Nine months ago, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer publicly pledged himself, in his Letter of Intent, to secure an over- all payments surplus of 'at least £300 million'...

What about the workers? DAVID WALDER A nice little clutch of by-elections gathered together into a mini-election provides very good entertainment, especially for those who at...

Mr Bradshaw's chestnuts CRABRO Anguilla has disappeared from the head- lines these past six months, -and the world has seemed a duller place without it. The discovery that in...

After the coup A CORRESPONDENT The author of this article is an Englishman working in Libya, who for obvious reasons wishes to remain anonymous. Tripoli — Seven months...

The voice of the turtle LAURENCE MARTIN The recent decision by the British govern- ment that irritants like cs should not be regarded as falling within the provisions of the...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS Students, wait a little while Someone's sure to a find a file. Student, when he's picked the lock, Finds the thing was all a cock And, while the lazy Master...

How not to help industry JEREMY BRAY, MP Dr Bray was Parliamentary Secretary, first at the Ministry of Power and then at the Ministry of Technology from 1966 until his...

Open letter to Mr Crosland BARBARA MAUDE Now that the great conservation year is under way, we shall all be anxiously waiting to see what you, as Minister for the En-...

Zero for Crockfords R. A. CLINE Next week Crockfords will be asking the Court of Appeal to help it get a licence which will enable it to use its premises in London for gaming....

Keep out the draft GEORGE GALE Conscription, or forced labour, or press- ganging, is a method of compelling people to do something they do not want to. The principal reasons...

J. W. M. THOMPSON The saddest thing I have read for many a day was Mr J. B. Priestley's protest against the imminent ruin of Upper Langstrothdale, in Yorkshire, by commercial...

In praise of money JOHN ROWAN WILSON Somebody was asking me the other day what I thought was the most important single event in my life, the one which made me feel that I had...

Woman's place BILL GRUNDY I try very hard to avoid them at all costs. I close my eyes so as not to see them. If any lie in my way I pass by, like the Levite, on the other...

Dead to the world LORD O'HAGAN As medical care improves, there are many more elderly, confused patients in mental or subnormality hospitals. These psychogeria- tries now...

Pompidou in New York DENIS BROGAN The reception (or rather the non-reception) of the President of the French Republic by the Mayor of New York during M Pompi- dou's recent...

Martin SEYMOUR-SMITH Speaking to Each Other. Vol I: About Society; Vol 2: About Literature Richard Hoggart (Chatto and Windus 30s and 35s respectively) Richard Hoggart has...

J. ENOCH POWELL It is time that envy was reinstated in its rightful place as one of the basic data of in- dividual and social psychology. Treated by theology as one of the...

C. C. WRIGLEY But Always as Friends Sir Bryan Sharwood Smith (Allen and Unwin 100s) The Administration of Nigeria, 1900-1960 I. F. Nicolson (out. 45s) To search in the colonial...

HENRY TUBE Footprints in the Snow Kenjiro Tokutomi, translated by Kenneth Strong (Allen and Unwin 65s) Grass on the Wayside Natsume Soseki, trans- lated by Edwin McClellan...

Off the point Maurice CAPITANCHIK The Ghost of Henry James David Plante (Macdonald 30s) Apple of the Eye Stanley Middleton (Hutch- inson 30s) Another Example of Indulgence...

PAUL GRINKE The Lysistrata of Aristophanes Aubrey Beardsley (Routledge and Kegan Paul 12gns) At a time when most people have happily consigned Beardsley back to the limbo from...

Which Way? Thirteen Dialogues on Choices Facing Britain edited by Michael Ivens and Clive Bradley (Michael Joseph 50s). These dialogues on rather broad economic and social...

BRYAN ROBERTSON Contrary to what may be the general belief, it is uncommonly agreeable for a critic to recant and admit error when he discovers that what he once thought was...

Memory lane JOHN HIGGINS Both London's opera houses have been tak- ing us by the hand down Memory Lane over the past week or so. At the Coliseum Dennis Arundell's famous...

MICHAEL NYMAN There is small doubt that at the moment, and in some circles at least, music as an art is being energetically invaded by life, in the form of chance happenings....

