By a coincidence fortunate for those who possess sufficient knowledge of history and of institutions, and sufficient aware- ness of the power of language and the force of...

The sudden death of General de Gaulle distracted the British for a moment from their perennial national debate over the state of the economy. At the moment the obsession is with...

PETER PATERSON There is, of course, a large element of bluff in the relationship between a leader and his followers. The captain of a soccer team, the teacher in his classroom,...

A beautiful clear morning this week and the river brimming over with a flood tide, my train startled a bevy of swans which by chance had congregated on the floodwater of the...

The British in the beginning TOM DRIBERG Millions of words have been written about Vietnam in the last twenty-five years, and especially since the United States became more...

The Americans at the finish J. ENOCH POWELL A book produced last year by two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology bears the title Controlling Small Wars.*...

Charles de Gaulle arbiter of France For Wore than a generation he dominated the destinies of France. In an age of event- ful drama and personal heroism, the for- tunes of...

Look on his works PENIS BROGAN .Now has the stately column broke, the beacon light has quenched in smoke.' It is quenched, if you like, in an acrid smoke and for many Frenchmen...

by 'another Conservative' The beginning of talks with Mr Ian Smith will produce protests from the usual quarters. These will display, as such protests do, the belief that...

Pompidoulian France and the Market CHARLES HARGROVE Paris The first few months of what has variously been described as the 'Fifth Republic Bis', or 'The Sixth Republic', or...

Prince Charles at the Albert Hall SALLY VINCENT All the auditorium and all the five tiers, all the Albert Hall is businessmen. Five thousand company directors, worsted knee to...

Higher Drivel man on Lower Drivel from the BBC JOHN VAIZEY The Reith Lectures this year are given by Dr Donald Schon, described by the BBC as a forty year old American...

For all the [English] saints AUBERON WAUGH Few people in Britain probably noticed on 25 October this year that some fourteen thousand British citizens had quietly slipped away...

Sir: Herr Strik-Strikfeldt is a Rus- sian-speaking German 'Bait'. He served in the Imperial Russian Army during the First World War. Between the two world wars, he was...

Sir: We were interested to read 'The Politics of Intervention' (7 November) and were particularly • Pleased to see the libertarian senti- ments expressed by the author....

Sir: Lionel Gelber's article (11 Oct- ober) is excellent, but disturb- ing, bringing together all the re- ports of Russian naval expansion over the past few years, into a single...

Sir: Not least in these days, the universities have a special obliga- tion to maintain certain cultural standards, including the standard of what used to be called 'decent...

Huffer-puffer Sir: May I correct some of the shoddier inaccuracies and confu- sions in Tony Palmer's piece about Roman Polanski's forthcoming film of Macbeth? • First the...

Sir: to a layman, press coverage of the local government strike seemed curiously patchy: much limelight on the photogenic dust- men, sewcrmen, and 'dirty jobs' (rightly...

Sir: The letter from your corres- pondent M. Mortimer on the Church's support of revolution in Portuguese Africa has only just been drawn to my attention and, although belated,...

Dear Mr Editor: I had to write this for school prep and thought you might like to see it. Garbage! Garbage! What a sight When their is a dustman strike, People can have never...

Sir: Mr Auberon Waugh's remarks about the Newbury bookseller made me stop and think. I was unaware that people do not read fiction today but I am not sur- prised. The only...

Sir: While welcoming your forth- right approach towards the inter- connected issues of East African Asians and South African Arms (31 October), I must take you to task for the...

Sir: It would be charitable to as- sume that it is in innocent igno- rance that Mr Rowcliffe in your issue or 31 October quotes but misinterprets the 1961 Rhodesian census...

Sir: I must take exception to one statement in the brilliant summary of what life in England was like in the 'thirties in Charles Harris's article 'A Lifetime of Paris'. 'Good...

Sir: It is difficult to decide whether to attribute John Sparrow's article (31 October), to the exigencies of the reviewers task or to their arro- gance. I would refer to...

Sir: Some fiendish presence omit- ted an 'of from my letter last week apologising for having described Mr William Whitelaw as Lord Privy Seal, which he's not. The effect of this...

Sir: A letter (31 October) quotes Dr Johnson's famous dictum that— 'patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel'—by way of retort to sentiments expressed by Peregrine...

Sir: Though I appreciate the new broom appearance of the SPECTATOR under its new Editor, I must pro- test against the tasteless trivialities of the Spectator's contribution. If...

Sir: I write to express my regret that the CHESS feature has dis- appeared from your recent issues. In fairness I ought to admit that I am not in a position to lodge a protest...

