20 JANUARY 1996, page 31

Too True To Be Good

Nick Dent PANAMA by Eric Zencey Sceptre, £9.99, pp. 375 W hen Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, turned his attention to building a canal across Panama the out-......

Is England Dumbing Down?

Robert Oakeshott THE WAY WE LIVE NOW by Richard Hoggart Chatto, £18, pp. 352 Y ou live badly, my friends. It is shameful to live like that.' The line is not the author's but......