Spectator articles from March 2007

Spectator archives from March 2007

Eye-catching inanities.
March 3, 2007... To adapt Macaulay, there is no spectacle so ridiculous as the Labour party in one of its periodic fits of ideology. While the heir-presumptive, Gordon Brown, has remained in old-fashioned purdah about his plans as prime minister, the jostling...

DIARY.(Diary entry)
March 3, 2007... For years, one of the highlights of the Oscar season was the starcrammed party that ber-agent Irving 'Swifty' Lazar threw first at the Bistro in Beverly Hills and later at Spago in Hollywood. Invitations to this party were the most coveted of...

As Livingstone reverts to type, the Tories look at London with justified ambition.(Ken Livingstone)
March 3, 2007... Say what you like about Ken Livingstone, you can't accuse him of failing to spot a political opportunity. When the position of mayor of London was created in 2000, other possible contenders turned up their noses, saying its powers, finances and...

DIARY OF A NOTTING HILL NOBODY.(Diary entry)
March 3, 2007... MONDAY I know I should be excited about the move to Millbank - historic landslide here we come! - but I'd just got my desk next to Jed's office. It's taken months of 'edging' at rate of one centimetre a day. Now I'll have to start all...

THE SPECTATOR'S NOTES.
March 3, 2007... One must keep repeating that the bicentenary being celebrated this year is of the abolition of the slave trade by Britain. From the amount of breast-beating, you would think that it was 200 years since the trade got going. There is huge...

Not a boot on a face, but a foot in the door: Big Brother is coming.
March 3, 2007... Two weeks ago, Tony Blair told the road-toll petitioners by email that his government was not trying to impose 'Big Brother surveillance'. That was accurate, if disingenuous. The real Big Brother doesn't announce himself. He comes creeping up...

The best joke of the lot is that Rory Bremner is to blame for the cynicism.
March 3, 2007... Itis always cheering to encounter a politician who refuses to offer up the easy answer to challenging questions but instead delves beneath the surface and, with candour, delivers himself of an opinion which runs counter to the popularly held...

Lord Jellicoe.(George Jellicoe)(Obituary)
March 3, 2007... George Jellicoe, who died last week, was an early member of David Stirling's SAS, and soon became commander of the Special Boat Service. We first met in pitch darkness soon after midnight on 24 June 1942 in a cove off southern Crete, both of us...

America: you'll miss it when it's gone.(Essay)
March 3, 2007... Don't say Tony Blair didn't warn you that you won't like a world in which America has decided to become a self-centred spectator rather than a player. That day seems to be approaching, a response to the self-indulgent antiAmericanism that...

The Clunking Fist: an Opera for Brown's Last Budget.(Gordon Brown)
March 3, 2007... Britain doesn't do Lord High Executioners, but if it did, Gordon Brown would probably be the best in the world. The prospect of the Chancellor in this role occurred to me while listening again to Gilbert & Sullivan's masterful satire, The...

Meacher: why Spectator readers should vote for me.(Essay)
March 3, 2007... A leadership election opens up, uniquely, the opportunity to debate and decide on the future course of a government. I am standing because I believe there are several areas of policy where a fundamental change of direction is now needed. And...

Don't blame the website.(Letter to the editor)
March 3, 2007... From Malcolm Gooderham Sir: Your leading article of 24 February misses a fundamental point. Notably, the epetition initiative has helped to breathe new life into the body politic, and has put No. 10 at the heart of key debates and in touch with...

Raised in the USSR.(Letter to the editor)
March 3, 2007... From Jana Edmunds Sir: Your leading article 'A nation of babysitters' (17 February) hinted at a truth behind the problem faced by Britain in relation to childcare. I was a teenage mum, and became a single parent aged 22, living on benefit in...

The wrong metre.(Letter to the editor)
March 3, 2007... From George Simmers Sir: Auden's 'Letter to Lord Byron' is not written in 'the stanza form of Byron's Don Juan' as Grey Gowrie believes (Books, 24 February). Byron used ottava rima (rhyming abababcc), whereas Auden chose the sevenline rime...

It's not cricket.(Letter to the editor)
March 3, 2007... From Richard Mernane Sir: It is a pity that Leo McKinstry, whose writing I find unfailingly compelling, should choose to celebrate the forthcoming World Cup by taking a swipe at the MCC and some of its grandees (The Connoisseurs' Guide to the...

