Publish and be damned. r Major made a determined defence of the Maastricht Treaty and rejected calls for a British referendum as campaigning intensified for the French...

Waiting for a once loquacious man to end a most unaccountable silence SIMON HEFFER All the themes that have characterised Mr Heseltine's political view are to be found in the...

h ose tabloid journalists who gossip so gleefully about `Squidgy' and 'love nests' should take a look at the deep legal water in which they are paddling. Perhaps I might refer...

The sacred doctrine that the pound must be worth at least 2.7780 deutschmarks CHARLES MOORE h is Government does not seem to do very much, so why do people not admire it more?...

John Simpson laments the decline of British diplomacy — and influence — in our former Empire, and in the wider world KIPLINGISH THOUGHTS crowded in as our bus heaved its way...

IS M. PASTEUR really about to try experiments in cholera on human beings? It looks very like it. He has told the correspondent of the Times that he has tried 'choleraic vaccine'...

Christina Lamb on the decline of Fernando Collor de Mello, president of a count'' , in chaos Brasilia THE TAXI-DRIVER in Brazil's futuristic capital releases his Senna-like...

MY MORNINGS are often trying, thanks to the patients. At the beginning of one working day last week I failed to persuade a man with seven convictions for public drunkenness (and...

William Tribe begs the West to end the terror and murder in Bosnia Sarajevo THE ANGUISH that has been visited on this city — this totally innocent city — is, I think, beyond...

John Laugh/and on the scaremongering and hyperbole of the campaign to make the French vote 'our Paris Treaties, you know, are like young girls and roses: they last as long as...

Patrick Leigh Fermor defends Greece against accusations of bullying Macedonia CAN ASSURE you, Mr Trelawny, you will find nothing in Greece but robbers, rocks and vermin,' said...

Michael Heath

Stephen Fay puts the blame for the Royal Opera House's problems on its Board, not its General Director THE BOMBARDMENT began in the Sunday Times on 9 August and continued in...

Peter Morgan on why industry must stand and fight against Europe for British independence I READ Howard Davies' apologia for Europe in these columns (`Thoughts from a...

Is John Major afraid of his false friends? PAUL JOHNSON I t has been a summer of unparalleled depravity on the part of the down-market tabloids and their sleazy imitators...

Expletive deleted after the $2 martini, here comes the negroni crisis CHRISTOPHER FILDES T , he man who got it right was Richard M. Nixon. When he was President, and the...

Sir: 'Gallant little Greece,' said the British officer as, with profound emotion, tears in his eyes, he gazed at the Acropolis on a flight out of Athens in April, 1947. 'I fear...

masterpiece in terms of narra- tion, but also an absolutely accurate, per- ceptive account of Greece's treatment of its minority groups and weaker neighbours. For too long now...

Sir: I was sorry that Professor Congdon — whose views on Europe and economics I, as a strong anti-federalist, have always read with careful consideration — should sud- denly...

Sir: The Wasp', as always, is the least satis- factory item in your journal. If you cannot find a commentator on American public affairs who has heard of Midge Decter, can't you...

Sir: May I complain, and then explain, and finally ask for support? Last week (City and suburban, 5 September), Christopher Fiides supported Brian Pearse's disband- ment of...

Sir: Having written a doctoral dissertation on the subject of the Nazi leaders' art col- lecting, I was especially interested in God- 'I see Brigadier "Ronnie" Njukwo's died.'...

Sir: I trust you now realise just what a fine restaurant critic The Spectator has in Nigel- la Lawson and that it was a grave error to allow Auberon Waugh (Another voice, 5...

Sir: In his article 'Fighting the good fight' (29 August) Murray Sayle goes badly wrong to claiming that newspaper photographs depicting battered RAF pilot John Peters, shot...

Sir: I cannot agree with the letter from Bar- bara Dunn (15 August) criticising your arti- cles referring to the European Community. It is a relief to read such unbiased views —...

Sir: In your view (The end of diplomacy', 29 August) the fact that Lord Carrington is 'the sort of old-fashioned Englishman who keeps his word and expects others to do the same'...

Paradigms lost and found Raymond Carr JUDAISM by Hans Kling, translated by the Reverend Dr John Bowden SCM Press, 135, pp. 753 H ans Ming is Professor of Ecumenical Theology...

John Bowen DR CRIMINALE by Malcolm Bradbury Seeker & Warburg, £14.99, pp. 344 INNfr M alcolm Bradbury's fifth novel is about illusion, about people, events and ideas not...

book reviewed by Simon Courtauld was David Stirling, published by Little, Brown & Co, £17.50.

Martin Kemp LEONARDO: THE ARTIST AND THE MAN by Serge Bramly Michael Joseph, £20, pp. 493 W hy write biographies of artists? We SO take it for granted that something in the...

