Alice in Lottery Land — the Caucus Race M r John Major, the Prime Minister, invited President Carlos Menem of Argentina to visit Britain. They had held talks in New York about...

Is the State encouraging Britain to become a nation of curtain-twitchers and whisperers? BORIS JOHNSON I f I were an immigrant, there is one main reason why I might feel...

DOMINIC LAWSON I never thought that Jeffrey Bernard would outlive me at The Spectator. When I became editor five and a half years ago, I believed that my most pressing problem...

Towards a commonsense view on children and divorce AUBERON WAUGH W ould it, I wonder, help reduce the incidence of divorce in Britain, which now has the highest rate in...

Only one in ten people in Britain regularly attend a church or any other religious meeting. Jenny McCartney thinks the cult of self-worship is taking over from formal...

more!' A little letter in the Independent on Sunday had just caught my eye as I was doing the left sleeve of one of my hus- band's shirts. 'When are we going to stop calling...

Norman Stone wonders why the Germans blame the Russians for their own failure to return property confiscated after the war GERMANS ARE calling it 'the swindle of the century':...

MISS WILKINSON, the Minister for Education, with the Government's over- whelming majority at her back, on Octo- ber 18th rejected the Prayer, based on every consideration of...

The winner in the cross-Channel stakes is the streetwise travelling customer; writes Martin Vander Weyer `IT'S A lovely clear day down here at Dover,' said a cheerful spokesman...

Michael Heath

Simon Courtauld meets a corporate lawyer from Chicago who plans to save field sports in Britain IT WAS AN odd place to be going to dis- cuss the future of the countryside — a...

Hanworth Road, Hampton, Middlesex, the arachnologist, the first woman presi- dent of the British Entomological and Natural History Society, and founder member of both the...

Mrs Thatcher's legacy has meant more Whitehall interference, more legislation and more regulation, not less, writes Simon Jenkins THE Learmont Report on the Prison Ser- vice is...

persist. IN THE eternal struggle between doctor and patient, I told a medical student last week, the patient always has the upper hand. This is because, while the doctor is...

Kingsley Amis died last Sunday at the age of 73. Some friends remember him ANTHONY POWELL MY FIRST meeting with Kingsley Amis was, I think, in 1954. It was the result of my...

Good manners, creative genius and deleted expletives PAUL JOHNSON O ur culture boss, Virginia Bottomley, warns broadcasters that there are too many four-letter words on the...

A test case for Lloyd's of London, which still can't see what the matter is CHRISTOPHER FILDES I was heading for America when Lloyd's of London disclosed that it was parting...

Sir: I was astonished to read Anne Apple- baum's article 'Full of eastern menace' (23 September), which was full of absurdity and confusing logic. The writer censured that...

Sir: Christopher Fildes rightly objects to huge reports from the World Bank, but no rain-forests are destroyed to produce them. Paper is generally made from soft- woods grown in...

the reprinted lain Macleod article CA question of loyal- ty', 14 October), since my late husband, Geraint Morgan, was then the Conservative MP for Denbigh. The selection of...

Sir: Once I would have agreed with most of what Charles Moore writes about Conser- vatism ('How to be British', 21 October). No longer, for it seems to me that to dis- miss the...

Sir: Robin Holloway's wounded response (Arts, 21 October) to my Times article about modern composers attributes the fol- lowing quote to me: 'If a few composers miss a few...

Sir: Taki tells us of motor racing's age of innocence (High life, 7 October) when drivers wore polo helmets and Mike Hawthorn raced wearing a bow tie. For the 1939 Le Mans...

may have been, to me the most devastating detail was your cover price in January 1964: is or 5p. Your present price is £1.90. You realise that this represents an inflation rate...

Sir: In his article (Another voice, 14 Octo- ber) Auberon Waugh commented on the `frisson of hatred' caused by the loud upper-class voice heard 'in every train'. Just imagine...

Sir: I hesitate to differ with the Kipling footnote cited by your elegant and erudite columnist Dot Wordsworth (Mind your language, 14 October), but as one whose distant...

Sir: Congratulations on your appointment. I hearby resign from my column. The two events are connected, but you know better than anyone that this resignation is not a mark of...

Sir: I noticed that in the BBC reports on the contraceptive pill the users were referred to as 'patients'. Since when has child-bearing become a disease? James Brockway...

Ever so slightly interesting Peter Levi THE PILLARS OF HERCULES by Paul Theroux Hamish Hamilton, 117.50, pp. 522 P aul Theroux is that American who had the startling idea of...

John Jolliffe OLD SCORES by Frederic Raphael Orion, £15.99, pp. 264 T he story opens round two sisters. The narrator, Rachel, is the 'inferior' one, i.e. unglamorous and with...

Andrew Barrow WAINWRIGHT by Hunter Davies Michael Joseph, £16.99, pp. 356 T he famous fellwalker and semi- reluctant, late-flowering TV personality who is the subject of this...

Hilary Corke THE DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOK OF OBITUARIES edited by Hugh Massingberd Macmillan, £14.99, pp. 338 A one who failed to make the 1500- cut in the Oxford Companion to...