The Diving Logos.(Letter to the editor)
March 3, 2007... From Paul Johnson Sir: I was unable to see a proof of my essay on crocodiles, and two misprints emerged in consequence. Lepidus in Antony and Cleopatra appeared as 'Lefridus' and the Divine Logos was printed as 'the Diving Logos'. I realise...

In a Swedish log cabin, I grasped the core truth about New Labour.(Essay)
March 3, 2007... A log cabin by a frozen lake in the snowy fastness of central Sweden is a good place to contemplate the future of Blairite third-way politics. Scandinavia has some claim to be the spiritual home of social democracy and, though we on the Right...

Barclays' new head gardener.(Marcus Agius)
March 3, 2007... Marcus Agius was strolling round his Hampshire garden last summer when a headhunter rang to inquire if he would consider becoming chairman of Barclays Bank. 'It took me a nanosecond to say yes, ' says Agius. 'Barclays is a great brand and I...

America's Goldilocks economy.
March 3, 2007... When Goldilocks broke into the three bears' house and stole their breakfast, she found Baby Bear's porridge to be just right - neither too hot nor too cold. The same is true of today's 'Goldilocks' American economy: it is growing neither too...

The wonders of modern concrete.(Lafarge cement )
March 3, 2007... 'Look! Concrete!' Bruno Lafont crashes his fist on the table. 'You could put 30 tonnes on top of this table and it wouldn't break. Tougher than steel!' The table doesn't look like concrete at all. The top is only a centimetre thick. The...

The row about private equity is mostly the Labour party arguing with itself.(Essay)
March 3, 2007... The current row about private equity seems to me to have much more to do with the flexing of union muscles in anticipation of a return to influence under Gordon Brown than it has to do with efficiency and fairness in the use of capital. The GMB...

Bouncy castles in Spain.(Beaumarchais in Seville: An Intermezzo)(Book review)
March 3, 2007... BEAUMARCHAIS IN SEVILLE : AN INTERMEZZO by Hugh Thomas Yale, [pounds sterling]16, pp. 192, ISBN 9780300121032 Hugh Thomas is widely known as the author of scholarly blockbusters 1,000 pages long. He now excels in what he calls an...

More Angry Young Men.(Babylon's Burning)(Book review)
March 3, 2007... BABYLON'S BURNING by Clinton Heylin Viking, [pounds sterling]20, pp. 694, ISBN 9780670916061 . [pounds sterling]16 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Clinton Heylin is a celebrated Bob Dylan expert, which makes his subsequent...

An ever-present absence.(Over)(Book review)
March 3, 2007... OVER by Margaret Forster Chatto, [pounds sterling]16.99, pp. 200, ISBN 9780701181253 . [pounds sterling]13.59 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 It is a curious phenomenon of the modern novel that so many writers entrust their...

A driving sense of duty.(George III: America's Last King)(Book review)
March 3, 2007... GEORGE III: A MERICA'S LAST KING by Jeremy Black Yale, [pounds sterling]25, pp. 475, ISBN 0300117329 The American Revolution is the gorilla in the corner of the room. Some used to pretend that it was safely dead, merely a stuffed...

Desperate, but not tragic.(Disturbing the Peace)(A Good School)(Book review)
March 3, 2007... DISTURBING THE PEACE by Richard Yates Methuen, [pounds sterling]7.99, pp. 253, ISBN 0413776204 . [pounds sterling]6.39 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 A GOOD SCHOOL by Richard Yates Methuen, [pounds sterling]7.99, pp. 169,...

Divide and rule.(Markham Thorpe)(Book review)
March 3, 2007... MARKHAM THORPE by Giles Waterfield Headline, [pounds sterling]17.99, pp. 280, ISBN 0755329694 Victoriana is unleashed in Giles Waterfield's third novel, an upstairs-downstairs drama upholstered in period detail, of which he is a meticulous...

Behind protective glass.(Ten Days in the Hills)(Book review)
March 3, 2007... TEN DAYS IN THE HILLS by Jane Smiley Faber, [pounds sterling]16.99, pp. 449, ISBN 9780571235339 . [pounds sterling]13.59 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Jane Smiley suffered a period of writer's block after 9/11. In the...

