`Soon there won't be anything left to fiddle' A ferocious Atlantic storm blew unex- pectedly across southern England: hurricane-force winds caused the greatest damage to Britain...

TURNING ABORTION'S TIDE F eminists, certainly older feminists, are in favour of abortion. They therefore oppose Mr David Alton's Bill, which will be debated in the House of...

ENTRIES for the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize must reach The Spectator by 14 November. The winner will receive a cash prize of £1,000 for an entry of not more than 4,000 words...

Popular capitalism seems to be losing its popularity NOEL MALCOLM I t has been a terrible week. Bulls have stampeded, nest-eggs have been scram- bled, flotations have been...

0 n Sunday we arrived at the Con- naught for dinner with Si and Victoria Newhouse. After the astonishing South- East hurricane, the trees of London still la) chaotically...

next week.

Now that the bottom has fallen out of the market, there may well be a savage culling of City whizz-kids. Jonathan Gregson meets some of the first casualties IN THE wake of the...

Patrick Bishop surveys the betting on the successor to the ailing Khomeini AYATOLLAH Khomeini is slowly slip- ping towards death, according to rumours filtering out of...

Sara Webb reports on the disappearance of the enemy agent Sweden let go Stockholm HARDLY a day goes by in Sweden without the establishment of some investi- gating body or...

Margaret's men: a profile of Sir Eric Sharp, who is ringing the world with his cables The second in a series of profiles of men whom the Prime Minister admires. WHEN Sir Eric...

Gavin Stamp calls for a belated memorial to a man who repelled invasion LAST week the scaffolding came down after the restoration of the Nelson Col- umn, the largest and most...

Charles Clover finds his emotions in conflict as he crawls towards the kill IT WAS 5.30 p.m. and the light was going fast when we saw a group of deer perhaps 600 yards away on...

Contrary to popular belief, Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan brown For the Christian riles and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the Christian...

THE week has been marked by serious rioting in London, usually the quietest of all capitals, accompanied by frequent and cruel assaults on the police. On Monday and Tuesday,...

John Sweeney meets the dossers and tower-block dwellers who weathered the storm DURING the London blitz, Malcolm Muggeridge and Graham Greene occa- sionally found themselves...

The press: Paul Johnson hails Murdoch the monopoly-buster WHICH is the public's best defence against monopoly? Is it government, pas- sing a law through Parliament and then...

It looks like a long wait for November 1988 JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE C W e have had no end of a lesson,' sang Kipling at the end of the Boer War: 'it can do us no end of good.' The...

When the markets hit you over the head like this, pay attention CHRISTOPHER FILDES T extbooks on mule-handling pose the question: how do you attract the attention of a...

Sir: Mr Ludovic Kennedy's considered assessment (Books, 10 October) that Brit- ish judges should discard their wigs, suc- cumb to garrulous media appearances and indeed televise...

Dressy Labour Sir: Alexandra Artley's article on women politicians ('Who will handbag for Labour?', 3 October) is based on some misconceptions: 1) Well dressed women in the...

Sir: It was most gratifying to see in The Spectator (3 October) two articles con- veying a deeper understanding of Fiji's constitutional and ethnic problems than has been the...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY - Save 15% on the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for f (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES 12...

Sir: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's broadly accurate portrayal of urban poverty in the US Mown and out in Washington', 26 September) was spoiled by a misleading reference to the...

Sir: In his piece on welfare dependency (3 October) Dr Daniels paints a depressing picture all too familiar to dozens of his fellow doctors. In my grandfather's medic- al...

Sir: It is true that in the convict states kangaroo meat may be purchased as pet food. But in the enlightened south it is readily available from butchers for human consumption....

Sir: As an old professor I should be much more pleased with the beautiful Lady Mosley (Letters, 10 October) if she would only learn from history, instead of thinking that she is...

Sir: Alexandra Artley (Diary, 10 October) gave an account of the seminar on Ger- trude Himmelfarb's 'Victorian Values' pamphlet that must have mystified many who were present....

Sir: In your publication of 22 August last, you allowed a Mr Timothy Ash to use the term 'house painter' when referring to the late Adolf Hitler. A term such as that was at one...

