The rather special features surrounding the Mick Jagger drug trial have inevitably—and rightly—attracted the attention of the serious press. Commentators have noted that the...

The British aircraft industry has featured prominently in the dowry which Mr Wilson and his colleagues have offered to bring into Europe. But, after the French withdrawal from...

`A dialogue of the deaf' was how the French often described the Brussels negotiations in 1961-2. Now it is being repeated. Having failed to extract an invitation to address the...

Mr George Brown said the response from European ministers present at the Hague was 'absolutely firWelass' after he had made his big speech knock- ing at the European door on...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS 'Ain't this a bitch?'—Reported comment of Mr Watson, chief of Glassboro's police, on hearing of the proposed international con- ference in his...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY ALAN WATKINS When they desire to place their economic life on a better foundation, they repeat, like parrots, the word "productivity," because that is the...

RHODESIA TRADE JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE As the figures of trade with Rhodesia which I gave in a recent article in the SPECTATOR have been widely used (without attribution, but don't...

RUSSIA DEV MURARKA Moscow—Glassboro seems here not a week but aeons ago, and it is not the spirit of Holly- bush but its ghost which seems to haunt Soviet- American relations....

J. W. M. THOMPSON Parliament's reputation has almost certainly declined further in the public mind as a result of recent filibustering tactics, notably against the Abortion...

men, two traumas, two verdicts 1. FOREIGN OFFICE GEOFFREY Men ERMOTT Anthony Nutting has written a courageous and necessary book (No End of a Lesson, Con- stable, 25s). It...

2. SUEZ GROUP ANGUS MAUDE, MP The present Middle Eastern situation is not so much the point at which I came in as where I went out. After the first Suez thing, when better men...

From the 'Spectator,' 6 July. 1867—The event of the week is the execution of the Archduke Maxi- milian, who was shot by order of Juarez on the 19th of June. No details are...

MEDICINE JOHN ROWAN WILSON It is apparent from some of the letters printed in the press during the past week that there is still considerable confusion in the public mind about...

RAILWAYS JAMES PEACOCK By a tradition which predates Harold Wilson, the ending of a rail strike, or threat of one, is proclaimed as the beginning of a new era for the...

THE PRESS DONALD McLACHLAN The handling of the Jagger drugs case by The Times will, I am sure, be noted by historians as a sensational moment in its finding of a fresh...

TELEVISION - STUART HOOD -I have always been sceptical about the cry for time, space and facilities to present tele- vision news 'in depth.' It seems to me that the function...

PERSONAL COLUMN JANE KENNY I knew I was pregnant on holiday in Geneva, once referred to by Time as the Capital of Abortion. I awoke one morning with a power- ful apprehension,...

SIMON RAVEN In my youth I was constantly rebuked.far my love of gossip. 'Raven is frivolous,' my friends and preceptors used to say; `if he met Jesus Christ, he would ask him...

ANTHONY BURGESS There's something very unattractive about Wyndham Lewis's expository prose-style. Too many exclamation points follow too many un- remarkable asseverations; too...

JOHN BAYLEY 'My dear Dunn, Charles has just found your trousers here and they are going at once to you. . . .' Like so much Victorian correspon- dence Rossetti's has all the...

PETER QUENNELL Lord Elgin and the Marbles William St Clair (our 42s) In 1799 Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin and 11th of Kincardine, must have considered him- self—and with...

D. W. BROGAN Printing and the Mind of Man compiled and edited by John Carter and Percy H. Muir (Cas- sell 7 gns) • This interesting and in many, or, at any rate some, ways...

MICHAEL IVENS Erect Assyrian statues hands fixed on knees we gaze through each other in the jolting museum Mercury glides out his ankle wings beating below his pin-striped...

ALAN CLARK The task of the military historian is made no easier by the wholly different face whioh 'critical battles so often present, at the time, to their separate...

RONALD HINGLEY Kenneth Harris's About Britain (Hodder and Stoughton, 63s) is a rum mixture. Though a clutch of superb photographs (by Michael Peto) would have made a memorable...

JOHN ROWAN WILSON The Unquiet Mind William Sargant (Heine- mann 30s) In any future history of medicine, the con- flicts between the various schools of psychiatry during the...

Chaos redeemed DAVID GALLOWAY Summer's Tales 3 edited by John Iggulden (Macmillan 25s) Lord Dismiss Us Michael Campbell (Heine- mann 30s) Cross Purposes Edward Hyams (Longmans...

