M uch to the surprise of those who have campaigned for years on behalf of the so-called 'Guildford Four', the Director of Public Prosecutions said that it would be `wrong for...

1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 FOURTEEN YEARS ON of justice. This is a strange, strong and horrible human characteristic. When a man is accused of petty shoplifting, people...

BECAUSE of the enormous demand for the next year's Diary, there has been a delay in despatching the orders. All orders received should be despatched by 31 Octo- ber 1989. There...

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 dubious pleasures of Mr Lawson's excessive credit NOEL MALCOLM C atastrophe theory, roughly speaking, tries to describe the extreme conditions under which things can...

NICHOLAS COLERIDGE S ince last I wrote this diary I have got married, and ten weeks into it my only domestic problem is having a house too small to store the many wedding...

Time for Murdoch to take Holy Orders AUBERON WAUGH Can this be true? True or false, it seemed most unlikely that Murdoch would say anything as interesting. But the excel- lent...

This week is the 250th anniversary of Britain's oldest chartered children's charity. Alexandra Artley sees in its history the social problems of today ON THE north side of...

RUSSIANS appear to be exceedingly interested in a sermon recently deli- vered in Odessa by the Archbishop Nicaner. He is a pure Russian by birth and education, but he tells his...

As German reunification moves closer, Richard Bassett wonders how long British troops will stay Berlin `GUTEN Tag', the British officer smartly proffered a friendly greeting...

Stephen Robinson reports on the freeing of ANC members in South Africa Johannesburg IT IS time for the world to stop merely complimenting President De Klerk on his nice smile...

Michael Heath

between riot police and obstructive bureaucrats Prague `CLINGFILM round the eyes is no good at all,' said my friend, who had been tear- gassed in Seoul and knew what he was...

Christopher Hughes reports on the surprising tactics of one candidate in Taiwan's elections Taipei THE wind of democracy has blown some unexpected but colourful seeds on to...

More about Aids NOT many Spectator readers who were alive and sentient at the time can have forgotten the tremendous stir created throughout the 1950s by the Kinsey Report,...

Charles Glass laments Auberon Waugh's restraint on the tube last week WHEN I read Auberon Waugh's account last week of 'The day I nearly kissed an unknown young woman on the...

THE Château Latour which Charles Moore found in Blackpool (Diary, 14 October) was misprinted as 1985. It was, in fact, 1983.

Do British children persecute the latest 'findings' FOLLOWING the exhaustion of inner-city violence, rural violence, football hooligan- ism, and rottweiler savagery as societal...

Digby Anderson uncovers a conflict of interests within the RSPCA LAST year the RSPCA received more than 1,122,304 calls for help. With a budget of some £19 million, an...

COMMUNICATION. You are meant to communicate with people, but there are parties who go on about 'communicat- ing our message to people'. You can tell they don't want any backchat...

Quentin Crewe finds British ambassadorial staff an embarrassment MY PARENTS brought me up to believe that the first thing one had to do on arriving in any capital city was to...

The press: Paul Johnson on the newspapers the bishops enjoy STRICT duty, I suppose, suggests I ought to be writing this week about the mess into which the Telegraph group has...

IN Washington last month for the Interna- tional Monetary Fund meetings, ministers seemed as complacent in their ability as they were two years earlier. It may well be that...

WHAT had inflated the bubbles, here and even more on Wall Street, was the notion that shares were in short supply and should therefore command famine prices. In New York, many...

What are the wild waves saying? Stand by for the tear-jerking scene CHRISTOPHER FILDES W e have it from that old salt of the naval patrols, Sub-Lieutenant Lawson, R.N....

THE cue for cuts in interest rates will now come not from the stock market but from the economy. They will start to fall when the economy has plainly started to slow down, and a...

Sir: According to W. J. West, the corres- pondence in your columns following the Chapman Pincher review of his recent book The Truth about Hollis has produced crucial new...

Sir: Last Saturday, during the matinee interval of Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell at the Theatre Royal, Bath, I overheard the following exchange between two members of the audience:...

Sir: Noel Malcolm raised a very interesting question by asking why Michael Heseltine, as a vote-seeking entrepreneurial Tory politician, had been as indifferent to the emergence...

Sir: We are writing because we are dis- appointed that Mr Nicholas Farrell misrep- resented the facts of what happened the day he witnessed us performing on tube trains in the...

Sir: Robin Holloway's 'Bach betrayed' (Arts, 23 September) reminds us that composers are notoriously unreliable on other composers — especially earlier ones — and that Vaughan...

Sir: There is junk mail and crank mail, and mail from Mr Dineley (Letters, 14 Octo- ber). His is of such bewildering virtuosity that anyone with a serious 'Nut-file', far from...

Sir: Mr Haycraft (Letters, 19 August) appears to prefer `vulgar' to 'common' as a term of disapproval. The 27th Lord Craw- ford called Marquess Curzon 'inexpressibly common'; I...

Sir: John Harris (Letters, 23 September) is a very good architectural historian and as such can call black white at will. Other observers find it hard to embrace the Euston Arch...

Sir: Mr Wray's suggestion (Letters, 7 October) seems admirable. You could offer him the following explanations: a) Cricket: baseball played by under- achievers. b) Wallace...

Sir: I read with particular interest Brien Masters's denial of Angela Huth's critic- isms of the Rudolf Steiner system of education in view of the recent announce- ment that a...

Sir: In response to Noel Malcolm's `Europe's unholy godfathers' (23 Septem- ber) I would like to point to a brief passage in a speech by Lord Salisbury made during his...

