`But I don't want to be alone.' M inistry of Defence experts said that 40 metres of steel piping, impounded by Customs officers on its way to Iraq, could have been for use as...

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...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 HOW NOT TO AGREE W en Mr Charles Haughey visited Belfast last week he...

longest standing contributors died last Sunday. In this issue he is remembered by his col- league, Christopher Fildes, and by Nigel Lawson who, as editor, in 1967 introduced...

Mrs Thatcher's accent on education: sometimes robust, sometimes faltering NOEL MALCOLM I f Mrs Thatcher had not existed, it would have been necessary to invent her. Indeed,...

T here is nothing more bizarre than judges discussing the laws of blasphemy, for all the world as though they were some Court of Holy Inquisition without bonfires. Reading the...

There is more danger from radiation for people living in Cornwall than next to a nuclear power station. Andrew Kenny makes a plea for the dangers to be treated consistently...

Ian Buruma reports on the failure of ex-dissidents to win Hungarian elections Budapest VACLAV HAVEL, 'The King of Bohe- mia', sits in the castle in Prague. Solidarity rules in...

James Le Fanu investigates what really goes on in embryo research PERNICKETY is the best word to de- scribe an experiment on a human embryo. The little bundle of cells can be...

Michael Heath

DR. HANS Meyer, the German traveller who has successfully ascended the high snow-peak of Kibo, which towers above Kilima-Njaro, gave a very interesting account of his ascent to...

Nigel Lawson remembers the politician and journalist, who died last week THE death of Jock Bruce-Gardyne, from a brain tumour, a few days after his 60th birthday, deprives...

learning of his fatal illness AN obsession with the avoidance of death is the 20th-century heresy. Our forebears were taught by the Church that the sooner they could contrive...

that censorship will not solve Britain's raceproblem THE media enjoys more freedom in Bri- tain today than ever before. Thanks to the taming of the print unions, launching a...

I ADD a Treasury's eye view of Jock, from Sir Peter Middleton, the Permanent Secretary: 'He was an unconventional and rather unruly minister, but he was stimulat- ing and...

FROM Lombard Street comes word of a banker bet. The scene is Allied Irish Bank's temporary branch on Cheltenham racecourse. A customer comes in, just before the Gold Cup, and...

THEN Jock's luck turned once more. It was at the time of the Falklands war. His candid comment — 'being biffed by the Argies is a mug's game' — became public property. The Prime...

IS IT a Gunn? Do the pieces fit together? Is it about to go pop? Can it reach the stratosphere? (Don't bank on it.) Most important of all, now that the fuse has been lit, would...

`Now look here, Bruce-Gardyne, there's something you need to know . . CHRISTOPHER FILDES I last saw Jock when he wanted to know which commander had liked his generals to be...

Sir: May I add factual colour to Adrian Berry's letter (7 April) in which he com- ments on the obstruction of industry by the Department of Trade and Industry. Next month, an...

Sir: I see from Anthony Howard's Diary (31 March) that London Transport have now caught on to the how-to-double-your- profit-in-one-go principle. This is something the fashion...

Sir: E.D.J. Haty (Letters, 24 March) ex- emplifies complete nonsense with 'Sneez- ing is 4ft 9ins'. Surely there is no nonsense in this. Commonly I sneeze 4ft 1 lins and on one...

Sir: I am sure we all occasionally share Ruth Rees's view of political parties (`I-low not to win friends', 14 April), namely, a plague on both their houses. But are Ms Rees's...

Taxing traditions Sir: The proposition (Leading article, 17 March) that the poll tax is somehow in keeping with broad Tory principles was unconvincing, not least because there...

Sir: The writing of my father, Herbert Read, may or may not have been 'tenden- tious and utopian' as Giles Auty suggests (Arts, 7 April), but he was an anarchist, not a...

MANHATTAN MEN VANESSA LETTS THE first man I spoke to in Manhattan took me for a beggar. He was elderly but spruce, and wore a fur-collared greatcoat that dusted the sidewalk....

The trouble with Welch Colin Welch THE HOUSE THE BERRYS BUILT: INSIDE THE TELEGRAPH 1928-1986 by Duff Hart-Davis Hodder & Stoughton, £16.95, pp.368 Y ou will understand how...

