27124; Fax: 071-242 0603 ONE MAN'S CHRISTMAS T he celebration of Christmas at the season of the winter solstice has no scriptural authority. The New Testament accounts give no...

Christmas boxes T he Prime Minister told the European Community, at the Intergovernmental Conference in Rome, that British policies had not changed but that Britain wanted to...

Gulliver's Travels on the continent of Yahoorope NOEL MALCOLM N o sooner had I departed from the Land of the Houyhnhnms than I was driven by a violent Storm onto the coast of...

ALLAN MASSIE I t is not surprising that Christmas is the Christian festival which has been adopted by the modern world that is not Christian. And this is not just because it...

If you seek alone for Jesus you will get lost CHARLES MOORE F or seven years on The Spectator my most arduous labour was the production of the annual leading article about...

Vicki Woods, after much trial and tribulation, gets the thatch of her dreams ELEVEN years ago, when we first saw the cottage on the Hampshire-Berkshire bor- ders in which we...

Jews and Muslims throw stones at each other a stone's throw from Calvary, writes Ian Buruma Jerusalem IN THE Old City of Jerusalem, not far from the Wailing Wall, I was offered...

John Simpson regrets that he must spend another Christmas in a foreign hotel Baghdad THE CHRISTMAS decorations were what you might expect in a Bucharest hotel at the end of...

shortages are being manipulated to prop up the Soviet system Moscow AT the 'House of Film' on Vassilevskaya Street, the audience comfortably settled in for an evening of...

Sandra Barwick discovers that reasons for homelessness are not at all straightforward ELEGANT euphemisms are particularly useful at Christmas. What was once a tramp or a...

THE efforts to secure a respite for Mrs Pearcey, the Kentish Town murderess, on the ground of her liability to epilep- tic attacks, failed, Mr Matthews, who as regards the...

persist . • • WE LIVE in dark times. It is only right, therefore, that in the midst of the festive season I should spread a little medical despondency: for in dark times, there...

A SHORT STORY BY HARRIET WAUGH SHE basted the turkey and wondered why she bothered. After all, it was unlikely that they would eat it. Taking her largest plastic chopping board...

Sandra Barwick meets Sir George Trevelyan, apostle of the New Age SIR GEORGE Trevelyan is 83. He is an active man, absorbed in his work, but nevertheless death is closer to him...

Candida Crewe, after watching a chiropodist at work, is not drawn to the profession 'SOMETIMES it's very difficult to get the smell of people's feet off your hands no matter...

Harriet Sergeant finds her visit to a Japanese swimming pool a daunting experience I HAVE just moved back to Tokyo after two years away. Distance made the heart fonder. Clean,...

William Cash finds a mediaeval siege engine in rural Shropshire ACCORDING to P. G. Wodehouse, Shropshire has always boasted an exclusive line in flying pigs. No summer at...

Mary Kenny observes the Mary Kenny observes the demise of the dining-table THE Christmas dinner, to which most of us sit down on 25 December, remains the one fixed ceremonial...

Michael Heath

Simon Courtauld prefers the German songs and carols he sang at school THE death, earlier this month, of L.J. Russon, for many years senior language master at Winchester...

John Diamond thinks that writers' schools offer too little money and too much hope MR E. H. METCALFE has written from Manchester to tell me that, if I send him £189, `The...

The media: Paul Johnson on how authors can cope with the recession in the publishing trade WANDERING round the superbly de- signed new Dilions in Kensington High Street...

WILLIAM DALRYMPLE THREE months ago I took a room in a remote fort in Rajasthan. The fort was surrounded by a high machicolated wall which faced out over a lake. In the morning,...

Sir: Stephen Handelman's interesting arti- cle (`Goodbye Gorbachev', 1 December) about the sad failure of the Soviet com- mand economy reminds me of the follow- ing useful piece...

Sir: Jeffrey Bernard in his letter (Letters, 1 December) refers to Nelson's cat Tiddles, who was present at the battle of Trafalgar. The subject, which is of some interest, has...

Sir: Readers may well remember the inter- view I conducted with Lord Denning which was published in the 18 August issue. I wrote privately to Lord Denning just after...

Sir: I wonder if I might use your corres- pondence columns to pass on greetings to Roger Cooper, who is a prisoner in Evjn jail in Teheran. I recently received a note from him...

Sir: Theodore Dalrymple is suffering from clinical depression and should see . . . a doctor. Phillip Hodson 58 The Pryors, East Heath Road, London NW3

Sir: Re John Wells's 'So farewell then, Denis' (1 December), when I knew Denis in the Seventies it was in the business world — pre PM and pre Burmah Oil, and of course long...

Plain English Match the words to the definitions: 1 Reredorter 2 Deasil 3 Hyleg 4 Yuke 5 Aberdevine 6 Meconium 7 Accloy 8 Pram 9 Rounceval 10 Caruncle • a The first faeces of a...

The liberal tide Hugh Trevor-Roper OUR AGE: PORTRAIT OF A GENERATION by Noel Annan Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £20, pp.479 0 ur Age' — but whose age? Who are 'we'? To Noel Annan,...

Tony Osman GLOBAL WARMING by Stephen H. Schneider Lutterworth Press, £13.95, pp. 343 W e had better get it right, and quickly. If there is a Greenhouse Effect, if the gases...

Bruce Bernard UNREASONABLE BEHAVIOUR by Don McCullin Cape, £14.95, pp.288 T he men, women and children, mostly in wretched and often disastrous situations, who Don McCullin has...

John McEwen THE SOUL OF THE EYE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF PAINTERS AND PAINTING edited by Michael Levey Collins, f18, pp. 289 I f you like anthologies then this is a model of its...

