The great paradox of the Tory party is that its predicament in recent years reflects not failure, but success. For 18 years it was in government, for 11 of them under one of the...

DENIS MACSHANE Bayreuth Alifetime's ambition is fulfilled as I get to hear and see Wagner in Bayreuth. After 1945 it was touch and go whether enough support could be found to...

ANTHONY BROWNE It's not hoodies. It's not single mums. It's not even jittery City whizz kids down to their last ten million No, it's lefties we should be furrowing our...

7 OF _1—`] c3 1111L-11-1 iIDJDY By Tamzin Lightwater MONDAY V exciting. Was in charge of note-taking and smoothies at our Emergency TreacheryManagement Meeting. We couldn't...

James Forsyth says that the world's fixation with the President's errors in Iraq has obscured the collective determination of the presidential candidates, Democratic and...

Vint Cerf, 'co-founder of the internet', tells Matthew d'Ancona that its power has barely begun to be realised and that the freedom it gives to people vastly outweighs any loss...

Rod Liddle praises Channel Five for ending one of the petty deceits of programme-making — a trick typical of television's assumption that the viewers are absolute idiots who...

Clarissa Dickson Wright talks to Mary Wakefield about life as the last of the Two Fat Ladies, surviving alcoholism — and why she used to call Blair 'Miranda' I'm tempted, just...

English-speakers working in Russia generally go through a stage where they jokingly refer to a restaurant as a pectopah. The joke consists in pronouncing the cyrillic letters as...

Far from being an obscure theological debate, the return of the Tridentine Mass is a hugely exciting moment in the history of Roman Catholicism, says Damian Thompson Next...

Henry Sands doesn't like reality television, but that didn't stop him auditioning for it. The show sounded macho and adventurous — ideal, apart from the risk of ritual...

Sir: Theodore Dalrymple's cover story about our sentimental and brutal society (Too many teardrops', 1 September) has given me an idea. In order to reduce the impact of the...

Sir: Anna Blundy is justifiably outraged by the 'dumb blonde' imputation ('We blondes face prejudice', 25 August), but there is in fact a medical explanation at the heart of the...

Sir: Mr Alan Magid draws attention to the excellent Mike by PG. Wodehouse as both a major cricket novel and the best school story ever (Letters, 25 August). I am sure he is...

Sir: Thank you to Taki for mentioning Louis, that wonderful maitre d' at Annabel's, in High life last week. How sad and ironic that within a week of Mark Birley's death Louis...

Sir: William Shawcross in your cover story (Now, more than ever, Britain must stay in Iraq', 25 August) argues that the US needs support from British forces in Iraq to continue...

HUGO RIFKIND How on earth did they get them through customs? 'Oi! You there! Chinese-looking fellow! What we got here, then? Ah. Toy soldiers, is it? Chewable? No? Oh dear. Any...

PAUL JOHNSON CW hen markets are unsteady and investors are nervous, you can't beat gold.' That was my grandfather's saying, common enough, I daresay, in late Victorian...

Richard Orange visits an arid region of Rajasthan which struggles to grow its own food but has nurtured some of India's richest trading dynasties, including the Mittal family...

Neil Collins nce upon a time there was an investment banker. He was hardly today's stereotypical WASP smoothie, but an overweight, sweaty trader from the Bronx who shouted a...

John Andrews talks to Stanley Fink, who turned Man Group from a commodities trader into a hedge-fund pioneer you know Kipling's words, about meeting triumph and disaster? Well,...

ANNE HYLAND IN BANGKOK Anyone who claims to understand Thailand's politics should be sectioned. The country is preparing for a national election in December and the leader of...

Southern hemisphere heavyweights or home nations hopefuls? Ian Malin on who has the best chance of lifting the Webb Ellis trophy During this summer of catastrophic floods, a...

Rod Liddle reminds a nation about to descend into World Cup fever that rugby is an infinitely inferior game to football Knock knock. Who's there? Jonny. Jonny who? The morning...

All the World Cups played since 1987 have produced remarkable moments. Frank Keating looks back at the finest wenty teams turn up for rugby union's World Cup but, realistically,...

Lawrence Dallaglio has been through heartbreak, scandal and injury, and at 35 he is old enough to retire. But, says David Edwards, he's a fighter to the finish Rugby players...

Dear Mary Q. My son is a member of a rugby team at his university. They are a lovely bunch of chaps during daylight hours but some sort of group hysteria seems to take hold...

Philip Hensher THAMES: SACRED RIVER by Peter Ackroyd Chatto, £25, pp. 608, ISBN 9780701172843 © £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 For some reason, the sight of the sea or a...

Sebastian Smee DIARY OF A BAD YEAR by J. M. Coetzee Harvill Secker, £16.99, pp. 231, ISBN 9781846551208 £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 In the last scene of J. M....

David Gilmour THE FORCE OF DESTINY: A HISTORY OF ITALY SINCE 1796 by Christopher Duggan Allen Lane, £30, pp. 653, ISBN 9780713997095 £24 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 As...

Victoria Glendinning SINGLED OUT by Virginia Nicholson Viking, £20, pp. 312, ISBN 9780670915644 £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 ne day in 1917 the senior mistress of...

