I N the past British statesmen have prided themselves on the flexibility of this country's foreign policy and the empiricism with which it has approached world affairs. The...

SPECTATOR

By DARSIE GILLIE Paris T HE French Revolution has left France with a passion for universal ideas and a social system based on a wide distribution of small properties. Frenchmen...

By IAN GILMOUR UOR nearly a hundred years people have been r trying to reform the House of Lords. The latest proposal is that it should be displaced by the Privy Council (The...

BY seventy-four votes to two (France and Israel) the General Assembly of the United Nations called last Saturday for an Israeli withdrawal behind the old armistice lines; and...

Arriving, the greater and the lesser seemed determined to play to the last the parts appointed to them by the cartoonists and the seekers of political analogies. Mr. Butler,...

OAKMAN was bowled by Goddard playing no stroke. _ The Times, January 19. OAKMAN played on to Goddard. Daily Telegraph, January 19. OAKMAN decided too late to offer a...

be ashamed to say so. It is not just material resources that make a nation great. It is character and leadership. There are certainly some problems ahead of us. And then...

wore a white coolie hat and a loose-fitting champagne, heavy grosgrain coat over a mink trimmed dress with three-quarter length sleeves: (The Times Law Report, January 18.) The...

the editor of the Sunday Express to make it clear the article was not intended to reflect on Parliament, urged that he should be severely reprimanded; and as a result, other MPs...

conductors are saying, 'Hold tightly, please.' The offenders are all among the new recruits, and chiefly the young women. No older man would misuse his tongue on that unnatural...

lays it on thick. Commenting on the fuel shortage, the London Teacher remarked that many of the profession 'will no doubt be forced to use public transport,' and went on, to...

ritil MOST SENSIBLE suggestion made in vOmc t,*.; Tuesday's 'privilege' debate in the Commons came from Lord Hinching- brooke, who said that publication of 1 the details of MPs'...

of the recent setbacks to Soviet policy has been Chinese intervention, not only in the Middle East, but in Russia's European protectorates as well. This is a far cry from the...

Kee, 10s. 6d.) and rejoicing that political pamphleteering has been given a fillip by the events of the last six months. Mr. Johnson is quick off the mark in polemic and was...

From the Greek Anthology. This tombstone, stranger passing near, Shows that a little dog lies here; Tells how a master's loving hand Carved these words and heaped this sand....

By RICHARD GOOLD-ADAMS rr HE certainty that Mr. Macmillan's Govern- ment ment will make substantial cuts in defence expenditure adds a special savour to this year's White...

By GRAHAM HUTTON T has taken Tory realism, boosted by the world- wide publication of British military weakness over Suez, to make people begin to realise that Britain is...

By ANTHONY HARTLEY ? inte llectuals word Fabian used to invoke a vision of I intellectuals scrutinising narrowly the prob- lems of our time and suggesting solutions for them...

By JOHN BETJ EMAN L AST week I was at a function in the vast Grosvenor Room of the Grand Hotel, Bir- mingham. What Conservative and Liberal cigar- smoke, I thought, must have...

By PETER QUENNELL L ITERARY disputants in France are not inclined to pull their punches. Even child prodigies must expect to receive a share; and a number of heavy blows have...

surrounded by a haphazard collection of objects we either love or hate. Long ago the element of choice disappeared among the bric-a-brac of old wed- ding presents, unloved...

correspondence headed 'The Despised.' Frankly I was more amused than hurt because my fellow countrymen are not likely to lose much sleep over the fact that Mr. Pickard and Co....

SIR,—Perhaps the subject aired by Mr. Jdsman's healthily outspoken comments is worth expanding beyond the immediate question of the whirlwind Britain has reaped in Egypt. I...

defence policy article suggest that he and, if he, perhaps many others as well, are seriously misled about the reasons for Britain possessing its own hydrogen bomb. Mr. Maude...

Euston 3321

The Despised J. C. Longhurst, Satoh el Sera° , Charles Wrong, A. S. Parker Defence Cuts Lionel Harrowitz Government by Old Etonians W. E. Kaye Czech Resistance J. Josten An...

Sut,—The controversy about the past behaviour of British Service men in Egypt seems to be conducted between those who regard the Egyptians as a people so civilised that it is...

all British clubs in Egypt excluded Egyptians. In Cairo, two clubs founded for the recreation of officers of the Army of Occupation, the Turf Club and the Gezira Sporting Club,...

SIR,—A case was recently reported in The Times of the wife of the tenant of a council house who had been made ill by the turquoise paint used to paint her house. This,...

SIR, —Since my letter appeared in The Spectator about a New Zealander's difficulties in finding out the correct pronunciations of 'Pall Mall' and 'Mall' I have received six very...

the fact that 'Mall' has two pronunciations. Alone, 'Mall' rhymes with 'shall'; with 'Pall' in front of it it becomes Well,' i.e., Pell Mell. King George V was quoted in the...

SIR, —Your reproduction on January 11 of 'savage' jokes about an enslaved nation is ill-placed. Back in 1950 the Communist regime in Prague was de- scribed in a United Press...

SIR,—May I suggest that carping criticism of Etonian achievement, as displayed by Mr. Hollis and Capt. Kerby, is entirely misguided? As a retired schoolmaster I can discover...

me only too true. I made over 100 journeys between Reading and London during 1956 and on only three occasions did the train arrive at its destination on time.—Yours 382...

the cutting of defence expenditure. Does this mean a corresponding reduction of the per- manent Civil Service? Without a substantial reduc- tion of these absurd numbers, which...

