Wars apart, if they are to be held apart and not to be regarded as a particularly brutal form of population control, in no way does the species homo sapiens deny its name or...

ANGUS MAUDE, MP The Commons rose for their unusually short Christmas recess ('What it amounts to,' said one percipient Tory to another, 'is that we lose a week's hunting now so...

Another year gone; another Christmas upon us; another holiday time when the Wall between East and West Berlin has remained shut, a thing of ugliness and terror that long since...

Henry Fairlie attacks the Spectator Washington DC The reduction of a complicated problem to a simple either/or choice is usually suspect. It can also be dangerous, as in the...

George Gale defends the Spectator The continuing and desperate endeavour and the deliberate or blind misunderstandings which characterise those who think that the idea of the...

Unseasonal fare MICHAEL WYNN JONES Tf, as was widely rumoured, the ill-timed food price increase in Poland was a con- spiracy within the Government to overthrow First...

ANGUS MAUDE Rugby and Oriel, Oxford and various pris- oner-of-war camps. MP for eight years rep- resenting Ealing South, then fled the country to Australia to escape politics;...

KINGSLEY AMIS REGER, Max. German composer ... died I 1th May. 1916. The second battle of Verdun had started Eight days earlier. Once. My feeling would have been : Poor sod;...

0 little town (1YLES BRANDRETH 'This, ladies and gentlemen, is where it all began.' The Arab guide points emphatically to the silver star embedded in the floor of the crypt of...

George Orwell, Great - Wilson and the Tuppenny Bloods BENNY GREEN One of the first, and surely one of the most captivating exhibitions of 1971 will be Michael Kustow's...

Sir: IL as John Grigg suggests in his article (12 December), Britain adopted triennial parliaments, does he not think that the apathy, which he admits has increased steadily...

Letters from Lionel Gilber, Lord Drogheda and David McKenna, lain Moncreiffe of that llk, Lady Brabazon of Tara, Rev J. L. Peace, George Strinn, D. A. N. Jones, Douglas Collins,...

Sir: It is somewhat unusual for an Archbishop of Canterbury to be the 'darling of the Left', and it may be unwise to underestimate the weight of opinion against Dr Ram- sey in...

Sir: In your current issue the Spectator's Notebook recommends that Covent Garden and Sadler's Wells should be allowed to wither and die. Throughout the world opera and ballet...

fascinating Theory of Time, I've intermittently kept a journal of my dreams. It has, of course, been lost: as women insist on tidying up houses. The curious thing about what...

Sir: Having been a Governor since Holland Park Comprehen- sive School was only a plan on a drawing board, and Chairman of the Governors from 1968-1969 I feel I must comment on...

Sir: The film shown recently on Late Night Line-Up. on BBC-2 was probably supposed to give another `romantic' view of the modern gipsy, but, in my opinion, all it did was to...

Sir: Michael Isens's reference to 'the hundred yards rat - race' sug- gests that he sees it in terms of a distance race. Not so! My inter- pretation derives from the mill- race,...

Sir: I was very sorry to see in the SPECTATOR that you have omit- ted the last paragraph of my letter. It seems to me to be the only part worth publishing: 'The prospect of...

Sir: I am, as you indicate. general editor of Roots of the Right and contribute the briefest of general prefaces to successive volumes. To entitle a collective review as 'on...

Sir: My thanks to Tony Palmer for the laugh of the week. A member of the 'minority of a minority' has at last begun to realise the futility of plugging the high progressive...

Sir: 'There is great impatience about; there is much disquiet with the pass to which we have come.' (5 December).

Sir: I have just read Involuntary Journey to Siberia, attributed to `Andrei Amalrik,' together with another book, Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984?. ascribed to the same...

Sir: In his article on Rhodesian talks, 'Another Conservative' ap- proaches the problem on the basis of two assumptions: first, that those who oppose the withdrawal of...

Sir: May I comment on Sir Denis Brogan's remark that 'Canada and Australia and India are no busi- ness of ours ...' (5 December). As Australia is constitutionally tied to the...

Sir: Readers of the SPECTATOR ,should be informed that Sally Beauman's description of the novels of Nina Bawden (12 December) as 'bad books . . . of a slushy romantic nature' is...

Sir: With his lips firmly pressed to the hem of Mr Wilson's gar- ment—or to somewhere close to it—it is hardly surprising that your correspondent, Mr T. C. Skeffing- ton-Lodge,...

Sir: In his review of The Fruits of Winter (12 December), Auberon Waugh castigates the author. Ber- nard Clavel, for taking ninety- seven pages to describe how a re- tired...

