Helping the Poles The men in the Kremlin are faced with an appalling problerm: what to do about lPoland? They can hardly allow that country to COntinue alonIg its present road,...

Political commentary The Smiler strikes again Ferdinand Mount In any well-conducted thriller, the best moment is when the Smiler appears. lie is usually a large. comfortable...

Notebook TUesday evening wtas an exCitinll oneC tfor US resideints of Luxeiburi Giridens. Klimmlerslrtitli. Most Of LIS, I expect. were beside (Ur televisioll sets in oui...

Another voice The great press dog-fight Auberon Waugh Anybody who has studied dogs will know that nothing could be less true of them than to say that dogs don't bite dogs....

America in space Henry Fairlie Washlington The newspapers have recently given me the impression that Mr Harold Macmillan is again seeking Her Majesty's commission to form an...

The political earthquake Peter Nichols Rome the Italians straddle two worlds; and it should not take an earthquake to uncover the depth of difference between the...

Uganda tries democracy Prince Ronnie Mutebi On Wednesday 1() December. in the midst of continuing chaos, the people of Uganda will go to the polls for the first time in 18...

With the Foot pack Roy Kerridge 'Mrs Thatcher's plan,' a Hampstead friend told me, 'is to make all the working class "nemployed and reduce them to serfs again, so that they...

Too clever by half Christopher Booker But half a what? - that is the question. A litre, a cubic decimetre, a decaNewton. a Pascal, a Kelvin'? In the past ten years I have...

In the City The inverted J-curve Tony Rudd In my dream I swept low over the welcoming crowd at Perth before setting down my little inverted J-curve, executing, with a flick...

Misleading Sir: Patrick Marnham (Postscript, 15 November) and I must have been at different events. I covered nearly all Mr Callaghan's 1979 election meetings for the Guardian....

Senses of humour Sir: What a tiresome critic can PeteW Ackroyd be sometimes! In his review of Tile Alternative Miss World (22 November) he compares this film to The Secret...

Fit to be queen Sir:'I doubt if Buckingham Palace would have been quite so concerned about the Mirror's story if it had not seen Lady Diana as a future Queen', writes Mr...

Letters No end of books Sir: In his review of Sarah Foot's book Mv Grandfather Isaac Foot (22 November) Alan Gibson writes, referring to the Foot home at Pencrebar: 'It was...

Schoenberg: another view Sir: Though I have the highest possible opinion of Hans Keller as a music critic, I cannot allow his remarks about Thomas Mann's Dr Faustus (29...

Poll fault Sir: By happy chance you decided to print Robert M. Worcester's letter (22 November) spanning the recto and verso of a page, thus affording me the gratification of...

Death of psychoanalysis Sir: Being a schizophrenic with an interest in painting and an atheist, I feel unusually qualified to comment on Hans Keller's review of Peter Fuller's...

Christmas books 11 Images of human endurance John McEwen The Sunday Times Book of Photodiscovery: A Century of Extraordinary Images 1840-1940 Bruce Bernard Shames & Hudson...

Prince Paul Elisabeth Barker Paul of Yugoslavia: Britain's Maligned Friend Neil Balfour and Sally Mackay (Hamish Hamilton £15) Anvone rash enough to embark on the studv of...

Ice-cold Alex ?M Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd Alexandra: Princess and Queen David Duff (Collins £8.95) Mr Duff says he was encouraged to write this biography by Lord...

Operatic age Jonathan Keates The Golden Century of Italian opera William Weaver (Thames & Hudson £1Ul If we are all allowed to die tranquilly in our beds during the next...

Over there Eric Christiansen The Conquest of the North Atlantic G. J. Marcus (Boydell Press £9.95; £11.95 after 31 December) The Hessians Rodney Atwood (Cam- bridge...

Intimacies Francis King The Other Side Stanley Middleton (Hutch- inson £5.95) Some people write short novels for the same reason that some people take short walks: they have...

Children's books Pigs and pugs Mary Kenny It is always a pleasure when a new picture book by John S. Goodall is published. Mr Goodall has already captivated adults with his...

No trouble Benny Green It may well be that when the adult reader wonders to himself whatever happened to the old-fashioned adventure novel of intrigue and mystery, he is...

Theatre Death and after Peter Jenkins After Mercer (Cottesloe) Death has done David Mercer a power of good as a dramatist. The BBC is reviving four of his television plays...

Arts Provincial John McEwen The twelfth Jolm) Moorc s Ivie rpool ELhibition (Walker Art Gallerv till 22 FehrualV) attracted 2.)0()0 entrants' 91 of wxxhorn were eventuLMlIv...

Television Going off? Richard Ingrams I see that we continue to be exercised here at the Spectator by the mystery of Rees' Mogg and Dallas. Auberon Waugh and myself are both...

Cinema Bird song Peter Ackroyd The Falls (Riverside Studios) A cheerful 'documentary' voice, the kind which reduces all human events to a prosaic melody, opens the film: we...

High life New Zip Taki New York People who talk about the boids on ToirdvToird Street call this modern Babel the Big Apple. As Ravrmond Chandler would say. it is not a had...

Cricket OVer and over Alan Gibson r- ricketers ire terrible men for fiddling ab'eut with the rule book. The various 4 thods of deciding the couMtM chlinIPlrshiP over the...

Postscript Visionary Patrick Marnham Even now in Cairo a committee of writers and philosophers is considering how to advise President Sadat on the most honour' able means of...

Low life Decisions Jeffrey Bernard I've just relinquished writing a racing column after three years of it. Now seems to be an apt time to have jacked it in what with nothing...