Spectator articles from February 2002

Spectator archives from February 2002

Portrait of the week.(British and international politics)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2002... Jolly plans for the Queen's Golden Jubilee celebrations in June were announced, including a dinner for the crowned heads of Europe at Windsor, concerts in London parks, 500 beacons and a three-month tour by the Queen from Cornwall to the...

Republicans in retreat.(Golden Jubilee, Queen Elizabeth II)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2002... When the 50th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's accession to the throne passes quietly next Wednesday, the loudest noise is likely to be the continued squabbling over preparations for the official celebrations in the summer. So determined is...

There has been a paradigm shift in politics, but only the LibDems seem to understand the new rules. (Politics).(Liberal Democrats)
February 2, 2002... Political journalists no longer possess the tools to report events at Westminster. The laws of politics have changed. But journalists try to carry on as if everything were as it was. We are like Newtonian physicists trying to explain away a...

Diary.(social landscape of Hackney, England)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2002... I'm a sentimental sort. At public readings I perform a poignant haiku inspired by the place I live. `Hackney -- where the schoolkids and the council tax get higher every year.' (And yes, it has got 17 syllables, to save you the trouble of...

In the end it will be America v. the rest of the world. Whose side will you be on? (Another Voice).(Column)
February 2, 2002... Journalists are rather like fleas. We bed ourselves down on the furry rump of something much larger than ourselves, and there we feed. We may irritate the pooch, but we are essentially dependent upon it, and in the end our livelihood and that...

Creatures of the cultural cringe: Theodore Dalrymple says the Tipton terrorists were encouraged in their hatred for Britain by the contempt for Western civilisation that is now almost mandatory among many white intellectuals.(Cover Story)
February 2, 2002... WHAT should they know of Western civilisation who only Tipton know? Tipton is the town in which two of the young Britons of Pakistani descent, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul, who are held in Guantanamo as suspected members of al-Qa'eda, grew up....

Ancient & modern.(artistic painting)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2002... SO Ivan Massow (chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts) thinks conceptual art is rubbish. Oh dear. According to Pliny the Elder (who died investigating the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79), one of the finest paintings in Rome was nothing...

Cancel the guilt trip: Africa is a mess, but it is simply not credible to blame colonialism.
February 2, 2002... YOU would need a heart of stone not to have been moved by the little Aids-ridden choristers. We sat under a mango tree, before a dancing-space of packed red earth, and what a preposterous delegation we were. There was Mr Rod Liddle, the big...

Greek travesty: go east, young man, says Colin R. Nicholl, but whatever you do, don't get involved in a car crash.(health care abroad)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2002... SO the great plan has finally been executed: the first NHS patients have been shipped to mainland Europe for eye repairs and replacement joints, paid for by taxpayers' hard-earned cash. These lucky ducks are enjoying the fruits of a properly...

In praise of the health service: Andrew Gimson says that we are better off than we know, not least because we have fewer doctors than the French and the Germans.
February 2, 2002... THE immense virtues of the National Health Service were almost entirely ignored during the grubby argument about the 94-year-old woman who may or may not have been treated as well as she should have been. I do not mean that the NHS is perfect,...

Losing our religion: Theo Hobson says that if the C of E wants to stop being a national joke, it will have to be disestablished.(Church of England)
February 2, 2002... FOR those of us who care about the Church of England, the eruption of media interest in the next Archbishop of Canterbury is deeply depressing. Public discourse about religion is so half-hearted and weak, so lazy and confused, that it feels...

Mind your language.(history of dialect and colloquialisms)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2002... WHAT do you call your food if there is not enough salt in it? Insipid, yes, or tasteless, but if you live in Cornwall or Devon you might say -- or have heard someone say -- fresh. Or in Suffolk you might say flash; a bit further north in East...

The last governor? Christopher Fildes on Sir Edward George and the future of the Bank of England.
February 2, 2002... HIS house on the moors of Cornwall beckons to Sir Edward George. By the summer of next year he will have spent four decades in the Bank of England, the last of them in his parlour, looking out across a lawn which represents a triumph of...

Banned wagon.(mandatory insurance proposed for amateur sports)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2002... THE life of a backbench MP is not a greatly challenging one -- judging from the early day motions that they table. Having been elected to defend democracy and freedom, many are happy to while away the hours congratulating their local football...

