Spectator articles from March 2008

Spectator archives from March 2008

Order, order.(on Michael Martin)
March 1, 2008... The Speakership of the House of Commons has been aptly described as 'the linchpin of the whole chariot'. This is why the lamentable conduct of Michael Martin, who has occupied the Speaker's Chair since 2000, is more than just another...

Diary.(on the Academy Awards)
March 1, 2008... We woke up early on Oscar morning to see the hills of Hollywood wreathed in fog, clouds and spitting rain. I shivered in the unseasonable freezing weather. 'Should be fun on the red carpet this afternoon,' I said to Percy. Turning on E! channel...

The Spectator's notes.
March 1, 2008... This is what Stubbs's Constitutional History of England says: 'That individual members should not be called to account for their behaviour in Parliament, or for words there spoken, by any authority external to the house in which the offence was...

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody.
March 1, 2008... MONDAY Thank goodness I keep a diary. I want to put on record here so that future generations of Lightwaters can see that it was my idea to have Our Leader encounter a great white 'shark' while surfing in South Africa! Moreover I picked...

Made in Sweden: the new Tory education revolution: Fraser Nelson reports on the radical Swedish system of independent state schools, financed by vouchers, that has transformed the country's education performance and is now inspiring the Conservative party's dramatic blueprint for British schools: to set them free.(Cover story)
March 1, 2008... Stockholm This summer, at least 25,000 children will drop out of English schools without a single qualification to show for their years of compulsory education. Some 240,000 will graduate from primary school unable to read or write...

Flash Gordon.
March 1, 2008... Only Gordon has trouble sleeping...

The real tributaries of Enoch's 'rivers of blood': forty years after the notorious speech, Robert Shepherd explores its origins--Powell's fear of Indian 'communalism' and his views on the US race riots.
March 1, 2008... What was in Enoch Powell's mind when he made his explosive 'rivers of blood' speech on immigration 40 years ago this spring? His repetition of wild allegations against immigrants made by his constituents and his apocalyptic warnings of bloody...

Charlie does surf. Meet the new wizard of the web: Charles Leadbeater tells Matthew d'Ancona about the riches to be mined from online collaboration--and says that the Conservatives have a chance to launch a new form of politics.(LIDDLE BRITAIN)(Interview)
March 1, 2008... The man who brought you Bridget Jones is, you might think, an unlikely guide to the deeper philosophical and cultural meaning of the web. But, as he sips his tea in the kitchen of his Highbury mews home, Charles Leadbeater makes an extremely...

Boris's most brilliant wheeze to date was the letter to the Guardian attacking him: Rod Liddle salutes the genius of the Tory mayoral candidate in sending a spoof petition condemning himself and praising Livingstone to the skies to the Left's in-house newspaper.(Boris Johnson, Ken Livingstone)
March 1, 2008... The battle to become Mayor of London is getting dirty. Someone from Boris Johnson's campaign team--or maybe Boris himself--put a hilarious spoof letter in the Guardian this week. It purported to be from 100 'academics', luvvies, lesbians and...

Mind your language.(the Borromean Index)
March 1, 2008... My husband went to a medical conference, paid for by a pharmaceutical company, in Padua, where the university has been teaching medicine since the 14th century. So I went too and popped over to Venice, taking with me Mrs Ruskin. I mean...

[IQ.sup.2] goes back to school.(intelligence squared, school segregation)
March 1, 2008... Intelligence Squared squared up to intelligence last Tuesday. How do we get the best from our brightest youngsters while not chucking the dimwits on to the educational scrapheap? Chris Woodhead, former chief inspector of schools, proposed the...

Rip up Blairism by the roots.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... Sir: Michael Gove (Politics, 23 February) gives a eulogy to Tony Blair, 'I admired Tony Blair. I knew Tony Blair'. I had hoped that David Cameron's claim to be 'the heir to Blair' was just a silly mistake springing from inexperience. It is...

Our own enemy.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... Sir: Douglas Murray's description ('A scholar who dares to look terror in the face', 23 February) of the terrorist mentality is spot-on: 'narcissism, widely misconceived altruism, youth, envy, mental and sexual dysfunctionalism, will to...

Cui bono?(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... Sir: Hugo Rifkind's conspiracy theory (Shared opinion, 23 February) about Diana's death has the merit of reasonableness, compared with the Al Fayed craziness. But it is a bit too complicated. I have a much simpler one: it was organised by...