Colourful rogues' gallery.(Stealing the Scream)(Book review)
March 3, 2007... STEALING THE SCREAM by Edward Dolnick Icon Books, [pounds sterling]12.99, pp. 270, ISBN 9781840467925 . [pounds sterling]10.39 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Munch's 'The Scream' was stolen from the National Gallery in Oslo...

Out of joint.(T.S. Eliot)(Book review)
March 3, 2007... T. S. ELIOT by Craig Raine OUP, [pounds sterling]12.99, pp. 202, ISBN 97805309935 . [pounds sterling]10.39 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 At a Clapham dinner party recently I was offered marijuana. Nothing unusual in that,...

Repayment in full.(The Bill from My Father)(Book review)
March 3, 2007... THE BILL FROM MY FATHER by Bernard Cooper Picador, [pounds sterling]12.99, pp. 240, ISBN 9780330447393 . [pounds sterling]10.39 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Edward Cooper, the father referred to in the title, was a...

The poetry of panic.(Notebooks: Tennessee Williams)(Book review)
March 3, 2007... NOTEBOOKS : TENNESSEE WILLIAMS edited by Margaret Bradham Thornton Yale, [pounds sterling]27.50, pp. 828, ISBN 9780300116823 . [pounds sterling]00.00 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Tenn - as friends and sycophants called him...

Not quite as we like it.(What You Will)(Book review)
March 3, 2007... WHAT YOU WILL by Katherine Bucknell Fourth Estate, [pounds sterling]14.99, pp. 341, ISBN 9780007225101 . [pounds sterling]00.00 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 'What you will' has a Shakespearean ring to it. It is, after...

First person singular.(narrative style)(Critical essay)
March 3, 2007... The young Evelyn Waugh, it's said, once declared in a newspaper article that the writing of novels in the first person was a contemptible practice. One would like to think he gave his reasons, but, according to Somerset Maugham, 'he threw out...

Timeless, intangible, spiritual.(Essay)
March 3, 2007... Were I ever to be placed in the position of castaway on Desert Island Discs - an unlikely possibility given the diminished status of serious classical music criticism in the media world at large - there would be a good chance that my eight...

The squinter triumphs.("Guercino: Mind to Paper," Courtauld Institute, Somerset House)(Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
March 3, 2007... Guercino: Mind to Paper Courtauld Institute, Somerset House, until 13 May To be called 'the squinter', which is what 'il Guercino' means, might not seem an auspicious nickname for an artist, but it doesn't appear to have stood in the way...

Saint for all ages.("St Nicholas: Artistic Splendours of East and West," Castello Svevo, Bari, Italy)
March 3, 2007... St Nicholas: Artistic Splendours of East and West Castello Svevo, Bari, until 6 May 'His clothes are drenched in brine, his beard drips with seawater, and his brow is covered in perspiration due to his continual efforts to reach sinking...

Glower power.(The Illusionist)(Movie review)
March 3, 2007... The Illusionist PG, selected cinemas The Illusionist is one of those films that gains points for trying to be clever and different and ingenious but then promptly loses them all for being not clever or different or ingenious enough. It's...

All that jazz.(jazz radio)
March 3, 2007... Jerry Garcia once compared his band the Grateful Dead to liquorice. As with the pitch-black confectionery, you either loved them or loathed them, he said. It was impossible to feel merely neutral. I adore the Dead, and have a corresponding...

Pyrotechnic display.(The Excursions of Mr Broucek)(Opera review)
March 3, 2007... The Excursions of Mr Broucek Barbican Sunday evening at the Barbican was a revelation, no less gushy word will do. Janacek's comic opera The Excursions of Mr Broucek is the Cinderella in his operatic output, if you don't count the very...

Hectic romp.(The Bull, Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre)(Theater review)
March 3, 2007... The Bull Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, Barbican Michael Keegan-Dolan is to danceutheatre what radical and elusive Banksy is to the visual arts. Indeed, these two acclaimed bad boys of modernday culture have a great deal in common; both derive...

Freedom fighter.
March 3, 2007... Melvyn Bragg stirred up quite a controversy last week by devoting his weekly In Our Time programme (Radio Four) to the anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce. Or, rather, by making the extravagant claim that here is 'a man who had...

