THE SPEG~~IAIO 56 Doughty Street, London WCIN 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex: 27124; Fax: 071-242 0603 THE ALMS RACE The Soviet Union is ending as it began with famine...

POLI TI CS The dead centre is alive and well and living on the Right NOEL MALCOLM If, as Eric Heffer said it would four years ago, the Labour Party has turned into an 'SDP...

A NO THER VOI CE Classlessness: the need for a closer prospect of Eton College C H A R L E S M OO R E H ave you ever met anyone who wanted a classless society? This is...

THE CARGO CULT CAND ID ATE Anne Applebaum looks at the strange phenomenon of Poland's presidential challenger Warsaw THERE are islands in the Pacific where the natives...

If symptoms persist . . . IT ISN'T only the rich and famous who are susceptible to blackmail; we doctors are blackmailed by our patients every day of the week. Either you (the...

BUSH WAR ON THE HOME FRONT James Bowman sees a parallel between Mr Major and the American President Washington I WONDER how long it will be before the cry is raised in...

STRANDED BY HISTORICISM Anne McElvoy meets the British dissidents who crossed the Wall the wrong way Berlin A LONG five years ago, when the Antifascist Protection Barrier...

Defective farce A POPULAR veteran turned up this week in the rest-home for old jokes which serves the Financial Times for a diary column. This was the one about the misprint...

Dry dock POOR Tobacco Dock looks more like Tobacco Road. This is the great new fun shopping centre downstream from the Tower of London, complete with its own pirate ship. Three...

CITY AND SUBURBAN _ I= = Do not pass Go - it's one vote, one prize from the electric bran-tub CHRISTOPHER FILDES IPopular bran-tub? One vote, one prize? We do have a daft...

Peter the Third I MEAN nothing personal when I say that the great City families reproduce like jellyfish - that is, by fission. Rival Rothschild cousins (Jacob's peerage trumps...

Courage in adversity Sir: I was delighted by Paul Johnson's assertion (The media, 1 December) that the removal of Mrs Thatcher 'had struck a severe blow at the courageous...

Sir: I cannot understand either Alan Wat- I kins's or Peter Paterson's problems (Letters, 24 November); Allopurinol will check their gout completely. Peter Paterson refers to...

Missionary zeal Sir: Theodore Dalrymple's weekly offering (If symptoms persist . . .) is invariably a delight and some have provided me with valuable ammunition. The most...

L E T T E R S History and Mrs Thatcher Sir: Allan Massie's article (1 December) looks forward to a new career for Mrs Thatcher. Indeed a fascinating role opens out for her, as...

Major calling Sir: I had thought British Telecom engineers were booked up days in advance, often calling at pre-arranged times at the homes of those who take time off work to...

Simple remedies Sir: Alan Watkins and Denis Healey I (Diary, 17 November) would do well to follow my remedy for gout. It is very simple and it works - give up red wine,...

Deaf to Delius Sir: What are we to make of a journalist (Opera, 17 November) who admits that he 'set off to witness the English National Opera's exhumation of Delius's...

Golfo in the Golfo Sir: There is currently a certain amount of confusion here in Spain as to the exact meaning of the Gulf crisis. Not cause and effect, simply semantics. The...

Not any old irony Sir: Patrick Leigh Fermor's affectionate reminiscences of Lawrence Durrell (17 November) recall a story about him told me by Bernard Spencer. The two poets...

Name-dropping Sir: In his interesting article 'The writers are off' (10 November) Christopher Driver refers to 'the recent buyer and operator of the Egon Ronay name'. There is...

I Sir: I was distressed to learn that my old friends Alan Watkins and Peter Paterson are suffering from gout. The good news is that they have found temporary surcease from...

Fishy tale Sir: As Christopher Driver mentions the quality of copy editing (never his strong suit) the rather dense passage he quotes from my book is in fact a collage from the...

On the Chevin November and the rowan berries burn In brilliant clusters in their dark green caves. Disgruntled clouds sag low with unshed rain. The path that runs through now...

Brothers under their skins Anthony Blond EMPIRE AND SEXUALITY by Ronald Hyam Manchester University Press, £35, pp.234 'The Master read a letter from Professor Kinsey asking...

Jason and Medea He has been married to herfor ten years. Now he says he must make a union with the young daughter of the King of Corinth (KC). Medea is shattered. He comes to...

Low, dishonest decade revisited twice C. H. Sisson THE THIRTIES AND THE NINETIES by Julian Symons Carcanet, £14.95, pp. 164 It was not exactly bliss in that dawn to be...

Unfamiliar fiction from Europe Antony Lambton For generations British publishers and critics have, with few exceptions, held a scarcely veiled contempt for European...

The fruits of originality Janet Barron THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS edited by Peter Stanford Hodder & Stoughton, f8.95, pp. 139 Immediate hilarity' was a mediaeval sin, and in this...

Plague, war and the spread of literacy Angus MacKay ENGLISH SOCIETY IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES, 1348-1500 by Maurice Keen Allen Lane, f£7.99, pp. 332 Maurice Keen is an...

Pop music Suit syndrome Marcus Berkmann Rock stars are not, of course, what they were. For one thing most of them are still alive, which 20 years ago would have gone very...

Jazz Getting a lift Martin Gayford Despite all the hullabaloo over jazz these days - radio stations, television programmes, feature films and what not - there are days when I...

Television Ask a silly question John Diamond "W hat am I?' asks Henry Kelly each weekday afternoon on Going for Gold (BBC 1, 1.50 p.m.), his stretched leprechaun face...

Low life 'Tis the season to be jolly Jeffrey Bernard J am having a run of bad luck with taxi-drivers at the moment. That is nothing new but the man who took me to the West...

New life Prisoner of vendor Zenga Longmore M4any's the time I have wondered what a child psychologist would make of Omalara. From the age of 11 months she has been able to...

- - I W197 7;R?w qk, 'i. r ~~~Christmas concepts I. I= I P T l/M.s t ., P0l . A'0s ONE of the greatest popular misconceptions is that the Immaculate Conception is the...

SPECTATOR SPORT A dove for the pot Frank Keating SPORT seldom gets a mention in those seasonal and pretentious Bores of the Year columns in which smarms tell whoppers about...