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PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
The SpectatorGun-boat diplomacy T he two men appointed to inspect the contents of IRA arms dumps, Mr Martti Ahtisaari, the former president of Finland, and Mr Cyril Ramaphosa, a former high...
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SPECT mE AT OR The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL
The SpectatorTelephone: 020-7405 1706; Fax 020-7242 0603 JUSTICE IN JEOPARDY M r Hague's widely publicised sugges- tion that it is time to jettison the ancient Principle of English law...
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POLITICS
The SpectatorBlair is the better baby-sitter, but do you want a baby-sitter running the country? BRUCE ANDERSON Which is just as well; the Tory leader still has mountains to climb. The poll...
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DIARY
The SpectatorRUPERT HAMBRO T he other day I felt someone kissing me on the top of the head as I sat at dinner. I looked up in surprise to find it was a chap doing the kissing; and not only...
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Couples without children have seen their income fall by as
The Spectatormuch as two per cent while adults who took the precaution of procreat- ing have fared veiy well. Their incomes have gone up by as much as six per cent. This new obsession with...
Banned wagon
The SpectatorA weekly survey of the things our rulers want to prohibit NEW Labour has long exploited foot- ball to increase its own appeal among the masses, so it was perhaps only a matter...
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I AM NOT ASHAMED
The SpectatorMartin McGuinness talks to Boris Johnson about his years in the IRA and his hopes for the future WHAT a place, I think to myself, as I arrive at Stormont. You drive up past the...
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GO HOME, LIMEY
The SpectatorFar from being anti-English, says Bill Kauffman, Hollywood has played a key role in the insidious anglicisation of the US Batavia, New York FLEET STREET is all a-twitter. In...
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NOT ONE OF US
The SpectatorJustin Marozzi on a rum appointment to the Thatcher chair of enterprise studies at Cambridge WHICHEVER way you look at it, it's an odd way to drop £2 million. If you're a...
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Mind your language
The SpectatorVERONICA and I were well chuffed when we tricked my husband into taking the car on condition he picked up one or two things from Tesco. Such a use of well can be very annoy-...
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THE SHORTEST PERSON IN NATO
The SpectatorElizabeth Spalton says she is grateful that Sandhurst had a space for her vertically challenged, state-educated son IN the stoical north of England when I was a child, tears...
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MEDIA STUDIES
The SpectatorMr Marr has been a pundit too long to be trusted as an objective reporter STEPHEN GLOVER W ould Boris Johnson, editor of this magazine, be a suitable political editor of the...
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Getting the builders in
The SpectatorDO as you would be done by. The Treasury has succeeded in applying the Private Finance Initiative to itself, or rather to its impractical building. A new company called...
Dow shows how
The SpectatorHE could learn something, and so could we all, from Dow Jones. The Wall Street Jour- T 1 's publishers have their own code, which, they say, is not so much a rule-book as a r...
Paradigm lost
The SpectatorWHAT a pity about the new paradigm. We seem to have lost it. This reassuring doc- trine taught us that the world's biggest econ- omy could motor along at full speed without...
Life after the Lords
The SpectatorNEXT week the members of the Equitable Life Assurance Society will be asked to re- elect Jennifer Page as a director. This is the unfortunate lady who, as chief executive of the...
CITY AND SUBURBAN
The SpectatorIf he can't see what the fuss is about, he should look in the Mirror CHRISTOPHER FILDES tipping. His readers take their money seri- ously, and he should have known that they...
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English wit
The SpectatorFrom Mr Roger Vellacott Sir: Many educated Englishmen have long believed that, as long as something is both LETTERS clever and funny, it is a good thing; no other criteria,...
How Dempsey died
The SpectatorFrom Mr Michael Moorcock Sir: I very much enjoyed D.J. Taylor's good- natured review of my book King of the City (Books, 13 May) and I'll gladly pay his usual fee if he'd...
A good copper
The SpectatorFrom Eve ly n Meyer Sir: Justin Marozzi's Diary (13 May) brought back happy memories of my visit to Cape Town three years ago. However, feel very strongly that the issue of his...