Anthony Daniels A DICTIONARY OF SUPERSTITIONS edited by Iona Opie and Moira Tatem OUP, £17.50, pp.510 S ome friends of mine recently had a house-party to which one of the...

Janet Daley DEATH OF THE SOAP QUEEN by Peter Prince Bloomsbury, £13.99, pp. 256 ROOM TEMPERATURE by Nicholson Baker Granta, £11.99, pp. 116 THE RELUCIANT DEVIL by Miranda...

will make you laugh Christopher Hawtree PEOPLE WHO SAY GOODBYE by P.Y. Betts Souvenir Press, £12.95, pp.250 T his is an author, and book, I never dared dream could exist....

Anita Brookner LIES OF SILENCE by Brian Moore Bloomsbury, f12.99, pp. 194 C onnoisseurs and addicts of Brian Moore's fiction will recognise here a worthy successor to The...

Graeme Wilson TILTING THE JAR, SPILLING THE MOON: POEMS FROM KORYO, CHOSUN AND CONTEMPORARY KOREA translated by Kevin O'Rourke Universal Publishing Co., Seoul, Won 7,500 T...

Museums New Japanese Galleries (British Museum, now open) Oriental ways of conservation Roderick Conway Morris F or 10,000 years the Japanese were nomadic hunter-gatherers...

Macbeth (Coliseum) Jerusalem (Opera North, Leeds) Better heard, not seen Rodney Milnes N othing could illustrate more vividly the sheer silliness of the 'traditional pro-...

Dangerous relationships Robin Holloway I will never forget Dr Leavis's master- classes in practical criticism. Occasional strangers were permitted to attend the thrice-weekly...

City of Angels (Virginia Theatre) Overtaxing Chandler Douglas Colby T he new and acclaimed musical, City of Angels, pays homage to film noir with unprecedented intricacy and...

Contemporary Poets: Portraits by Peter Edwards (National Portrait Gallery, till 24 June) A brush with the bards Giles Auty P oetry seems to have become some- thing of a...

Enemies: A Love Story (`15', Odeon Haymarket) Painfully amusing Hilary Mantel H erman Broder spent his war in a barn and, in New York around 1949, the savage yelps of...

Good news and the bad Taki New York The good news is that for the second straight time I ran into a gentleman while flying Concorde. On the Bagel to London trip it was Lord...

Crocodile wares Wendy Cope A friend of mine owns a crocodile-skin briefcase which once belonged to his father. When he carries this object with him on journeys around London,...

A bowl of cherries Jeffrey Bernard T he return of a sort of domesticity after ten years is turning out to be quite good therapy. Pottering about in the kitchen this morning,...

Walking amnesia Zenga Longmore 0 lumba, who has been away in Niger- ia for the past couple of weeks, is being sorely missed here in Brixton. Already the tea level in my blood...

I L • 0Ork.' JoittfiL.' .JAPAL..."Llook ( SOME while ago, Imperative cooking was accused of conducting the class war. The picture suggested was of the Imperative cook sniping at...

Young Artist competition.

Blockbusters for the long summer days Auberon Waugh erhaps the best thing to say about this first offer for the post-penitential season is that it is very varied, covering a...

BIBENDUM WINES LTD, 113 Regents Park Road, London NW1 8UR. Tel. (071) 722 5577 Price No. Value White 1. Soave Monte Carbonare 1987 12 bots. £72 2. Collards Sauvignon Blanc...

Alexander the Great Raymond Keene A lexander Alekhine was one of the most romantic and mysterious figures on the world chess scene. His origins were never quite clear: his...

11 YEAR OLD SCOTCH WHISKY Hard question, soft reply Jaspistos c EA 12 YR OLD SCOTCH WHISKY I n Competition No. 1621 you were asked for two 'modern' letters, the woman prop-...

J ' A 4 C K R E.A . A A G''A I Nn NI NF O I. 130W LJ HIP ATOC I A I VASTS AGLEIMIOUR • S 0 i 11 0 R N N T 3 iTRANG A NI 01AI NI Y Ell U I H I N G S L 0 0 P 4 1 . ROPI 0...

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...

Some day in the future this country, whether a monarchy or a republic, is going to need a new National Anthem more in tune with the trends of our multicultural society. You are...

Gentlemen v. players Frank Keating S o, we lost. The nincompoop who agreed at Lord's to schedule the last two Tests against the West Indies with just a night flight and half a...