JOINT CHAMPIONS By J. I'. W. MIALLALIEU, M.P. A T Huddersfield county cricket and Rugby League are played within the same club grounds. The football stand has its II back...

COUNTRY LIFE COMING in from the hop-gardens the other evening, I listened with enthusiasm to Sir Clive Morrison Bell's proposal for a six-inch relief map of England to be set...

In My Garden After the waiting and disappointments due to the still-continuin.' drought this year, we can now begin to prepare for fresh ventures in 1950. We are already...

The Hop-Gardens But more southern, more Keats-like, in its sense of lushness and overripe opulence, is the scene in the hop-gardens. In spite of the drought, the bines are full...

SIR,-Janus treads on dangerous ground in commenting on the ways of professed professors and more or less distinguished graduates ; for our practice in these matters is a muddle...

MACHINERY AND WAGES SIR,-Your comparison, in the current Spectator, of the modern tobaccoworkers with the Luddites of 130 years ago seems to need some justification. As I...

The English Bacchanalia September is the vintage month, Vendimiaire, and this year the fullness is almost overdone. I wrote last week about the harvest fields, and their Old...

TIME-TABLES By C. H. LEWIS O ;F time-tables there are two extremes: one, the dingy frame just inside the entrance, containing a yellowing sheet of I obscure hieroglyphics and...

New Light on Tennyson Alfred Tennyson. fly his Grandson Charles lTnnyson. (MNacmillan. 30s.) IT would be calamitous if anyone was in a position to rule that biography, like...

Life of a Salesman Benlamin Franklin's Memoirs Parallel Text Edition. Edited with an Introduction and Explanatory Notes by Max Farrand. (UniversitY of California Press...

FRANCE AND THE SAAR By JOHN MIDGLEY FOR various reasons France has been left since the war with a fairly free hand in the Saar, and successive French Govcrnments have been...

'There is little profit in pursuing the Ashridge controversy point by Toint. Lord Davidson says the one essential thing is that Ashridge shall continue; on that everyone will...

* * * * This word-battle grows bloodier. From more than one quarter a doctrine is advanced to which I cannot for a moment subscribe. Take an example, "alibi," which, it is...

When the General Election is coming I don't profess to know. Another man whose knowledge is cqually limited, I have little hcsitation in assuming, is the Prime Ministcr. But...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK IT is very much to be regretted that the Hexham Labour Party should have decided to oppose the Speaker at the coming General Election as it did at the...

Father and son first-class cricketers, it appears, have beers fairly numerous-if you go back far enough. Therc were, various authoritics (to whom I am indebted for their...

The latest headline (American, ncedless to say): BUG BUZZ-BOMBS STAR'S BOSOM, BUSTS UP SHOW. Paraphrase for th~e dull-wits: An intrusive insect assails a wellknown actress in...

Deans are rather active these days. One of them is displaying his activity at Moscow. Another is writing to me-about a third Dean who had a gardener who coined the term...

RADIO TIE weather may have had something to do with it; but a certain bight seemed to fall in the last fortnight on B.B.C. documentaries. Two in particular aroused...

Producer's Pride Another programme that went wrong was in the series A Year I Rcmemnber, where Mr. John Pudney reconstructed 1938, the year of Munich. The trouble here was not...

Song or Study ? If a programme is announced as "a study of a people," the untravellcd listener may, in all justice, expect to sit modestly and learn something. Mr. Bridson has...

Television Those of you who saw the Television Garden Party on the screen on Saturday will have gathered that it was great fun on, the spot. television being §till something of...

THlE CINEMA " The 'Ihird INMin." (PIaza.'--" ITop o' the Morning." (Carlitn.) 1 Mutlher Know>'s Best." tGaumont.) IMA;INATION and stvle are rare qualities on the British...

New Wavelength for the Third A few weeks ago these notes shrinkingly voiced a complaint about the difficulty of receiving the Third Programme. I have had a reply from the Head...

Undergraduate Page INTERNATIONAL YOUTH By CIIARLElS 1I1(.K'TIJIORN IT was probably inevitable that Communists and " reactionaries" (the latter being only a small minority of...

LAST LAP Thc men whom I shot with arc dead And my fishing companions gone With thle davs when the wind blew upon us And the sun shone. And I'm too blind, now, to see The...

THE GERMAN REPUBLIC T HE formal birth of the West German State on Wednesday was an occasion pregnant with " great issues, good or bad, for human kind." The circumstances...

