1 n a free society, people are at liberty to gamble, much as they are at liberty to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and engage in other practices which, if indulged to excess,...

CHARLIE HIGSON There are a few fantasy gigs around, those jobs which we minor celebrities know deep down that we're never going to be offered, but which we prepare for anyway,...

FRASER NELSON 1 f nothing else, Lord Levy has at least learnt the etiquette of being investigated by police. When he was first detained last July, he contemptuously accused...

CHARLES MOORE Ivill we look back on the last quarter of the 20th century as the only time since the Reformation when Roman Catholics have really been tolerated in Britain?...

By Tamzin Lightwater SUNDAY Hideous day of torment fielding non-stop calls from rude reporters asking, 'What's Dave got against Catholics?' and 'Does he support gay rights, or...

In 1997 the Prime Minister made education his priority. Ten years on, his promises lie in tatters: Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth sift through a decade of political failure in...

Toby Young reports from the film festival founded by Robert Redford — and finds that its celebration of 'independent' movies is now completely cosmetic 1 'd been in Park City...

After three decades in Doughty Street, The Spectator has moved to Westminster. Michael Kennedy says its new office has an inspiring past as an artistic salon and shrine to Elgar...

A reader wrote in to share his triumph at thwarting an attempt by an organisation to which he belongs to change the title 'chairman' to 'chair'. The current chairman happens to...

A year on from the scandal over paedophiles in the classroom, Tessa Mayes asks how much progress has been made — and finds herself up against a bureaucratic brick wall Scandals...

Last time we saw how the Athenians always reverted to type when they established large-scale alliances with other Greek states: what started off as a free union of states...

After weeks of speculation, David Puttnam announces that he is not going to enter the race to succeed Michael Grade. Here he offers advice to the successful candidate Ifind it...

From Jolyon Connell Sir: Michael Gove is heartened by the leftwing writers who have denounced Islamic terrorism rather than seeking to make excuses for it (All hail the new...

From Eli Izhakoff Sir: Clemency Burton-Hill is quite right to condemn the illegal trade in conflict diamonds (Blood Diamond should help Sierra Leone', 27 January). We share her...

From Christopher Booker Sir: Charles Moore asks for help in refreshing his 'vivid memory' as to who said in 1997 that 'political satirists' supported Tony Blair so strongly that...

From Stephen Schwartz Sir: Taki (High life, 27 January) should know that Rafael Leonidas Trujillo did not rename the Dominican Republic after himself — only its capital, before...

MATTHEW PARRIS Minette Marrin, the columnist with whom I most often agree, put it best in the Sunday Telegraph last week. Couldn't we just have fudged this gay adoption/Catholic...

PAUL JOHNSON 1 t is a mark of Shakespeare's genius that even his secondary plays may be worth a fresh voyage of discovery and often have powerful relevance to our times. Measure...

Neil Collins says Rolls-Royce's aero-engine factory is now a shockingly rare example of British excellence — and faces an increasing struggle to recruit home-grown talent Mark...

Julian Morris Councils the length and breadth of Britain are smelling the money Red Ken is making and talking of introducing congestion-charging schemes. Interest groups are...

Jonathan Davis hears the trenchantly pessimistic views of Yorkshire-born US investment guru Jeremy Grantham Ive're barely ten seconds into our interview when Jeremy Grantham,...

MARTIN VANDER WEYER 1 t is exactly 20 years next week since British Airways was privatised. Arguably, it was the most successful of all the Thatcher-era privatisations. Under...

James Leith tries to impress his guide in the Jardines de la Reina HASSAMADDA? I tell you cast 12 metres, 1 o'clock. Why you cast 10 metres 12 o'clock? You think bone-fish eat...

Molly Watson part of the fun of visiting Venezuela is witnessing, at close quarters, the rapid descent into egomaniacal madness of its President, Hugo Chavez. Venezuelans, as...

Neil Barnett As my little car laboured around a bend in the snowy Carpathian logging road, a brown furry figure jumped out of the forest on all fours and made off in front of...

Philip Hensher WHAT'S LEFT? by Nick Cohen 4th Estate, £12.99, pp. 405, ISBN 9780007229697 £1039 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Abook about the failures of the Left in the last...

Jonathan Mirsky THE WRITING ON THE WALL: CHINA AND THE WEST IN THE 21ST CENTURY by Will Hutton Little, Brown, £20, pp. 431, ISBN 9780316730181 © £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429...

