Chemical warfare T he IRA claimed responsibility for a bomb explosion at the Royal Marines School of Music in Deal, Kent, which killed ten bandsmen. The attack, the worst on the...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 BAD, NOT MAD A fter an atrocity committed by the IRA the reactions of our...

THE following letter in this month's edi- tion of the BMA News Review deserves a wider circulation. Its author is Mike McClure, M. Phil, MRC Psych.: Sir: Following government...

Dr Owen conceals the comfortable Tory furniture inside NOEL MALCOLM Scarborough s Your Journey Really Necessary?' This war-time slogan comes unavoidably to mind on the way to...

I haven't, I must confess, read any of the books on the Booker shortlist. Indeed, of the six titles plucked from the judges' hat last week I had only heard of one. I say this...

On the things which are really important to the ordinary person AUBERON WAUGH newly fashionable book reviewer has been drawing attention to himself quite successfully with a...

The Western nations have racist immigration policies. Andrew Kenny argues that the poor of the Third World should be allowed to travel to a new life HITLER, in Mein Kampf,...

Stephen Handelman finds that a new spirit of democracy has solved few of the Soviet Unions's problems Moscow IN 1625, during the 'Time of Troubles', a massive clock was hauled...

Big bang HOW is the Universe supposed to have begun? The explanation currently in vogue is that all the matter in it was originally crammed into one infinitesi- mally small...

Jahn Hands on the religious apparition which spurred thousands to defy Soviet repression A WEEK last Sunday, 100,000 people defied a ban by the communist authorities and...

Michael Heath

Michael Trend investigates the launch of yet another translation of the Bible `FUTILITY, utter futility, says the Speak- er, everything is futile,' according to the Revised...

Michael Freedland remembers the songwriter, who died last week TWO songs written by Irving Berlin seem to sum up the man better than all the other 3,000 he produced in the 101...

The media: Paul Johnson asks if the set-piece television interview is dying IN HIS book of reminiscences, Grand Inquisitor, which will be published next month (Weidenfeld,...

No let-out of a glittering prize for Mr Lawson JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE T his year's annual Washington Bank- ers' Fair has proved rather a tame show for the assembled scribblers,...

AN unbecoming spectacle at these meet- ings is the World Bank in a paler shade of green. Poor old thing, she had a hard time in Berlin last year, when the students actually...

The world's bankers tell Nicholas Brady: we'll say we've won, and go home CHRISTOPHER FILDES T h Washington ese annual talkfests and liver function tests, officially the...

SIR HUMPHREY Appleby, who appears to be advising the British delegation, must be proud of his work on the IMF's quotas. The managing director wants them dou- bled, as managing...

THE Poles are the meetins' novelty. Ministers and officials stuck with their own familiar problems are happy to take time off and suggest how to solve Poland's, and its finance...

Sir: John Casey (Test we forgive', 9 September) wrote truly that there is con- fused thinking about crime, retribution and forgiveness. Yet neither he nor the corres- pondents...

Hollis's reputation Sir: It was unlikely that Mr Chapman Pincher, who is thanked in the preface and praised at intervals thereafter, would ex- amine critically W. J. West's...

Sir: A 'yellow' Sunday? Tom Pilkington (Letters, 16 September) obviously did not learn 'There is a Green Hill Far Away' as I did, aged about four. Which is why, I imagine, my...

Sir: Ian Dewar (Letters, 9 September) advises a previous correspondent as to how he can deal with the direct mail letters he receives. Better still than going to the trouble of...

Sir: Mr Richards (Letters, 19 August) says too little in stating that 'there is nothing wrong with "viruses" ' as the plural of "virus" '. Since the word has no plural at all in...

`A fruit machine?' enquired the of his first infantry colonel. UPON the gentlemanly, egg-like features of my first infantry colonel had settled a more or less permanent look of...

THERE were no completely correct re- sponses to the Spectator cricket quiz, set by Peter Brooke and Michael Quinlan. So the jeroboam of champagne, kindly donated by Laurent...

Blood, toil, tears and sweat John Hackett SECOND WORLD WAR by Martin Gilbert Weidenfield & Nicolson, £18.95, pp.846 THE SECOND WORLD WAR by John Keegan Hutchinson, £19.95,...

Anita Brookner A NATURAL CURIOSITY by Margaret Drabble Viking, £12.95, pp.320 S evered heads figure prominently in Margaret Drabble's sequel to The Radiant Way, which was...

