certainly not given to a case reported in the early autumn. According to a local newspaper, a middle-aged couple were evicted from their house by the local housing authority because they had failed to pay rent.

concrete labyrinths of the new social work depart-ments?where the central heating automatically goes on on October 1st and automatically goes off on April 1st, whatever the weather?the filing clerks excitedly cried: 'Isn't it amazing to have the windows open in February!' Nervous daffodils appeared on the typists' desks. It was a mild winter. Of course there were one or two contretemps. During ...

By the time these words appear in print, I understand that we shall have taken one more step, whatever that is, towards joining the European Community whatever that is. (We have trouble enough defining what we mean by a community even within Britain; I can't imagine it's going to be any easier, in European terms, even to perceive the community, let alone define it.) Anyway, before very long, pe...

I have recently been renewing my acquaintance with Rudyard Kipling Rudyard Kipling the poet, that is, as distinct from Rudyard Kipling the short-story writer and part-time novelist. R.K. the poet is very much out of favour at present, and has been these twenty years. I suppose this disfavour springs from his identification with the spirit of Empire, with the Raj, with the Great White Sahib, wit...

A personal view of the social services.