Mandelson's serenade T he Queen is heading a committee to consider if the civil list should continue and whether Catholics and first-born females should succeed to the throne;...

The Palace ought to trust the people, which is not the same as leaking to the press BRUCE ANDERSON T he royal family ought to take counsel from Tony Blair. A week ago, the...

GREY GOWRIE T his year, I visited the Festival on my own. On solitary walks round the magnifi- cent city, between bouts of cultural con- sumption, I meditated on Scottish...

The security of the realm is in danger: people like me are in charge of it MATTHEW PARRIS F ewer 20th-century quips have become more famous than Groucho Marx's remark that he...

Scotland is seeking political and cultural distance from England. But, says Paul Bew, Ireland's experience since independence provides a cautionary tale understandable...

THE Dai l y Telegraph has been getting terribly excited by a new dictionary that says, if reports are to be believed, it doesn't much matter if you use infer to mean imply. The...

Michael Heath

The chief of a justice commission is a freemason. That's all right, says Paul Pickering (who isn't one) PETER SELLERS was a freemason. So states the Grand Lodge in a recent...

Peter Mandelson is honoured to have the ear of his party's leader, says Alfred Sherman. That's why he had better watch his back THE Conservatives are in trouble for demonising...

The publisher of Burke's Peerage promised Sarah Whitebloom that he could trace her relatives across the globe. He couldn't UNLIKE the Smiths, Clarks and Taylors, whose names...

America stops throwing money at problems — a lesson for us too PAUL JOHNSON R esident Clinton's decision to sign the Republican Bill which ends Aid to Families with Dependent...

It's on the cards I shall trump Michael Howard with mugshots of John Stuart Mill CHRISTOPHER FILDES B efore Michael Howard tries to charge us £15 a time for his plastic cards...

Sir: I read Michael Coveney's letter attack - ing Milton Shulman (10 August) with some concern. As a critic Michael Coveney is fluent, plausible and available, which makes him...

Sir: Frank Johnson writes (Leading article, 3 August) that Sir Peter Hall yearns 'for London as the capital of some Scandina- vian ... welfare autocracy'. Probably Sir Peter...

that high-quality dramat- ic writing presupposes people living in card- board boxes. We must plead guilty to hav- ing missed that point in Scandinavia. Jakob Balling 3...

Power struggle Sir: Your leading article of 10 August is a very one-sided view of the history of this century. The late entry of America into the 1914-18 war was not to...

Sir: Alexander Murray (Letters, 17 August), as an expert in the fascinating but largely irrelevant subject of mediaeval church history, betrays his prejudice. Management, it...

Sir: Stephen Glover (Media studies, 17 August) quotes Dr Scarisbrick's position, which he 'takes to be' the orthodox Catholic one, that abortion is permissible where the...

The Observer has new readers in mind, and they're all knee-high to a grasshopper STEPHEN GLOVER I can't resist writing about the Observer. For many weeks after Will Hutton's...

Norman Bates is alive and well: I know, I've stayed in his motel PETRONELLA WYATT L ast week, as readers will have gath- ered, I was in San Diego for the Republi- can National...

Heavily stressed Arcadia David Sexton AFTER HANNIBAL by Barry Unsworth Hamish Hamilton, £16, pp. 243 P rhaps Cyril Connolly expressed it most pathetically, in The Unquiet Grave...

John Oaksey QUEST FOR GREATNESS: A CELEBRATION OF LAMMTARRA AND THE RACING SEASON by Laura Thompson Michael Joseph, £20, pp. 224 L aura Thompson was presumably as flummoxed as...

John Demos Papermac, £10, pp. 250 O n a freezing morning in February 1704, the town of Deerfield, Massachusetts, was attacked by a band of French and native Indian soldiers from...

Michael Hulse THE CALCUTTA CHROMOSOME by Amitav Ghosh Picador, f15.99, pp. 308 I mmortality has not figured very prominently in literature since Swift's Struldbrugs, and...

