The politics of farming are full of snares for the unwary. Next week the leaders of the European Community meet •in The- Hague to try and find a way of escape from the...

Stick together, lads AUBERON WAUGH If Mr George Brown were a desiccated calculating machine, then he could scarcely have produced anything more calculated to embarrass his...

The road to Pinkville GEORGE GALE Before the French collapse in Indochina, the then President Eisenhower had been anxious to intervene in the area, over and beyond the...

M Pompidou loses his bet MARC ULLMANN Paris—Anglo-French relations seem to have taken a distinct turn for the better. A few days from the summit meeting of the leaders of the...

A way round the road block LORD GLADWYN Before next week's 'summit' meeting of the Six, we might well consider the basic political issues which now confront all the...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS Lady Barbirolli, encouraged by her husband, the conductor Sir John Barbirolli, is half- way through a three-volume work for do-it- yourself oboists—Daily...

The trouble with SALT LAURENCE MARTIN Professor Martin is defence correspondent of the SPECTATOR With a spate of contradictory, ill-digested and doubtless often unfounded...

A time for realism RHODES BOYSON Dr Rhodes Boyson is headmaster of Highbury Grove, a London comprehensive school If one sows the wind, one reaps the whirlwind and if a...

From the 'Spectator', 27 November 1869— British Columbia is, it appears, to be included in the Canadian Dominion, which will then stretch across the continent from ocean to...

Quantify or perish JOEL HURSTFIELD Joel Hurst field is Astor Professor of English History in the University of London. The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (an...

J. W. M. THOMPSON Parliament seems at a low ebb these days: it is as well that the latest attempt to have proceedings televised should have sunk in a pool of general apathy....

Watch this space BILL GRUNDY I can't remember which character it was in The Importance of being Earnest who said, 'This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last'. It sounds...

The great space folly EDWARD DE BONO other space folly has just returned from moon. Another circus is in town for a days. There was a time in the eighteenth ury when rich...

Alarm signal JOHN ROWAN WILSON Leprosy is notoriously the most disfiguring disease known to man. Yet its disfigurement is not, as is generally thought, caused by the disease...

Warts and all LESLIE ADRIAN When a firm advertises a two-hour d cleaning service, is it reasonable to expe your skirt or trousers back within that exa time? According to one...

JOHN HOLLOWAY How well I know that room! Don't you remember the queer, cool, odd kind of smell it has . . . Don't you remember the tea- boards, and the sand, and the press on...

BRYAN ROBERTSON Enid Bagnold's Autobiography Enid Bag- nold (Heinemann 55s) The subject of this disconcertingly honest book is kept resolutely in view from start to finish: the...

RODNEY ACKLAND The Letters of Aldous Huxley edited by Grover Smith (Chatto and Windus 100s) The thematic construction of Aldous Hux- ley's philosophical novels from Eyeless in...

STUART HOOD The Italics are Mine Nina Berberova (Long. mans 85s) Nina Berberova had a maternal grandfather who served as a model for Oblomov. Per- haps it was her inheritance...

J. M. ROBERTS Maria Theresa Edward Crankshaw (Long- mans 65s) Mr Crankshaw's new book is always intelli- gent, always lucid, and never dull. To say this of a book which has a...

C. HUGH LAWRENCE The Norman Achievement David C. Douglas (Eyre and Spotiswoode . 60s) For us the Norman conquest is a domestic event which has left its mark in the place- names...

Maurice CAPITANCHIK Fallen Women Martin Seymour-Smith (Nelson 45s.) Fallen Women examines a somewhat despised and neglected area, the treatment of prostitutes and their...

AUBERON WAUGH My Grandfather, His Wives and Loves Diana Holman Hunt (Hamish Hamilton 45s) My Grandmothers and 1 Diana Holman Hunt (Hamish Hamilton 42s) Readers of Miss Holman...

C. M. WOODHOUSE Sailing to Byzantium Osbert Lancaster (Murray, 55s) Few would expect Byzantine churches to look like Lancaster cartoons, but unmistake- ably they do so....

