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PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK Exodus T he Liberal Democrats won by
The Spectator4,550 votes the Eastbourne seat vacated by the murder of Ian Gow, who had a 16,923 majority. Paddy Ashdown, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said the victory showed his party...
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TEACHING THE PARENTS
The SpectatorA lack of resources, or a lack of resourcefulness: which is the cause of the failing achievements of children in the state educational system? The blame of the Labour Party and...
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DIARY
The SpectatorMAX HASTINGS ntil last week, I had not visited Spain since a childhood beach holiday 30 years ago. On that occasion, the Hastings family found itself sharing a hotel with the...
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ANOTHER VOICE
The SpectatorThe only Tory reason for not wanting a Tory defeat CHARLES MOORE S ix months' abstention from journalism has given me the chance to listen like a normal human being, for once....
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THE MUDDLE IN THE TORY MIDDLE
The SpectatorThe Conservative Party cannot make up its mind about Europe, because it hasn't got one, argues Noel Malcolm IF I had an ecu for every time I had heard the phrase, 'The Tory...
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One hundred years ago
The SpectatorWE perceive that Sarah Bernhardt, in her new representation of Cleopatra, has departed from the traditional idea of the Queen's physique, and appears with auburn or...
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THE GROCER AND THE BUTCHER
The SpectatorJohn Simpson reports on a game of unhappy families in Baghdad Baghdad AL-JOMHORIYA couldn't quite bring itself to splash with the meeting on Mon- day morning, but there, just...
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DEATH IN THE MORNING
The SpectatorCharles Glass remembers his friend Dany Chamoun, whose family was butchered last week THE first time armed men broke into his house in the dead of night, Dany Chamoun was nine...
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CASTE ADRIFT
The SpectatorMihir Bose on the new Indian laws on untouchables that are tearing the country apart WHEN I was growing up in India one of the first ditties I was taught ran as follows:...
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WHO'S RUNNING THE RACKET?
The SpectatorGordon Crovitz on the judicial hounding of Michael Milken New York IT IS fitting that the finale to the persecu- tion of Michael Milken, the junk bond king, should be a last...
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THE PAIN HAS JUST BEGUN
The SpectatorJames Bartholomew foresees an unhappy ending to Mrs Thatcher's fairy-tale rescue by the ERM NOT all that long ago, the Exchange Rate Mechanism was widely regarded as the happy...
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THE CANON GOES OFF
The SpectatorDamian Thompson on the explosive politics of Thought for the Day BACK in the bleakest days of the Amer- ican depression, wireless listeners were so moved by Father Charles...
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If symptoms
The Spectatorpersist . . . TWO things aroused the wonderment of Kant: the stars above and the moral law within. If Kant had lived near our hospital, he Wouldn't have spent much time...
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RED IN TOOTH AND TYPE
The Spectatorask: What's in it for me? LONG interviews with personalities in the news — this week it's Jimmy Goldsmith are the top current fad in British journal- ism today. Indeed they are...
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Lawsons I and II
The SpectatorMY version of history would borrow from Samuel Brittan's account of The Treasury under the Tories (in their 13 years of office which ran to 1964). He invented two successive...
CITY AND SUBURBAN
The SpectatorNigel marks his anniversary with a farewell from ambush CHRISTOPHER FILDES N igel Lawson's resignation caught me with steam up on the Watercress Line. It was and is a day to...
Necessary clever man
The SpectatorF IVE years of pugnacious opposition had to pass before he came, as Financial Secretary, to the Treasury. There he spent alm ost all his ten years in o ff ice (detouring briefly...
Blown
The SpectatorTHE Sage of Hinton Blewitt, William Rees-Mogg, has an opposite number at the Palace. The Queen's treasurer and keeper of her privy purse is Sir Shane Blewitt. A former officer...
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Careers talk
The SpectatorSir: A professional indexer who thinks that it is asking too much to expect him to be accurate (Letters, 13 October) has surely chosen the wrong profession. John Gere 21...
Church misogynists
The SpectatorSir: I agree with everything said by Lord Lauderdale and others (Letters, 29 September) except for their objection to women priests. Since neither they nor any other opponents...
