of parents for killing their children after the Court of Appeal ruled improper convictions based solely on expert opinions where two or more babies had died. Mr Geoff Hoon, the...

Parents make the best parents T wo developments this week demonstrate the absurdity, not to mention the inhumanity, of the government's policy towards child-rearing. Firstly,...

1 t's as easy as pie to get through Checkpoint Charlie. The very agreeable Hispanic immigration officer at Kennedy asked me to place my index fingers, one at a time, on a...

applauded for agreeing to chair the Man Booker judges this year, considering the brickbats with which most of his qualitative pronouncements about the arts have tended to be...

L ook, I know Christmas is long past. But I was away for most of the time and didn't get a chance to do what every other journalist does at that benighted time of the year and...

Let us hope the Barclays can, too T he Barclay Brothers, it seems, have acquired the Daily Telegraph. And also, it should be said, The Spectator. What an incredible thing....

Peter Oborne says that Conrad Black was a great newspaper proprietor, but he and his glamorous wife Barbara made a fatal mistake in trying to conquer America A few weeks ago...

thing Theodore Dalrymple explains why Britain should be ruled by retired taxi-drivers E very experienced journalist knows that there are two sources of information about obscure...

Boars, which became extinct in Britain in the 17th century, are on the come-back, and their number is estimated at about a thousand. They have very thick hides, can weigh up to...

Andrew Gilmour says that the Boer War and the war in Iraq are united by humbug, jingoism and hubris y es, we all know; comparisons between the British empire and contemporary...

The assortment of Snodgrasses and Ponsonbys who make up the British Committee for the Restitution of the Elgin Marbles have launched yet another chapter of their long campaign...

Mark Steyn watches Howard Dean go ape and John Edwards emerge as a viable contender New Hampshire A little over a month ago, in the Wall Street Journal,I wrote that Governor...

Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle was practising her vowels for Rex Harrison as Professor Pickering in a bit of* Fair Lady that I came across on the television the other day. If...

Rachel Johnson reveals how to work at home with your children: get someone else to look after the kids am sometimes asked how on earth women can manage to avoid Alastair...

Toys are trashy and expensive, says Anthony Horowitz, and many children will have discarded their Christmas presents by the end of this month 1 t's easy to tell when Christmas...

T he Barclay brothers — presumably the new owners of the two Telegraphs as well as The Spectator, though we also read that it is not yet as simple as that — are constantly...

From Dr Bleddyn Jones Sir: Geoffrey Wheatcroft's stimulating article (`The end of the Etonians'. 17 January), which commemorated kin Macleod's Spectator account of the...

From Professor Donald C. Watt Sir: John Laughland seems to believe that conspiracies are entirely the work of White Anglo-Saxon power-mongers CI believe in conspiracies', 17...

From John O'Byrne Sir: Although Stephen Glover argues that the introduction of the tabloid format has reversed the recent 'alarming' decline in circulation both of the Times and...

From Benedict le Vay Sir: The Trussites have hit me but I have not sunk (Letters, 17 January). Here's a salvo in reply. To quote more examples from the book, Lynne Truss talks...

From Guy Chapman Sir: I note that Paul Smith of SafeSpeed has asked for a correction on the grounds that 'my reputation, as a serious researcher and road-safety campaigner, is...

From Dr Theodore Dalrymple Sir: I stand corrected by Mr Shakespeare (Letters, 17 January). But I should imagine that Mr Blair was interested in the Aztecs more for their human...

ii ^ like animal monsters, at a distance. A truly terrifying one has emerged from the vast delta where the brown river Ruzizi flows into the blue waters of Lake Tanganyika. It...

he world's most successful currency, this last decade, has been — the dollar? You're not trying. The pound, the yen, the euro? Forget them. The Swiss franc? Closer. The Swiss...

Olivia Glazebrook ORACLE NIGHT by Paul Auster Faber, £15.99, pp. 243, ISBN 0571216986 O racle Night describes a nine-day episode in the life of a writer, Sidney Orr. Orr is...