Antonia Fraser EXIT MUSIC by Ian Rankin Orion, £18.99, pp. 400, ISBN 9780752868608 £15.19 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 y ‘ 0u... are ... history.' Appro i xmately halfway...

Molly Guinness Giles Wareing, a freelance journalist, is days away from his 40th birthday, pretty sure he has gout and otherwise minding — well, monitoring is perhaps more...

Alan Wall THE GOLDEN AGE OF CENSORSHIP by Paul Hoffman Doubleday, E17.99, pp. 349, ISBN 9780385606332 £14.39 (plus £2.45 p+p) 0870 429 6655 T. S. Eliot thought it a curiosity...

Jane Rye EUAN UGLOW: THE COMPLETE PAINTINGS Catalogue raisonne by Catherine Lampert; Essays by Richard Kendall and Catherine Lampert Yale, £65, pp. 244, ISBN 9780300123494 ©...

Byron Rogers A PEMBROKESHIRE PIONEER by Roscoe Howells Gwasg Can-eg Gwalch, Ysgubor Plas, Llwynthys, Pwelheli, Gwynedd, Tel: 01785 750440, £6.85, (f1.50p -Fp), pp. 120, ISBN...

Tom Fleming ZUGZWANG by Ronan Bennett Bloomsbury, £14.99, pp. 273, ISBN 9780747587118 © £11.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 4 ugzwang, from the German Zug (move) and Zwang...

The department wasn't where it used to be. Break times had changed, but I got a third-former To show me where he'd be And waited at the top of a fire escape Till he came up...

Brian Masters THEM AND US: THE AMERICAN INVASION OF BRITISH HIGH SOCIETY by Charles Jennings Sutton Publishing, £20, pp. 307, ISBN 9780750943567 £16 (plus £2.45 p +p) 0870...

Gary Dexter FENCES AND GATES, WALKWAYS, WALLS AND DRIVES (1983) E Annie Proulx is the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of The Shipping News and Broke back Mountain: she has also won...

The Wagner effect Henrietta Bredin has put together a series of events to celebrate the Royal Opera House's Ring cycle 1 t is with considerable trepidation that I venture to...

Andrew Lambirth Temptation in Eden: Lucas Cranach's 'Adam and Eve' Courtauld Institute, until 23 September Work, Rest & Play National Gallery, until 14 October Amazingly, the...

Michael Kennedy Where does Sibelius stand today? Twenty years ago, the answer would have been not very high. Today, 50 years after his death, I think it would be 'on the up'...

Marcus Berkmann Isee Squeeze have reformed and are touring again. In fact, there don't seem to be many bands who haven't reformed and aren't touring again. Out there on the...

Michael Tanner For its final operatic offering, this year's Edinburgh Festival presented what it billed as 'World premiere of a new production' of Richard Strauss's last opera...

Lloyd Evans Reverence Southwark Playhouse The Emperor Jones Olivier outhwark Playhouse has moved. Its new home is a warren of arcades carved out of the massive viaduct that...

Peter Phillips E:ternal though they may seem, the Proms and the Edinburgh Festival are susceptible to change. Roger Wright will take over the former next year and Jonathan Mills...

Deborah Ross Atonement 15, nationwide rr here has been such a lot of fuss and hype around this adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel — as if this is all anybody has ever been...

Kate Chisholm Here's a question for all of you who can claim to be (or would wish to be) English. When was the last time you sold yourself short, modestly claiming, 'Oh, it's...

James Delingpole Sorry, I'm in Sardinia at the moment and I couldn't find any preview tapes that really grabbed me before I went away so if you don't mind I thought I'd just...

Taki On a beautiful, crisp Saturday morning on the first of the month I flew from Gstaad to the chateau de Dampierre, the duc de Luynes's seat southwest of Paris. My old friend...

Jeremy Clarke L C o. Jeremy. Why do you want to learn L3 about eating seaweed?' said Ingrid as we trooped down the leafy farm track to the beach. Ingrid, our leader for the day,...

Aidan Hartley Beijing Iam in Beijing making a film about the Olympic city with an ex-Lancashire police constable named Andrew. We spend our days aimlessly zooming around vast...

Richard Sennett rr he game season is upon us, and game is rather shaming. We have so much of it in Britain but we don't cook it very adventurously. This is particularly true of...

Charlotte Metcalf talks to Theo Fennell about his revolutionary exhibition • 1•11 ucked away discreetly behind Piccadilly, the Museum of Mankind is a venerable institution,...

Alistair Scott says go to Docklands for the best in stress-free travel 6 I did not fully understand the dread term terminal illness" until I saw Heathrow for myself' wrote...

Simon Heifer finds a perfect little treat in Ambonnay bsessive autorouters will know one thing: that to drive back from Provence to the Tunnel in one haul is ridiculous on...

Dear Maly Q. I am shortly going to stay in a glamorous venue in Tuscany whose name I cannot reveal here as it would look like vulgar boasting. I have not been there before, and...

FRANK KEATING The knives are glinting. The tabloids' art desks stand ready to superimpose the turnip's head. Should England's footballers fail to win the two home matches,...