Score one for Toscanini.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... Sir: Paul Johnson (And another thing, 16 February) might be amused at this delightful vignette about Toscanini's genius. An out-oftown visitor to Milan was enticed by a poster announcing that Toscanini would conduct that night's opera entirely...

Substance abuse.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... Sir: I looked up Venetia Thompson on Google and was not surprised to see, given the lack of any evidence or other proof offered in support of her comments about white men and Obama ('Obama is a modern-day Othello', 23 February), that she does...

Celtic cringe.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... Sir: Molly Watson (Style & travel, 23 February) begins by saying 'Dylan Thomas used to say that a day away from Wales was a day wasted.' Was this the same Dylan Thomas who said 'Wales is the Land of my Fathers. And my fathers can have it'?...

The truth about the Auschwitz 'gimmick' row is that Labour exploited Jewish sensitivities.(ANOTHER VOICE)
March 1, 2008... David Cameron, said the Times last Saturday, 'was facing intense political criticism last night after including student "trips to Auschwitz" on a list of government gimmicks.' The Daily Mail was more shrill: 'Pressure was piling on David...

Ten perfect poems and one little brown man.(AND ANOTHER THING)
March 1, 2008... It is said that when the British public is asked, 'What is your favourite poem?', the one chosen by most people is Kipling's 'If'. Is there any evidence for this? And is it still true? And what would the Americans choose? Walt Whitman's...

Whatever happened to Sir Richard Evans? Eric Ellis tracks down the former chairman of BAE Systems amid the wintry steppes of Kazakhstan, where he is trying to introduce Western notions of corporate governance.(BUSINESS)(Interview)
March 1, 2008... I had read--admittedly in the Guardian--that one needed to count one's fingers after shaking hands with Dick Evans. Anecdotes about the super-salesman who secured UK plc's biggest and most controversial contract, the $80 billion Al-Yamamah arms...

Darling has offered an incentive for chicanery: George Trefgarne argues that nationalisation undermines fundamental principles of honesty and trust in banking.(NORTHERN ROCK)(Essay)
March 1, 2008... Imagine the scene at around 10 p.m. last Thursday night in the private apartments at Buckingham Palace. It could well have been past normal bedtime for the Queen and Prince Philip, but they were sitting up--perhaps aided by a scotch and water...

Small elephant at Dove Cottage.(The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... THE BALLAD OF DOROTHY WORDSWORTH by Frances Wilson Faber, 16.99[pounds sterling], pp. 267, ISBN 97805771230471 [tel] 13.59[pounds sterling] (plus 2.45[pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 This is a lively contribution to that...

Plunging into the hurly-burly.(The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... THE REST IS NOISE: LISTENING TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY by Alex Ross Fourth Estate, 20[pounds sterling], pp.624, ISBN 9781841154756 [tel] 16[pounds sterling] (plus 2.45[pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 'Avoiding both the...

Thom Gunn.(Poem)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Thom Gunn We set out to explore the poison root, To etch the brain with new cartography, The harbour-glitter and the wine-dark sea. The only rule was endless latitude. Let the unready falter and retire--We...

Power to the people.(God's Fury, England's Fire)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... GOD'S FURY, ENGLAND'S FIRE by Michael Braddick Allen Lane, 30[pounds sterling], pp. 758, ISBN 9780713996326 [tel] 24[pounds sterling] (plus 2.45[pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 In July, 1642, as the English House of...

The return of Kureishi-man.(Something to Tell You by Hanif Kureishi)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... SOMETHING TO TELL YOU by Hanif Kureishi Faber, 15.99[pounds sterling], pp. 344, ISBN 9760571209774 [tel] 12.79[pounds sterling] (plus 2.45[pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 Anthony Powell always maintained that readers who...

An appeal from beyond the grave.(Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... RECONCILIATION: ISLAM, DEMOCRACY AND THE WEST by Benazir Bhutto Simon & Schuster, 17.99[pounds sterling], pp. 328, ISBN 9781847372734 In 1988 I arrived in Pakistan a few hours after the assassination of Zia ulHuq, the military...

