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European money puzzles
The SpectatorI n 1972 Parliament decided that the United Kingdom should join the European Economic Community, a decisdion endorsed three years later in a referendum. These _ecisioas were...
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Political commentary
The SpectatorHatters' Ratters strike again Ferdinand Mount The thought processes of Mr Roy Hattersley provoke both curiosity and anxiety. What exactly is it that decides the Secretary of...
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Notebook
The SpectatorUnlike the editor of the New Statesman, I did not refuse the invitation to lunch last Week with Richard Nixon. Mr Nixon may be a villain, but he is an interesting vill ain. And...
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Another voice
The SpectatorA Royal Commission? Auberon Waugh Minehead, Somerset In the reporting of committal proceedings at a magistrates court, the prosecution might be expected to have a field day,...
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The Rhodesian terror
The SpectatorRichard West Salisbury Are the other side in this war 'guerrillas o r terrorists'? Most foreign reporters avoid the word 'terrorist', as smacking o f government propaganda,...
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Will Namibia vote with its stomach?
The SpectatorNicholas Ashford Johannesburg Whatever else may be said about Namibia/South West Africa's first all-race elections which were taking place throughout this week, they were...
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The left in crisis
The SpectatorSam White Paris There are many reasons why the French left finds itself in a crippled state nine months after its near-victory in the March general elections, and one of the...
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Teng takes command
The SpectatorDavid Bonavia Hong Kong In a strange reversal of history, China's vice-premier Teng Hsiao-Ping has resorted to demagoguery to cow his political rivals and downgrade the cult of...
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Meditating for peace
The SpectatorWilliam Chislett Managua The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi might have to send some more peace reinforcements to Nicaragua if General Somoza and the °PPosition do not soon agree on a...
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Turmoil behind The Times
The SpectatorMichael Cockerell Louis Heren, the Deputy Editor of The Times, is proud of his cockney origins, his long experience in. Washington and his journalistic machismo. On the night...
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Storm in a Polish tea-cup
The SpectatorMarione Wallace t-I PPer-class Poles have a favourite phrase Which they whisper in semi-detached drawing rooms from Ealing to Acton ,tnatka z domu' or loosely translated, was...
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Nixon goes up to Oxford
The SpectatorPeter Ackroyd When he makes a point he leans forward, as though on the verge of toppling over, and then pulls back sharply. When he tells a joke he sways from side to side,...
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A rare barminess
The SpectatorPatrick Marnham S uPPosing The Times really has shut down? T hroughout the rather agreeable Dooms day capers of last week the general assump tion was that it would certainly be...
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In the City
The SpectatorMarket directions Nicholas Davenport On Friday last week turnover on the Stock Exchange suddenly dropped like a stone. The Queen and Prince Philip were paying an official...
A hundred years ago
The SpectatorOne at least, perhaps the greatest, of the many drawbacks to our civilisation, to that gradual increase in our knowledge of Nature and our command over it which we call...
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Alt Greek
The SpectatorS ir: Mrs Collier (Letters, 2 December) suggests that the Parthenon frieze, together With other fifth century Greek art, is characterised by 'a thoughtful serenity, a timeless...
Actor as critic
The SpectatorSir: I wish we weren't beset by a thousand Misa pprehensions, but alas we are; the Spec(tor recently referring to Dorothy Parker's t smissal of a Broadway production: 'there's...
About Socrates I said that he and other ootable sages
The Spectatorlived in , an age 'around 500 BC'. Mrs Collier says I said, nonsensically, that Socrates was 'around in 500 BC'. Mrs ,Collier thus illustrates another point I was . Ir Ying to...
entirely ported the legend. The truth is c at on one
The Spectatorside of the paper is written: 'All etans are liars' and on the other: 'I am a Reading this sort of thing in the Spectator, „,...was reminded of President Ford in a cievisiort...
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Scientology
The SpectatorSir: Your article of 25 November, 'Cults and the death wish', I find to be quite intriguing. Christopher Booker, however, I ant afraid by attempting to explain spiritual values...
Ars Poetica
The SpectatorSir: In the poem you kindly printed to celebrate the Professor of Poetry election at Oxford! omitted to include three candidates — Ronald Duncan and the two others (I forget...
Cabbies
The SpectatorSir: In the Spectator Notebook (24 November), Alexander Chancellor referred to an instance of a taxi driver who refused, illegally, to take him to his destination. In an effort...
