THE SPECTATOR AGREEING TO DIFFER C We finish as friendly as we started that's good,' was how Mrs Thatcher Summed up this week's Commonwealth summit, presumably not without a...

P O L I T I C S A severe case of Kaunda's Contracture of the Forefinger FERDINAND MOUNT In the popular imagination, journalism ranks as one of the rougher trades, requiring a...

TYRE FALLS OUT WITH SIDON Charles Glass sees a clash coming between guerrillas in two coastal towns in Lebanon Sidon THE commandos of the Palestine Liberation Organisation...

THE ECONOMY Has a framework turned into a spider's web? JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE The Viscount Whitelaw of Penrith is a big lad. It is, perhaps, just as well. A more fragile frame...

CITY AND SUBURBAN __ Two lords, three sheep, and the misleading case of the TSB CHRISTOPHER FILDES Lord Mildewv, Lord Lick, Lord Bottle, Georgina Lady Slate, the fearsome...

Stone and pill Sir: Why all the fuss about a 13-year-old girl having sex with a Rolling Stone? Isn't that what so many 13-year-old girls are of' the pill for? Royce Bradshaw...

Class values Sir: Intelligent egalitarians would not deny that free societies are likely to produce several kinds of distinctions. What they regret are the values placed on...

Cocktail shaker Sir: Neither Mr John Mortimer nor Mr Nigel Lewis (Letters, 19 July) have got this unimportant piece of gossip right. Mr Mortimer seems to think I was carrying...

Sir: I read your article 'The Queen's very own Empire' with happy and substantial agreement, until, that is, I came to the last sentence: 'We know that Elizabeth II has the...

LE TTER S The Queen's wisdom I Sir: Your issue of 26 July. It looks as if, happily, the so-called 'serious press' has moved off in pursuit of other 'silly season' prey, but...

Indecent child's play Harriet Waugh BEFORE THE COCK CROW by Simon Raven Muller, Blond & White, £9.95 I S imon Raven's upper-class characters exist in an imaginary merry...

Snooker Over the perfectly mown and rollered grass, Under a sun we cannot see they pass, These fifteen red balls and one pink one, one black, One yellow, green and blue and...

Afternoon of a wasp John McEwen THE REVENGE OF THE PHILISTINES: ART AND CULTURE, 1972-1984 by Hilton Kramer Secker & Warburg, £12.95 T his is Hilton Kramer's second book of...

Never christen a child with a toasting-fork Anita Brookner THEATRE OF SLEEP: AN ANTHOLOGY OF LITERARY DREAMS by Guido Almansi and Claude Beguin Picador, f1O.95 I1he sleep of...

Slippery, harum-scarum but not dull Elizabeth Longford AN ASTONISHING FELLOW: THE LIFE OF GENERAL SIR ROBERT WILSON, KMT MP by Ian Samuel | The Kensal Press, £12.95 The hero...

IAR S 1 Theatre At home Christopher Edwards The Cocktail Party (Phoenix) The Petition (Lyttelton) T S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party has attracted hostile comment from both...

Exhibitions I I ?? 14:24 British Youth Culture |_ (Boilerhouse till 31 August) Assaults on youth John Thackara Goodness, it happened so quickly: youth culture is dead. The...

Gardens Non-stick wicket Ursula Buchan Cricketers seem addicted to gardening. Sometimes scarcely an over seems to pass without the batsman raising a hand, as the bowler...

Opera Rigoletto (Pavilion Opera, Somerset House) Erismena (Midsummer Opera. Ealing) The Marriage of Figaro I (Mecklenburgh Festival Opera. WCI) Alternative gardens...

TeleVision Dripfed Wendy Cope The faulty video has at last been replaced by one that works, I have been cleared of all suspicion that the problem was my fault, and my...

Home life Too many love songs Alice Thomas Ellis W hen I first listened to the wireless it really only had two programmes known as Home and Light - described by my uncles as...

...... i- ? ?R:?zz 5Im perative cooking: residential courses A n Ke A l Jl I Iw p TO test for a residential weekend connoisseur: seize him during one such weekend, spin him...

S I L- L ' I --WJI...:.N.E. ...,I.- Is,-.- . - . LIll1 - ~ Wine Quiz winners HISE SPECTATOR quizzes tend to err on the side of difficulty, and perhaps this was no exception....