M r Edward Heath, the former Prime Minister, said he would visit Baghdad at the request of Mr Douglas Hurd, the Foreign Secretary, to persuade Saddam Hussein to release sick...

P honey wars are the hardest ones to sustain. International sabres have been rattled at Saddam Hussein for two months now, but the longer we do nothing but rattle, the harder it...

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

Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex: 27124; Fax: 071-242 0603

Mr Hurd displays all the gravitas of a pregnant bishop NOEL MALCOLM `Obviously', said Mr Hurd in his version of their earlier deliberations, 'I considered the matter very...

A s a diary reporter twenty-something years ago, I regarded Conservative Party conferences among the highlights of the calendar, for all the usual reasons, to do with...

The Church of England has one last chance. Sandra Barwick assesses the new Archbishop of Canterbury's evangelical style There was an old man who said, 'Run! The end of the...

Soviet experiment in economic and democratic freedom Sakhalin CALL Alexei Zimin a farmer, and he bristles. 'Not yet,' he says, tugging at a shaggy, Tolstoyesque beard. 'We are...

John Simpson meets the hostages out of whom Iraq wants to make political capital Baghdad IT TOOK our car five minutes to drive down Abi Nuuw' as Street, along the right bank...

William Dalrymple sees candidates mustering clan support for Pakistan's election Lahore IT WAS a hot, sticky equatorial night, and Yusouf Salahuddin was dressed in a cool,...

Michael Heath

her fellow judges kept race and politics out of the literary prize THE newspapers were not at their best the day after the Booker shortlist was announced. The Times got the...

THE "IMITATIO CHRISTI." [TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.] Sir, — In reference to the question of the wide distribution of "The Imitation of Christ," it may interest your...

John Jolliffe contrasts heroes and villains in the Cossack repatriations after Yalta THE great fanfare preceding the publica- tion, on Thursday this week, of The Repatriations...

Stan Gebler Davies on the slow bicycle race for the presidency Kinsale THERE are many politicians who would benefit from a liver transplant but Brian Lenihan, so far as I...

Nigel Short analyses what makes him different from the Russian grandmasters LAST month I took part in the year's strongest chess tournament, at Tilburg in the Netherlands. It...

Simon Courtauld on the rocky market in country estates A GLANCE at the house advertisements in recent issues of Country Life might lead one to think that the lights on the big...

K. L. Billingsley on the internationalisation of cryonics San Diego, California THE two men wore sunglasses and dark business suits that bulged suspicously in places. They...

persist . . . I DON'T want to sound like some kind of socialist, but the fact is — as every doctor knows the working class in this country leads a dismal life. Its food is...

The media: Paul Johnson on what ought to happen if Murdoch faces a fire-sale THE economic downturn, or borrowing crisis, or whatever it is — my American friends are in no...

Sir: Your leading article (6 October) puts excessive emphasis on the need for Mr Gorbachev's `political legitimacy'. There is far more to democracy than political elec- tions,...

Sir: Andrew Kenny ('Trials and tribula- tions', 22 September) argues for the crea- tion of separate tribal states within South Africa. This would be an extremely diffi- cult if...

Sir: Mr Bowron, despite being a registered indexer, is wrong (Letters, 13 October): it is the indexer's duty to be as accurate as possible, and certainly not, as he seems to...

Sir: Ludovic Kennedy writes (Letters, 13 October) with all the usual arrogance that one expects from those who have been '30 years in the business'. Unfortunately, they forget...

Sir: The opening paragraph of my inter- view with Andrei Plesu (`On the high wire', 13 October) contained an inaccura- cy. The last well-known dissident other than Mr Plesu left...

Any old irony James Buchan HOCUS POCUS by Kurt Vonnegut Cape, L13.99, pp.303 T his is Kurt Vonnegut's 17th novel to appear in England, so the British reader should know what...

Harriet Waugh GOING WRONG by Ruth Rendell Hutchinson, f12.95, pp. 250 LONGSHOT by Dick Francis Michael Joseph, f13.99, pp. 277 G oing Wrong, Ruth Rendell's new Psychological...

