`I'm very worried about the Waleses' M r Major reaffirmed his determina- tion to see the Maastricht Treaty ratified, and vehemently rejected calls from his pre- decessor, Lady...

A Right Honourable gentleman who is certainly honourable, but not right SIMON HEFFER O liver Cromwell, who was no consen- sus politician, remarked that 'in the govern- ment of...

JULIE BURCHILL F rom `Night Fever' to sun-worshipper: last week Mrs Dwina Gibb, wife of a 'Bee Gee', was crowned the first female leader of the Druids in 200 years (who was the...

Time to send for the Earl of Airlie CHARLES MOORE A ccording to the Daily Mirror last Sat- urday, 'Edwina Currie's fiery daughter has left a top boarding school under a cloud...

Chris Patten takes up the governorship of Hong Kong next Thursday. Robert Cottrell hopes that he will abandon the policy of standing up to China in public, but bending over in...

Stephen Handelman questions the methods and motives of those who plan to put the Communist Party in the dock Moscow IN THE DAYS when the cold war was still cold, a senior...

Michael Heath

Noel Malcolm unravels the papal origins of the EEC's new doctrine `WE SHALL give flesh to subsidiarity. We shall give it weight. We shall show people what it means.' Thus...

persist.. . FROM THE purely aesthetic point of view, there is not much to commend a slashed wrist: even the least sensitive are quite likely to feel faint at the sight of one....

HAREMS WORKED' Sir Nicholas Fairbairn talks about life and love to Candida Crewe SIR NICHOLAS FAIRBAIRN tends to go in for the all-over tartan look. His sar- torial flourish...

RUSSIA is threatened with another ter- rible calamity, — an outbreak of cholera, which is officially admitted to be spreading itself from Meshed, through the Khanates, southward...

Andrew Knight claims that the Sunday Times's exposure of the Wales's marital difficulties is in the royal family's interest LET US suppose that the Daily Mail had won the...

Is inflation good or bad? Martin Weyer finds that the experts are not so sure IN THAT sunlit pre-war era when Hobbs was forever batting at the Oval and affable prime ministers...

Filthy foreigners going up in smoke PAUL JOHNSON F ew people combine knowledge, ele- gance and common sense as effortlessly as Drusilla Beyfus, and it is no surprise that her...

We could have better trade figures once we've abolished them CHRISTOPHER FILDES W hat a splendid way to mark our European presidency. We are going to abolish the trade...

Sir: Your excellent magazine carried on its cover the picture of a Viking warrior bring- ing inspiration to your worried Prime Min- ister (13 June). Unfortunately your artist,...

Sir: As an American journalist departing Britain after three and a half years, I feel a need to respond to the surprising diatribe by Michael Lewis (`Oh, not to be in Eng-...

Sir: Fascinating though it was, Simon Hef- fer's article on 'The turning of the Tories' (13 June) surprised me in one respect. 'All through the referendum campaign,' he wrote,...

Sir: Your lengthy assessment of my career on these pages ('A handshake too far', 27 June) contained no fewer than 11 inaccura- cies. May I draw your readers' attention to three...

Sir: In Edward Whitley's article 'Strangled by the old school tie' (13 June), he quotes Eric Sorenson, the Chief Executive of the London Docklands Development Corpora- tion, as...

Sir: In these days of women's equality, should we not be referring to the UO rather than the UK? P. Kelsey 69 Fulwich Road, Dartford, Kent

Sir: Auberon Waugh quite unjustifiably names the Sun Alliance in the course of his scatter-gun attack upon British institutions (Another voice, 27 June) which he now charges...

Sir: I am not surprised Joseph Alsop was so besotted with President Kennedy (Books, 6 June). So many writers and intellectuals were. Alsop, though, ought to have kept a bit more...

Sir: Dominique Jackson wonders why the BBC bid alongside BSkyB for the televising of football (`Reach for the Sky', 20 June). Far from suffering an identity crisis, our aim...

Sir: Lord Vinson (Letters, 13 June) writes: `Manifestly twice as many people mean twice as much pollution, poverty and envi- ronmental degradation.' I wonder how many times the...

Sir: Will somebody please tell me the dif- ference between a fence and the banks holding the Maxwell pensioners' millions? Both are receivers of stolen goods. The fence will...

