INDIANA UNIVERSIn JUL 0 7 1998 LIBRARY The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 0171-405 1706; Fax 0171-242 0603 CULTURE CASH S ir Richard Eyre has...

r David Trimble, the leader of the Ulster Unionist party, was expected to become the First Minister of the new 108- seat Northern Ireland Assembly and Mr John Hume, the leader...

A matter concerning the Union shouldn't be left to a trade unionist BRUCE ANDERSON O ver the past few days, while all Eng- land's mental energies were devoted to football, a...

FRANK JOHNSON B ut how? I first thought of reproduc- ing, as a supplement, that first issue of 1828. Then I read it. Or rather, more or less didn't. It was nigh unreadable. A...

I shall shut up about homosexuality now, but I must just say one last thing MATTHEW PARRIS T o one who has banged on rather a lot about reforming the criminal law on homo-...

Mark Honigsbaum on the millennium celebrations abroad that will make Greenwich look like a mean time WITH only 555 days left before the dawn of the new millennium, I am...

In Scotland's pubs, reports Neil Drysdale, England's northern neighbours cheered for their enemy's enemy Edinburgh PERHAPS IT was appropriate that a man called Batty should miss...

&On Simon spots the young people of today who will rule us in 22 years' time AS I write, they are all around me. As you read, they are surrounding you too. Even now there...

Douglas Johnson on the little-reported case of two politicians, one wife and a fictional prostitute Paris EDOUARD Balladur, a former prime minister and rival to M. Chirac in...

The American media, says Mark Steyn, is instinctively protective of the President's enemies New Hampshire THE OTHER day, Senator John McCain stood up to address a Republican...

Derek Draper forecast here on 23 May that the Sun would back the euro eventually. He believes it still THE REFERENDUM on the single cur- rency is 1,000 editions of the Sun away,...

Andrew Gimson on what's behind German soccer hooliganism (and it's not neo-Nazism) Berlin JURGEN KLINSMANN is angry about the World Cup. In an interview published on Monday,...

Sue Cameron meets Alastair Campbell, and discovers that he would have been tougher on himself thin MPs were ALASTAIR CAMPBELL was clearly rel- ishing his triumph over the...

Allan Massie detects an uncanny resemblance between senior government figures and certain ancient Romans `I'VE JUST come back from Capri,' the girl said, 'and it occurred to...

THE word decision occurs but once in the Bible, and in a fairly decisive con- text, with reference to the Valley of Josaphat, the valley of decision, where the Lord will judge...

I AM sure that the Paymaster General was never paid £200,000 as chairman of Hollis Industries, even if the accounts say he was, and even if he wrote a letter (reprinted this...

BOONDOGGLE alert: all eyes on Ottawa, where a new specimen is struggling to be born. Its midwife is Christine Copps, who is minister of the Canadian heritage and thinks that...

MY feline correspondent, Bustopher Jones, adds: After half a century, how much longer must we cats wait for a National Veterinary Service? We are still at the mercy of market...

WHEN I came to the City, it was considered bad form to talk shop over lunch. Cricket or grouse would be the order of the day until the port came round, and a nap would fol- low....

Marching proudly on into a new half-century, Britain's answer to the Russian army CHRISTOPHER FILDES P eople are the National Health Service's greatest resource. So Frank...

AS the Governor of the Bank of England should be, Eddie George is in the pound seat. This week he begins his second term of office, and for the next five years he can- not be...

Sir: As an unconditional Anglophile, noth- ing could please me more than Paul John- son's article (And another thing, 20 June). I have been appalled for a long time by the...

Sir: I'm sorry, but `Avi Skullcap' (Letters, 27 June) just won't do. What is needed to create an analogy to 'Mohammed Al Towl- hed' is not a piece of appropriate headgear but a...

Sir: David Shayler (and you) might be amused by my true tale of a morning in the life of a prospective naval attache. Part of the training attaches get involves both MI5 and...

recent article from Washington criticising the British ambassador for his lack of con- tact with senior Republicans (Diary, 6 June)? I do see quite a lot of what may be termed,...

Sir: Anna Ford (Diary, 13 June) laments that the majority of children today have to choose between history and geography. My own daughter, however, in writing to a Cam- bridge...

Sir: The title `Croesus in league with Jesus' (Books, 27 June) is not only offensive, but inaccurate. Jesus never stopped anybody from having a drink in His life. If a Holy...

Sir: Lady Reading's letter (27 June) reminded me of an exchange I had some years ago with a Tory MP. Following some outrage or other perpetrated by our soccer fans, I speculated...

Sir: I don't agree with Taki's statement (High life, 13 June) that 'the last black pro- fessional American athlete to act like a gentleman was Jesse Owens'. The tennis player...

Sir: Ian Moore makes the outrageous claim that there was 'a virtual press blackout' of the 'No' campaign in the recent Northern Ireland referendum on the Good Friday agreement...

Sir: I have been a subscriber to your publi- cation for the last few years and enjoy it very much. Obviously your readers are a delightful and well-informed group, as evi-...

