I t is already clear that the depths of the relationship 'etween the Prince of the Netherlands and the Lockheed Aircraft Company have not been fully plumbed. It s eems that as a...

Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands who for many years was portrayed as the quintessential Common Market businessman—dynamic, thrusting, concerned about the environment--was...

John Grigg Of all the silly Statements that have imposed themselves upon the human imagination none are, sillier than Milton's and Rousseau's that men are 'born free', or...

Searching a car at an army check-point in Northern Ireland, a soldier came across some papers in the boot. 'Oh, you're all right', he told the driver, waving him on. You're that...

Sad state of the Right Auberon Waugh Still chuckling over the July trade figures, I was brought up short last week by a leader in the Daily Telegraph. It is easy, when one is...

The princely promoter on 29 June 1940, six weeks after the Nazis had established their occupation of the Netherlands, white carnations appeared in the buttonholes of the Dutch....

Peter Kirk To achieve the necessary results from the point of view of British public opinion, it was clear that our entry to the European Parliament had to be fairly dramatic....

Christopher Booker In the muggy heat of Nuremberg, it proved surprisingly difficult to discover the scene of the great September rallies of forty years ago. It must be the...

Turning point? Nicholas Davenport What is happening to Britain? One leaves the City for a few weeks to find the gilt edged market in a state of nerves and the equity markets...

Bloody genius Jeffrey Bernard If you ever take anyone racing for the first time and, presumably, intend for them to like the business, then I must advise you not to try them...

Dr Waldheim and Israel Sir: I regret that I have only just seen the correspondence which appeared in your columns recently, regarding Dr Waldheim, Israel and the Entebbe...

Sir : As an eager student of macroeconomics, with some political ambition, I really did appreciate the recent article in the Spectator by Robert Skidelsky, on the nature of...

serious books in the Spectator. In his review of Paul Johnson's A History of Christianity (21 August) George Gale reveals an astonishing ignorance and prejudice concerning the...

cannot his sentiments (Letters, 7 August). Orchestral seasons need more, not less , planning of the Boulez kind, whether it emanates from Olympus or the beach; far too many...

Entries and exits Auberon Waugh The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh edited by Michael Davie (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £795) Late in Evelyn Waugh's•diaries there comes an entry for 28...

Simon Raven Melbourne: A Biography of William Lamb 2nd Viscount Melbourne Philip Ziegler (Collins £6.50) As Philip Ziegler remarks in his foreword, 'Melbourne is already the...

Peter Conrad Falstaff Robert Nye (Hamish Hamilton £3.95) 100 Scenes from Married Life Giles Gordon (Hutchinson £3.95) Falstaff has always had cause for complaint against...

Nick Totton Season in Purgatory Thomas Keneaily (Collins 0.75) Looking for a Lullaby James Harris (Macmillan 0.95) Season in Purgatory has the bare, appalling authenticity of...

Benny Green The Breaks Came My Way Joe Davis (W. H. Allen 0.95) Everybody from Mozart to George Gershwin, from beautiful Cleopatra to Pretty Fanny Balfour succumbed to it, and...

Pat Rogers The Newtonians and the English Revolution 1689-1720 M C. Jacob (Harvester Press £10.50) Bloodless and respectable in its time, the Whig Revolution, of 1688 kicks up...

Francis King The Little Magazines Ian Hamilton (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £4.95) The 'little magazine' of yesterday could best be defined as a publication in which magnitude of...

Ian Bradley Asquith Stephen Koss (Allen Lane £6.95) ‘\ Mqved by one or two near-disasters on a car journey from the Kent coast to London in 1916 to reflect on the likely...

Mozart right and wrong Rodney %Ines Dear doctor, I've eaten something that doesn't agree with me. In fact I've eaten so many things that don't agree with me that It must be me...

Minor Hitch Ian Cameron There are two schools of thought about Alfred Hitchcock. The majority view is still that he can be splendidly entertaining but is regrettably prone to...

Old America John McEwen At one point this summer the omnipresent Islamic Festival, symbolic in its scale and wealth of the desperate actuality of our financial dependence on...

Rix's return Kenneth Hurren Fringe Benefits (Whitehall) Just a Little Bit Less Than Normal (Royal Court, Theatre Upstairs) We were lucky to get any new theatre at all in...

Bells and balls Richard Ingrams It is only right and proper that the BBC should be paying a prolonged 70th birthday tribute to Sir John Betjeman who is one of the very few...