'I'm afraid I'm going to have to close this restaurant down.' T he Home Secretary announced that the case of the Guildford Four was to be sent back to the Court of Appeal. He...

ALTHOUGH it is no more than what is due to the innocent, Mr Douglas Hurd's decision to refer the case of the Guildford Four to the Court of Appeal is brave as well as welcome....

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 THE INDEPENDENT EUROPEAN T raditionally members of the Estab- lishment...

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Noddy and national ID cards: a case of mistaken identity NOEL MALCOLM ne of the few interesting facts to emerge from the great debate about foot- ball supporters' identity...

ANTHONY HOWARD h at a phenomenon is Roy Hatters- ley. Press the knob on a radio or television set and there he is, open a newspaper and you can't escape him, cleave the wood and...

Anguish which cannot usefully be shared AUBERON WAUGH ast time I retreated to Champneys Health Farm, in the agreeable Hertford- shire countryside, it was to study a curious...

The Japanese have scandals where we have the current campaign Tokyo WITH the new year (appropriately, the Year of the Snake) we have a new Emper- or, the same old politicians,...

Stephen Handelman reveals a tape recording that details the conversion of an ideologue Moscow KNOWLEDGEABLE Muscovites have been stunned this month by reports of an amazing...

myth of the Great Communicator Washington THE Great Communicator hit rock bot- tom in January 1983, when America was in the depths of the worst recession since the second world...

Michael Heath

Michael Trend explains the new Bill to defend the citizen from press prying MR JOHN Browne's Protection of Privacy BIll — which sets out to 'establish a right of Privacy...

THE Archbishop of Canterbury has cited the Bishop of Lincoln to appear at Lambeth Palace on Tuesday, February 12th, to answer the various charges against him of ritual...

Outsiders: a profile of Dennis Skinner, enemy of party promise DENNIS Skinner is now as much part of the furniture of the Palace of Westminster as the statues in the members'...

a new health warning: licence can damage your brain THIS year sees the 25th birthday of Mary Whitehouse's Clean Up TV Campaign, now known as the National Viewers' and...

For the top nations' finance ministers there's no place like home JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE A low-profile meeting of the 07'. Thus Mr Lawson described the next item on the global...

IN the drawer of Sir Anthony Burney's desk was a copy of Beatrix Potter's Ginger and Pickles. I thought of it when I heard the news of his death. I had given it him when he...

The Blessed Arnold, the cursed Barclays, and the little bits of fluff CHRISTOPHER FILDES T he de-beatification of the Blessed Arnold Weinstock stirs up the faithful in all...

'VAL Duncan, a friend of many years' standing, invited me to join the board of Rio Tinto-Zinc. This gave me the chance to learn something about the mining indus- try.' — From...

THE example of humility has been set by GEC's institutional shareholders. Eighteen months ago David Walker offered the Bank of England's services to bring about change in...

Academic freedom Sir: Four fellows of my college still do not understand (Letters, 7 January) why so many people took offence at the disinvita- tion of Ernst Nolte from the...

Sir: A few years ago there was invented the neutron bomb which killed people but left buildings intact. Now I hear of a new weapon called the Fogey bomb which destroys all...

Sir: The controversy in the pages of The Spectator about the question whether Bri- tain is a democracy or not suffers, in my view, from a great deal of terminological confusion....

of Wolfson's governing body appear to be primarily concerned about Mark Almond's supposed misrepresenta- tion of procedural matters, rather than with the central issue of...

Sir: A contributor to your Christmas issue (Diary, 17/24 December) asserts that 'probably the greatest, most moving reli- gious experience of the British in recent years was the...

Sir: In his fascinating article ('Safe exit from Yalta', 14 January), Timothy Garton Ash concludes that the European Com- munity is the only safe exit from Yalta. He appears to...

Sir: Mr Robert Chambers is badly misin- formed about our policy on Vietnamese boat people in Hong Kong (Letters, 17 December). There is no analogy between them and the...

Sir: To reduce mugging on the Under- ground, close the Brixton extension of the Victoria Line. Sir Michael Samuelson Bt Hollingwood, Stunts Green, Herstmonceux, Hallsham, East...

Sir: It's nice to see The Spectator carrying a piece on astral projection Nut of the body', 10 December), even though Myles Harris may be going down a dead end with his quantum...

Sir: Although every, statement in John Ralston Saul's review of the Canadian election (`No middle ground', 26 Novem- ber) is open to challenge, I wish merely to correct his...

Rebecca Nicolson T a . ngier is not what it was. An interna- tional zone for the first half of the century, the city thrived on cosmopolitan gossip and Intrigue. Smart society...

The pedallers and the pedlars Mark Swallow h e guest of honour at a wedding in the Chinese countryside must toast the groom three times, the bride three times and the groom's...

SPANISH TRAVEL QUIZ SET BY JAMES KNOX TWELVE prizes of four bottles of sherry from Harveys '1796' range are on offer to the winners of this Spanish travel quiz. The first...

