T he Prince of Wales announced that his son and heir will be christened William Arthur Philip Louis, and styled Prince William of Wales. Among his godparents will be Sir Laurens...

The Tory early birds Peter Paterson S o much for the Summer of Discontent, Mrs Thatcher must have been thinking as she flew back early from the Brussels summit to enjoy her...

T do not envy the Northern Ireland Information Service. The task of presen- ting this unhappy province to the world as a cheerful, fun-loving place cannot be an easy one....

UK Eire Surface mail Air mail 6 months: £15.50 IRLI7.75 £18.50 £24.50 One year: £31.00 IR£35.50 £37.00 £49.00 US subscription price: $65.00 (Cheques to be made payable to the...

A star is born Auberon Waugh O f all the various forms of press censor- ship, an unspoken agreement between newspaper editors to exercise voluntary self- censorship strikes me...

Patrick Desmond I t is a foolish man who claims to under- stand events in the Lebanon in the last month, or over the last seven years, or even over the last century. For, in a...

Murray Sayle Tokyo E verybody in the data-processing busi- ness admires the inventiveness of Inter- national Business Machines, the giant American manufacturer of giant com-...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington I n the last weeks of Alexander Haig's public life he was his most frantically egomaniacal self. On the European trip he appears to have had a...

Strikes are becoming quite a feature of life in the United States. The iron miners of Pittsburgh are out, and the cargo handlers of New York, and the grain handlers at...

Xan Smiley Harare, Zimbabwe T wo years after independence there are few potholes in the roads of Zimbabwe. This astonishing news flies in the face of the conventional colonial...

from Paris is always a dismal experience. This week, with the transport strike, I found that I had to agree with the sentiment of a friend from New Zealand I met waiting (in...

Power of the press Paul Johnson F leet Street hostility undoubtedly played a part in the collapse of the rail strike. It's hard to remember an occasion when a major industrial...

The Direct Orient Tony Rudd A n extraordinary feature of this recess- ion, so far at least, is that it still seems possible for companies to make money out of providing goods...

Sir: I cannot say that I like the tone of Mr Swanton's reference to Marghanita Laski (Letters, 26 June). The best one can say is that it does not show a great open- mindedness...

They are all guilty Sir: Some weeks ago the Baathist regime in Syria massacred 25,000 of its own people in the city of Hama. The fascist military dic- tatorship of Iraq...

Sir: Paul Johnson's views on broadcasting are always interesting and provocative, but his latest piece in support of Peter Jay and the deregulation of television is unconvinc-...

Sir: If, as your correspondent Mr Hum- phrey Dougherty writes from Madrid (26 June), El Alcazar did use the phrase 'Gans° Verde', it was inventing a place which would be Green...

Sir: It was horribly depressing to • find the Spectator publishing Lord Kilmarnock's ar- ticle on the House of Lords report on unemployment (19 June). I've been at the • sharp...

Sir: In his review of Professor Millgate's biography of Thomas Hardy, Dr A. L. Rowse sadly misquotes G. K. Chesterton. Chesterton did not write: 'The village atheist blaspheming...

The triumph of Pio Yes-Yes A. N. Wilson 'Infallibility is the work of the devil'. JL That was the view of Pope John XXII in 1324. In his bull Qui quorundam he re- jected...

A. L. Rowse O f all the Shakespeare editions on the V market I confess to a prejudice in favour of the New Arden (along with the New Penguin in paperback). It is remarkable what...

Philip Warner C . Aubrey Smith, whose picture appears on the jacket of this cheerful biography, would have been unbelievable in fiction. He did not look like a Test cricketer,...

Darlington (Spectator 19 June) the description of Leonard Elmhirst should have read: 'He was one of nine children of a Yorkshire "squar- son" (part squire and part parson)', and...

THE TIMES GUIDE to the House of Commons 1979. Please ring Mary Oppe 01-439 7631 (office hours). THE SUN KING by Nancy Mitford. E. Ox- enham, Glen Lyn House, Lynmouth, N. Devon....

Richard Calvocoressi Georg Buchner Julian Hilton (Macmillan Modern Dramatists £10, £2.95) ' n a radio broadcast recently on Goethe, George Steiner remarked that German studies...

Peter Levi Mood for the Ghosts Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Duckworth £24) T hese books are not only lively, but thril- ling to read. It is lucky for Oxford that its Regius Professor of...

Harriet Waugh Proofs of Affection Rosemary Friedman (Gollancz £7.95) Proofs of Affection Rosemary Friedman (Gollancz £7.95) T his book gives a rounded and rather endearing...

Dorothy Richardson Eva Tucker This week Eva Tucker's selected extracts from Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage are broadcast on Radio 3. Pilgrimage is available in Virago Modern...

Dame Janet's final diadem Rodney Milnes Orfeo ed Eurydice (Glyndebourne) H ow embarrassing if this new pro- duction, mounted as the third and final panel of Dame Janet...

Easy credit Mark Amory Money (The Pit) Marry Me a Little (King's Head) Don Quixote (Olivier) Aunt Mary (Warehouse) M oney is immensely agreeable stuff. There is however not...

Poppycock John McEwen a, eter Phillips first came to public atteur 1. tion as one of an exceptional and talented group of painters at the Royal Col- lege in the early Sixties....

Playing ball Richard Ingrams S ince listening to Lindsay Anderson reading George Orwell on It's My Pleasure (BBC 2) I have been looking again at one of the books which he used...

Cheering up Peter Ackroyd Charles et Lucie ('A', Curzon) C harles is an unsuccessful stall-owner in Paris; he has that rather crumpled look, both benign and worried, which...

Words of wisdorri Jeffrey Bernard D ear Bill, Forgive the familiarity but if we'r e going to correspond with each other I can I keep addressing you as William, Prince 0 '...

Good riddance Taki New York T knew I was back in the good old USA as I soon as I turned on the idiot box. I wanted to watch some of the Wimbledon tennis, but instead of Dan...

No. 1225: De haul en bas Set by Jaspistos: You are invited to provide an imaginary letter of patronising advice from a centenarian to someone of 99 whom he or she has known for...

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for a poem without the letter e. Magnificent though your lipogrammatic efforts were, they must pale beside the novel Gadsby by Ernest...

Final spurt Raymond Keene Two weeks ago I published Karpov's loss • to Ljubojevic from the super- tournament at Turin. It seemed then that the world champion was heading for...

are: 36D & IA; 7D &29D; 25A eL 23D; and 26A & 35D. Winner: J. C. Parsons, 41 River - mead Court, London SW6.

A prize of ten pounds will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 19 July. Entries to: Crossword 564, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL. 1 I 12...