Suggestions to the IRA on what to do with decommissioned weapons M iss Harriet Hannan, Labour's shad- ow Health Secretary, said she was sending one of her sons to a selective...

If you want to understand Harriet Harman, you only have to look in her eyes BRUCE ANDERSON A astair Campbell, Tony Blair's press spokesman, is a clever fellow and was...

ANNA FORD A fter my confession last week that a performance of Le Cirque du Soleil had inspired me to run away and join the circus as a trapeze artist, the Daily Express rang to...

Reflections on a week spent in front of the box AUBERON WAUGH I t required a scene from Coronation Street, where a character called Trish Arm- strong faced prison after...

Geoffrey Howe, inquiring into an inquiry, says that neither the Attorney-General's reputation, nor Mr Waldegrave's, or any other minister's, should depend on the Scott report...

Richard Cobb, says his pupil David Gilmour, had definite views on who and what were the Good Things in life `DO YOU think they make wigs in Spain?' Richard Cobb asked me a few...

WHEN James Murray was editing the New English Dictionary a century ago he complained half humorously that the shortest words required the longest treatment — put took 21...

James Hughes - Onslow was £500 in the red; the machine ate his card; he asked Drummonds how he differed from the Duchesss of York TROUBLE at t'hole in t'wall last week....

persist.. . THERE IS a brand of insanity, or so it is alleged, which consists in this: that the sufferer, so-called, does not know the difference between right and wrong. This...

Roy Kerridge visits the Newbury protesters, and finds them little loved in the countryside they are trying to save WHEN I heard about the demonstrations against the...

There has been considerable curiosity as to who was responsible for the brilliant idea of holding the Government's offi- cial dinner to the U.N.O. delegates in the Painted Hall...

. . . we have no convictions today. Anne McElvoy finds Harriet Harman is just like the rest of us SPARE HARRIET Harman your censure, you opinion-mongers of the Right who view...

Why the Queen is right to choose the Hodder Valley as a last dwelling place PAUL JOHNSON A ri item of news which arrested me last week was an announcement in the Times that...

The great British pig gets its 57,800 calories in time for next year's show CHRISTOPHER FILDES I f the British economy were a prize pig — as in so many ways it is — you could...

baroque and Renaissance music few have a more distinguished record than Denis Stevens, nobody would deny that; equally, nobody who knows him would ever assert that he was a...

Sir: Your magazine is becoming so obsessed with Mr Michael Portillo that, as something of a Portillista myself, I am mild- ly encouraged. The article by Mr Bruce Anderson...

Sir: Denis Stevens's attack on the personal- ities of a succession of Heather Professors and the performance of the Oxford Music Faculty over the last 50 years CA little light-...

slander and therefore turns his gratuitously rough tongue on Sir Jack Westrup and Denis Arnold. That Professor Stevens has a deep dislike of Oxford's Fac- ulty of Music is no...

Sir: I believe it was Michael Frayn who said journalists who use irony do so at their peril. Professor Jasper Griffin of Balliol (Letters, 18 January) is not a journalist, so...

Sir: I was surprised that Sir Simon Towne- ley (Letters, 20 January) should think that the second Marquis of Ripon deserves to be called the 'best shot in England' for hav- ing...

Sir: Anne McElvoy (`The moral maze', 13 January) merrily takes to task both business and its critics, and wins two cheers from this side. Of course, your cartoons of Old Nick in...

Sir: My former colleague Charles Powell claims (`The Mitterrand I knew', 13 Jan- uary) to have spent more time in the com- pany of President Mitterrand than any other...

My message to the young: it's easier to become a Silk or an ambassador than an editor or columnist STEPHEN GLOVER I was going to write about Max Hastings, the newly appointed...

A weakness for gossip Byron Rogers ELIZABETH by Sarah Bradford Heinemann, £20, pp. 564 Y ou may remember the bolt action of the adjectives with which the Earl of Clarendon...

Christian Caryl EIN WEITES FELD by Gunter Grass Steidl Verlag, Gottingen, DM 49.80, pp. 781 I magine that you're a left-leaning writer and you want to write a novel satirising...

John Bayley THE ANTI-EGOIST: KINGSLEY AMIS, MAN OF LEI-YEAS by Paul Fussell OUP, £14.99, pp. 206 P honey. An almost obsolete word? It obsessed Kingsley Amis and his generation...

John McEwen DIRT AND DEITY by Ian McIntyre HarperCollins, £20, pp. 461 T his year marks the bicentenary of Robert Bums's death, a global event promising an avalanche of...