Switzerland Geneva — from Rolex to Omega John Diamond C ities are never quite the stuff of their own mythology. Paris is full of Britons searching the PigaIle vainly for the...

Entry form Fill in your answers below and send the form, or a photocopy of it, to Harveys 1796 Competition, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, Lon- don WC1N 2L,L, by 11...

Seeking somewhere to die Parviz Radii THE SHAH'S LAST RIDE by William Sbawcross Chatto, £15.95, pp. 463 T here is a belief firmly embedded in the psyche of an alarmingly...

Frances Partridge ON MY WAY TO THE CLUB by Ludovic Kennedy Collins, £15, pp.432 T he title of this self-portrait may be off-putting to those for whom the epithet 'clubman'...

Anita Brookner BREATHING LESSONS by Anne Tyler Chatto & Windus, £11.95, pp,327 A nne Tyler's subject matter, carefully chosen and faithfully adhered to, consists of the...

And now, feeling querulous, God said 'Let There be consciousness'. And slep,t. And out of his long dream confused man stepped. Scorched victim of divine fission. Crazed animal...

Philip Glazebrook GENTLEMAN RIDER: A BIOGRAPHY OF JOYCE CARY by Alan Bishop Michael Joseph, £19.95, pp.408 JOYCE CARY REMEMBERED edited by Barbara Fisher Cohn Smythe,...

Patrick Skene Catling HOLIDAYS IN HELL by P.. J. O'Rourke Picador, £3.95, pp. 288 r Ee Wall Street Journal is partly to blame. They called P. J. O'Rourke 'the funniest writer...

Francis King A LITTLE STRANGER by Candia Mc William Bloomsbury, £12.95, pp.135 stranger, outwardly unremarkable A and hardly remarked, enters a community, an office or a...

Girl, though you are beautiful, Take it in your stride: Just beyond your own back-door Up the mountain-side See for yourself how briefly beauty Justifies its pride. There the...

Robin Rook A part from being a synonym for mas- terpiece, master-work can also mean a main drain or channel, and many are the tributaries which flow — or flush — into Lawrence...

Head eroded by such time and effort, The hair in fronds streams down his marble brow. The end of time, the 90th minute — The ref must blow up any , second now. Gutted, choked...

Exhibitions Gauguin (Grand Palais, Paris, till 24 April) South Sea trouble Giles Auty auguin is an artist for whom I have always felt particular affection. One...

Souvenir ('15', Cannon Haymarket) From the original Hilary Mantel W henever there is a literary adapta- tion — and this month offers several — one takes occasion to moan...

Fuente Ovejuna (Cottesloe) Honour among peasants Christopher Edwards D escribed by Cervantes as a 'prodigy of nature', Lope de Vega (1562-1635) was the most prolific...

Golden mouldies Marcus Berkmann I nteresting developments are taking place in the sleepy world of pop radio. Not before time, I hear you cry, but with the ill wind of...

Snobbery with violets Ursula Buchan I n gardening, as in life, there are few more delicious pleasures than feeling su- perior to one's fellows. From time to time,...

Who'd fancy Nancy? Taki ike Wallace is an acne-ravaged 71- year-old mediacrat with dyed black hair who is an expert at kicking people who are on their way down. Wallace works...

Base temptations Wendy Cope S ince I was a bit sniffy about Inspector Morse (ITV) last week, it is only fair to admit that I very much wanted to watch it again last Wednesday....

That strain again Jeffrey Bernard S o much music evokes so many places, times and people for me. It can be all sorts of music. My last wife was the Sibelius Symphony No 1, and...

A clean sweep Alice Thomas Ellis The other day the old year intruded with its wall chart into this one as Janet grap- pled with matters of tax, digging out ragged bills and...

r ----- ---, , Imperative cooking: an appeal to readers , . I ‘....dimL....."L...-,h‘ ' .. ' .)"--4: ' ' I HAVE recently had several reminders of the most extraordinary but...

Excellence at an incredibly cheap price Auberon Waugh A fter much thought, I decided to start the year off with reasonably priced Austra- lians. The Berri range will be...

C/o House of Hallgarten, Carkers Lane, Highgate Road, London NW5 1RR. Tel: (01) 267 2041. White Price Number Total Rhine Riesling (Berri Estates) 12 bts. £39.00 Muscat...

Caro can't Raymond Keene W hen Jon Speelman used the Caro- Kann to defeat Nigel Short just after the mid-point of the Foreign and Colonial Tournament at Hastings (see last...

The strange bet Jaspistos I . n Competition No. 1557 you were in- vited to write a short story of 750 - 800 Words with the above title. 'A teenage boy in Coventry, Rhode...

You are invited to write a poem (maximumn 16 lines) celebrating one of the less publi- cised inmates of a zoo — the potto, the ocelot, the iguana, the bird-eating spider, for...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 for the first three correct solutions opened on 6 February. Entries to: Crossword 892, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street,...

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