16 DECEMBER 1989

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PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK

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`Wait until Count Tolstoy hears about this.' he forced repatriation of Vietnamese boat people began with a flight carrying 51 refugees back to Hanoi from overcrowded camps in...

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SPECTAT THE OR

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The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WCIN 2LL Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST W as it, we wonder, our marvellous British sense of...

THE SPECCATOR

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SUBSCRIBE TODAY - Save 10% on the Cover Price! RATES 12 Months 6 Months UK ❑ £66.00 0 £33.00 Europe (airmail) ❑ £77.00 0 £38.50 USA Airspeed 0 US $99 0 $49.50 Rest of...

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POLITICS

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Mr Heseltine gets up full steam and plunges of the rails NOEL MALCOLM T here is a book waiting to be written. If well done, it would rank with the works of, say, Dr...

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DIARY ALAN WATKINS

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T hirty years ago the Foreign Office successfully prohibited the playing of the East German national anthem at an athle- tics meeting at the White City. The West- ern line was...

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ANOTHER VOICE

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How the blonds swap babies for toads AUBERON WAUGH O ne of the joys of writing this column, from which I must shortly take an extended break while I apply myself to my...

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OF MARX, MICE AND YEN

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As communist Europe is being turned upside down, Murray Sayle views a changing world from a Far Eastern perspective Tokyo THE BELLS peal out in Berlin, in Valetta the Maltese...

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A DICTIONARY OF CANT

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ELITISM. The doctrine that extraor- dinary ability should be fostered. It is strong in the Soviet Union in order to put excellence in the service of the state. English socialism...

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THE SUITS

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Michael Heath

AS IF IT WERE NORMAL

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Timothy Garton Ash watches the East taking readily to democracy Warsaw IN revolutions, those who were at the bottom suddenly come out on top. Prison- ers take charge of the...

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SCENES FROM SCIENCE

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Sweeteners NOBODY can tell precisely what makes a particular substance taste sweet to you — not even organic chemists who are professionally engaged in synthesis- ing...

Correction

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In John Simpson's article from Prague last week, the heading should have referred to `the turncoats revolving at Czechoslovak television'.

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THE RETURN OF THE PRINCE

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Amity Shlaes discovers that in post-communist central Europe, it is all right to be royal Prague 'SORRY, all full,' whisper the pale clerks to the businessman from Zaire who...

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FREE DEMOCRAT FREE SPIRIT

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A philosopher has just fought a free election in Hungary. Charles Moore joined him Budapest `WHEN I was a boy,' Gaspar Miklos Tamas told me, 'my idea was to be Doge of Venice,...

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POOR AND UNHAPPY FOREVER

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Anthony Daniels discusses the repatriation of the Vietnamese boat people `CHOW time!' exclaimed the CBS camera- man, rushing over to the main gate of Sham Shui Po Closed...

One hundred years ago

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AN EPIDEMIC of influenza has appeared in Russia, Germany, Austria, and France, and it is feared it may spread to England also. In St Peters- burg and Vienna it has attacked all...

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DOES EC EQUAL CEH?

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W. J. West suggests what Gorbachev is really try to get out of the European Community HAS anyone heard of the Jackson-Vanik amendment? Not in Britain, to judge by the media...

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THE MARKETING OF ERNEST SAUNDERS

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Cassandra Jardine hears the story of a man obsessed with fighting fraud charges IT didn't matter being half an hour late for supper with Ernest Saunders. He assured me most...

SPECTATORS FOR POLAND Please give a year's subscription to a

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Pole this Christmas. Cheques for £35 per subscription should be sent to: Spectators for Poland, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL. Full details of the scheme...

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TELEVISION, REFORM AND THE BIG LIE

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The media: Paul Johnson advises Tory MPs not to be conned by the duopoly ACTS of Parliament, especially big and complicated ones, rarely have exactly the effects intended by...

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Service contracts

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PUBLIC service broadcasting (defined by its practitioners as 'What we do, old boy') has some odd effects on those who do it. Look at TVS, the company with the plum franchise for...

Hush, John . . .

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JOHN MAJOR has been rallying his back- benchers with talk of inflation and unem- ployment. What with statements in the House, questions, debates, run rounds with the Treasury...

CITY AND SUBURBAN

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Water, wine and an unconvincing claim for popular alcoholism CHRISTOPHER FILDES A watery smog of self-satisfaction comes drifting down from Whitehall. The Government's new...

. . . Noel, Nigel MESSAGE of seasonal goodwill for

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Nigel Lawson: who says they never come back? Compare V. P. Singh, who resigned as Rajiv Gandhi's finance minister and dis- avowed higher ambition, saying that he would make a...

Paper chase

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BRITAIN as the workshop of the world may have lost some of its markets, but when it comes to printing bits of paper and selling them to foreigners we are still tip-top. Our unit...

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Ancient Croker

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Sir: Your readers, I hope, will forgive me for not responding to John Evershed's long letter (9 December) about my views on the EC. I set them out plainly in my article and,...

Brave glide

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Sir: In his otherwise excellent article 'Nor- mandy memories' (11 November) Gavin Stamp writes – 'Pegasus Bridge ... was taken and held by British paratroops dur- ing the night...

LETTERS Death of Brecht

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Sir: 'I suspect that Tynan has a lot to answer for,' writes Christopher Edwards, reviewing Brecht's The Good Person of Sichuan (2 December), 'for it was his advocacy that helped...