Vanity is a man's fault but a woman's profession. (And Another Thing).(social interaction)(Column)
February 2, 2002... The Labour Poet Laureate was asked to read a poem during the party celebrating the centenary of the TLS. Not a good idea, for the chattering classes do not like being interrupted once they have got going. Unfortunately, the Laureate compounded...

Blame the Taleban. (Letters).
February 2, 2002... From Mr Phillip Hardy Sir: It appears to me that Stephen Glover (like that peculiar Matthew Parris, who seems to want Britain to `sit out' or `hang back' from everything) is getting perilously close to saying that the USA is responsible...

Casualties of truth. (Letters).
February 2, 2002... From Mr Rory O'Keeffe Sir: Perhaps The Spectator will correct the ridiculous distortions of Mark Steyn (`How ridiculous can you guys get?', 26 January). He states that the Royal Canadian Navy was the third biggest surface fleet during the...

POW politics. (Letters).
February 2, 2002... From Mr Frederick Forsyth Sir: Your correspondent Robert Henderson (Letters, 26 January) joins the large British chorus denouncing the Americans for not according the detainees of Guantanamo Bay prisoner-of-war status. There are two valid...

Grand old morals. (Letters).
February 2, 2002... From Mr P.G. Urben Sir: Michael Randall (Letters, 19 January) suggests that, before about 1960, everybody would have acknowledged that Western lives are more `precious' than Afghan ones. W.E. Gladstone's words of 1880, apropos the second...

Sex is not the problem. (Letters).
February 2, 2002... From Mr Simon Bott, FRCS Sir: A more useful way of looking at the frequency of prostate cancer is the age-matched incidence. This is the incidence at a given age and is stated as a proportion (e.g., eight per 1,000 50-year-old men). ...

Continental divide. (Letters).
February 2, 2002... From Mr Anthony Baldwin Sir: It is a peculiarly English thing to need to demonstrate that one is half-educated, barely articulate and, by extension, utterly harmless for fear that otherwise the mob might drag one screaming to the waiting...

Thatcher theology. (Letters).
February 2, 2002... From Mr Timothy O'Sullivan Sir: Paul Johnson (And another thing, 26 January) can hardly blame Harold Wilson for landing us with `the dreadful Bishop of Durham'. It was not until 1984 that a vacancy at Durham, traditionally the seat of...

Racial dis-harmony. (Letters).
February 2, 2002... From Mr Michael Ware Sir: John Whelan, Conservative leader of the London Borough of Lambeth (Letters, 12 January) should not condemn Barry Humphries for describing traffic wardens as `vindictive black bastards' but look to those London...

Outwitting the chancellor. (Letters).
February 2, 2002... From Mr Douglas Adler Sir: Christopher Fildes (City and Suburban, 26 January) may have found the best tax haven to live in, but he has not addressed the vital question of how to establish oneself there at the crucial time. Tax laws can...

Double dose. (Letters).
February 2, 2002... From Dr Simon Farmer Sir: Like most neurologists I am prone to bouts of hypochondriasis often centred on the diseases we treat, and deja vu can be a symptom of an unpleasant malady of the brain. Have I read Theodore Dalrymple's piece in...

The press continues to mollycoddle Lord Wakeham -- in spite of his links with Enron. (Media Studies).(former minister, Tory Cabinet)
February 2, 2002... The press is full of fascinating disclosures about Labour's links with Enron and -- following my colleague Peter Oborne's brilliant piece last week -- with the accounting firm Arthur Andersen. But you have to look very hard to find any critical...

No Ordinary Man. (Books: king of his jungle).
February 2, 2002... NO ORDINARY MAN By Dominic Carman Granta, [pounds sterling] 20, pp. 617, ISBN 1862074445 The libel boom of the late 20th century is over now. But it was one of the phenomena of modern Britain while it lasted. Year after year, the great and...

Girl From The South. (Books: a romantic novel without the throbbing manhood).
February 2, 2002... GIRL FROM THE SOUTH by Joanna Trollope Bloomsbury, [pounds sterling] 16.99, pp. 311, ISBN 0747557993 I had some idea that Girl from the South might be an aga saga. As an aga owner, I was intrigued, but as Trollope's thousands of fans know,...

