He's exhausted. You see, his other job is being Prime Minister ' M r David Heathcoat-Amory resigned from the Government, in which he was Pay- master-General, so that he would...

There is nothing dishonourable in a fudge on Europe, but will it work? BRUCE ANDERSON D avid Heathcoat-Amory has never aspired to flamboyance. A cerebral, appar- ently...

F or 48 hours I imagined that I had had the melancholy pleasure of buying at auc- tion, from a collection of his books and memorabilia, Sir Kingsley Amis's sturdy old manual...

Vacancies for right-wing gays, and West Country Keynesians — but no more gay rabbis, please MATTHEW PARRIS L days gone by, fathers would take their sons by the arm: 'Join the...

The Princess of Wales's resignation is no great blow to a good cause. Dominic Prince knows about the drawbacks of royal patronage. He's served on a charity board with the...

Michael Heath

THAT'S ALL RIGHT Another routinely bad week for Mr Major: but electoral history is on his side, says David Rogers A HEATHCOAT-Amory goes. Almost everyone assumes that this is...

Peregrine Worsthorne dissents from the latest his fellow Tories are saying about the author of Nineteen Eighty-Four NO SENTENCE in modern British litera- ture is more often...

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson advises us not to believe all we read about her in the papers IT IS agreeable to wake in the morning and find a national newspaper praising one's beauty....

. . . in more ways than one. Douglas Johnson on why across the Channel politicians and tycoons are going to prison VISITORS to Brittany benefit from the generosity of...

Claudia Parsons argues that the British find it easier to care for animals than for people For this year's T.E. Utley Memorial Awards, entrants were asked to answer the...

. . . and Victoria Elliot wonders whose fault it is that animals so obviously queue behind humans at the evolutionary post offices ANIMAL RIGHTS activists are becoming...

Why the chairman of the Scott Trust deserves his marching orders PAUL JOHNSON hat are we to do about the poor old Guardian? Or, more precisely, what are we to do about the man...

Steering between Scylla and Charybdis through the safe channel of no policy CHRISTOPHER FILDES J ohn Heathcoat, founder of his family's fortunes, was one of the heroes of...

Cain and lbny Sir: I am afraid I must contest your assertion (Leader, 6 July) that your reading of Genesis chapter iv is 'as good as anyone else's'; in fact, I venture to...

Sir: Foreign Office sinologist and traditional appeaser of Communist China, Sir Percy Cradock, made the striking observation that 'historically China has not been an expan- sio...

Sir: Sarah Whitebloom's article ('Rich rela- tions in the City', 20 July) has several flaws. Firstly, the rising power of financial PR in the past five years has more to do...

Sir: Whether Nigel Farndale's description of me as an expert for the Daily Mail is meant as a compliment or an affront (Be a consti- tutional expert', 20 July) I guess I would...

July) claiming that the drink ran out at The Spectator party: El Vino took two cases of white and red wine back the day after our party. Furthermore, the El Vino manager was...

Sir: In his article criticising some of his fel- low journalists for being thin-skinned, (Media studies, 13 July) it seemed to me that, in an oblique and rather didactic way, Mr...

Sir: Helen Anderson thinks I am bluffing (Letters, 20 July). Not so! Let anyone who doubts the sincerity of my claim to yearn for the front amphitheatre at the Royal Opera House...

Sir: It is at one's peril that one takes issue with 'the little Greek boy', yet I am sure Taki will not take umbrage at the correc- tion of a factual error in his rollicking...

Sir: Your correspondent Herr Lorenz (Let- ters, 20 July) does well to remind us of the sterling qualities of the citizens of Ham- burg. How sensitively they built the U-boats...

refute all the nonsense contained in Sarah Whitebloom's article, but one or two examples might give a flavour of how far off target she is. To sustain her claim that 90 per...

The climate may be getting hotter but our habits will never change PETRONELLA WYATT T he behaviour of human beings may be divided into two classes: first, that which is...

Fifth and lastly David Sexton A WATCH IN THE NIGHT by A. N. Wilson Sinclair-Stevenson, £15.99, pp. 320 O ne day, A. N. Wilson will make a great subject for a biography, for...

Alastair Forbes HIS FATHER'S SON: THE LIFE OF RANDOLPH CHURCHILL by Winston Churchill Werdenfelcl, .f20, pp. 514 W hen Randolph was 20 his father interrupted their stroll...

