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The 41st INTERNATIONAL MOTOR EXHIBITION, more generally known as the Motor Show, opens at Olympia on Wednesday, October 17th and will be officially opened on that day by The Prime Minister, The Rt. Hon. Sir Anthony Eden, K.G., M.C., M.P. The 540 exhibitors include 57 car manufacturers. Cars made in U.S.A., Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, Italy and Czechoslovakia will be seen. The groundfloor layout has been adjusted this year to bring the Caravan Section together. Other sections in addition to the cars themselves, include Coachwork, Accessory and Component, Tyres, Motor Boat and Marine, Transport Service Equipment, Trade Association Press, Information, etc.

Over the last three or four years, operators and contractors have become increasingly aware of the enormous cost being sustained as a result of corrosion on offshore rigs and installations. Many different approaches to combating these corrosion areas are being made, ranging from the use of exotic alloys, to the use of epoxy or rubber coatings. Generally speaking, there is a place and a use for each of these methods and to a large extent a natural selection of the optimum material is taking place. Stainless steel, in particular is increasing widely used.

Roots of global Terrorism are in ‘failed’ states carved out of multiracial empires after World Wars I and II in name of ‘national self‐determination’. Both sides in the Cold War competed to exploit the process of disintegration with armed and covert interventions. In effect, they were colluding at the expense of the ‘liberated’ peoples. The ‘Vietnam Trauma’ prevented effective action against the resulting terrorist buildup and blowback until 9/11. As those vultures come home to roost, the war broadens to en vision overdue but coercive reforms to the postwar system of nation states, first in the Middle East. Mirages of Vietnam blur the vision; can the sole Superpower finish the job before fiscal and/or imperial overstretch implode it?

When a correspondent complained in the columns of the Daily Telegraph of “a certain hotel” on the South Coast still requiring a tie to be worn in the restaurant, a letter came in by express post next day stating unequivocally: “The ‘certain’ hotel referred to in your columns was the Royal Bath, Bournemouth—signed, David Lloyd‐Jones, General Manager.”

By Theodore Besterman's death on 10 November 1976 in his seventy‐first year, scholarship, bibliography and documentation and a wide range of esoteric subjects have lost a master of near fabulous achievement—how else, to note only two of his works, can one describe the 107 volumes of Voltaire's correspondence which he completed in twelve years as virtually a one‐man job, except for the help of an assistant for part of the time provided by the Swiss Foundation for Scientific Research, and the three editions of the World bibliography of bibliographies. To these great solo achievements as a scholar must be added his skill and discrimination as a collector, outstandingly of Voltaire editions and manuscripts and every Voltaire relic which he could procure as the material basis of the publications and activities of the Institut et Museé Voltaire in Geneva which was established solely through Besterman's creative efforts.

On October 21, 1989, the Berlin wall fell, announcing the collapse of the Soviet empire and the demise of 20th century socialism. In a much celebrated article published the same year, a senior official of the U.S. Department of State, Francis Fukuyama, announced the “end of history,” celebrating “the unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism and the universalisation of Western democracy as the final form of human government.”¹ Indeed, the Cold War is over and we can all rest in peace. Capitalism has prevailed and we can now use interchangeably such words as market economy, freedom and democracy.

The article has the purpose of looking back to the founding of the European Union (EU).

The article combines narrative with analysis.

It is the author's view that the EU is a success story. The EU's separation of powers between three decision‐making bodies is explained and contrasted with what the author considers to be the regrettable centralisation of power at Westminster. The article looks at the many major challenges which are facing Europeans, including the question of how large the EU should be allowed to grow and the economic challenges from China and India.

The value of the article is that it contains the views of a member of the parliament (MEP) who has been a MEP since the first direct elections in 1979 and who is able to reflect on developments with singular first hand knowledge.

THE HUDSON INSTITUTE EUROPE, IN ITS RECENT REPORT, THE UNITED KINGDOM IN 1980, has taken the pulse of the so‐called ‘sick man of Europe’ and has reached a sombre conclusion. The real economic condition of Britain is one of declining competitiveness, deteriorating balance of payments and declining standards of living. In 1974 for the first time in the post war era, it is stated, Britain's individual wealth registered an absolute decline and this is likely to translate itself into a long range absolute decline unless great efforts are made on a national scale to prevent it. The loss of real income and shrinking personal welfare may lead to serious internal political and social strains.

In 2020, the latest James Bond film will hit cinema screens. The film has been produced by Eon Productions, is based on Ian Fleming’s suave, sophisticated super spy and stars Daniel Craig in the title role. With a troubled production shoot well-documented in the media, Daniel Craig often seeming and contradictorily at odds of being both enamoured and loathing with the role, a director leaving through ‘creative differences’ and numerous screenwriters being drafted in as last-minute replacements or add-ons, it will be interesting to see how the latest Bond adventure fares both critically and financially.

At their heart, the Bond adventures – originally in Ian Fleming’s novels and short stories, and then in their film incarnations before spilling out into newer platforms – offer pure escapism for the reader, viewer, listener and gamer. Set against the backdrop of exoticism in a post-war climate, the stories centre around MI6 Agent, James Bond, stopping enemies of the British Empire in their attempts at world domination. They gave the reader a sense of both an attempt by Fleming/Bond to recapture Britain as an important power on the world stage. Whilst Bond may have sipped martinis as he coolly dispatched the latest despotic tyrant, they also offered up ideas about time, place, culture, the social climate of the period and gender.

This book will focus on numerous aspects of the Bond-catalogue, but in particular paying particular attention to how the portrayal of gender, both in the stories and behind the scenes, has helped shape one of the most significant, important and successful British franchises.