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Delight in disorder
The SpectatorWind-blown, late and breathless, a sweet disorder in her dress kindling an air of wantonness, yet, we are told, a politician who is more completely a democrat than we who are...
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The Martyrdom of St Keith
The SpectatorFerdinand Mount Quiet week. Only a 'holding statement' from the Department of Industry to let Mr Ian MacGregor have £500 million to see him through till April. To you and me...
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Notebook
The SpectatorI count myself privileged to be one of the very few people living today who have heard of the IFSWLCSWEC. Even I would not have heard of it if its existence had not beep drawn...
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Terror of the neutron
The SpectatorAuberon Waugh When I last discussed the enhanced radiation shell or 'neutron bomb' on this page a few years ago, it was chiefly in terms of the debate itself: how MI5's task of...
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Through the looking glass
The SpectatorTim Garton Ash Berlin `Will the Russians invade next week?' A German editor in Berlin asked me on my return from Warsaw, with the tortured look of a bookie smelling the tip of...
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The Olympic hangover
The SpectatorPeter Reddaway Political trials are now taking place in the Soviet Union every two to three days. Since mid-November, 31 courts in various parts of the country have sentenced...
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New problems for old
The SpectatorNicholas von Hoffman Washington Der Alter celebrated his 70th the other day and Nancy Fancy threw him a party. The cake was by Halston and a good, if subdued, time was...
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The Swedish way of death
The SpectatorAndrew Brown 'People talk about the horrors of war, but what weapon has a man invented that even approaches in cruelty some of the commoner diseases?' Modern medicine can...
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Aberdeen: after the boom
The SpectatorAlan Massie When I was a boy Aberdeen used to till up on Fridays. It was Mart Day and the country came to Town. We found a solid handsome granite city, smelling sometimes of...
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New mood in Belfast
The SpectatorRichard West Belfast At a neighbouring table in the Europa Hotel, a bearded American liberal was declaiming on Ireland, the Pope and President Reagan. 'I am reminded', he said...
One hundred years ago
The SpectatorMr Carvell Williams is very justly elated at the success of the Nonconformists in the Cambridge Mathematical Honours List. He writes to Monday's Times that both this year and...
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Pigeon-fancier
The SpectatorJo Gnmond It is notorious that what this paper lacks is a good nature correspondent. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has 650000 members, and if only one in ten...
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Denning and a Lady Solicitor
The SpectatorPaul Johnson The campaign by left-wing publicists to jostle Lord Denning into retirement — they do not like the way he sticks up for individuals against trade unions — has so...
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Forecasting the Budget
The SpectatorTony Rudd Budget time is here again. With less than thirty loss-making days to go before Sir Geoffrey Howe presents his next budget on 10 March, City analysts are busy trying...
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Giscard's achievement
The SpectatorSir: Maybe President Giscard d'Estaing is coarse and snobbish, maybe he accepts gifts (Sam White, 7 February). But, paradoxically, Giscard's real achievement can be seen in the...
Too many books
The SpectatorSir: Paul Johnson's article on the difficulties of book publishing today (24 January) was so very revealing, as indeed he always is. Yet to me it seems a strange paradox that,...
Lingua franca
The SpectatorSir: Doesn't your article on "Ethnocide" in the Soviet Union' (24 January) a little resemble what Pravda might write about our pear destruction of the Welsh language? Surely any...
Conspiracy and suppression
The SpectatorSir: I don't think your Letters page is a suitable place to try to cure Paul Johnson's virulent political paranoia, manifested in his article of 7 February in his apparent...
De Vries fan
The SpectatorSir: May I welcome Paul Ableman to the small but select Peter de Vries fan club (31 January)? Unless, however, he has a good public library to hand he will have to go to...
Shades of opinion
The SpectatorSir: I have often wondered why your cover (whether it be new and glossy or old and lack-lustre) is sometimes red and sometimes blue. Perhaps you are trying to assert your...
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Coal, quays and Caste11 Coch
The SpectatorKenneth Q. Morgan Cardiff and the Marquesses of Bute John Davies (University of Wales Press pp. 335, £12.95) The Butes were a unique industrial dynasty, robber barons on the...
Muscle peaks
The SpectatorPaul Ableman The Noble Enemy Charles Fox (Granada pp.383,i6.95) This is a first novel that reads like the work of a mature novelist at the height of his powers. It is quite...
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A Muse in a poke bonnet
The SpectatorA.N. Wilson A Passion for the Particular: Dorothy Wordsworth: A Portrait Elizabeth Gunn (Gollancz pp. 256, £12.50) Dorothy Wordswoith, the younger sister oi William, is chiefly...
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Good old C.B.
The SpectatorStephen Koss The People's Budget 1909-10 Bruce K. Murray (Oxford pp. 384, £17.50) The Liberals and Ireland: The Ulster Question in British Polities to 1914 Patricia Jalland...
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For God's sake
The SpectatorNicolas Walter A Passion for Truth Robert Nowell (Collins pp. 377, £9.95) Does God Exist? Hans Kiang (Collins pp. 839, £12) Taking Leave of God Don Cupitt (SCM pp. 174, £4,95...
Fiction
The SpectatorThe Second Coming Walker Percy (Seeker pp. 364, £6.95) Bethany Anita Mason (Hainish Hamilton pp. 219, £7.50) The Second Chance Alan Sillitoe (Cape pp. 224, £5.95) Once, at a...
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Broadway myths and melodies
The SpectatorCharles Marowitz New York America is currently obsessed with mythology. Being a peculiarly American mythology, it is barely 50 years old. Its deities are Superman, Flash...
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Little women
The SpectatorP i eter Ackroyd Nine to Five ('AA', selected cinemas) An American friend of mine was once asked to write a film script for Dolly Parton — it was to be what is usually called a...
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Home and away
The SpectatorJohn McEwen Contemporary French artists are about as rare a sight in England as golden orioles. This is because French art, at least in highbrow London circles, is generally...
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Butterfly
The SpectatorPeter Jenkins The Suicide (RSC, Aldwych) A frantic flowering of the intelligence and the arts followed the Russian Revolution in 1917. It didn't last long; in the theatre it...
Weighty
The SpectatorRichard In grams It was a heavy cultural weekend at the BBC what with Gounod's Faust and The Winter's Tale on successive nights. Faust was another of Humphrey Burton's posh...
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Old friends
The SpectatorTaki My, how things change. One of the first friends I made when I arrived in merry old England during the swinging Sixties was a cherubic, incredibly pink, forever laughing...
Eenie,meanie..
The SpectatorJeffrey Bernard The thought for the week in my pub has been that of meanness. Why on earth we should have been going on about it I'm not quite sure. Perhaps it's because none...
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Play-off
The SpectatorRaymond Keene The six-game match between John Nunn and Bill Hartston for the British Championship starts on 13 February, carrying throughto 20 February ,with rest dayson the...