Eye of newt and toe of frog aplenty.(Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... DRY STORE ROOM NO. 1: THE SECRET LIFE OF THE NATURAL HI STORY MUSEUM by Richard Fortey HarperPress, 20[pounds sterling], pp. 352, ISBN 9780007209380 [tel] 16[pounds sterling] (plus 2.45[pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 ...

A time for resolutions.(LIFE & LETTERS)(on reading)
March 1, 2008... In the forthcoming volume of his Smoking Diaries (not out till April, but I've been reading a proof copy) my old friend Simon Gray makes a brave admission. Well, he makes a number of these, but this particular one struck me. 'I haven't read him...

Portrait of a director: Mark Glazebrook talks to Sandy Nairne, who explains why the NPG is part of the life of London.(ARTS)(National Portrait Gallery, England)(Interview)
March 1, 2008... David Piper, director of the National Portrait Gallery 1964-67, was a brilliant historian and museum director who, while writing a book called The English Face, found that there's no such thing. It vanished like the smile on Lewis Carroll's...

Art for the masses.(Alexander Rodchenko: Revolution in Photography)
March 1, 2008... Alexander Rodchenko: Revolution in Photography Hayward Gallery, until 27 April There's a whole separate exhibition in the downstairs galleries of the Hayward. It's called Laughing in a Foreign Language and is supposed to explore the...

Aural danger.(Pop)(on being a music critic)(Personal account)
March 1, 2008... The Guardian had an interesting--and, frankly, terrifying--piece the other day by Nick Coleman, the Independent's long-serving and shamelessly cerebral rock critic. I used to know Nick slightly: we talked drivel on the same radio show for a...

Family at war.(Margot at the Wedding)(Movie review)
March 1, 2008... Margot at the Wedding Nationwide, 15 Margot at the Wedding is one of those unsettling and bothersome films which will bother and unsettle you during, afterwards and possibly for much of the next day, like a flea in the ear. If this is...

Coward tribute.(Brief Encounter, The Homecoming, Under the Eagle)(Theater review)
March 1, 2008... Brief Encounter The Cinema Haymarket The Homecoming Almeida Under the Eagle White Bear Bit of a spoiled brat, the Cinema Haymarket. Can't decide what it wants. Originally built as a theatre, it defected to the movies for many...

Dead end.(Salome)(Opera review)
March 1, 2008... Salome Royal Opera House What is a producer, or, as they more often like to be called these days, director, to do if he is asked to produce/direct a work about which he has no interesting ideas and none comes along during the...

Compare and contrast.(Flight)(Dance review)
March 1, 2008... Flight London Coliseum Ballet galas might be the dream of every spectacle-craving balletomane, but they can easily become a nightmarishly boring series of 'party pieces' if they are not properly organised. Luckily, this is not the...

Seeking redemption.(Television)(The Lady's Not For Spurning, Happy Birthday, Brucie!, Lewis)(Television program review)
March 1, 2008... The Lady's Not For Spurning (BBC4, Monday) was ostensibly about Margaret Thatcher and the baleful influence she had on the Conservative party after 1990. It was actually about Michael Portillo's long quest for redemption. This has been going on...

Wild life.(Radio)(Living World, World on the Move)(Radio program review)
March 1, 2008... Only this column would persuade me to get up at 6.30 on a Sunday morning. Six-thirty! In my other life I pore over the collected works of the 18th-century writer Dr Johnson, who constantly struggled to persuade himself out of bed before noon....

Good guys, bad guys.(High life)
March 1, 2008... An interesting week, to say the least. A Carlton Club speech on multiculturalism which didn't quite come off, a kidnapping in Gstaad, a party in London to celebrate David Tang's knighthood, the mugging of John McCain by the man who committed...

Open for business.(Low life)(drinking alone)
March 1, 2008... I can go for fortnight without a drink--three weeks at a push. After that I begin to feel disconnected. I try to ignore the feeling, hoping it's a symptom of Seasonal Affective Disorder, or the onset of a cold, or overdoing it at the gym. But...

Cut-price torture.(Real life)
March 1, 2008... My favourite television advertisement at the moment is for EDF energy, which promises us that it can make our bills lower. All we have to do is use less gas and electricity. Please, do not snort. I snorted initially. Then a few days later I...

Cheating at food.(The table)(How to Cheat at Cooking)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... 'Ecraser l'infame!' Voltaire proclaimed in his war on corrupt priests and crooked government officials. Delia's Smith's new book How to Cheat at Cooking opens up a whole new field of infamy: the culinary crime. As in 18th-century politics, so...

