23 OCTOBER 1953

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THOMAS HODGKIN: Black Orpheus and 'White Pluto JULES MENKEN: Asia

The Spectator

After Korea WOLF MANKOWITZ: A Theory of Madeira ANTHONY HARTLEY: Samuel Beckett JOHN ARLOTT: An English Centre-Forward

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Mr. Hoover in Teheran

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Yet another American fact-finding mission has arrived in Persia. This time it is Mr. Hoover, special adviser to Mr. Dulles on oil problems. His visit was made with the prior...

THE SPECTATOR

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N0. (') 5 3 9 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1953 PRICE 7 d.

MIDDLE EAST VACUUM T HE annihilation of the village of Quibya

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by armed Israelis was the culmination of a series of border incidents for any one of which it was impossible to attribute blame. Yet Quibya was different, and not merely because...

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Deadlock in Panmunjom

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Proceedings at Panmunjom have reached the familiar stage of deadlock. The explanations to anti-Communist prisoners under the' terms of the armistice agreement have been inter-...

Concluding a War

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The refusal of the Vietnamese National Congress to nominate delegates to negotiate on the French offer of independence, following on their opposition to participation in the...

British Guiana on Paper

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Wherever his sympathies lay, there were three things a conscientious MP might want to learn from Mr. Lyttelton. Was it necessary to suspend the constitution of British Guiana ?...

Trieste

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The situation in Trieste is becoming still more involved : Mr. Eden may talk about " lancing an abcess," but it now looks as if the Anglo-American declaration has had the effect...

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Unionists Forever—and Ever

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A Correspondent in Northern Ireland writes: A visitor to Belfast last week-end might be excused for not realising that a General Election was imminent. The citizens of Belfast...

Codding the Trawlernien

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The irrepressible Mr. Dawson has carried his private war against the Grimsby fish men one stage further. His first catch of Icelandic fish has been landed and disposed of,...

AT WESTMINSTER

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I HE reassembly of Parliament on Tuesday after the summer recess had about it the atmosphere of a first night in which the drama was heightened by fantasy. We have all watched...

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QUESTION TIME

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N 0 sooner had Parliament turned its back three months ago than the wild world was on its horse and gallop- ing off in all directions. Modesty must prevent members from showing...

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A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

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T HE current issue of Life contains an able article by Mr. Bruce Hutchison, a Canadian journalist, entitled " A Dangerous European Luxury: Hating America." Life comments...

The Triumvir It is now over four Months since the

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Praesidiuni of the Supreme Soviet announced, on July 10th, its decision that Beria should be dismissed from his exalted posts and that " the case on Beria's criminal activities...

Excelsiorski Undismayed by the calamitous outcome of their attempt to

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climb Everest last winter, the Russians (according to 'the Tribune de Geneve) are preparing another expedition for 1954. Once more the mountain will be attacked from the North,...

Culture Up North A reader, who recalls that about eighteen

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months ago Hamlet was described by the management of the Theatre Royal, Huddersfield, as "The Play of the' Film," sends me the announcement of their current offering. It reads :...

The Anonymous Islands We were talking about security measures and

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the comedies to which they sometimes give rise. General Bob Laycock remembered the occasion during the last war when it seemed to the Chiefs of Staff possible that in certain...

Homework in the Lubyanka If you are tried in public

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for a crime against the Soviet State, you are not generally put in the dock—if you are a person of eminence, that is—until you can be relied upon to stick very closely, while...

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Black Orpheus and White Pluto

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By THOMAS HODGKIN - p OTO-POTO is a nice town. Compared with the squalid urban huddle of Lagos, the wretched tenements of Sekondi, Medina—Dakar's enormous slum—With its...

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Asia After Korea

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By JU-LES MENKEN I N East and South-east Asia as elsewhere throughout the world, the key to Communist policy is poWer. This does not mean that other factors are negligible;...

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Equality, Fraternity, etc.

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By JOHN BARCLAY Y OU are a professional man with £800 a year most years, a wife and two children. You have not enough capital to buy a house in a high cl. res. dist., but too...

