14 OCTOBER 1966

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Opposition Years

The Spectator

n ARTY conferences are significant only if r something goes wrong. Right from the beginning this seemed unlikely to happen with the Tories at Blackpool this week. Even before...

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Mr Heath's Easy Ride

The Spectator

POLITICAL COMMENTARY By ALAN WATKINS TS this Tory conference to be different from the ones that have gone before? Not basically. The delegates—sorry, representatives—still...

The New Jerusalem

The Spectator

And did a Countenance Benign Shine forth upon our clouded goals? And was Befoozleum buried here Among these stark Satanic polls? Bring me my fudged reserve of gold. Bring me...

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Opposition: Illusions and Realities

The Spectator

By ANTHONY KING T HIS week's conference at Blackpool finds the Conservatives for the first time in twenty years not only in opposition but looking forward to remaining in...

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The Spectre of MacDonald

The Spectator

TOWARDS COALITION? By ROBERT RHODES JAMES ITNIE curious manner in which the melancholy I shades of Ramsay MacDonald have been exhumed for this week's hundredth anniver- sary...

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Rebuking the Judge

The Spectator

THE LAW By R. A. CLINE It would be a pity if the exercise of this free- dom goes too far, in fact to the point of hampering the judges in their functions. The recent outburst...

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Spectator's Notebook

The Spectator

W HATEVER the defects of the Brabin report on the murders of the wife and child of Timothy John Evans, its conclusions—and the implications of those conclusions—are clear. The...

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The Last Days of Erhard

The Spectator

From KONRAD AHLERS HAMBURG But their present Chancellor and party leader, Ludwig Erhard, is now living not only on pro- bation; he is under suspended sentence. The consensus...

Tax by Chance

The Spectator

RATES By DAVID NATHAN It is a lucky-dip business, as the valuation officer cheerfully admitted. 'There may be many cases where central heating has been installed of which the...

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For Whom the Chair Waits

The Spectator

THE TIMES By DONALD McLACHLAN W rrH the discretion that it reserves for its own affairs, Fleet Street has dropped the story of The Thnes-Sunday Times marriage just when it was...

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Brief Abstracts of the Times

The Spectator

TELEVISION By STUART HOOD A FTER a slightly pompous start and what must have been the longest list of acknowledge- ments even seen on television, the BBC's series The Lost...

Ladies' Night at Cheltenham

The Spectator

By HILARY SPURLING W omEN are supposed by men to lack a sense of humour. Certainly, to judge by last Wednesday evening in Cheltenham Town Hall, they are not equal to the...

Cbe Zpecta tor

The Spectator

October 13, 1866 A strangely sorrowful, yet dramatic story, is told of the Empres$ Charlotte of Mexico. It is said, and it seems to be true, that the fatigues and excitements...

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Blackpool Mon Amour

The Spectator

AFTERTHOUGHT By JOHN WELLS Blackpool, I was told again and again before I went there last week to record a brief satiric sketch for the Late Show which opens on BBC-1 on...

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Words and Deeds SIR,—Your leading article of October 7 implies

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that a recent National Opinion Poll found that over 60 per cent of the population were in favour of the implementation of Part IV of the Prices and Incotnes Act. I am afraii...

Gravitas, Please

The Spectator

SIR,—Of course it does not matter much who killed Kennedy if the assassin were one of those im- probable persons described in your piece `Gravitas, please' (Spectator's...

SIR,—We sincerely apologise to Dr Wilson (Letters, October 7) for

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our error over his medical qualifica- tions, and we deeply regret any distress or incon- venience this may have caused him. Dr Wilson is entered in the Medical Directory with...

Healey's Horse SIR,—Mr George Hutchinson's logic CA Spectator's Notebook,' October

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7) eludes me. Presumably he would allow army officers to take part in sport, but not to be good at it. Are those unfortunate enough to be selected for the army football or...

Executive Check-up

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n L _J -/ C From : Dr John Rowan Wilson, Drs H. B. Wright and G. Pincherle, Frank Teer, Mark Brady, Charles Chenevix Trench, Robert G. Logan, Hugh Heckstall-Smith, Kenneth...

No Room for Compromise

The Spectator

SIR,—As one who completed a public school edu- cation two years ago, I read with much interest the article by Logie Bruce Lockhart (September 23). Whilst concurring with much of...

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A C. S. Lewis Mystery SIR,—Professor C. S. Lewis wrote

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all his works by hand. As editor of his literary remains, I sometimes have difficulty in reading his handwriting, especially pieces written during his last years. I am...

Victory for Nosey Parker SIR,—Mrs Whitehouse's revelations of the niggardly

The Spectator

financial support given by MRA to her 'clean-up' movements (SPECTATOR, October 7) surprised me very much. MRA, by all accounts, is not short of funds. Why, then, should it not...

Wells—the Gloomy Dreamer SIR,—Were the Utopias of H. G. Wells

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insincere, gimcrack fictions? This seems to be the main point of Mr Martin Seymour-Smith's shrewdly argued centenary estimate (September 30). I find it hard to accept his...

Tynan's Progress SIR,—May I make three comments on Hilary Spurling's

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piece last week? 1. Laurence Olivier played Brazen in The Recruit- ing Officer, not Plume. 2. Mrs Spurling says that, apart from one-actors, `the NT new plays have all been...

