SPECTATOR The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 A HUMAN DRESS ONLY two of the Gospels, Matthew and Luke, tell the...

`I'm in favour of a united Germany, so long as it's Aryan.' T he Pope attacked the British govern- ment policy of forcibly repatriating Viet- namese boat people saying that...

Nineteen ninety-four (second edition, revised) NOEL MALCOLM W inston Smith leaned further forward into the alcove in the corner of his sitting- room. He had discovered that if...

T here is nothing new about retrospec- tive legislation in this country. Tax statutes have been known to say that such-and-such a sharp practice will not only be illegal from...

Her plan to manipulate the morons of Britain AUBERON WAUGH T his will be my last appearance in the front half of the Spectator until the end of April, as I must take time off...

Stephen Handelman reports on the momentum of change that is forcing Gorbachev to address the idea of ending one-party rule Mosco w AMONG the unfinished monuments that Andrei...

James Bowman observes the crocodile tears that Americans weep for children at Christmas AT THE beginning of Act V of Antony and Cleopatra, when news is brought to Caesar of...

Cholesterol-intervention EVERYBODY knows that a deposit of cholesterol accumulating in one's arter- ies prevents them transporting sufficient blood to one's heart-muscle; this...

Denis Hills remembers Denis Hills remembers a near-repatriation and a 'war criminal' whom he liked THE other day I was interviewed for a BBC television programme on war...

Anne Applebaum assesses the contribution of outside advisers to Poland's rocky economy `DAMN.' Jeffrey Sachs is trying to call the Polish Ministry of Finance from his War- saw...

Patrick Skene Calling is treated to a gastronomic holiday that is just the ticket IN every metropolis, I suppose, there are tycoons whose style may be cramped tem- porarily by...

Dominic Lawson reveals the twenty ways of spotting when a recession has arrived THE Sun newspaper has brilliantly reha- bilitated that old journalistic device, `Twenty Things...

Edward Whitley meets the men who make a living out of insolvency `THERE was this one job when I went into the factory, stood up on a box and told them it was all over. The...

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Prince Charles presented our prizes for Prayer Book recitation, and stood up for Cranmer. Charles Moore reports THE germ of the idea of a prize in memory of Thomas Cranmer had...

Michael Heath

The media: Paul Johnson argues that televising the Commons may benefit government THE media event of the year was un- doubtedly the decision to televise the House of Commons,...

(and Czechoslovakia and . . .) CHARLES MOORE WRITES: About this time last year, our foreign editor, Timothy Garton Ash, appealed to our readers to buy half-price subscriptions...

and joined their vaporous host, he had spent the day idly wandering from room to room in the grip of ancient memories. Here was the room he was born in, here the attic he played...

Sousa Jamba has a crisis of confidence in the crack zone Panama City, Florida A MOST unfortunate thing happened to me on my third trip to the United States. President Bush had...

James Devoy heard few tidings of comfort and joy inside Thursday, 22 December WELL, that's that. Santa can't have got the V.O. No dope for Christmas. This year Bing Crosby's...

Joanna Coles finds she has no idea how to help a vagrant ON A recent Friday evening I arranged to meet a friend on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral. We had planned to have...

With the decline of public increasing loneliness for Finns TAKE a sparse human population and scatter it arbitrarily over the vast emptiness that is Nordic Europe. Sit back for...

BROWNING is to be buried in West- minster Abbey on the last day of the year, — a decision in which the Dean of Westminster has been supported by the hearty approbation of all...

Piers Paul Read looks at this extraordinary meeting place of three world religions AN EARLY achievement of the Palesti- nian intifada — Jerusalem is once again a divided city....

Damian Thompson looks back from the future to the collapse of the Church of England Oxford University Final Honours School in Modern History, 2039. Special paper V: The...

Roy Kerridge tours the land, pretending to look for work THIS is the Golden Age for those who, like myself, specialise in Job Avoidance. There is so much talk of unemployment...