Thomas Fleming THE CHOICE by Bob Woodward Simon & Schuster, £16.99, pp. 462 T here has not been a presidential election this boring since Wendell Wilkie ran against Franklin...

Rupert Christiansen ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION by Christopher Ricks OUP, £25, pp. 363 Yet he is never merely provocative or whimsical. For Ricks remains very much a critic in the...

Marcus Berkmann THE PICADOR BOOK OF SPORTS WRITING edited by Nick Coleman and Nick Hornby Picador, £16.99, pp. 405 Johnnie Walker this is Jack Daniels.' thirst for sport...

I did not try to embarrass him by asking when he himself had last looked at Cymbeline, and in any case, smug as he was with that been-there-done-that complacen- cy peculiar to...

Festival foibles and follies Magnus Linklater finds drama inside and outside the theatre in Edinburgh T here has been no lack of drama at the 50th Edinburgh Festival: and I...

Renata Rubnikowicz goes in search of the good, the bad and the ugly E dinburgh weather can be atrocious in August but this must surely be the first time in the 50 years of the...

Nederlands Dans Theater (Edinburgh Playhouse) Mark Morris Dance Group (Edinburgh Festival Theatre) Orfeo ed Euridice (Edinburgh Festival Theatre) Craving creativity...

Ferry Cross the Mersey (Lyric) Dial M for Murder (Apollo) On the Twentieth Century (Bridewell) Summer specials Sheridan Morley W ith London baking into the nineties and most...

Give us a clue Mark Steyn I n the mood for a summer blockbuster, I arranged to meet my ex-wife — a black stripper with a heart of gold — outside the piranha house at the zoo,...

Suffering from youth Michael Vestey T his is the season of repeats; Radio Four is full of them. Sometimes they're welcome; another chance to hear, say, Martin Jarvis reading...

Fighting talk James Delingpole I 'm on holiday in the Seychelles. No, of course I'm not really. Otherwise it would say 'James Delingpole is on holiday' at the bottom of this...

Eighth wonder of the world Alan Judd T he PR team at the makers of that most talked about of new cars, the XXi (as it is popularly known, but known to cognoscenti as the...

The great divide Robin Oakley I t was the master of Warren Place who began it all. Henry Cecil, from a stable where you suspect that most of the horses too, given half a...

Relative values Jeffrey Bernard I have just received a letter from my solicitor telling me that it is time for him to see me in case my will needs updating if I so wish. It...

Swiss shock Taki Here is a man who led the coup that not only got rid of Allende but also guided his people into unheard of prosperity and peace. He also looks the part, a...

Let battle commence Leanda de Lisle W ar has broken out in the border country of Leicestershire and Warwick- shire. There were skirmishes at the mediae- val fayre in Market...

BRIDGE Pointless Andrew Robson THE MORE experienced bridge player becomes less and less a slave to points. Would you have had the courage of North, in bidding a slam without...

Lots to rave about Auberon Waugh V ottenburg's Sauvignon Blanc( 1 ) is the second Stellenbosch sauvignon which has excited me wildly this year. At £4.85 the bottle (£4.35 on...

IN•THE•STRAND SIMPSON'S IN-THE-STRAND CHESS Still overdue Raymond Keene LAST WEEK I argued that there was an overwhelming case for the British Chess Federation to lobby...

URA II j YALU MILL ALOILIIMMILL I COMPETITION Un truisms Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1946 you were invited to write a poem which consists entirely of unreliable...

1275: Contributory factors by Doc A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 1989 Port for the first correct solution opened on 9 September, with two...

Retired hurt Simon Barnes I FAILED to score 1,000 runs in May this year. In fact, the closest I have ever come was a shortfall of a mere 993. Alt!, but I batted like a god...

Dear Mary.. . Q. Soon after my arrival in small-town Alabama I was surprised — and elated to see a tie I recognised. I hailed its owner and asked when he had been with that...