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PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
The Spectator'Roll up! Roll up! See the pictures they tried to ban!' T he Sunday and Daily Mirror published pictures of the Princess of Wales taken with a secret camera by Mr Bryce Taylor,...
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SPECTATOR
The SpectatorThe Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 THE MIRROR CRACK'D M r David Banks, the editor of the Daily Mirror,...
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POLITICS
The SpectatorIn which Mr Major may find something to his advantage SIMON IIEFFER N o ritual these days is so pre-empted by leak as the Queen's Speech. Her Majesty will be delivering this...
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DIARY
The SpectatorSTEPHEN FRY I have always been of the opinion that a man should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know?' I know nothing, Lady Bracknell.' I am pleased to hear it....
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ANOTHER VOICE
The SpectatorPerhaps it is time to put a leg-press machine in the Garrick Club CHARLES MOORE T he club is instituted for the general patronage of the drama; for the purpose of combining...
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A CLEAN BREAK WITH FAIRNESS
The SpectatorGovernment's dash for cash is sabotaging the Child Support Act, and betraying natural justice 'The Child Support Agency will trace absent parents and assess, collect, and,...
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A RATHER YIN-YANG SITUATION
The SpectatorStephen Dunstan argues that the Governor of Hong Kong is covering shame with a cling-film of humour Hong Kong IMAGINE YOURSELF appointed Her Majesty's Ambassador to China....
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Mind your language
The SpectatorI USED TO think it was just me. You see, like so many word-watchers I have frequent recourse to H.W. Fowler's Modern English Usage, an estimable book indeed. But I find some of...
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HEART OF DARKNESS REVISITED
The SpectatorJohn Simpson returns to the land where absurdity mixes easily with fear Kinshasa THE Congo River boiled up around our stern like beer in a jungle clearing, brack- ish and...
The Spectator index for January to June 1993 is now
The Spectatoravailable. sw-monthly comprehensive alphabetical listing blects, titles and contributors is a necessity for ries, schools, researchers and all who keep files ID )pc , # of The...
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A FALL FROM CULTURAL GRACE
The SpectatorAdam Nicolson believes that the British press is mean and short-sighted in its pack-like attack on all things Greek A NEW VIEW of Greece is being propa- gated by the English...
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OUR WOMEN IN HAVANA
The SpectatorIan Thomson finds himself twice, on the same Cubana Airlines flight as Mrs Arthur Scargill and friends 'ANY IDEA what the miners are doing on board?' `Haven't the faintest,'...
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If symptoms
The Spectatorpersist. . . LAST WEEK, I went to a lecture given by a man who studies juvenile delin- quents for a living. I thought his lecture would be amusing, in a way. He was a...
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NO ROOM FOR THE MAD SQUADS
The SpectatorMark Urban argues that the police's investigation into alleged Falkland war crimes by British troops is both necessary and proper THE BIG GUNS of the Conservative press are,...
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One hundred years ago
The SpectatorTHE sudden growth of such a subtle and deadly disease as diphtheria, and its permanent establishment in London, is most discouraging. There is no ground for panic; but the very...
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SPECTATOR
The SpectatorDIARY 1994 T he Spectator 1994 Diary, bound in soft burgundy leather, will shortly be available. With a new layout and a whole week to view, Monday to Sunday, the diary is 5" x...
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AND ANOTHER THING
The SpectatorHowever odd it seems, the best kind of editor is a happy one PAUL JOHNSON survey of national newspaper editors in one of the Sundays claims they now ° command more power than...
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Come on board, minister
The SpectatorMY LAW OF non-execs says that a man is known by the companies that keep him, and for ministers, that goes double. So a retired chancellor has nothing to fear from going on the...
Honoris Civitatis causa
The SpectatorTHIS IS THE City's cue to promote its own honours list, and to honour its own worthies. The new Lord Mayor, whose theme is the international City, would want to honour those who...
CITY AND SUBURBAN
The SpectatorThe Lord Mayor has trumpets and musketeers and pikemen, but no handle CHRISTOPHER FILDES R olling through the City in his golden coach, Paul Newall succeeds this weekend as...
Lord of the Treasury
The SpectatorI BEGIN TO think of Michael Portillo as the Treasury's answer to Lord Lundy: We had intended you to be The next Prime Minister but three — The stock was sold, the press was...
The Caz canteen
The SpectatorAN UNSCHEDULED entr'acte in the Savoy opera has delayed the climactic moment when the directors pick a chair- man — patricians v. plebeians, like the great council-chamber scene...
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Listened with mother
The SpectatorSir: As I expect your readers are aware, Radio 5 is to become a 'rolling sports and news' channel, and children's programmes are to be moreorless abandoned (a spokesman told me...
