Mummy, when will it be safe logo out?' H undreds of prisoners were released earlier than they expected when the Prison Service realised the implications of a court ruling on...

GREY GOWRIE I travelled to Edinburgh with the artists Gilbert and George, whom I had met at a friend's house the evening before. They have lived and worked together for 30...

Bill Clinton is a tainted president. But Bruce Anderson at the Democratic convention finds that the luckiest president in histoty has proved a great one wrong Chicago BILL...

Michael Heath

PetroneIla Wyatt finds the Democrats sadder than the Republicans — and marginally . uglier Frank Sinatra san g . On the ri g ht was the Wri g ley buildin g , weavin g Gothic...

MR HUGH Montgomery-Massingberd has politely put me in my place, which is easy enough, and Nancy Mitford at the same time, which is more of an achieve- ment. It is all about...

Don't knock advertisers. Their language is the only one many people understand, says Martin Vander Weyer POLITICAL advertising has acquired demonic associations in recent weeks....

the handmaiden of evil. The Nazis called the killing of millions 'special treatment' (I am reliably told that one of British Airways' less successful advertising cam- paigns in...

Angus Roxburgh met the gaze of the toughest man in Russian politics. But hard stares, he predicts, won't solve the problem of Chechnya I THINK I understand why Alexander Lebed...

No need for Writers' Houses, they can make their own pigsties PAUL JOHNSON T he Arts Lottery Board announces it is to give £18,000 for a 'feasibility study to create what is...

How does a broadcaster define a public service? It's what I do, old boy CHRISTOPHER FILDES T here was a time when the British Broadcasting Corporation was a public ser- vice...

Sir: As your leading article (24 August) reports, there has been shock, disgust and vomit-inducing emotion expressed at Mau- rice Saatchi's peerage. All of it implies that he...

Burger — the facts Sir: I'm shedding crocodile tears at Stephen Glover's scathing criticism (Media studies, 24 August) of my front-page story in the , previous week's Observer....

Sir: Sir Alfred Sherman is right about most points expounded in his article 'The great plague of London' (17 August), particularly when it comes to tourists flouting the most...

Sir: Like Sarah Whitebloom, I, too, have a credibility problem with Mr Harold Brooks-Baker, publisher of Burke's Peerage (Name-dropping for beginners', 24 August). On 24 July I...

Sir: The anti-abortionists seem to be having it all their way in The Spectator (And anoth- er thing, 17 August). Readers of Scott's Heart of Midlothian will recall how in...

Sir: Your leader of 24 August somewhat yobbishly ridicules 'niceness' in politics, suggesting, presumably, that the virtues of fair play, courtesy, humility, circumspection are...

Sir: Congratulations! You have expressed pungently and succinctly what millions of Britons think (Leading article, 10 August). In the Seventies, I attended a debate at the...

article, 10 August)? Amen- ca's standards are exactly the same as our own or those of any other foreign country, company or individual. They will look out for number one first....

Sir: Andrew Robson claims (Bridge, 17 August) that the odds against being dealt 13 spades exceed the world's grains of sand. The odds against the first card being a spade are...

The BBC's washing is hung out for all to see — not a pretty sight STEPHEN GLOVER What has been true of former senior employees has also held good for those still working for...

Who's afraid of her? Philip Hensher VIRGINIA WOOLF by Hermione Lee Chatto, £20, pp. 892 P robably more is known about Virginia WooIfs life than of just about any other...

Teresa Waugh FAIRY TALE by Alice Thomas Ellis Viking, .f16, pp. 212 W ith a fine use of tautology, Viking's press release for Alice Thomas Ellis's new novel, Fairy Tale,...

Charles Saumarez Smith PICASSO AND PORTRAITURE edited by William Rubin Thames & Hudson, £55, pp. 495 hose people who deplore the rise of the blockbuster and the extent to...

Tom Hiney DESTINY, OR THE ATTRACTION OF AFFINITIES by John David Morley Little, Brown, £16.99, pp. 298 Jens re-encountered the Romantic ideal of landscape with a sense of...

David Willoughby de Broke RED FLAG OVER HONG KONG by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, David Newman and Alvin Babushka Roundhouse, P.O. Box 140, Oxford, 0X2 7FF, £12.99, pp. 208 H ong...