Fantasy, perhaps WILLIAM BUCHAN A Girl in the Head J. G. Farrell (Cape 22s 6d) Imaginary Friends Alison Lurie (Heinemann 25s) The Ring Richard Chopping (Seeker and War- burg...

J. H. PLUMB As assiduous as a truffle hunter, Robert Halsband has hunted down Lady Mary's letters in neglected archives or remote depositOries, indeed from the Kyles of Bute to...

GEORGE HUTCHINSON The Picnic Basket Major-General Sir Edward Spears (Seeker and Warburg 36s) Like the best of hosts, General Spears has pro- vided a delicious picnic for his...

ROBERT ABIRACHED Paris — The theatre, more than any other art, lives by change and confrontation. For the past dozen years there has been a steadily increasing flow of images,...

The mixture ISABEL QUIGLY The Way West (London Pavilion, 'A') Africa Addio (Prince Charles Theatre, 'X') Sallah (Royalty Theatre, Kingsway, The Way West (director: Andrew...

Fearsome willies HILARY SPURLING Aren't We All? (Savoy) The Constant Couple (New) Rafferty's Chant (Mermaid) In 1923 Frederick Lonsdale's Aren't We All? opened to rapturous...

ART PAUL GRINKE Those in search of a jug of wine at the open- ing of the Victoria and Albert Museum's ex- hibition of Persian miniature painting had a long trek to the buffet,...

CUSTOS The Stock Exchange opened its new account with government stocks weak and equity shares very firm. The sharp rise in the American - Treasury bill rate caused a further...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT You may have observed a curious phenomenon in the City—the Stock Exchange pushing up share prices to the highest point of the year while the chiefs of the cm...

JOHN BULL The best way of making money this year has been in four metals: platinum, silver, nickel and gold. Platinum.shares burst into life again earlier this week. On the...

CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN Ice-cream manufacture has been a branch of the chemical industry for so long ;hat I always want to howl with laughter when I read of seaside Mr...

LETTERS From G. C. D. Wheeler, Chapman Pincher, T.^ C. -Skeffington-Lodge, D. C. Rose, Philip Goodhart, MP, Rhidian Brynmor Jones, Roland Moyle, MP, Donald McLachlan, Dr Philip...

on 5th July. The following are extracts from Lord Luke's state- ment. In 1966 the operations of the Group resulted in a loss of £56.894 (1965--a profit of £365,900) largely due...

the whole of Colonel Lohan's Spectator article (30 June) but parts of it have been read to me by telephone and with these 1 must take issue. Colonel Lohan has a strong enough...

always been that because of the place they occupy in society their inmates are almost bound to succeed to many of the leading positions in the community. Yet they are unlikely...

boarding school I support Simon Raven's remarks about education for life. But there was one point about the historic function of the public schools which he missed and which...

Sir: A two-act play: Dramatis Personae: PC Boot (with apologies to Sir Alan Herbert), Mr Smith, Mr Jones. ACE 1. Mr Smith discovered by his fireside, glass in hand. There is a...

Sir: It was disappointing to see a writer of Simon Raven's stature lending his authority to the myth of the public schoolboy's prerogative in the art of living. This old lie has...

elec- tion to Parliament. I held a security appointment connected with ensuring that the movement and manoeuvres of ships in the Home Fleet should re- main secret. 1 can,...

Sir: Frank Judd argues (30 June) `... U Thant had absolutely no alternative but to order the with- drawal of UNEF immediately Nasser requested this.... Had the Secretary-General...

Sir: It was not my intention to generate corre- spondence when writing previously (Letters, 16 June). It is significant, though, that both your correspondents are surgeons—does...

(16 June) remind me that on my last visit to Marlow, I noted that the plaque on the front of the post office was still there (I always go to see it once again) which reads: The...

JOHN WELLS `In the boardroom,' according to a wonder- fully discreet advertisement for tobacco in the Sunday Times, 'a slow lighting up can be the best answer to a hasty...

workers, clergy and the medical profession is leading to a better understanding of its problems. Death and disease are inescapable facts: the bitterness, despair, grief and...

Across 1 Intrigues to get titular accompaniments to discoveries (8) 5 Viticulturist with a Scotch negative for one and the other (6) 9 The Devil it is! (8) 10 A snack for Fido...

PHILIDOR Black White 2 men 8 men Specially contributed by R. Hancock (Iver, Bucks). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 341 (Mansfield): R...