20 JANUARY 1996, page 32

Is England Dumbing Down?

Robert Oakeshott THE WAY WE LIVE NOW by Richard Hoggart Chatto, £18, pp. 352 Y ou live badly, my friends. It is shameful to live like that.' The line is not the author's but......

Don't Let's Be Beastly To The Irish

Patrick Skene Catling DUBLIN WHERE THE PALM TREES GROW by Hugo Hamilton Faber, £8.99, pp. 134 H ugo Hamilton is a native Dubliner with German complications. The Irish and......

My Mother's Gardener

For some weeks absent, he tinkered at the lock Sprang open the rickety lichened gate And shuffled boggle-eyed as if in shock Across the unkempt lawn he used to cut. His......