suffered an appalling set- back in recent days and the probability is that worse is to come. Confronted by a pre- meditated insurrection it is at least possible for the civil...

'Old age,' General de Gaulle once commented with reference to Marshal Petain, 'is a wreck.' The SPECTATOR has often argued that there is more logic and reason in the General's...

'For any country, but perhaps above all for ours at this stage in its history, the most essential and often the most difficult condition of success is to recognise the truth...

singing the Marseillaise wherever he went and calling for - a free Quebec until publicly rebuked by Mr Lester Pearson, whereupon the President cut short his visit and hastily...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY ALAN WATKINS know you don't like doing this,' someone suggested to me earlier this week, 'but this time you might consider writing an old-fashioned...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS Sir Mortimer Wheeler in an interview has indicated the probability that the discoveries to be unearthed at Cadbury are more likely to be of the reign of...

GREECE M. LLEWELLYN-SMITH 'An old-fashioned Balkan dictatorship' was how Mr H. J. Bradley, who was in Athens recently representing the NUJ and the International Federation of...

AVIATION DAVID W. WRAGG Although the French withdrawal from the Anglo-French Variable Geometry (swing wing) aircraft project was not unexpected, it shat- tered the illusion of...

EUROPE JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE I sometimes wonder whether there may not per- haps be what the Americans, I believe, call a `sweat-box' somewhere deep down in the bowels of the...

MEDICINE JOHN ROWAN WILSON While everyone agrees in theory that preven- tion is better than cure, it is not always easy to find new areas in which prevention is a feasible...

Reform Bill passed its second reading in the Lords on Tues- day, after two nights of debate, without a division. Lord Grey did not withdraw his resolution, but Earl Russell...

THE ENVIRONMENT J. H. PLUAIB In the SPECTATOR recently Dr Edward Mishan and Mr Angus Maude have discussed ways of limiting the ill-effects of economic progress. Dr Plumb here...

STRIX Just over seven years ago, on 5 May 1960, a turkey-farmer in East Anglia heard a super- sonic boom. Six days later a setting of 1,886 eggs produced a hatch of 1,160...

THE PRESS DONALD McLACHLAN When young Winston Churchill made his first sally into journalism four or five years ago, the prevailing opinion among professionals was that these...

TELEVISION STUART HOOD It was an extraordinary experience to watch on television film of Khrushchev perambulat- ing slackly in the grounds of his dacha. I was reminded, not...

A TEACHER'S DAY-1 DAVID ROGERS 'Yeah, an' do you know, the only bleedin' thing Jesus ever said about adultery was 'im without sin to cast the first stone. The only bleedin'...

PERSONAL COLUMN BERON WAUGH Who are We? All thinking people, of course. Most responsible commentators. The great mass of the intelligentsia. Every Labour voter and a very large...

PATRICK ANDERSON There can hat e been few letter writers more reluctant than William Wordsworth. No sooner did he think of putting pen to paper than his whole body broke into...

New beasts for old C. B. COX Scapegoats and Rabies Ted Hughes (Poet and Printer 2s) Live or Die Anne Sexton (oup 25s) The Colour of Blood George MacBeth (Mac- millan 21s) On...

Action situations WILLIAM BUCHAN The Warm and Golden War Nicholas Luard (Seeker and Warburg 25s) The Gab Boys Cornered Doudu (Deutsch 25s) People of Providence Street John...

D. C. WATT The Approach of War, 1938-1939 Christopher Thorne; The Framework of EConomic Ac- tivity : The International Economy and the Rise of the Twentieth Century Anthony...

MARTIN SEYMOUR-SMITH The New Penguin Shakespeare: general editor T. J. B. Spencer. Macbeth (editor G. K. Hunter); A Midsummer Night's Dream (editor Stanley Wells); Julius...

FRANCIS KING The period covered by this entertaining history is the twenty-odd years between the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry and his 'hairy barbarians,' to shake Japan...

GORDON SYMES A failed poet I know Ventured (less than all), Thought (more than he could w rite), Suffered (not beyond recall). Talked when it mattered least. Left at the...

