O rangemen confronted police at Por- tadown, Co. Armagh, when they were refused permission to march down the Gav- aghy Road, through a Catholic area. Sup- porters closed roads...

Ulster will march and Ulster will be right BRUCE ANDERSON A few weeks ago, John Major and David Trimble were having a friendly chat at No. 10. Out on Horse Guards mean- while,...

ANNE McELVOY S ome weeks ago I confessed in the pages of The Spectator that I briefly experi- enced ecstasy (the state, not the drug) with Labour ' s gyrator-in-chief, Peter...

Fortunately, the IRA doesn't really believe what it teaches about British voters, even though it's correct MATTHEW PARRIS A sporadic outbreaks of Orange vio- knee spread...

But it belongs to both. Therefore, says Paul Binski, it should stay in Westminster Abbey A MAJOR British political figure, coming to power after the ruthless deposition of his...

In fact, a fake of a fake. Christian Hesketh traces the history of the Stone (or Stones) TO ENDOW a flawed block of sandstone with such an emotive name as the Stone of Destiny,...

Paul Pickering on why, despite Tim Henman, British tennis players are unserious, though one of our Wimbledon finalists did do a murder WHEN THE painter Caravaggio repeat- edly...

Peter Oborne offers the first profile of the man who, after Major and Mawhinney, is trying hardest for a Tory win LAST WEEK, as the latest Tory relaunch went horribly wrong, an...

'KNOW what I mean?' is a too frequent question heard on the wireless or televi- sion, and it falls outside the ordinary dichotomy between nonne and num ques- tions. It invites...

Forget the gurus and the programmes, look for the character PAUL JOHNSON M uch nonsense is now being written about Tony Blair. A pamphlet by David Willetts MP, published by...

Dear Mr Clarke, your overdraft has doubled, so your bank needs a pleasant surprise STOPHER Fl LDES CHRI K nneth Clarke breezes into his bank manager's office and slaps down a...

Sir: Alan Watkins (Diary, 29 June) thinks that a Labour government would probably run into a sterling crisis after a couple cif years. I have no comment on that, but he also...

Sir: How happy the Chinese would be if it were true, as Michael Sheridan states, that the basic frontiers between China and Rus- sia were settled by the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk...

Sir: I was surprised to read the unnecessari- ly alarming comments of John Russell (Let- ters, 6 July) regarding the pleasant and beautiful city of Prague. My wife and I, an...

Sir: Nigel Johnson-Hill (Letters, 6 July) says he has calculated Dot Wordsworth's age at /5 exactly' and wishes her a happy birthday. He arrives at this conclusion by noting...

Sir: Anne McElvoy provides an informative survey of Robert Hayward's analysis of the homosexual effect on the possible outcome of the next general election (`The vote that dare...

Journalists must learn to take criticism. After all, last week The Spectator libelled, of all people, me! STEPHEN GLOVER By no means every grand journalist reacts in this...

Some embarrassing consequences of living in the past PETRONELLA WYATT film The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) where Henry, played by the late Charles Laughton, is presiding...

The worst of British home cooking Digby Anderson WHAT IS the state of Britain's cooking and eating at home? Today, okra, ostrich and tilapia are on every high street — a far...

The joy of modest excess Anne McElvoy 'There's cold chicken inside it,' replied the Rat briefly, 'coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpick- ledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwiches-...

Service with a smile David Fingleton G o to a restaurant in France — any- where from a Michelin three-starred palace in Paris to the simplest establishment in the country...

Never too early for champagne Christopher Fildes H oratio Bottomley shocked my father's landlady at Oxford. She caught him behind the door, struggling to open a bottle of...

The perils of drinking out Alan Watkins W hat follows is not about drinking in but about drinking out. Drinking in, at home, is fairly straightforward, given that wine is a...

They can be catching Theodore Dalrymple O f all the many illnesses and injuries which man chooses to inflict upon himself, by far the most frequent is the humble hangover....

The lightest imaginable rucksack David Sexton ANATOMY OF RESTLESSNESS by Bruce Chatwin Cape, £15.99, pp. 205 B ruce Chatwin had a horror of the humdrum. Like other...

Anne Applebaum OLD SOLDIERS NEVER DIE: THE LIFE OF DOUGLAS MACARTHUR by Geoffrey Perret Andre Deutsch, £20.00, pp.665 L ong after the battles of Bataan and Inchon are...