William Scammell D. H. LAWRENCE: TRIUMPH TO EXILE, 1912-1922 by Mark Kinkead - Weekes CUP, £29.95, pp. 943 T he first great novelty of the 'Cambridge Biography' of Lawrence is...

Francis King DOWN BY THE RIVER by Edna O'Brien Weidenfeld, £15.99, pp. 265 I n this new novel, clearly based on a much publicised real-life case, Edna O'Brien tells the story...

by Mark Curtis Zed Books, £14.95, pp. 250 'Britain bears considerable responsi- bility for many of the horrors which have afflicted people in the Third World throughout the...

Peter Vansittart THE GUNPOWDER PLOT: TERROR AND FAITH IN 1605 by Antonia Fraser Weidenfeld, 120, pp. 347 S ome interpret the Jacobean era as containing intellectual greatness...

Ancient Greece beckons -Bruce Boucher has a cultural encounter on Venice's Grand Canal he Western Greeks is the latest in a series of 'cultural encounters' — exhibi- tions to...

Radical Graham (Edinburgh Playhouse) Reyno — Far from the Lotus (King's Theatre, Edinburgh) White Oak Dance Project (London Coliseum) Bring back the drama Giannandrea Poesio...

Misplaced sniffiness Robin Holloway T his year's Proms are plentiful in new or recent specimens of the classic genres; as well as three full-scale symphonies, there are no...

Room for improvement Michael Tanner ‘..../f the four great religious operas, Die ZauberflOte, Fidelio, Tristan und lsolde, Moses und Aron, only one is perfect and it isn't...

Bodies (Orange Tree) Two Gentlemen of Verona (Globe) Kiss the Sky (Shepherd's Bush Empire) Shrink power Sheridan Morley O ut at Sam Walters's Orange Tree in Richmond, there...

WHEN Annie Leibovitz, arguably the world's leading photographer, was in London for her marvellous National Portrait Gallery retrospective a while back, she wanted to talk not...

Stealing Beauty (15, selected cinemas) Phenomenon (PG, selected cinemas) Topless in Tuscany Mark Steyn I 'd hoped Stealing Beauty might be a sequel to Sleeping Beauty, in...

Royal loathing Michael Vestey T he most chilling piece of radio I have heard for some time came at the start of last week's The Moral Maze on Radio Four (Thursday). A...

The Story is everything Simon Hoggart J ohn Ware wrote a crucial article in the latest Sunday Telegraph, assailing The Rantzen Report for an unfair, misleading and wounding...

Bad boy makes good Robin Oakley T he racing world has affected to be much surprised that Hemy Cecil, Eng- land's most successful trainer, should have chosen Kieren Fallon, the...

A woman wronged Taki T .Gstaad he Princess of Wales is no longer HRH and as far as I'm concerned this stinks to high heaven. I've been at times a severe critic of Princess Di,...

Nanny trouble Leanda de Lisle C hildren could be a form of sex-aver- sion therapy. Demanding infants do for Passion what sticking your face in an ash- tray does for smoking....

Balance Andrew Robson SHOULD YOU open 1NT with five cards • in a major suit? Opening 1NT conveys an accurate message both about the number of points and about the balanced...

AS WELL as the feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist this week we have had St Augustine of Hippo and his mother St Mon- ica, who had a hard time with her wayward son until...

IN-THE•STRA ND SIMPSON'S IN-THE-STRAND CHESS Lucky dip Raymond Keene IT IS VIRTUALLY impossible to win a tournament without a degree of luck. At Biel, where Karpov turned...

vA.toltx. 1 . 1 COMPETITION Utopia? Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1947 you were invited to provide a poem beginning with the words, 'In an ideal world.. . It's an almost...

A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 1989 Port for the first correct solution opened on 16 September, with two runners-up prizes of £15 (or, for UK...

This knackering life Simon Barnes WASIM AICRAM, the Pakistan captain, sank to his knees in prayerful joy as he took the final England wicket, his 300th in Test match cricket....

Dear Mary.. Q. For the past four months I have been looking after the business affairs of our neighbours, who have been on sabbatical in Vienna. This task, which I offered to...