Steyn off-target
The SpectatorFrom Mr Herman Volkner Sir: There is something decidedly unsavoury about seeing Mark Steyn (The loony Right', 29 April) deploy his trade- mark sarcasm not against the effluvium...
LETTERS Proud to be Little
The SpectatorFrom Mr Michael Wadman Sir: If one is going to use a book review as a vehicle to peddle one's extremist political views, one must expect to be shot down. So, for the benefit of...
Transport of horror
The SpectatorFrom Professor Arthur Finch Sir: 'Banned wagon' is usually a reliable source of wry amusement as well as a useful reminder of increasingly irritating govern- ment meddling....
Dante-free zone
The SpectatorFrom Emeritus Professor G.H. McWilliam Sir: Brian Hicks (Letters, 13 May) seems to think that Shakespeare's plays were written by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, who spent...
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In praise of Oakley
The SpectatorFrom Patricia Bate Sir: How disgraceful that our (and your) own Robin Oakley should be pushed aside a year early from his post as BBC political editor â on the flimsy pretext...
From Mr David Foster Sir: Only in quite a narrow
The Spectatorband of the mid- dle class is it acceptable for the best man to tell blue jokes, certainly never at upper- or lower-class weddings. Mr Young's discom- fiture was the result not...
Please help
The SpectatorFrom Mr Bernard Jones Sir: I am a poorly funded, retired man who wonders if Spectator readers could sugges t an agreeable foreign country to relocate to, where I could build...
Female squatters
The SpectatorFrom Mr J.H. Forster Sir: I am surprised that in response to the rather coy exchanges about whether to stand or sit (Letters, 13 May) no one has yet called attention to the...
Heath encounter
The SpectatorFrom Mr Earle Cross Sir: I enjoyed Frank Johnson's piece on the rudest man in England (Shared opinion, 6 May), though I question his observation that Sir Edward has never been...
Asparagus tips
The SpectatorFrom Mr Robert Booth Sir: Simon Courtauld (Arts, 6 May) admits that he doesn't have a passion for aspara- gus. He doesn't have a passion for accuracy either. Leaves from our...
From Mr lain Cassie Sir: Your readers might like to
The Spectatorconsider that micturating while sitting down does benefit those men who have trouble with a bad back in that it spares them the risk of injury from lifting heavy weights. lain...
Unfair to subs
The SpectatorFrom Mr Patrick Tailyour Sir: Alistair Horne in his excellent article on the Maginot Line (The dread of body- bags', 13 May) refers to 'how ghastly it would have been during the...
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AND ANOTHER THING
The SpectatorGhosts stirring among the electronic gear in the cellar PAUL JOHNSON Y ou don't hear much of ghosts nowa- days. Will our 21st century see the final end of haunting? I ask this...
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SHARED OPINION
The SpectatorWatch your back, Mr Dyke: the PM has to keep his middle-class Tory constituency happy FRANK JOHNSON B y the time this appears, Mr Blair may already have done it, but at the...
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THE JOY OF MOTORING
The SpectatorSmaller, safer, slower Al, the first car-registration number in Britain, was issued to Frank Russell, Bertrand's elder brother, who had stayed uP all night to get it. He was...
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British marques
The SpectatorA lovely pair of Bristols William Waldegrave A SMALL boy is examining a beautiful car in the driveway of his father's house in Somerset while a local grandees' lunch goes on...
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Motoring journalists
The SpectatorOiling the wheels Eric Bailey THEY are still cluttering up the house, the gifts the motor industry gave me when I was a motoring writer â or `muttering rot- ter' as the...
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THE JOY OF MOTORING
The SpectatorFormula One Racing pulse Rowan Pelling PITY David Coulthard. For the last five Years he's been hurtling round racetracks at breakneck speed being courageous and sportsmanlike...
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MG owners
The SpectatorSeat of yearning Jasper Gerard DRIVING gloves, tweed cap, goggles: allow me, squire, to introduce you to MG Man. And now that the MG marque could become the last remaining...
