By the millennium, we will be able to make one hundred clones of this perfect specimen of the human race every day' P articipants in the multi-party talks on Northern Ireland...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 0171-405 1706; Fax 0171-242 0603 ALL THE WORLD'S A TV T he public outcry against Deirdre Rachid's sentence for...

Alastair Campbell's mistake is to assume that everyone else is like him BRUCE ANDERSON I t is impossible to dislike Alastair Camp- bell, the PM's press secretary; he is such a...

DEBORAH BU LL I t has been the week of two continents and three hats: ballet dancer's tiara, author's headache and Rolls-Royce wing. If I may explain the latter, one of my...

I must break the news to Taki: Max Hastings is my leader FRANK JOHNSON T aki, writing in the Sunday Times under the heading 'The New Battle of Hastings', says that, though 'no...

Peter Oborne on the small group of younger Tory front-benchers who spend time with Lady Thatcher — and why LAST WEEKEND William Hague osten- tatiously announced his intention...

IT BEING unseasonably warm on Sun- day, I had tea in the garden. A bird, commendably busy fetching bits of twig for a nest, had just dropped a congealed lump of dead leaf and...

In the week of Lord Wyatt's memorial service, Norman Lamont misses his loyal friend THE service was held this week at St Mar- garet's Westminster on April Fool's Day. The irony...

Mark Steyn on American males to whom feminists grant a right to grope — such as the President DURING the Gulf war, a United States pilot was captured by Iraqi troops. As luck...

Michael Sheridan says our experience should warn today's bankers how not to deal with a subtle people Bangkok WHEN the boffins from the International Monetary Fund are whisked...

Michael Heath

Matthew Parris urges a new understanding for Argentina's claim to the Falklands - 16 years on `WHAT have we acquired? What, but a bleak and gloomy solitude, an island thrown...

Herb Greer offers a possible explanation of the Arkansas school deaths PROBABLY the most original response to the child murderers in Arkansas appeared in the Sunday Telegraph,...

The Babylonian luxury of Fawlty Towers with a Blackpool accent PAUL JOHNSON I t is indicative of Labour's changed per- sona that the New Comrades, rather than the supposedly...

THERE is no room for the Guards to parade on Horse Guards Parade. Their parade ground has been cluttered up with bouncy castles. I told you this was going to happen but you may...

BEFORE there was Friedman there was Keynes, and after Keynes came a flock of disciples who took their prophet's name in vain. They believed he had taught them that markets were...

THERE are, so the sage teaches, four types of money: The first is your own, which you spend on yourself_ You are the best judge of what you want and how much you want it. If you...

FRIEDMAN'S LAW serves to explain why paying tax represents such dismal and dete- riorating value for money. The state offers a wide range of services, supplying them whether we...

Happy new year, and the sage of Chicago says paying all that tax is bad for you CHRISTOPHER FILDES I would wish all my readers a happy new tax year if this were not a...

Sir: I wholeheartedly endorse the calls for MI5 to be prevented from destroying the bulk of its historical files (`Once red, but should they still be read?', 28 March). For the...

Sir: I refer to Mr Fildes's excellent article on gold (City and suburban, 7 March). One reason for the depressed bullion market is the huge speculative position of market...

Sir: Having read with interest Peter Oborne's article 'A racing uncertainty' (21 March), I am amazed that he can't grasp the fact that a healthy racing industry cou- pled with a...

Sir: The spook seems to have spooked him- self. David Shayler's story of racing about Europe pursued by his own private fiends and demons (`Life after MI5', 28 March) makes for...

Sir: In your issue of 28 March (Letters), John Owen, director of the Freedom Forum, says that I 'continue to assert' that I didn't know my remarks about the Times were on the...

Sir: You should have Joan Collins write the Diary on a regular basis (21 March). It was a delight to read. Unlike some of your other diarists, no references to boring...

Sir: I find the sheer arrogance of the British government scarcely credible when it is dealing with the legitimate activities of French salesmen in France. What business is it...

Sir: Is not Alfred Sherman's article Krises without Israel', 14 March) on why Israel should be where it is and concede nothing to the Palestinians, no more than an attempt to...

Sir: Gavin Stamp is, uncharacteristically, wrong (Not motoring, 28 March). GWR does not stand for the sad little relic of Brunel and Gooch's great enterprise but for...

thrills, atmosphere and massive prize money of the Cheltenham Festival with the realities of a wet Monday afternoon at Plumpton. As someone who manages racing partnerships, I...

Sir: Bruce Anderson's article (Politics, 28 March) encapsulates the critical point that most if not all supporters of EMU miss to our peril. The point is that EMU is doomed to...

Sir: Am I the only Spectator reader who is sick to death of weekly insults directed at the President of the United States by the ridiculous Taki? With the 14 March issue these...

All right, the Guardian already had the phone record, but who gave it to them? STEPHEN GLOVER W hen several months ago three Guardian journalists produced a book about the...

Of Meissen men Bevis Hillier THE ARCANUM: THE EXTRAORDINARY TRUE STORY OF THE INVENTION OF EUROPEAN PORCELAIN by Janet Gleeson Bantam, £12.99, pp. 268 I n the mid-1960s,...

Because of unofficial industrial action at the Royal Mail's Mount Pleasant sorting office in central London, there have been severe delays in the delivery of mail throughout...

Patrick Skene Catling DOG DAYS by Aidan Higgins Secker, £15.99, pp. 286 A fter recovery from initial bewilder- ment, one may argue in defence of Dog Days, the second volume of...

