F or the first time since the Conserva- tives' party conference at Brighton in 1984, the IRA exploded a bomb on the British mainland. One soldier was killed and nine others...

`HOW an estate agent played the property game', beckoned the front cover of last week's Sunday Telegraph colour magazine. And around the rather unenticing features of Mr George...

E very age, it seems, needs its saints, its living icons. The resultant hagiography is not very informative about its subject matter, yet can certainly be most revealing of the...

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A battle for hearts and minds over this, that and the other NOEL MALCOLM But the courtesy. Oh, I can't bear it if sometimes the streets of Continental cities are cleaner than...

CHARLES MOORE T he Lambeth Conference is supposed to be important in the lives of Anglicans. It only takes place every ten years and is the sole opportunity for bishops of the...

How democracy makes cowards of half of us AUBERON WAUGH W e laugh at the abject recantations imposed on erring public figures by the totalitarian regimes of the Left, but the...

Norman Davies argues that Mr Gorbachev is heir to Stalinist schemes of Russian nationalism POLITICAL legitimacy is derived from different sources in different systems. In...

The Soviet Union is at last Odessa THE usual crowd is at the Soviet Riviera this summer. On the beaches of Odessa, Siberian factory workers are jostling apparatchiks from...

Robert Cranborne warns that the Russians could still stay in Afghanistan THE captains and kings depart from Afghanistan. Just in time for his retirement President Reagan can...

Amit Roy remembers incidents from eight sad years of war WHO now remembers Ali Pannandari, an Iranian army major who fell in Korram- shahr in January 1981, three months after...

Dominic Lawson visits the guinea-pig for Mrs Thatcher's — and T. Dan Smith's — inner city policy IF Newcastle fails to become Britain's miracle city in the 1990s, then a lot...

Imran Khan is an example to the flabby New Britain, writes Ian Buruma To set the cause above renown, To love the game beyond the prize, To honour, while you strike him down,...

Robert Silver calls for a new magazine for the common reader PAUL Johnson, on The Spectator's 160th birthday, predicted a happy, if difficult, future for political weeklies....

`ALTHOUGH most shotgun owners . . . keep their guns safely, there is no legal requirement. . . . The Govern- ment considers . . . it . . . time to bring shotgun security into...

A day out in sylvan Hackney proved less pleasant than expected for Roy Kerridge On a hot summer day, I set out from the Angel to walk to Hackney along the banks of the...

John Martin Robinson celebrates James Lees-Milne, 80 this week JAMES Lees-Milne, who is 80 on 6 Au- gust, played an important role in the National Trust Country House Scheme...

SLEEPLESSNESS TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'SPECTATOR' SIR,—A more effectual method of cur- ing this evil than that suggested by your correspondent, `F.T.C.', I discovered some years...

The Press: Paul Johnson has no sympathy with cartoonists baffled by Thatcher IT HAS long been clear that the cartoon- ists have failed to get the better of Mar- garet Thatcher...

Sir: As one who knows and is fond of both Professor Chomsky and Mr Theodoraco- pulos (High life, 23 July), I believe that, of the two, Professor Chomsky is far less likely to...

Sir: Lord Bruce-Gardyne's waspish ascrip- tion of the present credit-boom to the effects of Sir Alan Walter's advice in 1981 (The Economy, 30 July) is not only quite untrue but...

Sir: Alexandra Artley need not feel wronged (letters 30 July), for the truth of the Cleveland matter is exactly what she denies, that whilst a small number of children were...

Sir: How could you devote a whole page of your valuable space to John Zametica's review of Hess: A Tale of Two Murders (23 July)? On 10 May 1941, a Messerschmitt 110 (the...

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Sir: Jeffrey Bernard (Low life 4 June) expresses surprise that anyone in Botswana reads The Spectator. Actually, there are four of us. Five, if you count the University of...

Sir: Christopher Fildes's satirical piece (City and Suburban, 9 July) on the inau- guration of the European Central Bank was a real classic. It might interest you to know that...

Sir. It is not often that one can write about conservation success but India is home not only of the greatest, Project Tiger, but more recently a bird, previously thought...

alleges that the Rudolf Hess who died in Spandau was not the Rudolf Hess who was Hitler's close associate, John Zametica makes a very interesting remark. Lookalikes, or doubles,...

