• ill • • • • Milliate • t7 • • The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 Libtaty e•lbeera• 4100,000#• •...

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`This is not the IRA, John, this is us.' J ohn Major predicted in June that the recession was beginning to lift. The annual rate of inflation fell from 9 per cent in Jan- uary...

Time to adopt the Bah! Humbug! approach to political philosophy SIMON HEFFER t this season it is proper to think of those less fortunate than ourselves, so let us imagine the...

0 ur leading article this week draws some parallels between the the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of Robert Maxwell's empire. Another one...

Enter a new American hero singing the Nunc Dimittis AUBERON WAUGH I was prepared to believe every word of William Kennedy Smith's testimony in his own defence at the West Palm...

Anne McElvoy finds it hard to know which is worse — Serbian brutality or Croatian stupidity Zagreb THE grandmothers of eastern Croatia are an incongruous sight, trapped in the...

Anne Applebaum believes that the final wave of Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe is bad news for the Middle East Lvov `SOVDEP,' said Ilyusha. 'Or you can also say,...

Michael Heath

after communism's death, it's not easy being a Polish landowner Dwor Chobielin, Poland THIS WILL be our first Christmas at Cho- bielin. The manor house itself is still a...

IT WOULD seem that in London and its neighbourhood at all events, the old notion that a hard frost generally implies a clear, bright sky, is in a fair way to be dismissed...

Theodore Dalrymple deplores doctors who stop us from over-indulging IN THE absence of a belief in the afterlife, staying alive a little longer assumes tran- scendent...

Oddie's article, 'Never ever on a Sunday', was missing. The sentence should have read: 'It would also be good if the Keep Sunday Special Campaign . . . finally came clean: about...

Tony Samstag on the scramble to exploit a Nordic myth Oslo A MEASURE of the importance of the Father Christmas industry in these lati- tudes is that the Nordic Council has held...

Rodney Leach, an old financial adversary of Robert Maxwell, rolls back the years TWENTY-TWO years ago, when I was engaged in public combat with Robert Maxwell, something...

Michael Bloch laments the demise of Turkish cigarettes I AM NOT a regular smoker; that is to say, I may smoke an occasional cigarette just as I occasionally eat asparagus or...

by PD. JAMES A crime for Christmas: Part One ONE of the minor hazards of being a best- selling crime novelist is the ubiquitous question, 'And have you ever been person- ally...

the next issue of The Spectator, on sale from January 2, 1992.

Hugo Vickers meets Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, who will be 90 on Christmas Day PRINCESS ALICE, Duchess of Glouces- ter, will be 90 on Christmas Day. She is the...

A short story by WILLIAM TREVOR 'HOW nice all this is!' Rose's mother cried, with dishes on the way to the dinner table Rose had laid. 'What weather, Mr Bouver- ie, don't you...

A cautionary tale by Vicki Woods concerning Arthur, the Moroccan tortoise I FIND it an endearing national character- istic of the British that in the small things the rule of...

James Buchan discovers an extraordinary 18th-century account of adventure, disaster, survival and infamy Aspy Bay AT Cape North, a village on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia,...

MR FRANCIS Darwin, the son of the great naturalist, has been investigating the effect on insectivorous plants of supplying them with, and withholding from them, animal food. "He...

Sandra Barwick investigates the fashionable allure of witchcraft particularly in suburbia COMMERCIALISM has not yet quite overtaken the traditional celebrations of the season....

It's always Christmas in the supermarket PAUL JOHNSON S ociology magazines like to scrutinise supermarkets to unearth left-wing points. I read an article in one of them...

HOUSELESS at Christmas, no room, as at first — a surge of seasonal compassion comes from ministers confronted with the consequences of their actions, and anxious to find someone...

MY PARTING thought for the year comes from Cross Street Chapel in Manchester. A noticeboard outside the chapel would call the scurrying merchants to higher things, telling them...

MY NOTION for the New Year is one which the fund managers will think eccen- tric. On behalf of the Friends of Friendless Investment, I invite your support for gold. There are...

I SUPPOSE we can be grateful not to have a Mistletoe Commission. Instead we have the nation's largest landowner sustained at the public expense to grow far too many Christmas...

Goodwill to men in the City is subject to seasonal fluctuations CHRISTOPHER FILDES G oodwill in the City is proclaimed not by angels but by auditors. You can find it in...

IF GOLD is cheap, silver should be cheap- er still. The price is where it was in the mid 1970s, and I was cheered to find, when cost- ing out the new dinner service for Downing...

