17 OCTOBER 1998

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PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK

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M r Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the week after the Bank of England had cut interest rates by a quar- ter of a percentage point, declared that he would not...

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SPECTATOR

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The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 0171-405 1706; Fax 0171-242 0603 FARM IT OUT T en thousand miners marching through the streets of Blackpool during...

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POLITICS

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How their Lordships ought to conduct their fight in the last ditch BRUCE ANDERSON It follows, therefore, that constitutional questions should be approached with humil- ity....

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DIARY SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

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n the night train from Moscow to Smolensk, I shared a compartment with a white-haired psychopath who sat on the bunk opposite in his Y-fronts and stared at me with burning eyes....

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SHARED OPINION

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For posterity, the problem is not indiscreet diarists, but discreet sources FRANK JOHNSON T hey have been in the Sunday Times these last two weeks. As I write, the last...

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THE QUEEN WHO STILL RULES US

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Alison Weir explains what lies behind yet another surge of interest in Elizabeth I She has ever been so. Since she came to the throne in 1558, Eliza- beth I has endlessly fas-...

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Mind your language

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I WAS wrapped up in a sort of horse blanket and standing in a field with Veronica by my side on the night of Thursday last week, ready to look at the spectacular shower of...

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THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT!

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Mark Steyn on some of the novel arguments of Mr Clinton's defenders New Hampshire AND ON it goes: a vote to inquire into impeachment, followed by a vote to impeach, followed...

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GORDON'S DECLINE IS PETER'S RISE

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Irwin Stelzer on how the economy is changing the relative importance of Mr Brown and Mr Mandelson THE REVISIONISTS haven't waited until Gordon Brown leaves office; he has gone...

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Second opinion

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I HESITATE to bring my own suffer- ings, terrible though they undoubtedly are, before the reading public, but I am actuated by a profound sense of duty in doing so. It would be...

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WRITTEN INTO FAME

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Toby Young on what suddenly made two unknown Britons known to all Manhattan New York WITHIN the small, close-knit group of British expats living here, something approximating a...

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THE DANGER TO PAUL

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Piers Paul Read speculates that Paul Johnson might be a heretic who risks excommunication ALTHOUGH I have known Paul Johnson for around 30 years, I cannot claim to be a...

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MR PRESCOTT'S PR JOB

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I HAVE lost count of the number of times I have expressed my strongly held view that electoral reform is central to the New Labour project. Roy Jenkins has convinced Mr Blair...

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THE BLAIRS

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Michael Heath

MISJUDGMENTS OF MO

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Henry McDonald dissents from his fellow liberal journalists' admiration for Dr Mowlam's performance ONE of the first people to shake hands with Mo Mowlam on her maiden visit to...

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AND ANOTHER THING

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Shaping up for a new moral catastrophe in the 21st century PAUL JOHNSON Strictly speaking, human germ-line engi- neering — altering a human sperm or egg to effect changes...

Classifieds — pages 68-70

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Sir: Richard Lamb assures us that Edward Heath is correct,

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Frank Johnson is wrong and Munich was a disaster. But a disaster for whom? We now know, of course, what Hitler thought of Munich in retrospect (early 1945): 'From the military...

Our year of grace

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Sir: Richard Lamb makes some telling points in support of the view that 'Britain and France were far stronger vis-à-vis Hitler in 1938 than in 1939' (Letters, 10 October), but...

LETTERS Tricks of memory

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Sir: Simon Hoggart's article about the Troubles (The Thirty Years War', 10 Octo- ber) contained little to surprise regular readers of his Guardian column. In writing about...

Lady of the Left

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Sir: I return to England after a month in France to find that the usual low standards prevail, exemplified by Sion Simon's child- ish abuse quoted by Liz Davies (Letters, 3...

Radio gaga

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Sir: What is wrong with the BBC? Michael Vestey (Arts, 3 October) describes the technical incompetence and perverse rescheduling on Radio Four. I wonder if he has overheard the...

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Wrong sex

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Sir: Michael Heath's 'amusing cover' on your 10 October issue has indeed been a conversation piece. I asked the man in my life, 'Why are all the images used to depict sex and...

The mysteries of recall

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Sir: To return to that line from Phedre, Simon Gray energetically reminds us that it comes from a play and provides an admirable sketch of the dramatic context (Letters, 10...

Germany's debt

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Sir: Mr von Reimann is asking for justice for the Prussians who for the most part fled before the advancing Russian armies (Let- ters, 10 October). He might reflect on the fact...

Good karma

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Sir: Although I have been only recently persuaded of the religious advantages of Hinduism, I cannot be alone in concluding that in my next life a reincarnation as David...