LETTERS Hamlet's black hole
The SpectatorSir: At the close of his article (The trick of that voice', 30 October) Mr J. Enoch Pow- ell asks, 'What happened to create the black hole between Hamlet (printed in quarto in...
Hammered
The SpectatorSir: In my zeal to nail Gore Vidal's etymo- logical pretensions (Books, 9 October), I now realise that I struck myself on the thumb in one regard: as Patrick Leigh Fer- mor...
Boys next door
The SpectatorSir: Poor Alan Watkins (Diary, 9 October) must have suffered an unusually flaccid or frustrated time at Cambridge in the carly Fifties: 'accounted a sexual triumph if a girl...
Editorial crumpet
The SpectatorSir: Book jackets and, sometimes, press articles will illustrate their authors; for some odd reason we find it interesting, if not helpful, to associate a portrait with its...
SPECAT THE OR SUBSCRIBE TODAY -
The SpectatorRATES 12 Months 6 Months UK 0 07.00 0 09.00 Europe (airmail) 0 £88.00 0 £44.00 USA Airspeed 0 US$125.00 0 US$63.00 USA Airmail 0 US$175.00 0 US$88.00 Rest of Airmail 0...
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Braine trains
The SpectatorSir: May I enlighten Vicki Woods about Braine l'Alleud, to whose twinning with Basingstoke she objects (Diary, 21 August). Far from being obscure, Braine l'Alleud is in fact the...
Quel poseur
The SpectatorSir: David Wright in his review of Paul Fer- ris's Caitlin (Books, 16 October) refers to his subject's father as a 'bon viveur'. He should be informed that this usage is pseu-...
Balls-up
The SpectatorSir: No wonder that at the end of Hobbs's last innings (Sport, 28 August) 'you could hear the cavernous gasp as the balls fell'. The cavernous gasp came from Hobbs. It's bad...
Stop press
The SpectatorSir: It is alarming that you believe public schools are like late-mediaeval monaster- ies . . ripe for dissolution' (Leader, 18 September). I am sure I recall that under several...
British beef
The SpectatorSir: On 4 January I wrote you a letter sug- gesting that your cookery expert was wrong in using rump steak for steak and kidney Pudding and pointing out that the right choice...
Culture club
The SpectatorSir: Thirty-one years ago, I was mildly sur- prised to see my name on the front page of The Spectator, alongside the heavyweights of the scientific and literary Establishment....
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BOOKS
The SpectatorHow did he grow up so nasty? James Buchan GOEBBELS by Ralf Georg Reuth Constable, £19.95, pp. 472 I n an article for Das Reich on 25 Febru- ary. 1945. a fortnight after the...
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Letting the good
The SpectatorTimes roll Magnus Linklater THE HISTORY OF THE TIMES: THE THOMSON YEARS 1966-1981 by John Grigg Times Books, £25, pp. 632 hen the official history of the Times was begun in...
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A painter at home
The SpectatorFrances Partridge SELECTED =ERS OF VANESSA BELL edited by Regina Marler Bloomsbury, 125, pp. 593 W hat is one to do,' writes Vanessa Bell to her sister Virginia after reading...
How the rich suffered
The SpectatorJanet Barron CONFUSION by Elizabeth Jane Howard Macmillan, £14.99, pp. 385 I t's a nice little book you can read lying on your back,' a character in Confusion says to her...
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Fame was the spur
The SpectatorJane Ridley DISRAELI by Stanley Weintraub Hamish Hamilton, £25," pp. 717 I am the blank page between the Old Testament and the New,' Disraeli once declared, and with this fat...
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SP E TH C 'T E M'O R
The SpectatorSpecial breaks for Spectator readers Shown here are just three of the nearly 200 hotels, inns and private country houses that are offering Spectator read- ers the opportunity...
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The portrait of a governess
The SpectatorMiranda Seymour THE BUCCANEERS by Edith Wharton, completed by Marion Mainwaring Fourth Estate, 114.99, pp. 469 he l ast, still uncompleted draft of The Buccaneers, the novel on...
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Recent crime novels
The SpectatorHarriet Waugh • Ruth Rendell's unfolding tale of a girl growing up with a sympathetic but psycho- pathic mother is decidedly odd. The Crocodile Bird (Hutchinson, £ 14.99)...
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He thcreamed and thcreamed until he was thick
The SpectatorTom Shone EDUCATING WILLIAM by William Cash Simon & Schuster, £15.99, pp. 293 h e talking points of this book about Hollywood by William Cash, until recently the LA...
