If you want a straight interview that will be £20,000 but if you want something kinky. . M r David Mellor, the Heritage Secre- tary, offered his resignation after the People...

A juicy bit of scandalum magnatum, as they say in the tabloids SIMON HEFFER I n recent months The Spectator has pub- lished pieces about morality written by Cabinet ministers....

DOMINIC LAWSON Spectator summer party every July. Few bother to send a thank-you letter, even those who were not invited. One person who is always invited, and always sends a...

Some reasons for wanting a Democrat victory AUBERON WAUGH W henever the Democrat Convention in New York came up in conversation last week, it would have been hard to exagger-...

James Buchan assesses the consequences of a remarkable fact: 90 per cent of new jobs created since 1970 have been taken by women AT LLANTRISANT, a place in South Wales where...

Fitzroy Maclean defends his, and Churchill's, war record in Yugoslavia RECENT REPORTS from the Balkans lend relevance and topicality to Noel Mal- colm's intriguing article on...

persist.. . LAST WEEK, I did a clinic in the prison. As I arrived all eyes were upon me: I was the prisoners' hope of sleeping tablets, new shoes, unsupervised gym, an X-ray to...

Michael Heath

Hugh Massingberd laments the plight of our stately homeless, and suggests a remedy SCENE ONE: The Tree House (a Gothick structure perched up a Tilia platyphyllos) in the...

LADIES IN SERVICE Sir, — I have read with interest your article on 'Ladies in Service' in The Spectator of July 16th. May I be allowed to make a few remarks on the subject,...

Digby Anderson is aghast at the latest craze among young people, and suggests a return to old values INCREASINGLY over the last few years, especially in the summer months,...

Patrick Skene Catling reports on the festivities just concluded at the birthplace of Ireland's national vegetable Youghal DUBLIN HAS its horse show, Wexford its opera season,...

Tabitha Troughton overcomes her shock, and learns to savour a barbaric ritual We had been warned. Saying of the month among the diplomatic community in the Moroccan capital...

Stay tuned, folks! See Al run! See little Al get run over! T h New York e craven instinct of politicians to remake themselves into whatever they think the people want gave...

Making the Commons a house of ill repute PAUL JOHNSON N o: I am not writing about Mr David Mellor, but the fact that Members of Par- liament have gone off on the long holidays...

Smoke gets in our eyes, and fear gets into the markets CHRISTOPHER FILDES S moke drifts into the theatre, bearing with it a faint, acrid smell. Then the manag- er bounces...

needs correction straightaway. He states that 'any reservations about the ordination of women would exclude [men] from the episcopate for ever', and he goes on to allege that...

as he alleges, of a `scheme to permit the ordination of women'. What scheme? Ordination is already permitted to women in the Church of England. The Canons of 1969 (section D)...

Sir: Mr John Gummer's article (The worst of church times', 18 July) has inspired a response from Archbishop Cranmer him- self, which I thought you should see: Good Gummer, It...

Sir: I am sure that Sir Robert Rhodes James is correct in writing that he ghosted all the most interesting sections of the late Lord Kilmuir's memoirs (`Night of the long...

Sir: Your panegyric on Sir Michael Richardson ('A handshake too far', 27 June) sadly omitted one of the remarkable statements of the year (made by Sir Michael to the Financial...

Malcolm's article on Yugoslavia than do your correspondents Andrew Hayward and Annette Street (Letters, 18 July). It pro- vides a useful corrective to the received wisdom that...

Sir: Noel Malcolm's article 'How Britain blundered in the Balkans' (11 July) is both accurately researched and timely. It should have been clear to Fitzroy Maclean that Tito was...

Sir: The Director of Christian Aid (Letters, 11 July) says that the 'patience and forbear- ance of . . . the ANC [in the face of apartheid] is a miracle of grace'. I quote from...

Sir: I enjoyed your 3 Pointless Things To Do This Week (Classified, 11, 18 July). Here are 3 more: 1.Read the Guardian. 2.Telephone J.D.Salinger. 3.Visit a Trappist monastery...

Fitful sparks and old flames James Michie CURRICULUM VITAE by Muriel Spark Constable, £14.95, pp.213 I determined to write nothing that cannot be supported by documentary...

The thing I tripped over was a man on the pavement. I reached out my hand to his hand automatically. It was dirty and hard with energy. He refused to rise but held on. Well,...

