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Portrait of the week
The SpectatorM r Michael Foot unexpectedly repudiated the new Labour candidate for Bermondsey, 29-year-old Mr Peter Tatchell, an Australian and campaigner for homosexual causes, on the...
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What would Mr Jenkins do?
The SpectatorFerdinand Mount A the back of a Commons cubby-hole, I chanced upon a pile of Bills. They had scarcely been touched. Dust was already gathering upon the eau-de-nil paper,...
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Notebook
The Spectatorw hile The Times has long aspired to speak for the nation, it has this week scaled a new peak of respectability by becoming the mouthpiece of the sovereign herself. Its leading...
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Another voice
The SpectatorThe Father Christmas Idea Auberon Waugh M r Tom Hunt, a scrap dealer in the east end of London, came briefly to pro minence last week when his 15-year-old son, Graham, was...
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A famous victory
The SpectatorMurray Sayle Tokyo B ack in Japan to find Fuji smothered in snow, the last of the autumn's persimmons plopping from bare trees and exports moving briskly, I see by the calendar...
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West Germany, two years on
The SpectatorTimothy Garton Ash Berlin, December 1983 T he first anti-nuclear demonstrator to be killed by American forces in Germany was buried here last Sunday. Hans-Dieter Narzisssohn,...
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Social Democrats falter
The SpectatorAndrew Brown Copenhagen T he only thing obvious about the results of Tuesday's Danish election is that there is a majority in the resulting parliament against any conceivable...
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Storm in a glass
The SpectatorSam White Paris t is now evident that the French Socialist 'government is split on the issue that was always calculated to split it — economic policy. It would be tempting to...
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The Sungei Golok train
The SpectatorRichard West Kota Bahru, north-east Malaysia T he Malaysian communist Chin Peng, who started the insurrection that we came to know as the Emergency, is still alive, a...
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A minimum of enterprise
The SpectatorAllan Massie 'E nterprise: an undertaking; a bold or dangerous undertaking; an adventure; readiness, initiative and daring in undertaking.' (Chambers's Twentieth Century...
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Publishing
The SpectatorGood old Scrooge Paul Johnson W hen I last reported on the general state of the British publishing trade, in February, I described it as firmly in the grip of the slump. As...
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In the City
The SpectatorThe Bank at bay Tony Rudd T he sequel to Noble House, that lengthy epic about the Hong Kong trading community which James Clavell has yet to write sets the Hong Kong financial...
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The meaning of faith
The SpectatorSir: In case any of your non-Catholic (or possibly Catholic) readers may be wondering whether Auberon Waugh's judgment of Cardinal Hume in his review of Butler's Lives of the...
Sir: Neither Cardinal Hume, in his foreword, nor Mr Waugh,
The Spectatorin his review, distinguished between objective faith and subjective faith. Doubtless the Cardinal was writing about the latter. I regret that he did not say so. Objective faith,...
Fascists and the Right
The SpectatorSir: It was disappointing to see your correspondent Stephen Aris's phrase 'blueshirted right wingers' (5 December). Although the blue shirt became the standard dress of Franco's...
Medal insult
The SpectatorSir: May I correct an error in Mr Woodhouse's review of Auchinleck: The Lonely Soldier (28 November)? What was denied to those who served in the Eighth Army before Montgomery...
Subjective view
The SpectatorSir: Might I phrase my disapproval of the use of the SODPAL abbreviation, inspired though it may be, in the 'Portrait of the Week' (5 December). This column has, after all,...
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Picking more Plums
The SpectatorHugh Massingberd P. G. 'Wodehouse Benny Green (Pavilion pp. 256, £8.95) A Wodehouse Companion Richard Usborne (Elm Tree pp. 169, £12.50) Wodehouse at War lain Sproat (Milner...
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The other history man
The SpectatorEric Christiansen History and Imagination ed. Hugh LloydJones, Valerie Pearl and Blair Worden (Duckworth pp. 385, £25) R ightly is they called Festschrifts. They were invented...
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Communards
The SpectatorDouglas Johnson The War Against Pads 1871 Robert Tombs (Cambridge University Press pp. 256, £22.50, £8.50) T he Paris Commune of 1871 lasted for 72 days. It began by accident,...
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Suburban Inferno
The SpectatorFrancis King Bliss Peter Carey (Faber pp. 296, £6.50) m ephistophilis's stonily despairing 'Why this is hell, nor am I out of it', in Marlowe's Dr Faustus, might stand as a...
Salt on the tongue
The SpectatorP. J. Kavanagh The Black Soul Liam O'Flaherty (Wolfhound pp. 256, £6.90) A Minor Giant Peter de Polnay (Piatkus pp. 234, £6.50) T iam O'Flaherty was born in the Aran L./Islands...
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Morphic fields
The SpectatorBrian Inglis A New Science of Life Rupert Sheldrake (Blond and Briggs pp.229, £12.50). S ome 60 years ago William McDougall, Professor of Psychology at Harvard, instituted...
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Nevsky Prospekt
The SpectatorRonald Hingley St Petersburg: A Travellers' Companion selected and introduced by Laurence Kelly (Constable pp. 303, £9.95, £5.95) This book is chiefly addressed to those 1...
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Heretics all
The SpectatorA. N. Wilson Priestland's Progress: One man's search for Christianity Now Gerald Priestland (BBC pp. 224, 0.50) N e lisez jamais les journaux religieux was the wise counsel of...
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Recent paperbacks
The SpectatorJames Hughes-Onslow Stephen Leacock selected and introduced by Robertson Davies (Penguin pp. 527, £2.95)Canada's answer to Mark Twain, or Thurber perhaps. 'You certainly seem...
Down from the attic
The SpectatorMark Amory The Oresteia (Olivier) T onger than Parsifal but not so funny', I said Noel Coward about something. Such unfair cracks were banished immediately The Oresteia began,...
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Human spirit
The SpectatorJohn McEwen C raigie Aitchison's first retrospective exhibition (Serpentine Gallery till 24 January 1982) must surely convince anyone still in the need of it that he is one of...
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Reshuffle
The SpectatorBryan Robertson T o conspicuous advantage, the Ballet Rambert has reconstituted itself under the direction of Robert North, who has done so much in the past as dancer and...
Enduring
The SpectatorRichard In grams T must say that every time I see John 1 Osborne on the telly I warm to him. One or two of his plays may be bloody awful but at least there is some life in the...
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Feminists
The SpectatorTaki New York O ne more week to go in the Big Apple and then, I hope, I shall be returning to a country where everyone isn't into Freudian insights. Just last week I managed to...
Looking back
The SpectatorJeffrey Bernard ri" he week started off badly with the death of Michael Dempsey. When a really good bloke dies and at the early age of 37 it makes you wonder what on earth it's...
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Old Master
The SpectatorRaymond Keene I t is sad that just one week after Karpov had confirmed himself for the second time as the twelfth world champion, the fifth member of that illustrious group, Dr...