Breakthrough in arms control. P olice continued their search for the Fulham estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, but Sarah Lambert, who disappeared, was found safe and well after...

THE TEST BAN GAMBIT T here can be no doubt that Soviet- American relations are entering a critical and delicate phase. The next couple of months will determine whether the...

THE attack on Lord Stockton in a maga- zine published by some Conservative stu- dents illustrates the grave limitations of silence as a form of defence. Lord Stockton has...

`The need for adequate sex education' T.E.UTLEY I n a letter which he recently addressed to 68 Tory backbenchers, Chris Patten, Minister of State at the Department of...

IAN JACK M any well-known bylines have left Times Newspapers in the diaspora of the past seven months, but none of them, I think, has served the newspaper business so humbly yet...

Dhiren Bhagat traces the imperial roots of the race relations industry, and its perverted growth in modern Britain We do not have to be at the barricades to be...

LAST Saturday night, Belfast was the scene of a moonlight rifle-duel between the Orangemen and the Roman Catho- lics, which resulted in two or three deaths, and several...

Edward Whitley talks to Benazir Bhutto about General Zia, who has just put her in jail again `HAVE you forgiven General Zia for killing your father?' I asked Benazir Bhut- to,...

Peter Paterson on the corporate origins of the Australian economic crisis Melbourne A MAN named Copeman suddenly emerged last week as the saviour of Aus- tralia. By this week,...

BROWNED OFF WITH TANNING John Casey inveighs against the ugly and foolish habit of exposing the skin to sunshine WAUGH'S Gilbert Pinfold abhorred plas- tics, Picasso,...

The press: Paul Johnson comments on plans by left-wing journals to renew themselves THE projected left-wing Sunday national, News on Sunday, contrived to raise all its initial...

Underground, the capitalists are flourishing ARTHUR SELDON T he British economy is in better much better — shape than politicians, pundits and preachers (of all denomina-...

says (New Orthodoxies, 2 August) that there is as yet no musical Post-Modernist movement. But music went through a 'post-modernist' phase some 60 years ago, under the name of...

Sir: Politics aside, South Africa is famed for gold, diamonds, Table Mountain and the Kruger National Park. In a country as wildlife- and conservation-conscious as South Africa...

Sir: Apropos Alan Powers's Hastings litho- graph (9 August), readers may be in- terested to hear what G. K. Chesterton thought: I think the people of this town must be the most...

Sir: Your National Health Service may not be 'the envy of the world' (National Health goes sick', 9 August), but on a day when I have just handed £8 to my G P (for three minutes...

Sir: The Spectator is the first publication I have seen to suggest that the next election will be largely influenced by environmental issues. Andrew Gimson's article on the sad...

Sir: Ever since Martin Walker was appointed Moscow correspondent of the Guardian, Tim Garton Ash has used your columns to denounce him, often with undergraduate-standard...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY - At 20% off the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for f (Equivalent $US & Eurocheques accepted) RATES: 12 Months...

Australia's worst PM Hal Colebatch THE WHITLAM GOVERNMENT 1972-75 by Gough Whitlam Viking, f17.95 I n these memoirs Australia's worst Prime Minister says little about the...

John Summerson ARCHITECTURE OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE edited by Robert Fermor-Hesketh with essays by Jan Morris, Charles Allen, Gillian Tindall, Colin Amery and Gavin Stamp...

Hugh Joseph THE RAILWAY STATION: A SOCIAL HISTORY by Jeffrey Richards and John M. MacKenzie Oxford University Press, £15 T rains either excite people or induce a feeling of...

Christopher Hawtree LUCIA TRIUMPHANT by Tom Holt Macmillan, f9.95 `Lubbock, Mr Percy . Lucia of Riseholme; Luxmore, Mr H.E.; Lyttleton, Dr Edward . . . Mackenzie, Mr Compton;...

Isabel Colegate A MISALLIANCE by Anita Brookner Jonathan Cape, £9.95 A nita Brookner writes most often about the loneliness of the middle-class woman of sensibility whom...

with an addict Anthony Storr THE BONDAGE OF LOVE: A LIFE OF MRS SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE by Molly Lefebure Gollancz, £15.95 T welve years ago I reviewed Molly Lefebure's...

Tony Osman THE SMALL WORLD OF FRED HOYLE by Fred Hoyle Michael Joseph, £10.95 S cientists should be talented and origin- al and this fraction of an autobiography describes...

First grub, Then ethics, Then grub again. Then the ethics of grub, Then less grub and more ethics Or less ethics and more grub. The stomach has its reasons Which Reason...

Roy Foster HORACE PLUNKETT, CO-OPERATION AND POLITICS: AN IRISH BIOGRAPHY by Trevor. West Colin Smythe and the Catholic University of America Press, f12.95 I sn't Horace...

Kingsley Amis The Literary Editor asked two distinguished novelists whether increasing, almost total freedom of expression has been a benefit or hindrance to literature. Next...

Opera Yan Tan Tethera; Cosi fan tutte (Queen Elizabeth Hall) Factory made Rodney Milnes T he new performing space created in the Queen Elizabeth Hall is good enough news in...

Colin Self's Colin Selfs (ICA till 31 August) The Lost Domain (Francis Kyle till 11 September) Self discovery Giles Auty I f the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Pall Mall...

Extra ordinary Noel Malcolm A s a child I was so successfully warned off smoking that I became convinced that I would only have to take one puff at a cigarette to become...

Pretty in Pink (`15', selected cinemas) The young ones Peter Ackroyd T een' films are designed to appeal to a 'teen' audience; adults have Cobra and the children have Woody...

Full of plums Peter Levi W atching too much television may make one petulant, but life in August makes one tired and unambitious and an ideal viewer. Even the Royal Academy...

No sooner said than done up Jeffrey Bernard T here is an area of low pressure in my flat and I can feel a depression creeping up on me. The leaves in Regent's Park are turning...

Supporting the muscleman Taki In the beginning it wasn't so bad. I remember seeing Constantine Karamanlis swimming among us, and he almost passed for a gentleman. Others,...

Fly in the ointment Alice Thomas Ellis H igh on the list of things a mother would prefer not to know comes the following. 'Hi, Mom.' `Hello, my darling, how are you?' `I'm...

This is the fifth of a summer series of lithographs of the Kent and Sussex seaside by Alan Powers, entitled Views of the South Coast. The series, which has eight prints, 10" x...

THE poor old vegetable marrow always seems to get a very bad press, especially in childhood memories. The terrible vision of over-cooked green slime lying in a pool of water,...

and save over 20% on the retail price (equivalent to 10 issues FREE) Subscription rates are being held at the old price for a limited period only. Take advantage of this...

Very small talk Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1434 you were in- vited to supply a conversation involving two or more people on a social occasion and containing an awful lot of...

Bad timing Raymond Keene A s I write, the Kasparov-Karpov match at the Park Lane Hotel, London, looks like this: A pattern emerged in games 7 and 8, namely, that both players...

For Amusement Only I • Si Ti 0: P 5 H Eagi I A UIT EiD a MO LEIUEICH A R A N T NE U F FI E FrANNA R EMITS LR ERII E NOIA A HOP HIIRSEN NL 'TCHCS WO LB A E B LE L 1.010 I...

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

You are invited to write a light-hearted rhyming poem on 'The Life and Death of an Accident-Prone Person' (maximum 16 lines). Entries to 'Competition No. 1437' by 5 September.