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A Theory of Madeira

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By WOLF MANKOWITZ N English lady, attempting to introduce the restful cult of knitting to the peasant women of Madeira, dis- covered that due to having specialised in embroidery...

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ART

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Art and Football (The Football Association, 45 Park Lane.) THROUGHOUT the year paintings on an unusual theme have been creeping into the one-man shows and the mixed exhibitions....

CONTEMPORARY ARTS

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CINEMA The Heart of the Matter (Carlton.)— Personal Affair (Leicester Square.) GRAHAM GREENE'S novel The Heart of the Matter has been adapted for the screen by Lesley Storm...

MUSIC

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THE Australia-New Zealand- concert, given at the Festival Hall to speed the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on their journey to the Dominions, provided an astonishing display of...

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BALLET

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Ballet Workshop. (Mercury Theatre.)— Swan Lake. (Sadler's Wells) BALLET WORKSHOP has opened its autumn season'with quite a good programme. I must frankly confess I have no idea...

THEATRE

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Blind Man's, Buff. By Ernst Toiler and Denis Johnston. (St. Martin's.) Wish You Were Here. By Arthur Kober, .1Joshua Logan and Harold Rome. (Lon- don By Ben Jonson. (King's,...

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The Confinement On my weekly visit to the farm 1

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looked into the shippon where a heifer stood. The floor was strewn with clean straw and a hissing pressure lamp illuminated the scene. The shadows in the corners were dark, but...

Rabbit Habits There is a time of year when rabbits

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live mainly below ground and another when.they lie out. In September and October, before the wind has a cold bite in it and the land .. begins to sleep, the population of most...

Sponsored Shakespeare

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Readers were asked to imagine that the theatre was " sponsored " in the reign of Elizabeth I and to re - write a passage from Hamlet, Macbeth, The Merchant,of Venice or As You...

Chrysanthemum Growing

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While the actual culture is too extens:vAa subject to be dealt with in a brief note, a great deal can be achieved in growing chry- santhemums by attention to simple things, such...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 193 Set by Edward Blishen "The name

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of Mr. Joseph Conrad is new to us, but it appears to us as if he might become the Kipling of the Malay Archipelago," wrote a reviewer in 1898. Competitors are asked to invent an...

Country Life

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A FEW years ago when a relative, borne from South Africa, came to stay with us, often found him sitting beneath the trees in the glen with an expression of great con- tent on...

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THE UPLIFT OF BOOKS

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SIR,—About a year ago, you published a letter from me in which I complained of the prices charged in Canada for English printed books. There followed some correspondence from...

ON THE ROOF

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SIR,--I have spent a few years in the Kashmir mountains and a few months in Tibet includ- ing a journey to and a short sojourn in Lhasa. Because of this I am keenly interested...

THE NAIROBI ROUND-UP

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SIR,--I believe I can detect in your report on " The Nairobi Round-Up " the familiar note of deprecation and apology, with which it is customary to report any firm measure...

THE CHANGING FACE OF OXFORD

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SIR,—Graduates of all our universities must' have found the article on " The Changing Face of Oxford " most interesting, and especially Dr. Masterman's admission: " if I were...

SIR,—The future of the High Commission territories is being raised

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again and, if pressed by the Union Government to the point of decision, will be subject to "consultation " with the inhabitants. It is regrettable that after periods of British...

&tiers to the editor

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BRITISH GUIANA The following cable has been received from the British Guiana Sughr Producers' Associa- tion;—May I be permitted to correct state- ment contained in article in...

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On Being a Specialist

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lay M. L. CARTWRIGHT* N eminent scientist once said to me that the great British public have implicit faith in scientists when they speak on subjects outside their own field and...

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An English Centre- Forward

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By JOHN ARLOTT 0 kick an inflated leather sphere the size of a man's head, is a simple urge. But football, the sport which springs from that instinct, is, in all but its...