Penelope Lively KAHLIL GIBRAN: HIS LIFE AND WORK by Jean Gibran and Kahlil Gibran Canongate, f17.50, pp. 456 A re you familiar with The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran's best known...

Charles Maclean VERY OLD BONES by William Kennedy Ming, £14.99, pp. 292 I n his campaign of 1926 to gain wider recognition for the work of Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald...

Molly Keane THE ROAD AHEAD by Christabel Bielenberg Bantam, £14.99, pp. 195 T he Road Ahead, sequel to The Past is Myself, is written in the same deceptively quiet style as the...

Bryan Robertson MAGRITTE by David Sylvester Thames & Hudson, £45, pp. 352 F orget the images for a moment; the supreme merit of David Sylvester's magis- terially selected and...

A morning like this in your face, Winter gone, winter with a last kick, Dare me or go back by the fire, Wind pinning back feathergrass for The sun to rape it, cumulus voyaging...

Merlin Holland GREAT DOMAINES OF BURGUNDY by Remington Norman Kyle Cathie, £30, pp. 286 PULIGNY-MONTRACHET by Simon Loftus Ebuty, £19.99, pp. 256 O nly if you are rich or brave...

Judy Taylor MEMORIES by Lucy Boston Colt Books, £14.95, pp. 340 I t would have been no surprise at all to have been celebrating Lucy Boston's 100th birthday this year with her...

Andro Linklater THE BLOODY GAME: AN ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN WAR edited by Paul Fussell Scribners, £19.95, pp. 830 WRITERS ON WORLD WAR II edited by Mordecai Richler Chatto &...

John Jolliffe PITT RIVERS by Mark Bowden CUP, £24.95, pp. 198 B esides reaching the rank of Lieutenant-General, Augustus Lane Fox Pitt Rivers (1827-1900) created unique...

Non-fiction: Elizabeth I by Anne Somerset, Fontana, £8.99 Nancy Mitford by Selina Hastings, Paper- mac, £9.99 A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani, Faber, £9.99 The...

Art Light in our darkness James Hamilton looks for a hero to defend the cause of touring art exhibitions I n February I wrote about the threat posed to the funding of...

Tribute to Edward Bawden (Fine Art Society, till 31 July) Georg Baselitz (Tate Gallery, till 1 November Cultural conundrum Giles Auty L ast week I wrote about the art of...

Peter Pan (`U', selected cinemas) Beethoven (`U', selected cinemas) Dog days Mark Amory chool's out and so is adult entertain- ment (though I may be wronging Noises Off, a...

MusicalMusical low profile Robin Holloway he revived Almeida Festival, modest T after the dotty, hit-or-miss prodigality of its earlier phase, now aims to concentrate upon...

Murder by Misadventure (Vaudeville) The Dybbuk (Barbican Pit) An Inspector palls Sheridan Morley T he Inspector paused on his way out of the stalls bar. 'I think it's a...

High and dry Alistair McAlpine T he bottom has almost fallen out of `gilt-edged' goods — the paintings, furni- ture and silver that everybody said at the time would hold their...

Only connect Martyn Harris L ooking for the link is a vice of review- ers, but television is about cacophony rather than connections, so perhaps all one really needs is the...

The English disease Taki W hen I wrote last week about men losing their aggression after making love, I forgot to mention Edward Heath. Here's a man who has probably never...

Power of Persuasion Nigel Nicolson It was a sweet view — sweet to the eye and the mind. English verdure, English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright without...

Standing joke Jeffrey Bernard I was eating my weekly intake of chicken in orange sauce in the King the other day when Christine, the lovely lady from Hong Kong who owns the...

IF I STOP by an unknown restaurant,' wrote the great French chef, Fernand Point, 'I always ask to shake hands with the cuisinier before the meal. I know that if he is thin, I...

Private enterprise Raymond Keene I have formed a theory about the relative failure of the English team at the recently concluded chess Olympiad in Manila. It is this. In...

Damned by praise Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1737 you were in- vited to write a review of an imaginary book, whose enthusiasm is far more likely to turn the reader off than...

A first prize of £20 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vinta g e Port for the first correct solution opened on 10 Au g ust, with two runners-up prizes of £10 (or, for UK...

Barmy about Boycs Frank Keating GEOFFREY BOYCOTT is back in the box-seat at Headingley. He has taken to the microphone with just as assured a certainty — and even more of a...

Dear Mary.. . Q. Our daily, whom we value and adore, has begun to give us presents in the form of what she calls 'ornaments'. These objets Include things like two-foot-high...