Caroline Moorehead MEN OF HONOUR: THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MAFIA by Giovanni Falcone, with Marcelle Padovani Fourth Estate, £13.99, pp. 165 0 n 23 May this year, Giovanni Falcone,...

David Ekserdjian PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA by Carlo Bertelli Yale, £35, pp. 477 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA by R.W. Lightbown Abbeville Press, £60, pp. 312 THE PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA...

Amanda Craig SACRED COUNTRY by Rose Tremain Sinclair-Stevenson, £14.99, pp. 363 0 ne of the shrewdest moves any novel- ist can make is to write from the perspec- tive of the...

Nicolette Jones CITY OF GATES by Janice Elliott Hodder, £14.99, pp. 190 I n this, her 23rd novel, Janice Elliott has taken to a clever extreme the guide book cliché that...

was not where it went but where it led him, how he found it in the music, out of it and back, each chorus risking more, the changes unrepeatable, already way beyond...

Anita Brookner A SILENT JOY by Elizabeth Jenkins Constable, 113.99, pp. 208 E lizabeth Jenkins, absent for far too long from our library shelves, makes a wel- come return with...

Peter Levi THE HABIT OF A LIFETIME by Brocard Sewell Tabb House, £18.95, pp. 181 T he Catholic clergy have for many years contained pleasing and friendly eccentrics who do not...

Can I expect to be surely of the Elect? By concern for the question, be assured, you're not assuredly not. Gael Turnbull

When outraged by human folly And suicidal brute force, Yet conscious that one's own sin Makes anger mere hypocrisy, Then — rather than prophetic din — Repentance is the kosher...

Non-fiction: The Birth of the Modern by Paul Johnson, Phoenix, £10.99 No Full Stops in India by Mark Tully, Penguin, £6.99 A Life of Picasso: Volume I 1881-1906 by John...

Music 1 Renaissance man of our time Michael Horovitz celebrates the work of John Cage (1913-1992) 0 ne glorious Sunday afternoon 15 years ago the telephone rang in an amber...

Lovely Lyrita Simon Heffer N early two years ago, after a long silence, Lyrita Records came back to life in glorious fashion. In the era before compact discs the label had...

Waking up in Washington Giles Auty W liether or not travel broadens the mind, it can certainly help focus it. Why it took a recent stay in Washington to make me wake up to...

Amphibians (Barbican Pit) The Madras House (Lyric Hammersmith) Maggie May (Royalty) A darker Ireland Sheridan Morley T his must be the richest time for Irish drama in London...

Not the real Roberts Christopher Howse on a new play which makes free with two much-loved Soho characters A lot of people are angry about a play at the Royal Court, which is...

Solitary pleasures Marcus Berkmann E r so unashamedly populist an art form, pop music is unusually generous to its solitary geniuses. From Phil Spector onwards, solitary...

Buzzard and other beasts Martyn Harris T he Velvet Claw (BBC 1, 8.30 p.m. , Monday) is an attempt to put a new spin on natural history programmes with the use of whizzy...

White Sands ('15', selected cinemas) Knight Moves ('IS', selected cinemas) Plumbing the shallows Vanessa Letts W hite Sands raises the question: how intelligent do you have...

Going for broke Taki was sorry to read about Lord Beaver - brook's financial problems. Back in 1962 I was billeted with Gianni Agnelli in Max Aitken's house in Cowes, and the...

Who will save Pitchford? Nigel Nicolson A s I navigated the winding lanes south of Shrewsbury, passing through villages with ancient names like Acton Burnell, I pulled up the...

Duck and pudding Jennifer Paterson WHAT A VERY cold start to September. The central heating has come on by itself, although set very low, but I feel we will have one of those...

Auberon Waugh THIS IS THE second offer of Pierre Andre wines this year for the two good rea- sons that they have proved extremely pop- ular, and their importer, Mr Peter...

Raymond Keene T he great match between Spassky and Fischer has fully lived up to expectations. The nature of the play has been uncom- promising and full of content and, given...

PURE HIGHLAND MALT COMPETITION Bouts limes Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1744 you were in- vited to provide a poem using given rhyme- words in a given order. The words I...

GRAHAM ' S PORT CROSSWORD A first prize of £20 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 28 September, With two runners-up...

Sticky wicket Frank Keating WITH THE cricket writers' annual bun- fight at Lord's last Friday night followed, next day, by Nat West's end-of-term cheques, the grapevine prised...

Dear Mary. . . Q. I work in a heritage interpretation cen- tre. Some of my work consists of showing ramblers' an Ordnance Survey map on a table as I point out rights of way and...