CHARLES REID The Proms got off to a luckless and rather fumbled start. It wasn't merely that illness kept Sir Malcolm Sargent from the opening Saturday night, an occasion which...

THEATRE Good Egg JOHN HIGGINS Heartbreak House (Chichester) Let Sleeping Wives Lie (Garrick) As You Like It (Aldwych) The Dance of the Teletape (Royal Court) At the beginning...

ART MARIO AMAYA T9 make a movie of 365 naked bottoms might sound a boring venture even to the most call- pygian minded. Yoko Ono's much publicised film, No 4, which opens at...

CINEMA No flies on Hawks PENELOPE HOUSTON El Dorado (Plaza, 'U') Kwaidan (Cameo-Poly, 'X') The Sailor from Gibraltar (London Pavilion, 'X') `Faith can move mountains, but it...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT There is no doubt that the Tribune dissidents have got something; in fact, they have got their long-term priorities right. I have argued over the years that...

CUSTOS ( The gilt-edged market did not derive much 'benefit from Mr Callaghan's speech in the economic debate, which was 'the mixture as before,' but there was some bear...

CONSU MING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN It says here, in Consumer Reports for July (it's the American Which?), that 'household liquid bleach generally consists of 51 per cent of...

PHILIDOR I. Hartong (Limburgsh Dagblad. 1939). White to play and mate in three moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 344 (Mlotkowski): K - R 2, threat Q-Q Kt 3. 1 R-Q 6; 2...

obsessed with noise. Mr Maude, in turn, appears to be obsessed with the physical damage being done to our environment.' I think he has lost his sense of proportion. Nature...

Sir: May I make a late comment on Tibor Szamuely's point (14 July) that the western liberal conscience is highly selective? This is my experience in trying to raise instances of...

Sir: I find reading the letters in the SPECTATOR (14 and 21 July) a truly poignant experience, for I am one of them—goo old by three and a half months.' All those benefits, all...

be done too often—to those who were deprived of an old age pension on the grounds that they were too old. , May I now add a word for those widows whose husbands failed to make...

Sir: While the Unselective Employment Tax is clearly insane, surely the adjective 'dotty' has been pre-empted by the Undecimal Currency Bill. G. W. Andrews Clun House, 17...

Sir: The application of deep motivational research to commerce has revealed that consumers buy goods, such as motor-cars, for reasons other than they are consciously aware of....

LETTERS From Kenneth Lewis, MP, D. E. Folkes, Edward Samson, Michael Ivens, W. E. Wood, E. I. Allen, Harold Malies. G. W. Andrews, William Hardie, S. E. Bushnell, Geo. G....

would have been entitled to the state pension, for they could have joined voluntarily: but they were debarred. Mr Phillips cannot argue that ten years' payments cover the...

How long, 0 Lord, in chronic gloom, Must we await a tonic boom; Or should we now assume content, Since it is also heaven sent, With, here and there, a sonic boom! Edward Samson...

Sir: Does `Habitat' sell trivia; if not, should it? Mario Amaya's article (14 July) is misleading at least to the extent that we sell neither cardboard furniture nor anything...

sr: I usually take pleasure in reading your journal each week, but I was very dismayed to read the fol- lowing paragraph in 'Black and White' by Stuart Hood (14 July):...

Sir: For ten years I have taken your paper. first with an undergraduate's affectation and subse- quently with appreciation of the fairness of the reviews and its agreeable bias...

Sir: Mr P. H. Muir (Letters, 21 July) overstates his case against me as adrocatus diaboli. First of all, I did not prepare a brief at all. Each night, after a. 'hard day's...

Sir: Many of your readers may be interested in learning more about the Evelyn Waugh Newsletter mentioned in the Neville Braybrooke review (12 May) of Evelyn Waugh: Portrait of a...

JOHN WELLS `NATIONALIZATION—IS it a sign of the imminent return of Our Lord Jesus Christ? Brig.-Gen. F. D. Frost, CBE, mc.' The pamphlet, printed at the Wickcliffe Press, 104...

Across 1 Pisciform caviar? (8) 5 Stopped the draught, with a draught perhaps? (6) 9 Top creator who does piece-work (3-5) 10 Goes sparingly with the birds (6) 12 Make literally...