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The Princess and the public
The SpectatorThe nauseating prurience of the popular press in its treatment of the breakdown of Princess Margaret's marriage should not conceal from us the fact that the Princess's...
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Helping towards better energy management
The SpectatorToday energy is a scarce and costly resource, to be managed rather than just used or consumed. Energy management implies that the consumption of energy is carefully planned and...
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The Week
The SpectatorSummer Time came in with a spell of . bitterly cold weather: eight inches of snow fell on some parts of England. The change aggravated European problems, as the various ....
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Political Commentary
The SpectatorThe puppets fall down Patrick Cosgrave A fortnight ago—less perhaps—nearly any journalist in Westminster—nearly any dispassionate observer, for that matter—would have held to...
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Notebook
The SpectatorIt didn't take long for the evidence of Fleet Street's new labour-management harmony, discovered by the Royal Commission on the 'Press, to look flimsy indeed. Following a...
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Another voice
The SpectatorReport from the Front Auberon Waugh Languedoc In a mountain village once dedicated to the Catharin heresy, some sixty kilometres north of Perpignan, I am led blindfold into the...
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The other India
The SpectatorAmit Roy 'We can't show breasts,' Vinod Mehta, editor of Debonair, India's first 'girlie' magazine, said despairingly. The Bombay-based monthly had been persuaded to drop its...
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The Bunker's bluff
The SpectatorMartin Walker Barcelona Since Franco's death, Spain has confounded those critics who confidently prophesied instant chaos after the removal of his trembling old hand from the...
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The Birth of Zimbabwe
The SpectatorXan Smiley Salisbury When Rhodesia becomes Zimbabwe there will presumably be nepotism, tribalism, bloody factional infighting, hypocrisy, inefficiency and sloth—all the usual...
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Against an incomes policy
The SpectatorNicholas Ridley The argument about whether we should have a prices and incomes policy, or not, seems to take place without reference either to the outside world, or to the...
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Keeping abreast
The SpectatorMary Kenny There has been a controversy recently about dried babymilks, the powdered milk formulas given to most babies in this country under the age of six months. The brand...
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Reforming the Lords
The SpectatorNorman Lamont Some hopes have been expressed that Mrs Thatcher, when she becomes Prime Minister, will revive hereditary peerages. Though it is good to know the spirit of Tory...
What a gas
The SpectatorJames Hughes-Onslow It's exactly a year since my house was converted to North Sea Gas, that gold bar in Britain's backyard, and five straight idiots from the North Thames Gas...
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Thinking slim
The SpectatorElisabeth Dunn There was this woman who had two problems. One was that she was stout and the other was that she could never say no when her neighbour asked her to babysit. To...
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The six and the market
The SpectatorNicholas Davenport IfI were Mr Healey I would still be very indignant at Mr Wilson's abrupt abdication. Here was the poor Chancellor recovering his poise after a vicious attack...
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Letters
The SpectatorGreece turns left Sir: So Professor Devletoglou is at it again. The last time I commented on one of his articles he was arguing in a contemporary of yours, ostensibly from a...
Councillors' pocket money
The SpectatorSir: Councillors in receipt of attendance allowances (introduced some time after the 1973 elections for the reorganised local authorities were over) appeared, so far as the...
Peter Ratazzl East Essex County Council
The SpectatorThe nanny state Sir: May I add to your comments on compulsory seat-belts in cars ? I have driven vehicles of many kinds for not far short of fifty years. I must have driven...
The Normans Sir: Having read and enjoyed the works of
The SpectatorLord Norwich on the Normans of south Italy, I was very disappointed by his facile, indeed at times fatuous, review of the recently published works by Professors Douglas and...
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Wine and the workers
The SpectatorSir: Why should we, as working classes, have bottles of inferior, expensive, vinegary, rubbishy — and now bloody expensive — continental wines in our cupboards when we can have...
Solzhenitsyn
The SpectatorSir. The dangers to our society stressed by Solzhenitsyn are virtually identical with those cited by Lloyd George in his diagnosis of the Russian Revolution published some forty...
Moses
The SpectatorSir: Though I haven't seen the film Moses I can well imagine that Kenneth Robinson's assessment of it as bad and boring is probably a gross understatement. But to describe, as...
'Lengthen the dole queues'
The SpectatorSir: It was with delight that I read Patrick Cosgrave's article 'Lengthen the dole queues' on 31 January 1976. It has seemed almost beyond my understanding the naivety of both...
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Books
The SpectatorBlood, thunder and Gore Peter Ackroyd Washington, D.C. Gore Vidal (Heinemann 21.50) Burr Gore Vidal (Heinemann £2.75) 1876 Gore Vidal (Heinemann £4.10) 1876, the latest of...
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How to get rich
The SpectatorShiva Naipaul World of Hunger Jonathan Power and Anne-Marie Holenstein (Temple Smith £1.95) The Poor of The Earth John Cole ( Macmillan £2.95) A World Divided edited by G. K....
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Spice is nice
The SpectatorAlan Brien The Young Romantics Linda Kelly (Bodley Head £3.75) Revolution and Improvement 1775-1847 John Roberts (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £7.95) 'French flu' Arthur Koestler...
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Losers
The SpectatorDuncan Fallowell Lost Profile Francoise Sagan (Andre Deutsch £2.75) The Family Arsenal Paul Theroux (HaMish Hamilton 0.75) 'He left both windows open and the night ail',...
In the club
The SpectatorBenny Green The Athenaeum; Club and Social Life in London, 1824-1974 (Heinemann E12.00) I come to a celebration of the Athenaeum Club with all the detachment and dispassion of...
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Books Wanted
The SpectatorGIOVANNI DI PAOLO by John Pope Hennessy (Chatto & Windus). THE HERMITAGE World of Art (Thames & Hudson) Box 681. LIFE & TIMES OF THOMAS CORYATE by Michael Strachan (OUP). P. A....
Mann acts
The SpectatorHilary Spurling Unwritten Memories Katia Mann edited by Elisabeth Plessen and Michael Mann. Translated by Hunter and Hildegarde Hannum (Deutsch £3.95) Thomas Mann's widow,...
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Charade
The SpectatorDavid Levy Stalin's Masterpiece: The 'Show Trials' and Purges of the Thirties—The Consolidation of the Bolshevik Dictatorship Joel Carmichael (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £6.95) In...
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Ganging up
The SpectatorChristine Brooke-Rose Paris At a literary dinner in London last year, the conversation was wholly about who had reviewed what where. Unable to express an opinion when asked, I...
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Arts
The SpectatorBetween the lines John McEwen When Peter Phillips arrived from Birmingham at the Royal College of Art in 1960 he responded immediately to the new freedom inherent in American...
Cinema
The SpectatorSpaced out Kenneth Robinson The Man Who Fell to Earth Director: Nicolas Roeg Stars: David Bowie, Candy Clark, Buck Henry, Rip Torn Leicester Square Theatre 'X' (140 mins)...
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Theatre
The SpectatorHonky-Tonk Kenneth Hurren Mardi Gras by Melvyn Bragg, songs by Alan Blaikley and Ken Howard (Prince of Wales) 13 Rue de l'Amour by Georges Feydeau (Phoenix) Out of Practice by...
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Television
The SpectatorWorkmanlike Jeffrey Bernard hist occasionally I'd like my set to blow up. I Mean, what is the point of sitting there tut ting and seething unable to turn the w retched thing...