Man with a mission.
March 3, 2007... I used to write a few political profiles in my time, and the one thing I always hoped was that the subject would refuse to co-operate. You had to offer to interview them, naturally, otherwise there might be legal difficulties. But you prayed...

Bustle and happiness.
March 3, 2007... Newmarket it isn't. Forget clipped hedges, purring security gates and decorated dovecotes. At Gary Moore's yard in Woodingdean there isn't even a name over the stables the other side of the road from the ten-furlong start on Brighton's...

Cold War hero.
March 3, 2007... Gstaad Margaret MacMillan's new book, Nixon and Mao, brought back pleasant memories. It was February 1972, and I'd just returned to Saigon from Phu Bai and Hue in the north, where I was reporting for National Review. I was eager to get...

Thrilled and appalled.(Bluewater shopping mall )
March 3, 2007... For the six weeks that I was in Las Apujarras, I bought provisions from the backs of rural delivery vans. The arrival of one of these vans, one for bread, another for fresh fish, another for fruit and veg, was the most exciting thing that ever...

Righteous anger.(Peak Park Planning Authority case against mining)
March 3, 2007... By the time that I arrived - a good half-hour before the public inquiry was scheduled to begin - there was hardly a seat left unoccupied. The people of Calver, and their allies from the surrounding villages, had turned out in force to support...

RESTAURANTS.(Ottolenghi)(Restaurant review)
March 3, 2007... My mother and my father and my partner and I go to the Almeida Theatre in Islington to see There Came A Gypsy Rising (excellent - I do love a rising gypsy! ) and then it's over the road to Ottolenghi on Upper Street. Ottolenghi had been my...

Lords and the ring.(signet rings and social status)(Essay)
March 3, 2007... There are many things I covet. There are in fact, few things I don't desire except herpes, dental work sans anaesthetic, and pictures by - or indeed of - Rolf Harris. I want a loft apartment, an Yves Klein sponge, a signet ring and a...

A perfect 12?(swimwear)
March 3, 2007... Just when the size-zero debate was threatening for the first time in ages to stop picture editors from filling pages with six-foot stick-insects, all of whom claimed to have horse-sized appetites, and who all wolfed chips and bread-and-butter...

Good vinebrations.(New Zealand wine country)
March 3, 2007... Bicycles and wine, on paper at least, do not make the best partners. Wasn't it Virgil who said that good vines love open hills? Well bikes, in my experience, are considerably less keen on them. So how my girlfriend convinced me that our...

HOTEL OF THE WEEK.(The Lodge at Tikana)(Black Barn)(Directory)(Brief article)
March 3, 2007... THE LODGE AT TIKANA 374 Livingstone Road, Browns, RD1 Winton, Southland, New Zealand Phone/fax: +64 3 236 4117 Email: info@tikana. co. nz www. tikana. co. nz BLACK BARN Black Barn Vineyards, Black Barn Road, RD12 Havelock North, Hawke's...

Home advantage.(European Champions' Cup)
March 3, 2007... By next Wednesday evening, uniquely, five British clubs could be in the last eight of the European Champions' Cup. There is still, as they say, a lot of football to be played, but I suppose even the possibility remains testament to the strength...

Climate of opinion.
March 10, 2007... The government has declared the scientific debate on global warming 'closed'. A dwindling minority of scientists still contest that claim, but let us assume, for the sake of argument, that ministers are right. The trap into which they risk...

DIARY.(1807 Abolition of the Slave Trade Act)
March 10, 2007... William Wilberforce is about to hit cinemas as the Great White Emancipationist Hero in Amazing Grace. Wilberforce was a decent guy. We all need heroes; but let's be clear, this is not, as it claims, 'The True Story'. Ioan Gruffudd strides...

A party talking to itself: this is what Labour risks becoming after Blair.(Labour Party, Tony Blair)
March 10, 2007... Will the Labour party go bonkers after Blair? I only ask because the early signs are worrying - or reassuring - depending what view you take of these things. To judge by the attitudes and prejudices manifesting themselves in the transition from...

THE SPECTATOR'S NOTES.
March 10, 2007... When I employed him at the Daily Telegraph, I found John Kampfner, now the editor of the New Statesman, a pleasant and able man. But his recent conduct towards one of his writers deserves a passage in the annals of editorial eccentricity. Nick...