Andrew Lownie INSIDE INTELLIGENCE by Anthony Cavendish Collins, f12.95, pp. 181 I last saw Anthony Cavendish five years ago. He had kindly taken me to lunch at the Cavalry and...

Ben Pimlott CROSSMAN: THE PURSUIT OF POWER by Anthony Howard Cape, £16.99, pp.400 M ost politicians of prominence are humdrum people who achieve fame through a combination of...

Mark Archer WILD PEOPLE by Andro Linklater John Murray, £15.95, pp. 208 S ome years ago Andro Linklater was commissioned by Time-Life Books to write a feature on the Iban...

Anita Brookner FRIEND OF MY YOUTH by Alice Munro Chatto & Windus, £13.99, pp. 273. A lice Munro made a legitimate con- quest with her first collection of stories, Dance of...

Anthony Powell PAUL SCOTT: A LIFE by Hilary Spurling Hutchinson, £18.99, pp.438 PAUL SCOTT'S RAJ by Robin Moore Heinemann, .£18.5D, pp.246 P aul Scott's reputation as a...

John Whitworth ON THE THIRD DAY by Piers Paul Read Seeker (S7 Warburg, £15.99, pp.282 U naccountably, well, perhaps not so unaccountably — prizewinning novelists nowadays so...

Denis Hills BURTON: SNOW UPON THE DESERT by Frank McLynn John Murray, £19.95, pp. 428 T his book deals less with Burton's footslogging heroics as explorer than with the way...

Moses und Aron (New York City Opera) Alceste (Lyric Opera, Chicago) Die Zauberflote (Glyndebourne Touring Opera) Attila (Covent Garden) Coughs and splutters Rupert...

Leonard Rosoman (Fine Arts Society, till 2 November) Sergei Chepik (Roy Miles, till 9 November) Trevor Bell (Gillian Jason, till 2 November) Ian Davenport (Waddington Galleries,...

Prospect of pleasure Robin Holloway I t is not too often that a song series can be recommended with such likelihood of pleasure as the seven recitals of French melodies...

Dancing at Lughnasa (Lyttelton) Rich harvest Christopher Edwards B rian Friel's latest play is a poignant and sensitive piece of writing. Set in County Donegal in 1936,...

To bebop or not to bebop Martin Gayford W hen bebop, the fiery jazz insurrec- tion of the 1940s, first broke upon the world, many even of the hip were pole- axed with horror...

My Mr Right Taki illiam F.Buckley Jr is the father of modern American conservatism, a patri- cian who 35 years ago resigned from the CIA and started a magazine — National...

Money talks Martyn Harris ver the first hour of Your Cheatin' Heart (BBC 1, 10 p.m., Thursday) I found my chair inching closer and closer to the screen in an effort first to...

Mother's to blame Zenga Longmore D oesn't she have a set bedtime'?' asked my actress friend Stella last week. We were sitting cross-legged in her colour- ful basement flat,...

Long Fellow rides again Jeffrey Bernard And yet there were always people who refused to realise that you can't win 'em all. A hundred years ago there was a jockey, Snowden, if...

is against you? The other Friday was one of those times. Now is one of those times, too, come to think of it. About every construction company in west London has decided to send...

In sorrow or anger Jaspistos SCOTCH WHISKY I n Competition No. 1647 you were in- vited to compose a letter of resignation from a clubman, or clubwoman, citing examples of how...

Bête blanche Raymond Keene A fter their draw in the first game in New York Kasparov utterly blew Karpov away in game 2. Kasparov's success was heavily based on very superior...

We all, I hope, have national preferences and aversions. You are invited to describe in amusing verse (maximum 16 lines) the qualities of a nation that you do not love. The word...

Winners: Mrs A. B. S. Cope, Lon- don SW6 (£20); Peter Stevens, Tad- worth, Surrey; Richard Yeates, Hitchin, Herts. E 'RI T 4 I N 4 /4 1 011X 5 1PhP H I ER E NITTTAR'T I S P I R...

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...

October black and blues Frank Keating OCTOBER is a vicious month. The clocks go back, the bells start ringing and bow- tied referees bend to toll to ten the knell of parting...