D. J. Taylor shudders to remember the festive season in a bad hotel CHRISTMAS Eve. A small misunder- standing with a railway timetable and a slightly larger misunderstanding...

Paul Webb contrasts the humour of Charles Lamb's writing with his tragic life FEW of the .adults who buy Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare (first published 1807) as an educative...

Will the green of Ireland become that of Islam? Jane Kelly reports IN the Galway Galleon Restaurant, diners seemed unaware of the significance of two small men with...

Kylie Stopes switches on Kylie Stopes switches on the bizarre history of the vacuum cleaner HOOVERSEXUALITY first came to light in New England in 1973. One summer afternoon,...

prominent make of vacuum cleaner, other brands have been involved.

Nicholas Budgen imagines Mr Jorrocks joining him for the chase in the Welsh borders I CHERISH the hope that some readers of this paper also read Handley Cross. As they read...

Candida Crewe investigates what they learn in schools `THERE was a couple, not so long ago, who had undergone all sorts of tests at an infertility clinic because they couldn't...

Ross Clark discusses xenophobia throughout the Community JUST as one thinks of the Baltic state of Estonia as being somewhat anti-Russian, it is not difficult to pick up the...

SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT. A word for class, used by timid people of the middle social environments. Nigel Burke

Sir: Your correspondent, Mihir Bose (The illusion of influence, 25 November), reaches some harsh conclusions about the British business effort in Hong Kong. His conclusions are...

Sir: But Mrs Kee should complain My gangrenous leg', 9 December). She must complain! And this is how to do it. She should send a copy of her article to the chairman of the...

Muslim threats Sir: We, the undersigned, would be grate- ful for space in your letters column, in order to advise those of your correspon- dents who might sympathise with the...

Sir: $26.4 million is not the record for an abstract work because the Picasso painting which fetched this price, 'Le Miroir', is not abstract (Sale-rooms, 9 December). It shows...

Sir: It is entirely appropriate that The Spectator should spring to Mr Tolstoy's defence, but is Evelyn Waugh quite the right witness? Such was Waugh's detesta- tion of...

Sir: Your columnist, Taki (High life, 25 November) reports that Alice Mayhew of the New York publishing firm, Simon & Schuster, had objected to his work on ideological grounds,...

Sir: I note with interest David Irving's letter (25 November), drawing attention to the Tass report that the Auschwitz Death Books reveal that only 74,000 people died in that...

Sir: There are six flats in this house and each week three copies of The Spectator are delivered to it. It would be interesting to hear what is the highest proportion of...

A line was accidentally omitted from Mr A.S. Fair's letter of 9 December. The quotation from the army field report of 1918 should have read: "As the frontier between Armenia...

Sir: Now that the author of 'Afore Ye Go' has successfully demonstrated his ability to write a boring, pompous and, above all, humourless column, could he be persuaded to try...

Goodbye . . . hello This year: 1 Whose dog, Chipper, said goodbye to this world after losing its life in a fight with its mistress's mother's dog, Ranger? 2 Who said hello to...

A Decade and its Books Ferdinand Mount W ith the first careless glance of hind- sight, the Eighties look like an inconspi- cuous decade with little smell or aftertaste to it,...

Robert Oakeshott ENOCH POWELL ON 1992 edited by Richard Ritchie Anaya Publishers Ltd, £14.95, pp.177 A s Spectator readers will be well aware, Mr Enoch Powell is marked out...

Paul Taylor FANFARE: THE UNAUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY OF ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER by Jonathan Mantle Michael Joseph, 114.95, pp.248 ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER: HIS LIFE AND WORKS by Michael...

David Ekserdjian GIOVANNI BELLINI by Rona Goffen Yale, £39.95, pp. 288 I n 1506 Albrecht Diirer wrote a letter home from Venice to his friend Willibald Pirckheimer. He...

