P O L I T I C S Mr Tebbit and the art of appearing not to mind FERDINAND MOUNT 4 Vedgy Benn, Ted Short and I have all been convinced that the BBC must go over to advertising,...

COUNCIL OF BLACK DESPAIR Stephen Robinson finds out who is to blame for Brent's absurd policies on race THE temptation to mock the absurdity of the philosophy and policies...

TWO ETONJANS IN JAMAICA Alexander Chancellor recalls how he benefited from his sister's solution to the Suez crisis I WAS 16 years old when the Suez crisis took place....

Fasten seat belts BRITISH Airways' noisy hype, meant to soften us up for the share sale, calls 'Britain's highest flying company . . . one of the world's most profitable...

Pensioned off CURIOUSER and pensioner. I did less than justice last week to the AE pension fund, which does not own shares in AEso setting an admirable example to its...

Maxwell premier cru I WONDER what Hill Samuel's managers thought of their chances when they saw AE's new friend riding into town. Robert Maxwell and his ally (and fellow tycoon...

McKay story I Sir: Richard Ingrams writes (Letters, 1 November) that Nigel Dempster is as ill-fitted to review books as I am to write them and goes on to say he is surprised...

Sir: Richard Ingrams is quite right to be left unsatisfied with Peter McKay's Inside Private Eye. For although McKay writes eloquently - even movingly - about Ingrams's wit...

L E T T E R S Not very toxic Sir: As someone in the business, I greatly enjoyed William Shawcross's article (25 October), but even he seems to have swallowed a little of the...

Good English league Sir: Adrian Berry's 'good English' test (Diary, 1 November) is even more interesting if one takes into account the length of words as well as the number of...

London's gospel Sir: In the Bishop of London's absence, Honor Tracy needs to be told that the organisation of the Church on earth was not spelt out by any known words of our...

Threadbare joke Sir: The sprinkling of cartoons each week in the Spectator gives additional colour to a lively publication. This week's cartoon captioned 'Poor Jeffrey has...

'Japs' Sir: More deeply offensive than calling the Japanese 'Japs' is John Bruce-Gardyne calling himself Jock. I Alasdair Finlayson I 30 Norwood Park, Bearsden, Glasgow

Suez schism Sir: In my letter in last week's Spectator the peers who were in the second Suez Group should have been given as 'Lords Maude and Lauderdale' and not 'Lords Maude...

Teasing Sir: I am astonished by the intemperate language in which Sunday Telegraph editor Peregrine Worsthorne (Diary, 25 October) chose to attack my recent review of the...

Silly remark Sir: I may, in younger and less charitable I days, have said a number of things about Mark Boxer that were not entirely flattering, but I hope that I would never...

Pussy-cat at the Arts Council Robert Stewart GIVING IT AWAY: MEMOIRS OF AN UNCIVIL SERVANT by Charles Osborne I Secker & Warburg, £15.00 I once threatened to throw a man out...

Tomorrow's defence policy Patrick Cosgrave BRITAIN'S STRATEGIC ROLE IN NATO by George Richey MacmillUn, £20 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY by Michael Handel Cass, £9.95...

Verve . in Pomerania Mary Keen 'ELIZABETH': THE AUTHOR OF ELIZABETH AND HER GERMAN GARDEN by Karen Usborne Bodley Head, £15 1Does anyone read her books now, and if not, why...

Serious Concerns 'She is witty and unpretentious, which is both her strength and her limitation.'Robert O'Brien in the Spectator 25/10/86 I'm going to try and overcome my...

Forty Shopping Days This is a wood. You'll like it in the wood. And in it these are trees. What are they in it? Trees. Trees in a wood. Big trees. Very good. Daddy and Ellie...

What happens beneath the vestments Peter Quennell ENGLISH MISERICORDS by Marshall Laird John Murray, f9.95 In an English cathedral, once a service has begun, I often wonder...

Unfashionable pride defeats our prejudice Anita Brookner EXPENSIVE HABITS by Maureen Howard Viking, £9.95 flere is a good, substantial, improving novel for those who think...

Sale-rooms In the balance Geraldine Norman Christie's, the fine-art auctioneers, chose to announce the appointment of a new chairman for their UK company at 4 p.m. on the day...

Theatre The Archbishop's Ceiling (The Pit) Gaudete (Almeida) Power and performance Christopher Edwards Arthur Miller wrote this play in 1977, during the aftermath of...

Television Critical faculty Peter Levi J am told that Melanie Klein believed that children learnt to distinguish left and right, and good and evil, because their mothers had...

Records Choral authentics Peter Phillips Arnold Bax's 'Mater ora filium' is one of the great challenges to choirs and choruses from amongst the 20th-century a Capella...

Home life Winter blues Alice Thomas Ellis I am suffering from one of those periodic bouts of tedium vitae. I think it began a few days ago when one of my friends asked...

_A0 OO~jm e cooking: uncultured banter Ad ,xmD~L w xL A, Imperativ4 j Led L.Jat . _ 1. mi, W SOMETIMES it is said for effect, the modern educated woman showing she is made for...