25 MAY 1962

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COVENTRY CATHEDRAL

The Spectator

Kenneth J. Robinson Kennedy Regnat Murray Kempton The Flat-Earthers Julian Critchley, MP Old Man and the River Tony Tanner Birth of a Science Ronald Bryden New Paperbacks

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—Portrait of the Week

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FRENCH POLICE CLAIMED they had foiled a second attempt by the OAS to assassinate President de Gaulle (the first was last September); he was to have been shot by a telescopic...

SOLDIERING ON

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`fTIHIS is the time,' said Mr. Macleod to the T Tory women on Tuesday, 'for unity and faith.' He can say that again, and certainly will. For whatever crumb of comfort the latest...

The Spectator

The Spectator

No. 6987 Es tablished FRIDAY, MAY 25, 1828 1962

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A Living Part

The Spectator

T nn completion and consecration of the new Cathedral of Coventry means more than the inauguration of an important monument of modern architecture, more even than the recon-...

Anarchy over the Border

The Spectator

T E turning back of Chinese refugees from the frontier of the colony of Hong Kong is a tragic business, but the authorities seem to have no other course open to them. The colony...

Isolating De Gaulle

The Spectator

Whether that pressure will be successful is another matter. President de Gaulle is habitually unresponsive to such gestures. He starts from the principle that nothing can be...

The Liquidator

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From a Correspondent SALISBL - RY ' W HEN we talk of the government today it' is the territorial government. Not long ' ago it would have been the Federal government.'' This...

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Sierra Leone at the Polls

The Spectator

By T. R. M. CREIGHTON FREETOWN C IERRA LEONE faces in their most extreme form 1.3 the problems confronting all newly indepen- dent African countries: how to make a nation from...

Landing on the Moon

The Spectator

From DARSIE GILLIE PARIS DECIDED in favour of discipline and so also 1 to share the national shame of a desertion,' said a serving general giving evidence in the Salan trial....

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Kennedy Regnat

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From MURRAY ICEMPTON NEW YORK E vEN those of us who live here think of the United States as a 3,000-mile-broad comic strip where significant occasions go bam, pop and zowie....

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Peep, Bleep, and Just Dial 100

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I wanted to telephone, for the first time in months, a certain number in Staines. Having consulted my pocket-book, I dialled SN3 and waited for Peep-Peep. Instead of Peep-Peep,...

Spectator's Notebook

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IT is not only blinkered Marxists who are dis- lcomfited by the disappearance of the proletariat in the West. Many a doughty labour fighter of the bulldog breed finds it sad on...

Stratis Myrivilis A distinguished elderly Greek gentleman has been spending

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his first visit to London in the Royal Free Hospital. He is Stratis Myrivilis, who at seventy may be described as the senior Greek novelist (and that country's candidate for the...

All Calm at Cannes My friend Bernard Levin has been

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lolling in Cannes, whence he sent me this reassuring message: 'The US Sixth Fleet is anchored in the bay opposite the Carlton Hotel, and a good proportion of the crew is...

Absolutely

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Whatever else the Moral Re-Armers are, they are great hands at a campaign. There have so far been eighty-three letters concerning my remarks a fortnight ago about the M RA play...

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The Flat-Earthers

The Spectator

By JULIAN CRITCHLEY, MP T HERE is to be a two-day debate on the Common Market in the week before Whit- sun, the first opportunity that the House will have had to discuss Europe...

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Letter 01 the Law

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Privileged Litigants CLINE By R. A. T HE news that 'Justice,' the non-party lawyers' organisation, is appointing a sub-committee to consider the whole field of trade union law...

Statistics on Holiday

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By RICHARD BAILEY I N 1960 hotel keepers, café proprietors, travel agents and the general miscellany of people from chemists to candy floss makers who sell things to...

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ARGUMENTS FOR TESTING SIR,—Yes, indeed; we must use our minds

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as well as our emotions. But all philosophers know that ends are decided by the emotions, and that reason is only applicable to the discussion of means. (Or, of course, to the...

BEASTLY TO THE GERMANS

The Spectator

SIR,—Mr. FitzGibbon is, of course, at liberty to be pro- anything he likes, even Krupp and the syna- gogue-daubers, who are at least as representative of the `new' Germany as...

Confessions Exclusive John Deane Potter Beastly to the Germans James

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Mackinlay Arguments for Testing Philip Toynbee, Peter Brown Hymns as Poetry J. B. Broadbent Stanley Spencer Paul Bloomfield and others Efflorescence Robert Conquest Siqueiros...

SIR,—Leaders of the main political parties and, I believe, every

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major organ of opinion have accepted without much qualification the American Govern- ment's justification for resuming nuclear weapon testing. Yet the decision, taken just after...

HYMNS AS POETRY

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SIR,—I was away when you published a letter from T. D. of London about my review of The English Hymnal Service Book. T. D. denies my fondest points; I'd like to reassert...

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UNCLEAN

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SIR,— Further to the comment of your columnist 'Starbuck' may I, as one of the candidates referred to in your issue of May 18, make some correction to the statements made...

SIR, — The great Mexican painter, David Alfaro Siqueiros, has been sentenced

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to eight years' im- prisonment by a Mexican court, on specious charges and without conclusive evidence—a sentence which in the circumstances may amount to life im-...

