T here was an earthquake centred on North Wales, probably Britain's strongest for a century, but it passed almost unnoticed. The Warnock Committee avoid- ed the question of when...

Kinnock's first fight M r Robert Maxwell's Daily Mirror has rushed into a 'campaign'. 'FIGHT FOR THE LABOUR PARTY', it said on its front page on Monday. It began with an...

ir Douglas Black does not know, and ■ -.3 refuses to pretend to know. The very title of his report, Investigation of the Possible Increased Incidence of Cancer in West Cumbria,...

N ow that the dockers have returned to work, Mr Arthur Scargill has almost run out of groups of workers willing to ex- press solidarity with him. His comments on the defeat of...

I t has not passed unnoticed that the threat of violence which, in the coal dispute, is the thing that the Government has pledged itself above all to resist, was what produced a...

T he Potato Marketing Board has hired an aircraft with which to count pota- toes. This may not seen credible, but it is merely one of the more decorative consequ- ences of a...

For special offer see p.15 UK Eire Surface mail Airmail 6 months: £17.25 £17.25 £20.50 £26.50 One year: £34.50 £34.50 £41.00 £53.00 Name. Address ...... US Subscriptions:...

Where Sappho sings Auberon Waugh Thad intended this week to discuss a .1.strike which seems to have attracted very little attention in the public prints and even to have...

T he isle is full of noises. Both the last and the penultimate writers of this Diary have complained about transistor radios played in the street. As I write I can hear two, or...

Stephen Handelman Tel Aviv T he flushed, jubilant faces of the crowd outside Likud headquarters in Tel Aviv on Tuesday morning should have put to rest any confusion over who...

The possession of a tennis-ground has become such an imperative social necessity, that every wretched little garden-plot is pressed into the service, and courts are religiously...

Charles Glass Tyre, South Lebanon The other night, while having dinner at a fish restaurant on the beach here, we became part of a scene which Luis Bunuel would have...

Timothy Garton Ash This concludes the author's account of his recent visit to Moscow. Tuesday After the Foreign Secretary's farewell press conference, I have a drink with a...

Gerda Cohen Belfast W e stand in the soft plashing rain by the Palm House, talking about flowers. 'You'll get wet so you will.' They show concern, the two young gardeners,...

Please send the subscription to: Name: Address: This offer closes 31 July 1984 The Spectator for twelve months and receive FREE either THE KNOX BROTHERS A biography by...

A. M. Daniels T he first time I told someone that their closest relative was soon to die, I felt the seductive thrill of power. It did not occur to me that actually it was an...

Richard West he news that the Arts Council may halve the sum of money it dishes out each year towards literature has been studied with interest at the bar of the Coach and...

Andrew Gimson A s an exercise in building a fence, and then sitting on it, the Warnock Report is a triumph. It opens with a letter from Dame Mary herself, warning of the...

Bossing the embryos Paul Johnson C onsidering the fuss Fleet Street has been making about what it terms 'test tube babies' and 'rent-a-wombs', I thought that its coverage of...

Tt is worrying in more ways than one to lhear the international bankers proclaim, as they do now, that they sleep like babies. The explanation may come from the world of...

T he FT Index will reach zero, if share prices carry on down at their present pace, in something like ten months. What a year this has been for selling in May and going away!...

T here isn't an awful lot of coffee in Brazil, and too much of what there is tastes like Fisherman's Friends. There isn't all that much in Africa, either, what with bushfires...

T his puzzle picture of cash-rich com- panies may have a simple explanation. Perhaps all the money has piled up round Lord Weinstock at GEC, while everyone goes without. He...

Bidding societies w hat we all need. in these hard times, is a takeover gamble which is all reward and no risk. Here it is. Join a building society. All you have to do is to buy...

Sir: M. Pleurniche and M. Jhonston (Let- ters, 21 July) have alike ignored what is surely the essential distinction in these matters: that between sexual or digestive swearing,...

Sir: May I as a comparatively real 18-year- old offer Auberon Waugh (Another voice, 21 July) some small reassurance by sug- gesting to Rhoda Koenig (Letters, 21 July) that...

Sir: I am appalled. Until I saw your issue of 7 July I thought the Spectator was a suitable paper which could be safely left, without censorship, lying in the withdraw- ing...

Sir: I for one would be interested in learning from Jock Bruce-Gardyne (The economy, 7 July) how far he thinks the run on Continental Illinois has been influ- enced, not only by...

Mirror men Sir: I see that Paul Johnson's latest act (The press, 21 July) is an ability to lick Robert Maxwell's boots while simul- taneously snarling at the journalists on the...

