The loner R epercussions from last week's Cabinet reshuffle continued to rumble. In particular, the feeling among Tory back- benchers that Sir Geoffrey Howe had been shabbily...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 REPATRIATION It is inevitable that the West should try to discourage a flood...

IN JANUARY to June of this year, The Spectator sold an average of 40,398 copies per week. This is the highest circulation of the magazine since 1962, and represents a doubling...

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Is it a bird? Is it a sheep? No — it's Superhowe NOEL MALCOLM I 'm no yes-man', said the young Geof- frey Howe in his 1959 election address. `The most important quality in...

N icholas Ridley had too much going against him to be left in charge of the environment. Apart from the Water Act and the poll tax which, however miscon- ceived they may have...

Lessons to be learned from Desmond Wilcox's Personal Experience AUBERON WAUGH I t is a wonderful thing when one of us columnists has a Personal Experience which we can inject...

Japan's Liberal Democratic Party has none, turned against it as well Tokyo HISTORY, if it has any sense of humour, will spare a sympathetic footnote for Sosuke Uno, 70th and,...

Nicholas Garland visits Lithuania and wonders whom to believe ONE morning in May this year I was having, or rather waiting for, breakfast with Jonathan Miller at the Hotel...

Roger Scruton, recently in Lebanon, sees some hope for its future. THE taking of hostages is a cases Belli. When a state fails to make a belligerent response, it suffers a...

Michael Heath

The British have never known how to handle South African cricket, argues Mihir Bose SOUTH African cricket has always posed problems for England. In the summer of 1929 Duleep,...

Today, the dockers their famous victory 100 years ago THE British Labour movement is not usually shy to mark its anniversaries. Just now it should be getting ready to celebrate...

Pity CLIVE TROuiL,k, (37), August's MAN OF THE MONTH —.who has promised that he will re-lay and replace the cork thes in the utility room , (loosened by Et.Washing machine...

The media: Paul Johnson thinks Mrs Thatcher should leave PR to Mr Baker NOTHING is more harmful to the public than a government which is good at prop- aganda but at nothing...

A profile of Lord Alexander, the next chairman of NatWest LORD Alexander of Weedon, the chairman-designate of NatWest, who will now start work rather sooner than he expected,...

We should have mentioned that Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, when reporting from Argentina last week, was on an assignment from the American Spectator.

Lord Alexander has the experience to do his new job THE chairman-designate of our biggest and most embarrassed bank has been paraded in its hour of need, and stepped off...

Sir: Peregrine Worsthorne (Diary, 22 July) would like to know where the word `naff originated. The entry in Jonathon Green's The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (Pan Books,...

so well describes the enthu- siasms dear to servicemen: dancing to 1960s music, personalised goods, tinkering with cars, sport, visiting pubs in groups, curry, Bailey's Irish...

Sir: Your diarist Mr Worsthorne refers to Anthony Blond as 'a much better writer than publisher' (22 July). He must have a high opinion of Mr Blond's jottings. For the record, I...

Sir: Nico's title as rudest restaurateur (17 June) cannot go undisputed. Four guests and I arrived most punctually at Harvey's on 13 July 9.30 p.m. We were seated and wined with...

Sir: I have been commissioned to write my autobiography — I can scarcely say 'my memoirs' since I remember practically nothing — and would be most grateful to hear from anyone...

Sir: Christian Hesketh (`Yes, but why a red flag?' 22 July) may be interested to know that in 1906 was published issue No. 1 of True Red: The Wirral Conservative Maga- zine...

Sir: Some weeks ago an uncle died. After 15 years as an academic, 20 years as a parish priest, and 25 years in retirement, his death was hardly front-page news. But three days...

JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE Towards the age of twenty-six They shoved him into politics. Belloc, 'Lord Lundy' Yet I suppose I was always mildly fascinated by the political game. But...

Prodigiously learned guide Conn Welch DANUBE: A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY FROM THE SOURCE TO THE BLACK SEA by Claudio Magris Collins Harvill, £15, pp.416 T his magnificent book...