Sir: Taki may think that the English would be better off being 'krauts' (High life, June 27); I have no doubt that Taki would be better off if he did not mistake rudeness for...

Sir: Bevis Hillier's memory of Parson's Pleasure (Books, June 27), the magazine that I founded in Oxford in 1958, is not cor- rect. Your reviewer must be thinking of a different...

Sir: The situation Dr Joan Horton describes (Letters, 30 June) is probably due to the fact that new mothers are often told to leave their infant boys' private parts alone:...

Sir: Paul Johnson is quite right when he says (And another thing, 27 June) that 'left- ies' are remarkably 'litigious'. I remember being sued for libel by the editor of the New...

Sir: Mrs Thatcher used to mock Mr Neil Kinnock for his parliamentary incompe- tence. 'He can't think on his feet,' she would jibe. William Hague's dominance on every...

Sir: it used to be one of the glories of The Spectator that Latin tags were never trans- lated. It was assumed — rightly — that readers had enough education to know them. Now I...

subject of penile hygiene (Let- ters, 20 June), I am bound to predict that we will henceforth experience an expanding debate surrounding the relative merits of circumcision, one...

Sir: I was intrigued to read Joan Collins's Diary (30 May) and, in particular, the final paragraph about Frank Sinatra. Miss Collins says in this, 'I remember him telling me...

Scouting for Boys that boys keep their noses clean by sniffing up salt water, and others to colonic lavage, Lysol baths and twice daily gargles; and no `Oh, good, you're...

Why David English was not a great journalist PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE — 'the greatest journalist of the last quarter of a century', as one obituary said — should either himself...

NOT SO NOVEL OBITUARY Fiction's best-known genre has been left for dead before. Now a pessimistic Malcolm Bradbury hopes that he, too, is wrong LET us return a moment to the...

Future wars may take place between interest groups, not nations, says Correlli Barnett FOUR YEARS after The Spectator was founded in 1828, Karl von Clausewitz's great book On...

The monarchy survived by abandoning not seek power again `AT FIVE I went to Buckingham Palace,' Lord Esher, King Edward VII's eminence grise, wrote in his diary in 1918. 'It...

Printed publications will survive the information revolution, argues Matthew Doug if they want to YES, but can The Spectator last another 170 years? Much is made of the idea...

Paul Johnson would have revelled in the freedom of 170 years ago, but might not have lived to enjoy it WAS it more agreeable to live in 1828 than in 1998? It is not difficult...

THE chronicles of the week record two cases of suicide — one of Hannah Latti- more, a cook-maid, who drowned her- self in the Serpentine, for love of Joshua Kemp, a private in...

OF THEIR 170TH ANSIIVE RS TNT NEWSF 14 ST ARE PROUD TO DISTRI :JUTE THIS LONG-STANDING PUBLICATION AND WISH THEM EVERY CONTINUED SUCCESS IN THE FUTURE.

If Christianity hopes to survive in the new millennium, argues Edward Norman, it must renounce humanism AT THE END of the 18th century it rather looked as if Catholic...

THE QUIET AFRICANS SADAKAT KADRI BLANTYRE is a lethargic place. The colo- nial architecture at its core, a complex of chalky prefabs with roofs of corrugated copper, has...

Going native at home Bevis Hillier THE COMPLETE WORKS OF GEORGE ORWELL, 20 VOLUMES edited by Peter Davison, assisted by Ian Angus and Sheila Davison Secker & Warburg L750 0 ne...

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but cold comfort Sebastian Faulks KALIMANTAAN by C. S. Godshalk Little, Brown, £14.99, pp. 472 K alimantaan is a novel about the establishment by a young Englishman of a...

Michael Portillo THE GENERAL AGAINST THE KREMLIN: ALEXANDER LEBED, POWER AND ILLUSION by Harold Elletson Little, Brown, f1Z50, pp. 256 H arold Elletson, author of this fasci-...

Bonnie Prince Charlie Was more than a wee bit fond of the barley; In fact he was completely sodden Before, during and after Culloden. James Michie

Simon Jenkins THE MOVING PAGEANT by Richard Allen Routledge, £14.99, pp. 241 C onrad found London 'a slimy aquari- um from which the water had been run off. A murky, gloomy...

Anthony Curtis THE LITERARY ESSAYS by John Heath-Stubbs, edited by Trevor Tolley Carcanet, i14.95, pp. 214 J ohn Heath-Stubbs badly needs a Boswell. He is one of the best...

D. J. Taylor PUNCH: THE LIVELY YOUTH OF A BRITISH INSTITUTION, 1841-1851 by Richard D. Altick Ohio State Uuniversity, £49.50, pp. 776 I f the early Victorian era was a boom-...

12 Months 6 Months (52 issues) (26 issues) UK 0 £97.00 LI £49.00 Europe U £109.00 0 £55.00 USA 0 US$161 0 US$82 Australia ❑ Aus$225 ❑ Aus$113 Rest of World 0 £119.00 U £60.00...

