking volumes may be—with...

MOLLY LEFEBURE Uncle and Claudius the Camel J. P. Martin illustrated by Quentin Blake (('ape 21s) Benign, incorruptible, generous to his friends, a terrible foe to his enemies,...

CANDIDA LYCETT GREEN hat a relief, oh what a relief to have orious Edward Gorey creeping from dark rners of the page into our children's bed- me story reading, instead of the...

Swash & buckle PETER VANSITTART A surprise item to absorb any fledgling author is Charlotte Bronte's The Search for Happiness (Harvill, 25s), 'written at 13, printed by...

Anne VICCARS BARBER The Tailor of Gloucester Beatrix Potter (Warne 20s) 'This is passing extraordinary!' said the tailor of Gloucester when searching for an explana- tion of...

BRYAN ROBERTSON The Beautiful Island Meg Rutherford (Allen and Unwin 21s) Meg Rutherford is an Australian sculptress in her mid-thirties who studied at the Slade School of Art...

LEON GARFIELD The Intruder John Rowe Townsend (our , 18s) Flambards In Summer K. M. Peyton (MP 18s) Both these books belong In what Conrad called the 'Shadow Line'—that...

Odds and gods K. CROSSLEY-HOLLAND A young Armenian volinist once told me, In clipped English, a delightful anecdote about a haircut. His uncle had been to the barber one...

TREVOR GROVE Hadrian in the Orient Candida Lycett Green and Christopher Thynne (Collins lOs 6d) SATURDAY—SUNDAY I spent the weekend quietly in Wiltshire with some young...

Awkward age• ISABEL QUIGLY Once, there were children's books and adult books, with a more or less straight line between the two at which you put up your intellectual hair. Now...

Ages two to seven Story Number One Eugene Ionesco illus- trated by Etienne Delessen (Quist 25s). M Ionesco's sly, aloof, agreeably dry humour and his fondness for bizarre...

PENELOPE HOUSTON Bo Widerberg's new film, Adalen '31 (Academy One, 'X'), looks marvellous. It is as though Adalen, a dour harbour and wood- pulp area of northern Sweden,...

Double take BRYAN ROBERTSON Cork Street is rapidly becoming the La Cienega Boulevard of London but, unlike the endless art dealers' strip in Los Angeles which demands an...

CHARLES REID me years ago, I went up in a London otel lift face to face with Dimitri Shosta- ovich. I noted the mouth. Timorous? Tena- ous? Hard to say which. The eyes were...

MICHAEL NYMAN Let the Music Section of the ICA shine, if only for this week, as a beacon to England's musical insularity. While they failed, through last minute financial...

Out of bonds JOHN BULL I return to the subject of property bonds (first mentioned in these columns on 6 Sep- tember) because I have no doubt at all that they have more sales...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT money squeeze, which Mr Jenkins lares must go on without relaxation, now hitting the Stock Exchange badly. urnover in September dropped by 170 illion to...

From Henry Fairlie, C. M. Woodhouse, Professor A. I. Ayer, the Rev. John Poulton, the Rev. Richard Mason, Professor C. A. S. Hynam, Daphne Hereward, I. B. Ashe, Mrs Dorothy...

Sir: Surely Sir Denis Brogan (25 October is mistaken in describing Hair as Mr Tynan version of A Midsummer Night's Dream?1 it not plainly the musical of Peter Pan?

to Edward Boyle ( October), Mr Peregrine Worsthorne sa that 'the great success of the Tory party' been its ability to appeal to the social a racial prejudices of its working...

Sir: The present furore over the seven- sided 50p piece (`Spectator's notebook', 25 October) is not unexpected. To anyone who had taken the trouble to study the decimal coinage...

• George Gale (25 October) cannot have both ways. Either (as I agree) The Ques- Why is a poor and ineffective piece of oadcasting, trivialising whatever it touches use of its...

In his article 'Swinging Together' (18 ober) Christopher Hollis writes: 'The trine of original sin—that we are all n with a capacity to prefer the evil to good—is, as Chesterton...

Sir: SPECTATORS arrive here weeks late, but let me, however belatedly. explode. Students are not living on the tax payers' money, but on their grants, because they have won...

Sir: No doubt Mr Wilkinson (11 October) does his best and feels he must defend his staff, who also did their best in difficult circumstances. Mr James's disillusion with the BBC...

Sir: Mr David Burg's further attempt (Let- ters, 25 October) to justify his rendering of the title of Solzhenitsyn's play, The Love- Girl etc, may safely be left to answer...

No. 577: Bookguide It is a frequently heard cavil that books for younger readers are mostly re- viewed for them by adults. Competitors are invited to perpetrate what the...

PHILIDOR C. F. Way (3rd Prize, British Chess Pro Society, 1965-6). Black to play and help White mate him in two moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 462 (Anderson):...

Across 1 Terrible chap with an eradicator is brought to book (7) 5 Paper dress? (7) 9 Watch lacking canine is not enough for a poet (5) 10 No use asking Orinda for a light!...