Cr take your point about frankness!' wrote Mrs Thatcher, accepting the resignation of James Prior as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. He was re- placed by Mr Douglas...

Nil desperandum M inister without Portfolio, David Young (tni1)."Paymaster General, John Gummer (Mil)'. Thus the Times on two of Mrs Thatcher's new appointments. One can...

T he question of whether the SDP and Liberals should merge is at present of ve ry little public interest, but might be- me extremely important during the next general election....

M r David Young has been appointed to the Cabinet without yet holding a seat in either House of Parliament. Surely this is unconstitutional? Not so, according to the Downing...

UK Eire Surface mail Air mail 6 months: £17.25 £17.25 £ 20.50 £26.50 One year: £34.50 F34.50 £41.00 £53.00 For special offer turn to p.44 Name Address US Subscriptions:...

uppose you are a nob in the Kremlin and you have just got rid of Nikolai Ogarkov, your Chief of Staff and Deputy Defence Minister, for reasons best known to yourself, what do...

A erospatiale, the French manufactur- ers of the Exocet missile have place an advertisement in the Economist. They are offended by the 'orchestrated cam- paigns of denigration'...

visit to her husband in a Soviet prison (`The Koryagin family', 1 September), Mr Christopher Wood of Seymour Place, London Wl, has written to ask if we could publish the address...

Welling Up Auberon Waugh T remember hearing the late Richard Grossman, when he was Secretary of State for the Social Services, express the view that somewhere in the Central...

W ho would have believed that a time would come when an Englishman had to travel to the South of France for some proper . . . marmalade? At breakfast this morning in Vence, high...

Christopher Hitchens Washington S ee if you can parse the following sent- ence: If our opponents were as vigorous in sup- porting our voluntary prayer amendment as they were...

Charles Glass On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on. He'd dreamed he was...

Anthony Mockler H aile Selassie must have been the tiniest Emperor in the world. There is a splendid story told of him at Nasser's funeral. The Heads of State were proces- s...

Bohdan Nahaylo riardinal Joseph Slipyi, the leader of the k.../ill-fated Ukrainian Catholic Church, who died in Rome on 7 September, was the last of the outstanding East...

The future congregation Andrew Gimson Buxton I f the trouble with' socialism is that it takes too many evenings, the trouble with social democracy is that it takes too holding...

Nicholas Budgen S hould your laws be made by the likes of Mr Dennis Skinner and Mr Nicholas Winterton or do you prefer Lord Scarman in his judicial capacity and even his Ger-...

ake Fletcher T here are,' in the magisterial and, it seems to me, definitive opinion of J. Smith, a thuggish 12 year-old and n ugleader of the criminal element in Form 413,...

THE SUNSET SHIP, poems by J. M. W. Turner, by Jack Lindsay. J. S. Whittingham, 153 Cromwell Rd., London SW5 OT4. THE LAND by V.'Sackville-West. A. Gardner, 29 Connaught Avenue,...

Stan Gebler Davies Kinsale, Co. Cork S omerville and Ross, thanks to the box, are famous again. Last week was held a festival in their honour in Castle Towns- bend, where they...

Patrick Cosgrave ome weeks ago I received a postcard from Paris, from my old friend Chris. I was greeted most effusively, Chris thanked me for my invitation, and looked forward...

In vain have the thunders of Acts of Parliament been launched against those who defile the waters of the River Lea. They might just as well have been so many Papal Bulls. Under...

Big Brother Censor Paul Johnson A nyone who cares about freedom of publication in this country should be d eeply worried by the organised and in- creasingly frequent efforts...

Featuring a Heath cartoon Get yours now! See Classified Advertisements, p.39. •

rrhere is a Nelson touch to the Peninsu- lar and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, incorporated in 1840 by charter of Queen Victoria. It wins its battles at the cost of its...

City and Black market T he National Stock Labour Scheme is getting a touch of the Felixstowes. Desirable as it may be, on broad social grounds, to confine all business in...

A kind friend in the Treasury has come up with a copy of F.F. Bovet's French Conversation for English Travellers. This, he says, will explain (and to foreigners , too) what is...

D own the transatlantic cable growled a familiar voice, deeper than the ocean: 'We have a disaster on our hands.' Eliot Janeway, sage emeritus of Wall Street and Washington,...

Glister of liquid gold Jock Bruce-Gardyne T en years ago, not long after the demise of the Heath Government, I was up- braided by one of its erstwhile members for the way in...

Sir: 'He and I have one thing in common -- boring.' • I. Shiels, 5 Willoughby Drive. Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear

Sir: No less intriguing than the Serpenti ne Gallery's sardine-tin in the bathtub is one of the Tate's 'new acquisitions', proudly displayed in Room 44. It is a small glass case...