DIARY OF A NOTTING HILL NOBODY.(Diary entry)
March 10, 2007... MONDAY Off to New York with Dave and DD next week! Am working flat out on preps. First priority: which hotel? It's the Four Seasons versus Soho House. While East 57th Street says 'statesmen-in-waiting', the Meatpacking District says 'modern,...

Shall we tell the Prime Minister? His gang has scattered like rats.(Prime Minister Tony Blair)
March 10, 2007... Only a few months into the protracted loans-for-honours investigation, the Metropolitan Police noticed something amiss. The No. 10 Downing Street officials they had interviewed seemed suspiciously well-prepared, almost as if they had an inside...

If Bush is a man of his word, he will pardon Libby.(President George W. Bush; Scooter Libby)
March 10, 2007... It is hard to imagine how things could be worse for the Bush administration. Sixty-three per cent of Americans disapprove of the job the President is doing. The shameful state of veterans' healthcare has just been exposed. A row over the firing...

Red Nose Day is a bullying smugfest for a nation of cretins.(Essay)
March 10, 2007... Next week, your sides will be split. You will be overcome by a tsunami of hilarity, almost certainly involving the Vicar of Dibley, Billy Connolly, Ant and Dec and Rowan Atkinson's famous, gurning Mr Bean. Not only that, but the most irritating...

The ultimate reader offer:buy our old offices.
March 10, 2007... 'A unique opportunity to purchase the home of a famous weekly magazine.' Thus might an estate agent market No. 56 Doughty Street, London WC1, now up for sale after more than 30 years as the offices of The Spectator. But an estate agent cannot...

John Yates has previous - with the royal family.(Scotland Yard's Assistant Commissioner John Yates, political corruption)
March 10, 2007... When I was a young reporter on the London Evening Standard nearly 40 years ago I spent a lot of time in the press room at Scotland Yard, not learning very much. By some mysterious process of osmosis between detectives and the leading crime...

Ancient & modern.
March 10, 2007... Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran - how intelligently is the West, especially America, handling the East? The Romans may have something to say on the matter. When the Romans took on Carthage in the two Punic wars for mastery of the western...

Nothing to fear?(Letter to the editor)
March 10, 2007... Sir: I rather enjoyed reading Tessa Mayes's anxious tirade about the imminent arrival of Big Brother ('Big Brother is coming', 3 March), although perhaps not for reasons of which she would approve. During my 88 years of life so far (in at least...

Iraq, not nuts.(Letter to the editor)
March 10, 2007... Sir: It is a joy to be mentioned by the magnificent Taki (High life, 3 March) - even if only for my peanut-eating in Saigon in 1972. Alas, I still do like nuts, whereas I know that Taki's taste in everything is more sophisticated. He is...

Jazz without the chat.(Letter to the editor)
March 10, 2007... Sir: I am grateful to Charles Spencer for drawing my attention to the Jazz radio station (Arts, 3 March). If his worst fears are realised about it descending towards a jazz version of Classic FM, he should head for the Parisian station TSF...

In the zone.(Letter to the editor)
March 10, 2007... Sir: A normally reliable friend of mine who lives in Kensington tells me that, contrary to what Anthony Browne suggests (Politics, 3 March), she and her well-heeled fellow residents have benefited enormously from the enlargement of the...

Isolationism is not an option.(Letter to the editor)
March 10, 2007... Sir: In 'America: you'll miss it when it's gone' (3 March) Irwin Stelzer gives a fair imitation of a rejected child picking up his toys and leaving the nursery. The truth, as a wise commentator like Mr Stelzer must know, is that isolationism is...

Let's all laugh at Brown.(Letter to the editor)
March 10, 2007... Sir: Congratulations to Jeff Randall for his cutting satirical rendition of Ko-Ko's 'Little List' ('The Clunking Fist', 3 March). This Chancellor and the rest of the Downing Street crew have surely committed enough crimes to have kept Gilbert...

Pipeline politics is the new Great Game.(petroleum and gas supply)
March 10, 2007... 'We're always told that Russia is using its economic resources to achieve foreign policy aims, ' President Putin told journalists recently. But, he went on, it is 'ill-wishers' in the Western press who paint Russia as a threat to European...

