A n IRA bomb killed ten, including two children, and injured 57 others in Belfast. It was set off in the Shankill Road between busy shops and a meeting room used by Loyalist...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 THE BLOOD RED HAND I f it seemed, for a moment, that there was some...

Another problem of frustrated middle-aged men seeking firm discipline MATTHEW PARRIS h e Conservative Party sails onward toward the new session in passable shape. At least for...

DAVID ENGLISH New York Every time I come to the United States, I think of Lord Beaverbrook. He sent me there in my formative years and then sud- denly pulled me out just as I...

Why Jo Grimond was too good to be Prime Minister CHARLES MOORE I n the month when hundreds of thou- sands of people are buying a certain vol- ume of memoirs, let me quote from...

Timothy Garton Ash argues that Britain should realise that its interests are similar to Germany's, and the antipathy between the two countries is economically damaging ONE...

John Laughland on how the crisis at Air France symbolises President Mitterrand's divorce from reality Paris IT HAS BEEN said that `Cressonism' — the appointment of the...

Tony Scotland finds rural Turkey determined not to embrace the European way Erzurum TWO-AND-A-half centuries ago a 21-year- old Irish peer, on the Grand Tour, aim- pared the...

THERE ARE some mistakes we all like to avoid. Take decimated; of course it means 'the destruction of one in ten', and so it is annoying to hear people on television using it to...

Candida Crewe finds the Motor Show trapped in the taste-free zone of the 1970s THE MAN on the Skoda stand at this year's motor show in Earls Court, all by himself, was looking...

Lawson 'Mr Mellor should, of course, have remembered the advice of Arthur Hugh Clough: "Do not adultery commit, Advantage rarely comes of it." P.D. JAMES 'One chilly night.., an...

LUMINOUS OR NOT, a dong is the stan- dard monetary unit of Vietnam, and so earns its place in Oxford's newest publica- tion, a Dictionary (at £15.95) for the Busi- ness World....

THERE IS something about Tiny Rowland of Lonrho that reminds me of Napoleon, the pig in Animal Farm. (Paul Spicer, his master's voice, could pass for Squealer.) It is not just...

MY RACING CORRESPONDENT, Cap- tain Threadneedle, is to receive the singu - lar honour of having a race named after him. So he joins racing's pantheon. The Derby, the St Leger,...

JO GRIMOND was the last Liberal leader to be be an economic liberal. That was in accord with his approach to politics, which I heard him explain, years ago, at a dinner in our...

Unity is strength, except when it comes to unifying the Budget CHRISTOPHER FILDES E yes down for the Unified Budget. This time next month Kenneth Clarke will unveil his plans...

A LEFT AND RIGHT in Attalis is good shooting. Bernard Attali, the Saint-Exupery or Biggles of Air France, has now plummet- ed to earth beside his twin Jacques, the banker with...

Sir: Not the least of the surprises in John Martin Robinson's panegyric to Westmor- land (Books, 9 October) was to learn that Wordsworth was the first editor of the Westmorland...

Sir: Baroness Cox sees herself as 'a voice for those who have no voice' and has 'not noticed' our concern for Armenian victims of the war in Karabakh (Letters, 23 October), but...

Sir: How refreshing to read John Simpson's article ('Once an Empire, now an embar- rassment', 23 October) about the Common- wealth. I agree with him in his view that the British...

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Sir: Just to confute the venerable (well, elderly) maxim that only letters of correc- tion are addressed to the editor while let- ters of celebration are written to the author,...

Sir: William Cash's piece on British aristo- crats and upper-middle classes working in Los Angeles ('One lets it all hang out', 16 October) would have been even more inter-...

Johnson, 'How can a Since when was harassment a synonym 'or c ourtshi p? ip n (Paul Johnson, 'How can a k nla n get anywhere with a woman without uara ss i ng her?') I pity any...

Sir: I believe Mr Johnson is wrong to sug- gest that modern womanhood is to blame for the presence of SHAs — sexual harass- ment advisers — on university campuses (And another...

Sir: Grateful as I am for Nicholas Fleming's review of The Literary Companion to Dogs (Books, 23 October), I must point to an error for which he is not responsible. Alas, those...

Sir: Theodore Dalrymple may have had his tongue in his cheek (or lidah tiada bertulang) when he wrote about Indonesian (If symptoms persist, 23 October), but I suspect not. It...

J. Enoch Powell argues that 'William Shakespeare' was really a committee AN INDIVIDUAL by the name of William Shakespeare (variously spelt) was baptised on 26 April 1564 in the...

Quiet flows the don Caroline Moore THE MODERN BRITISH NOVEL by Malcolm Bradbury Seeker & Warburg £20, pp. 512 cw hat is the difference between Malcolm Bradbury and God?' ran...

DIARY 1994 £12 Plain £13 Initialled T he Spectator 1994 Diary, bound in soft burgundy leather, will shortly be available. With a new layout and a whole week to view, Monday to...

I liked Jimmy Jewell While Dad preferred Ben Warriss: He dropped me off at school Then drove on to The Office. His world was full of chaps, Of Good Lords and By gashes, Of...

