16 JANUARY 1999, page 31

The Dry Martini Tone

Rupert Christiansen THE HIGHER JAZZ by Edmund Wilson University of Iowa Press, £16.95, pp. 240 I n his cool, sharp and tensely erotic col- lection of short stories, Memoirs of......

Our Lost Legacy

Stephen Logan AN INTELLIGENT PERSON'S GUIDE TO MODERN CULTURE by Roger Scruton Duckworth, £14.95, pp. 152 R oger Scruton's career as a philoso- pher has prepared him for being a......

Clerihew Corner

Poor old Aleister Crowley Tried devilishly hard to be unholy, But . . . 'The Great Beast 666'? Fiddlesticks! James Michie......