28 SEPTEMBER 1985

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PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK

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A n earthquake devastated Mexico City and the country's Pacific coast. The Red Cross estimates that 12,000 people may have been killed. Frantic efforts were made to rescue...

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HONEYFORD HATERS

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WHEN he originally wrote his criticisms of his city's multi-racial education policy, Mr Ray Honeyford, the headmaster of Drum- mond Middle School, Bradford, may not have been...

TERRORIST TALK

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QUESTION: when is a terrorist not a terrorist? Answer: when he is a member of the PLO. Having made one of her charac- teristically sweeping statements to the effect that her...

THE SPECTATOR

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L'AFFAIRE GREENPEACE I s there any single part of l'affaire Green- peace which would have happened the same way in Britain? Clearly the secret services of most states use some...

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POLITICS

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If Lloyd George could do it, why can't they? FERDINAND MOUNT M ildness is all. The British public is now believed, by almost everyone in poli- tics, to have an insatiable...

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DIARY CHRISTOPHER BOOKER

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T he Mexican earthquake disaster and the recent spate of child murders have one thing in common. Confronted by such images of extreme human horror we feel so helpless in our...

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ANOTHER VOICE

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The helicopter that was wasted on Tina Beechook AUBERON WAUGH as I alone, I wonder, among tax- payers and GLC ratepayers to feel a twinge of alarm when I read in the Standard...

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INFECTED BY THE AIDS PANIC

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Americans have become obsessed by the spread of Aids. While death has not lost its sting, sex has undoubtedly lost its zing. By Nicholas von Hoffman AMERICANS don't love their...

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Students are twice as likely to enjoy The Spectator at

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less than half-price. More stimulating than any lecture, funnier than the set books, The Spectator should be required reading for every student. With Student Subscriptions...

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MITTERRAND'S FATAL COVER-UP

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Sam White on the disaster which France courted by sinking the Rainbow Warrior Paris NEITHER the resignation last week of the Minister of Defence M. Charles Hernu, nor the...

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HERESY IN THE PUNJAB

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In the last days of the ,election campaign, Dhiren Bhagat finds Sikh attacking Sikh Barnala BARNALA (pop. 28,000) is a small, dirty town in southern Punjab, the sort of place...

One hundred years ago

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The hollowness of the European `peace' has been roughly exposed this week. Lord Beaconsfield, it will be remembered, during the Conference at Berlin insisted that Bulgaria...

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SWEDISH KINDLING

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Andrew Brown on the distractions provided by old newspapers The fishing hut, Bredfjallet IT'S easy enough to enjoy Sweden: just find a house that has no electricity, no...

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THE SPECTATOR

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SUBSCRIBE TODAY! I would like to take out a subscription to The Spectator. I enclose my cheque for £ (Equivalent $ US& Eurocheques accepted) RATES: 12 Months 6 Months...

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THE FUTURE OF MAN

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Gavin Stamp on the gloomy prospects for an island ruled by philistines Port Erin CASTLETOWN, on the narrow gauge steam railway which, in the summer months, takes over an hour...

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THE TROPICAL WOOSTER

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Travellers: A profile of John Hatt, innocent abroad HOW and why did it come about that a Chinaman of old, having gazed up into a tree and spotted a bird's nest, asked himself:...

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GALLIC SKULDUGGERY

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The press: Will they find out why Hernu went? By Paul Johnson WHAT fun the French press have! The defection of the KGB mastermind in Lon- don, by any standards the biggest...

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THE ECONOMY

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The fearless five talk down the dollar JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE M r Martin Feldstein, we are told, was unimpressed. 'For the avoidance of doubt,' as the lawyers say, I should...

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CITY AND SUBURBAN

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New eyes behind the Bank's windowless wall CHRISTOPHER FILDES I t is more than 20 years since I first began to call at the Bank of England and impede the work of the Discount...

In-depth reporting

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THE bad news is that next week's Interna- tional Monetary Fund meeting is in Seoul. (Given the choice, the Chancellor prefer- red Blackpool.) The good news is that the...

Midland's new direction

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THE arrival of Kit McMahon will reward the directors of the Midland Bank for an unusual decision. Earlier this year they made up their minds to look for a chairman who was a...

Louisiana blues

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NEVER a dull moment for investors in L. Texas Petroleum, whose shares, when offered on the London Stock Exchange, proved to be such a dry well. Tense City meetings followed...

Robin hears the bees

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THE Governor and Deputy Governor are appointed for terms of five years, by the Queen, on the advice of the Prime Minis- ter. Governor Robin Leigh-Pemberton was chosen in the...

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Foul-up

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Sir: I am sorry that my foul handwriting led you to suppose I was describing the Amer- ican psychologist I met on BBC's Start the Week as 'most aggressive' (Another voice, 21...

Francis Thompson

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Sir: P. J. Kavanagh is always a welcome visitor to the London Library, but his mind must have been on blackberries and bird- song when he failed to find anything here on Francis...

Farmer-bashing

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Sir: Could Mrs Jean Hayes (`Alien corn', 14 September) please be given some simple facts? All wheat, when ripe, bends over at the head: furthermore, after rain (and there was...

LETTERS King Charles the Martyr

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Sir: At a gathering of American Episcopa- lian bishops, there was a unanimous vote to add Dr Martin Luther King to the calendar of saints. But, despite support from several...

