29 APRIL 1978

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Tommy this and tommy that

The Spectator

The pay rise for the services announced by Mr Callaghan Ott Tuesday is probably the best that could have been expected from this government, which is to say that it is not ,...

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-Political Commentary

The Spectator

Les secrets du Colonel B Ferdinand Mount Sometimes the law looks silly because it is silly. Sometimes the law looks silly because -policemen or judges are acting silly. And...

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Notebook

The Spectator

I never met Richard Cecil, but he' was bY all accounts an extremely attractive man a nd someone who could command extrao rdinary loyalty and affection. It is a pity L that the...

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Another voice

The Spectator

Jumping up and down Auberon Waugh Most unexpectedly, Saturday Night Fever arrived in Taunton last week. Goodness knows what the Senior Citizens were supposed to make of the...

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Italy after Moro

The Spectator

peter Nichols Rome There must be man-traps throughout Italy containing the bones, rusted remains of Portable typewriters and plastic cases for anion cards belonging to all...

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Carrillo's present from Russia

The Spectator

William Chislett Madrid Santia g o Carrillo, the secretary- g eneral of the Spanish Communist party, which last week at its ninth con g ress (the first le g al one in Spain...

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France's bombe surprise

The Spectator

Sam White Paris Well, have the French got the neutron 'bomb or haven't they? Put this way, the 'opportunities for teasing answers are end less and well-nigh irresistible, as...

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Panama and paraquat

The Spectator

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington In the last couple of days before the vote on the accursed Panama Canal treaty, the mass Media went slightly crackers on the subject. The...

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Dangerous secrecy

The Spectator

Patrick Cosgrave Listeners to the Parliament show on radio (or television) may have got the quite false impression that any old MP may get up at any old time and ask any old...

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Our uncivilised museums

The Spectator

Jo Grimond It is time we stopped the competitive stuffing of our public galleries and museums With pictures, porcelain, furniture, etc. at the expense of the tax payers. It is...

Hemlock offer

The Spectator

Michael Becket British Leyland's rights issue of shares must be the most uninviting since the hemlock offer to Socrates. Even the company went out of its way to warn...

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Going metric

The Spectator

Geoffrey Wheatcroft Three years ago Lord Orr-Ewing, then Chairman of the Metrication Board, said that 'The country is now approaching a critical stage. . . it has always been...

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The rise of small businesses

The Spectator

Stewart Black If the popular press was to be believed, the 'real interest' for everyone in Mr Healey's Budget was the size of the concessions he was expected to make on income...

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In the City

The Spectator

Gold and the dollar Nicholas Davenport It was said of my old friend Dick Crossman that his diaries revealed the extraordinary naïveté of an academic confronted with...

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The Bevan libel action

The Spectator

Sir: I have never before written about the Bevan libel action against the Spectator in 1957. It is a distasteful subject in that all of the following came out of it badly: The...

Sir: Lord Goodman suggests that Auberon Waugh's 'recollections of a

The Spectator

conversation five or six years old describing an incident fifteen years before that' may be unreliable: on the contrary. The conversation took place over lunch in Soho on 3 May,...

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Back Ian Smith

The Spectator

Sir: I read Stephen Glover's piece 'Chameleons in Rhodesia' (15 April) with considerable interest and it seems clear to me that the Western Powers' failure to support the...

The Russian prisoners

The Spectator

Sir: Ms Gainham's rambling letter (15 April) would be charming in its illogicality if it were not so morally debased. In joining the ranks of those whose attacks on Stalin are...

The greatest?

The Spectator

Sir: In the Spectator of 1 April you devoted no less than three articles to the season's international rugby scene. In none of them was there any mention of Andy Irvine, an...

Ritual slaughter

The Spectator

Sir: In your editorial of 1 April you express misgivings over the method of slaughtering livestock exported to France. Such concern is praiseworthy, but you are guilty of...

Princess Margaret

The Spectator

Sir: You can write as many sycophantic, mealy-mouthed leader columns as you like, but your correspondent, Mr Alan Walsh, IS right. The majority of people in this countrY have...

Sir: Bias and exaggeration are of course the stock in

The Spectator

trade of historians, even of such brilliant and admirable ones as Oxford's Regius Professor. But to call my recent review of Peter Townsend's Time and Chance, which dealt...

Less Greek

The Spectator

Sir: Me poor Greek ignorant. You big English egghead. You pliss say to learned Swiss Alastair Forbes no spend so much time thinking of royals but more time learning write short...

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Books

The Spectator

A sort of loyalty J. Enoch Powell • History of Rome Michael Grant (Weidenfeld £12.50) The history of Rome; yes, but which Rome? Ab urbe condita in 753 BC to the formal...

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On the brain

The Spectator

Alan Watkins Sex Law Tony Honore (Duckworth E8.95) Dr A.M. Honore is fifty-seven, a Fellow of All Souls and Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford. His previous publications...

Crossed-out

The Spectator

Ronald Duncan The Composition of the Four Quartets Helen Gardner (Faber E9.50) Has the title any musical connotations? I think not. Eliot corresponded with Stravinsky; but I...

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Sinuous rills

The Spectator

Lynn Cardiff A World of Naturalists Joseph Kastner (John Murrary £7.95) Joseph Kastner's World of Naturalists is the New World of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; his...

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Slender stuff

The Spectator

Benny Green Sherlock Holmes and his Creator Trevor H. Hall (Duckworth £7.95) Evidently there is no end to books on, by, for and about Sherlock Holmes, whose bib liography...

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Slow and sure

The Spectator

Paul Ableman The Family David Plante (Victor Gollancz E5.60) Turner, asked to provide a sketch that would give an impression of the size of a man-of-war, took a plain board and...

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Children's books

The Spectator

Grandmammas Mary Kenny It is a standing joke among those who mock social workers and the child development industry that there is a book called The Dis appearing Grandmother...

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Childsplay

The Spectator

Emma Tennant From Spring to Spring Alison Uttley (Faber £3.50) Wild Ghost Chase D. J. Enright (Chatto & Windus £2.95) Jackanory: Jonny Briggs and the Ghost Joan Eadington...

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Arts

The Spectator

Home and abroad movies John Wells The Stud (ABC, Fulham Road) The Men Who Loved Women (Gala Royal, Marble Arch) The wife of a prominent newspaper proprietor appearing in a...

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Theatre

The Spectator

Last love Ted Whitehead Oen Juan Comes Back from the War (Cottesloe) On the Out (Bush) Impending death weakens our interest in economics — unless what we're dying of is want...

Television

The Spectator

Switched-off Richard Ingrams After my rather lofty comments about Tony Garnett last tveek I thought the least I could do would be tune in to the latest episode of his Law and...

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Art

The Spectator

Whom indeed? John McEwen On the face of it you could hardly have two more opposed looking exhibitions than the Arts Council sponsored 'Art for Whom?' (Serpentine till 14 May)...

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Garden cooking

The Spectator

Blessed leek Manka Hanbury Ten ison One of the vegetables I have most respect for (especially at this time of the year when the choice is getting a bit thin) is the leek. I...

End piece

The Spectator

Clever dick Jeffrey Bernard The nearer we get to the Derby the more pieces we find to fit into the puzzle. Last Saturday, Ryan Price's colt Whitstead — by Morston out of a...