The Men From The Boys. (Books: pursuing different goals).
February 2, 2002... THE MEN FROM THE BOYS by Philip Collins HarperCollins, 14.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 320, ISBN 0007126174 Philip Collins is a clever young man. From a working-class background, growing up in Bury, he has been a Cambridge don and soccer...

Mr Foreigner. (Books: adrift in Japan).
February 2, 2002... MR FOREIGNER by Matthew Kneale Weidenfeld, 10 [pounds sterling], pp. 155, ISBN 0297828991 Like the Booker, the Whitbread has produced some controversial and occasionally even bizarre winners. But when Matthew Kneale's English Passengers...

The Beckoning Silence. (Books: hanging up his snow-shoes).
February 2, 2002... THE BECKONING SILENCE by Joe Simpson Cape, 17.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 292, ISBN 0224061801 The Beckoning Silence is the fifth in Joe Simpson's cycle of mountaineering books. Here, finally, the doubt that has been gathering like a...

Kinnock: The Biography. (Books: the nearly man).
February 2, 2002... KINNOCK: THE BIOGRAPHY by Martin Westlake and Ian St John Little, Brown, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 768, ISBN 0316848719 `This book weighs too much,' Lord Beaverbrook complained of Harmsworth's Life of Northcliffe. The same might be said of...

Charles Bridgeman And The English Landscape. (Books: from geometry to nature).
February 2, 2002... CHARLES BRIDGEMAN AND THE ENGLISH LANDSCAPE by Peter Willis Elysium Press, 5 Fenwick Close, Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 2LE, Tel: 0191 281 0684, 135 [pounds sterling], pp. 249 +247 plates, ISBN 0904712044 This very handsome book, a...

Zeno's Conscience. (Books: a tragical-comical masterpiece).
February 2, 2002... ZENO'S CONSCIENCE by Italo Svevo, translated by William Weaver Everyman, 12.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 437, ISBN 0375413308 At a dinner in Milan last year, I was asked to name my `favourite novel'. Ever-conscious of the fragile national ego,...

Lady Violet Powell.(Brief Article)(Obituary)
February 2, 2002... Snow fell on the Chantry, and on a small area of the Somerset levels immediately around it, on 4 April 2000, the day Anthony Powell's ashes were consigned from a rowing boat to the still waters of the lake below his house. Friends gathered on...

Stir up the zeal of women: Kate Chisholm welcomes the transformation of the Women's Library in London's East End. (Arts).
February 2, 2002... PETROGRAD. Mon. 16th 1917: People cheered & cheered. Wildest excitement. Rushed off & fetched ladders to take down the Eagles off various public buildings.' So wrote Elsie Bowerman in the diary she kept while working as a volunteer in Russia...

Image and Idol: Mediaeval Sculpture. (Arts: exhibitions).(Duveen Galleries, Tate Britain)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2002... Image and Idol: Mediaeval Sculpture (Duveen Galleries, Tate Britain, till 3 March) Shaken and stirred Martin Gayford When you come to think of it, the territorial zones of the London museums are as arbitrary and higgledy-piggledy...

Don Giovanni. (Arts: opera).
February 2, 2002... Don Giovanni (Royal Opera House) Uninspired Mozart There is dispiritingly little to say about Covent Garden's new production of Don Giovanni, except that it is not a disgrace, as the recent productions at Glyndebourne and the Coliseum...

The Valkyrie. (Arts: opera).
February 2, 2002... The Valkyrie (Coliseum) Uninspired Mozart There is dispiritingly little to say about Covent Garden's new production of Don Giovanni, except that it is not a disgrace, as the recent productions at Glyndebourne and the Coliseum certainly...

Memories. (Arts: dance).
February 2, 2002... Memories (Royal Opera House) Betraying Bach Memories is not just the title of a famous song from one of the West End's long-running shows, it is also the name of the Royal Ballet's new triple bill. Don't expect dancing felines,...

Gosford Park. (Arts: cinema).
February 2, 2002... The servants have it Gosford Park (15, selected cinemas) You have to be terribly careful with Robert Altman films. Some (Nashville, Short Cuts) are marvellous. One or two (A Wedding) are barely comprehensible. And some -- Popeye and...

Expensive and unpleasant: Sheridan Morley believes that London's theatreland is in need of a radical shake-up. (Arts).(Brief Article)
February 2, 2002... In view of the current climate in the West End, the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has agreed to purchase a million pounds' worth of box-office tickets, which will be distributed free to city employees, schools, colleges and old people's...