Mr Lambton's defects

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Sir: Mr Lambton's review of A. N. Wil- son's Gentlemen in England (Books, 14 September) was not only unpleasant; it was incompetent. The unpleasantness is a mat- ter between Mr...

Over-promoted

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Sir: A small point relating to Patrick Marnham's very generous review of my book (21 September): he has promoted me. The only Lieutenant Cobb in my family was my father — in the...

Keith Douglas

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Sir: We were pleased to see Peter Levi's review of Keith Douglas, A Prose Miscel- lany, in the Spectator (7 September), but should like to put the record straight on one point....

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BOOKS

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A prodigal novelist A. N. Wilson THE GOOD APPRENTICE by Iris Murdoch Chatto & Windus, f9.95 I ris Murdoch's readers divide between those who think that her characters are...

BOUGHT AND SOLD CLASSIFIED PAGE 39

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The greatest traveller since Marco Polo

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Auberon Waugh JACKDAW CAKE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Norman Lewis Hamish Hamilton, £9.95 I am not sure why Norman Lewis called the first volume of his autobiography Jack- daw Cake,...

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A great imperial warrior

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Hugh Cecil THE KITCHENER ENIGMA by Trevor Royle Michael Joseph, £15 A fter a course of years every soldier acquires more or less insanity; the result of his moral training,'...

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Magpike

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Like plump, unfinished swans clouds drift Headless just beneath the gloss Of pond where willow-branches shift Very gently, under glass. Deeper, on pond-bed, you see The little...

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A voice from the past

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Francis King HAWKSMOOR by Peter Ackroyd Hamish Hamilton, £8.95 T he epithet 'clever' has tended to become a pejorative among reviewers themselves obtuse. But however great my...

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‘Yarroo' in the corridors of history

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Miranda Seymour BUNTER SAHIB by Daniel Green Hodder, f8.95 BUT FOR BUNTER by David Hughes Heinemann, f8.95 I never myself had much time for the fat owl of Greyfriars,...

A kind of faith

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Wandering into dreams My loved and lost ones shake My cool agnostic ways. He: 'Look how I see again.' `Let's take that ferny walk We promised ourselves,' she says. Then from...

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An entertaining pongy belch

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Harriet Waugh THE GOOD TERRORIST by Doris Lessing Jonathan Cape, f9.50 A lthough Doris Lessing made a rather coy re-entry into general fiction a couple of years ago under the...

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An Anglocentric eccentric

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Peter Levi WILLIAM STUKELY by Stuart Piggott Thames & Hudson, £14 A s Chesterton observed, the purpose of school is to watch the amazing be- haviour of schoolmasters. Great...

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ARTS

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Opera Enormously engaging Rodney Milnes S tockhausen's Donnerstag could be said to represent everything that your de- tached, upright, cold-bath Englishman most loathes about...

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Theatre

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Kiss of the Spider Woman (Bush) Web of inertia Christopher Edwards T his play is based upon a novel of the same name by the Argentinian writer Manuel Puig. A film of the book...

Cinema

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Body Double (`18', selected cinemas) Bright lights, bright people Peter Ackroyd B rian De Palma is both one of the most fascinating and most vulgar of American directors —...

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Exhibitions

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Howard Hodgkin: Fifty Paintings 1973-85 (Whitechapel Gallery till 3 November) Talking about art Alistair Hicks 6 T alking About Art' is a satirical work included in Howard...

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Television

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Inside Number Ten Alexander Chancellor E dward Heath is irresistibly attracted to those vowel sounds which he cannot pronounce. When he arrived at Number Ten Downing Street,...

High life

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Setting sights Taki I think it's time for me to move on. The great American climber invasion has be- gun, and there is no room on these isles for both Taki and those in search...

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Low life

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Reformed character Jeffrey Bernard I took my 15-year-old daughter Isabel to Newbury races last Saturday and I behaved so well that the memory of it has left me stunned....

Home life

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Cooking the books Alice Thomas Ellis A s I happen to be connected with publishing and the World of Books I am sometimes approached by people with manuscripts and I have come...

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Postscript

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God, death, and our children P. J. Kavanagh 0 n the face of it nothing could be more natural than becoming a parent, yet there is no event that so completely dis- rupts and...

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CROSSWORD

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A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £11.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) will be awarded for the first...

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COMPETITION

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A couple of birds Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1388 you were asked for a poem with the rhyme-scheme: shine, right, sight, mine, appalled, same, name, called, confounded,...

CHESS

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Flat out Raymond Keene A fter Karpov's two wins there have been two draws in the world cham- pionship, and the score currently looks like this: Karpov 0 1/2 1/2 1 1 1/2 1/2...

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Women and drinking

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`I MAY not omit here' — wrote Robert Burton — 'those two main plagues, and common dotages of human kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besot- ted myriads of people....

No, 1391: Autobiography

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You are invited to write a true recollection of your own childhood featuring a memorable adult. Maximum 150 words. Entries to `Com- petition No. 1391' by 11 October.

Nigella Lawson is away.

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Solution to Crossword 724: Rule of three

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Theme: the Roman Triumvirate, Groupings: 3 (+ 24/36, marks); 8 (+ 14/21, components); 13 (+ 1D/4D, synonyms). Winners: D. Finkel, Borehamwood, Herts (£20); John M. Brown,...