W ith the June annual rate of inflation figure holding steady at 8.3 per cent, the Government appeared convinced that it had reached its peak; monthly retail sales figures fell...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 GRAND FINALE T he deaths within a few days of each other of the...

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Plus &est la meme chose, plus ca change NOEL MALCOLM A survey commissioned by the Gov- ernment from Saatchi and Saatchi makes uncomforting reading for Conservative Central...

PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE P rompted by my Stoic contemporary Lord Quinton's appreciation of Freddie Ayer (`Logic in high• gear', 8 July) in this Journal, I realised that another of...

The only way to make sense of mass prosperity AUBERON WAUGH A lthough neither nature nor inclina- tion has equipped me for the role of a walker, my dear Wife walks long...

Michael Trend finds the Opposition party at last realistic enough to be in with a chance WHAT ARE we to make of the recent improved performance of the Labour Party in the...

Wouldn't it be better to patch up friendship with the Chinese? Jonathan Mirsky thinks not CHINA has blotted its international copy- book by its deeds in and around Tianan- men...

Anthony Daniels finds himself in the most fascist country on earth THOUGH neither a youth — I can dis- guise it from myself no longer — nor a student, I have just attended the...

Richard West discovers a remarkable consequence of his past endeavours PROBABLY few of the readers of last Monday's Daily Telegraph paid much attention to the report of...

Christian Hesketh searches for the origin of the symbol of revolution WHEN a red flag first flew over Islington Town Hall, everyone got the message. Red stands for revolution....

INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUIL- TY. Recent legislation means that any- one caught digging a hole is required to prove that he is not digging for badgers, if he is so charged. No...

Myles Harris investigates the causes of recurrent bouts of jaundice THE cannibals of the Sepik river in Papua New Guinea call jaundice 'Eye belong him e yellah to mus'. In the...

Harry Eyres has reason to rue the conversion of his building society IN MARCH this year, I voted against the Abbey National's conversion from a build- ing society to a bank. I...

Mark Amory remembers trying to help the actor with his autobiography 'OF course Larry's a gangster,' said a distinguished actress, 'which is why he was so good as Macbeth.'...

in spite of a certain cleverness which characterises it, can only be described as sensational- ism in fiction reduced to farce.... The chapter in which the murder of Eva takes...

THE Whitechapel murders have begun again. Early on Wednesday morning, a woman of the name of Alice Macken- zie, who had been living with John McCormack for the last six or seven...

WHY did the Lord Mayor of London cross the road? To get to the Bank of England presenting it, this week, with the City Heritage Award for Sir John Soane's noble Stock Office,...

Where to find the chairman to electrify British Rail CHRISTOPHER FILDES I n the British Rail Stakes, Sir Robert Reid, like so many of his trains, is a non-runner. He will not...

YOU find yourself in the buttonhook business. You see no great future in it. What do you do about it? You can go on selling buttonhooks for as long as enough people go on buying...

SIR James argues that the earnings from all the diversifications are still seen as a tobacco company's earnings, and would be more highly rated — and therefore worth more —...

Sir: The middle of the summer will see the celebration of the diamond jubilee of the opening of Mount Pleasant, and the silver jubilee of the subsequent move to Reigate. Many of...

reactions to his death raises the interesting and important ques- tion of how much respect we owe to the immediately dead. For what it is worth, my view is that we should strive...

is all they were) a friend of his protests at 'the educated public's hostil- ity to analytical philosophy'. I am reminded of the visit of the great Renaissance scholar,...

come across an early instance of American interest in Hong Kong's future. In 1945 FDR proposed that King George VI and Chiang Kai-shek should together order the following...

Hong Kong water Sir: The Hong Kong civil servant (Letters, 24 June) who congratulated you on your article concerning the rights of the British subjects might be asked why it...

Sir: In his Diary (15 July), Peregrine Worsthorne attacks Freddie Ayer for asking to be re-elected to the Garrick Club after hearing that his wife (my mother) was dying of...

Gerald Kaufman's objec- tion that if you took the Hong Kong people, you might have to take white British passports holders from 'racist' South Africa. To your accusations of...

Sir: What a moving and robust piece from Jock Bruce-Gardyne (Intimations of mor- tality', 8 July). May his 'book' last for 18 years rather than 18 months. John Kind 12 Daisy...

Sir: The emergence of Charter 88 has revived discussion of a Bill of Rights as though its contents would be self-evident. Yet there are two rights that each have fervent...

Sir: Your contributors are always writing about the Spectator Party. It sounds love- ly; but I never seem to get invited. I subscribe to The Spectator; read it avidly every...

