I T is not by accident that The Arabian Nights take place in the Middle East. In this region the fantastic is a natural denizen, and the proclamation of the United Arab Repub-...

SPECTATOR

By OLIVER STEWART S o aeroplanes are no, longer to be individual expressions of engineering knowledge and experience; they are to become part of the furni- ture of politics and...

T HE recovery of the £ sterling gathers speed. In January $131 million in gold and dollars was added to the reserves, the best genuine rise for four years—an excellent...

A Free Economy without Inflation W. W. ROBSON on William Faulkner

ANYONE would have' thought, hearing the praise bestowed by even the Tories on Mr. Frank Cousins for his skill in keeping the London busmen on the arbitration leash, that he had...

By DARSIE GILLIE O NE of the most distinctive features of French life, often pleasing, sometimes infuriating and fortunately not universal, is the acceptance of certain limits...

'Is it not the custom of this House,' cried a voice amid the screaming and yelling in which the debate on the Parker Tribunal Report ended, 'when a right honourable Gentleman is...

of TV coverage of elections. How it will work in practice will need to be judged over a period of months—clearly there are still difficulties of presentation which can only be...

MEANWHILE, if anybody is surprised that our policy in Cyprus has been almost uniformly dis- astrous, he should read the article in the Sunday Times last week by Sir Ivone...

IT IS ATTRACTIVELY modest of Mr. Selwyn Lloyd to think Mr. Menderes is the best Foreign Secretary we have, but Mr. Menderes's previous spell of office was not encouraging. For...

By JACK DONALDSON T HE annual discussions to decide farm prices in the coming year are now taking place be- tween the farmers' representatives and the experts of the Ministry of...

project to lapse when the walls are breached. There is a lesson to be learned here from the British film industry. in recent years the Ealing comedies have won the same...

wage claims, I cannot help thinking they have made a mistake in reducing the wage increase recommended for pro- bation officers. This is a service which was con- ceived by...

disappeared altogether, except for evening when they pop rather startlingly above the neckline. Evening Standard, January 30. The Picasso line? PHAROS

Fairbanks Jr. on whether or not his television films could justly be called 'British'; he contended that as they are made in Britain by Britons, they are; my argument was that...

fuss last summer over subliminal (or sub- threshold) advertising—or that aspect . of it where split-second ads are put on cinema or TV. screens so briefly that the conscious...

By ANGUS MAUDE, MP R FADING the pro-Government press, one might well imagine that Dr. Charles Hill and his public relations experts prayed nightly to be saved from their own...

B y ROBERT BLAKE T HE Victorian age was Britain's great age of reform. For a century and a half her institu- tions had slumbered peacefully, but by the 1830s eager radicals,...

By STRIK A RE you the owner of this car, sir?' I cannot recall an occasion on which a police officer, had he been posing this question to me in Latin, would have used the prefix...

Soft Soap By LESLIE ADRIAN T HE questions in the House of Commons last week have left the impression that the soap powder and detergent makers, when they offer a price...

should have attracted such eminent support from your readers. Even if our local young people are put in prison, as seems probable, at least their sufferings will not have been...

to know that Sir George Thomson's very interesting article on the proposed 'Principles of Science Tripos for art undergraduates' does not command quite such universal acceptance...

not read 'the reputable newspapers' as well as Hansard. There are only two explanations of the discrepancy between their reports on the House of Lords debate. One is that the...

`Tribune' and the Tribunal Michael Foot Vice Prosecutions Dr. R. D. Reid, Peter Wildeblood Arts and Sciences G. R. Elton Crowning Glory Professor D. W. Brogan, Victor Magee...

refers to the Oxford production of Calderon's Life is a Dream as `This first presentation in England of one of the most famous plays of the Spanish classical theatre.' This...

lady clerk in a government ministry who changed her sex and then returned to 'her' job at a slightly higher salary since 'she' was now, a male and therefore entitled to a larger...

in his otherwise admirable article that the bowler hat is an exclusively English possession, and must draw his attention to its almost ritualistic sig- nificance amongst Orange...

SIR,—Mr. Charles Curran's article on 'The Crisis of Trade Unionism' can hardly be left unchallenged, consisting as it does of superficial generalities pro- jetted from...

the list of medicos who have been writers (Mr. Cargill's letter, January 24). Here are some more: Campion, Sir Thomas Browne, Keats, Beddoes; in our own day Axel Munthe has been...

Sin,—Mr. Cyril Ray should most certainly have con- sulted me about Americans and bowler hats. Mr. Dean Acheson is not now, I believe, a bowler wearer and I don't know that he...

SIR,—Those reactionaries or faint-hearts who would like to see the great new Rhodesia-Nyasaland Federa- tion dismembered, and a pattern of apartheid adopted, are blind to the...

