THE SPEGITOR -------I The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 WHAT ARE TORIES FOR? Tony Blair put it most...

A TALE TOLD BY AN IDIOT Charles Glass argues that America's most successful film of the year which opens in Britain this week, is utterly mendacious GRAHAM GREENE wrote The...

Paye day SIGHTED ON the meeting's fringes: Jacques Attali. He cannot keep away, though he looks shrunken without his personal jet, his cavalcade of outriders, and his lavish...

Bridge finance THESE MEETINGS are unremittingly social ('How nice to see you again, Mr Cantquitereadyourbadge') and I vainly try to model my technique on Roy Bridge's. He was...

The best policy THE CLARKE plan for bailing out the world's most corrupt governments - correction: the world's poorest countries - got off to a patter of applause, except from...

Explaining a miracle DAYS OF mutual congratulation have marked the 50th anniversary of Bretton Woods, the conference where the IMF and World Bank were set up. It was left to...

CITY AND SUBURBAN Upstairs, downstairs - in Madrid's marble halls, the peasants are revolting CHRISTOPHER FILDES I Upstars ina marle vesion fStMadrid tpstairs in a marble...

LETTERS Doing without men Sir: I was intrigued to see that Paul Johnson cites Ruth Deech, Principal of St Anne's College, Oxford, as a leading academic who rejects 'the...

Vexed of Cheltenham Sir: On the vexed and persistent question of poor standards in our education system, I cite three random examples from the television screen. The word...

Top marks Sir: Let us set aside Rupert Christiansen's remarks about ENO's new production of Tosca except to report that it is playing to capacity houses (Arts, 24 September)....

Too many churches Sir: John Simpson ('A sense of bleakness and loss', 24 September), opening his piece on Suffolk with the early sun picking out a solitary gravestone to John...

Monster ego Sir: Andro Linklater is incorrect to say (Books, 1 October) that Lord Longford has written only two autobiographies. In fact, each decade, except one, of the second...

More Bernard Sir: Following Graham Lord's biography of Jeffrey Bernard, Just The One, I am currently working on a second authorised account of Jeffrey's life. I would be most...

The right ones Sir: The trouble with using they to mean he or she (Mind your language, 17 September) is that they is always followed by a plural verb form, as in Dot...

In constant demand Sir: In Andrew Davidson's ill-informed article on Publishing in last week's issue ('The books don't balance', 1 October) he states that Tom Sharpe's first...

Orchids please Sir: I am surprised that Dr Samuel Johnson should have corresponded about his testicles, although following Craig Raine's, review (Books, 24 September) I checked...

Stick to Duke Sir: Nigel Nicolson (Long life, 1 October) may be hesitant, if he found himself a fellow-guest with Marmaduke Hussey and his wife, about what to call him on...

Of the comprehensive school Patricia Craig THE OXFORD BOOK OF COMIC VERSE edited by John Gross OUP, fL 7.99, pp. 512 tBut comedy shall get its round of claps too', W. H....

What is true is not identical with what is useful Frederic Raphael THE OXBRIDGE CONSPIRACY by Walter Ellis Michael Joseph, f15. 99, pp. 339 'H er eyes,' Noel Coward once...

This strange eventful history Kenneth 0. Morgan TONY BENN: YEARS OF HOPE: DIARIES, PAPERS AND LETTERS, 1940-1962 edited by Ruth Winstone Hutchinson, f25, pp. 442 Tony Benn,...

Who started the war and who won it John Grigg FIRST WORLD WAR by Martin Gilbert Weidenfeld, £20, pp. 616 In his new book (how does he manage to write so many?) Martin...

And what is bettre than a good womman? Nothyng Bevis Hillier GOOD COMPANY: DIARIES 1967-1970 by Frances Partridge HatperCollins, £18, pp. 248 Frances Partridge is wise. kind...

End of Summer The sap loses faith, falls back. It's all over in the summer's heart. The pale day's debility lets fall a drop of rain. In the far north a first frost seasons...

Cinema Ladybird, Ladybird ('18', selected cinemas) Care and destruction Alasdair Palmer IFDen Loach, director of Ladybird Ladybird, is a sort of English equivalent to...

Theatre Only the Lonely (Piccadilly) Once On This Island (Island/Royalty) The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me (King's Head) Play it again, Roy Sheridan Morley S everal of my...

High life Where are the gents? Taki S ix months ago, this column speculated that for all his polo-stick posturing, the body snatcher who goes by the name of James Hewitt may...

Television Peeping Tom Nigella Lawson The Nick (Channel 4, Monday, 9 p.m.) has been promoted as 'The Bill - for real', but how real is that? There is a moment in the first...

- l1w, ""? Adlift-lb. A -2, q if - -I- -? Gaming table L.J J Pt I AM SO sorry that Mr David C. Taylor of the International Zoo Veterinary Group doesn't care for my lovely...

SPECTATOR SPORT The hero hit-man Frank Keating TOMMY LAWTON was 75 this Thursday. I knew I could not telephone to wish the cheerful old one-and-only a birthday hooray because...