Innocents abroad. T here were many terrorist attacks. In Istanbul, 21 worshippers were killed in a synagogue by two gunmen who also killed themselves. In Karachi, an American...

WHY PICK ON DANILOFF? I n international relations, as in all hu- man affairs, there are two fundamental categories of things: those on which it is permissible, and in some...

IT MAY be that the new system of issuing tickets for motoring offences will save time for the police and the courts, but this is its only advantage. According to Mr John Over,...

The indelicacies of the unemployment debate FERDINAND MOUNT T his autumn again, unemployment is the issue. Everyone says so. Why is there not a great debate about it? After a...

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER I t is not every day that we journalists stumble on a story of national significance literally outside our own front door, but such was my fate last summer...

Vikki de Lambray's part in the re-arrangement of boiled sweets AUBERON WAUGH I n my years as political correspondent first for Spectator then for Private Eye the only useful...

Post-natal madness is common but little understood. Alexandra Artley recalls her own experience ONE of the strangest things about the state of motherhood is the fact that...

The synagogue massacre breaks the peace which Turkish Jews have Ankara `JEWS have always felt very safe in Istan- bul. We have had absolutely no problems here,' an Istanbul...

Mark Amory joins the heir to the Kabaka of Buganda on his return from exile Kampala ON a Thursday in mid-August Prince Ronald Mutebi discreetly slipped across the border from...

Dhiren Bhagat investigates what press freedom means to Mr Mugabe's government The Heads of State or Government reaffir- med the need further to intensify co- operation among...

Ian Waller remembers Macmillan's last years in office, and detects a similar decline in Mrs Thatcher's position FOR those with long memories the Gov- ernment's present...

Brian Inglis on science's great cover-up of the fake fossil, Archaeopteryx THERE is one fossil which all Spectator readers would recognise, I imagine, even if the name escaped...

Ray Honeyford discovers hidden subtleties in schoolboys' racial vocabulary NOT long ago I was on yard duty. Sudden- ly I heard a little brown boy call a black boy 'Chocolate'....

THE LAST RESORT Tourism makes people IF a new charter of the rights of man (in the First World, or North, or whatever you like to call the part where people do not on the...

retail price (equivalent to 10 issues FREE) Subscription rates are being held at the old price for a limited period only. Take advantage of this special offer now! I would...

DURING the interesting discussion of the British Association on colour- blindness yesterday week, which was in many respects too scientific for popular apprehension, Dr Michael...

that unions get too much coverage and science too little WHAT is news? To a great extent it is what the consensus within the national newspaper confraternity decides is news...

The Balliol men of Tokenhouse Yard declare their independence CHRISTOPHER F1LDES I t is said that there are three, not two, ancient universities: Oxford, Cambridge and...

is in six figures but we expect performance. It's a twelve-hour day, to cover all the markets, and you must not live more than half an hour from work. Vacations? It'll be busy,...

HERE is how to win the next election: promise that the gasman will make an appointment and keep it. People should not have to waste time and lose a day's wages waiting for...

MY idea of a socially owned company would be one where I and my colleagues (Latin, socii) working for it owned it. In all but name, Labour's document agrees: `Genuine share...

Sir: There may not be a statue to the Revd Alexander B. Grosart, as P. J. Kavanagh remarks (Life and letters, 19 July), but I wrote an article about him 30 years ago when I was...

Sir: I wish Christopher Booker had check- ed some facts with us before criticising the Local Government Boundary Commis- sion. Far from being over, as he implied in last week's...

Sir: Mr Baker seems unaware of what has been official policy on the teaching of English grammar over a period of rather longer than the 20 years he mentions (Valeries Grove,...

Sir: Charles Glass is mistaken when he states in his review (6 September) that the Jews of Iraq were almost unique in not being part of the Diaspora created in 70A.D after the...

Sir: Probably many readers felt that Stan Gebler Davies in his article about the present position of the Irish language (Dear acid tongue', 6 September) was unduly censorious...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY - At 20% off the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for f (Equivalent $US & Eurocheques accepted) RATES: 12 Months...

Sir: Arthur Seldon is right (The Economy, 23 August) that a million or so alleged unemployed are, in fact, working busily in the black economy. What he omitted to say was that...

Sir: That the theory of significant form in art was the invention of Roger Fry is a commonplace mistake. Mr John McEwen (9 August), as a writer on British art, ought perhaps to...

Sir: The complaint of the gravely wounded Kingsley Amis that he was 'cut into illitera- cy' because the Spectator had altered his copy so that it featured the phrase 'Harold...

Sir: This refers to Mr Dhiren Bhagat's article titled 'India busts sanctions' in the Spectator of 16 August 1986. The article is typically subservient to those who would clutch...

Sir: I read John Read's tribute to Henry Moore (6 September) with some pleasure until I turned the page and came to the following paragraph: 'It took a lot to fluster Henry...