Peter Quennell he stroke of good fortune that first put the Nonesuch Press's first production on to my bookshelves now seems equally odd and unexpected. Evelyn Waugh was my...

Peregrine Worsthorne ON THE BARRICADES AND OFF by Melvin J. Lasky Transaction Publishers (UK) Ltd (distributed by Harper & Row, Plymouth) £14.95, pp. 480 T here is a...

Mark Archer THE BOOKER BOOK by Simon Brett Sidgwick & Jackson, £11.95, pp.154 PRIZE WRITING: AN ORIGINAL COLLECTION OF WRITINGS BY PAST WINNERS TO CELEBRATE 21 YEARS OF THE...

John Ranelagh STORM OVER 4, A PERSONAL ACCQUNT by Jeremy Isaacs Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £14.95, pp.215 A nyone who has been part of a venture is interested to see colleagues'...

Peter Levi WOLFWATCHING by Ted Hughes Faber f8.99, f3.99, pp.55 A s writers get older, the survivors of their generation of poets become closer than colleagues, almost...

David Gilmour ARABIA DESERTA by C.M. Doughty Bloomsbury, £16.95, pp.256 A lmost everyone knows two facts about Doughty and no more: that he wrote a very long book about...

took him through the usual glum, pretentious, depressing classics of literature. Then the doctor stopped his son from coming. Meeting me in the street he said: 'Thanks,...

Art Tbilisi does it Giles Auty listens to stirring words at an art critics' conference in Russia I 'd rather have a bottle in front o' me than a frontal lobotomy', so,...

Miss Saigon (Drury Lane) Exclusive (Strand) One fine day in Vietnam Christopher Edwards iss Saigon is the most hopeful sign yet that the modern musical can achieve something...

regular critics. POP MUSIC Van Morrison, touring, 1-15 October. His live shows are notoriously variable: he could be superb, he could be unimaginably awful. Let's hope he's in...

The Art of Photography 1839-1989 (Royal Academy, till 23 December) A grand celebration Francis Hodgson A t the end of the Royal Academy's huge exhibition is a joke: Christian...

London • loses ground Peter Watson T his autumn the usual suspects will be in the frame in the sale-rooms: Vincent `Dutch Vince' Van Gogh, Edouard 'Black Ted' Manet, Pablo...

Talk Radio (`18', selected cinemas) Man bites listeners Hilary Mantel A fter the recent shooting of a police- man, my local newspaper (and probably yours too) sent reporters...

Murder most foul Taki imo, my illiterate sailor who gets his news from the radio, woke me up early Tuesday morning with the bad news. Pavlo Bakoyannis, a New Democracy member...

Street ahead Wendy Cope 0 ne disadvantage of working at home is the narrow range of newspapers and magazines available on the premises. In the staffroom at school, where...

Excuses, excuses Jeffrey Bernard A man walked into the pub one day last week and introduced himself as Bren- dan. I knew straight away that he was going to be a nuisance. You...

Baby power Zenga Longmore A wonderful thing happened last week. What started out as a cloud grew a shimmering silver lining. I have discovered the secret of quelling noisy...

last. For far too long the places I have reviewed have had the disconcerting habit of turning mediocre on me. Along with concern for the tolerance of my readers and the...

G ilbert Mornand, who has nine hec- tares of vines in the village of Clesse, describes his Macon Clesse 'Le Chateau' ( ' as 'comme un petit Meursault'. The panel,, few of whose...

Spectator Wine Club, Cfo Medley Wright & Co. Ltd, The Country Wine Cellars, FREEPOST, Bishops Stortford Herts CM23 4BR Tel: (0279) 506512 Price No. Value White Macon Clesse...

Seminal Raymond Keene O n Monday, 2 October, the two world championship semi-finals start in London, the venue being Sadler's Wells Theatre. Anatoly Karpov faces his...

Lights verse Tom Castro M y head is still reeling. In Competi- tion No. 1593 you were challenged to incorporate as many clues as possible, from the crossword on the same page,...

P R A E S 3 S F Tr/2S P 9 1INTA 7D 1l S EFIAIH 12 1 3 1'DI NB E R 0 N E D I Al TI T ISCRE 31 TE N II El RI Ul R C R is IRN R I IL T NI A Jl B E A SIT, U I 11121 53 01 PI I...

How to throw a successful party is a subject dear to writers in certain magazines. Alco- hol seems to be unfashionable. You are invited to supply a bright article (maximum 150...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers English Dictionary — ring the word `Dictionary') for the first three correct solutions...