The happy wanderer Hugh Cecil THE INTERIOR CASTLE: A LIFE OF GERALD BRENAN by Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy Sinclair-Stevenson, f25, pp.660 I n 1990, when Cambridge University...

Francis King A CIRCLE ROUND THE SUN: A FOREIGNER IN JAPAN by Peregrine Hodson Heinemann, £16.99, pp. 307 I n this wonderfully observant book, Peregrine Hodson writes of two...

Angela Huth DUNEDIN by Shena Mackay Heinemann, £14.99, pp.304 I t is a puzzling fact in the literary world that while some writers' names lodge in the public mind from the...

James Walton ZIG ZAG by Lucy Robertson Doubleday, £13.99, pp. 204 T he plot of Lucy Robertson's first novel is a simple one. Zag is born in late Forties Cornwall. Her mother...

William Boyd MONROVIA MON AMOUR: A VISIT TO LIBERIA by Anthony Daniels John Murray, £17.95, pp. 206 T he title is ironic, of course, as is the tone almost throughout this...

Parviz Radji PALACE OF SOLITUDE by Her Imperial Highness Princess Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiary Quartet, £12.95, pp. 166 M ohammad Reza Pahlavi, the late Shah of Iran, married...

Christopher Brown JACOB VAN RUISDAEL by John Walford Yale, f40, pp.256 I n Les Maitres d'Autrefois, his almost uncannily perceptive account of 17th- century Dutch painting,...

G. Cabrera Infante GEORGE CUKOR: A DOUBLE LIFE by Patrick McGilligan Faber, £16.99, pp.392 H ollywood branded George Cukor as a woman's director forever as if he were the wan...

David Nokes HOGARTH: VOLUME I, THE MODERN MORAL SUBJECT, 1697-1732; VOLUME II, HIGH ART AND LOW, 1732-1750 by Ronald Paulson Lutterworth Press, Volume I, f_35, pp. 441, Volume...

Architecture The late Big Jim Gavin Stamp on how James Stirling turned him into a fogey T he unexpected death of James Stirling leaves me with a sense of loss, for criticis-...

Rambert Dance Company (Royalty Theatre) The American connection Sophie Constanti I n the week that Rambert Dance Com- pany — furnished with a bumper package of six works new...

The Sound of Music (Sadler's Wells) Romeo and Juliet (Barbican) What larks Sheridan Morley I n the title song from a Broadway musi- cal of 1959 which became one of the most...

The Best Intentions ('12', Lumiere, Gate) The hand of the master Mark Amory L ast week in The Player script-writers in Hollywood were portrayed as powerless supplicants,...

Wyndham Lewis: Art and War (Imperial War Museum, till 11 October) Spiked gun Giles Auty T he era in which Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) came to maturity as a painter was one of...

The wiles of Greece Taki Ithaca h enhen one is an author of some 39 odd books, has appeared weekly on televi- sion for a quarter of a century, has written a syndicated column...

Money in the tank Martyn Harris T he central image of last week's Pando- ra's Box (BBC 1, Thursday, 9 p.m.) was a remarkable water machine, consisting of various tanks, ducts...

Taken short Jeffrey Bernard T he art dealer, Guy Hart, told me two remarkable, true stories last week. One concerns the ski slopes of Switzerland and the other a train journey...

Eight of the best Nigel Nicolson I am entitled to three club ties, all of them beautiful, but none of which I dare wear. The Guards tie should only be worn, and then rarely,...

for fish: number 2 A MEDLEY of dos and don'ts. Do not buy bass, turbot and brill until you are tired of snappers, herrings, dogfish, sardines, octo- pus, cuttlefish, mackerel,...

Toad-eating Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1734 you were in- vited to write an 'ode' in honour of Jaspistos's 65th birthday. The toad-eater was the assistant who accompanied...

Rigan magic Raymond Keene I had intended this week to go into more detail on the results of the Manila Olym- pics but my deliberations were interrupted by the sad news that...

A first prize of f20 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 20 July, with two runners-up prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers,...

Wimbledon artistry Frank Keating IT HAS been a mighty relief to skip Wim- bledon this year and stick with more pas- toral cricket. The occasion has long super- seded the sport...

Dear Mary.. . Q. I work in the Canary Wharf building where the revolving doors are extremely heavy to operate. Should 1, therefore, still observe the conventional etiquette of...