Raymond Carr THE CONTROVERSY OF ZION by Geoffrey Wheatcroft Sinclair-Stevenson, £17.99, pp.396 G eoffrey Wheatcroft eschews the simplicities of narrative history for the more...

Nicholas Harman COMING OF AGE WITH ELEPHANTS by Joyce Poole Hodder, £16.99, pp. 270 F or years Joyce Poole seems to have thought of herself pretty much as an honorary...

Michael Bywater POPCORN by Ben Elton Simon & Schuster, £1 2.99, pp. 298 en, ripe? Narp mean, yeah? Wotcher go'q? Beneath the blokey crop, the laddish smirk, the right-on...

Richard West ENGLAND: TRAVELS THROUGH AN UNWRECKED LANDSCAPE by Candida Lycett-Green Pavilion, £16.99, pp. 202 I n the age of the motorway, the housing estate, the industrial...

WHAT IS A CONSERVATIVE? by Paul Johnson Centre for Policy Studies, £5, pp. 13 I n this Spring Address for the CPS Paul Johnson has encapsulated the history of the...

• William Mount WAITING FOR THE SUN by Barry Hoskyns Viking, £20, pp. 370 M any strange parasites cling for dear life to the hanging belly of the music indus- try, but one...

`I can hardly believe my luck' Though Michael Tanner does admit to a few apprehensions as he takes over as our opera critic I t must be every opera lover's dream to be asked to...

John Everett Millais (Southampton City Art Gallery and Southampton Institute, till 4 August) Boudin to Duly (Southampton City Art Gallery, till 4 August) Caught off balance...

A poet's ire Robin Holloway H ousman cordially detested musical settings of his verse. The fact that this year's centenary of A Shropshire Lad is being marked as much by...

Mozart concert arias/ Un moto di gioia (Royal Festival Hall) Looking on the dark side Giannandrea Poem M ozart's vocal works have seldom provided an ideal accompaniment to...

Roll with the Punches (Tricycle) The Aspern Papers (Wyndham's) Richard III (Barbican) Americans abroad Sheridan Morley At the Tricycle, there's an altogether joyous new...

Busman's holiday Michael Vestey I t must be something of a busman's holi- day for John McCarthy to interview the relatives of British hostages held in Kash- mir. If anyone...

The Cable Guy (PG, selected cinemas) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (U, selected cinemas) Odd man out is in Mark Steyn J im Carrey got 20 million bucks to play the title role in...

Confessions of a rock bore James Delingpole I t's a perfect Los Angeles day and we're cruising down Sunset Boulevard in a white, open-topped sports car: me, a bodyguard and a...

Get off my tail Alan Judd N o doubt the Road Hauliers Associa- tion could produce figures to show that heavy goods vehicle drivers cause fewer accidents per million motorway...

Oozing quality Robin Oakley Q uite why John Reid has not been champion jockey several times I shall never understand. Willie Carson is all effort. I have seen him, by sheer...

Smoke alarm Jeffrey Bernard I think I may have been thrown back into life a little prematurely this week because yesterday morning I was under a general anaesthetic, but I was...

The slob as hero Taki E ver since John McEnroe burst into the tennis scene back in the late Seventies he's been my bete noir, an extremely talent- ed athlete whose behaviour on...

Flying the flag Leanda de Lisle T he English country woman abroad has long been a source of astonishment to for- eigners. My husband's Peruvian cousins have been known to...

A bridge too far Andrew Robson AGGRESSIVE BIDDING by North- South resulted in a near hopeless game contract being reached. After North could bid only 24 in response to South's...

COMPETITION Alphabetical dozen Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1940 you were invited to incorporate a dozen given words, in any order, into a plausible piece of prose. This was...

IN-THE-STRAND SIMPSON'S IN•THE•STRAND CHESS Members of the board Raymond Keene THROUGHOUT history, rulers and board games have gone together. For example, Haroun...

A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 1989 Port for the first correct solution opened on 29 July, with two runners-up prizes of £15 (or, for UK...

Cricket combustion Simon Barnes THE HISTORY of Pakistani cricket is one of nepotism, inefficiency, corruption and constant bickering. Strong words, though not mine: they come...

Dear Mary.. . 4 . Our increasingly unsatisfactory nanny has given notice after a year with us. I will not bore you with a list of her crimes sufficient to say that although she...