Wheeler-dealer

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Sir: Attending my first Conservative party conference in Bournemouth last week, I was more than a little disappointed to find that my car, which was parked in the Stakis Hotel...

Sullied scribes

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Sir: 'Absolute lack of power corrupts abso- lutely ... ' (Pierre Trudeau's comment on a Canadian journalist). Practitioners of today's investigative jour- nalism get out of...

The uses of literacy

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Sir: How ungrateful of my former 'brother officer', Nicholas Lunt (Letters, 3 Octo- ber), to imply that I am, or was, illiterate. If he were to cast his mind back, he might...

LETTERS Acute embarrassment

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Sir: Ian Ousby is right to reprove me for allowing the illiteracy `marechale' to appear in The First World War, which he reviewed last week (Books, 10 October). He is wrong,...

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MEDIA STUDIES

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Nice Mr Rusbridger sets that rough Camilla on us again STEPHEN GLOVER M y column last week about the Guardian contained an error which I shall come to. Let me first describe...

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BOOKS

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Opium and oblivion Philip Hensher COLERIDGE: DARKER REFLECTIONS by Richard Holmes HarperCollins, £19.99, pp. 584 A t the end of Peter Weir's magnificent new film, The Truman...

All books reviewed in The Spectator are available through THE

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DIARY 1999

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£14 Plain £15 Initialled The Spectator 1999 Diary, bound in soft red goatskin leather, is now available. Laid out with a whole week to view, Monday to Sunday, the diary is 5" x...

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What dire effects from civil discords flow

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Keith Cooper A HOUSE DIVIDED by Mary Allen Simon & Schuster, £16.99, pp. 304 F rustratingly, my review copy of Mary Allen's diaries had no index. Well, if you had worked with...

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A choice of first novels

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Sophie Ratcliffe T hey're all in it, in Daniel Menaker's The Treatment (Faber, £9.99, pp. 269). Set in a Therapy Central pre-Prozac New York, Jake Singer, a depressed...

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A liberal icon

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Maurice Cowling ISAIAH BERLIN by Michael Ignatieff Chatto, £20, pp. 338 I saiah Berlin was born in Tsarist Russia in 1909 and was brought up by adoring par- ents in Riga,...

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The flash of the knife

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Anne Chisholm THE JOURNALIST AND THE MURDERER by Janet Malcolm Papermac, .E12, pp. 176 I t is not easy for other journalists and biographers to know what to make of Janet...

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How, why and wow!

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Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy UNWEAVING THE RAINBOW by Richard Dawkins Penguin, £20, pp. 337 W ith a profound, completely original thesis to unfold, as in The Selfish Gene, Richard...

THE SPECTATOR BOOKSHOP .4 41 :k,,

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BookoftheWeek ft. Save E3 16.99 (rrp £19.99) Coleridge: Darker Reflections The first volume of Richard Holmes' biography of Coleridge, Coleridge: Early Visions, won the...

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The passing of Arthur

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Cressida Connolly PRECIOUS LIVES by Margaret Forster Chatto, £16.99, pp. 232 O urs is not to reason why, ours but to do and die, is about as unfashionable an idea as hot...

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A cool father of fifteen

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L. G. Mitchell GEORGE III S ubtitled 'a personal history', here is a biography that is a compilation of pleasant anecdotes. All the difficult bits are left out. Although its...

Excellent fun in Papua New Guinea

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Philip Glazebrook THROWIM WAY LEG by Tim Flannery Weidenfeld, £20, pp. 326 T his jaunty book is an account by the Australian biologist Tim Flannery of 16 vis- its to Papua New...

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A choice of recent thrillers

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Harriet Waugh R uth Rendell's A Sight for Sore Eyes (Hutchinson, £16.99) is a departure from her other psychological thrillers. There is a pithy, grim, satirical edge to her...

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A perfectionist in the wilds of Bohemia

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David Hughes FRINK by Stephen Gardiner HarperCollins, £24.99, pp. 326 W hen in 1972 Elisabeth Frink suggest- ed 'doing my head', as she put it, I carried my bonce proudly...

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A short tall story

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Nick Harman ZARAFA by Michael Allin Headline, £12.99, pp. 215 I f you think beauty is to do with due proportion, consider the giraffe and think again. The child was right to...

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ARTS

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Bringing Europe to England Simon Blow on how Henry James persuaded John Singer Sargent to go to London J ohn Singer Sargent must have con- tributed to Henry James's...

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Dance

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Kaleidoscope of life Alastair Macaulay C ommon sense tells you that the avant- garde artists of yesterday ought to turn into the retrograde artists of today. With Merce...