Old ropes CLEMENT CRISP It was unkind but salutary programme building to give the premiere of Ruth van Dantzig's The Ropes of Time side by side with The Song of the Earth; set...

Manity's back HILARY SPURLING The Apple Cart (Mermaid) Three Months Gone (Duchess) Heads etc (Ambiance Lunch-hour Theatre Club at the Green Banana, Frith Street) The Samuel...

JOHN BULL Suddenly City markets have got a great deal of reasonably up-to-date information to digest. The puzzle over Bank rate—will it be this week, will it be next?—is...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT Johannesburg — The last thing a financial writer would want to do on his holiday would be to watch the stock markets. But coming to South Africa for the...

Front the 'Spectator', 12 March 1870—Mr. Disraeli was "indisposed"—and Lord Derby and Lord Salisbury apparently unable—to attend the Conservative banquet in the City on...

Sir: One wonders why, if Mr Szamuely (14 February) is concerned about producing the intellectual elite necessary to maintain a highly developed industrial civilisation, he is so...

From Dr G. Singh, Dusan Kupusarevic, Dr Ljubo Sire, J. M. Walsh, R. T. Cooper, J. H. K. Lockhart, 0. S. Swainson, 'James Adams', Anna Marlowe, George Booth, Geoffrey Kennard,...

service, could proclaim that the war against Hitler should be supported. I can tell him for I asked Russell at the time. His answer was =that he had changed his previous opinion...

Sir: I wish to congratulate you and your contributor Mr Tibor Szamuely on his ex- cellent akticle 'Enter Tito's policeman' (14 February), and for your follow-up in your letter...

Sir: J. W. M. Thompson, who generally writes such amusing good sense, really drop- ped a danger last week ('Spectator's note- book', 28 February). To write about the BBC that we...

Sir: Much as I enjoyed Kenneth Allsop's autobiographical ruminations on the sur- rogate security of a bygone Children's Hour (28 February), even though his poetic references to...

Sir: May I endorse the last paragraph of Mr Wainwright's letter (28 February). I have spent nearly forty years in tropical Africa, and my wife over fifteen. As we were engaged...

Sir: I see that Mr George Gale (28 Febru- ary) is still indulging in polemics against Israel. Having been refuted specifically on errors of fact in his article of 24 January by...

Sir: My friend Mr Croft (Letters, 28 Febru- ary) scoffs at my views that 'the idea that the Conservatives are more efficient dis- pensers of justice than Labour is nonsense'....

Sir: Mr Barnwell (Letters, 28 Febru- ary) thinks that when Captain Maitland told Comtesse Bertrand, 'Madam, you talk like a very foolish woman' he was trying to silence 'not a...

Sir: The central issue on the South African cricket tour controversy is expressed in your leader of 21 February. Cancellation, you say, would be 'a victory for violence . . ....

Well Sir: Having just arrived from Australia on the 8th of this month and being practically addicted to the Australian political magazine Broadside I ventured forth in this...

Sir: May I please put right two errors which, through some inexplicable, lapse on my part, appeared in the item 'The age of plunder' in last week's 'Spectator's note- book'? The...

Sir: Mr Lamer (Letters, 31 January) must have an odd sense of English—especially odd in an historian—if he considers incitation, obligated, a new regime, minimal, and evalu-...

Sir: I am collecting data for a Directory of Northern Art Galleries and Studios which is to be issued by the Mid-Northumberland Arts Group. This is intended to be a com- panion...

Earth or water? JOHN WOODFORDE A farming paper interviewed me about doing up some old cottages and subsequently stated in their article that I had set fire to a total of nine...

No 596: Fads and fictions A reviewer in last week's Times Saturday Review, wishing to include a new novel by Eric Ambler In those lists headed "Books That Have Influenced Me",'...

PHILIDOR Z. and S. Maslar (1st Prize, Partisan, 1958). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to No. 481 (Giegold 2K4R/5p2/...

Across: 1 Marry into money and turn easily as Dick might do (6) 4 For what does the seer or oculist get con- suited? That's right! (8) 10 Gate-crasher (7) 11 A move south...