... Elspeth Grant There was quite a fuss in France over Jean-Luc Godard's latest film, Une Femme Mariée--a witty, perceptive account of 24 sex-crammed hours in the life of a young married woman who is toying with the idea of leaving her husband for her lover. Because it was originally called La Femme Mariee it was banned and refused an export licence as the French censor felt this title gave the ...

... I Helen Burke Easter week means fish, and is the one time when in this country salt cod is presented in one of its many recipes. In her Fish Cookery Book, Madame Prunier points out that Bran dade of salt cod is eaten largely in France during Lent and, in the south of France, it is often eaten cold as an hors d'oeuvre. [alt cod is not as popular in his country as it used to he, ,nd few British ...

... 1 Letters trom the Duke Oliver Warner i Anything that the present Duke of Wellington writes about the first Duke is well worth attention, for he is a scholar and a discriminating admirer of his predecessor. In Wellington and His Friends, which consists of letters selected and edited by the seventh Duke of Wellington (Macmillan 45s.), there is assembled, with the minimum of commentary, a ...

... / Elspeth Grant, There's a wink in the voice of the narrator, John Dehner, as he introduces The Hallelujah Trail (U) with a solemn account of the sad state of affairs in Denver City, Colorado, in 1867, when, through a combination of most unfortunate circum stances, only 10 days' supply of whisky remained in the whole community to see the hard- drinking miners through the rapidly approaching ...

... Oliver Warner Today, unless a visitor knows the Department intimately, it would be difficult for him to detect the many undercurrents of hatred and bitterness. This is Michael Bird, speaking in The Secret Battalion (Muller, 25s.) of the High Savoy, in which, in 1944, parties of Frenchmen engaged many times their number of Ger mans, most of them perishing in the process. The author has pieced ...

... Robert Wraight At one of London's smaller auction rooms a few weeks ago I was struck by the almost Manet-esque brushwork of an oil sketch, a half-length nude, catalogued as by Singson. The name meant nothing to me and the signature on the painting was illegible, it could have been anything. Before the sale I racked my brains to dis cover who the artist was, for I felt that his work was so ...

... 'Polish Lola gipsy Django Gerald Lascelles i Poland has for some years had the most active jazz expression of all the Iron Curtain coun tries, and it came as no great surprise to the organizers of the Richmond festival last summer that the Namysowski modern jazz quartet made a considerable impact during their visit. Their album, Lola (Decca), was recorded during their visit, and displays the ...

... I Helen Burke Beef, the most popular choice for the weekend joint as well as for other days, is so expensive that many people are being forced to re-think their home catering. The wartime exhor tation to avoid a closed mind applies again-- that is, because favourites are in short supply don't ignore the other things available. Today's variety helps; the price of pork drops slightly, bacon is ...

... John Salt/ The trouble with time is that there is too much of it; the trouble with civilization is that everything sooner or later becomes a matter of record, and the trouble with people is that they have too long memo ries for their own good. I Politi cians, of course, suffer most grievously from this tripartite state of affairs and after politicians, playwrights. It fol lows, then, that a ...

... I Oliver Warner What a story-and-a-half is un folded in Richard J. Whalen's The Founding Father (Hutch inson 60s.). The author accur ately describes it as a study in Power, Wealth and Family Ambition, and it is filled out in all the detail which Ameri cans enjoy, and which their best journalists dig out so tire lessly. It is the life of Joseph P. Kennedy, father of the late President ...

... Elspeth Grant It was impossible to remain for any length of time unaware of The Beatles-- they came at one from so many directions, there was simply no dodging 'em- hut without taking any delib erately evasive action I was able to ignore the existence of The Dave Clark Five until I ran across them in their first film, Catch Us If You Can (U). I still don't know what endears them to their ...

... Oliver Warner Despite the claims of at least two other biographies of merit, I have no shade of doubt that pride of place should go to George Painter. The second, long awaited volume of his Marcel Proust (Chatto & Win dus 40s.) sustains every scrap of the impetus and skill that were so startling in the first. He now takes the great French novelist up to the end of his brief and extraordinary ...