WHAT IS A PROFESSOR ? SEL,-A grcat many foreign degrccs arc not mentioned in every work of reference. No doubt they arc less important and rclativcly obscure in comparison...

SOCIAL SERVICE COSTS SIR,-In private lifc the common householder and head of a family Knows quite well that if his outgoings exceed his income he must pull n his horns or he...

SIR,-Dr. Thomson's article " Undergraduate Spate " reminds me of a visit I paid to a Brooklyn High School in 1933. The headmaster complained hitterly ihat the bane of the...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR "UNDERGRADUATE SPATE" SIR,-As this Association, in its statemcnt of policy, declared as its epinion that " we have nowhere reached the final limits of...

The Henley Paradox w. E. Ifenle)y. By John Connell. (Constable. 21s.) THE paradox of W. E. Henley is that of genuine tenderness very oddlv combined with a liking for harsh...

The County of Cheshire Cheshire. By Fred H. Crossley. (Robert Hale. 15s.) MR. CROSSLEY'S book about Cheshire is a worthy addition to tht series of county books. As he states...

Last Days at Strasbourg In what appears likely to be its closing week, the European Consultative Assembly at Strasbourg has made extensive provisions for its own perpetuation...

What Hope in Washington ? The false fears inspired by recriminations between elements of the British and American Press having died down, the Washington talks on the dollar...

NEWS OF THE WEEK 'was completely appropriate that the Prime Ministcr should go to Bridlington on Wednesday to explain to the Trades Union Congress the need for hard work. In...

Strategy of the Kulturkampf The Roman Catholic Church finds itself facing a Communist attack which threatens all Christians, and three pronouncements made last week-end have...

Yunnan Cuts Adrift The defection of Yunnan from the Nationalist cause-if the Nationalists can still be said to have a cause-is a blow to the Generalissimo's personal prestige;...

Transport in the Dark The impression which the first annual report of the British Transport Commission gives of a vast and miscellaneous organisation feeling its way towards a...

Air Supremacy The story of the recent achievements of British aircraft, mounting to a climax at the aircraft industry's display at Farnborough, has something of the...

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT By CITSTOS WHATEVER may emerge from the Washington talks, investors seem to have made up their minds that it will not be anything bad. At least that is...

Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays. By Bronislaw Malinowski. (Allen & Unwin. 18s.) Tints book contains five essays, four of which are reprints of works which have...

Shorter Notices A Book of Scotland. By George Rowntree Harvey. (Black. 16s., IT is difficult to write a bad book about Scotland which supplies all corners with an...

BRIDLINGTON QUERIES Bv .1. R. L. ANDERHSON 'HIS year's 'radcs UTnion Cungress has seemed more a sctting for the Primc Minister's specch than an occasion in its own right. One...

BOOKS OF THE DAY The Prince Of Canons The Life and Circumstances of James Brydges, First Duke of Chandos. By C. H. Collins Baker and Muriel I. Baker. (Oxford University...

RIFTS IN THE BENELUTE By PAUL BAREAU IT does not take long for the inquisitive visitor to Belgium and the Netherlands to discover that the proposed economic union between...

The Soviet Mirage Lost Illusion. By Freda Utley. With an Introduction by Bertrand Russcll. (Allen and Unwin. 1Os. 6d.) BERITRAND RUSSELL in his introduction 'to Freda...

Hamlet Again Hamlet and Oedipus. By Ermest Joncs. (Gollancz. 12s. 6d.) Hamlet's lF.atiher. By Richard FlattEr. (Heinemann. 15Is.) MOST of tlhe Hamlet corpus is grounded on...

MUSIC A LOT of facile generalisations have been made about the contribution of the Jewish people to music. Everyonc admits their great executive qualities, the combination of...

CONTEMPORARY ARTS THE THEATRE Master of Arts. By William Douglas Home. (Strand.) "WHAT shall we do with our Alma Mater ? " has for several decades been the marching-song to...

Ieading Mansion. Adapted by Donagh MacDonagh from the French of Jean Anouilh. (Duchess.) - * . . I *- - - *_ _ __ _!__ it s PLAYGOERS who remember the vivid and singular...

MARGINAL COMMENT By HAROLD NICOLSON A ALL vintages, I suppose, should be occasions for rejoicing. Whether in Burgundy or Samos, whether at Macon or 11 Neuchitel, the season...

The Popish Plot Titus Oates. By Jane Lane. (Andrew Dakers. 21s.) THIS book is described as " the first biography," and it is likely to be the last, for the subject of it was...