While Mr Reagan's emissary to the Middle East, Mr Philip Habib, held peace talks in Jerusalem, Israeli jets bombed targets in the Lebanon on four consecutive days, killing about...

A long, not very hot summer Ferdinand Mount 'Weren't you one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?' 'No, that was my brother. I wanted to ride with them. But they had four...

On caning the handicapped A uberon Waugh Every Wednesday the Daily Mirror prints a most interesting column called Paul Foot Investigates, or possibly Paul Foot Reporting. In...

Bohdan Nahaylo Last Sunday's curt message of congratulations from President Brezhnev to Mr Stanislaw Kania on his re-election as Poland's party leader barely concealed the...

Judith Dempsey Warsaw Mr Stanislaw Kania embodies the history of the Polish nation, which is one long saga of survival;he proved this week that he has an immense capacity and...

Tom Bethel! Washington It was just like old times when commuters in the capital unfolded their Washington Posts last Tuesday morning and read that 'spymaster Max Hugel, the...

Sam White Paris Heralded as a major reform which will give a distinctive mark to the Mitterrand presidency. the de-centralisation plans announced last week by the Minister of...

London has been passing through a short spell of tropical heat. On Friday week the thermometer rose to 95 deg., and it did not decline below 88 deg. till Wednesday, since which...

Roy Kerridge Last year, while I was admiring the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, I was approached by a young couple with staring eyes. They opened the conversation by...

John Reader 'I believe . . . ,' said Richard Leakey, juggling fossils skulls like an experienced waiter with his arms full of awkward crockery. 'I believe . . . I believe . . ....

Roy's small earthquake Paul Johnson There is nothing like an unexpected byelection result for raising Fleet Street's metaphor-quotient. Warrington, headlined the Guardian, was...

The BP success Tony Rudd The news that the huge BP issue was a success came slightly too late for noting in last week's issue. However the fact that the issue was a success...

Sir: I am saddened by all the calls for, and talk about, further strengthening of police defence equipment and capability even to the extent of visored headgear and water...

Sir: Our attention has been drawn to a reference by Leo Abse, MP, in his review of K.O. Morgan's Rebirth of a Nation: Wales 1880-1980 (29 May), to the late Professor J. E....

Sir: I have filled out a Moonie personality test questionnaire and when I came back was told my personality was erratic and in urgent need of their attention. I can appreciate...

his letter (18 July) about charitable status, unwittingly reveals his own creed. He is saying in effect: I believe in the state's infallibility in judging what is the public...

Sir: Sasthi Brata writes (Letters, 11 July) that 'the Muslims introduced the wretchedly subversive notion that all men were equal in the sight of God.' What Mohammed did say...

Sir: It is a sad thing to note that Brian Inglis believes in xenoglossy (18 July). It would be a sad thing to hear of any thinking person believing in so preposterous a notion,...

Domestic war and peace John Stewart Corns Sonya: The Life of Countess Tolstoy Anne Edwards (Hodder pp.512, £8.50) After he had been married some 30 years Tolstoy came into a...

P.J. Kavanagh Native Realm Czeslaw Milosz (Carcanet New Press/Sidgwick & Jackson pp. 300, £8.95) The Issa Valley Czeslaw Milosz (Carcanet New Press/Sidgwick & Jackson pp. 288,...

Eric Newby The Last Wilderness: A Journey Across the Great Kalahari Desert Nicholas Luard (Elm Tree Books/Hamish Hamilton pp.222, £8.95) The Kalahari, an enormous tract of...

Byron Rogers Settling Down James Whitaker (Quartet pp. 127, £4.95) Their Royal Highnesses Anthony Holden (Weidenfeld pp. 192, £7.95) Royal Weddings Dulcie M. Ashdown (Robert...

Paul Ableman Whale Jeremy Lucas (Jonathan Cape pp. 172, £5.50) This is the story of Sabre, a killer whale. Sabre is a fictional descendant of `Tarka, the Otter' rather than of...

George Borrow Michael Wharton George Borrow died on 26 July, 1881. How many people read his books today? Very few, I imagine, though his name is no doubt remembered for its...

Picasso's favourites John McEwen When Picasso died in 1973 his personal estate was valued at about £150 million. He left no will and eventually an agreement was reached...

Some riches Mark Amory The Merchant of Venice (Aldwych) One Mo' Time! (Cambridge) One Night Stand (Apollo) There are those who, reacting against John Barton's reputation as a...

Period piece Peter Ackroyd Quartet ('X', selected cimenas) James Ivory's Quartet is set in the Paris of 1927, although this is the Paris of the exile or traveller. The film...

Revivalism Rodney Milnes Fidelio and Ariadne auf Naxos (Glyndebourne) Bernard Haitink has the reputation of being a sober, responsible, even phlegmatic musician, but his...

Great stuff Richard Ingrams I hope that in the same way that we oldies can recall what we were doing when we heard the news of President Kennedy's death in 1963 all of us who...

Libellers Tala The gutter press is after me once again. The first libel came in the Grovel column of Private Eye. In that infamous page I was described as a child molester, a...

Workload Jeffrey Bernard The unemployment figure is quite disgust. ing and now a doctor in the north country says he's discovered a new illness he calls 'fear of...