No. 636: Dear Sir . . . Set by E. 0. Parrott: Recently a letter appeared in the SPECTATOR apparently from E. M. Forster in the Elysian Fields. Competitors are invited to submit...

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER By general demand this year's Christmas Quiz is considerably shorter and easier than last year's. There are 108 answers in all, of which any well-informed...

COLIN WILSON On 5 January 1895 Henry James's play Guy Domville opened in London. The author, too nervous to sit through it, went instead to see Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband....

BRIAN GRIFFITHS British Budgets in Peace and War 1932-1945 B. E. V. Sabine (Allen and Unwin 75s) What was the Keynesian revolution? Was it a decisive break with the past in our...

J. ENOCH . POWELL Appearance and Reality in International Relations Grant Hugo (Chatto and Windus 35s) Statesmen and politicians are not, upon the whole, false men—not, that is...

SIR IAIN MONCREIFFE How to Pronounce It Alan Ross (Hamish Hamilton 30s) Few things are more embarrassing than tell- ing the truth about matters of social distinc- tion....

AUBERON WAUGEI The Prevalence of Witches Aubrey Menen (Chatto and Windus, The Landmark Library 25s) The Chosen Place, The Timeless People (Part Two) Paule Marshall (Longman...

Missing pixie KENNETH HURREN Drama critics' columns around Christmas- time give the impression of having been written by other people. Normally egomania- cal in the matter of...

TELEVISION Something happy Patrick SKENE CATLING `It is beginning to feel like Christmas' may not seem like a prize-winning line, but in the circumstances it was beautifully...

Over to 11 9 CHRISTOPHER HUDSON Films with a 'LI' certificate seem to have become the exception rather than the rule, but this week three or four have been trotted out to meet...

Arty greetings EVAN ANTHONY It might be easy for the performing arts crowd to accept that critical comment this week should be festively larkish and frolic- some, but we...

Stocking tops DUNCAN FALLOWELL Brinsley Schwarz: Despite It All (Liberty 45s). They have just about recovered from that mercilessly misguided publicity stunt which flew a...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT It has been a year of extraordinary violence, as we all know, and the City has not escaped. I have never before seen in a lifetime spent in the money...

There is a class of highly cultivated men of business who after a few years are able to leave business and begin to follow ambitions, which to Bagehot meant public service. The...

Glencaraig Lady's five-length victory at Ascot, resulting in my second profits, my initial £100 has now become £113 to take on to Boxing Day at Kempton Park, where the festive...

We had been up in the wood looking for holly with berries, a more difficult quest than seemed likely a couple of months ago, when the countryside was profusely decorated with...

I am willing to concede that Christmas in London is probably no more farcical than it is anywhere else, except that being a larger city than most, London's fatuities are more...

1. (a) Bertrand Russell; (b) Sir Allen Lane; (c) Kerensky; (d) Salazar, (e) Lord Thurso (Archibald Sinclair); (f) de Gaulle and Nasser; (g) de Gaulle and Basil Liddell Hart; (h)...

'Only Satan.' says Kipling, 'can rebuke sin: The good don't know enough.' So when efficient young interviewers begin to stumble as to whether I have ever—been unfortunate enough...

I suppose we live in such a self-pitying age - that it's sometimes very difficult to get any real suffering into anything like an under- standable perspective. Countlesi...

Going about my sporting occasions a couple of weeks ago, I had to travel to Cork on the 'Innisfallen' car ferry. I had some misgivings _ because of previous, summertime...

No. 1461 DAEDALUS A prize of three guineas will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 4 January. Address solutions: Crossword 1461, The spec' tator, 99 Cower...

Second-cia' , mail authorised by New York 1'0. Pt■hlished by The Spe,tatot 1.td., vs (loner Street, LONDON. WCIE 6At. TeL 01-387 3221. Printed by Merritt & Hatt.lits Ltd., High...

ABBREVIATIONS USED (A) ARTICLE (M) MEDICINE (AF) Aermmoumrr (P) POEM (CL) Courrrav Lox (R) BOOK REVIEW (CO) COMPETITION (S) THE SPECTATOR'S (GL) THE GOOD LIFE (SL) SPORTING...

Adrian, Leslie, 98, 154, 266, 361 (Cl) Alexander. Morag, 432 (A) Amis, Kingsley. 371, 837 (P) Amos', 'Israel, 513 (A) Anderson, Patrick. 159, 443 (R) Another Conservative, 556,...