(Ill was discovered near Winchester, V./raising fears for the countryside, but hopes that the harsh custom of sending men into pits to dig coal might soon be done away with. It...

The undramatic crisis y ou may remember that recent adver- tisement by an insurance company in which an irritatingly cool voice reassures you: 'We won't make a drama out of a...

Q he was a lady who played Joan of Arc as a child, and who often spoke of the danger that foreign agents such as the CIA Would destabilise India: there was a grim irony in the...

w hen the Contadora Group of coun- tries put forward their four recom- mendations for resolving the conflicts afflicting Central America, both the US and Nicaragua, rather...

4 1 - can confirm that the Libyan Trade A.Unions will contribute substantial cash to enable you to win the struggle against Mrs Thatcher the American Lackey. We shall make sure...

UK Eire Surface mail Air mail 6 months: £17.25 £17.25 L20.50 £26.50 One year: £34.50 : E34.50 L41.00 £53.00 Name Address US Subscriptions: $75.00 (Airspeed). The...

Public school justice Auberon Waugh T spent Friday morning, under some .1protest, listening to an application be- fore the judicial committee of the Privy Council for leave to...

W hat then is to be said about the single- woman condition? Most notable is that others feel one should not be in it, especially when one's children have flown the nest. 'Why...

Timothy Garton Ash Warsaw T he story so far: in the night of Friday 19 October Father Jerzy Popieluszko, a Warsaw priest well known for his out- spoken pro-Solidarity sermons,...

Reagan the Democrat Christopher Hitchens I t is rare indeed for Walter Mondale to show anything resembling emotion. Even his closest associates have taken to nicknaming him...

Richard West T he old Shanghai of the Twenties and Thirties has always been, after St Petersburg, the city I most wanted to visit except in the sense that, like most addicts of...

George Walden A lugubrious political season has cul- minated in an act of inhuman vio- lence. The Prime Minister, in her courage, tells us that life must go on. Mr Tebbit, in...

Bob Houston The author was first editor of the NUM national journal the Miner, from 1969-82, and was responsible for press and public relations during the two national strikes...

Dawn Macleod S tories and films showing the dear de- parted John Betjeman at home in P ew-land, Dune-land and Metro-land have so far failed to glance back at grimmer moments of...

Disturbing the ants' nest Paul Johnson rr he Audit Bureau of Circulation figures 1. for the six months April-September 1984 reflect the intensity of the various struggles for...

Canon MacColl has achieved a re- markable success in the City by uniting with him the Nonconformists of his parish in an earnest effort to enlarge the usefulness of his church...

Sale of the century Jock Bruce-Gardyne rAn Monday night last I found myself V impersonating Sir George Jefferson, Mr Martin Jacomb, Lord Rockley, Mr Geoffrey Pattie, Mr John...

Sir: Colin Welch is wrong (Centrepiece, 20 October). According to the Oxford Social Studies Centre Labour needs a minimum of 32 per cent of the vote to secure an overall...

Sir: I don't altogether disagree with the Revd Peter Mullen about capital punish- ment CA moral necessity', 27 October); but if we do restore it, must we go back to hanging?...

Sir: One point in Mr Heathfield's letter would appear to be potentially very signifi- cant. He writes that Rockingham Colliery was closed, with the agreement of Mr Scargill and...

Sir: Norman Stone (Books, 11 August) talks about Napoleon as 'Pierre Gaxotte's Action-Francaise Great Leader'. The truth is that L'Action Francaise, and one of its thinkers,...

Sir: I am sure your cookery correspondent Jennifer Paterson is wrong about chicory and endive. What she calls chicory (Food, 13 October) is in fact endive and vice versa. This...

Jimmy Reid's reply Sir: In last week's Spectator Mr Peter Heathfield, secretary of the National Un- ion of Mineworkers, promised 'to correct two glaring errors of fact' in my...

Sir: May I timidly suggest an ageing wri- ters' competition, for at least half the money? Andrew Brown 39 Rocks Lane, Barnes, London SW13

Sir: Giles Auty (`Caring about art', 20 October) says that few will argue about the Historic British Collection part of the latest Tate Gallery report. But many do question its...

journal, I shall cancel my subscription. Roy Kerridge The Old Mansion House Guest House, Bridge Street, Knighton, Powys An article by Roy Kerridge will appear next week. Ed.

Sir: The Ukrainian writer, Valery Mar- chenko, died in a Leningrad prison hospit- al early this October. He was 37. He died because of the Soviet authorities' deliber- ate...

Sir: In your issue of 20 October an orga - nisation called 'Modern First Editions' has put forward the claim that an unsigned first edition of Casino Royale is worth £1,500,...

