3 SEPTEMBER 1983

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All or nothing

The Spectator

ecause Mr Menachem Begin has I./dominated Israeli politics for the past six years, it is difficult now to remember the respect that Western liberal opinion used to hold for...

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Political commentary

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From May to September George Gale A lready as this week ends the general councillors of the Trades Union Con- gress are deliberating to determine their col- lective line for...

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Notebook

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L ast April 1 told in this column the sad story of a stray dog I befriended in Ita- 1 Y. After finding it abandoned and starving a t our house in Tuscany, I fed it and looked...

ubscrib

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UK Eire Surface mail Air mail ti months: 05.50 iR017.75 E18.50 £24.50 One year: 01.00 I RE35.50 07.00 1:49.00 Cheques to be made payable to the Spectator and sent to...

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Another voice

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Grande Bouffe Auberon Waugh Montmaur, Aude ome years ago, it may be remembered, 10 the journalist Alan Brien announced that he had seen the light. Up to that mo- ment he might...

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Gaddafi's claim to Chad

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John Keegan C had, it is currently fashionable to say, does not really exist. And it is certainly true that it lacks geographical and ethnic u nitY, being another of those...

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May Days at Cowley

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Christopher Hitchens M y first attempt at bringing socialist politics to the workers of Cowley was made shortly before May Day in the magic year 1968. A group of trade union...

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Carnival time

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RoY Kerridge T he best way to get to the Notting Hill Carnival is from the north. By crossing t he bridge over the canal from Harrow Road and then crossing the railway bridge,...

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An Earl from Oz

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Richard West WangJord, Suffolk ven in Suffolk, one cannot escape the Sunday Times. This is the newspaper owned by an Australian pornographer and written by left-wing,...

One hundred years ago

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Mr Bright made two speeches on the Temperance question at Birmingham, on Wednesday, on the occasion of open- ing a new coffee tavern, to be called by Mr Cobden's name. In the...

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Sir Nikolaus Pevsner

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Gavin Stamp I t was a considerable tribute to Sir Nikolaus Pevsner that, although he was born in Leipzig in 1902, long before he died in Hampstead last month he was widely r...

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In the City

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Storm cones over Europe Jock Bruce-Gardyne M essrs Howe, Lawson and Jopling must have felt that they had come back to earth with a bump from their holidays this week. For the...

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The press

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An affront to decency Paul Johnson T he article by Roald Dahl in the August Issue of Literary Review is, in my view, the Most disgraceful item to appear in a irespectable...

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What is the purpose?

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Colin Welch ike a happy and resilient cricket team, 1../ the Spectator seems to have no tail. So long as Kavanagh, P. J., hasn't come to the crease, you always have something...

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Not so boring

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Sir: The snide are seldom accurate in their facts. This law of literature is exactly illustrated by Richard Ingrams's references to Robertson Davies and the BBC programme...

MCC members

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Sir: It was a pity that Alan Gibson (6 August) should have spoiled his well- reasoned piece on South African cricket by taking side-swipes at MCC and its members. The majority...

Vale of tears

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Sir: Appleby-in-Westmorland indeed! (Richard West, 30 July). I shall always know that charming little market town by the name it bore when, long ago, I indited the following...

Egyptian practices

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Sir: There is a certain irony in Alexander C hancellor's tale (Notebook, 23 July) of the Nile boatman who believes that in Britain men marry men. The Egyptian oasis of Siwa,...

Going on

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Sir: Alastair Forbes's letter (20 August) sug- gests a competition as to who can write the greatest number 'of successive longest sentences without using the word 'and'. Mr...

Spike Milligan

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Sir: I have been commissioned to write an authorised life of Spike Milligan, humorist and writer. I should be glad to hear from anyone with memories of Spike, and to have a...

Letters

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Colespeak Sir: Richard Ingrams (20 August) suggests the use of sub-titles when the BBC's political c orrespondent John Cole is on the air. This seems but a panacea. The BBC...