Pulling a fast one.(Bridge)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Almost all of us are better players in theory than we are in practice; the pressures of the table can lead us to make mistakes we'd never make solving problems on our own. Perhaps the most dangerous situation is where we feel pressurised into...

One man and his winery: Tim Heald takes his place around the Stone Wall Table.(STYLE AND TRAVEL)(Rockford Wines)(Travel narrative)
March 1, 2008... When his father died, Rob O'Callaghan, the maker of Rockford wines in South Australia's Barossa Valley, was mildly surprised to find that several hundred mourners turned out for the funeral. His father had not been a particularly high achiever...

Pleasure boats: Andrew Roberts says cruises are the best way to see the world.(ARMCHAIR TRAVELLER)
March 1, 2008... If ever you want to murder your husband by hitting him over the head with a bottle, always choose champagne. The glass is over twice as thick as normal wine bottles, and so it's unlikely to smash. It is therefore very unfair to criticise the...

Marshall's baton.(CHESS)(Frank Marshall)
March 1, 2008... The Marshall Gambit is named after the American grandmaster Frank Marshall. He introduced it into elite chess in a famous game against the great Capablanca. Sadly, the American's creative experiment foundered on the icy logic of the remorseless...

A life examined.(COMPETITION)(obituaries of fictional characters)
March 1, 2008... In Competition No. 2533 you were invited to submit an obituary of a well-known fictional character, which gave you the opportunity to try your hand at what is an often underrated art. The only fictional character that I am aware of who has been...

1853: proud.(CROSSWORD)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] '5/41/35' (five words in total) is half a proverb minus the first word. Remaining unclued lights are suggested by '41/35'. The first word (5) of the proverb will appear diagonally in the completed grid and must be...

I can't afford to send my children to private school--and I'm relishing the cachet.(STATUS ANXIETY)
March 1, 2008... This morning I received a letter from Norland Place, a much sought-after private school on Holland Park Avenue, informing me that my son Ludo had been awarded a place in September 2009. There was a time when this would have been a cause of...

Ancient & modern.(Gordon Brown and Tiberius)
March 1, 2008... Macavity-like, Brown was never there when he was Chancellor, and rarely seems to be there now he is Prime Minister. When he is, he is always blaming someone else or avoiding the question. This is highly reminiscent of the second Roman emperor...

Money talks in Mumbai.(SPECTATOR SPORT)(auction at the Twenty20 Indian Premier League )
March 1, 2008... With Shilpa Shetty, Lachlan Murdoch, Aussie feist-meister Andrew Symonds and more Indian billionaires than you can shake a stump at, the eye-watering player-auction for the new Twenty20 Indian Premier League (IPL) in Mumbai last week was never...

Dear Mary.(YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED)
March 1, 2008... Q. I suffer from a form of visual Spoonerism (in New College chapel Warden Spooner concluded, 'in the sermon which I have just been preaching, wherever I have said Aristotle I have meant St Paul'). I often recognise a person as somebody...

Their Lordships' duty.(one the role of the House of Lords)
March 8, 2008... One of the most compelling arguments for the existence of the House of Lords is what political scientists, borrowing the language of biologists, call 'redundancy'. We have two eyes and two kidneys in case one malfunctions. In the case of the...

Diary.(being in Mumbai, India)(Travel narrative)
March 8, 2008... Mumbai A city where the children dash from car to car selling novels is the perfect place for a literary festival: on the way from the airport, snaking past shantytowns and catching my first glimpse of the Arabian Sea, I am offered The...

The Tories should fear the dynamic new team of professionals that Brown is assembling.(POLITICS)(Conservative Party, Gordon Brown)
March 8, 2008... It is a story that could have been scripted to boost morale in Conservative headquarters. At five o'clock one morning, security guards at 10 Downing Street were called in to intercept an intruder only to find the Prime Minister trying to enter...

The Spectator's notes.
March 8, 2008... The battle over the evaded referendum on the Lisbon treaty seems to be following the pattern of all European arguments in this country. The pro-integrationists have used the favourite tactic of claiming that it is all a fuss about nothing. The...

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody.
March 8, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] MONDAY Oh dear. We lost the war of Obama buzzwords at the weekend. Now there's an inquest to find out how Gordon managed to get compared to Barack before Dave. I just don't understand it. All that briefing....