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Limousines
The SpectatorI'll take a back seat Petronella Wyatt DOROTHY PARKER, who yearned her living, used to complain about what gifts love brought her: 'Why is it no one ever sent me yet/One...
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BOOKS
The SpectatorSeveral bowls of cherries Geoffrey Wheatcroft TELLING LIVES: FROM W.B YEATS TO BRUCE CHATWIN edited by Alistair Horne Macmillan, £20, pp. 390 E ven after the Vatican pruned...
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Rumbling the mysterious East
The SpectatorJohn Colvin INTELLIGENCE AND THE WAR AGAINST JAPAN by Richard J. Aldrich CUP, £22.95, pp. 524 A t Shanghai in the Thirties, the repre- sentative of the Secret Intelligence...
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Standing room only soon?
The SpectatorSamuel Brittan AGEQUAKE by Paul Wallace Nicholas Brealey, £18, pp. 276 THE IMAGINARY TIME BOMB by Phil Mullan IB Taurus, £24.50, pp. 239 W , .⢠e have had spates of books...
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John Bull, Mrs Grundy, bug and roast beef
The SpectatorPeter Vansittart ENGLISHNESS IDENTIFIED: MANNERS AND CHARACTER 1650-1850 by Paul Langford OUP, f25, pp. 389 T he debate about England continues. Some deny 'Englishness', or...
A keen wind from the north
The SpectatorFrank Kermode THE BOOK OF PREFACES by Alasdair Gray Bloomsbury, £35, pp. 639 his book is both weird and wonderful' as totally sui generic as The Anatomy o f Melancho, a work...
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Moscow advances and retreat
The SpectatorSimon Sebag Montefiore TO THE HERMITAGE by Malcolm Bradbury Picador, £16, pp. 498 I n October 1773, Denis Diderot, the phil- osophe and literary celebrity of his age second...
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Shakespeare the cowboy builder?
The SpectatorFelix Pryor HENRY V, WAR CRIMINAL? AND OTHER SHAKESPEARE PUZZLES by John Sutherland and Cedric Watts OUP, £4.99, pp. 222 I remember the late Derek Shrub of the Sotheby's...
Perpetuating impractical jokes
The SpectatorNicholas Fearn CELIA'S SECRET, AN INVESTIGATION by Michael Frayn and David Burke faber and faber, £12.99, pp. 110 P eople who claim to have seen God whilst on hallucinogenic...
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Hybrid vigour and beauty
The SpectatorJane Lushington VISIONS OF AN ISLAND by Neville Weereratne HarperCollins, £60, pp. 223 T his book, by the Sri Lankan painter and writer Neville Weereratne, is an unus- ual...
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ARTS
The SpectatorBuilding on a grand scale Michael Tanner reports on the physical and cultural rebirth of Berlin Ei erlin is, as everyone knows, the biggest building site in Europe, if not in...
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Exhibitions 1
The SpectatorAnt Noises (Saatchi Gallery, till 20 August) Brave new art world Martin Gaylord L ast Summer I was interrogated in front of a Rothko. We were in the Guggen- heim, Bilbao, and...
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Exhibitions 2
The SpectatorDuncan Shanks (Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, till 31 May) The Constable of Clydesdale Laura Gascoigne W atching the Nine O'Clock News on tilY return from Scotland, where I'd...
Music
The SpectatorThe singers not the song Peter Phillips I wonder how many readers of this jour- nal sing in an amateur choir. I am informed that half the population of Sweden indulges in this...
Jack Vettriano At Jack Vettriano's request, we pub- lished a
The Spectatorstatement on 4 March 2000 which we hope clarified the position regarding certain allegations that had been made against him. We are also now pleased to record that we have...
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Gardens
The SpectatorOut with the old Ursula Buchan A new century, a new millennium, a new marquee at Chelsea Flower Show. Gone is the old sailcloth and timber pole structure, a village fête tent...
