of Mr Heath There is much to be said for keeping your head, especially when many around are losing theirs, and as much can certainly be said for the Prime Minister. He demon-...

man's politician—seeks a text for his argument that Britain's signature to the Treaty of Rome should be decided not by a parliamentary vote but by a national refer- endum, he...

From the 'Spectator,' 19 November 1870—Mr. Carlyle wrote to yesterday's Times a very long homily in favour of Prussia, King William, Count Bismarck, German piety, and German...

It is dreadful but true that the news that 50.000 or 100,000, or 200,000 East Pakistanis, plus or minus a few thousand, had been drowned by a tidal wave interests, but does not...

Death & disaster MICHAEL WYNN JONES It will be a long time before the final death toll in East Pakistan, after the cyclone and tidal waves, is reckoned. This tragic dis- aster...

Sir William Armstrong Permanent Secretary of the Civil Service Department and head of the Home Civil Ser- vice since 1968. Has assisted in two devalua. tions of the pound, the...

Permanent Civil Servants and temporary politicians SIR WILLIAM ARMSTRONG The thing about the Civil Service in this country which interests most foreigners is the fact that,...

A mute oracle? DENIS BROGAN 'Stoning the prophets is ancient news.' I first appreciated the importance of this famous Chestertonian line in 1948 when 1 was con- templating the...

by 'a Conservative' Lest it be thought that our right hand does not know what our left hand has been writing, it is necessary to notice the remarks made in last week's...

Queen of the campus ANTHONY SPEAIGHT Kent State University, Ohio It is four years since the last Oxford Union debaters visited America and over that time the political...

Built on a fake JOHN ROWAN WILSON At the beginning of every winter, as sure as the falling of the leaves from the trees, there develops the usual wrangle about the value of...

Sunshine breakfasts, Murdoch's corn RILL GRUNDY The News of the World this weekend carried' a remarkable front page advertise- ment. It said 'Happy Birthday to the Sun". The...

oung at art FRANK WHITFORD t the last count there were more than sop art students following full-time urses in England and Wales. It's strange at Britain, with an age-old...

CLARENCE BROWN A neighbour of mine at Princeton, Brock Brower, who once had the chore of inter- viewing our Vice-President, deleted from his copy a passage that would, be...

From: ,Sir Halford Reddish, D. H. Cameron, General Sir Nevil Brownjohn, Gerard Mansell, Sir Frederic Bennett, MP, John Dins- wood, Philip Goodhart, MP, Tony Palmer, Mark...

Sir: There is only one small error in Enoch Powell's stimulating article on Vietnam (14 November). The Americans have not lost the war in Vietnam—they have mon it. The cost may...

Sir: Your readers will judge for themselves whether John Vaizey's outburst against this year's Reith Lectures ('Personal Column,' 14 November) is justified. However it seems a...

and confu- sion in Kenneth Tynan's letter about my piece about his ePolan- skes forthcoming film of Macbeth! First the heading. Not mine, r10 afraid (sorry Ed.) The suggestion...

Sir: The monstrous charge o f racialism in Angola by Mr Trout Bloom is in direct line uith the late Mr Goebbels's 'big lie' tech. nique. No one who has used o r visited the...

Sir: It would appear that even the usually balanced SPECTATOR has allowed partisanship not just to obscure the facts, but worse, to mis-represent them. At the start of your main...

Sir: I have read with interest David Cohen's article on Bermuda in the SPECTATOR for 24 October, in which he tells of his conversa- tion in May with Mrs Browne- Evans, the...

Sir: Might I be permitted to com- ment briefly on Mr Lynch's inter- view with Ian Lyon? One point in particular stands out from this interview and that is Mr Lynch's failure to...

Sir: As a regular reader of the SPECTATOR (which was getting so boring I had to stop for a few weeks) I write to say 'welcome' Mr Gale. I thank you for having back Auberon Waugh...

Sir: It simply won't do to put the failure of South Africa's Bantustans down to an African population ex- plosion. When the Tomlinson Com- mission wrote a blueprint for sep-...

Sir: I had formulated a suggestion for a SPECTATOR Competition : A prize for the best brief sentence setting out the most appropriate punishment to be meted out to Mr...

Sir: Without any judgment for or against, nevertheless I have tried to discover the ultimate source of the apparently insensate enemies against apartheid. What was it that kept...

Sir: '. . . to conceal the true cost of food, or of clothing, or of any- thing else that is a matter both of necessity and to some extent of Personal choice—is to do a disser-...

Sir: I am at present engaged in a study of the traditional English love of marmalade and also of its possible connection with our alleged national characteristic of under-...