The OFT's recipe for fecklessness.(Office of Fair Trading )
March 10, 2007... Next month the Office of Fair Trading will produce its longawaited report into parking fines. It is expected to rule that charging motorists [pounds sterling]60 for overstaying their welcome at a parking meter is unfair, and that in future...

The shipwreck of the last buccaneer.(James B. Sherwood)
March 10, 2007... Before the number-crunchers of private equity and the hedgefund world took control, the City was dominated by a pretty rough gang. Predatory tycoons such as Lords Hanson and White, Tiny Rowland of Lonrho and Sir Nigel Broakes of Trafalgar House...

War has already been declared in Iran - between Coca-Cola and the theocrats.
March 10, 2007... The Shah is Dead. Long live the Shah - and I don't mean Reza Pahlavi, the 45-year-old pretender to his late father's Peacock Throne, whom many in Washington would like to install atop this most vexatious nation. The way things are going...

Sick heart river.(Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer)(Book review)
March 10, 2007... STANLEY : THE IMPOSSIBLE LIFE OF AFRICA'S GREATEST EXPLORER by Tim Jeal Faber, [pounds sterling]25, pp. 545, ISBN 9780571221028 Love can drive a man to his grandeur. H. M. Stanley, greatest of all of Africa's explorers - let us agree with...

Much jostling in the street.(Burning Bright)(Book review)
March 10, 2007... BURNING BRIGHT by Tracy Chevalier HarperCollins, [pounds sterling]15.99, pp. 390, ISBN 9780007178353 . [pounds sterling]12.79 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Early in 1792 the simple Kellaway family make their way from...

Guilt and defiance.(That Neutral Island)(Book review)
March 10, 2007... THAT NEUTRAL ISLAND by Clair Wills Faber, [pounds sterling]25, pp. 502, ISBN 9780571221059 It will be news to nobody that England (or 'the Crown') and Ireland had been in a state of mutual incomprehension since the time of the first...

Brutal, bankrupt Burma.(The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma)(Book review)
March 10, 2007... THE RIVER OF LOST FOOTSTEPS : HISTORIES OF BURMA by Thant Myint-U Faber, [pounds sterling]20, pp. 361, ISBN 9780571217557 . [pounds sterling]16 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Thant Myint-U has a special perspective on the...

A kinder, gentler sociopath.(Ask the Parrot)(Book review)
March 10, 2007... ASK THE PARROT by Richard Stark Quercus, [pounds sterling]10, pp. 352, ISBN 9781847240392 Richard Stark's Parker first appeared in 1962, in The Hunter. Double-crossed and left for dead by his partner and his wife after a robbery, Parker...

Right, if incorrect.(How to be Right)(Book review)
March 10, 2007... HOW TO BE RIGHT by James Delingpole Headline Review, [pounds sterling]12.99, pp. 182, ISBN 9780755315901 . [pounds sterling]13.59 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 You have to admire boldness in a writer. It's actually a rare...

The human commodity.(Yo, Blair!)(Book review)
March 10, 2007... YO, BLAIR ! by Geoffrey Wheatcroft Politico's, [pounds sterling]9.99, pp. 154, ISBN 9781842732067 . [pounds sterling]7.99 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Have two words ever said so much? President Bush's unforgettable...

Galatea with feet of clay.(Book review)
March 10, 2007... HAZLITT IN LOVE by Jon Cook Short Books, [pounds sterling]12.99, pp. 214, ISBN 9781904977407 . [pounds sterling]10.39 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 William Hazlitt - sometime painter and philosopher, friend of Keats,...

Too little, too late.(Book review)
March 10, 2007... A CURIOUS EARTH by Gerard Woodward Chatto, [pounds sterling]12.99, pp. 290, ISBN 9780701179083 . [pounds sterling]10.39 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Aldous Jones, the hero of Gerard Woodward's heroically odd third novel,...

Wilful wishful thinking.(Book review)
March 10, 2007... THE CHINA FANTASY : HOW OUR LEADERS EXPLAIN AWAY CHINESE REPRESSION by James Mann Viking, $19.95, pp. 127, ISBN 9780670038251 Here is a first-hand China Fantasy story: a few years ago, as Beijing was about to announce the names of China's...