No sleep till Denver: Hillary, the unlikely underdog, takes it to the wire: once the shoo-in candidate, Senator Clinton has re-invented herself and forced Obama to bear the heavy burden of frontrunner. This race could go all the way to the convention, says James Forsyth--which will keep a smile on the face of John McCain.(Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama)(Cover story)
March 8, 2008... Cover Story San Antonio, Texas It was meant to be the night that Barack Obama sealed the deal. The presidency seemed almost within his reach. Then, against the odds, like the villain in a horror movie, Hillary came back from the...

Flash Gordon.(Cartoon)
March 8, 2008... In this exclusive photograph you can see how Gordon Brown is investing our money [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

Water, Prozac, management consultants: all completely useless: so many of the things we are told to do are a total waste of time or money, says Rod Liddle, who has just completed a failed two-year course in water-drinking to make him a better person.(LIDDLE BRITAIN)
March 8, 2008... According to one serious front-page newspaper report, all those bones found on the site of that former children's home in Jersey were actually left-over props from an edition of Bergerac. The whole place is taped off, they've had the...

It is not US Marines who should be on trial: the acclaimed film-maker Nick Broomfield reflects on the making of his film on the bloody battle for Haditha, and the reconciliation he witnessed between US soldiers and Iraqis.
March 8, 2008... After 9/11, the United States had the sympathy of the world on its side. Yet as we approach the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, this sympathy and trust has been entirely eroded, and during the making of my film, Battle for Haditha, I...

Global warning.(lynching in Bolivia)
March 8, 2008... It has been shown conclusively that people who listen to the news or read a newspaper at breakfast are more miserable than those who wisely maintain themselves in ignorance. Unfortunately, help for the former is not at hand: one of the main...

If God proved he existed, I still wouldn't believe in him: Martin Rowson just doesn't buy the ideology that comes with God. Even a personal appearance by the Almighty wouldn't do the trick, he says.(Personal account)
March 8, 2008... The syphilitic atheist German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, whose career in philosophy came to a sudden halt when he couldn't stop himself cuddling a carthorse outside St Mark's Basilica in Venice, believed the death of God was an enormity...

Beware the politician posing as a scientist: Christopher Booker squares up to Sir David King, the former Chief Scientist, whose knowledge of chemistry does little to underpin his crusading rhetoric as a green campaigner.(The Hot Topic: How To Tackle Global Warming and Still Keep the Lights on)(Book review)
March 8, 2008... One of the fond delusions of our age is that scientists are a breed apart from ordinary mortals, white-coated custodians of a mystery with authority to pronounce on any scientific issue, however remote it may be from their own field of...

Education revolution.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 8, 2008... Sir: Fraser Nelson ('Made in Sweden', 1 March) is right to highlight the importance of Sweden's independent state schools for the debate on school choice and diversity. The successful Swedish experience strongly influenced New Labour reformers...

Powell unhinged.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 8, 2008... Sir: Robert Shepherd's analysis of the reasons behind Enoch Powell's notorious immigration speech ('The real tributaries of Enoch's "rivers of blood"', 1 March) is fascinating. But there are other more concise explanations. My aunt, Dame Enid...

Moor to the point.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 8, 2008... Sir: I am relieved to know that my concerns about the possibility of a President Obama are due not to any substantive matters but solely to my 'primeval racist fears of the black super-male'. Before reading Venetia Thompson's article...

Disproportionate claims.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 8, 2008... Sir: According to its website, the British-Israel Communications and Research Centre, of which Lorna Fitzsimons is CEO ('Israel is getting ready to invade Gaza', 23 February), is an organisation 'devoted to creating a more supportive...

London calling.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 8, 2008... Sir: Rod Liddle is not only nasty and sexist and silly, he's wrong ('Boris's most brilliant wheeze', 1 March). I'm not in Newcastle upon Tyne and I haven't worked there for years. He could have called me up and I'd have told him where to find...

Magic lines.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 8, 2008... Sir: I find myself going along with most of Paul Johnson's choices (And another thing, 1 March). But there is surely one grievous omission, one total blind spot. Mr Johnson claims Keats is his favourite poet but says that all of his poems are...