CHRISTOPHER LLOYD ne Fifty Days: Napoleon in England Jean shame! (Hart-Davis 45s) t the exhibitions now being held in Paris commemorate the bicentenary of apoleon's birth there...

J. H. PLUMB ;,flap's Voyage: A Narrative Account Antonio Pigafetta, edited and translated R. A. Skelton (Two vols, Yale UP £45) a Chester Kerr the Yale University , has now...

Elizabeth WISKEMANN A History of Modern Germany 1840-1945 Hajo Holborn (Eyre and Spottiswoode 120s) His many admirers will be thankful that Pro- fessor Hajo Holborn lived to...

MARTIN SEYMOUR-SMITH English Literature in Our Time and the University F. R. Leavis (Chatto and Windus 30s) If one could imagine a utopian society in which peers were created...

PENELOPE HOUSTON The London Film Festival's bag this year looks not merely mixed but bulging—films by Bresson and Pasolini and the elusive, in- frequent Ermanno Olmi; a comedy...

Sublime Claude BRYAN ROBERTSON The average period of time for maximum concentration in any exhibition is about forty minutes; and as it takes at least half an hour to become...

Darrell's beauty CLEMENT CRISP The move north of the border has done nothing to lessen Western Theatre Ballet's sense of adventure since it became Scottish Theatre Ballet. We...

Armed revolution HILARY SPURLING I he TSE company from Argentina have been in London, on their way via Paris to New York, for the past fortnight (until '6 November),...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT It is my routine job to relate political and economic events to the stock markets and in particular to interpret the goings on at Westminster in language...

Holding on JOHN BULL It is just over two years since I started my portfolio. At the time the Financial Times ordinary share index was standing at 390, which is where it stands...

Sir: Am I wrong in my assumption that the primary object of a book-reviewer is to give his readers information which is relevant to the books with which he is dealing? This...

Sir: Professor Ayer is trying to shift his ground and indulge in legerdemain (Letters, 22 November). His original letter explicitly accused the Conservative party that 'They...

Sir: Laurence Martin's review of The Corning War Between Russia and China (22 November) by Harrison Salisbury is likely to provoke some interesting wisecracks about history...

From the Rev A. Simpson, Leigh Halts, A. Sherman, A. D. Parry, lean Fox, Alan Smith, Nancy Perry, Lord Sudeley, Dr Donald M. Bowers, 'The Mad Axeman', Professor C. A. S. Hynam,...

Sir: The isVgeriai Biafra war has not been seen in its true perspective as regards the Western Ibos. It is commonly argued in Lagos and echoed by General Gowon's sup- porters...

Sir: Referring to the four paragraphs concerned with myself in Mr Al!sop's Personal column' (15 November) I feel bound to cry: 'Come off it, Al!sop! Chuck it. Ken!' If you...

Sir: In writing that Arnold told Clough that 'Amours de Voyage' was not 'beautiful' enough, Mr Martin Seymour-Smith (15 November) inflates different comments by Arnold. In 1853...

Sir: Mr Hollis (Letters, 8 November) in reply to my letter (I November) implies that the fact that man tends to make evil choices more often than good (which I do not deny) is...

England explode JOHN WELLS At West Minster (write Jean-Loup Cretin, London co-respondent of AO Paris!) it is the panic: many Deputies have already packed their baggages prior...

No. 581: Striking news hers' strikes are obviously going to be the news for some time to come. There already been a good deal of discussion to the pros and cons of the matter,...

PHILIDOR C. Mansfield (1st Prize, Srhacluna y. 1963). White w play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to No. 466 (Zucker): 1 Q-KKt2, threat 2 Kt-Inch, K-R7; 3...

Across 1 Water-colour picture. of course (8) 5 Those legal lights in Trollope country? (6) 9 Scratchy old writer, from Abbotsbury per- haps (5, 3) 10 Bright girl (6) 12 The...