The history of an error After almost six weeks of hard fighting, Iraq has still not Won and Iran has still not lost; meanwhile, the equally ambiguous American hostage crisis...

Political commentary The White's man's burden Ferdinand Mount Mr Norman St. John-Stevas is fond of saying we are in politics, not in economics,' much as one might say, 'this...

Notebook The NMoroccan Enmbassy in London has bceen Iamentinii the fLilure of the British press to uriderstanidL thel traditions of Arab hospitalit!' ACtUllV thle Quleell IlhlS...

Another voice America the Beautiful Auberon Waugh If, as now seems probable, at least some of the American hostages are going to be releasedby Iran in the few days left...

Raising the Czar's gold ?M Murray Sayle Tokyo Fascist agitator . . . gambling boss . . Suspected war criminal. Not the sort of person, really, you'd want to meet Mummy. With...

Carter's winning streak ?M Henry Fairlie Wa4slhin gton Jimmv Carter will be the next President of the United States. The momentum is now with him and Ronald Reagan will not...

The bar-room brawl Nicholas von Hoffman W(Vshlington Jimmy Carter stormed into Cleveland. He campaigned his way into the city from the South, where he had been telling the...

Small earthquake in Fleet Street Simon Jenkins The cause of the latest bout of trouble at Times Newspapers is the failure of the agreement which led to the reappearance of The...

In search of William Rees-Mogg Byron Rogers Ten years ago I was a reporter on The Times, and he was my editor. I caught sight of him once or twice. The paper's library was on...

In the City The economics of plumbing Tony Rudd One of the lesser known schools of economics is that of the plumbers. This school represents the flow of money in credit as so...

Double standards Sir: Ferdinand Mount's pleasingly derisive comments (18 October) on the delicacy of phrasing and arrangement of some direction signs near the nudist beach at...

Responsible sex Sir: Poor Jeffrey Bernard (20 September). While others are never having it so good or so frequently he alone is in a period of unwanted abstinence. This is...

Time and again Sir: Mr Bryan Robertson's misuse of the expression 'light years' in his review of The Importance of Being Earnest (250ctober) suggests that he, like many other...

What's in a name? Gr: For the second time in your paper. C°eOffrey Wheatcroft has accused us and the flStitute of Economic Affairs of calculated deceptioj by 'using...

Letters - Guarding against tyranny Sir In your editorial of 11 October you write that 'Parliament is sovereign is Sovereign'. Surely, it is the monarch who is Sovereign,...

Books A land and its game Alan Watkins An Autobiography David Watkins (Cas- seH £6.95) Welsh Rugby: The Crowning Years 1968-80 Clem Thomas and Geoffrey Nicholson...

GOM ex-FBA Stephen Koss 0°ilticlans, Socialism and Historians .J.P. Taylor (Hamish Hamilton £12.50) The Grand Old Man among English hislorians, A.J.P. Taylor contrives to...

Perrydoxes Ferdinand Mount Peregrinations Peregrine Worsthorne (Weidenfeld £9.95) There are distractions here. First, there is the figure of the author himself, the tall,...

True romantic Jonathan Keates The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney Vol. Vil Peter Hughes (Oxford In the summer of 1796 Fanny Burney published her third novel, Camilla....

In the web Benny Green The Diaries of Sir Henry Rider Haggard Ed. D.S. Higgins (Cassell £14.95) Any book about Rider Haggard is likely to have a symbolic significance, both...

Fancy-free Paul Ableman Winter Garden Beryl Bainbridge (Duck- worth £5.95) Was Bernard really speaking Russian when Ashburner overheard him? Who was the mysterious lady in...

Lords and ladies Bryan Robertson The Last of Mrs Cheyney 'r, _ (Cambridge) The Streets of London (Her Majesty's) I Suspect that when Frederick Lonsdale wrote his play in...

Cinema Tortuous Peter Ackroyd Breaker Morant ('A', selected cinemas) You could not find a better subject for an Australian film - here exposed, in the story of Breaker...

Small mercies John McEwen The greatest fault of British Art Now: An Aminerican Perspective (Royal Academy till 14 December) is the grandiloquence of its title. What in fact we...

High life Fighting men Taki It is now almost six weeks that the 'war' has been 'raging' down in the Gulf. If I hear once more a report about Abadan being totally cut off, or...

Television Truly wonderful Richard Ingrams Russell Harty, I see, is back on our screens this week with a new chat show on which his aim will be 'to discuss English tea,...

Postscript Leakage Patrick Marnham One of the finest political remarks quoted this year appeared in the Washington NeW Republic and was made 1y General Alex ander Haig to...

Low life Pastoral Jeffrey Bernard I now realise that it's highly likely that the two biggest of many mistakes I've made were to have moved from London to Suffolk in 1966 and...