It's bonkers. (Arts: television).(Smack The Pony)(Clocking Off)(Changing Races)
February 2, 2002... The oddest television drama of the week was the new Oxo ad. Boyfriend is leaving the family kitchen, says on the way out how much he wishes he could stay for that terrific Oxo meal. Daughter asks mother what she thinks. `He was a polite young...

Young excellence. (Arts: radio).(Jimmy Young, radio talk show host)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2002... I was sitting in my local pub, the Benett Arms, one lunchtime last week when a nice old chap came in and announced that he'd just been listening to Jimmy Young on Radio Two and the results of a poll of listeners about the treatment of Taleban...

The next best thing. (The turf).
February 2, 2002... A heavy cold, uncertainty at the hour of commitment to the road whether the wet might prevent racing at Cheltenham and the need to minister to Mrs Oakley, fresh home from hospital in Dublin, forced me to do my racing last week couch-potato...

Warhol's indiscretions. (High life).(Andy Warhol)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2002... Rougemont I got to like Andy Warhol a lot, but only after his death. Reading about him in the Sunday Telegraph in connection with the Tate Modern upcoming exhibition brought back a lot of memories. Mostly of Studio-54, the ghastly smell of...

Dwelling on woe. (Singular life).(national pride and pessimism in America)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2002... I am not supposed to write about Florida. Last time I did so, the locals were unfriendly. This is because I said that Florida was a great place to live if you were rich, white, single and over 71. I am not sure why this should have been so...

Goulash. (Bridge).
February 2, 2002... EVEN if the Portland Club allowed women members, I'm not sure I'd join -- the bridge is just too much fun. Each time I've been invited there, I've found myself down to the last few still playing in the early hours. I'm still recovering...

Restaurants.(Toffs and The Frying Pan, London, England)
February 2, 2002... THANK you so, so much for all your letters of encouragement and support which, after my last column complaining that this job was beginning to pall rather, would have flooded in if only any of you had bothered to write any. Still, I sent one to...

Ponomariov wins. (Chess).
February 2, 2002... THE slightly tongue-twisting name of Ruslan Ponomariov is one to which we will have to learn to become accustomed. The 18-year-old has won the all-Ukrainian final of the Fide (World Chess Federation) Championship in Moscow in overwhelming style...

After you, Horace. (Competition).
February 2, 2002... IN COMPETITION NO. 2223 you were invited to write a poem, entitled `An Invitation', either in the English equivalent of the Alcaic or Sapphic metres or in the metre of Marvell's `An Horatian Ode'. For English Alcaics, see Tennyson's...

Decline and fall. (Spectator Sport).(Martina Hingis at the Australian Open)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2002... IT is a truth universally acknowledged in sport that you've either got it or you ain't -- the `it' in question being the ability to win. This is quite separate from being good with a ball, or running frightfully fast, or whatever. This...

Dear Mary ... (Your Problems Solved).(etiquette)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2002... Q. Last year my wife and I moved into what might be described as a `substantial property' in south London. The house was formerly a school and a small annexe attached to it was sold separately. While our house is number 7, our neighbours in the...

King of the jungle: getting away from it all. (Portrait Of The Week).(British politics and international events)(Brief Article)
February 9, 2002... `Reformers versus wreckers. That is the battle for this Parliament,' Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, told a meeting in Cardiff known as the Labour spring conference. He identified the enemies of reform as `small-c conservatives' who, he also...

MMR saves lives.(measles, mumps and rubella vaccine )(Brief Article)
February 9, 2002... There was a man who for many years used to pace up and down Oxford Street with a banner preaching the mortal dangers of protein and passion. He was generally deemed to be an eccentric, but it is clear that his perceived eccentricity lay in his...

Why Tony Blair must be mighty pleased to be in Africa. (Politics).
February 9, 2002... Politics returned to normal this week. Gordon Brown, back from Scotland, reoccupied the centre of the stage, while Tony Blair went abroad. It has been an odd start to the year, with Brown absent and with the Prime Minister doing his best to...

