21 SEPTEMBER 1996

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PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK

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Hot Blair balloon M r Malcolm Rifkind, the Foreign Secretary, in a speech on the 50th anniver- sary of Churchill's at Zurich, said that the introduction of a single currency...

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DIARY

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DAVID HARE T he readership of the Daily Telegraph and The Spectator only marginally overlap, but this is my sole chance to thank the hun- dreds of people who wrote to me about a...

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ANOTHER VOICE

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The possible explanation, which we're brought up to disbelieve, of why people kill each other MATTH EW PARRI A n unmentionable thought has long troubled me. With elections in...

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NOT UN, BUT AN That is the new kind of

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joblessness, argues Bruce Anderson. Thousands are now unemployed, not because they are out of work, but because they are outside work The notion that unemploy- ment causes...

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A MIRACLE ON THE AIR

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Fifty years of Radio Three: Michael Vestey celebrates its survival, and warns of battles to come IN Peter Ustinov's amusing play Beethoven's Tenth, the composer returns from the...

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THE FOUNDING FATHER

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Fifty years of Radio Three: E.C. Hodgkin says what it was like to work for the self- educated journalist who started it PREPARATIONS for an 'arts pro- gramme' had been going on...

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MINOAN SCRIPT, BUT NOT MANY LISTENERS

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Fifty years of Radio Three: Noel Annan reviews the programme's new history, and recalls the early years NOSTALGIA wells up in the heart of aging intellectuals when the Third...

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Mind your language

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'AND then there is the tenth meaning ' I was saying to my husband as he was getting stuck into an interesting paper in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine called 'Acedia the...

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THE POPE AND THE STATE OF FRANCE

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Douglas Johnson shows that apapal visit has aroused both hopes and fears of a French Roman Catholic revival ON the morning of Thursday, 19 Septem- ber, the Pope was due to...

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FOR AMERICAN EYES ONLY

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Nicholas Farrell discovers that in the United States the BBC endorses unchanged a programme it had to change for Britain the History Channel on the night of Sun- day 10...

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DREAMT, BUT AT SUNRISE, I ACTED'

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Shimon Peres gives Simon Sebag Montefiore his first interview since losing office, and says Mr Netanyahu is a young man with a tired mind 'I WAS heartbroken and upset,' says...

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HENRY KING

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Michael Heath

SPECTATOR/ALLIED DUNBAR LECTURE

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TAXATION: IT IS A MORAL ISSUE . . . but not in the way that Labour claims, says John Major ALL AROUND the world, people ask the fundamental question — how much government...

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TWO NAMES WORRIED A STRICKEN SAINT

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. . . incredibly, they were Christopher . Hitchens and Tariq Ali, reveals Parnab Mukherjee Calcutta CHRISTOPHER Hitchens lives in the United States and writes for Vanity Fair....

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A HUNDRED AND ONE AGGRAVATIONS

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Lucinda Bredin tried to arrange for an official telegram for her grandmother's centenary things couldn't have gone worse AS MY grandmother's 100th birthday approached, the...

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POL POT AND CHARDONNAY

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They were all Michael Sheridan found remaining of France in Cambodia NOT LONG ago, the Americans found in their archives in Washington a long-forgot- ten film about Cambodia,...

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AND ANOTHER THING

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Yankees should stop the cultural cringing and throw the Brit rascals out PAUL JOHNSON N ew York is at present suffering from a bout of cultural cringe, and assumes that...

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CITY AND SUBURBAN

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The people's flag is pink and white, But lo, the Euro-fleet's in sight CHRISTOPHER FILDES T he prawn cocktail offensive is now a crustacean invasion. After years of soften-...

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Sir: As a veteran Cold Warrior and an old friend

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of Peregrine Worsthorne, I was baf- fled by his new distaste for the nuclear bal- ance of terror. Life would be very boring if we could not repent of imaginary sins,...

LETTERS

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Europe after Hitler Sir: You are quite right to say that the lat- est Iraq crisis has told us that `a common European foreign policy would be impossi- ble and even if possible...

Cold War answers

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Sir: As a member of the Nato division of the Defence Policy Staff at the time of Margaret Thatcher's accession and a stu- dent at the Royal College of Defence Stud- ies during...

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Sir: Am I alone in finding Peregrine Worsthorne's volte-face over

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nuclear weapons truly extraordinary? To berate the New Right for their stiffness of spine at the time communism was collapsing because of its — to use the Marxist phrase —...