John Michell KEEPER OF GENESIS by Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock Heinemann, f16.99, pp. 362 FROM ATLANTIS TO THE SPHINX by Colin Wilson Virgin, £15.99, pp. 294 I n order to...

Alan Judd FACING ARMAGEDDON edited by Hugh Cecil and Peter H. Liddle Pen & Sword, £25, pp. 936 N ow and again you read a book that makes you want to say, 'Stop here. Let nothing...

Alan Wall HERMITS: THE INSIGHTS OF SOLITUDE by Peter France Chatto, f16.99, pp. 240 F ive centuries back, one would have been more than likely on any lengthy jour- ney to reach...

Tobias Jones PHOTOCOPIES by John Berger Bloomsbury, £13.99, pp. 192 TITIAN: NYMPH AND SHEPHERD by John Berger and Katya Berger Andreadakis Prestel, £14.95, pp.120 J ohn...

Andrew Barrow MANCHESTER PIECES by Paul Driver Picador, £15.99, pp. 306 I hope the author will forgive me if I begin — and perhaps continue — my review of this book on a...

Simon Armitage ICELANDIC JOURNALS by William Morris Mare's Nest, £15.99, pp. 187 A s Fiona MacCarthy points out in her foreword to this book, William Morris shouldn't be...

Where's that famous anti- Not in his operas, says Michael Tanner, despite what Wagner said elsewhere I t is all too easy to understand the fuss about Wagner's anti-Semitism. It...

Francis Bacon (Pompidou Centre, till 14 October) Cooked up emotions Edward Lucie-Smith T he Bacon retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris is about the best repre-...

Taken by surprise Felicity Owen on the Royal Academy's plans for expansion T he Royal Academy in Burlington House has long been regarded as a pre- eminent showplace and...

Uncle Vanya (Chichester Minerva) John Gabriel Borkman (National) The Memory of Water (Hampstead) Celebrating Anton Sheridan Morley B ack in 1962 it was Uncle Vanya, in that...

Thank God for the Trust Ursula Buchan G ardens are so fragile, they rarely long outlive their creators. The relentless dynamic of growth and change can turn a single year's...

Twister (PG, selected cinemas) Chasing tornadoes Mark Steyn T wister is the film with this guy who gets blown down the street. No, hang on, that's The Hugh Grant Story....

We don't need no education James Delingpole ` Who is Sylvia?' asked the third episode of School (Wednesday), BBC 2's documentary series about Watford's Francis Combe •...

Fascinating eccentricity Michael Vestey G abbitas and Thring: the very men- tion strikes fear into the wallet. For par- ents, the two names of the legendary scholastic agency,...

Six of the best Alan Judd A sked to choose the best new car on sale in Britain, you would probably hesi- tate, saying it depends on why and by whom it is to be driven. It...

Trust me on this one Taki Gstaad T hey say that sports are a mirror of the larger society, which means we're in a hell of a mess. Instead of developing character, today's...

On a sombre note Robin Oakley T here has been a sombre note to racing this past week or two. Not only have we seen the tragic death here of the well-liked conditional jockey...

A new prodigy Andrew Robson GEIR HELGEMO is bridge's newest prodigy. He is World Junior Champion, Open World Championship runner up and has just won the World Individual...

My brush with death Jeffrey Bernard O ver the years I must have had quite a few near-death experiences. I can think of a very few particular ones such as once telling Ronnie...

WE HAVE a plethora of saints this week: Lawrence of Brindisi, Mary Magdalen, Brigit of Sweden, St Christopher, Joachim and Ann, the parents of Our Lady, and Pantaleon, the...

SIMPSON'S IN-THE-STRAND CHESS Quick on the draw Raymond Keene ONE OF THE great debates of modern chess is how to banish draws. Kasparov himself came under fire when the...

IN COMPETITION NO. 1942 you were invited to supply a sketch, in the style of Dickens, of an imaginary public employee of the present age. Because my son Edward was playing the...

A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 1989 Port for the first correct solution opened on 12 August, with two runners-up prizes of £15 (or, for UK...

Running under the influence Simon Barnes ONE of the bearers of the Olympic torch carried it under the influence of a drug. I know. I supplied it myself — an equivocal,...

Dear Mary.. . Q. I recently stayed with friends for two days near Painswick. I was introduced to a very nice daily and over the course of my stay chatted to her, on and off. On...