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Mr Macmillan's visit to General de Gaulle at Rambouillet and Mr Wilson's in 1967 were both, fortunately, unsuccessful. Each time, the United Kingdom's application to join the...

will try to in- troduce a Bill to make bits and pieces of the human body more readily available for transplanting. Few men are better suited to the task, for Mr Dalyell has...

Kremlin coma TIBOR SZAMUELY Party congresses have always been the major, perhaps even the only, important events of Soviet political life. The bleak mono-. tony of the frozen...

Wednesday 5 May: Amid mounting currency speculation in Bonn, the German Bank refused to buy dollars and Herr Brandt was in London speaking with the PM about the EEC at The...

The heart of the matter LEONARD BEATON It is now three years since I proposed the idea of a joint Anglo-French Nuclear Deterrent which could be held in trust for Europe. Mr...

Loosening our up-tights SALLY VINCENT Iles a funny place to come to lose your inhibitions. I wouldn't mind making the attempt on top of a mountain or at the bottom of the sea...

I by no means go along with the policies ad- vocated by Humphry Berkeley in these pages, although with much of the diagnosis and some of the remedies I would not argue very...

Belfast Brian Faulkner has settled himself nicely into Stormont Castle, the official, seat of the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. Years ago 1 saw Lord Brookeborough there...

He puts on a brave front, suggesting that things have become much better during the past few weeks, that Paisley and the Paisleyites are less of a problem. that William Craig...

The troops' job in Ulster is particularly difficult and can certainly be nasty. They are operating in their own country or almost their own country, and within the range of...

And the fight against the IRA goes well too, according to the same interpretation. 'We've got three or four of their leaders. This time WC knoll' we've got some of the right...

Lt-General Harry Tuzo from all accounts has done a considerable job in restoring morale among the troops and he and his Commander, Land Forces, Major-General Farrar-Hockley,...

The only way HUMPHRY BERKELEY In July 1970 I wrote in the Irish Indepen- dent, 'if nothing more is done by Britain than to reinforce her army presence, I believe that Major...

The orange and the green GEORGE GALE Belfast The two extreme faces of Ulster are easy to see and to hear. Most nights bombs ex- plode, and the security people make the obvious...

Out up north of Belfast past Lough Neagh, through Antrim and Ballymena and Rasharkin in a windy field a shortish march from a Presbyterian church outside the hamlet of Finvoy on...

Festival of faith STAN GEBLER DAVIES One of the most hopeful places is London- derry. It is one of the most beautifully sited cities in Europe, with the mountains and lakes of...

Life with Uncle GILLIAN FREEMAN It took me three-quarters of an hour to wrap up the parcel for its subsequent pass- ing. This was my first children's party and the parcel was...

Ernest Gellner on Freud and Reich Reviews by Colin Wilson, G. R. Elton, Frederick Copleston and Auberon Waugh Roger Scruton on Graham Greene The three novels which Heinemann...

A History of Apologetics Avery Dulles (Hutchinson £4.00) Historical Theology Jaroslav Pelikan (Hutchinson £4.00) These four books belong to the 'Theological Resources' series...

if you are unable to obtain a book re- viewed in these columns, we shall be happy to arrange for a copy to be sent to you. Write to The Sales Manager. The Spectator, 99 Gower...

These two enormous volumes—fourteen hundred pages in all—complete a four- volume work, which must be the most com- prehensive thing of its kind in the world. A review of the...

The Crisis of Parliaments: English History 1509-1660 Conrad Russell OUP £3.00) Mr Russell has written yet another textbook on Tudor and Stuart England, or rather on the period...

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can post your 'Spectator' to you each week. Send your address and 121p per copy to the Sales Man- ager, The Spectator, 99 Gower Street, London WC1.

The highest praise anyone can give to a novel which has a humorous intention is to say that it made him laugh out loud. How- ever, when a fellow-reviewer describes a book in...

Sigmund Freud: The Complete Introduce tory Lectures on Psychoanalysis translated and edited by James Strachey (Allen and Unwin £4.20) – Professor Wollheim's book on Freud's...

Charles Seaton reports: Competitors were asked to add to our store of poetical sea-pieces by commenting on the impressive spectacle of huge oil tankers apparently queueing up to...

No. 1481 DAEDALUS A prize of £3 will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 24 May. Address solutions: Crossword 1481, The Spectator, 99 Gower Street, London WCIE...

No. 650: Odd bod hols Set by M. K. Cheeseman: Specialist holidays for art-fanciers, ecologists, oenophils, cave- explorers, flower-arrangers, chess addicts and so on are a...

9 Rawish 10 Dovecote 12 Obsidian 13 All out 15 Glow 16 Lighthouse 19 Alkalinity 20 Odin 23 Sharps 25 Seizures 27 Abhorred 28 Ullage 29 Ninepins 30 Mad dog. Down: 1 Furlong 2...