Anthony Parsons PALESTINE AND ISRAEL: THE UPRISING AND BEYOND by David McDowall L B. Tauris, £14.95, pp.322 I n his preface David McDowall declares that he is more...

A. L. Rowse ROBERT CECIL, 1ST EARL OF SALISBURY by Alan Haynes Peter Owen, £19.95, pp.208 T here are several things for which we have reason to remember Robert Cecil. He was...

I shall have Beauty underground. Poppaea is in the tumbrel with me. So are blithe Helen and white lope And Lianne de Pougy. And I shall have conversation. Byron will ask for...

William Scammell W. B. YEATS by A. Norman Jeffares Hutchinson, £16.95, pp.3 74 L ast year saw a flurry of new books on Eliot, to mark the centenary of his birth. This year it...

Beryl Gray GEORGE ELIOT: WOMAN OF CONTRADICTIONS by Ina Taylor Weidenfeld, £14.95, pp.255 A s everyone knows, 'George Eliot' is a nom de plume, invented by Marian Evans (or Mrs...

Robert Blake THE FOUNDER: CECIL RHODES AND THE PURSUIT OF POWER by Robert I. Rotberg with Miles F. Shore OUP, £25, pp. 800 yen today, nearly 90 years after his death, Cecil...

Emily Read THE GIRL AT THE LION D'OR by Sebastian Faulks Hutchinson, £11.95, pp.254 A young girl arrives one wet evening, carrying all her belongings in two suitcases, at the...

Exhibitions 1 Impregnable library Alistair Hicks Anselm Kiefer (Anthony d'Offay and Riverside, till 19 August) T he secret of being a bore is to tell everything.' Dr Zweite,...

Interior nonchalance Deirdre McMahon P aul Taylor is one of the seminal figures in modern dance this century. He was a member of Martha Graham's company in the Fifties and...

Big symphonies, small repertoire Peter Phillips A s a matter of fact I have, without fail every year, mentioned in this column that the Proms should concentrate more on...

Twelfth Night (Delacoric Theatre) Shakespeare under the stars Douglas Colby I t is only fitting that Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's labyrinthine tale of self dis- covery,...

Another Woman ('PG', Renoir) The melancholy of cardigans Hilary Mantel S ome of us will go to Woody Allen films. No matter that we sat through woebegone September, hearts...

The Thatcher Years: An Artistic Retrospective (Flowers East, till 20 August) 100 Years of Russian Art 1889-1989 from Private Collections in the USSR (Museum of Modern Art,...

Flop, flop, flop Peter Levi A just estimate of this week's televi - sion would scar with fire the paper it was written on. Of course, this is partly bad luck: the normal...

Healthy living Tak i Gstaad o ror some strange reason, the cows grazing above this beautiful Alpine village remind me of a certain Greek half-orphan playing the outfield in...

Extra covers Jeffrey Bernard L ast Saturday, during the cricket match between The Spectator and the Coach and Horses at the Oval, Jack Hobbs was turning in his grave. I could...

No laik Alice Thomas Ellis I know this, so I don't understand myself. When you emerge from an airport into the turmoil of a foreign city you go for a cab where the driver's...

Use your Lammas loaf 6 , 4 I AM so unnerved by the announcement that a bird-eating Tarantula has given birth to 700 babies in London Zoo that my mind has glazed over and I can...

The Spectator is offering its readers the definitive Pocket Diary. Bound in soft green leather, it offers all the facts, figures and numbers that are essential to any Spectator...

Home grown Raymond Keene F ide, the World Chess Federation, re- quires three Grandmaster performances from a player before it can award the title. The traditional problem has...

Odious comparisons Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1585 you were in- vited to supply a piece of prose beginning `Byzantium was the Milton Keynes of the Roman world' or with a...

A first prize of £20 and 'Lm further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers English Dictionary -- ring the word `DictionarY') for the first three correct...

You all know Herrick's six-liner beginning Whenas in silks my Julia goes . . .' Fol- lowing Herrick's metre and rhyme-scheme, but allowing yourself nine lines and the...

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