Sir: If Auberon Waugh (Another voice, 5 October) firmly believes that Melanesians in Fiji are entitled to usurp political power for all time just because they are the indigenous...

The Status of Tibet, (The Spectator, 10 October) are Wisdom Pub- lications, 23 Dering Street, London WI .

How not to be a Minister Roy Jenkins OUT OF THE WILDERNESS, DIARIES 1963-7 by Tony Benn Hutchinson, £14.95 D iaries are a soft literary form. They are relatively easy to...

Anita Brookner THREE CONTINENTS by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala John Murray, (11.95 T he effect of this strange story is one of unease and disbelief, but, alas, these reac- tions far...

Harriet Waugh THE CLOTHES IN THE WARDROBE by Alice Thomas Ellis Duckworth, £9.95 A lice Thomas Ellis is quintessentially a modern English novelist of the quirky tradition. Her...

Isabel Colegate WOMEN by Naim Attallah Quartet, £15 M r Naim Attallah, the publisher, as everyone must know by now, gave 289 women lunch. He asked them how they felt about...

Peter Quennell A SOCIAL HISTORY OF MADNESS: STORIES OF THE INSANE by Roy Porter Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £14.95 O ld Bedlam, which overlooked Moor- fields, was an elegant piece...

Colin Thubron USTINOV IN RUSSIA by Peter Ustinov O'Mara Books, f12.95 0 f the two contrasting definitions of the USSR — insecure victim or old- fashioned imperialist — the...

Max Egremont TRAIL OF HAVOC: IN THE STEPS OF LORD LUCAN by Patrick Marnham Viking, £10.95 LUCAN: NOT GUILTY by Sally Moore Sidgwick, £12.95 0 n the evening of 7 November...

Peter Levi UNDER HELICON by Penelope Tremayne Tabb House, £9.95 T his is a book about Mediterranean places; its author is courageous, high- spirited and wise, but the...

Rupert Christiansen LEONARD BERNSTEIN by Joan Peyser Bantam, £14.95 LEONARD BERNSTEIN by Michael Freedland Harrap, £12.95 W hatever has come over the guild of American...

Czech theatre Memories are not acceptable Barbara Day describes the Czechs' struggle for artistic independence he stage is a bare traverse in a darkened gymnasium on the...

Rebirth of the blues JAZZ is back! Half the revolting ads on television show a lone male tenor-player drinking some yob lager or Blend 37 coffee. But it isn't jazz, it's the...

Figaro Macbeth (Opera North, Leeds) Symbol of hope Rodney Milnes I don't believe I have ever felt so vibrantly supportive an atmosphere at Co- vent Garden as that on the...

Entertaining Strangers (Cottesloe) Victorian values Christopher Edwards D avid Edgar's new play is set in Dorchester during the years 1829-1854 — a period that witnessed the...

Emma McClure (Vanessa Devereux, till 9 November) Andrew Southall (New South Wales House, till 26 November) Informal approaches Giles Auty M ost of us, whether we admit it or...

Serious viewing Wendy Cope W e switched on the television and saw a man eating a yellow flower. 'Oh, this is entertainment,' said my friend apologeti- cally. 'It will be over...

Send Fergie to Paris Taki o say I didn't detect a soupcon of panic among the rich clientele of the Paris Ritz last Monday would be like saying there is law and order in...

Mother knows best Alice Thomas Ellis A few weeks ago I dreamed that I was in a violently swaying house. I thought it might have been because there had just been an earthquake...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

Hurricane Karpov Raymond Keene T o almost universal amazement, Kas- parov was annihilated while playing with the normally advantageous White pieces in the second game of the...

Way beyond Orwell Jaspistos I N Competition No. 1494 you were invited to provide a description by a much later historian of the typical English pub of 2084. First, thank you...

BITING the other day into a new season Worcester apple — crisp, delicately frag- rant with the scents of autumn, worth any number of those glossily tasteless deep- frozen Granny...

You are invited to provide an enthusiastic description by an eating-out columnist of a meal in an imaginary new restaurant, the words to have, on the discriminating read- er, an...

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