ContentsContentsContentsContents the week

Leading article

Portrait of the Week

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Politics Patrick Wintour 8 Diary Tony Hall 9 Dave Michael Heath 11 Mind your language 14 Letters 21 Another voice Matthew Parris 22 Any other business Martin Vander Weyer 24 Ancient & modern 54

Books

Jonathan Mirsky: Murder in the High Himalaya, by Jonathan Green 26

Harriet Sergeant: Butterfly’s Shadow, by Lee Langley 27

Geoffrey Blainey: The Unknown Nation, by James Curran and Stuart Ward 28

Anne Applebaum: Politics and the Novel During the Cold War, by David Caute 29

Simon Carnell: ‘Pier on Fire’: a poem 29

Ian Dunlop: My Bonnie, by John Suchet 30

Andrew Taylor on recent crime novels 30

Mark Mason: The Phantom of the Open, by Scott Murray and Simon Farnaby 31

Arts

Mary Wakefield talks to the actor Toby Stephens 32

Exhibitions: Rude Britannia: British Comic Art Andrew Lambirth 33

What Mandy didn’t say Trevor Kavanagh His memoirs leave the real questions unanswered

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Are octopuses just like us? Celia Haddon They recognise faces, play games, and predict football results 12

The 89-year-old Boy Christian House The youngest Spitfire pilot in the Battle of Britain looks back 14

My Gatwick hell Alex Murray Travel tip: don’t make jokes about bombs at airport security 17

A seething pit of northern madness Rod Liddle The Raoul Moat affair lifts the lid 18

This country has gone to the dogs David Selbourne We should all just pack our bags and leave 19

Switzerland’s welfare state James Bartholomew The whole thing runs like clockwork 20

Pop

Marcus Berkmann

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Theatre: Welcome to Thebes; La Bête Lloyd Evans 36

Opera: Don Giovanni; Rigoletto Michael Tanner 37

Cinema: Toy Story 3

Deborah Ross

Television

Simon Hoggart

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Radio

Kate Chisholm

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Life

High life

Taki

Low life Jeremy Clarke

Real life Melissa Kite

Bridge Janet de Botton

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Cover by Jonathan Cusick. Drawings by Michael Heath, Castro, Paul Woods, Len Hawkins, Feggo, Mazurke, Colin Wheeler, NAF, S. Harris, Bernie, Nick Newman and Adam Singleton.

Charles Moore and James Forsyth are away.

trAveL

One man in Vegas

Jonathan Ray

A cultural desert

Andrew Petrie

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Vol 313; no 9490 © The Spectator (1828) Ltd. ISSN 0038-6952

The Spectator is published weekly by The Spectator (1828) Ltd at: 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP Editor: Fraser Nelson

And finALLy . . .

Chess Raymond Keene

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Competition; Crossword 48, 49

Status anxiety Toby Young

The Wiki man Rory Sutherland

Your problems solved Mary Killen

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THE SPECTATOR 17 July 2010 5