Teresa Waugh PROMISES PAST by Charlotte Moore Arrow, £5.99, pp. 266 I n the mood of the times, Charlotte Moore's first novel, Promises Past, is one of family values, back to...

Malise Ruthven THE MIDDLE EAST: 2000 YEARS OF HISTORY FROM THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE PRESENT DAY by Bernard Lewis Weidenfeld, £20, pp. 433 T wards the end of the 18th...

David Ekserdjian THE NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLETE ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE by Christopher Baker and Tom Henry National Gallery Publications, £35, pp. 790 W hen Neil Macgregor was...

Philip Hoare TERENCE RATTIGAN by Geoffrey Wansell Fourth Estate, £20, pp. 434 A figure as reticent and retentive as Terence Rattigan is necessarily elusive biographical...

Andro Linklater TELL TALE HEARTS: THE ORIGINS AND IMPACT OF THE VIETNAM ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT by Adam Garfinkle Macmillan, £16, pp. 370 T he nature of the Vietnam ghost that...

on the surface Charles Duff ALWAYS AND ALWAYS: THE WARTIME LETTERS OF HUGH AND MARGARET WILLIAMS edited by Kate Dunn John Murray, £19.99, pp. 276 L iterary war-profiteering...

Michael Prowse TRUST: THE SOCIAL VIRTUES AND THE CREATION OF PROSPERITY by Francis Fukuyama Hamish Hamilton, f25, pp. 457 F rancis Fukuyama is best known for claiming that the...

Anthony Howard THE HIDDEN WIRING: UNEARTHING THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION by Peter Hennessy Gollancz, £17.99, pp. 261 TOO CLOSE TO CALL: POWER AND POLITICS: JOHN MAJOR IN NO 10 by...

Godlike grown to self-forgiveness as the trauma sings where every secret trips itself and spills, The tiniest vacuum forms a blister at the heart of things. Vienna has chosen...

Alan Judd IAN FLEMING by Andrew Lycett Weidenfeld, £20, pp. 486 M ost writers don't make much difference to the world but Ian Fleming set the tone for a period and contributed...

Pop music The sound of grating music Marcus Berkmann hears Cher's vocal tic resounding in his ears at all times of the day and night T he release of a new single by Cher is...

Multiple choice A tour round the current shows in Europe O ne of the great exhibitions of our time, the restrospective devoted to paint- ings and works on paper by Cezanne, is...

The Fairy Queen (London Coliseum) Owen Wingrave (Glyndebourne Touring Opera) I believe in honesty Rupert Christiansen P eople seem to assume that I have some deep-seated...

To Die For (15, selected cinemas) Murderous at the top Mark Steyn T he cameras turn, the flashlights pop, and Suzanne Stone is in heaven. Not liter- ally, of course: she's...

Son of Man (The Pit, Barbican) The Way of the World (Lyttelton, National Theatre) Venice Preserved (Almeida) Love has no laws Sheridan Morley D oath, as Gore Vidal once...

Time to get together Nigella Lawson A ngus Deayton — or rather, Till Love Us Do Part (Sunday BBC1, 10.10pm) the second instalment of In Search of Happiness — has rather...

Thunderbirds are go Alan Judd I couldn't have attended the press day at London's motor show with all the other motoring correspondents even if I had been invited because I was...

Made in heaven Taki L ast week, on a brilliant autumn day, a pretty English girl married her earl, and lived happily ever after. At least I hope so. Cazzy Neville, the second...

Not floating into oblivion Jeffrey Bernard I have had to weigh in again, this time at University College Hospital. I tipped the scales at a horrific 48 kilos which means that...

Screening friends Carole Morin I used to hate the cinema in Baker Street. In the confined space you feel as if you're it Mass with a few staring atheists who have nothing...

A real conundrum Nigel Nicolson T he extraordinary story of Dawn Lang- ley Simmons has received scant publicity in this country because her recent autobiogra - phy, called...

BRIDGE Spot the error Andrew Robson I RECEIVED A COMPLAINT at the rub- ber table last night that all my columns fea- ture brilliance — that blunders are brushed under the...

IMPERATIVE COOKS do not eat airline food. On short flights, they eat nothing. On long ones, they take their own food. A nine-hour flight surely deserves some raw oysters or...

Past masters Raymond Keene WITH THE WORLD championship over, and Kasparov firmly re-established as champion, I intend, over the next few weeks, to take a look at some of...

i ,,LE VALI SCOTCH %MP) i ISLE OF j uRA ,,.... ,,% L? VF LT SCOICN 1MISK1 COMPETITION Cautionary tale Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1904 you were invited to submit, in...

A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 1989 Port for the first correct solution opened on 13 November, with two runners-up prizes of £15 (or, for UK...

Team spirit Simon Barnes THE demon fast bowler who destroys the cream of a nation's batting has a role: hero for one country, pantomime villain for the other. So it is with...

. . Dear Mary. Q. On my 40th birthday a number of misguided but well-intentioned friends arranged a surprise birthday party for me. Such was my confusion that I managed to get...