SIR,—Oh! Please! Reading smugly in Bridget Tis- dall's review on page 140 that Eric Maschwitz is now fifty-five, I noted that Miss Tisdall says he was born in 1910. I was born...

SIR,—With reference to your comments on my letter in the last issue may I say two things: (a) In a very important international problem, such as discussions with Russia,...

FEBRUARY 9, 1833 THE conduct of the dignitaries of the Church towards their inferiors . in ecclesiastical rank, is too (men apt to be insulting in the extreme. Some of the most...

SIR,—Dr. Plumb's references to the schoolteaching of history (in his review of the EHD 1714-83) are risible. What does he think we teach? 'Addicts of certainties' we 'stumble...

SIR,—Your. correspondent Pamela M. Parsons is rightly concerned at the grave danger to health caused by the dumping of raw sewage in copses and the pol- lution of rivers and...

SK—If I may say so, I think your competitor's 'howler' translation of Cicero's famous description of the departure of Catiline Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit') a little...

Eugene and Tennessee The Iceman Cometh. By Eugene O'Neill. (Arts Theatre Club.) 'WHEREVER people care about the drama (which means in regions far beyond the reach of the...

Watergate Theatre Club, Comedy Theatre.) TOWARDS the end of the second act, Tennessee Williams moves towards reality. Brick, the young alcoholic, at last becomes articulate,...

MR. N. C. HUNTER'S plays would always be much better if the third act were removed in its entirety, and his latest is no exception. Everything, as be- fore, has been said at the...

AFTER the slightly depressing experience of the last revival of Peter Grimes at Covent Garden, the new one under Kubelik is heartening. Much in the music that then, in a...

WELCOME back ! Bigger, hammier, juicier, more preposterous than ever, comes Laughton in a part exactly suited to his grandiloquent talents : that .of the shrewd, jowly old...

I CAN never quite see it, myself, this passion for Italian opera in Italian, whatever the cost. But presumably the well-known impresario S. A. Gorlinsky would not continue to...

Crise de Conscience By D. W. BROGAN Y ou can see the aftermath of Christmas in Paris, the remaining decorations, the round- abouts, you can see them even surviving Twelfth...

The Meddlesome Friar. By Michael de la Bedoyere. (Collins, 18s.) is foolish to read past struggles in terms of angel and devil, as if the people who took part in these...

THE Penguin Books of foreign verse, under the general editorship of Mr. J. M. Cohen, go march- ing on. At present prices they are very good value for the money and they cosset...

On the Last Day. By Mervyn Jones. (Jonathan Cape, 15s.) Leave Me Alone. By David Karp. (Gollancz, 16s.) The Bank Audit. By Bruce Marshall. (Constable, 18s.) A Changed Man. By...

The Metaphysical Poets. Edited by Helen Gardner. (Penguin Books, 5s.) IT would be an exaggeration to say that people didn't read Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, Marvell and the rest...

A Portrait of Lord Nelson. By Oliver Warner. (Chatto and Windus, 30s.) 'HE is covered with stars, ribbons, and medals more like a prince of the Opera than the con- queror of...

THIS is an autobiography which turns into a hymn to Glasgow. It takes the view that there is an element of 'scruffiness' in any form of vivid or vigorous action, that Glasgow...

The Adopted Child. By•Mary Ellison. (Gollancz, 16s.) . , 'OF the world's nine hundred million children . two-thirds lack adequate food, clothing, shelter and protection...

Social and .Political Thought in Byzantium. Translated with an introduction and notes by Sir Ernest Barker. (0.U.P.. 30s.) Tests anthology, drawn , from Byzantine literature...

By PHILIDOR No. 139. E. I. UMNOFF (`Schachmaty,' 1921) BLACK (8 men) WHITE (8 men) WHITE to play and mate in two moves: solution next week. Solution to last week's problem by...

Relax ! rrHIS morning three patients came in, one after 1 the other, and asked for advice because they couldn't relax. It seems that the state of being relaxed nowadays is in...

Georgian Afternoon. By L. E. Jones. (Rupert Hart-Davis, 21s.) Doctor Goes North: Scotland Revisited. By George Mair. (Peter Owen, 2 Is.) With Lions by my Side. By Paulette...

The Angry Young Man has become. Established. For the usual prize of six guineas competitors were asked to write a 'Lament of the Angry Young Man' (not more than twelve lines of...

ACROSS 1 They must come down to earth to get things done (10). 6 Sour aspect of an old hero (4). 10 Key word is not quite all (5). 11 Omnipotent (3-6). 12 'And what will...

to. compose an ode in baffled praise of the new contrivance. Length : twelve to twenty lines. Prize : six guineas. Entries, addressed 'Spectator Competition, No. 417,' 99 Gower...