Not to be taken seriously Sir: Joe Haines's diatribe (Letters, 3 February) against 'the right of any scoundrelly MP to defame and lie about a private citizen within the...

L E T TER S Not guilty Sir: One thing emerges clearly enough from Anne McElvoy's article ('Being Russian means never saying sorry', 2 March): 'corporate guilt' is quite...

Sir: Surely Anne McElvoy, in her very interesting piece, misses one rather important aspect of Russian psychology: its atavistic taste for authority, which goes back to long...

Renaissance piety Sir: As the descendant of Pius II, a Renaissance Pope who, before donning the robe, travelled to England and bedded many local beauties (and boasted about it...

Sir: Bruce Bernard finishes his admonish- I ment of Paul Johnson's (silly) opinions on Cezanne with: 'I beg you to keep him away from the visual arts, on which ... he is not...

Anti-English iceberg Sir: Alan Cochrane says ('Flower of Thatcherism', 2 March) that there is 'a widespread belief that the whole of Great Britain rejoiced in England's...

Sir: In the ordinary course of genetics. a nation of 50 million sports-obsessed morons will defeat one of five million similarly limited idiots 19 times out of 20. If the Scots...

Splashing out Sir: David Fingleton's report on the Restaurant Elizabeth in Oxford (Restaurant, 24 February) reminds me that the first time I visited it, in November 1954, a...

Let's be honest Sir: Bruce Anderson states (Politics, 24 February): 'The British system did break down under the strain ... it could not cope with Alan Clark.' Does my memory...

Schwarzkopf remembered Sir: Following my review of Alan Jefferson's biography of Elizabeth Schwarzkopf (Books, 24 February) James Morwood accuses Alan Jefferson of vitiating...

Why not bestiality? Sir: Julie Burchill (Books, 3 February) states her case for bisexual practices. Burchill says - and Burchill is an honourable woman - that the only logical...

Darkness over the land of Egypt Ian Thomson THE PYRAMID by Ismail Kadare Harvill, £14.99, pp. 119 After half a century of Stalinist dictatorship, Albania is fumbling its way...

And called him Macaroni Evelyn Joll RICHARD AND MARIA COSWAY by Gerald Barnett West Country Books, The Luftenworth Press, £16.95, pp. 288 It is still being debated whether...

Report me and my cause aright, or else Margaret Forster ACTS OF REVISION by Martyn Bedford Bantanm £14.99, 9.99, pp. 254 O pening this novel infuriated me. I couldn't get to...

The lasting enchantments of the middle age Jonathan Keates LOOK THE DEMON IN THE EYE: THE CHALLENGE OF MID-LIFE by Angela Neustatter Michael Joseph, £17.99, pp. 369 The most...

On the Inside Cover You might as well write. But write 'however': You might write things that might not change the world, You might write things to charm a charmless girl. You...

Czech memories Remembering what it was like to work in the theatre under the Communists has become a major activity, writes Barbara Day A slim book by Miroslav Machacek, the...

Television Loathing and loving James Delingpole I've always wanted to have a go at television's Inspector Morse and now I can under the thinly veiled pretext of reviewing the...

Radio Then and now Michael Vestey March is 1950s month on Radio Three, part of the ten-year festival Towards the Millennium celebrating the cultural achievements of the 20th...

Motoring Something must be done Alan Judd ' XJ I ou call yourself a motoring correspondent,' said my accuser. 'Presumably you espouse all these cars clogging up the roads and...

The turf Send for the problem-solver Robin Oakley Racing Post Chase day at Kempton brought the kind of weather that would send ducks shopping for sou'westers. Only the true...

High life Damage limitation Taki Gstaad .A Whitewater dimension scandal threatens to engulf the Eagle club, and the committee has been meeting non-stop desperately trying...

Low life Moved to tears Jeffrey Bernard After having seen and written last week about that rather silly film, Leaving Las Vegas, I had the mixed pleasure and irritation of...

V-,.ee A shoulder to lean on JI XL4 X s@3 Ji.Si~l_: LMJP' I WAS delighted to hear that Johnny Noble of Loch Fyne Oysters Ltd has proved the fallacy of 'no spirits when eating...

SPECTATOR SPORT Winning is all Simon Barnes ATTRITION is a noble part of sport, in some ways the most satisfying part. The nation rejoiced when Michael Atherton defied the...