Sir: We are astonished that Peregrine Worsthome has only now

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become cog- nisant of the depth of the desire of the American Right to wage and 'win' a nuclear war. CND made this point repeatedly dur- ing the 1980s when we were both staff...

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Authorised delay

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Sir: Christopher Fildes says (City and sub- urban, 7 September) that only a brave exciseman would dun Arnold Weinstock for overdue payment of VAT. Indeed. When he took over at...

Upstaged at Epidaurus

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Sir: My stomach turned when I read Sheri- dan Morley's review of the National The- atre's production of Oedipus at Epidaurus (7 September). The 'locals' (just a hair's- breadth...

Floreat Radio

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Sir: I suppose I should be grateful that Michael Vestey's equivalent of pouring a pint of beer over my head is limited to words, to asserting that John Birt and I nei- ther...

Good publicity

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Sir: It is not clear that Bruce Anderson (Politics, 14 September) or Stephen Glover (Media studies, 14 September) have known Robert Runcie or have read Humphrey Carpenter's...

Jacobs reconsidered

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Sir: Keith Waterhouse has recently remind- ed Spectator readers of his campaign for a commemorative plaque to the author W.W. Jacobs (Diary, 10 August). English Heritage is...

Gill promotion

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Sir: Congratulations on luring the famous A.A. Gill to the pages of your magazine ('Why they hate A.A. Gill', 14 September). Thanks to you, at least 55,475 more people have now...

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MEDIA STUDIES

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When they're not scratching one another's backs, they're scratching one another's eyes STEPHEN GLOVER Any suggestion that a novelist has written a roman a clef invariably...

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BOOKS

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The scholar V. the friend David Sexton DAMNED TO FAME by James Knowlson Bloomsbury, £25, pp. 896 SAMUEL BECKETT: THE LAST MODERNIST by Anthony Cronin HarperCollins, £25, pp....

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The winning ways of the Tories Bruce Anderson

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A HISTORY OF CONSERVATIVE POLITICS, 1900-1996 by John Charmley Macmillan, £16.99, pp. 296 T he Tory Party is an enduring paradox. By opposing the Great Reform Bill, it put...

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No, but I'll watch the programme

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Barbara Trapido NOT YET HOME by Justin Cartright Fourth Estate, £12.99, pp. 191 J ustin Cartright is an exciting novelist. His imagination sparks off some of the most vital...

Where there's a will

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Charlotte Moore THE GUEST by Charlotte Cory Faber, £15.99, pp. 224 T he guest' of the title is a corpse, a nameless visitor found dead in his hotel room in Knibden, an English...

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A stunning twist

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Harriet Waugh THE KEYS TO THE STREET by Ruth Rendell Hutchinson, £15.99, pp. 310 R uth Rendell is a phenomenon. For many years she has been producing three novels a year,...

The Empress and I

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Amit Chaudhuri INDIAN SAHIB by Sushila Anand Duckworth, £16.95, pp. 112 I n 1887, 24-year-old Abdul Karim, son of a humble hakim (a Muslim doctor) and scion of a family in no...

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Scotland the grave

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Charles Maclean THE KILN by William Mcllvanney Sceptre, £15.99, pp. 277 n offer here is the memoir of a dis- mayed man sitting alone in an Edinburgh flat thinking about the...

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His glory is he has such friends

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Deborah Devonshire FOURTEEN FRIENDS by James Lees-Milne John Murray, £19.99, pp. 256 J ames Lees-Milne was looking for a title for his latest book. We were discussing it and...

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Crime or banishment

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Andrew Barrow COCAINE NIGHTS by J. G. Ballard Flamingo, £16.99, pp. 329 T his is the first book I have read by this prolific and popular author. I am therefore unable to say...

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Sex and oil in Argentina

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James Simmons THE STORY OF THE NIGHT by Colm Picador, £15.99, pp. 313 I f Colm T6ibin were a singer you would say he had perfectly pitch. This novel leads you through its...

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Restored to glory

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David Ekserdjian MASACCIO by John T. Spike Abbeville/John Murray, £72, pp. 256 T he cleaning of the Sistine Chapel ceil- ing was without question the most talked about...

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Not much of the nice and the good

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John Whitworth THE MIDDEN by Tom Sharpe Secker & Warburg, L15.99, pp. 245 I have an affection for Tom Sharpe. My writing career began at Seeker Warburg, and it was the...