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Architecture

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Beyond Minimalism (Royal Academy, till 1 November) Tony Fretton (Architectural Association, till 31 October) Communing with nature Alan Powers A soon as a style label is...

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Exhibitions 1

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Aubrey Beardsley (Victoria & Albert Museum, till 10 January) Explicit eroticism Martin Gayford A ubrey Beardsley, the Studio observed percipiently in 1893, 'distilled the...

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Exhibitions 2

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A surfeit of rapture Roger Kimball W hat if Vincent van Gogh hadn't suf- fered from epilepsy, hadn't cut off part of his ear after a quarrel with Gauguin, hadn't, at the age...

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Salerooms

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Rich relations Susan Moore I t was always said in the Eighties that everything had its price. No more. Now even the auction houses have become rather choosy, preferring to...

Exhibitions 3

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I Della Robbia e 1"arte nuova' della scultura invetriata (Basilica di Sant'Alessandro, Fiesole, till 1 November) Family business Bruce Boucher L cy Honeychurch, the heroine...

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Opera

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Mary Stuart (Coliseum) Hard act to follow Michael Tanner E NO's opening performance of their new production of Mary Stuart began 46 hours after the Royal Opera's GOtterdlim-...

Gardens

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You and yews Ursula Buchan T he village has been slow to catch Mil- lennium Fever. Although invited, even exhorted, by both parish council and parochial church council to...

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Theatre

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West Side Story (Prince Edward) A Huey P Newton (Barbican) A weary retread Sheridan Morley T he imminence of a recession can often be judged in direct proportion to the num-...

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Cinema

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A Perfect Murder (15, selected cinemas) Missing the point Mark Steyn T he first thing Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder has going for it is a hit title, which is about 30...

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Radio

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Sixties twaddle Michael Vestey W hen, in 1966, I fancied myself as a drama critic, I was sent by a magazine, London Life, to review a play called US or `us' staged at the...

Television

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Hymn to a small town Edward Heathcoat Amory I n small-town America, if we believe Hollywood's cinematic anthropologists, children are born into home-made popcorn American...

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The turf

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Poor old Rhaps Robin Oakley Y ou don't go to Worcester for cham- pagne and caviar, more the sustaining curry and chips available in the main bet- ting-hall bar. (Indeed you...

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High life

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Struggling writers Taki Soldier's Daughter Never Cries, an autobiographical novel about growing up as the daughter of the author James Jones, has inspired the latest film by...

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Country life

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Lessons in loving Leanda de Lisle M y mother-in-law has a series of pho- tographs of her eldest son as a toddler, looking very blond and angelic, with a fluffy little chick...

BRIDGE

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A tiny error Andrew Robson IT was breakfast time when Edith Dawson collected her prize for winning the Individ- ual Tournament at the summer bridge teachers' jamboree. While...

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RESTAURANTS AS THEATRE

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0.: BLACKPOOL AND BOURNEMOUTH N N `N.N. Alice Thomson LONDON, Paris, New York. Breakfast at Claridge's, lunch at La Coupole, dinner at Le Cirque. The life of a fashion...

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By Jennifer Paterson

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Oz and under I HAVE been away again in Australia and Jamaica, hence my lack of a contribution last month. I was so involved with various forms of jet-lag that I totally forgot...

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COMPETITION

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Patagonia rules OK? Jaspistos RECENTLY the self-styled King of Pata- gonia, a Frenchman, with an army of four `marines' formally occupied an uninhabited islet for a day. In...

CHESS

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Saint Matthew Raymond Keene IN SPITE of having sent what is most likely their strongest team ever to the Olympiad, England (officially designated the British Chess Federation...

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CROSSWORD

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A first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham's Six Grapes Port for the first correct solution opened on 2 November, with two run- ners-up prizes of £20 (or, for UK solvers, the...

Solution to 1381: Sundry

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org ' A 0E10 4 ad im prom % R E 1113 Linn Un LI El id Tie a . n , 14 E R R riaridECIUM DENACCIECIa ", ri v ide III L. On 0 CI no E An imam A 1311MCMCIUEM L einallar...

No. 2058: Mental slugging

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You are invited to provide a radio com- mentary, in the breathless style of a boxing or football commentator, describing a 'lightning' chess match in which each con- testant has...

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SPECTATOR SPORT

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Winter promise Simon Barnes I THINK on the whole it's my favourite race of the year, the Dewhurst Stakes this weekend, a handful of horses hammering down the brutal...

YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED

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Dear Mary.. . Q. Your correspondent in Sydney wanted to know how to ascertain someone's age without causing offence. This is how it can be done. Say, 'Think of a number (say...