Clear advice

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Sir: Roy Kerridge (27 August) has got his Old ballads slightly confused. In 'The 'Ad Woman (not the Wife) from Wexford', the astonishing advice on how to drown y our husband is...

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Balloonists

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Peter Quennell The Montgolfier Brothers and the Invention of Aviation Charles Coulston Gillispie (Princeton University Press £30.20) N othing, wrote the first great astronau t...

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Much ado about nothing

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Geoffrey Wheatcroft A History of English Opera Eric Walter White (Faber £30) J ohnson claimed that he could recite a chapter of The Natural History of Iceland by heart,...

Queen of Scots

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A.L. Rowse All the Queen's Men: Power and Politics in Mary Stuart's Scotland Gordon Donaldson (Batsford £14.95) cottish history is treacherous ground for IJEnglish historians,...

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Arts

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Edinburgh, Vienna-style John McEwen T his is John Drummond's last Festival as T tO Director and, as before, he has chosen give it an underlying theme: Vienna at the turn of...

Theatre

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Endless Giles Gordon The Last Days of Mankind (Assembly Hall, Edinburgh) Great and Small (Vaudeville) My Dearest Kate (Roxburghe Hotel, Edinburgh) The Killing of Mr Toad...

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Opera

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Revived Rodney Milnes A Florentine Tragedy, The Dwarf and The Magic Flute (Hamburg State Opera) Death in Venice (Scottish Opera) J ohn Drummond's loss of patience wit a ,...

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Cinema

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Confused Peter Ackroyd Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence ('15', selected cinemas) J apanese prison camps have always been a favourite subject for those who like their brutality...

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Television

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No secrets Richard Ingrams rir he wretched state of the BBC is well .1 illustrated by this week's announce- ment that Desmond Wilcox, the discredited former head of the...

High life

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Green-eyed Taki Athens W as it Byron who wrote that if incest i5 the unreported domestic collie, jealousy is the unreported domestic ewe . tion? Of course not. It was Julian...

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Low life

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Barred Jeffrey Bernard I f thI had a pub, and perish the thought, ere would be a wide category of people I'd aut omatically bar from the premises. Y e said before in this...

Postscript

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Zen P. J. Kavanagh 'Waving written in the last two or three 'weeks about dislike of the month of August, and dislike of political obsessives, I have been set free to realise...

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No. 1282: The winners

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Charles Seaton reports: A Fleet Street daily recently carried the news that over a third i A of Russia's industrial robots are jobless an d that those which are at work are u...

Chess

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Caro can Raymond Keene A decade ago the Caro-Kann was con- sidered a solid, but rather dull defence against I e4. In the last few years, however, a new generation of...

Chequers Chess Competition No. 3 Copies of last week's issue

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containing the £200 Chequers chess competition are still available at I (post paid) from Back Numbers, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WCIN 2LL.

Competition

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No. 1285: Amazing feats Set by faspistos: Limericks, please, describ- ing acts worthy of commemoration in 111 Guinness Book of Records. (The Place name need not come at the end...

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Solution to 620: Mingle-mangle The correctly paired unclued lights are

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reduplicated words: helter- skelter, harum-scarum, clitter- clatter, slip-slop and randem- tandem. Winner: R. M. Kettlewell, 56 Jersey Road, Hounslow. IT Ryr U T E la A K L 1...

Crossword 623

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A Prize of len pounds will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 19 September. Entries to: Crossword 623, The Spec- tator, 56 Doughty Street, London WCIN 2LL. 11...

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Portrait of the week

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Mew research showed that Northern Ireland may contain a population which is 42per cent Catholic, in contrast to the previous official figure of 31per cent. Mr Ken Livingstone,...

Books Wanted

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LANCELOT ANDREWES: 'Sermons'. D. Johnson, 14 Ashchurch Terrace, London W12. J. 1. M. STEWART: 'The Last Tresilians' (Gollancz 1963) and The Ruined Boys' by Roy Fuller (Deutsch...