Briefs encounter.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 8, 2008... Sir: Tamzin Lightwater writes (1 March) about David Cameron's Vilebrequin swimwear. As any keen follower of political fashion knows, whereas Tony Blair wears Vilebrequins costing 80 [pounds sterling] a pair, Dave wears look-alikes manufactured...

If it's good that Harry was fighting the Taleban, why are we queasy when Israel fights Hamas?(SHARED OPINION)(Prince Harry)
March 8, 2008... Do you reckon they told all the royals? Seriously? All of them? Even the flaky minor ones, like Fergie? Or has she been gossiping with the Countess of Wessex and the bafflingly female Princess Michael of Kent, these past three months, wondering...

A golden rail-pass in the fob is a perk worth having.(AND ANOTHER THING)
March 8, 2008... There are certain words, carrying overtones of money and privilege, which stir up strong emotions. One is 'private income'. 'What's held me back,' says Uncle Giles in The Music of Time, 'is that I've never had a private income.' J.B. Priestley...

New oil giants rise in Gandhi's native land: Richard Orange visits the Mahatma's stony homeland in north-west India--and finds local tycoons competing to build oil refineries that will dwarf capacity in Europe.(BUSINESS)
March 8, 2008... Gazing out over India's Gulf of Kutch from the small jetty owned by Essar Oil, you would hardly think you were witnessing the birth of one of the world's new industrial heartlands. Placid turquoise waters stretch out to the low landmass...

Leadership lessons from Beowulf.(THE WORLD OF WORK)
March 8, 2008... Chief executives under pressure in these gruelling times should sneak out, or stay in, to watch Beowulf, the 2007 film starring Ray Winstone and Angelina Jolie that has just been released on DVD. They could learn what it is to be a really great...

What scrapes ice, picks locks, tempts shoppers--and bolsters shaken banks?(ANY OTHER BUSINESS)(One Night Only)
March 8, 2008... 'Sexual intercourse began in 1963,' wrote Philip Larkin; consumer debt, with similar connotations of gratification and regret, began in Britain three years later with the launch of Barclaycard, based on the model of the world's first...

The downfall of a pessimist.(George Gissing: A Life)(Book review)
March 8, 2008... GEORGE GISSING: A LIFE by Paul Delaney Weidenfeld, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 472, ISBN 9780297852124 [tel] 20 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 In some moods, I would rather read George Gissing...

A tough assignment.(The Wildest Province: SOE in the Land of the Eagle)(Book review)
March 8, 2008... THE WILDEST PROVINCE: SOE IN THE LAND OF THE EAGLE by Roderick Bailey Cape, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 405, ISBN 9780224079167 [tel] 20 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 Albania is small and...

Hazy like foothills.(Last Poems)(Book review)
March 8, 2008... LAST POEMS by James Michie Oldie Publications, 9.99 [pounds sterling] inc p&p (UK only) Tel: 01795 592 893117, ISBN 978 0 9548176 4 0X As life-expectancy seems to grow longer by the minute, as it were--at least in our part of the...

Remembering Anthony Blond.(In memoriam)
March 8, 2008... The publisher Gerard Noel pays tribute to his friend and author who died last week at the age of 79 One Friday evening in the early 1980s two brand-new, bright red cars roared up to my house in Gloucestershire. The drivers were Laura and...

Keeping the bear at bay.(Warsaw 1920: Lenin's Failed Conquest of Europe)(Book review)
March 8, 2008... WARSAW 1920: LENIN'S FAILED CONQUEST OF EUROPE by Adam Zamoyski HarperPress, 14.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 160, ISBN 9780007225521 [tel] 1.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 Who would think...

Flights of fancy.(Birds, BB's Birds)(Book review)
March 8, 2008... Birds by Katrina Cook Quercus, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 224, ISBN 9781847241993 [tel] 20 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 BB's Birds edited and introduced by Bryan Holden ...

More down than up.(Taking Pictures)(Book review)
March 8, 2008... TAKING PICTURES by Anne Enright Cape, 12.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 228 ISBN 9780224084697 [tel] 10.39 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 In one of the stories in this collection, a woman whose...

Villanelle.(Poem)(Brief article)
March 8, 2008... Villanelle 'If you can't fight, buy a big house.' Roger McGough You opt for silence, sulk or grouse. The words that hurt can stay unsaid. If you can't fight, buy us all a big house. The philosophy of talking? It's...