The Forbes test
The SpectatorSir: We get a great many foreign students here in the summer studying English. I have devised a near-perfect test as to their proficiency: I get them to read a letter/ review by...
LETTERS Letter from Kuwait
The SpectatorDear —, Events have crashed down horrible and inhuman to bury our spirit and morale in a cloud of terror and fear. No one is equipped to confront such an experience: savage...
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LETTERS Ali is at it again
The SpectatorSir: I was rather surprised to read Antony Lambton's judgment that Philip Ziegler, in his 'official' biography of King Edward VIII, 'has little new relevant information'. Yet...
Viennese hero
The SpectatorSir: As the extraordinary woman deter- mined to do a PhD thesis on Jeffrey Bernard I'd like to thank you very much for publishing my appeal to Spectator readers (Letters, 11...
Leaping lords
The SpectatorSir: I am writing in general support of Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd's article (`Ladies in their own rights . . .', 18 August) on the inheritance of peerages by women. If the...
A DICTIONARY OF CANT
The SpectatorVALID. A word that is useful for approving or condoning some proposi- tion or opinion or policy when you are too yellow to judge its truth or false- hood. Nigel Burke
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BOOKS
The SpectatorThere can be no final solution Raymond Carr THE CROOKED TIMBER OF HUMANITY: CHAPTERS IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS by Isaiah Berlin, edited by Henry Hardy John Murray, £16.95, pp....
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Ending the heartache
The SpectatorAnita Brookner RABBIT AT REST by John Updike Deutsch, £14.99, pp. 505 A dmirers of Harry 'Rabbit' Ang- strom, basketball hero and Toyota dealer, will be happy to know that he...
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The Texas Chainsaw Massacrer
The SpectatorAnthony Howard MEANS OF ASCENT: THE YEARS OF LYNDON JOHNSON by Robert A. Caro Bodley Head, f20, pp. 506 T he thesis of this book can be stated quite simply: Lyndon Baines...
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Babbled of green fields
The SpectatorMichael Bentley THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE BRITISH ARISTOCRACY by David Cannadine Yale, f19.95, pp. 813 I n the last two decades of Queen Victor- ia's reign the British...
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Au Cabaret Vert
The SpectatorThose eight days on the road, their wear-and-tear, Had left my boots stone-savaged. Limping-late, I came to Charleroi, to the Cabaret Vert. I asked for buttered doorsteps and a...
Wedlock
The SpectatorThe chains of holy wedlock Are so heavy one can see Why it takes two to carry them: Why, sometimes, even three.' Victor Hugo (1802 — 1885)
Annie
The Spectator(For Anne Rivaz) Between Mobile and Galveston On the curve of the Texan coast, Overgrown with roses There is this most Ginormous bloody garden In which, itself another Bloody...
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Wherever the cold war was hottest . . .
The SpectatorSimon Courtauld THE THORNS OF MEMORY by Peter Kemp Sinclair-Stevenson, f16.95, pp. 376 ONE MAN IN HIS TIME by Xan Fielding Macmillan, £17.99, pp.222 P eter Kemp's friends...
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Enj oying a foreign posting
The SpectatorChristopher Hawtree THE POSTMEN'S HOUSE by Maggie Hemingway Sinclair-Stevenson, £13.95, pp.296 M aggie Hemingway's third novel is her best. The jackets of her books reveal...
Americans over there and over here
The SpectatorJanet Daley AFFLICTION by Russell Banks Picador, £12.95, pp, 366 DR DEMAitit by Paul Theroux, Hutchinson, £6.99, pp. 96 LOOK AT IT THIS WAY by Justin Cartwright Macmillan,...
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You will, Oscar, you will
The SpectatorTony Osman HOW TO BUILD A PERSON: A PROLEGOMENON by John Pollock MIT, £20.25, pp. 189 T here's no deception in the title of this book. In it, John Pollock looks at the...
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FINE ARTS SPECIAL
The SpectatorHeritage The Miss Havisham suite Ruth Guilding looks at the marketing of an English country house I n 1979 the V & A mounted an exhibi- tion entitled The Destruction of the...
