T he deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Mr Peter Robinson, was arrested in the village of Clontibret, Co Monaghan, after a group of loyalists daubed the police...

BAD SPORTS T he Manchester United fans who attacked a bar, a tram, a number of cars and a policeman in Amsterdam last weekend were attending a 'friendly' tournament organised...

LAST week four Sikh terrorists in Poona gunned down General Arun Vaidya, the retired Indian Chief of Army Staff. That terrorists should kill anyone is lamentable; that terrorism...

Peter Robinson's prank and Douglas Hurd's prize T.E.0 TLEY I t is of course notoriously difficult for Englishmen to keep a sense of proportion about Irish affairs....

IAN JACK f course, we have all grown used to seeing television commercials which adver- tise things which really don't need to be advertised. Public utilities such as gas and...

The M25 has led to yet greater pressure to build on the Green Belt round London. Andrew Gimson reports on the battle between hypermarkets and conservationists 'IT IS not an...

Dhiren Bhagat exposes the hypocrisy of Indian policy towards South Africa IN ALL the excited columns that got written about the stormy sessions at the Marlborough House...

Edward Peters examines the dismissal of 111 Gurkhas in the light of the Brigade's recent history IN the second world war, when the Allied forces were retreating down Malaya...

Richard West on the sour awakening of Aberdeen from dreams of oil wealth THE Queen is coming this week to Aber- deen, the capital of the North Sea oil industry, the city that...

THE CARING STATE THAT RUINS US Stan Gebler Davies argues against the received idea that the state can look after people THE more the state cares, the more damage it does....

why the Left is unlikely to produce a successful national paper ALL new newspapers are welcome. I am particularly keen to see a new left-wing paper launched, as its content,...

Sir: Woodrow Wyatt's Paean to Bophuthatswana (Diary 19, July) provides a glimmer of an alternative (confederacy?) to the world's demand for majority rule in a unitary South...

Sir: The Liberals' dirty tactics (James limes, 'The success of smelly Elly', 26 July), so startlingly undenounced by Dr David Owen, can misfire. In Surbiton we have a hung...

Sir: I admire T. E. Utley more than somewhat, up to and including his essay on Mrs Thatcher (9 August). But he rejects too swiftly what he terms the 'illusion' of Thatcherism....

Sir: Low marks for homework on the Proms to Peter Phillips (Music, 26 July), who says they have 'no guiding themes'. The strong Italian element has not only been pointed up...

Sir: Auberon Waugh contrasts his Portu- guese Perequita 1981 with 'the sort of wine served at Tupperware parties in Islington by young married couples anxious to impress' (Wine...

-Sir: Yag (Letters, 19 July) is Hindustani for 'rebel'. In the middle of the last century the populations of the Tangir and Darel valleys fought a bitter campaign against the...

Sir: I hope Andrew Brown's forthcoming book on the police is more accurate than his article ('Arming for the next riot', 19 July). The old SPG was not trained to come out of its...

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The end of the tether Colin Welch THE COLLECTED LETTERS OF JOSEPH CONRAD: VOLUME II, 1898-1902 edited by Frederick R. Karl and Laurence Davies Cambridge University Press,...

Byron Rogers A CAST OF KILLERS by Sidney Kirkpatrick Hutchinson, £10.95 T his is intended as a detective story. In the last locked box the biographer finally accounted for the...

of expression has been a benefit or hindrance to the novel. The following week, Piers Paul Read will put an opposing point of view.

Patrick Skene Catling ONLY BY MISTAKE by P. J. Kavanagh John Calder, £9.95 I nnocence is so rare, even in its least daring, negative form of nonwickedness, that the shining...

Francis King MATING BIRDS by Lewis Nkosi Constable, £8.95 F ar more American novels about life in the Deep South have concerned them- selves with perilous sexual relationships...

Caroline Moorehead MY APPOINTMENT WITH THE MUSE: ESSAYS, 1961-1975 by Paul Scott Heinemann, £14.95 F or the last 18 years of his life, from the age of 40 when he stopped...

You argued up that dead hill's streaming side, You blamed and queried all the way. And so did I. You grumbled while you scrambled at the top, You neither glanced nor gazed But...

William Joll THE VALLEY OF THE COBRAS: THE ADVENTURES OF JO, ZEITE AND JOCK° by Herge Methuen, £4.95 L ike most modern-day publishers, the house of Methuen is currently in...

John Zametica STALIN AND THE SHAPING OF THE SOVIET UNION by Alex de Jonge Collins, £17.50 W riting in the very first issue of Pravda, Stalin suggested that 'a strong and...

4 '4 " 5 0 104/10;1 7 II Ili" , vom 111 mi) .11 an. I T 11000 0 "' Sights for sore eyes Allan Massie I used to know an Aberdeenshire farmer who had a very pretty wife....

Fionna Carlisle (369 Gallery till 31 August) John Bellany (Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art till 21 September) Bruce McLean (Scottish Gallery till 3 September) Hot...

Long Day's Journey into Night (Theatre Royal, Haymarket) The American Clock (Cottesloe) True notes of despair Christopher Edwards E ugene O'Neill's sprawling, guilt- sodden...

on the retail price (equivalent to 10 issues FREE) Subscription rates are being held at the old price for a limited period Only. Take advantage of this special offer now! I...

The strife of Brian Peter Phillips W hat is to be done about Havergal Brian? There seems to be some genuine interest in his music at the moment; but does it result from...

Cobra ('18', selected cinemas) The revenger's tragedy Peter Ackroyd S ylvester Stallone's voice has never been lower as, at the beginning of this film, he intones various of...

Getting it right Peter Levi E very single one of Shakespeare's plays has an organic rhythm of its own. I do not think he understood the five-act system until mid-career, but...

Weighed down Jeffrey Bernard I spent three hours in the Middlesex clinic a couple of days ago and they said they weren't happy about my legs. Neither am I. But at least they...

In the swim Taki t doesn't make sense, but the older the shipowner, the faster the boat. Take Evan- ghelos Nomikos, for example. He was very rich and always owned magnificent...

The egg and I Alice Thomas Ellis I have a tendency to go on about the extraordinariness of the egg. I think the meaning of the universe is bound up with the egg. In the exact...

This is the fourth of a summer series of lithographs of the Kent and Sussex seaside by Alan Powers, entitled Views of the South Coast. The series, which has eight prints in all,...

A whiter than white sauvignon Auberon Waugh I had hoped to cover the full range of major French white grapes, but could not find a French chardonnay to rival in price or...

REDPATH & THACKRAY WINES Common Lane, Sawston, Cambridge CB2 4HW Telephone: (0223) 833495 Ref Product No. Value Pinot d'Alsace 1985 12 bets. £41.61 Quincy 1983,...

WHEN I started this column, the first restaurant I wanted to write about was Le Muscadet in Paddington Street (935 2883). Unfortunately I got rumbled by one of the patrons,...

To enable competitors to economise on postage, entries for one or more weeks of the competition and crossword may be posted together under one cover addressed 'Competition...

Bouts Times Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1433 you were asked to write a poem to a given rhyme-scheme. The words themselves, and the order they come in, I borrowed from a...

Triumvirate Raymond Keene T he coincidence of dates between the world championship and the Kleinwort- Grieveson British championship (both starting on 28 July) could either be...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £12.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) will be awarded for the...

There used to be a game in which two teams of relay runners attempted to trans- mit the same message, which had to be whispered, through five stages — with hilariously...

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