Sir: There is more talk of restri- tive legislation on cigarette smok- ing: Sir Gerald Nabarro (a mem- ber, incidentally, of the party which promised to get government off our...

Sir: I wish to register our disgust at the most revolting drawing of Mr Heath in your paper this week —only a particularly nasty mind could have conceived anything so beastly...

Sir: I am accepting, belatedly because from so far away, the in- vitation implicit in Mr Claiborne's letter (10 October) to 'point up' (jnt out, surely?) his mistakes. One...

Sir: Mr Christopher Booker is an entertaining writer and a percipient analyst of the times (and the Times): but am I being unduly fussy in requesting him to refrain from...

No. 630: Tryaphone Set by J. M. Crooks: The joys of 'Dial-a-poem' have just reached London (including the Poet Laure- ate among its poets). But the Post Office could surely...

COLIN WILSON 'How could she? An enigma! An enigma!' exclaimed the Right Rev Campbell Hone, Bishop of Wakefield, wondering how a quiet, sweet, timid woman like his...

Terence de VERE WHITE Ghastly Good Taste John Betjeman (Blond 35s) 'I think a sense of architecture in the round comes with puberty.' This is but one of many apothegms in Sir...

PATRICK COSGRAVE The Social Contract Robert Ardrey (Collins 50s) This book is dangerous because it may ert. courage us to relax; it is so, as much for the many things in it...

J. R. JONES Queen Anne David Green (Collins 70s) In this clear, interesting and well documented biography, Mr Green explains the reasons why Anne, alone of all Stuart...

J. CAMPBELL Eastern and Western Europe in the Middle Ages edited by Geoffrey Barraclough (Thames and Hudson 35s) A Czech, a Pole, two Germans and an Englishman wrote the five...

JOHN GRIGG The War of Words (The History of Broad- casting in the- United Kingdom, Vol In) Asa Briggs (ouP £6 10s) Professor Asa Briggs is a Stakhanovite among scholars. For...

ANGUS MAUDE MP Letter to a Teacher The School of Barbiana (Penguin Education Special 8s) I hope I am not alone in being thoroughly alarmed by the editorial policies of Penguin...

AUBERON WAUGH A Place in England Melvyn Bragg (Seeker and Warburg 36s) Nobody should sit down to write about the pre-war English working class without first having read Max...

STORM JAMESON Images and Shadows Iris Origo (John Murray 60s) A first reading of Iris Origo's autobiography is like looking closely at a fifteenth-century tapestry : the first...

HUGH TREVOR-ROPER The Letters of Mercurius (John Murray 30s) The letters of Mercurius Oxoniensis are already familiar to most readers of the SPEMTOR, where they first appeared...

Frostbite PENELOPE HOUSTON In spite of McLuhan's hot and cold taps, the idea seems to be spreading that it is all one medium: television and movies, an inex- tricable visual...

Plebeian royalty Patrick Skene CATLING Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall are talented scriptwriters. Diana Dors is an ac- tress of great vitality. Under the guidance of...

More than horses MALCOLM CORMACK The Englishman's love of his own face is exceeded only by his love of his horse. With the paintings of George Stubbs (1724-1806) man and beast...

Looking back _ KENNETH HURREN Theatregoround, a peripatetic division of the Royal Shakespeare Company (mainly second-eleven players with one or two seasoned stars to bolster...

GILLIAN WIDDICOMBE An idle snooze, while worrying about the difficulty of assessing a conductor from his behind, summoned a suitable metamorphosis, I dreamt of a rostrum...

Yawnography CLEMENT CRISP Let me state at once that I am a great admirer of Glen Tetley's choreography; his ballets seem to me to be among the most exciting and rewarding...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT The first reaction of the City to the con- fessed inflationary settlement—at around 15 per cent—of the `dirty' strike was not to rush after equity...

The Prime Minister's appointment of Lord Cromer of Baring Brothers as Ambassador in Washington in place of that rat-trap col- lectivist John Freeman would have been thought by...

For several days our village has echoed inter- mittently to the sound of the power-saw cut- ting through old timber. It is, on most occa- sions, a melancholy sound, implying the...

Other people's menus are as fascinating and provoking to me as other people's lists: those `every kitchen should have' compil- ations, which impose fish kettles and porridge...

Amongst their other duties recently, Los Angeles police have had to deal with 2,000 complaints in a six-week period concerning riders of what they delicately call 'recreai...

No. 1455 DAEDALUS A prize of three guineas will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 23 November. Address solutions: Crossword 1455 The Spec- tator,' 99 Gower...