Miron Grindea PAST TENSE: THE DIARIES OF JEAN COCTEAU: VOLUME II annotated by Pierre Chanel, translated by Richard Howard Methuen, £18.50, pp.350 J ean Cocteau remains, 30...

Peter Levi THE VILLEIN'S BIBLE by Brian Young Barrie & Jenkins, £19.99, pp.152 I have often wondered what the poor and illiterate made of the Bible. To judge from late...

Geoffrey Parker THE VIRGIN QUEEN: THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF ELIZABETH I by Christopher Hibbert Viking, £16.99, pp. 287 A nother book by Christopher Hib- bert! According to the...

Here is no room: the inn is crowded, Mary, The world itself too small for Him you carry. Timothy Leyte

Like evolution the Christmas card list, no dramatic change, just the drop of a name or a change of places, a slight acquaintance upped to friend, a cast-off aunt or...

Balanced in our hall-way On the kitchen chair I'd brought him, each year Weightier, more anxiously Precarious, laughing less And long about it, he would Hang the mistletoe, its...

Charlotte Lennox-Boyd THE VICTORIAN NOVEL by Alan Horsman Oxford, 129.50, pp.472 [The Oxford History of English Literature Volume X111] here is a habit nowadays', wrote F. R....

Piers Paul Read IGNATIUS LOYOLA by Philip Caraman Collins, .04,95, pp.222 I n the current climate of religious opin- ion, it is an unenviable task to write a biography of St...

Anthony Howard AN AMERICAN LIFE by Ronald Reagan Hutchinson, £19.99, pp.748 REAGAN AND THATCHER by Geoffrey Smith Bodley Head, £14.99, pp.285 R onald Reagan's great...

My friend, I am afraid it all boils down To having tried in every way one could, Failing in each, and having felt oneself Worthless a thousand times, and accepting that, And...

Richard Lamb OTHER LOSSES: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE MASS DEATHS OF GERMAN PRISONERS OF WAR AFTER WORLD WAR TWO by James Bacque Macdonald, f13.95, pp. 272 J ames Bacque, a...

Peter Jones E t tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar!' But Shakespeare was wrong. Caesar did not cry out in Latin, but in Greek, and his words were lai su, teknon', lit. 'You too,...

D. J. Taylor This type of criticism is understandable — there is a particular vein of preciousness in Firbank which never quite goes away but it is a pity. For at his best...

The fine art of revival James Hamilton investigates Birmingham's cultural renaissance A t the heart of Birmingham, hidden amongst the walkways beneath the Bull Ring, is a text...

Poetry in motion Michael Horovitz I n his so-called 'Poetry Masterclass' in the Independent on Sunday for 21 October, James Fenton declared that 'Poems with an insistent...

Dominic Lawson writes: Two years ago we appealed to our readers to buy half-price subscriptions to The Specta- tor which we undertook to send to people in Poland. The scheme was...

Try another pantomime Robin Holloway I will not be among the happy throng packing the Coliseum over the festive season to see The Love for Three Oranges. For what should be a...

The Wind in the Willows (Olivier) Animal magic Christopher Edwards A lan Bennett has adapted Kenneth Grahame's children's classic for the stage. The National Theatre has...

The Decorative Beast (Crafts Council, till 30 December) Our animal attitudes Tanya Harrod T he Decorative Beast is disguised as a lighthearted, Christmassy sort of an exhibi-...

David Bomberg (Bernard Jacobson, till 18 January) Seasonal stars Giles Auty I n a year which began unpromisingly for me last January with Marxist hero Rod- chenko on display...

Ten of the • less bad Mark Amory A scamper through the year's best films can at least pretend now that it serves a practical purpose by helpfully pointing out to the...

Money for old rope trick Alistair McAlpine A way for a day from the new gloom of the sale-rooms — a gloom that mostly seems confined to the sales of Modern and Impressionist...

The princess and the Greek Taki C hristmas is a lousy time for dictators. Last year Ceausescu got his comeuppance, following in the footsteps of the rest of the motley crew of...

Viewer's digest Martyn Harris 0 nce in America I read a newspaper report about an ant-eating contest, the winner of which had eaten 3,000 ants in the prescribed time, which...

Party pris Jeffrey Bernard G od preserve us from the Christmas office party. Almost any party. I liked them when I was younger and used to go along in the hope of leaving them...

Mr Major's Brixton days Zenga Longmore C hristmas comes to Brixton, fairy lights twinkle on Electric Avenue, our equivalent of Regent Street. But strange doings are afoot in...

HOWEVER popular it remains with the general public, turkey is far from the universal choice of Spectator writers. A new Imperative poll of their preferences finds turkey to be...

SCHOLARS of the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 Bc), who held that the highest good was pleasure and that the world was a series of fortuitous combina- tions of atoms,...

COMPETITION &VAS REG 4 12 YEAR OLD SCOTCH WHISKY Insecticide Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1656 you were in - vited to comment, in verse or leading - article prose, on the...

You are invited to incorporate the follow - ing words, in any order, into a plausible piece of prose: classless, maroon, bonkers, Kant, shenanigans, hump, spelling, vice versa,...

1990 Raymond Keene A lthough the world championship is by no means finished Kasparov took a giant step forwards by winning the 20th game in brilliant style, thus leaving...

note under square were JEWELLERS, OVERSWELL, SPEEDWELL, SWELLINGS, DOWELLING, DWELLING & FAREWELLS which, with WELL off, form the lights respectively at 34, 2, 37, 26, 35, 36 &...

A first prize of £60, three prizes of £25 and six further prizes of The Book of Spectator Crosswords (pub. Chambers, £4.99) will be awarded for the first correct solutions...

Opium, snakes and earthquakes Frank Keating CAN it really be ten Christmas Eves ago that Geoffrey Boycott, on the way to his last Test match century, clipped a ball from an...