Sir: The Chairman of the Francis Bacon Society purports to answer my letter but significantly fails in his letter (7 November) to deal with the gravamen of the points raised....

Sir : May I suggest one change in the SPECTATOR which would be excellent? Could someone repair its stapling machine? Frequently, and for many years, my copy has had only one...

No 631: Lofty words Set by Joyce Johnson: Competitors are invited to report the conversa- tion they imagine would take place between Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle as...

SHIRLEY ROBIN LETWIN If one asks what is a perfect man, a com- plete, flawless, and unchanging man, the answer can only be: a flawless man is not a man, for all men change and...

RAYMOND CARR Guerrilla Movements in Latin America Richard Gott (Nelson £5) Mr Gott's book enshrines a piece of ex- perienced history superbly described and illustrated. He...

CHARLES CURRAN The New Priesthood Joan Bakewell and Nicholas Garnham (Allen Lane The Pen- guin Press 50s) British television has a split mind. One lobe believes that it has the...

LESZEK KOLAKOWSKI An Ideology in Power: Reflections on the Russian Revolution Bertrand Wolfe intro- duction by Leonard Shapiro (Allen and Unwin 70s) There is no need to...

EDWARD MILLER Edward the Confessor Frank Barlow (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 85s) On the face of it the Confessor may seem no very promising subject for a biography. There has been...

MICHAEL MANN Marxist Sociology in Action J. A. Banks (Faber and Faber 70s) Even sociological theorists must sometimes cast their eyes upon the real social world. In recent...

WILLIAM WALSH The Redemption of the Robot: My En- counter with Education through Art Herbert Read (Faber 40s) The bleak, abstract sentences which compose this book are the...

Henry Harland YOUNG The University as the New Church Hazel E. Barnes (The New Thinker's Library, edited by Raymond Williams: Watts 15s) `Our Founder, Who art omniscient,...

AUBERON WAUGH A Trail of Blood Jeremy Potter (Constable 38s) The present generation will not be remembered for much. Its scientific inventions have largely proved injurious:...

Wine, women and cheese PATRICK SKENE CATLING Is the cultural festival dying? Let me end the suspense right away : the answer is clearly no. Cultural festivals transcend the...

Problems at the Institute DAVID COHEN According to Stanley Reed, director of the British Film Institute, his organisation faces a crisis but it is a crisis that has little to...

Electronic niety Patrick Skene CATLING One of the conveniences and comforts of the television age is that one can participate in church services without getting out of bed....

Lustful sibyls EVAN ANTHONY What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and everything nice? Not on your nellie, as far as Horst Janssen is concerned. Girls, I fear,...

Baton drill GILLIAN WIDDICOMBE An acquaintance has attacked me for refer- ring to `Leinsdorf's Eroica'. 'It's Beethoven's , ignorant child!' was his gist. The complaint is...

Fowl play KENNETH HURREN 'A thing worth doing is worth doing badly' is a fair enough dictum for village hall amateur dramatics, but I don't think it quite covers the...

Getting Hi DUNCAN FALLOWELL When the Day of Judgment arrives for the technological age, I think hi-fi should be placed on the credit side, along with Buck- minster Fuller and...

SIMON HARCOURT-SMITH From high up on the walls, busts of Claudius and Vespasian, Nerva and Trajan surveyed a litter of suitcases, electric guitars and amplifiers. Nearby,...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT I have already argued that the Stock Exchange has been on the whole unfair to the new Chancellor, dismissing too quickly his economically sound long-term...

Sir Isaac Wolfson is a uni q ue phenomenon —it is difficult for those educated to other disciplines to appreciate the sheer market g uile and feel for a situation that a man...

There is a story of an old Lincolnshire marsh-gunner who promised to demonstrate to a couple of strangers his prowess with an ancient flintlock. He loaded with an assortment of...

By now the phrase 'Do ring me up sometime' definitely means, in current English (as opposed to American) usage, 'Don't let me hear from you again.' So I think that 'Of course...

Living as I do in a small wooded valley, I have a lot of owls among my neighbours. At night the air rings with their calls, and these black nights seem to make them especially...

is usually swept discreetly under the intellectual carpet because that is the gentlemanly thing to do. There is the illusion that if you are fool enough to commit pen to paper,...

England CAMBRIDGESHIRE Garden House Hotel*'*' CAMBRIDGE Cambridge 55491 Royal Cambridge Hotel** • * CAMBRIDGE Cambridge 51631 CORNWALL Meudon Hotel**** NEAR FALMOUTH Mawnan...

No. 1456 DAEDALUS A prize of three guineas will be awarded for. the first correct solution opened on 30 November. Address solutions: Crossword 1456, 'The Spec- tator', 99 Gower...