Priscilla Napier SECRET COMMENT: THE DIARIES OF GERTRUDE SAVILE, 1721-1757 edited by Alan Savile Kingsbridge Historical Society, Hatch Arundell, Loddiswell, Kingsbridge, Devon,...

Philip French CAGNEY by John McCabe Aurum Press, £16.95, pp. 439 J ames Cagney, the centenary of whose birth will be celebrated next year, is one of the screen's half-dozen...

Ofthth ee LORD BERNERS The Last Eccentric by Mark Amory Mark Amory, literary editor of The Spectator, has written the first biography of Lord Berners, the composer, novelist,...

Alfred Sherman THE FIFTY YEARS WAR by Ahron Bregman and Jihan El-Tahri Penguin, £7.99, pp. 304 T he Fifty Years War exemplifies the new genre of a television series downloaded...

Victoria Clarke A woman relieving herself in the uri- nals signals redundancy for the heroes of The Full Monty. This news will come as no surprise to these new female...

Julian Mitchell THE PRINCE'S TALE AND OTHER COLLECTED WRITINGS by E. M. Forster, edited by P. N. Furbank Deutsch, £25, pp. 344 E M. Forster was rarely hearty; hearti- ness was...

the . goods Alastair Morton A bout a third of the way through these two books one feels sorry for the three authors and one subject. For the three, it is simple: their books...

The theories of Freud Were not entirely unalloyed With wishful thinking - Which is why his school of psychotherapy is 'shrinking'. James Michie

C. M. Woodhouse POPULAR AUTOCRACY IN GREECE, 1936-41: A POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF GENERAL IOANNIS METAXAS by P. J. Vatikiotis Frank Cass, £35, pp. 232 P rofessor Vatikiotis, who...

Robert Cooper A lan Bennett's The Clothes They Stood Up In (BBC Radio Collection, unabridged, £8.99) is already a number one chart- topper. No surprise that demand has been...

History with attitude M useums mean different things to dif- ferent people. To some, they are an agree- able morning's entertainment, with an undemanding veneer of education....

Richard Bebb on Roberto Alagna's new recording of Verdi arias I t is somehow significant that in the same week that James Cameron's film Titanic tri- umphed at the Oscars in...

The Tchaikovsky Trilogy (Peter Schaufuss Ballet, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh) Dream on Giannandrea Poesio T he complex symbolism that permeates Tchaikovsky's ballets — Swan...

Cosi fan tutte (Royal Opera, Shaftesbury Theatre) Fidelio (English Touring Opera, Peacock Theatre) Paradoxical paradise Michael Tanner W ith Opera North's treatment of Cosi...

It isn't fair Marcus Berkmann 6 Cover me,' sang Bruce Springsteen somewhere around 1984, 'Ooh baby, cover me.' If this was a plea to other pop per- formers to record dismal...

Ulee's Gold (15, selected cinemas) The apian way Mark Steyn P icking up his Oscar last week, Jack Nicholson, with a wicked smile, saluted his fellow nominee, 'my old biker...

The London Cuckolds (National Theatre) Brief Lives (Duchess Theatre) The Normal Heart (Man in the Moon) Kat and the Kings (Vaudeville) Bed and bawd Sheridan Morley R...

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: The Palace of Projects (The Roundhouse, Camden Town, till 3 May) Behind the black curtains John Spurling T he Palace of Projects is a kind of one-...

Bucolically incorrect Simon Hoggart F or years I have wanted to write as our annual community show Macbeth — the Panto, mainly for one scene in which a young man in a...

Powell's legacy Michael Vestey I nterviewing Enoch Powell could be an unnerving experience. He would fix you throughout with an unwavering bleak stare that bored right through...

Place your bets Robin Oakley O ne racing acquaintance with a taste for dreadful puns used to inquire what the difference was between a street trader and a male dachshund....

Uncle Joe, where are you? Taki A ter three months of uninterrupted sun and snow in the Alps, grey London feels dismal and depressive. Once upon a time the excitement began...

Public versus people Leanda de Lisle T here aren't any public footpaths near our house, but a local paper used a photo- graph of it to encourage people to make a detour from...

Love story Andrew Robson IN a dreadful contract, you have nothing to lose. You can only hope that the opposing cards lie in such a way as to allow you to succeed and utter a...

EATING NEW LABOUR :WA NEW YORK remains stubbornly more fash- ionable than London. Even in the restaurant trade, watering-holes like Nobu and Vong give deprived Londoners...

HOLY WEEK is upon us. Monday 30 March was an interesting saint's day — that of John Climacus. Climacus is the Latin version of the Greek work for a ladder, and the saint's fame...

Advance strategy Raymond Keene A VARIATION which has recently become popular, espoused by Nigel Short, Gata Kamsky and Alexei Shirov, is 3 e5 against the Caro-Kann (1 e4 c6 2...

What the Doc ordered Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 2027 you were invited to incorporate at least six of the week's crossword clues into a plausible piece of prose. John...

A first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham's Six Grapes Port for the first correct solution opened on 20 April, with two runners-up prizes of £20 (or, for UK solvers, the...

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Twenty years ago some wag suggested a competition in which entrants are simply invited to write 'something that will make people laugh'. Here we go then: a maxi- mum of 150...

The captain departs Simon Barnes NAIVETY is a wasting asset; it takes a great deal of it to believe that you can per- form the impossible, and still more to believe that other...

Dear Mary.. . Q. I am living in a seemingly respectable block of flats and for the second time in my life have arranged delivery of a daily news- paper, weekdays only. This...