Toby Young AUTUMN OF THE MOGULS: MY MISADVENTURES WITH THE TITANS, POSEURS, AND MONEY GUYS WHO MASTERED AND MESSED UP BIG MEDIA by Michael Wolff Flamingo, ,f18.99, pp. 381,...

Jan Morris MEDIEVAL VISION: VOLUME III OF THE VISUAL CULTURE OF WALES by Peter Lord University of Wales Press, .E30, pp. 288, ISBN 0708318010 T . my mind one of the relatively...

Kate Chisholm ANNY: A LIFE OF ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE by Henrietta Garnett Chatto, £1&99, pp. 322, ISBN 0701171294 T he engagement diary of Anne Thackeray Ritchie (18371919)...

Anne Somerset CATHERINE DE MEDICI by Leonie Frieda Weidenfeld, £20, pp.440, ISBN 184212725X C atherine de Medici was, quite literally, the original black widow. After her...

Andrew Lambirth on the work of the largely self-taught artist Philip Guston T he Royal Academy's retrospective exhibition The Art of Philip Guston: 1913-1980 (until 12 April)...

Grey Gowrie A slight, laconic person in a Lenin cap, Helen Osborne was a great lady of the Welsh Marches, the London theatre and the pages of The Spectator and the Sunday...

Lloyd Evans Honeymoon Suite Royal Court Pugilist Specialist; Hurricane Soho Theatre G ood but not brilliant. That's how I found Honeymoon Suite, a new comedy-drama by Richard...

Giannandre a Poesio Giselle Royal Opera House O 13 January, Sadler's Wells Theatre V./hosted the annual Critic's Circle National Dance Awards. The number of prestigious...

Mark Steyn Big Fish PG, selected cinemas here are some fish that cannot be I caught,' says Edward Bloom, beginning a fishy story he's told friends and family many times in...

James Delingpole Ctiuite the most boring treat I've ever ..J been given was when TAG Heuer watches once sweetly invited me and Tiffany to see the British Grand Prix. The little...

Michael Vestey R adio Three went through one of its moments of dottiness last Friday when it broadcast John Cage's 1952 piece for orchestra, 4' 33", which consisted entirely of...

Alan Judd T ike many who achieved emancipation learned to drive) during the Sixties, I once owned a Mini. Not for long: I wearied of conking out in puddles as water splashed...

Simon Courtauld H addock is fished from the north lAtlantic, the Irish Sea, the seas around the Faroes and Iceland, but I always associate it with the North Sea, and more...

Taki Gstaad S now was Napoleon's enemy, and it also did Hitler in. It has been the enemy of Gstaad's jet-set as long as I can remember. My best friend, Yanni Zographos, used...

Jeremy Clarke M e and the boy are regulars at the weekly car auction near us. We never bid for anything. We just like to go and sit and watch the cars coming and going and...

AicIan Hartley Chalbi desert J am in Kenya's Chalbi desert, where temperatures soar to 140 degrees. Out here east of Koobi Fora, the Cradle of Mankind, black volcanic rocks...

Petronella Wyatt I t is time for me to reveal myself in my true colours, as incognito heroines used to say in Georgette Heyer novels or secret agents in Cold War thrillers....

MICHAEL HENDERSON R io Ferdinand, 'the world's most expensive defender', which does not of course make him the best, began his eight-month ban from football this week, though...

member of the VWH hunt. Whenever I go up to him on my horse, he has been friendly but since he hacks home! have only ever seen him mounted and with his riding hat on. I...

cashmere by day! had something of a shock when planning what to wear for a forthcoming important event at which television cameras will be present and during which! will have to...

visiting a local 'Showgirls' revue. She did not explain exactly why. Perhaps it is a test to see howl react. `Quizas, Quizas, Quizas', as Doris Day once sang. If we attend, how...