Sir: While I agree with most of my friend Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd's enthu- siaslic article about the Telegraph's obi- tuaries CA brief life but a merry one', 15 July),...

Sir: I read with interest P. D. James' description of her visit to Ely Cathedral (Diary, 24 June), and applaud her cour- teous and gentle reaction to our necessity to charge...

The Lost Leader Paul Foot WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: A LIFE by Stephen Gill OUP, £17.50, pp.525 h e publisher's claim on the dust jacket is an astonishing one: The common notion is...

Eric Christiansen CHURCHES IN THE LANDSCAPE by Richard Morris Dent, £25, pp.544 T here is a simple way of deciding whether or not to read a book about churches. Look at the...

Such gravid cloakings such oaky stains How can I aged five connect these solemnities with the dismembered mechanism nestling in the purple plush of its carrying-case or with the...

Richard Cobb THE COURT OF FRANCE, 1789-1830 by Philip Mansel CUP, £25, pp.224 P hilip Mansel is the leading historian of courts, past and present, European and exotic. His...

Denis Hills ESCAPE FROM ID! AMIN'S SLAUGHTERHOUSE by Wycliffe Kato Quartet, £12.95, pp.172 W ycliffe Kato, Assistant Director- General of Civil Aviation in Uganda, was thrown...

Rupert Christiansen JACQUELINE DU PRE by Carol Easton Hodder, £12.95, pp.224 N othing recalls my callow teenage • , discovery of the glories of Romantic music more powerfully...

The Spectator is offering its readers the definitive Pocket Diary. Bound in soft green leather, it offers all the facts, figures and numbers that are essential to any Spectator...

Christopher Hawtree DAVID BLAIZE by E. F. Benson Hogarth Press, £4.95, pp.316 A t a time when the cellophane- wrapped products of international porno- graphers are available...

Patrick Skene Catling SHORT STORIES by 0. Henry Dent, f2.95, pp.I94 T here are only three sorts of people, according to William Sydney Porter (1862- 1910), who wrote about...

M usic 1 Schumann's last, lost variation Louis Jebb he discarded work of artists, writers and composers is often best left alone. Even the brightest genius cannot produce day...

Carthaginians (Hampstead) Three Sisters; The Government Inspector (Old Vic) Test of endurance Christopher Edwards Anyone who saw Frank McGuinness's Observe the Sons of...

Authentic Pelleas Robin Holloway A uthenticity has many guises. An especially sensitive case is Debussy's opera Pelleas et Melisande. John Eliot Gardiner's edition, given...

The ultimate witness Rodney Milnes I n a recently published 'autobiography' — in fact tape-recorded reminiscences in which selectiveness of memory assumes positively...

Homeboy ('15', selected cinemas) On the ropes Hilary Mantel W e have, you feel, been here before. From the small-town bus station in the blue nocturnal light, where the rain...

The Bolshoi Ballet (London Coliseum) Yesterday's man Deirdre McMahon T his year Yuri Grigorovich celebrates his 25th year as director of the Bolshoi Ballet. He has dominated...

Lavish tributes Peter Levi T his summer I spent five or six nights in Greece, in a kind of gardener's but by the seaside, having spoken about nationalist poetry in what I...

Euan Uglow (Whitechapel, till 3 September) Songlines: Paintings from the Great Western Desert of Australia (Rebecca Hossack Gallery, till 22 July) From Euan to Yuendemu Giles...

Elegy for my father Taki My father had a terrific Resistance record. He first fought in Albania with courage as an officer in the machine gun corps and then financed and...

Beryl in peril Alice Thomas Ellis he day after the baby and his daddy arrived, jet-lagged, from the States they were sitting with some of the rest of the family watching...

Vegetable love Jeffrey Bernard I had lunch with an ex-wife last week and she told me that our daughter, Isabel, is working in a patisserie in Sydney. I find the idea of there...

agents call an 'activity holiday'. Imperative activities are eating and watching food being caught, sold or prepared. Go to Almeria. Your itinerary: Find a companion. Sex is...

Roots Raymond Keene HoW far back must we search to find the ori g ins of chess, and what, indeed, is the significance of the g ame? Leibnitz once wrote: 'I approve stron g ly...

Overheard in the Tube Jaspistos In Competition No. 1583 you were asked for a poem beginnin g with two lines of accidental poetry that I overheard on the Bakerloo line: 'Is...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers; a copy of Chambers English Dictionary — ring the word `Dictionary') for the first three correct solutions...

Please provide mnemonic verses (max- imum 16 lines) to help remember the sequence of the last eight US presidents: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter,...

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