Anthony Daniels TRAVESTY: THE TRIAL OF SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC AND THE CORRUPTION OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE by John Laughland Pluto Press, £14.99, pp. 214, ISBN 9780745326368 © £11.99...

Judith Flanders ST PANCRAS STATION by Simon Bradley Profile, £14.99, pp. 193, ISBN 1861979967 © £11.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 1 t would take a heart of stone to...

Jonathan Sumption BETRAYAL: FRANCE, THE ARABS AND THE JEWS by David Pryce-Jones Encounter Books, New York, £13.99, pp. 170, ISBN 1594031517 rance discovered the Arab world with...

Sometimes, in the night, sharing our bed I feel cage-restrained. I cannot stretch, or scratch, or swear at moths or mosquitoes looking for the light, or me. I cannot listen to...

Andro Linklater TRICKSTER TRAVELS: IN SEARCH OF LEO AFRICANUS, A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MUSLIM BETWEEN WORLDS by Natalie Zemon Davies Faber, £20, pp. 435, ISBN 9780571202560 © £16...

D. J. Taylor MEASURING TIME by Helon Habila Hamish Hamilton, £16.99, pp. 383, ISBN 9780241141854 © £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 : How to write imaginatively about the...

1 n 1907 the Nobel Prize for Literature was for the first time awarded to an English-language writer: Kipling. It wasn't even then a choice that went down well with those whose...

Mark Glazebrook talks to the director of Tate about its collection, its future and its funding For a hundred years or so, the director of the Tate Gallery has normally been a...

Andrew Lambirth Canaletto in England Dulwich Picture Gallery, until 15 April analetto is one of the best-loved of foreigners who visited these shores and attempted to capture...

Charles Spencer Back in November, I wrote about the sad death of my old VW Passat on the way down to Dorset. It was gloomily pronounced on all sides to be irreparable, and the...

Stuart Nicholson t the turn of the 20th century, the classical tradition of Western music could look back on a continuous evolutionary cycle that stretched back to plainsong....

Michael Tanner Carmen Royal Opera The Marriage of Figaro Coliseum The Royal Opera's new Carmen, which opened last month, is back with different singers in all the most important...

Deborah Ross Notes on a Scandal 15, Nationwide Notes on a Scandal is a fairly nasty book and this is a fairly nasty film — very Patricia Highsmithian is the nearest I can get to...

Lloyd Evans Twelfth Night; The Taming of the Shrew Old Vic There Came a Gypsy Riding Almeida The ladyboys are back. Ed Hall's allmale Propeller group is in London with a pair of...

Simon Hoggart T caught The Antiques Roadshow (BBC1, 1 Sunday) almost by accident the other day. It was one of those moments when you're too lazy to turn the television off, you...

Kate Chisholm El or years I was lucky enough to live close to Brockwell Park in south London, between Brixton and Herne Hill, with a better view of St Paul's from the hill in...

Robin Oakley What makes a successful racehorse trainer? Patience and an eye for detail. Man management and a flair for publicity. But the right genes help, too, and there Nick...

Taki Gstaad ALondon friend has sent me a book whose subject caused a few faint complaints in the beginning but has now escalated to a full-scale furore, Jimmy Carter's...

Jeremy Clarke same territory with one group dominating the other is apartheid in my book, and to hell with those who will call the poor little Greek boy a racist and an...

Roy Hattersley Tast Sunday, while taking Buster for his late-night walk, I was stopped by a neighbour — name unknown — with what, on the face of it, seemed a friendly question....

DEBORAH ROSS Acorn House is London's first truly environmentally sustainable restaurant, which is fine — restaurants are, on the whole, obscenely wasteful — but I would ask...

Jenny Wilhide ponders time and the artists who first measured it ne of the greatest clockmakers of all time was the Englishman Thomas Tompion (1639-1713), whose ravishing Mostyn...

Rachel Simhon says that prizing rarity is a pleasure we have almost lost Looking at some Chilean strawberries in Sainsbury's the other day, I was reminded of the Grimm fairy...

Harry Mount crosses the mountainous waist of America hen a hobo dies after a lifetime riding the rail across America, his fellow hoboes say, 'He's gone west.' I could hardly...

Dear Maly Q. I am the chairman of a charitable foundation that owns a couple of wild animal parks in southern England. Recently one of our more generous donors shot a leopard...

FRANK KEATING Rugby union's Six Nations tournament begins this weekend with Ireland the soothsayers' hot fancy to achieve its first Grand Slam in all of 58 years and England...