• ARTS • LETTERS • MONEY. LEISURE THEATRE National disasters KENNETH HURREN Like some unlucky airline company that puts a lavish new advertising campaign under way the...

Peace work RODNEY MILNES Opera on television has been largely confined to live relays from opera houses (plump persons bawling in foreign languages in long shot) or studio...

Travelling men Patrick SKENE CATLING The two-part documentary on Thor Hey- erdahl's Ra expeditions, in the World About Us (BBC 2), was an exceptionally successful example of...

The right noises CHRISTOPHER HUDSON After glutting the senses on crocodile tear-jerk- ers, frenzied musicals and blood - boltered Westerns, it used to be possible to restore...

Doll dance ROBIN YOUNG Sad to think that there are still balletomanes who regard Petrouchka as the most moving piece of choreographic art ever created. It is a In the Festival...

letter from Mr W. E. Bell (8 May) concerning the past Government's flouting of public opinion over the Abortion Bill and this one's intention to act in a similarly high-handed...

booking office at Victoria station, and buy- ing a ticket to Basle, no formality nor passport required? There was a customs examination. After the first war it seemed as silly...

Letters from Constantine FitzGib- bon, Tony Palmer, J. A. G. Grif- fith, Rear-Admiral Sir Anthony Buzzard, Ganesh Lall and others. Going into Europe Sir: In arguments against...

Sir: Reference the last sentence of your confrontation with Mr Fairlie (leader, article and footnote, 17 April), I submit that 'a great dis- service is rendered' by your...

Sir: My attention has been drawn (a form of words I use only to emphasise that I would not expend the Queen's new pence on pur- chasing your journal) to a Letter entitled 'On...

Sir: President Nyercre has once again committed another thought- less act of expropriation and dealt another severe blow to the helpless Asian community. This apostle of...

Sir: One or two facts about my visit to the Teesside Film Theatre might illuminate Mr Jeffrey Edwards. It is true I arrived twenty minutes late, although this was agreed...

Sir: Congratulations to Robert Chartham (Letters, 24 April) who suggests that stored semen and AIH could get over vasectomy difficulties of the irrever- sibility of the...

Sir: Though John Blackwood and his authority (Letters, 1 May) could be right in their rather un- vivid explanation of the 'dog' in dog's mercury, I remember a de- monstrator in...

Sir: Oh, let us have done with all this Monarchy money business: let us do away with the Civil List : let us reduce the Monarch to private citizenship: let us subject her to tax...

Sir: Surely the Minister respon- sible for public expenditure on the Arts is right to maintain that. 'Members of the public are en- titled to expect that the money is spent for...

Sir: Your 'Notebook' (1 May) implies that Mr Soames's views on the Common Market are not those of the Government. However, after his notorious speech urging EEC political union...

Sir: On the occasion of the publi- cation of the Metrication Board's second annual report, the chairman (Lord Ritchie-Calder) delivered himself of a speech on 6 April of this...

Euro- money muddle NICHOLAS DAVENPORT The reason why this currency crisis has been taken so calmly is that the brunt of it falls on West Germany. Europeans generally get a...

Fleabitten The Guardian's 150th anniversary dinner at the Dorchester was generous, though a little slavish, with a prudent mixture of old and present Guardian staff (with some...

Mr Cyril Bennett has been taken on as Programme Controller for London Weekend Television by the new Chairman Mr John Freeman. We are back where we started but Mr Bennett should...

three selections materialised last weekend, only to be foiled by disastrous starting- prices. leaving the return a mere £6.33. Meanwhile the Derby remains an enigma— York's...

England's leading papist the Duke of Norfolk is the unlikely president- of the- £600,000 restoration fund for Chichester Cathedral. Last week Sotheby's sold by auction ob-...

Sir John Eden. .Mr Nicholas Ridley and other minions of Mr John Davies are mak- ing spirited attempts to hive off parts of the British Steel Corporation, not excluding Lord...

ar t TONY PALMER You may have read recently of the demise of The Little Red School Book. Its recent publication passed unnoticed until certain of its booksellers were...

It might have been expected that milk would not be a 'me' drink. The family doctor, sum- moned for the umpteenth icky time, pro- nounced, 'Give this child beer, whisky,...

At this time of year all sensible people rise from their beds very early in the morning: five o'clock is not a minute too soon to catch the best of the day. Sometimes I even do...

being voted last week Wine and Food Writer of the Year. Mrs Vandyke Price won the award (spon- sored by William Grant and Sons) for articles which appeared in the SPECTATOR, for...

At Achnahannet, a couple of miles down the road from Urquhart Castle on the northern shore of Loch Ness, there is a small cluster of caravans painted Local Authority green, some...

Through most of the 1960s I lived in Wembley Park, that entirely fortuitous suburban growth which came in for its annual burst of brief glory a few days ago with the Cup Final,...

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