19 NOVEMBER 1994, page 53

Horse Chestnut

Grandfathers who have spiky outsides Can be fun inside: a gallows humour, Hanging their youth out to be hit By kids who have not had to bake Or save, but possess proud fivers On......

Trouble With Endings

Philip Hensher PUSHKIN here's a good game to be had finding characteristic sentences in novelists. Not sentences which sum anything up; rather, sentences which seem completely......

Lord Of The Rueful Countenance

John Jolliffe SPIES AND OTHER SECRETS by Nicholas Bethell Viking, £18, pp. 397 T he author of this book is brave enough to quote in an arresting opening paragraph a letter he......