Envy

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Sir: Sometimes I could just punch Auberon Waugh (Another voice, 2 December) on the nose. Anne Carr (Aged 47 and not even likely to be ordinari- ly rich in three years' time.)...

Beef beef

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Sir: Jennifer Paterson's Food column on dry spiced beef (2 December) should send warning shots crashing across any cook's bow: `...though the time isn't given for the larger...

Eastern right

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Sir: I was interested to read the reactions of your Polish readers to 'Spectators for Poland' (9 December), and in par- ticular the remark by Stanislaw Plewako from Warsaw that...

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BOOKS

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Digging up the Undertaker Alastair Forbes M y interest in the young historian from the University of East Anglia, Dr John Charmley, was first aroused some years ago when he...

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Accepting the Inevitable

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Waking in the middle of the night, I used to prop the notepad on my knee To ward off all the agencies of fright, And chunter about immortality, The threat of cancer, living with...

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Not a Burkean Conservative as he thought

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Conor Cruise O'Brien A TORY SEER: THE SELECTED JOURNALISM OF T.E. UTLEY edited by Charles Moore and Simon Helfer Hamish Hamilton, £14.95, pp.346 I t was an excellent idea to...

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I must go back to the start and to the

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source, Risk and relish, trust my language too, For there are messages which need strong powers. I tell their tale but rhythm rings them true. This is a risky age, a troubled...

What faith teaches us is not impossible

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Piers Paul Read ST THOMAS AQUINAS'S SUMMA THEOLOGIAE: A CONCISE TRANSLATION edited by Timothy McDermott Eyre & Spottiswoode, f40, pp.651 M odern times for the modern man...

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A choice of funny books

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Richard Ingrams T he only classy offering this Christmas is Ronald Searle's latest oeuvre, Slightly Foxed — but still desirable (Souvenir, £14.95), a large-format book of...

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Terms of trial

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D. J. Taylor THE PALE COMPANION by Andrew Motion Viking, L11.95, pp.164 T he first volume, apparently, in a link- ed series of novels about English life over the last 20...

The taste of a Yorkshireman in America

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C. H. Sisson UNDER BRIGGFLATTS: A HISTORY OF POETRY IN GREAT BRITAIN 1960-1988 by Donald Davie Carcanet, £18.95, pp.261 T his is an odd book. It could hardly be otherwise,...

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If you knew

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time as well as I do. • • Andro Linklater THE DEVIL'S MODE by Anthony Burgess Hutchinson, £12.95, pp.2 71 M ore than a quarter of a century at the top of English fiction...

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ARTS

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Exhibitions Critical issues Giles Auty The Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in Post-war Britain (Hayward Gallery, till 4 February) Anish Kapoor (Lisson Gallery, till 4...

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In next week's Christmas double issue: Edward Chaney visits the

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Inigo Jones exhibition at the Royal Academy. Christopher Edwards reviews some sea- sonal plays. Ursula Buchan rakes over the garden leaves and discovers some rather extra-...

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Dance

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The Prince of the Pagodas (Covent Garden) Problematic revival D eirdre McMahon B y the mid-1950s The Sleeping Beauty was indelibly associated with the Royal Ballet. However,...

Cinema

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When Harry Met Sally (15', Odeon Haymarket) Bittersweet treat Hilary Mantel T h is his amiable romantic comedy aid's to strip away the complications from a com- plicated...

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Music

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Time trouble Peter Phillips R Nashville, Tennessee umour has it that your correspondent is about to be given a drubbing in a learned American academic journal on the subject...

Television

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Table talk Wendy Cope L ast week's big television event was The Mahabharata (Channel 4), which I missed because it was too long to go on a four-hour videotape. There didn't...

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Low life

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Too hot to handle Jeffrey Bernard L ike infants and geriatrics, diabetics have priority when it comes to having a shot of flu vaccine. Well, you could have fooled me. I have...

High life

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Toeing the party line Taki ast week I flew into London, went through Customs unscathed, and was in a taxi and homeward bound while some of the rich were still deplaning. The...

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New life

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One problem licked Zenga Longmore C lawhammer Jones Bingo suggested I throw a surprise party, the surprise being that the guests would all be forced to paint the flat. The...

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MUM

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Dinner of the decade I FIND it difficult to convince people of the hardness of the wine writer's lot — the physical and mental slog of vertical and horizontal tastings, the...

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CHESS

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Game of the Decade Raymond Keene T his week and next, I propose to sum up the chess environment over the 1980s. This week I choose the player, book and game of the decade,...

COMPETITION

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Mammon Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1604 you were in- vited to compose a sonnet to Mammon, indulging your fantasies, beginning, or not, with Belloc's line: 'Would that I had...

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Solution to 936: At one remove 1 G ■ 0 ' 01 1 S

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E 13 6 E R Nes NMI R 1 6 P I A N0 A0DER RI 11 3 R 0 A I I E l E l E D Y Eir liiR L L v 2 "?) 4 FI 7 Y F ° 0 el- O't A C30 D P I ETE 8 1 . ,...FLA 1 I 2 k rrr Al P U I AL P...

No. 1607: Abecedarian

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We all know 'An Austrian army, awfully arrayed,/ Boldly, by battery, besieged Bel- grade.' You are challenged to write a similar 'alphabet' poem, covering 12 con- secutive...

CROSSWORD 939: Jonathan by Mass

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A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers English Dictionary — ring the word `Dictionary') for the first three correct solutions...