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Paradox at Syon in Springtime
The SpectatorNature fulfils two human needs which we are loath to name: that things change constantly; that they stay they same. In the secret garden I stumble on the spectrum of all flower...
Nothing fails like success
The SpectatorWilliam Cash A nd lastly, William' said the inter- viewer, 'if I may, I would like to ask about Your writing methods.' No, I am not having a fantasy about being interviewed...
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ARTS
The SpectatorArt Beautiful wounds T hough Michael Clark's new portrait is of the singer Lisa Stansfield, its title is Nanitas'. And, considering that its reverse side shows a bleeding...
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Exhibitions
The SpectatorRay Atkins Howard Hodgkin (Anthony d'Offay, till 24 November Leonard McComb (Browse & Darby, till 27 November) Ra'anan Levy (Crane Kalman, till 27 November Whiff of paint...
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Music
The SpectatorGaps on the musical map Peter Phillips A t a lunch held recently at The Specta- tor to introduce the American conductor Leonard Slatkin to your more musically inclined...
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Theatre
The SpectatorExact Change (Lyric Hammersmith) Carousel (Shaftesbury) Lyric splendour Sheridan Morley E xact Change is the world premiere of a play by a young American writer called David...
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Architecture
The SpectatorArchitecture and Childhood (RIBA Heinz Gallery, till 18 December) Child's play Alan Powers T he ages of Englishmen can be dated as accurately by the construction toys they...
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Cinema
The SpectatorThe Remains of the Day ('U', selected cinemas) The remains of the book Mark Steyn I don't suppose it was difficult, but the best decision P.G. Wodehouse ever made was to...
Gardens
The SpectatorA proper job Ursula Buchan S tringing onions and putting together glass cloches are workaday enough tasks, yet they acquire a fascination, almost a glamour, in the hands of...
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Television
The SpectatorSoft targets Martyn Harris reader called Mr G. Stone, of ‘Greenacres', Arcot Road, Sidmouth, writes to complain of the 'unrivalled fatu- ity' of the political comment in this...
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High life
The SpectatorStrong medicine Taki A Chinese gentleman, an old friend of Jeffrey Bernard, asked my Low life col- league to introduce him to one of the many doctors who have been treating...
Long life
The SpectatorThe beautiful Crawleys Nigel Nicolson T he most beautiful young woman I have ever known lay beside me on the only occa- sion in my life when I tried to kill a man. Her name...
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CHRISTMAS GIFT SURScRIPTI()N
The SpectatorAMEX E DINERS 0 I enclose my cheque/money order for payable to The Spectator. CI Please charge my credit card for Please tick: VISA 0 ACCESS Card no: Expiry Date• I I 1 1 1...
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H IP 1 4111, 11111
The SpectatorBig Night Out BIG NIGHT OUT does not, I admit, sound like the sort of restaurant you would expect to see featured in these pages. It may be of small comfort to find that it...
SPECT THE AT OR
The SpectatorNUAL THE BOOK OF 7HE YElle Edited by Dominic Lawson 'Mr Mellor should, of course, have remembered the advice of Arthur Hugh Clough: "Do not adultery commit, Advantage rarely...
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COMPETITION
The SpectatorFeint praise Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1804 you were invited to write a respectful, even flattering obituary of an imaginary person whose death is clearly a blessing to the...
SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA
The SpectatorLife of Bryan Raymond Keene ONCE THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP was decided, after game 20, Kasparov and Short continued to entertain the public at the Savoy Theatre (as well as a...
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GRAHAM'S
The SpectatorPORT CROSSWORD W. A J. fl R P A O H R A T M'S 1135: Footlights by Columba A first prize of 125 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct...
No. 1807: Surprise, surprise
The SpectatorYou are invited to add a maximum of 150 words and a maximum of surprise, to the opening of a murder mystery which begins: 'This was a most unusual case. The body was. . .'...
Solution to 1132: 1A 'P E Lit i..) E SIT
The SpectatorW I I A '• .1:4W 'ERASE R C E CIE CflLU ilEEL 3 1 3 SRAEL G E E13i T R 0 'BiNDL ' Ol 3 6RACOIUFU I r L,CHEA ANTRIJST, E RINICHUR C H D Ji LTYP -JF P I C I,E R E TPA E L I E...
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SPECTATOR SPORT
The SpectatorKeepers of the flame Frank Keating DALLIERS around that heroic shrine, the always scrupulously tended 'Double Inter- national Memorial Gardens', keenly await the selection of...
YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
The SpectatorDear Mary. . . Q. Your advice is urgently required. Our new Scottish nanny appeared to be utterly Charming and to really like us and our baby daughter. My husband kept saying...