Paul Johnson DR JOHNSON AND MR SAVAGE by Richard Holmes Hodder & Stoughton, £19.99, pp. 260 D r Johnson's friendship with the self- destructive poet and literary hack, Richard...

Helen Osborne ABOUT TIME TOO by Penelope Mortimer Weidenfeld, .£16.99, pp. 219 h is second volume of autobiography opens in 1940 when the first Mrs Mortimer is Mrs Charles...

Lucy Hughes-Hallett MORE OF A CERTAIN AGE by Nairn Attallah Quartet, £15, pp. 345 aim Attallah, I deduce from this collection of interviews, is very interested in Winston...

Christopher Bray 10 TALL TALES AND TRUE 'This book contains more tales than ten, so the title is a tall tale too. I would Spoil my book by shortening it, spoil the tale if I...

Albert Read CRY ME A RIVER by T. R. Pearson Secker, £8.99, pp. 258 h is profoundly American tale of murder in a Southern town arrives with a heavenly puff emblazoned on the...

to a friend and we will give you a full size bottle of ten year old Glenmorangie Single Highland Malt. But hurry, we have only a limited number of bottles to give away. A gift...

THE OOKER PRIZE

Richard Lamb CHAMBERLAIN AND APPEASEMENT: BRITISH POLICY AND THE COMING OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR by IL A. C. Parker Macmillan, £.35, £11.99, pp. 388 A lastair Parker, an Oxford...

dwell Max Egremont CLOUDS by Caroline Dakers Yale, £35, pp. 278 C louds delighted Percy and Madeline Wyndham when they took possession of it in September 1885. Given the...

Special breaks for Spectator readers Shown here are just three of the nearly 200 hotels, inns and private country houses that are offering Spectator read- ers the opportunity...

Gabriele Annan ESSAYS IN LOVE by Main de Botton Macmillan, £12.99, pp. 224 O n a BA flight from Paris ta London the narrator picks up Chloe who happens to be sitting in the...

Music Hands across the water Tim Rostron talks to Leonard Slatkin, an American conductor of English music T oday's most prominent conductor of English music is a Californian...

Spectator Cartoons (Alfred Dunhill, till 13 November) Rose Warnock (Gillian Jason, till 12 November) Leonard Rosoman (Fine Art Society, till 5 November) Anniversary...

Choreography by the metre Sophie Const anti T he Royal Ballet's new mixed bill is about as exciting as an insurance policy document. That, in fact, is what it is: com-...

Medea (Wyndham's) She Stoops to Conquer (Queen's) Tamhurlaine (Barbican) Star quality plus Sheridan Morley F our performances this week are linked by nothing more than the...

Great escapes Martyn Harris M artin Amis was Face to Face with Jeremy Isaacs this week (The Late Show, BBC 2, Monday, 11.15 p.m.), and his can- dour and wit made an...

The Piano ('15', selected cinemas) Rising Sun ('18', selected cinemas) Pulling faces Mark Steyn H arvey Keitel's name appears before the title so often these days you'd be...

regular critics MUSIC Two foreign orchestras feature this month: the St Petersburg Philharmonic is giving three concerts at the Barbican: an all- Rachmaninov concert on the...

Visiting hours Jeffrey Bernard M y doctor, a good Irishwoman, spent all of half an hour in this fiat yesterday. That is quite a hefty chunk in a day in the life of a GP. It...

Carnal thoughts Taki A s everyone who does not belong to the Mafia knows, a godfather is supposed to look after the spiritual welfare of his godchild and, with a little bit of...

Secrets of the dorm Nigel Nicolson A s I live five miles from Benenden school, I am invited from time to time to lecture the girls on some topic of my own Fhoice. Once it was...

The Butler's Wharf Chop House 0 RESTAURATEURS HAVE been spin- ning the line about rediscovering the glory of British cuisine for as long as I have been filling these pages. A...

czetcmilia# COM SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA Tale of two halves Raymond Keene THE GREAT MATCH between Kaspar- ov and Short is over. After a dubious start, in...

CROSSWORD J W&J GRAHAM ' S PORT r 1133: No faith, no hope by Doc A first prize of 125 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution...

Anniversary Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1802 I invited You to compose mottoes in prose or verse for corkscrews, umbrella-handles, typewri- ters, telephones or any other...

aD N N TO aN 0 R ER:luau RIO JU JUv uuauii A u U R LIF071 E F 0 E ALL 12EILL11,14 ENEBR I SM 0 5,5 R A tO3 CA BEigi UN MSLIPE QI 0 LL 0 pia . 0 U N •0 E LR D 111 N...

A Boston journal recently awarded Ig Nobel Prizes, named after Alfred Nobel's fictitious brother Ig, 'for achievements which cannot — and should not — be reproduced'. You are...

Twick treats and twits Frank Keating IT WAS good to begin the winter proper at Twickenham on Saturday when the All Blacks of New Zealand announced them- selves with a...

Dear Mary. . . Q. Like Alan Clark I suffer from occasional s eizing-up at the urinal stalls when another bloke is present. What should I do? B.B., SW3 4, A fellow sufferer has...