Simon Sebag Montefiore. (Diary).(the Prince of Orange and Maxima Zorreguieta, Netherland's royal wedding)
February 9, 2002... The only thing I was lacking when I flew to Amsterdam last weekend for the wedding of the Prince of Orange and Maxima Zorreguieta was something orange. From the moment I landed I have never seen so much orange. Everyone was wearing orange...

Cowardy custards in the home of the brave: the phrase `business as usual' seems to have no resonance on the other side of the Atlantic, says Simon Heffer: for all the swagger of Hollywood, some Americans get absurdly jumpy in the face of terrorism.
February 9, 2002... THE obituaries appeared last weekend of one of the most remarkable actors ever to appear on film: Harold Russell. Only a few will remember his name, though many more will remember his performance. He was one of the three returning second world...

Breast intentions: Hugh Russell on why women in Zambia are parading topless in the name of decency and good government.(political protests)(Brief Article)
February 9, 2002... Lusaka NOT counting what might happen in my personal life, I don't normally see a bare boob from one month to another. In the UK, of course, one gets to see bare boobs all the time -- on television, in the movies and, of course, in the...

Misogynist in the woodpile: Mick Hume says that Mike Tyson is the one black man that liberals feel free to despise.
February 9, 2002... NAME one black man whom you can call an animal without being prosecuted for inciting racial hatred; or one Muslim whom you can call mad without being had up before the religious-intolerance inquisition; and how about one New Yorker whom you can...

Mind your language.(the word 'sweet' as a descriptive)
February 9, 2002... `SEVENTEEN!' cried my husband, stirring triumphantly in the confines of his armchair like a pig that has just uncovered a windfall apple in the straw of its pen. `I won't ask, darling,' I replied, `because you are going to tell me anyway.'...

The threat to the Monarchy: in the week of the Jubilee, Bruce Anderson regrets the passing of a gentler age, and fears for the future of the Royal Family.
February 9, 2002... IT IS a portrayal of a world we have lost. At first glance, it looks like an ordinary pre-war upper-middle-class family at afternoon tea. Father, in a weekend suit and smoking a cigarette, is the focus of attention from his demure wife and...

The price of freedom: Alasdair Palmer celebrates the compelling logic of Robert Nozick, the libertarian philosopher who died last month.
February 9, 2002... ROBERT NOZICK, the Harvard philosopher who died last month, was more important than you would have guessed from the small ripple his demise generated in the obituary columns. True, he wrote only one book which has any chance of lasting:...

Life without death: Duncan Turner says scientists now believe that we can live to be 160 -- even 300 -- but there may be a price to pay.
February 9, 2002... EVERY year millions of people suffer from a mysterious syndrome. Patients gradually lose their ability to regenerate body tissue, their muscles waste and their skin loses elasticity. They become infertile, and most report a reduced sex-drive....

Victors' justice: John Laughland says that the trial of Slobodan Milosevic has been rigged to justify Nato's war against Serbia.
February 9, 2002... WHATEVER the outcome of the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, which begins on 12 February and may last for several years, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has already condemned itself. For it is difficult to imagine a...

Second opinion.(marital problems)(Brief Article)
February 9, 2002... LAST week I had my day in -- or perhaps it would be more accurate to say at -- court. As ever, I had to wait for several hours before I was called to give my evidence, but I didn't really mind; the barrister told me to keep the meter ticking....

Ancient & modern.(expertise and critical thinking)(Brief Article)
February 9, 2002... LAST week's column described how, according to the Natural History of the Roman encyclopaedist Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79), the famous 4th-century BC Greek artist Apelles offered a useful subject for next year's Turner-prize entrants -- three...

There was no `burning of the books', just the `shrieks of yesteryear'. (And Another Thing).(social legend concerning public relations notable Will Camp)(Column)
February 9, 2002... The death of Will Camp, the gifted PR man, inventor of the famous High Speed Gas campaign, has given rise to a legend, in the obituaries of him, which ought to be clarified. Will was an exceptionally genial man who radiated good nature, but he...

Let's drop the fascist Caesar and give the middle classes a real challenge. (Shared Opinion).
February 9, 2002... The Royal Shakespeare Company's latest Julius Caesar, just arrived at the Barbican from Stratford, has Caesar as a fascistic dictator. Here we go again. For decades that has been the only Caesar on offer from either of our national,...

The EU project. (Letters).
February 9, 2002... From Mr Edward Spalton Sir: Matthew Parris's perverse anti-Americanism is getting a little tedious (Another voice, 2 February). The Americans are not dictating up to 80 per cent of our domestic legislation -- the EU is. The Americans are...

