Pa rticularly at the Christmas season it b ehoves the more fortunate members of l etY to think of the problems and iculties of those less well off than the mselves; of the poor...

Sir: I think that Mr Robin A. Howard (Letters, December 13) oversimplifies the case he is trying to expound. Firstly, I find hypocrisy unpalatable from whichever quarter it...

Sir After Al Capp's latest Spectator article (December 13), it should be obvious to most readers that he is a remarkably efficient journalist. In a few columns, he lays waste...

Sir In his snide review (December 13) of David Vitals scholarly work The Origins of Zionism, John Grigg states that Herzl's prescription for solving the Jewisb„ problem was to...

Sir: I hope that Dr Rhodes Boyson will read ivi r r Edward Heath's weekend comment on hig be i education: "Our system of education, in particular 08 higher education, still...

0 . Speaker Heath? Is it fanciful to suggest that t his might be a happy and appropriate role for Mr Heath after Mr Selwyn Lloyd's retirement next year? No, it is not fanciful....

To subsidise, or not to subsidise — that is the question; Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of the unemployed, Letting the figures rise to salve...

Christmas in Grimsby Jack Waterman Grimsby has never had pretensions to being the Venice of the North-East Midlands. Only one architectural feature might give a visitor a...

Giscard's baby Andrew Lycett Walking down the Rue du Faubourg St Honore at night, one is somewhat startled now by the cheerful Christmas tree, replete with flashing lights,...

Man of metal Richard West The death of Sir Val Duncan, chairman of Rio Tinto-Zinc, robs Great Britain of one of its few' truly able capitalists. Asset-strippers, property...

Welsh connection Michael Roberts In the regions of England, devolution is all about accountability and better democratic government, and that is why there is absolutely no...

Youth pendulum Logie Bruce Lockhart How quickly the pendulum swings for youth! Thanks to the mass media, ways of thinking which formerly took years or even decades to shift...

The play's the thing Rhodes Boyson Every schoolmaster worth his salt is' totally exhausted at the end of the Christmas term. A long term, examinations, reports, plays,...

It's never Christmas already? Alan Brien Odd isn't it, that it is usually atheists who Protest most strongly against Christmas as the se cularisation of a religious festival,...

Plight into Egypt Philip Hope-Wallace MY own favourite daypaper would entitle this led to the Mast'. For it concerns Flight into tgYpt. Not of course the one undertaken by the...

Shock therapy Bernard Dixon In a shock announcement last week, Dr Hal Pottinger, leader of the expedition that has been searching for evidence of life in the Treasury of...

Another Christmas William Trevor You always looked back, she thought. You looked back at other years, other Christmas cards arriving, the children younger. There was the year...

Philippe Jullian 100 Years of Dance Posters Walter Terry and Jack Rennert (Studio Vista £3.95) Arts Decoratifs 1925 F. Scarlett and M. Townley (Academy Editions £5.95) The...

Shirley Conran Prostitutes Jeremy Sandford (Secker and , Warburg £4.50) With easily the dullest cover of the year concealing the stuff that Raymond's Revue Bar dreams are made...

Ian Bradley Everywhere Spoken Against: Dissent in tire Victorian Novel Valentine Cunningham (Oxford University Press £7.50) Victorian novelists were not generally very well...

Harriet Waugh The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant Pamela Horn (Gill and Macmillan £8.50) The Victorian Public School edited by Brian Simon and Ian Bradley (Gill and...

Shiva Naigaul 13laCk September Christopher Dobson (Robert Hale £4.00) We three soldiers, after we die, want to become three stars of Orion ... I believe some of t hose we...

John A rdagh Three French Writers and the Great War: Barbusse, Drieu La Rochelle, Bernanos. Frank Field (Cambridge University Press £4.75) It is a truism of history that defeat...

Richard Shone Lord LeightOnTIzonee and Richard Ormond (Yale University Press £19.50). "Sir Frederick is a mixture of the Olympian Jove and a head waiter, a superb decorator...

Through the glass Benny Green Librarj Looking-Glass, a personal Anthology David Cecil (Constable £5.50) I see that Lord David Cecil's anthology has been received by some...

One of the "talked about" manuscripts at October's Frankfurt Book Fair has yet to find a publisher in Britain. Entitled Trading Up, it is an uninhibited modern novel by an...

Pantomime incognito Kenneth Hurren The Exciting Adventures of Queen DonnieIla by Brian Blackburn (Casino) On Approval by Frederick Lonsdale (Theatre Royal, Haymarket) To the...

Dog days .Kenneth Robinson — Dog Day Afternoon Director: Sydney Lumet Stars: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Chris Sarando n 'X' Warner West End (130 mins). Sherlock Holmes' Smarter...

Elixir of life Rodney Milnes Those who plan to watch Ingmar Bergman's television production of The Magic Flute on BBC 2 on Boxing Day — and I, trust they will be numbered in...

John McEwen The second of the Arts Council's 'New Work exhibitions is on view at the Hayward Gallery till January 4. It's the last, as far as one can see, so this is an...

Nicholas Davenport What an extraordinary year we have had on the Stock Exchange! It opened when the investTent world was having its greatest fight of all time. The old boys...

I had hoped to bring some seasonal cheer to relieve the recurrent gloom of this column but there is damned little of it about. (I feel like Jeremiah watching all his direst...