Sir: For a short time in 1932 I was Assistant Editor of your paper. At one point I was asked to investigate drunkenness at Eton (my old school), but failed to perform the task...

Sir: Your article of 7 December (`The ears of a Croatian colonel') stated that the response of the EEC to the situation in Yugoslavia is a bitter joke. And an old one, too....

Sir: I fear that the 'Greatest Greek since Aristotle' may rightly be offended by Auberon Waugh's suggestion (Another voice, 7 December) that I once introduced him as a hotelier....

Sir: Having'1followed the adventures of The Outlaw' with the liveliest enjoyment, I was stunned to discover that Michael Common wears aftershave. I can assure him this will not...

Sir: The Spectator is brilliant, well written and the whole layout of the publication is first class.As an avid reader for many years I look forward to every issue. I then delve...

piece says that Charles Williams has failed to live up to his early promise. Your reason seems to be that he is a socialist and not a Tory. His achievements: Head of School...

Sir: According to the Sunday Telegraph (1 December) 'pro-European feeling is espe- cially strong among banks'. They would `feel' thus, wouldn't they? However, their record in...

Set by Christopher Howse Queen's English Match the definitions to the words 1. A roughened bar, on which a ring is grat- ed, used instead of a knocker or door-bell. 2. A...

pamphlet published in German in London in February, 1948, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels attempted to portray the tremendous revolutionary force of capitalism: The bourgeoisie...

Jonathon Porritt G reen Design is a title likely to trigger a wide variety of preconceptions. Some may instantly be tempted to write it off as another worthy tract advocating...

Warmth was an art When I challenged the cold To a jumping start At ten years old, When an icicle-chime On the breath-filled air Struck Christmas time And I was there With a slip...

William Mount MADONNA — UNAUTHORISED by Christopher Andersen Michael Joseph, £14.99, pp. 279 O ne assumes that Madonna needs no introduction. She is, after all, according to...

Jonathan Cecil NED SHERRIN'S THEATRICAL ANECDOTES: A CONNOISSEUR'S COLLECTION OF LEGENDS, STORIES AND GOSSIP by Ned Sherrin Virgin, ,f16.99, pp. 295 T heatrical anecdotes can...

Anthony Powell JOHN AUBREY: A LIFE by David Tylden-Wright HarperCollins, £20, pp.270 J ohn Aubrey (1626-1697) has long been known as a major figure in the 17th century, his...

Simon Heller FOREVER EALING by George Perry Pavilion, £10.99, pp. 200 I f one accepts that a nation needs a strong and homogenous identity if its own culture is to be strong,...

Peter Levi MOUNTAINS: AN ANTHOLOGY by Anthony Kenny John Murray, f20, pp.360 T here is something pleasing and faintly ridiculous about an anthology of mountains that befits the...

Philip Ziegler FROM THIS DAY FORWARD by Esme Cromer Thomas Harmsworth, £179.5, pp.370 W hen meeting Lady Cromer for the first time at some glittering dinner party James...

Mark Steyn KURT WEILL by Ronald Taylor Simon & Schuster, £20, pp. 199 W ill the real Weill please stand up?', asks Ronald Taylor, starting as he means to go on, in his...

David Nokes LORD BYRON: THE COMPLETE MISCELLANEOUS PROSE edited by Andrew Nicholson Clarendon Press, £70, pp.580 T his book should be compulsory reading for all members of...

Harry Ashcombe LORD EMSWORTH'S ANNOTATED WHIFFLE edited by James Hogg Michael Joseph, £10.99, pp. 144 h ere are few writers, worthy of the name, who do not acknowledge the...

(To Joseph) Did you sell the gold and the frank- incense? How much did you get for the myrrh? Enough for the food for the donkey, And for you and the Baby and Her? Laura...

Richard 011ard A DAMNED CUNNING FELLOW: THE EVENTFUL LIFE OF REAR- ADMIRAL SIR HOME POPHAM, 1762-1820 by Hugh Popham Old Ferry Press, £27.50, pp.256 N ot the least remarkable...

Christopher Hawtree THE RISE AND FALL OF THE MAN OF LE IThRS by John Gross Penguin, f7.99, pp. 361 h e man of letters never really dis- appeared. He was only resting, in those...

William Scammell W e poets in our youth begin in glad- ness, But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness', said Wordsworth. And serve you right, too, mutters the rest...

