It is hard to think of a group of men that has, in recent decades, got things more consistently wrong than the British Foreign Office, but the American State Department has a...

The loss of indignation Ferdinand Mount It was not a loud heckle. It was not even particularly derisive. Nor can I now remember exactly what it was in last Thursday's debate...

Not long ago a man in Cuba woke up in the morning laughing loudly. He had had a.dream, he told his wife, that Castro had died. Reports of this amusing dream were Passed rapidly...

Telegraph days Auberon Waugh Ten across. Militaristic toy in its older form (3,7). Obviously Tin Soldier, but I am afraid it won't do. By this I do not mean that it is not the...

Edward Mortimer On Christmas Day last year Menachem Begin made his first visit to Egypt to discuss his peace plan with President Sadat at Ismailia. He was preceded by his...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington Washington The announcement that Taiwan was to be a bandoned and communist China e mbraced came at a peculiar time — Friday eveni n - , g after...

Sam White Paris On the face of it the storm that has broken here over the publication of a life of Drieu La Rochelle seems baffling. He was a comparatively minor literary...

Richard West Salisbury Salisbury The hunter and explorer Frederick Sel°us, who scouted for the pioneers of R hodesia in 1890, was, even by modern st andards, a liberal who...

It is curious to learn that the "glass slipper" in Cinderella, of which from our youth upwards we never questioned the authenticity, though well aware that no one who was not a...

Peter Nichols Rome You have to be a sport to enjoy Christmas, with its good cheer and its forced bonhomie. This explains why Rome has never really grasped the spirit of...

George Gale The Government very nearly fell last week. Mr Callaghan stood wobbling, like the jelly he essentially is, on the edge of a decision. It was not over whether he and...

John Grigg Enoch Powell's recent speech threatening dire consequences if the Prince of Wales were to marry a Roman Catholic caused SO much huffing and puffing that the one...

Christopher Booker How might we explain to our old friend, the hypothetical visiting Martian, the strange pair of rituals which over the next ten days are going to shape and...

Shirley Letwin When a man valiantly ventures into the arena to fight off the beasts, it may seem ungrateful to complain about the shape of his sword. Dr Norman's attack on the...

Alan Gibson Down in the West of England we cling to our old traditions, more than most places do, but even here many of them have been lost, or honoured only in revivals,...

Benny Green That Christmas is primarily an English phenomenon is a truth which seems to be confirmed annually with the same regularity as the appearance of the festival itself....

In times of trouble Patrick Marnham The year in Fleet Street draws to a gloomy Close with The Times replaced by the Daily Star, and newspaper editors preoccupied by the...

The conventional investor Nicholas Davenport For the conventional investor 1978 was a dreary year. For the nimble speculator it was exciting enough. Gold burst out of its...

Larry Siedentop Despair lies everywhere under the surface of British life today. It gives rise to bouts of cynicism, aggression and a stunning lack of interest in the outside...

Sir: Patrick Marnham 's ill-researched article under the satirical title 'In defence of porn' (18 November) needs correction of substance and severe refutation. What, Pray, does...

Sir: Mr Alastair Forbes, in your issue of 9 December writes, 'How shameful that the estimable Founder and Chairman of Hamish Hamilton Ltd was not offered a knighthood long ago'...

Sir: May I congratulate Marjorie Wallace (Countess Skarbek in private life) on her well-balanced — if slightly inaccurate — article 'Storm in a Polish tea-cup' (9 December). The...

The Spectator records with regret the death of Mr Geoffrey McDermott, who in recent years, since his retirement from the Foreign Service (he was latterly HM Minister in Berlin),...

Hubert Picarda The unknown cynic who coined the proverb has much to answer for. St Paul may well have been over-enthusiastic in lauding charity as the superior of faith and...

Everything's in books Beryl Bainbridge Next year, I won't be here to undergo the indignity of being lend-leased for Christmas. If there's any justice in the world, which I...

Revealing their sauces Germaine Greer From Julia Child's Kitchen Julia Child (Cape £8.50) Cuisine Gourrnande Michel Guerard (Macmillan £6.95) Sheila Hutchins' Good Cooking...

Alan Watkins tes on a Cellar-Book George Saintsbury (Macmillan £7.50) S aintsbury's book on wine could not be described as rare or obscure. Between its firSt publication in...

Alastair Forbes The Times We Live in: The Cartoons of Marc (Cape E2.50) Scene Changes Osbert Lancaster (John Murray £4.50) Woody Alien's Cartoons: Drawn by Stuart Hample...

George Hutchinson After Kilvert A. L. Le Quesne (Oxford £5.95) t e .aders who are familiar with Kilvert's . N i arY may reasonably claim to 'know' the R adnorshire village of...

Ferdinand Mount The best place to let off a bomb without being noticed is in the middle of a firework display. The bangs and whizzes, the oohs and aahs may drown the noise of...

Paleface into redskin Paul Ableman 'If you ' re lucky ' , observed the secretary after meeting my wife and me at the sta tion in her venerable sedan for the twelve mile drive...

Peter Jenkins Robinson Crusoe (Richmond Theatre) Annie (Victoria Palace) Hiawatha (Young Vic) Sooty's Christmas Show (Whitehall) A Night with Dame Edna (Piccadilly) The...

Just like life Ted Whitehead A Wedding (London release from 28 December) Christmas is a pain but then it's only for the kids, isn't it? So people keep telling me. I wonder who...

Entrapped Bryan Robertson The London Contemporary Dance Theatre has just completed a four week's season at Sadler's Wells (last performance 16 December) which raises some...

Entertainment Rodney Milnes Le Marechal Ferrant (French InstiWte ) The squiggly lines across the graph Pal le tracing the rise and fall of operatic genres r ,,' look ever more...

MuPpeting on Ric hard Ing rams _Readers will be sorry to learn of the death of nty television set. Acquired in 1962, it had give a f t n good service until recently; shortly...

Quarrying John McEwen John Walker at thirty-nine has twelve years of iocreasingly delocalised achievement and acclaim to his credit, but this year he has accomplished...

Fare and fowl Marika Hanbury Tenison In the hurly-burly of the few days remain in tn g before Christmas, I am almost relieve d be confined to a hospital bed with a viru s : i...

Salvador de Madariaga Salvador de Madariaga, who died last week, aged 92, must have died reasonably happy. He had, first and foremost. outlived Franco, and he had lived to see...

Hunter killers Taki New York It was a preview by invitation only. Captains of industry, Hollywood fat-cats, editors, star writers and critics. No hacks, no Studio 54 types, no...

Jeffrey Bernard By no stretch of the imagination, liver or wallet can this past year be described as having been a vintage one. There were odd moments when Taki's and my paths...

Honorific Geoffrey Wheatcroft This week's Spectator is the last issue of 1978. By the time, d.v., my next column appears, you will have read the New Year's Honours List. I...