Philip Hensher ROUGH RIDE by Paul Kimmage Yellow Jersey, £8, pp. 260 T he Tour de France is one of those barbaric events which a truly civilised soci- ety would surely banish,...

William Rees-Mogg ENOUGH SAID by Bernard Levin Cape, £16.99, pp. 268 B ernard Levin has been the most consistently interesting British columnist of his generation. I am, of...

John Redwood PROGRESS AND BARBARISM: THE WORLD IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY by Clive Pouting Chatto, f30, pp. 584 C live Ponting's massive book of 20th- century history is epic in...

Norman Stone LORDS OF THE HORIZON by Jason Goodwin Chatto, £18.99, pp. 288 C an Islam ever become modern, or even 'European'? The question is not new. For most of the 19th...

Michael Harrington P eter Swain's series for Channel Four on the history of science fiction (The Sci-Fi Files, just finished) took SF too much at its own estimation as the...

enables us to see the late 1820s, when The Spectator burst upon the scene, as a slightly dingy corridor in which Romanticism hung around practising its last desperate grimaces...

Clawing the throat of the bourgeoisie Our critics look back over the past 170 years and to the future. Martin Gayford on art n 1827, at the Paris Salon, a young painter named...

Go to Blasis Giannandrea Poesio I n 1828 the Italian dancer, ballet-master and dance theorist Carlo Blasis published in London The Code of Terpsichore, des- tined to become...

Fast movement Michael Tanner T he year 1828 may be an auspicious one in the history of journalism, but it is the most tragic year in the history of music. On 19 November...

The crisis of language Alan Powers I t is common to look back to the past for standards of normality with which to con- demn the outrages of the present. Archi- tecture, that...

roovy, fab and happening Marcus Berkmann T he Spectator is 170 years old; pop music, by contrast, is only about 44. If The Spec is a wise, whiskery old bird, still vibrant and...

The secret's out Alan Judd I t is widely but wrongly believed that the first horseless carriage to run on petrol was that built in 1886 by the 52-year-old Swabi- an, Gottlieb...

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (National) The Old Neighborhood (Duke of York's) How I Learned to Drive (Donmar Warehouse) Star gazing Sheridan Morley T heatre in 1828?...

Alberto Giacometti (Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, till 18 October) Seeing, not believing Roger Kimball `Le Chien, 1951 P aul Valery once remarked that a poem is never...

Patrick Heron (Tate Gallery, till 6 September) Relishing the visual world Andrew Lambirth I t remains something of a mystery why certain artists are accorded retrospective...

Grease (PG, selected cinemas) Talking point Mark Steyn G rease is the fortunate beneficiary of a unique double nostalgia: in the Seventies, it was part of the Fifties...

All man James Delingpole G lastonbury was horrible this year and personally I blame God. He knew damn well that He owed us some decent weather after last year's wash-out but...

The cure for SAD-ROM Michael Vestey F eeling depressed last week I thought of those 1950s Charles Atlas body-building manuals which prepared seven-stone weak- lings for the...

Friendly Folkestone Robin Oakley M aybe it could do with a lick of paint here and there but Folkestone is one of those friendly courses which makes picnick- ers as well as...

Yellow fellows Taki I f this is democracy, I'm Marlene Diet- rich. Last week the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly to lower the age of consent for homosexuals to 16,...

It can only get better Leanda de Lisle I don't want to do 'Country life' any more. I want to do 'Californian life'. It's been raining for a month and I just can't take it any...

Brilliancy Andrew Robson TO be a regular player of the world's high- est stake Rubber Bridge game — £200 per hundred at London's TGR club — you either need nerves of steel and...

LIKE BATH, Baden-Baden in Germany, not far over the border from Strasbourg, is a pretty, medium-sized town, full of green- ery and surrounded by hills. And, like Bath, it is...

IT STARTED with souffles. Petronella is obsessed by these dainty creations which puff up like Ascot hats. Caramel, prune and Armagnac, orange zest and quark, chocolate and...

1828 Raymond Keene THIS WEEK we are celebrating the found- ing of The Spectator in 1828. Coinciden- tally, 1828 was also the year of foundation of Simpson's-in-the-Strand, the...

IN COMPETITION No. 2040 you were invited to incorporate nine given words into a piece of prose without using any in the sense of 'hat'. Although there were only nine words to...

a 16-line acrostic poem relevant to 'mid- summer madness'. Entries to Competition No. 2043 by 16 July.

The other unclued lights were mem- bers of a FILM CREW (15 37). First prize: K. Orr, Clackmannan- shire Runners-up: Graeme Palmer, Auckland, New Zealand. J.C. Parsons, London SW6.

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

Wet, woeful Wimbledon Simon Barnes THE BAND played on. Everybody drowned, but on Centre Court they jazzed in syncopated four-time, in a doomed attempt to reconcile us to our...

MORE from last week's fascinating letter sent by R.V.M., Connecticut, on the p.v. topic of the name 'Enroughty' being pro- nounced Darby. John N. Ware's letter went on to blame...