American betrayals. (Letters).
February 9, 2002... From Mr Henry Keown-Boyd Sir: Although I agree with most of Mark Steyn's article (`How ridiculous can you guys get?', 26 January), I would like to remind him that there have been occasions in the last half-century when a vicious...

Loyal Canada. (Letters).
February 9, 2002... From Dr Paul F. Robinson Sir: Rory O'Keeffe (Letters, 2 February) accuses Mark Steyn of `ridiculous distortions' regarding Canada's military effort in the second world war. He then goes on to make a series of disparaging remarks which...

Beware the zealots. (Letters).
February 9, 2002... From Mr Sam Talbot Rice Sir: I fully understand Theo Hobson's frustrations with the Church of England (`Losing our religion', 2 February) and the cowardly way some of its leaders have acted recently. When they are given space in a public...

Hang on to life. (Letters).
February 9, 2002... From Mr Sam Schulman Sir: Andrew Gimson's expert (`In praise of the health service', 2 February) chose an odd measurement to use when comparing British and US standards for medical treatment: `disability-adjusted life-expectancy (meaning...

Tribal matters. (Letters).
February 9, 2002... From Veronica Bellers Sir: Boris Johnson's article (`Black Africa, white guilt', 2 February) encourages those of us whose families served colonial Africa with dedication and compassion. C.R. Niven, in Nigeria in 1946, wrote: ...

Baffling philosophy. (Letters).
February 9, 2002... From Mr Laurence Goldstein Sir: Edward Smith (Letters, 26 January) cites an amusing but apocryphal attribution to Wittgenstein to the effect that, in the beginning, after God said `Let there be light', there was still nothing, but you...

Australian accounts. (Letters).
February 9, 2002... From Mr Peter Henderson Sir: Peter Oborne (`How Labour courted the money men', 26 January) might be interested to know that the accountancy firm Arthur Andersen is not just facing scrutiny in the UK and the USA. In Australia allegations...

Moses and his horn.
February 9, 2002... From Mr Patrick Moule Sir: You illustrate your review of the exhibition of mediaeval sculpture on page 40 (Arts, 2 February) with a figure which is undoubtedly Moses, not `an Apostle'. He is not only holding the two tablets of stone...

MORI does not mean better: why the Times has decided to stop using the polling organisation. (Media Studies).
February 9, 2002... After many years the Times is parting company with the polling organisation MORI. The divorce has not yet been made public, but a MORI poll last week could be the last the company does for the newspaper. According to insiders, some senior...

Buying to let -- it's our latest idea of a painless way to make money. (City And Suburban).(Brief Article)
February 9, 2002... Every so often, greed triumphs over fear, and otherwise sensible citizens persuade themselves that they have discovered a painless new way to make money. Then they invest in champagne, or start up a website, or sell costume jewellery and...

Isadora: the Sensational Life of Isadora Duncan. (Books: dancing to greet the new dawn).
February 9, 2002... ISADORA: THE SENSATIONAL LIFE OF ISADORA DUNCAN by Peter Kurth Little, Brown, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 652, ISBN 0316854352 Although she lived well into the era of silent movies, there are no filmed images of Isadora Duncan in motion....

Savage Girls and Wild Boys: a History of Feral Children. (Books: nature without nurture).
February 9, 2002... SAVAGE GIRLS AND WILD BOYS: A HISTORY OF FERAL CHILDREN by Michael Newton Faber, 12.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 192, ISBN 0571201393 Here in fact are two subjects which evoke similar responses. On the one hand are those grotesquely abused...

Best Sermons Ever. (Books: the wit, wisdom and passion of the pulpit).
February 9, 2002... BEST SERMONS EVER selected by Christopher Howse Continuum, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 201, ISBN 0826456855 Christopher Howse reckons that there is a contemporary hunger for real spiritual food, there being a dearth of appropriate sermons....

Rumours of a Hurricane. (Books: a figure of little fun).
February 9, 2002... RUMOURS OF A HURRICANE by Tim Lott Viking, 14.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 378, ISBN 0670886610 Tim Lott's second novel (its predecessor won the Whitbread First Novel Award) ends with a dying man who has tumbled drunkenly into the path of a...