This has been Mr Heath's election. It is a personal triumph, the more admirable be- cause it has not been one of 'personality' in the usual debased sense of the word. Few...

As I was saying . . • PETER PATERSON To get back to what we were saying before we were so rudely interrupted last Thursday, the making of a Cabinet is rather like feed- ing...

The old and the new GEORGE GALE For once it was a delight at the time to be proved wrong: and from about midnight on Thursday night onwards into the early hours of Friday...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS Oh the polls are a flop So let's laugh like a drain. Oh, the polls are a flop And they'd best shut up shop And not have them again. The pollsters all wrote...

GEORGE HUTCHINSON As the author of his biography, I have a peculiar (not to say pecuniary) interest in the new Prime Minister. The book occupied me for more than a year, and I...

Mr Nixon makes changes MURRAY KEMPTON New York—American journalists, while afflicted less with the insolence of office than the Vice President keeps insisting, are un- trained...

A Bonn diary Malcolm RUTHERFORD Bonn—A few weeks ago Chancellor Brandt was fond of saying that if he had Harold Wilson's prerogative, he would call a general election at once...

Crystal balls BILL GRUNDY I have never really felt I could take sides in the argument about whether Homer was one man or many, or possibly even a woman. But I've always felt...

Metrication mania CHRISTOPHER BOOKER If you were told that during the past five years, the Labour government was devising a scheme which would probably have as much direct...

On signs and portents MERCURIUS OXONIENSIS GOOD BROTHER LONDINIENSIS, Alack, alack, we are now both utterly un- done! How to explain that fatall miscarriage of my long letter...

Pioneer work JOHN ROWAN WILSON Sexual intercourse may not be the only thing in life, but it is at least as important to most of us taking a proper swing at a golf ball. Yet,...

Stoning the prophets DENIS BROGAN 'History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.' This, or something rather like it, is a famous dictum of Dr Kati Marx. But...

A new map of the Indies HENRY TUBE It seldom falls to a reviewer to acquaint his readers with the name of a novelist almost certainly new to most of them, and to declare in...

STUART HOOD The Glass Bead Game Hermann Hesse translated by Richard and Clara Winston (Cape 60s) There is a German romantic tradition which conceives of intellectual life—all...

Late and early Maurice CAPITANCHIK Maltaverne Francois Mauriac translated by Jean Stewart (Eyre and Spottiswoode 35s) The God of the Labyrinth Colin Wilson (Hart-Davis 30s)...

TIBOR SZAMUELY Literature and Revolution: A Critical Study of the Writer and Communism in the Twen- tieth Century Jurgen Riihle (Pall Mall 84s) The strange relationship...

JAMES BREDIN Prime Time: The Life of Edward R. Murrow Alexander Kendrick (Dent 65s) The People Machine Robert MacNeil (Eyre and Spottiswoode 55s) Ed Murrow was a broadcaster w...

GILLIAN WIDDICOMBE Aldeburgh, Bath, Cheltenham, Durham, Edinburgh, Farnham, Glyndebourne, Har- rogate ... music festivals cling like pollen to nearly all the letters of the...

Hard and soft BRYAN ROBERTSON The Claes Oldenburg retrospective, now ar- rived at the Tate, is a silent killer if ever there was one: disconcerting, unpredictable, a form of...

Well refreshed HILARY SPURLING The Tempest (Mermaid) Home (Royal Court) In 1610, the year before The Tempest was first performed in London, news filtered back from the New...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT The market may be forgiven for losing its head last Friday. The relief was so terrific. I cannot remember the FT index jumping 7 per cent or twenty-four...

JOHN BULL At a recent investment conference sponsored by the Unitholder magazine one panel of ex- perts was asked to discuss portfolio strategy in the 1970s. What they had to...

From I. M. Rampton, Mary Crozier, I. Fendall, Gerald Choo, George Buday, K. I, Wiggs, R. A. Cline. A tale of human folly Sir: As Norman Lindley has said in his article ou...

Sir: Professor Beloff in his review of The Political Diaries of C. P. Scott 1911-1928 in your issue of 13 June, writes that: 'The period covered by these diaries was probably...

new submarine telegraph from Falmouth to Bom- bay was opened on Thursday, and a distin- guished company met at the house of the chairman, Mr. Pender, to celebrate the event, and...

Sir: Your correspondent who would appear to suggest that the high infant mortality rates among the black population of South Africa are the work of the government there, might...

Sir: So much for Paterson and Gale! J. Fetzdall Mostyn House, Parkgate, Cheshire

Sir: Mary McWhirter (Letters, 20 June) in her somewhat withering indictment of my article on mortgage interest (13 June), dismisses me magisterially for my imperfect...

Sir: Mr Burgess's statement (6 June) that 'democracy is a big joke' in Singapore ap- pears to be unwarranted and unjustifiable. Although the People's Action party rules...

Sir: Strix's delightful italicophil notes on halicophobia ('Spectator's notebook', 20 June), remind me of my childhood when, while writing something about the discovery of...

PHILIDOR V. Bartolovid (1st Prize, Hannelius 1966-7). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to 496 (Loshinslcy-2nKN2Q/4pkNI/...

No. 611: Keeping it dark Competitors are asked to submit a job appli- cation by a recently unseated MP who, while outlining his qualifications, is careful to con- ceal the fact...

Across 1 The Spanish in panic get the bird! (7) 5 Keep going! (7) 9 Blake's pen (5) 10 Not that the billiards player Could be accused of dishonesty in so doing! (9) 11 Farewell...

Out of the cage BEVERLEY NICHOLS This is a plea for a total revolution in the practices and principles of our prisons—a revolution that goes far beyond the feeble reforms that...