Racial nonsense The Commission for Racial Equality is more foolish than it is mischievous, as is its chairman, Mr David Lane. Purporting to do good, it and he tend to make...

Political commentary The Man who was Thursday Ferdinand Mount Thursday was an odd day. It started with a breakfast and ended in mystification. The Man Who Was Thursday was...

Notebook A couple of weeks ago a machine-minder at the SunidaY Time's lost seven fingers in his press. This unpleasant story seems an apt image for the impending disaster in...

Another voice After the Olympics Auberon Waugh Eldon Griffiths has asked companies which withheld contributions from British athletes attending the Moscow Travesty to give...

Power struggle in Iran Roger Cooper Teheran Iran's President, Abol-Hasan Bani-Sadr, has never seemed more vulnerable than he does now. Elected with a 75 per cent majority in...

The end of a regime Hmw Henry Fairlie W aShilgiolo In the late summer of 1963, waiting until the dusk had gathered in Whitehall so that his words would seem even more...

Gathering food for fuel Thomas Land Agro-economists of the European Commission in Brussels have made serious calculations on the financial merits of turning the nine-member...

A symbol of amity Richard West .Srasbourgi- Some () y ards from the offices of the Spewctator. the other side of the Camriden Social Services department. there stands the...

Fishing in troubled waters Allan Massie Abe'rdeen In the opinion of fishermen. British government policy over the last ten years has by and large favoured every fishing...

The lessons of Wilson Anthony Rudd The voluminous report of Sir Harold Wilson's Committee on the workings of Britain's financial system has not exactly burst upon the public...

Chanting for Krishna Roy Kerridge One day, when hungry, I found my way to the Hare Krishna temple near Soho Square, as I had been given a free ticket for a vegetarian meal. A...

A new British Library Sir: As a librarian I write to defend the idea of a new British Library from Gavin Stamp's attack (7 June). Iam not competent to judge the architectural...

Letters The Channel curtain Sir: So according to Geoffrey Wheatcroft last week the American press ignores UK affairs. But what about the British press? It has acres of...

Different philosophies Sir: Richard Ingrams will nccd no help from me if he wishes to reply to the remarkably ill-tcmpcrcd letter from Bernard Levin (28 June). However,...

Suffering writers Sir: If I can get my fingers round the keys of my typewriter, may I suggest that the form of neuritis Jeffrey Bernard (21 June) and other fellow-alcoholics...

The Katyn question Sir: In his article 'Rearguards' (24 Mav) Patrick Marnhamn commented on the vigorous opposition by the Foreign Office to the proposed Yalta Victims' Memorial...

Sir: I saw Bernard Levin's interview with Ram Dass. If I have any criticism it was that it only skimmed the surface, but there is no justification for Mr Ingrams's rather...

Waldorf and Princess Marie Sir: In his review of John Grigg's book on Lady Astor (28 June). Mr Forbes strays into an oft-repeated inaccuracy which I hoped I had finally...

Books Marxist and traditionalist Paul Barker Writing by Candlelight E.P. Thompson (Merlin Press £2.70) Arguments within English Marxism Perry Anderson (Verso Editions...

Half-made Patrick Marnham The Return of Eva Peron V.S. Naipaul (Deutsch £5.95) These four cssalys were written between 1 972 and 1 975 when no novel 'offered itself' to V.S....

Sexologist Ruth Hall Havelock Ellis Phyllis Grosskurth (Allen Lane £10) Disraeli always advised people not to bother with history: 'Read only biography, for that is life...

Awkward age Francis King The Middle Ground Margaret Drabble (Weidenfeld £5.95) Rose Macaulay once wrote a novel. Dangerous Ages, in which she wittily demonstrated that every...

Authors' rights Anthony Sheil Publishing Agreements Ed. Charles Clark (Allen & Unwin £8.50) A book on publishing contracts edited by the Chairman of a leading publishing...

The final problem Benny Green On the morning of 7 July 1930, in a house in Crowborough, Sussex, an old gentleman lay struggling to breathe, his upper lip pendulous with the...

Arts Dali's visionary power John McEwen The retrospective of Salvador Dali's work (Tate Gallery till 1 3 July) is the best attended exhibition, with the exception of the...

Cinema Slow dancing Peter Ackroyd Nijinsky ('AA', ABC Shaftesbury Avenue) Zombies: Dawn of the Dead cinemas) ('X', selected When Nijinsky dances, the screen is filled...

.Theatre Radical week Peter Jenkins A Short Sharp Shock (Theatre Royal, Stratford) Commitments (Bush) England's grecn and pleasant land has become a rubbish tip guarded by a...

Music Fresh lustre Gillian Widdicombe Woodward's Beethoven cycle (Queen Elizabeth Hall) When the ALustralian pianist, Roger Woodward, torsakes the contemporary circus and...

Television Low opinions Richard Ingrams Wimbledon has become a bit of a bore with the same old chestnuts coming round year after year, in particular Superman Borg and...

High life Dreamsof glory Taki From Oxfordshire to Gloucestershire - which was as far as I went - the nobs were out in force last weekend whacking tennis balls back and forth...

Postscript Poisoned eggs Patrick Marnham Standing on a hill on a fine summer day looking over the blue distance it seems as though the country must go on. through space and...