Sir: In support of both Auberon Waugh's spirited campaign (12 December) against the drinking laws and the Home Secret- ary's idea of putting a health warning on wine bottles,...

P rofessor Ernest Gellner has made a life's work out of robbing intellectuals of their illusions. He is a kind of academic housebreaker who removes only objects of sentimental...

Peter Quennell THE ARTIST AND THE AUTOCRAT: GEORGE AND ROSALIND HOWARD, EARL AND COUNTESS OF CARLISLE by Virginia Surtees Michael Russell, £12.95, pp. 191 Q uarrelling for some...

Andrei Navrozov THE REVOLUTION OF 1905: RUSSIA IN DISARRAY by Abraham Ascher Stanford University Press, $39.50, pp.412 LENIN: THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK by Ronald W. Clark...

bookish vice John Whitworth SELECTED POEMS by David Wright Carcanet, £4.95, pp. 96 T here are two Sixties Penguin antholo- gies of modern poetry on my shelf, the one edited...

Peter Levi WHALE NATION by Jasper Heathcote Williams Cape, £15, £8.95, pp. 191 W hales are powerful and subtle crea- tures, the thought of them gives pleasure, and the Inuit...

Francis King BAUMGARTNER'S BOMBAY by Anita Desai Heinemann, f10.95, pp. 240 1111111■Nr H aving survived six years (surely it would not have been so many?) of intern- ment as...

Edward St Aubyn TO THE GOAT by Peter Levi Hutchinson, f8.95, pp. 85 W hatever happened to the old- fashioned amateur? He is here, he is the author of To the Goat: ex-priest,...

Dance Simply magical Deirdre McMahon The Kirov Ballet (Business Design Centre, Islington and Covent Garden) The Australian Ballet (Covent Garden) T he Kirov Ballet last...

Schubertiade (Hohenems) Hearts and flowers Rodney Milnes A s always, there were more Brits at Hohenems this year than you could shake an alpenstock at, and as always Brits of...

Military manoeuvres Christopher Edwards T his is a fresh and very funny revival of George Farquhar's comedy (written in 1706). Farquhar remains one of our most engaging...

Titus Androni- cus than even Shakespeare intended — the human pie is served up by Titus and not for him.

Out of Order ('15', Metro) Spicy Rice (PG', Premiere Swiss Centre) Taking the rap Hilary Mantel A ccording to the latest edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations,...

Leon Golub, Philip Guston, Sigmar Polke, Joel Shapiro (Saatchi Collection, till 1 October) Polke in the eye Giles Auty T o be frank, a trip to the Saatchi Collection is...

A wreath too soon Taki t is so beautiful up here this time of year I expect Julie Andrews to pop up any moment and sing out that the hills are alive with the sound of music....

My new set Wendy Cope T his week I have been quite excited about television because, thanks to the generosity of The Spectator, my new set arrived last Thursday. I chose a...

Dreadful dart Alice Thomas Ellis I 've been thinking a lot about death recently. He's been prowling round crack- ling the thorns just beyond the light from the camp fire,...

Lunching with Greene Jeffrey Bernard Antibes ne of the fringe benefits of dying is that the journey to heaven is not via Heathrow. A harrowing place. It is very crowded here...

tend to take food rather than flowers or fruit, both of which will be there in abundance anyway. Something with a good strong taste like salami or a fine cheese livens up the...

To enable competitors to economise on postage, entries for one or more weeks of the competition and crossword may be posted together under one cover ad- dressed `Competition...

Amazonian Raymond Keene I t is hard to believe, but 11-year-old Judith Polgar from Budapest has just tied for first place in a category 7 tournament in Iceland. (She shared...

Namesakes Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1534 you were in- vited to provide a sample of dialogue between two well-known figures in history or fiction with similar names. A...

The unclued lights are characters Treasure Island. Winner's: Richard Colclough, Mani chester (£20); D.J. Caldecott. 3 Smith, London W8; John Harti Malvern. '1 0 'N G 3 J 0 4 1...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of either Chambers Dictionary or Chambers Crossword Manual — ring your choice) for the first three...

sang Betjeman. But recently al `alternative poet' was commissioned to N a paean on the town to coincide with tour taking in the Mars factory and the Counc . offices. Please...

Leaves from the commonplace book of Wallace Arnold Being an Open Letter to Paddy Ashdown My Dear Paddy, You and I go back yonks. Our friendship established itself, as you will...