Sir: One wonders if Arthur Scargill helped Gavin Stamp lose his way in the fog of `Anglican MacGregors' (27 October). His epistle from Holbeck bears a whiff of that...

Sir: I have been taking your paper for three years, mainly because of Roy Kerridge's articles, which I found were an essential ingredient of the ■ Spectator. That is why...

Sir: Richard West's reference (`Close-knit parasites', 1 September) to the last of the miners' knockers-up' reminded me of another similar custom which survived at least until...

The reluctant prodigal Colin Welch A s I tried to convey in my Daily Mail sketch, M. Mitterrand is now about as insubstantial a figure as a French President Could be. The...

Baste frequently Christopher Hawtree Maia ITIhe truth was that this evening Maia I was beginning for the first time to grasp something of the difference between style and the...

Shirley Letwin In the Age of Prose Erich Heller (Cambridge University Press £7.50) s ince the 17th century, we have had nothing to match the battle between the Ancients and...

A.N. Wilson The Changing Metropolis: Earliest Photographs of London 1839-1879 Gavin Stamp (Viking £14.95) W hitehall, 1839, in bright September weather. Rays of sunlight...

Harriet Waugh Watson's Apology Beryl Bainbridge (Duckworth £8.95) A her most enjoyable, Beryl Bain- bridge writes of the hidden springs of anarchy that bedevil the least...

Mary Hope Flaubert's Parrot Julian Barnes (Jonathan Cape £8.50) T he trouble with dealing with Flaubert's Parrot is that Julian Barnes, clever fellow, has usually beaten you...

Neasa MacErlean The Diaries of Jane Somers Doris Lessing (Michael Joseph £9.95) 'The Diary of a Good Neighbour is a I quite remarkable novel that will con- tinue to haunt you...

Gillian Greenwood Machine Dreams Jayne Ann Phillips (Faber £8.95) I n 1979, Jayne Anne Phillips, a young American writer, produced a collection of short stories, Black...

Provincial charm David Wakefield r'r he present exhibition at the National 1 Gallery, Danish Painting: The Golden Age, offers an entirely new and unfamiliar aspect of European...

Impertinence? Rodney Milnes Don Giovanni (WNO, Cardiff) Higglety Pigglety Pop!, Le nozze di Figaro, Cosi fan tutte (Glyndebourne Tour) I must confess to being flummoxed by...

On the run Peter Ackroyd Mikey and Nick ('15', Minema, Knightsbridge) M r Cassavetes is always at his best when he is at his worst; with his glistening eye, his wild stare...

End of the line Christopher Edwards Tramway Road (Lyric, Hammersmith) rr he 'Road' in question runs through a .1 suburb of Capetown where, until they were evicted in 1961, the...

The Buerk famine Alexander Chancellor rr he last great famine in Ethiopia (the one of 1974 which helped to topple Haile Selassie) is known even today among the relief...

FOCUS BOOKS U.S.A.: "Focus on 'Blow Up' " and 'The Quest for Corbett' by Kenneth Tynan and Harold Lang. A. Hailstone, 34 Melville Rd., London SW13 9RJ. J. W. ADAMSON: 'English...

Middleweights Jeffrey Bernard A little bit of business with Barclays took me up to the City last Monday and what a ghastly place I find it. Anything east of Blackfriars or...

Floating voter Taki H ere we go again. , It's time to start thinking where to spend next Tuesday eve, election time in the good old USA. And just as people recall where they...

Fred and Freda P. J. Kavanagh m any years ago I bumped into an old college friend who asked me what I was up to these days. In fact I was in one of those periodic troughs of...

No. 1345: Play up and on Set by Jaspistos: 'There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night — Ten to make and the match to win . . .' Sir Henry Newbolt's famous opening lines...

Jaspistos reports: Old Tusser, whom I quoted, had yet another desideratum fo r cheese: that it should not be 'like a bishop , made of burnt milk', this apparently being a...

Palpable hit Raymond Keene CZ.ame 16 saw a great missed opportun- ity for Kasparov. Faulty opening play by the champion left him facing defeat, but the challenger reacted too...

R T I N 0 j_l All' ALD1AEE'b R A W IS II A C 0 si R G A NIUTA sk S 7. `I' G N SOA 2 STALGIA O T A E U M T 11Cljtiti - i IlUER W E I S I E G . E E XISA L1 2 4ERIN LIL El[LR1 A...

Coverall by Jac Prize: £10 (or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, 1983 edition, value £11.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled...

B e not among wine-bibbers,' says the Book of Proverbs, but it is becoming more and more difficult to avoid them. Wine consumption in this country has gone up by over a third in...

Treasure Hunt Set by Caroline Moore The first prize is a pair of 18th century hand-coloured aquatints by Thomas and William Daniell illustrating views of India. (see picture...