In the spring of 1915 the role of Italy in the Great War was still in the balance. Would she take the part of Germany and Austria, as her commitments to the Triple Alliance...

Did they lose the will to live? Ferdinand Mount The government did not have to fall. The votes were there for the taking. When all the sums are done, it is hard to avoid the...

If the confidence debate is anything to go by, the Conservatives are right to be eager that personalities should somehow be kept out of the election campaign. Having boldly...

Jams tomorrow? Auberon Waugh The last time I wrote about Sir James Goldsmith at any length was on 5 June 1976, but I was inhibited on that occasion by the fact that he was...

Peter Nichols Montreal At whatever level you focus, the separate life is Canada's issue of the moment — as Margaret Trudeau prepares for the publication of her memoirs and the...

Victoria Schofield Islamabad Pakistan Day was the occasion for a splendid performance on the race course at Rawalpindi. In brilliant spring weather, hot by English standards,...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington The mosquito silhouettes of the police and a rmy helicopters could be seen hovering Ov er Washington's low skyline; their aniplified rattling...

Richard West There are two reasons why journalists should be shy of writing about Uganda. For one thing nobody knows what is happening there, whether a Tanzanian Army is...

Christopher Walker Dublin As British theatrical impresarios discovered long ago, no one tells an anti-Irish joke better than an Irishman: Similarly, no country is more adept...

Christopher Booker Readers of last week's Spectator may have noticed a fine candidate for Dr Koestler's Book of Coincidences in the fact that both Auberon Waugh and Thomas...

It was determined by the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, on Tuesday, in an appeal against a conviction by the magistrates at Highgate, that the Act...

A Thatcher boom? Nicholas Davenport To put it mildly, the Stock Exchange would be immensely relieved if the Labour government were swept out of office. The first thanksgiving...

Albert Speer In a passage of my Spandau — The Secret Diaries (Collins 1976), I described National-Socialist architecture as a last attempt to defend style against industrial...

Forum on porn Sir: Dick West's article Who Needs Pornography? (10 March) was disappointing in almost every respect. Not only did he neglect to answer the question he raised but...

Ape, angel and essence Elisabeth Whipp Life on Earth David Attenborough (Collins £7.95) Man has always needed an explanation of why he is here on this earth. Christianity once...

Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd Blood Royal Christopher SinclairStevenson (Cape £6.95) When the dead hand of the academic is so Prevalent in modern historical books, this...

Michael Podro Romanticism Hugh Honour (Penguin Books £8.50) Hugh Honour's Romanticism is a superb account of the art of the first half of the 19th century. The immense richness...

Anthony Storr The History of Sexuality Vol 1: An Introduction Michelfoucault (Men Lane £5.95) Foucault's last book, Discipline and Punish, was concerned to show how punishment...

Jonathan Keates Reflections of a Friendship: Ruskin's Letters to Pauline Trevelyan 1848– 1866 edited by Virginia Surtees (Allen & Unwin 210.00) Savage Ruskin Patrick Conner...

David Benson A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century Barbara W. Tuchman (Macmillan £9.95) A university teacher of medieval literature I once knew claimed that her...

'Miss Renault is the only writer of our time to have made an art of the historical novel . . . she manages to lift her readers out of their own world and into whatever world her...

A Novel by NAHID RACHLIN A haunting first novel about the experiences of estrangement. Feri, a woman in her thirties, returns from America for a visit to the house of her...

KENNETH CLARK When Aubrey Beardsley died in 1898 at the age of twenty-six, he was better known for the shock his drawings had on the public than as one of the great...

JAMES HALL Introduction by KENNETH CLARK The enjoyment of a work of art often depends as much on the story it depicts, as on the artist's execution of it. But what were once...

Muriel Spark This was the wine. It stained the top of the page when she knocked over the glass accidentally. A pity, she said, to lose that drop. For the wine was a treat....

Peter Ackroyd A Lover's Discourse Roland Barthes, translated by Richard Howard (Cape E6.95) La Rochefoucauld penetrated the heart of the mystery : 'Some people would never have...

Emma Fisher That Singing Mesh Terence Tiller (Chatto/Hogarth £3.00 paper) Melusine & the Nigredo Simon Lowy (Carcanet £2.00 paper) Life Before Death P.J. Kavanagh...

Francis King The Case of Mr Crump Ludwig LewlSobn (Allen Lane £5.95) The publishing of Ludwig Lewisohn's The Case of Mr Crump is quite as eventful and curious as that of either...

It don't come from Fats Benny Green Ain't MisbehavinIFIer Majesty's Theatre) In 1944 the HMV Record company issued a performance by Thomas 'Fats' Waller called 'When Somebody...

Mighty Hunter Rodney Milnes Turandot (WNO, Cardiff) Simon Boccanegra (Scottish Opera, Oxford) Peter Grimes (ENON, Leeds) Lilli Lehmann maintained that the role of Norma was...

'Real' and real Ted Whitehead I Never Promised You A Rose Garde (Classic, Haymarket) The sight of the mentally ill makes most of us queasy, and I suppose that is one reason...

Non Hitchens John McEwen It should not have escaped your notice that a retrospective of Ivon Hitchens's paintings is on view in the Diploma Galleries of the Royal Academy...

Holmesiana Peter Jenkins The Crucifer of Blood (Haymarket) Holmesians take their games seriously, engage in bogus scholarship and trade in relics. I have always found their...

Overmanning Richard Ingrams The mystery of Mr Ingrams, the elusive character who flitted briefly into a recent Fawlty Towers episode has not so far been solved. Spectator...

Opening night New York The piece de resistance among social events during a very social and busy week was the °Pening of Claret's, the first evening wine bar of New York....

Moving-in day Jeffrey Bernard It 's going to get increasingly harder to write about low life now that I've moved to my residence on top of the Berkshire "owns. Last night, for...

Opera nights Geoffrey Wheatcroft An English opera-lover paying his first visit to the Scala resembles an Australian cricketer going to Lord's for the first time. We have opera...

No. 1058: Far behind? Spring seems to be rather delayed this year so competitors are asked to help it along with an Address to a Belated Spring. Limit , 20 lines. Entries to...

Fewer books David Levy I do not know whether the poor weather is responsible, but during recent weeks the crop of chess books has been more slight than normal. Strangely...