Stoppard hemmed in
The SpectatorSir: Richard Ingrams wonders ( 2 December) whether his reaction to finding Tom Stoppard on television a bore is because he is a 'clapped-out man' or because the Bernard Levins...
Causes of inflation
The SpectatorSir: Your correspondent, M.W. Balladon (18 November) is no better at pointing oil t the causes of inflation than the contributo r he takes to task. I should have thought that...
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Christmas Books II
The SpectatorFacts and fancies Christopher Booker whItakers Almanack 1979 (Whitaker Cloth 25.75; Shorter Edition 22.80; Library Edition e7.50) For more than two hundred years there have...
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High society
The SpectatorAlastair Forbes Gossip Andrew Barrow (Hamish Hamilton. £10.00) The Visitor's Book Christopher Simon Sykes (Weidenfeld E12.50) Long before the date usually set aside in a once...
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Pounder
The SpectatorPatrick Cosg rave Ben-Gurion Michael Bar-Zohar (Weidenfold £12.95) H ad it not been for David Ben-Gurion the state of Israel would not have been proclaimed in May, 1948. This...
Press work
The SpectatorSimon Blow Thrown to the Woolfs John Lehmann (Weidenfeld E6.50) To those still harbouring dreams of Bloomsbury or the romance of publishing, John Lehmann's association with the...
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Weimar days
The SpectatorTim Garton Ash The Weimar Chronicle: Prelude to Hitler Alex de Jonge (Paddington £6.50) The New Sobriety 1917-1933: Art and Politics in the Weimar Period John Willett (Thames &...
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Dead ends
The SpectatorEmma Fisher New Poetry 4: An Arts Council Anthology Fleur Adcock and Anthony Thwaite (Arts Council, Hutchinson and P.E.N. £4.50) Springtime in the Rockies Brian Marley (Trigram...
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Harplike lyrics
The SpectatorPaul Potts The Collected Poems of Hugh MacDiarmid Vols I and II (Martin Brian and O'Keeffe £15) Hugh MacDiarmid, who died a few weeks ago at the age of eighty-six, was with...
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Unfinished
The SpectatorPaul Ableman A Twentieth-Century Man David Benedictus (Blond & Briggs £4.95) This book has one serious fault; it is far too short. It should be at least three, and preferably...
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A golden masquerade for El Dorado
The SpectatorMarina Warner I I he Poster tells us: 'This Man is El Dorado'. I shows us an Indian wearing a fearsome flat disc in his nose and other golden regalia . and its unabashed...
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Florentine Baroque
The SpectatorCharles McCorquodale The forthcoming exhibition at the Royal Academy, Painting in Florence 16001700, can claim two rather unexpected firsts: incredibly, there has never been a...
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Changing markets
The SpectatorMichael Wigan Never before has the art and antique market been so much in the public eye. Apart from the startling escalation in saleroom prices, and the protest about the...
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Art stories
The SpectatorJohn McEwen Art books are a bit like salmon: one tends to think of them in terms of poundage, of whether they are fit to be eaten (bought) or stuffed (referred to). Some — very...
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Hogarth's satirical brush
The SpectatorBenny Green Hogarth is something of a special case among English painters, a great artist who often used his genius as a means to an end rather than as an end in itself. For...
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Abstract prizes
The SpectatorJohn McEwen It is a typical anomaly of British art that the most important painting competition it has to offer takes place biannually in Liverpool. There, to his eternal...
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In place of strife
The SpectatorPeter Jenkins Strife (Olivier) The Machine Wreckers ((Half Moon) In a century whose shattering discovery has been that the abolition of capitalism is incompatible with the...
Cinema
The SpectatorArt movie Ted Whitehead Interiors (Cinecenta) For two years, reviewing theatre o f cinema, I've managed to avoid the us e ,,, e the word 'Art', because I believe that word has...
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Television
The SpectatorGenerations Richard Ingrams The most baffling sight in recent days was, that of the undergraduates at the Oxford Union rising to their feet to give an ovation to Richard...
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High life
The SpectatorClubland Taki New York The disco war of New York heated up and exploded this week. The three major powers of disco — Studio 54, Xenon and Regine's, each using the same battle...
Low life
The SpectatorBack again Jeffrey Bernard By the time you read these nervous lines I will have committed yet another act of gross folly. I will have addressed the sixth form of Sevenoaks...
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Last word
The SpectatorAs Wini said Geoffrey Wheatcroft Oral history is notoriously unreliable and deceiving. Everyone's memory plays tricks. The more are the memories involved, the 10 0 re does...