ANYONE wishing to know how to make the worst possible use of the Irish ethos should hasten to the cur- tain-raiser at the Lyric. Scarcely had the strains of the Soldier's Song...

The Facts of the Matter At the moment, according to the licence figures and allowing for those without licences, some 20,700,000 can receive TV. Of these, 9,455,000 can receive...

JANUARY 28, 1832 IN England. the Cholera has now extended to Sunderland, Newcastle. Gateshead. North Shields South Shields, Newburn, Houghton- le-Spring. Lemington, and various...

WITHIN hailing distance of sixty, Clark Gable still epito- mises something that refuses to date or fade. Fashion dictates the life-span of actors (at least at the jeune premier...

SOME three to five decades late, we are just beginning to see BartOk's stage-works in this country. The Miraculous Mandarin was done at Edin- burgh last year, and now the group...

Funny Being a Genius BY LAIN HAMILTON Heaven forbid Miss Stein should become a fashion. —Katherine Mansfield in The Atherueum. B arr she did. Katherine Mansfield's pious...

The Elegant Oakey. By Crosswell Bowen. (O.U.P., 30s.) ft • probably shows something or other, but the only two Mayors of London whose names I can automatically recall are Dick...

Goya. Text by X. Desparmet-Fitzgerald. (The Gallery of Masterpieces : Hamish Hamilton, 4 gns.) HERE are two sombre and powerful books on Goya. The first is a series of drawings,...

typically sentimental, quite compulsive American thriller of the schizoid who cannot help but kill. You can sec what's coming, yet it's still exciting when it comes, like the...

The Cold Dark Night. By Sarah Gainham. (Arthur Barker, 12s. 6d.) That admirable first novel, Time Right Deadly, which was about occupied Vienna, is here followed by an equally...

middle-class Chicago setting; solemn, rather sentimentalised small girl as central figure. Miss Eberhart is too well- mannered to bespatter her readers with blood, but too old a...

(Heinemann, 12s. 6d.) Paul Drake is as highly ingenious and as tireless as ever in his detection, and Perry Mason as infuriating to the New York Police Department and District...

The Story of the Integration of the Indian States. (Chatto and Windus, 21s.) Industrial Enterprise in India. By Nabagopal Das. (Longmans, 18s.) THESE three books deal with the...

Murder mystery set in London and peopled by Londoners, but retailed in near- American idiom, so that shamuses ride in elevators, at five minutes of eight, after a bourbon or,...

The talented and ever-readable Miss Marsh makes effective, if rather condescending, fun of comic Teutonic amateurs of folk-dancing and fertility rites, and the mummerset crew...

Cooke. (Boardman, I ls. 6d.) A dozen workmanlike magazine stories, each blurbed into being a hit too big for its boots, but all readable, and one or two admirably crisp and...

tough, neat little suspense story of three kidnappers hiding with their couple of victims—child and nurse—in remote ham- burger joint. Familiar situation that is always exciting...

6d.) Rather a lot of murders in the glossy, neurotic world inhabited by New York's thirty-thousand-dollars- a-year advertising executives. Background more skilfully done than...

6d.) Rich playboy's yacht is pirated out of the harbour of Monaco, which I suppose is where good Americans go to when they die, these days. David Dodge has an eye, and a pen,...

12s. 6d.) Here, on the other hand, the contrast is deliberate, and well done, between the brash American private dick and the home-brewed British bobby, in a search after a...

The Daughters of Mrs. Peacock. By Gerald Bullett. (Dent, 15s.) The Talented Mr. Ripley. By Patricia Highsmith. (Cresset Press, 15s.) ALL six of the novels listed above are for...

ARE the Victorians Coming Back?' asked Humphry House in one of his papers, and to his `catchpenny question' (as he called it) he answered 'Yes.' Miss Thomson's book is yet...

NOVELS, ETC. Hamish Hamilton: First Love, by Ivan Turgenev, translated from the Russian by Isaiah Berlin, with an introduction by Lord David Cecil (18s.); The Nancy Mitford...

By CUSTOS T UESDAY brought a slight check to the upward movement on the Stock Exchange but the market remains very firm, except in oil shares, which hang nervously on politics....

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT T HE new Government has been warmly wel- comed and praised for its readiness to face facts. I was therefore surprised to find the new Chancellor of the...

A reader who missed renewing his raspberry canes at the end of the season asks about planting them now. New canes can be planted in February in a previously well-dug and manured...

All sorts of items make up local news, from a golden wedding to the killing of a snake. The latter may be a little unusual, particularly in winter, but the other day I read in...

BY IAN NIALL BERRIES on the tree, or even the movement of birds, may be reliable weather signs, but they are rather long-term things for the man who wonders about the day ahead...

'I was drivin' me van on me round, see, when I spots this chap comin' up the hedgeside from the river. Now, I'm always a one for mindin' me own business, but when I starts up...

K. A. K. LARSEN (1st Prize, 'Good Companions.' 1920) BLACK (6 men, WHITE (10 men) • WHITE to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to last week's problem...

ACROSS 1 Kifidly suggestion to the Muses of their con- stituent number (6). 4 How to address an antique dealer? (3, 5) 9 For Lime its music was thematic (6). 10 'I'm gonna...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 360 Report by H. G. Button To show the confusion or 'discord' of his feelings the troubadour Raimbaud de Vacqueiras com- posed a descort of six verses...

cross a side street. Then—just as you step ofi the pavement—you sense rather than see a youth on a bicycle racing round the corner towards you. Leaping back instinctively you...