Pilger and I should be sacked or neutered at the Daily Mirror, I remember a delightful lunch some 20 years ago in which I was offered the post of parliamen- tary correspondent...

Sir: I am gathering material for a biography of Frederick Courtenay Selous, the African explorer and hunter, and would very much like to hear from anyone able to contribute...

Europe awake Colin Welch rian Crozier, in an article in the I) current Encounter I mentioned last week, cites scornfully two past Euro- absurdities in foreign affairs: the...

Zeppelin, fly! Murray Sayle Bomber Harris: The Authorised Biography Dudley Saward (Cassell/Buchan & Enright £12.95) Bomber Harris and the Strategic Bombing Offensive 1939-1945...

Peter Quennell Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale: The 'Anecdotes' of Mrs Piozzi in their Original Form Edited and with an Introduction by Richard Ingrams (Chatto & Windus/The Hogarth...

Andrew Brown Girls and Boys Sara Stein (Chatto £9.95, £4.95) S ex as a route to self-knowledge was one of the sillier ideas of the Sixties; the generation that was tempted by...

Andrew Robinson Indian Diary T he idea behind this book filled me with the keenest anticipation. How; would Edward Ardizzone, an artist familiar for his thoroughly English...

Christopher Hawtree Shakespeare: Macbeth, Henry IV Part One John Mahoney and Stewart Martin (Penguin cassettes £5.95 each) p ity the poor book-reviewer. Long used to reading...

Patrick Skene Catling The Ledge Between the Streams Ved Mehta (Harvill Press £12.50) A y writer, when writing, is an intro- verted solitary. A blind writer's isola- tion must...

is looking for an efficient and methodical person to run the Subscriptions Department part-time. An ability to type is essential. Please apply in writing enclosing c. v. (with...

Allan Massie Portable Utopia: Glasgow and the United States, 1820-1920 Bernard Aspinwall (Aberdeen University Press £18.50) G lasgow is sometimes described as the most...

Anticlimax Rodney Milnes Arabella , (Glyndebourne) T trust that Arabella will not be the last of the Strauss series at Glyndebourne directed by John Cox, though while long-...

Intimations of immortality Giles Gordon Wild Honey (National: Lyttelton) Intimate Exchanges: A Game of Golf (Greenwich) M ichael Frayn's achievement with his `version' of...

Goose bumps Peter Ackroyd Laughterhouse ('PG', selected cinemas) he title is misleading — I suspect it is a .1 jocular abbreviation of 'slaughter- house', since the film...

Luck of the draw David Ekserdjian Master Drawings and Watercolours in the British Museum (British Museum till 19 August) Renaissance Painting in Manuscripts (British Museum...

Poetry Taki T istening to the harangues at the Demo- cratic convention in San Francisco reminded me of those mobs that haran- gued the crowds 196 years ago in Paris. Either I...

Far from home Peter Levi T he series about the Maasai (BBC2) was a real joy, but one was just beginning to feel that unease and rising fury which so often come from...

Disagreements P. J. Kavanagh T here has been a flurry about civil defence round here and a story has been going about. At a nearby parish council meeting they were discussing...

Fit for nothing Jeffrey Bernard L ast week in Salonika a soldier and a laboUrer were each sentenced to 14 Years in jail for raping a 105-year-old Woman. It reminded me of the...

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for a verse comment on the sale of a Falklands medal or 'A Sailor's (Merchant Seaman's, Soldier's) Farewell to his Medal' in their own...

No. 1331: Pi-jaw Set by Jaspistos: Apparently Leeds United have a chaplain whose duties include 'giv- ing talks on drink, sex, gambling, that sort of thing'. You are invited to...

0 frabjous day! Raymond Keene J ust like Alice in Through the Looking Glass, Nigel Short, after many adven- tures, has finally reached the 8th row. Whereas Alice was then...

Prize: f10 — or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, 1983 edition (ring the word 'Dictionary' under name and address) — for the first correct solution opened on 13 August. Entries to:...

N The unclued lights and Uri at 15 Down are Swiss cantons. Winner: Roy Dean, London SW1. if U a 13 01011701R9 2 1TGAL P IP E ILIERIR A l A I DER3NIT IVYE 0 G...

Hell's kitchen A microwave oven costs from £200 to £400 but it means social deprivation. People who interrogate food rather than cook it, use one to make the molecules in a...

SIR HAROLD ACTON: 'Memoirs of an Aes- thete' and 'More Memoirs of an Aesthete'. J. Peinsen, I. S. K. Vondelstraat 100, 105YGP, Amsterdam. The Netherlands. BIOCHEMISTRY by L....