Into a suddenly sunny spring dawn A bastard creeps out through a crack in some Until-then, immaculate-looking woodwork. He inhales the air and smiles, and everything Looks good...

Felix Pryor I was tinkering with a book I had written a couple of years ago. It was a study of the so-called 'little eyases' of Hamlet. These are the child-players that Hamlet...

Anita Brookner o the surprise of no one the Goncourt this year was awarded to Pierre Combescot for Les Files du Calvaire (Grasset), a tour de force of baroque improvisation...

V enice's celebrations this year for the 250th anniversary of the death of Antonio Vivaldi have served to draw attention not only to the composer and his works but also to the...

Rembrandt: the Master and His Workshop (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: drawings till 19 January, paintings and etchings till 1 March) Past master Giles Auty I n the face of one of...

Rien ne va plus Alistair McAlpine T here can seldom have been moments of such excitement in the sale-rooms as those in 1987 during which the Hon. Charles Allsopp received the...

All I want for Christmas Rupert Christiansen A s operatic recording of 1991, the col- lective wisdom of the Gramophone's reviewers selected John Eliot Gardiner's Idomeneo...

Safe haven for genius Robin Holloway W hen I woke up I heard a sound, it grew ever louder, I could no longer imag- ine myself in a dream, music was sounding, and what music!'...

Royal Ballet (Covent Garden) English National Ballet (Royal Festival Hall) Russian refinement Deirdre McMahon C olas in La Fille mal gardee is the first Ashton role which...

Surrealist Games (Compiled and presented by Alastair Brotchie, edited by Mel Gooding, Redstone Press, boxed, £14.95) Hardened sunbeams John Henshall T his extraordinary...

Beauty and the Beast (Players Theatre) The Sea (Lyttelton) Fairy extravaganza Christopher Edwards he Players Theatre — now reinstalled T at its old address in Villiers...

Curly Sue (selected cinemas) Bah, humbug Harriet Waugh F or the most part film-makers seem to use Christmas as the stamping-ground for unsound films, so it has been a...

Sinners, rejoice Taki O h dear, Christmas is here and instead of getting into a major depression like everyone else I'm actually looking forward to being locked up with my...

Bin and gone Martyn Harris I n Haringey Christmas starts not with carol-singers or cards, but with the thunder of galvanised dustbins on the front path and a rending scream...

Wife stories Jeffrey Bernard I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that the suicide rate goes up at Christmas just like it does on Sundays. I used to find it a time for...

Raggle taggle Zenga Longmore B arcelona, where Omalara and I stayed last weekend, is well known for its architec- tural marvels. But there are human marvels there also. I...

restaurant critic than the health farm and the country house hotel. There is much to dread in both: the health farm stands in thin-lipped opposi- tion to the life of the senses;...

L .46 5 iffi r ts. 1 • • I HAVE the solution to the Christmas problem, at least one of them: what to give as presents. The Imperative solution not only saves the agonising,...

Puzzling Raymond Keene T o exercise readers ' mental faculties over the festive season here are six positions from games by The Spectator's player of the year, Nigel Short....

SCOTCH WHISKY Whopping porkies Jaspistos SCOTCH WHISKY I n Competition No. 1707 you were in - vited to supply an anecdote that beggars belief but enriches credulity. In...

Queen's English 1 and d; 2 and e; 3 and a; 4 and f; 5 and h; 6 and c; 7 and j; 8 and g; 9 and i; 10 and b. Screen Test 1. Kevin Costner; 2. Gerard Depardieu; 3. Tom Hanks; 4....

Having seen an article entitled 'Should shop assistants marry'?' Chesterton prop- osed other similarly silly subjects, such as `Are feet unkind to boots'?' and 'Does burning...

T A "L No A yedri7G 1 ME Ill E 1111 T OEM ±Ell■ OM 0E1 lET TsEt NirrilAril E N I 0 ELLEAS INE S I am An ILEA R3 T E 0111313111r E I OM E b13 L IBM I III 7C...

A Christmas Jumbojac A first prize of £60, three prizes of £25 and six further prizes of The Spectator Annual (pub. Harper Collins, £16.99) will be awarded for the first...

JUST AS the primrose Wisden blesses April, so certain proof that the festive sea- son is upon us is the arrival of the annual Sportspages Almanack. Stockings should be...

Q. I am giving a number of dinner parties over Christmas and would like to ask your advice on a point of control. What can one do when people just carry on laughing, talk- ing...