Sir: Am I right in believing I have located the earliest use of the noun 'gay' to denote a homosexualist? In Timothie Kendall 's Flowres of Epigrammes (1577) I find the...

Leading authority Sir: I am bowled over by Peter Levi's generosity of spirit (Books, 18 August): he shows justice of mind, so rare a quality in a critic, or anybody. (One can...

Sir: One would assume from Murray Sayle's article (Books, 28 July) that it was intended to be a review of the two hooks recently published on Bomber Harris, one by Dudley Saward...

Gross aggravation Auberon Waugh Public Scandal, Odium and Contempt: An investigation of recent libel cases David Hooper (Seeker and Warburg £12.95) W e have yet to hear a...

Alastair Forbes More of my Life A.J. Ayer (Collins £12.95) P rofessor Ayer has chosen the bicenten- ary of Denis Diderot, that most de- lightful of polymaths whom Browning...

Christopher Hawtree Mr Noon D. H. Lawrence (Cambridge University Press £12.95) 'The New Novel by D. H. Lawrence,' proclaims a golden banner around the jacket of this latest...

Peter Levi Snow Light, Water Light Frances Horovitz (Bloodaxe £1.50) rr he poetry of Frances Horovitz was 1 curiously all of a piece, like John Betjeman's, from the moment she...

Lewis Jones A Trick of the Light Sebastian Faulks (Bodley Head £7.95) S ebastian Faulks's first novel is set in London and begins in Dickensian vein: `Wyn Douglas lived in...

Piedmont, Bisley, Stroud, Glos GL6 7BU. Please add 50p on mail orders.

Gillian Greenwood The Irish Signorina Julia O'Faolain (Viking £7.95) he family and the multifarious rela- tionships therein seem to be the con- tinuing preoccupation of this...

Brandon Russell The Unforgotten Patrice Chaplin (Duckworth £8.95) Mythago Wood Robert Holdstock (Gollancz £8.95) Happy Trails Adam Shand Kydd (Heinemann £7.95) D estructive,...

Brian Masters Wickedness: A Philosophical Essay Mary Midgley (RKP £14.95) Dhilosophers have an endearing habit of I tackling problems they know to be insoluble, for the...

Andrew Brown The Alexander Trilogy Mary Renault (Penguin £4.95) The Friendly Young Ladies Mary Renault (Virago £3.90) I t is curious that the 'hospital novel' has become a...

Real and fantastic David Wakefield The Age of Vermeer and de Hooch: masterpieces of 17th-century Dutch genre painting (Royal Academy till 18 November) T he Autumn season has...

The real thing Christopher Edwards Playboy of the Western World (Riverside Studios) terrible play, terrible! There was ructions in the theatre when th' poor people staggered...

Themeless Noel Malcolm S o many unpleasant thin g s have been said by now about Radio 4's Thursday mornin g Rollercoaster that it may seen . ' pointless, thou g h still...

Flag-flying Peter Phillips U nless somethin g g oes seriously amiss in the last week of the Prom season one wonders what it could be — the concerts this year will be deemed to...

Revealing Peter Levi C ometimes television is so revealing you can hardly believe your eyes. Out of the purest sense of duty, I watched a lot of deadly news about the TUC and...

In full sail Taki T ast Monday I opened the Daily Mail and its centrefold brought back memories. Unlike the filth magazines that feature nude hookers in the middle, the Mail's...

Disconglobated P. J. Kavanagh T he influence of a great man can take .05 by surprise. In Capua Vetere, in August, they ha d lined the street with wooden arches, se t with...

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for an imaginary extract from a story entitled either 'Beware the Office Romeo' or 'Blonde for a Week', Torrid scenes aplenty — on the...

No. 1338: After you, Wilhelm Set by Jaspistos: You are asked for a verse translation, as strict or free as you please, of Goethe's 'Hypochonder': Der Teufel hol das...

Equilibrium Raymond Keene T T his week I concentrate on notes to the . first Karpov-Kasparov world cham- p i onship game. The bare scores to these games will be appearing in...

Virgo by Mass Prize: £10 – or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, 1983 edition (ring the word 'Dictionary' under name and address) – for the first correct solution opened on 1...

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Hedgehog roast T do not really like the description 'meat loaf, nor have I ever liked the taste of the product. It always seemed a trifle dry and sawdusty, though I am sure...

The Spectator for twelve months and receive free THE GAMES WAR A Moscow Journal by Christopher Booker Open to non-subscribers or to those who want to take out a gift...