George Clive THE ART AND ARCHITECTURE OF ENGLISH GARDENS by Jane Brown Weidenfeld & Nicolson, .£40, pp.320 THE GLORY OF THE BRITISH GARDEN by Mary Keen Barrie &Jenkins, 125,...

He stepped into the room, permitted, Seen, not heard, His father stood With glass in hand but sober-suited: Mother, has the boy been good? I think he has. Her voice came...

John Osborne FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT: LETTERS edited by Gilles Jacob and Claude Givray Faber, £17.50, pp.589 A s I was picking my way through these confusingly edited letters, I read...

V. S. Pritchett CHEKHOV IN MY LIFE by Lydia Avilova Methuen, £10.99, pp. 160 T his is a new edition of Lydia Avilova's well-known chattering account of her love of Chekhov,...

Matthew Parris INSIDE THE HOUSE OF COMMONS: BEHIND THE SCENES AT WESTMINSTER by John Biffen Grafton, £16.95, pp.237 W ought to be a bit doubtful about the Common Market, Mr...

The sow's ear Is now more valuable than the silk purse, Nature than art, the silk-worm than the silk. The breast now swelling with tomorrow's milk Signifies hope, and the young...

Non-fiction: The Literary Guide to the Bible edited by Robert Alter and Frank Kermode, Fon- tana, £9.99 A Passage to England by Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Hogarth, £6.95 The Best We...

Anthony Blond MEMOIR OF ITALO SVEVO by Livia V. Svevo Libris, £17.95, pp.178 You are an author who doesn't go' [Bookshop assistant to Svevo.] He abused the English and they...

Christopher Hawtree H ere is a new Graham Greene enter- tainment, one which incorporates some of the central issues of our times. When reviewing Greene's recent volume of...

Architecture Most artful architect Edward Chaney Inigo Jones Architect (Royal Academy, till 25 February) S ixteenth-century Italy, which so pro- foundly inspired Inigo Jones...

Idomeneo (Covent Garden) Show Boat (Opera North, Leeds) An act of criticism Rodney Milnes A t the centre of Johannes Schaaf's production of Idomeneo, which has been...

Battling into the Nineties Giles Auty E nds of decades encourage reflections, memories, regrets. In my particular case I feel I look back on more than enough eras already. My...

Theatre Macho man Christopher Edwards S omething of the character of Coriola- nus can be gleaned from the remarks of his powerful mother Volumnia. Her maternal affection is...

Gingerbread artistry Robin Holloway E very musical childused to be taken to Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel for their first opera. I can recall after over 30 years...

Garden leaves Ursula Buchan Dora Appletree's new book of garden- ing reminiscences, My Garden at Whitsun, is sure to delight her numerous fans and make her many more. With...

al Opera's repertory for December and

Box tops Wendy Cope I t's my fourth Christmas in this space and for the first time I can offer you something a bit different for the double issue, viz my programmes of the...

Socialists or socialites? Taki retirement home of Andreas Papandreou. Not that it hasn't been great fun. Watch- ing the Kravises, Gutfreunds, Steinbergs and Trumps go through...

Well oiled Jeffrey Bernard I had the honour to be invited to the Groucho Club's annual lunch for the staff yesterday and I felt privileged. There wasn't another member in...

The spirit of Christmas Zenga Longmore W hilst sitting in the launderette, I chanced to glance up at Sonia who was hurrying by with her son Brian. On seeing me, she pushed...

•••■•S• N .Z' r a , FOR a restaurant critic, the only piece of news more welcome than the information that a good restaurant has just opened is that a good restaurant has just...

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Classical corner Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1605 you were in- vited to write in English a poem entitled December' in one of the two classical metres, alcaics or sapphics. A...

Roaring 80s Raymond Keene T his column is my final one of the 1980s, and marks the close of a decade which has witnessed some remarkable de- velopments on the world chess...

You know the form of cliché which goes `The film's bedroom scenes make the orgies of Tiberius look like a vicarage tea-party', or 'George Lodwick on the wing, whose dreadlocks...

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