SIR, —Mr P. J. Middleton (September 30) says: 'We still permit

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men to teach boys who have never been sent to a proper training establishment.' J. F. Rox- burgh, Stowe's first headmaster, would say Mr Middleton had begged a big question. (I...

In Eastern Seas

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Sut,-"---Jerry Allen ('In Eastern Seas,' September 23) refers to Berau and Bulungan in Borneo as 'villages. They are not. Berau is the name of an ancient kingdom on the east...

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The Acceptance World

The Spectator

ART By BRYAN ROBERTSON • T HE Rouault exhibition at the Tate, lovingly assembled, presented with scrupulous pre- cision, is one of the big occasions in the art history of...

Up the Wells

The Spectator

MUSIC I have known few theatres and, as to opera houses, none at all, where typical Saturday nights are so crowded, homely—and aware. At Figaro there looked to be many families...

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THEATRE

The Spectator

Bloodshot The Revenger's Tragedy. (Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.)—The Rivals. (Haymarket.) LIE was a bold man that first swallowed an ri oyster, said Swift....

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CINEMA

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Good Book Flops The Bible . . . In the Beginning. (Coliseum, 'U' certificate.) I N the beginning, 20th Century-Fox created many motion pictures, some bad, a few enter- taining,...

CHESS by Philidor

The Spectator

No. 304 J. M. RICE (rat Prize, Problemisten, 1963) WHITE to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to No. 303 (Hartong): Q-R 7, threat Qx P. i. . . P-Kt 3; 2...

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Coleridge's Mighty Alphabet

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By C. B. COX M ANY children associate a distinct colour with each letter of the alphabet. In my own case the habit persists, and for obvious reasons I still see ' `g' as green...

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Two Men Who Saved France: Main and de Gaulle. By

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Major-General Sir Edward Condition of France Spears. (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 30s.) GENERAL SPEARS'S memoirs of his experiences in France in two World Wars have long been...

The Conquest

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The Norman Conquest. By D. J. A. Matthew. (Batsford, 42s.) The Normans. By Timothy Baker. (Cassell, 42s.) 1066: The Story of a Year. By Denis Butler. (Anthony Blond, 30s.) The...

Modern photographic techniques have now made possible for the first

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time the full colour reproduction of the ornithological classic, The Original Water Colour Paintings by John James Audubon for The Birds of America; introduc- tion by Marshall...

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NEW NOVELS

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Officers and Men The Assassins. By Nicholas Mosley. (Hodder and Stoughton, 25s.) The Mask of Apollo. By Mary Renault. (Long- mans, 25s.) Night Games. By Mai Zetterling....

Grand Monarch MANY readers will buy The Sun King for

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prestige purposes, to lie on coffee-tables, to be noted with approval and leafed through with gasps. Those—and surely' they will be the majority—who embark on the text will...

The Runaway

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A wild horse, without A bridle. I must Fall, I know, and soon, And on stones. Falling, I watch the world break In a thousand prisms About me, and yell To the brute: 'Faster!'...

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Sacred and Profane

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Purity and Danger. An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. By Mary Douglas. (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 25s.) ONCE every few years an anthropologist writes a book which...

Notes from a Sea Diary : Hemingway All the Way.

The Spectator

By Nelson Algren. (Deutsch, 30s.) Paste Book JUST as every non-writer may be said to have a book in him, so every writer may be said to have a non-book in him. Nelson Algren...

Hirohito : Emperor of Japan. By Leonard Mosley. (Weidenfeld and

The Spectator

Nicolson, 42s.) Son of Heaven EMPERORS are not the most accessible of people, but nothing daunted, and having dealt success- fully with the imperious character of Haile...

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The Future for Equities

The Spectator

Tr Au BEACH n r 1 By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT AT least one professional investor I know went to the Brighton conference. Naturally I was anxious to find out what he thought of the...

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Market Notes

The Spectator

By CUSTOS T HE issue of a new short 'tap' stock—f700 million 61 per cent Exchequer 1971 at 991— put a damper on the 'short' end of the gilt-edged market. The market in the...

Weapons of War

The Spectator

By JOHN BULL DI Rrrisii business in South Africa is having to foot part of the bill for economic sanctions against Rhodesia. The clearest example is pro- vided by the new...

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Insurance on the Road

The Spectator

CONSUMING INTEREST By LESLIE ADRIAN A furious 'proven care' motorist tells me that his agent calmly sent him a reminder this month, with a 40 per cent reduction (the old...

CROSSWORD No. 1243

The Spectator

ACROSS T. Warning implying one may be rooked on board? (to) 6. Food is everything to the very young (4) Palindromic standard of attainment (5) it. New for a jazzman (9) tz....

ACROSS. - s Resolute. 5 Grapes. 9 Filigree. to Bulbul. 12 Estate,

The Spectator

13 Calamint. 15 Weatherboard. r8 Convalescent. 23 Boniface. 24 Aspire. 26 Oriana. 27 Lumbered. 28 Signor. 29 MarginaL DOWN.-r Ruffed. 2 Sptits.'3 Legatee. 4 Tree. 6 Rhubarb. 7...

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Early to Rise

The Spectator

!ER:OP/WEN By STRIX How is it that this pleasure, innocent in itself, becomes diluted with an odious feeling of moral superiority? Our fellow-beings to whom we feel superior...