STANLEY SPENCER

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SIR,—Can anything justify the publication in such callous haste of what the Sunday Times has called 'The Strange Life of Stanley Spencer'? Mr. Collis's biography has caused...

SIR,—Naturally I don't want to carp at Mr. Thom Gunn's

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review of my Between Mars and Venus. But (though this seldom seems to penetrate into the poems themselves) I am a political writer as well as a poet, and one of his points gives...

WATERCRESS

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SIR,-1 must make a plea for the keeping qualities of watercress which Miss Elizabeth David has found to be little beyond one day. By washing watercress in cold water, draining...

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The Great Barn

The Spectator

By KENNETH J. ROBINSON It would have been shattering enough simply to see the live version of the building I had admired in models and drawings for several years; it was much...

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Opera

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Caro Johnny By DAVID CAIRNS GIOVANNI M ARTINELLI ('CU() Johnny,' as the immortal Geraldine Farrar has called him in one of the many messages of salutation that have been...

Cinema

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Grown-Ups By ISABEL QUIGLY Jules and Jim. (Cameo-Poly.) OF all film directors about these days, Truffaut is the one who backs 'personal relations' against all comers....

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Theatre

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A Weeded Garden By BAIVIBER GASCOIGNE Everything in the Garden. (Duke of York's.) In the original version the 'garden' of the title was merely the chief area of competition...

Ballet

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C OPENHAGEN is ballet mad. There are photo• graphs of dancers in the shop windows , Postage stamps have a ballerina on them. There is even a Danish cheese called 'Ballet.'...

Television

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Private View By CLIFFORD HANLEY THE camera ought to have ad- vantages over the naked eye, though these are not always realised, are not always even relevant. It can slow some...

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BOOKS

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Old Man and the River of his shoes, his shoes squelchy. He went over BY TONY TANNER And just then it occurred to him that he was going to die. It came with a rush; not as a...

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Peace of Nerves

The Spectator

Arms and Arms Control. Edited by Ernest W. Lefever. (Thames and Hudson, 42s.) WITH the baleful possibility before us of an- other George Brown at the Ministry of Defence it is...

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Victoria's Victor

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Regina v. Palmerston. By Brian Connell. (Evans, 42s.) IT is a curious fact that the two most con- spicuous figures of the early Victorian era, the Queen herself and Palmerston,...

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Deep as England

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Penguin Modern Poets 1 (Durrell, Jennings, R. S. Thomas) and 2 (Amis, Moraes, Porter). (2s. 6d. each.) THERE isn't any new poetry: it's only a title, tilting at 'the Movement,'...

Uncle Tom's Champions

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Anti-Slavery : The Crusade for Freedom in America, and A Bibliography of Anti- Slavery in America. By Dwight Lowell Durpond. (University of Michigan and Cres- set, 10 gns. and 3...

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Crypto-Humour

The Spectator

Spillway. By Djuna Barnes. (Faber, 15s.) Select Tales of Tchehov. (Chatto and Windus, I8s.) IN his recent lecture, Sir Charles Snow spoke of novelists who had not received the...

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NEW PAPERBACKS

The Spectator

Birth of a Science BY RONALD BR YDEN E VENTUALLY, I'm afraid, they will have to call it Culturology. It won't fit under anthro- pology, for its subject is literate, evolved...

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History on the March

The Spectator

THERE still seems no cessation of the paperback flood and, indeed, many reprints have appeared which many people would not expect to have a large sale. Yet manifestly this is...

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Yorkshire Accent •

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THE most adventurous of the new paperback series is Penguin's eight contemporary yogi novelists. Among those already published, Daina Storey's This Sporting Life (3s. 6d.) is...

Occidentations

The Spectator

THE existence of an area of free land, its con- tinuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American develop- ment.' This sweeping claim was made...

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Bargain Philosophy

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AN armful of philosophical paperbacks prompts first the same question as other serious paper- backs—or, at least, those of them that have another life in hard covers: how...

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Economic `Free-for-All'

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By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT Since last July Mr. Lloyd's rule has been to allow overseas investment outside the free ster- ling area only when it promised 'a clear and commensurate...

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Investment Notes

The Spectator

By CUSTOS T HE Stock Exchange Council reminds us that in the year to March 31, 1962, the total b y value of all quoted securities fell slightly I Dy £700 million to £50,223...

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Company Notes

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M R. CECIL W. MASON, chairman of Gallaher Ltd., is of the opinion that the recent pub- licity over lung cancer in relation to smoking has put the whole problem out of...

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Consuming Interest

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Flying Feeds By LESLIE ADRIAN ISN'T it time we put a stop to the rat race? I don't mean by this phrase the daily round of buck-passing and the common task of getting ahead. To...

Postscript . .

The Spectator

By CYRIL RAY COVENTRY `WELL, you sort of get used to Coventry, if you live here,' said the manicurist at my hotel, `but when you go to other towns you can't help feeling...

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Wine of the Week

The Spectator

F iRsr-GROWTH clarets don't come. my way with monotonous frequency, but last week I was entertained to no fewer than four of them—a 1952 Château Margaux and a 1953 Haut Brion...