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Theatre
The SpectatorThe Novice (Almeida) Mr Kolpert (Royal Court) A new look at Sartre Sheridan Morley T hough an otherwise informative pro- gramme at the Almeida doesn't bother to mention it,...
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Cinema
The SpectatorGladiator (15, selected cinemas) Dynastic drama Mark Steyn G ermania, 180 AD. Rome is at war with the, er, Germaniacs, who stand around in the Black Forest grunting like...
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Radio
The SpectatorPipped to the post Michael Vestey W ho invented radio? The usual answer is Guglielmo Marconi who later shared the 1909 Nobel prize for physics. Historically he was given all...
Television
The SpectatorAnimal magic James Delingpole S ince writing that depressing column about how deeply miserable I was I have had so much sympathy that I almost feel happy again. Also I have...
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The turf
The SpectatorRising above it all Robin Oakley Two years ago Luca Cumani's High Rise won the Lingfield Derby Trial and went on to win in Epsom. In 1997 Silver Patriarch won at Lingfield and...
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High life
The SpectatorPerfidious Albion Taki New York M y last week in the Bagel. New York in May is as social as Gstaad in February, and the liver could do with a rest. There are four great...
No life
The SpectatorThe green-eyed monster Toby Young O ne of the shortcomings of making a living from writing about failure is that whenever things start to look up I worry that I'll have to...
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Country life
The SpectatorBanking on beef Leanda de Lisle T he average annual bonus at Goldman Sachs is about £360,000. Some of you out there must be getting a great deal more than that, but I don't...
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Singular life
The SpectatorLessons in etiquette Petronella Wyatt A i acquaintance of mine, John Mor- gan, has just written The Times Book of Modern Manners. He had a party at the Royal Opera House to...
BRIDGE
The SpectatorPersonal best Andrew Robson I AM sometimes asked whether I prefer rubber bridge, teams-of-four, or match- point pairs. Though the excitement of pick- ing up a wonderful hand...
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The Spectator63 Elizabeth St. London SW1 W9PP tom - torn° SPECTATOR WINE CLUB CUBAN CIGARS Nicholas Soames IT has always seemed to me to be the chief strength of the Spectator Wine...
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The Spectatorc/o Nethergate Wines Ltd. (incorporating Redpath & Thackray) 11/13 High Street, Clare, Suffolk C010 8NY Tel: (01787) 277244 Fax: (01787) 277123 E-mail: orders@nethergate.co.uk...
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HOW is the not smoking going? Fine, thanks. Marvellous, even.
The SpectatorExcept that I'm very depressed and cry a lot and hate every- thing and everybody and suffer from these Incredibly strong urges to run over pedes- trians (particularly elderly...
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Rdbeg CHESS Rd b e
The SpectatorThe Ultimate Lslay Malt. www.ardbeg.com Sheer genius Raymond Keene AS I write, the important tournament at Sarajevo is getting under way. From a British angle, the...
COMPETITION
The SpectatorQwertyuiop. Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 2136 you were asked to write 52 words of plausible prose in which the first letter of each word follows the pattern of the typewriter...
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Solution to 1461: Limes...
The SpectatorE gran g lia . dn. dn. dINIGns MINN n min rinnalligarlaelnarla reerivenaeri, ilUtirlada Mem 19 EliardillrlarlallA Er 0 A., Lily 1 15111 rintirintirInd11...
CROSSWORD
The SpectatorA first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham's award-winning, Late- Bottled Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 5 June, with two runners-up prizes of £20 (or,...
No. 2139: After you, Ogden
The SpectatorYou are invited to supply a poem in the style of Ogden Nash on the subject of golf, the opera, or Englishness (maximum 14 lines). Entries to 'Competition No. 2139' by 1 June.
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SPECTATOR SPORT
The SpectatorUnited will fall Simon Barnes AS the Manchester United season (formerly known as the football season) moves into its brief aestivation, the thinking football person (not...
YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
The SpectatorDear Mary.. . Q. lover uses liberal quantities of tal- m powder on his private (except to me) Parts. He thinks I find this sexy. On the Contrary it seriously diminishes my...