And if thou wilt, remember

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David Montrose DISTANCE by Colin Thubron Heinemann, f15.99, pp. 218 T he protagonists of Colin Thubron's more recent novels — A Cruel Madness (1984), Falling (1989), and...

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Books that make the money or money that makes the

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books Tobias Jones CONSUMING FICTIONS: THE BOOKER PRIZE AND FICTION IN BRITAIN TODAY by Richard Todd Bloomsbury, £12.99, pp. 340 R eading literature as merely the artistic...

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Going too far Bernard Dunstan WALTER SICKERT: DRAWINGS by Anna

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Gruetzner Robins Scolar, 1115, pp. 96 A new book on Sickert's drawings must always be welcome. Nothing on the subject has been published for some years, and though a few of his...

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A Rose by any other name

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Q uite the most extraordinary item in last week's newspapers had nothing what- ever to do with Dr Runcie, Saddam Hus- sein or Mrs Parker Bowles. It was a lengthy obituary in one...

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ARTS

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My first eleven Michael Henderson follows in the steps of Neville Cardus and picks his team of composers A record-breaking Proms season ended last Saturday, and it was a good...

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Exhibitions

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Mysteries of Ancient China (British Museum, till 5 January 1997) Obsession with death Martin Gayford T he First Emperor of China ordered all the ancient books in his empire...

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M usic

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Personality count Peter Phillips T he subtle relationship between con- ductor and orchestra has been on candid display in recent nights at the Proms. The essence of the matter...

Opera

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La Traviata (English National Opera) La Boheme (Royal Opera House) Das Land des Ilichelns (Barbican) A trio of tear-jerkers Michael Tanner N o doubt coincidentally, the Royal...

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Cinema

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Striptease (15, selected cinemas) The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (15, selected cinemas) Keeping abreast of Demi Mark Steyn D emi Moore's breasts hang...

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Theatre

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Romance, Romance (Bridewell) Swan Lake (Piccadilly) Kindertransport (Vaudeville) The Flight into Egypt (Hampstead) Love lost and regained Sheridan Morley T his week a...

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Radio

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Guinness is good for you Michael Vestey T he slot on Radio Four that consistent- ly delights, and gets its choice of material right, is at 8.40 in the morning, immediate- ly...

Television

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Crass Rhodes James Delingpole W hen I was travelling through the Sudan a few years back, old men would often come up to me and say, 'Why did you leave us? Things were so much...

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Motoring

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In need of a navigational fix Alan Judd I 'm in the car-buying mode again. I shouldn't — I don't need one — but that never had anything to do with the price of fish. The...

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The turf

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Rules are rules but . . . Robin Oakley B efore he received the irresistible call from Sheikh Mohammed to return to Britain and handle some of his best horses, John Gosden had...

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High life

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Hack hypocrisy Taki 'T here is something a little chilling about the spectacle of a rich man attempt- ing to hijack British politics.' This ludicrous sentence appeared last...

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Low life

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Sunday shocker Jeffrey Bernard L ast Sunday should have been a good and pleasant day. I had no hospital appointment, the weather was lovely and the friend who produced Channel...

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BRIDGE

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Hope and glory Andrew Robson THE 'GAMBLING' 3NT opening bid shows a solid seven or eight card minor suit and little else. If partner can provide stop- pers in the other three...

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SPECTA TOR WINE CLUB

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All French and all high-class Auberon Waugh T his offer, which averages £10.25 a bot- tle on the full mixed case, may seem to announce a reckless jump up-market. If so, it...

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JO RA

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Mil 11■0 VOI(X•111511 U RA COMPETITION Snappy number Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1950 you were invited to supply a 'Song of the Wicked Paparazzo' for a modern...

SIMPSON'S

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IN•TH E•ST RAND SIMPSON'S 15•THE•STRAND CHESS Top of the world Raymond Keene THE BULGARIAN grandmaster Veselin Topalov has joined that charmed circle of players,...

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CROSSWORD

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1279: Heads will roll by Mass A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 1990 Port for the first correct solution opened on 7 October, with two...

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SPECTATOR SPORT

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The ghosts of cricket past Simon Barnes MORE THAN most sports, cricket is the domain of sentimentalists. Each vanished decade is more precious than the one that followed it;...

YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED

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Dear Mary.. . Q. I recently took a party of six friends to the opera, and was struck by my ignorance over a certain point of etiquette. When squeezing past people in order to...