Sir: Hal Colebatch manages to inject so much spiteful malice into his piece on Gough Whitlam's book, The Whitlam Gov- ernment 1972-75 (Books, 23 August), that it totally...

Sir: Raymond Keene describes (Chess, 6 September) the 'curious Azerbaijani cus- tom' of sitting in silence before leaving for a journey. It is not only Azerbaijani. In Doctor...

Sir: 'Not a single lad in the village. . .' (T. E. Utley, Politics, 23 August), but how could Welbourne have known? Surely few 16-year-olds would have admitted short- comings on...

The valley of death Paul Foot LAND OF LOST CONTENT: The Luddite Revolt, 1812 by Robert Reid W are not Luddites' Harold Wil- son, leader of the Labour Party assured his party...

Mark Bonham Carter ASTAIRE DANCING: THE MUSICAL FILMS by John Mueller Hamish Hamilton, £25 T he great merit of this splendid volume is that it makes you want to see the...

Caroline Moorehead THE FINANCING OF TERROR by James Adams New English Library, f12.95 TERRORISM AND THE LIBERAL STATE by Paul Wilkinson Macmillan, f7.95 THE WORLD HELD...

Anita Brookner THE OLD DEVILS by Kingsley Amis Hutchinson, f9.95 h e old devils of the title are a party of not too viable friends, on the wrong side of 60, who spend the...

Thirteen years since I was gift- wrapped for you, swathed in fine white tissue like some delicate ornament for you to stroke and hold. Dream-slowly, I waded through the folds...

Roger Lewis THE PIANOPLAYERS by Anthony Burgess Hutchinson f8.95 W hilst awaiting Anthony Burgess's autobiography (Little Wilson provisional title) and even my own biography...

Francis King INNOCENCE by Penelope Fitzgerald Collins, f9.95 A car journey of only a few minutes takes one from Vicenza to the Villa Val- marana, famous both for its Tiepolo...

Harry Eyres GOING SOLO by Roald Dahl Cape, £7.95 T he flyleaf of this second volume of autobiography by Roald Dahl, which deals with the time he spent in his early twenties...

Taki ARI — THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ARISTOTLE SOCRATES ONASSIS by Peter Evans Cape, £12.95 I n the course of pursuing the good life, and subsequently having to spend an in-...

Mu sic Unburst bubbles Peter Phillips I still have very little idea whether 'early music' is a topic of general interest to the intelligentsia; or indeed what is meant by the...

Rookery Nook (Shaftesbury) The Maintenance Man (Comedy) Marriage lines Christopher Edwards R ookery Nook, which was written in 1926, is the most characteristic as well as...

Mona Lisa (18', Odeon Haymarket) London pride Peter Ackroyd T his is a film about London, and in the first few moments we are presented with some of that city's principal...

Andrzej Jackowski (Marlborough Fine Art till 26 September) Francesco Clemente (Anthony d'Offay till 30 September) Light in the darkness Alistair Hicks hose who want to know...

Personal property Wendy Cope T he first time I watched Dallas, many moons ago, it took me about ten minutes to decide that it was very low-grade gar- bage indeed. I switched...

Pot- Jeffrey Bernard A detective I know fixed it for me to have a guided tour of the Black Museum in New Scotland Yard this week after I had casually mentioned to him that I am...

Some frank revelations Taki I t was rather rudely pointed out to me by no less a person than the sainted editor himself, that what I wrote last week con- cerning the English...

Man and machine Alice Thomas Ellis T he other day I was shown a word processor in operation. The eldest son put some words of mine on it and I was astonished to see how...

K Leningrad. arpov took time-out for game 13 which meant postponement from Wednes- day to Friday (5 September). Nobody here seemed surprised by this apart from the British Chess...

Bad luck story Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1437 you were in- vited to write a light-hearted rhyming poem on 'The Life and Death of an Accident-Prone Person'. What gave me...

You are invited to supply verses (max- imum 16 lines) which air a prejudice or celebrate a pet aversion. Entries to 'Com- petition No. 1440' by 26 September.

4 1 S ,36, 71- N EiA OE 0 OEN 1:1113nEllall iii A U A P t Y 7 E R II Ho are Mill AC g irl N lel T rilltiwil e . opal g erh0000 MI R I Tr a , a E N On N C 00Re.......

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £12.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

JAPANESE food has not quite caught on over here the way it has in America. We have quite a few Japanese restaurants, mostly in London and many of them excellent, and they have a...

I n the run-up to the Christmas season (when we will be offering rather more expensive wines), it occurs to me that people who do not propose to confine their drinking to...

Baird Gardens, London SE19 1HJ Telephone: 01-446 6641 Ref Product 1. Arruda 1980 2: Douro Mesao Frio Clarete Special Reserva 3. Casal de Azenha 1974 4. Garrefeira Particular...