Sir: Andrew Kenny should ask himself why unrestricted mass immigration did little for the indigenous population of the USA, Australia and New Zealand. Hugh Joseph Highbury,...

Society of dead poets Ferdinand Mount THE TIME OF MY LIFE by Denis Healey Michael Joseph, £17.95, pp.607 T he day Denis Healey was born, Virgi- nia Woolf recorded in her...

Francis King THE WOMAN WHO TALKED TO HERSELF by A. L. Barker Hutchinson, £11.95, pp. 186 T he author subtitles this 'An articu- lated novel'; and certainly it fulfils one...

Peter Black GRAND INQUISITOR by Robin Day Weidenfeld and Nicolson, £14.95, pp.296 -wats■•■=ra L ord Rees-Mogg, an old buddy from Oxford, declared that Sir Robin Day 'had done...

Patrick Pender-Cudlip THE VISION OF ELENA SILVES by Nicholas Shakespeare Collins Harvill, £11 .95, pp.250 S endero Luminoso, The Shining Path, is one of the nastiest and most...

Anthony Daniels DISEASE, MEDICINE AND EMPIRE: PERSPECTIVES ON WESTERN MEDICINE AND THE EXPERIENCE OF EUROPEAN EXPANSION edited by Roy MacLeod and Milton Lewis Routledge, E45,...

reading other people William Scammell LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH: AN ANTHOLOGY edited by Edward Burman Constable, £12.95, pp.221 L loyd Logan Pearsall Smith (1865- 1946) — he...

Berlin girl Patrick O'Connor LENYA — A LIFE by Donald Spoto Viking, £15.95, pp.371 A few years ago, discussing opera with Ken Russell, I suggested that his film of Lotte...

P. N. Furbank THE ESSENTIAL WYNDHAM LEWIS: AN INTRODUCTION TO HIS WORK edited by Julian Symons Deutsch, f17.95, pp.420 11 . 10 •1•■ 0 ne feels a kind of compunction towards...

M usi c Feeling in form Giles Auty Anthony Caro (Knoedler Gallery/Annely Juda, till 4 November) Elizabeth Frink (Fischer Fine Art, till 9 November) Vanessa Pooley (The...

Non-fiction The Presence of the Past, by Rupert Shel- drake, Fontana, £7.99 Young Betjeman by Bevis Hillier, Cardin- al, £5.99 British Writers of the Thirties by Valentine...

Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell (Apollo) Singer (Swan, Stratford) Laughter from the depths Christopher Edwards R eaders of The Spectator will need no explanation about the contents...

Best of British Robin Holloway T he Booker Prize is in season again. Everyone who reads novels will have an opinion and feel secretly that they could do as well as the expert...

Nicer funs Martin Gayford J azz grew up mainly in low drinking dives and sleazy dance halls, but it also flourished on the streets. Many of the earliest jazz bands in New...

Cotswold squirrel Peter Watson R onald Summerfield was an eccentric, the art trade's contribution to a cherished British tradition. Or, at least, that is what Christie's would...

Henry V ('PG', Curzon Mayfair) Mud and guts Hilary Mantel S o . . . is Kenneth Branagh another Olivier? And do we need another? Olivier's film of the play was a patriotic...

The tints that glow Ursula Buchan ummy, why didn't God come down as a woman?' `Eat up your Real Ghostbuster Spaghetti Shapes, dear.' `Mummy, why has Mrs Harris got a...

Whizz bang Taki enry Kravis is the Toulouse-Lautrec- sized financial whizz known for buying up companies at inflated prices, loading - them down with mountains of debt and...

Full steam ahead Wendy Cope C urrently I'm in danger of watching too much television because there are several things I don't like to miss. Capital City (ITV, 9 p.m.)...

Stage fright Jeffrey Bernard onday was hectic. First, I went to Broadcasting House for Melvyn Bragg's Start the Week. Then I went to the Groucho Club to be interviewed by a...

Mixed blessing Zenga Longmore tion of the man is in their files. Claudette shivered with emotion when I had finished this gruesome tale. `Let's change the subject,' she sug-...

A sensuous virgin, but earthy Auberon Waugh N o fancy New World stuff this time. El Vino, as its writing paper proudly proc- laims, is an all-British firm, despite its foreign...

Spectator Wine Club, C/o El Vino Co. Ltd, 1 Hare Place, Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1BJ. Tel: 01-353 5384 Price No. Value White 1. Macon Villages 1988 (Arcelin) 12 bots. £53.00...

Winners Raymond Keene I left the semi-finals last week with Karpov and Timman enjoying the lead, albeit a narrow one. Then, at the weekend, both Yusupov and Speelman struck...

Party line Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1596 you were in- vited to supply a bright magazine article on how to make an alcohol-free party swing. At Oxford I planned a party...

A first prize of CO 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...

You are invited to write a poem (maximum 16 lines) commenting on the proposal to erect wrought iron gates and railings at one end of Downing Street. Entries to 'Com- petition...

2 N D 3 l. E * 1. O'sW. R 1' A 3 $ A Rf Si I C AN I OE L A I f m_ IA E N E V I AFTINt 0 0 A K Aii1EILIEINYET ILICV 1 , ISHEIB OWERC CIRI1114 . TATUAPAS ED 2 bUT ODER R EIRrUN...

TI SPECTA E TOR Voreword by Willace Arnold Edited by Christopher Howse A splendid compilation of the best of SPECTATOR humour from the post-war years 1 2.95 AvAILABLE...