Jane Gardam THE LIFE OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE by Rosemary Ashton Blackwell, £25, pp. 480 W riting a life of Coleridge must be like trying to harness a cloud, a drifting...

Jonathan Keates SEBASTIAN WALKER: 1942-1991: A KIND OF PROSPERO by Mirabel Cecil Walker Books, £14.99, pp. 185 S ebastian Walker was one of the most consistently successful...

Caroline Moore LAST ORDERS by Graham Swift Picador, £15.99, pp. 295 R ather oddly, the list of works 'Also by Graham Swift' on the fly-pages of this lat- est novel does not...

1900-1967 Where do you wander now, old friend? Where do you drink? Few inns better than Hamnavoe bar, Few better stories, I think. Is there a star Stirred with laughter that...

Charles Osborne LUISA TETRAZZINE: THE FLORENTINE NIGHTINGALE by Charles Neilson Gattey Scolar, f29.50, pp. 396 B y the time of her London debut in 1907 at the age of 36, the...

Trouble at the House again Rupert Christiansen defends the Royal Opera House as it bares all in a television series P ity the Royal Opera House. The press is enjoying itself...

Nicholas Snowman on the changing face of the Royal Festival Hall I remember, as a very small boy, being taken to the Festival of Britain. Others recall the sense of excitement,...

Strangely Familiar (RIBA, 66 Portland Place, Wl, till 10 Feb) Know your city Alan Powers T he value of architectural exhibitions is often questioned. Nothing can represent a...

The Midsummer Marriage (Royal Opera House) A grand alliance Giannandrea Poesio Wit ithin contemporary musical culture, the relationship between opera and dance is an...

Sabrina (PG, selected cinemas) Mute Witness (18, selected cinemas) The waiting game Mark Steyn T he first time I saw the eponymous heroine of Sabrina in print she was...

Damn Yankees (The Bridewell) An Ideal Husband (Theatre Royal Haymarket) Goldhawk Road (The Bush) Small but perfectly formed Sheridan Morley T he smaller the better: the...

Sex, violence and rock'n'roll James Dehngpole T here was a nasty moment when I thought I was going to have to give up on BBC 2's new mega-serial, Our Friends in the North...

Whither the weather? Ursula Buchan W e live in a golden age. Even I, by nature pessimistic, am forced to admit it. Never have so many people gardened with such success, using...

You cannot be serious Michael Vestey R adio comedy is no joke. At times, the very term is an oxymoron. Those of us who grew up in the Fifties with brilliant radio comics, Tony...

Give them a break Robin Oakley A e all National Hunt jockeys masochists at heart? The thought was prompted by a few days in hospital for a shoulder operation during which the...

The price of loyalty Alan Judd S econd-hand cars are sometimes adver- tised as having had a diplomat/doctor/ titled/lady/company director owner, though none of this, of...

I think on thee, dear friend Taki S ir Winston Churchill was sitting between Tina and Ari Onassis at the roulette table nearest to the bar in the Monte Carlo sporting club. If...

The mad fair sex Jeffrey Bernard R eaders of this column may have noticed by now that my admiration for women is tempered by a conviction that they are moderately mad and...

Slamming it Andrew Robson ONE OF the most popular conventions in the early days of bridge was Gerber, in which a bid of 4+ asks partner how many aces he possesses. Identical...

It's all in the bottle Auberon Waugh R obin Yapp specialises in discovering seriously good French country wine, which he has the skill and energy to hunt down from the...

announced that Dr Hope was to be enthroned as Archbishop of York, traditionalists were cautiously pleased. Dr Hope has sensibly had nothing to do with the new cult of...

I SIVAE 44H x01,141.11 ' ... s LE OF U RA SINGLI MALT SUICH 411151 COMPETITION Tra-la-la Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1916 you were given the first two lines of a song and...

God's gift Raymond Keene IN THE THIRD decade of the 19th centu- ry, the Welsh sea captain W. D. Evans invented a new gambit idea, described at the time as 'God's gift to a...

A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 1989 Port for the first correct solution opened on 12 February, with two runners-up prizes of £15 (or, for UK...

Gentlemen v. players Simon Barnes THERE EXISTS a confused notion that people in sport should somehow have higher standards than other people. Remember the row when the...

Dear Mary. . . Q. I wonder if you can help with a rather intimate domestic problem. My wife and I have joined a scheme whereby American tourists who wish to stay in an 'English...