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Evolution

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Like tadpoles, aeroplanes outgrow their tails; Now supersonic frogs puff through the sky; Sometimes they burst for pride; when brilliance fails Destruction is a course that it...

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BOOKS OF THE WEEK

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Samuel Beckett By ANTHONY HARTLEY S AMUEL BECKETT is not yet well-known in this country. Some notice was taken of his play En attendant Godot which was the dark horse of the...

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Cover of Darkness

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Cover of Darkness. By Air Commodore Roderick Chisholm. (Chatto and Windus. 12s. 6d.) THIS is the muted odyssey of a " week-end flier." The author was a gifted leader among those...

Cathedrals

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As I walk round the monuments of our forefathers, Round the shrines of their many and mysterious devotions, Always I am disturbed By the snake-eyed man who nears me in the...

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In Search of the Absolute

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Simone Weil. By J. B. Perrin and G. Thibon. (Routledge. 16s.) EVERY age produces, if not the prophets it needs, the prophets it deserves, and Simone Weil's was a voice that...

A Great Engraver

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Thomas Bewick : A Bibliography Raisonne. By S. Roscoe. (Oxford University Press. 70s.) • THOMAS BEWICK iS Still so lively an influence on the craft of wood- engraving that it...

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An American Feat

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IN February, 1927, Lindbergh stretched a piece of grocery string on a globe in a public library and found that the distance from New York to Paris was 3,600 miles. The aeroplane...

Cities and Men

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Cities and Men. By Sir Harry Luke. (Geoffrey Bles. 25s.) SIR HARRY LUKE belongs to a generation which has produced many distinguished men. I did not read the first volume of...

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New Novels

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The Farmer's Hotel. By John O'Hara. (Cresset Press. 8s. 6d.) THAT Mr. O'Hara should have written the uneasy trifle that goes by the title of The Farmer's Hotel is the most...

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Michelangelo: Paintings, Sculptures, Archi- tecture. By Ludwig Goldscheider. (Phaidon Press.

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42s.) LIKE Mr. Goldscheider's recent Michelangelo Drawings this book—Michelangelo's every- thing else—is something between Phaidon's well-known picture books and its mono-...

The Sikhs. By Khushwant Singh. (George Allen & Unwin. 16s.)

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IT is ambitious to condense into less than two hundred pages an account of the Sikh religion, its foundation and its nature, a history of the Sikh people, a description of...

OTHER RECENT BOOKS

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The Interpretation of Dreams, etc. Volumes IV and V of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud; in a new translation. (Hogarth Press. £36 the set of 24 volumes.)...

THIS indispensable reference book, now appearing in its thirtieth edition,

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continues to grow in usefulness and scope. Not only are all United Kingdom and commonwealth Universities and University Colleges fully dealt with (and lest the volume's title...

POE has been described as " Heaven's way- ward child."

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The title, apt though it may seem, rouses the anger of Mr. Philip Lindsay, and in this comprehensive study he tries to explain Poe's twisted mind and to reveal him as a "...

Cinderella No More. By Lionel Tertis. (Peter Neville. 12s. 6d.)

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KIRSTEN FLAGSTAD and Lionel Tertis are supreme musical, not literary, artists. Their singing and viola-playing have told the world the most interesting 'things about them and...

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FINANCE AND INVESTMENT

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By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT A CLOUD usually passes over the Stock Exchange and shares begin to droop when Parliament reassembles. This time inter- national as well as domestic...

Company Notes

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By CUSTOS ASSOCIATED ELECTRICAL INDUSTRIES, It 0 still possible to buy the new shares of this company (arising from the 100 per cent. bonus) at around 43s. free of stamp. If the...

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Solution to Crossword No. 751 Solution on November 6th

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The winner of Spectator Crossword No. 751 is MR. A. 13. PEARCE, 2 Granville Road, Barnet. 'Herts.

THE "SPECTATOR" CROSSWORD No. 753

The Spectator

IA Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution opened after noon on Tuesday week, November 3rd, addressed Crossword, 99 Gower Street,...