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Exhibitions 1
The SpectatorErich Wolfsfeld, Lotte Laserstein and Gottfried Meyer: an Exhibition of 20th- century German Naturalism (Agnew's, 5 December-4 January) The tradition we neglect Giles Auty I...
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Exhibitions 2
The SpectatorThe Lion of Venice (British Museum, till 13 January) Circus lion Anthony Samuelson I n April this year the mayor of Venice, Antonio Casellati, wrote to the city's...
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Russian art
The SpectatorThe return of the Itinerants Andrei Navrozov reflects on the promotion of Soviet art in the West I t will serve further development of cultural links and strengthening of...
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Exhibitions 3
The SpectatorThe Empire fizzles out Juliet Reynolds his is far worse than the Monet,' a man remarked resignedly to his wife at the °Pening of the Raj exhibition at the National Portrait...
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Sale-rooms
The SpectatorWait until Sunday . . . Alistair McAlpine T he most boring aspect of the coming months is likely to be the spectacleof Commentators on the 'art market' greeting each sale with...
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Dance
The SpectatorDance Umbrella (Various venues, till 10 November) Uncertain future Deirdre McMahon I n this year's Dance Umbrella, the 12th annual festival of contemporary dance, there is a...
Theatre
The SpectatorOther People's Money (Lyric) Out of Order (Shaftesbury) Raising a laugh Christopher Edwards 0 ther People's Money, which is a great hit off-Broadway, has been imported to...
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Cinema
The SpectatorOut of order Hilary Mantel T his is the most frustrating film I have seen this year. At the Edinburgh Festival it was named 'British Film of the Year'. You can see the...
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Television
The SpectatorThis soap won't wash Martyn Harris I dislike director David Lynch so I had been looking forward to getting the knives out for Twin Peaks (BBC 2, 9 p.m., Tuesday). Lynch's...
High life
The SpectatorParty politics Taki am starting to get cold feet as the day of my dinner-dance is approaching, The prob- lem is the seating plan, and how to go about seating 255 people...
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Low life
The SpectatorLights out Jeffrey Bernard S o that's it then. The gravy train is going to be derailed tonight. I might go along to the Apollo to see my name in lights for the last time. When...
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New life
The SpectatorShoot from the knee Zenga Longmore F or the purpose of allowing my six- Year-old niece Kuba and her little sister Comfort to show off their new-found show- biz skills, I took...
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Imperative cooking: breakfast
The Spectatoritor4L."LtiAL.- "Jeks___ARLA WHAT to do if you are fed up with English breakfasts? I suppose one reaction, not least from some Spectator readers, is that a patriotic chap has no...
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CHESS
The SpectatorRevaluation Raymond Keene C hess beginners are taught as a rough guide that on a scale of one to nine a pawn counts as one, knight and bishop three eac h, rook five and queen...
COMPETITION
The SpectatorBouts limes Jaspistos 12 YEAR OLD SCOTCH WHISKY I n Competition No. 1648 . . . My voice falters. Ladies and gentlemen, readers, f riends, enemies, thank God I am P s...
No. 1651: Repeat hiccup
The SpectatorWe ' ll stick to the bouts rimes that went, literally, west. My apologies to those who didn ' t keep a copy of their entry. Entries to ` Competition No. 1651 ' by 9 November.
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Solution to 979: All change
The SpectatorFt L. E S H _Ft I 1 .2 T M Ste , VJ N C E- S T El VI El CT] Ni RI SONG The lights are anagrams of a word or words in the clues. Winners: Peter A.Tinsley, Leeds (£20);...
CROSSWORD
The SpectatorA first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers English Dictionary — ring the word `Dictionary') for the first three correct solutions...
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SPECTATOR SPORT
The SpectatorTwo very rich peas Frank Keating TWO very different peas from almost the same pod. Pele was 50 on Tuesday, just two days after Geoffrey Boycott had also raised his bat to...
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THE SHIVA NAIPAUL MEMORIAL PRIZE
The SpectatorShiva Naipaul was one of the most gifted and accomplished writers of our time. After his death in August 1985 at the age of 40, The Spectator set up a fund to establish an...