The Papers

Jeremy Warner's Outlook: Banks may be better off selling assets
Sat, 17 May 2008 01:20:58 +0100
 Ignoring Mervyn King's warning that the "nice" decade is behind us, the City story of the week was again banking rights issues – or rather, Barclays' decision, either brave or stupid, not to have one. Meanwhile, Bradford & Bingley, having declared a month ago that it had no intention of tapping its shareholders for more capital, then turned around and launched a cash call anyway. 

Duck hash
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:57 +0100
 Donald Link served this to us after the crawfish bisque at breakfast in Herbsaint. You can find duck legs quite easily these days in butchers and supermarkets; if not, you could just use a whole duck instead chopped into four, or buy 2 ducks and remove the legs and save the breasts for another meal. 

Baked whelks
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:56 +0100
 I made something very similar to this in my British Regional Food cookbook and hey presto! – it turns up in New Orleans in a local version using the "mash" from the Tabasco process in a garlic butter. This by-product is made from the mashed-up peppers that are left when the Tabasco is strained off and it is then sold locally in packets. Tom Parker Bowles did buy a couple of kilos, but on the way to the airport he realised he had left it in the fridge in the Windsor Court Hotel – he'll just have to go back next year. For a similar "mash", chop red chillies into butter. 

Cenkos takeover talks with Arden collapse
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:54 +0100
 The broking house Cenkos Securities failed in its second takeover attempt of the year yesterday after negotiations with Arden Partners collapsed, and rivals prepared to muscle in on the deal. 

Anna Pavord: Weekend Work
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:49 +0100

Susie Rushton: Beauty Queen
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:43 +0100
 Suntans are bad news, aren't they? They're technically unhealthy, make you wrinkly and, on top of that, are morally dubious (now that, according to Which?, eight year old kiddies are sneaking onto the electric beach in order to look bronzed in the playground). Think of Nicole Kidman, Tilda Swinton, dead-eyed Irish Jenny from The Apprentice...okay, maybe not her. Pale is gorgeous. Tanning is for Posh Spice. Fine. Then, the unthinkable happens. The sun comes out. In Britain! Before you can say malignant melanoma, we're up on the roof, in the park, grilling the gams, blithely taking our chances with the UV rays whenever possible – as evidenced by the spiralling numbers of skin cancers here. 

Crayfish bisque Louisiana-style
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:36 +0100
 Bisque refers to a shellfish soup with cream, and the name is thought to have come from the Spanish Biscay region. With this type of soup, the flavour really comes from the shells, and after I've cooked shellfish at home I always keep the shells in the freezer for this purpose. In Louisiana, where rice is commonly grown, bisques are often thickened with rice instead of a heavier roux. This is the soup that Donald Link served us for breakfast, of all meals, after a visit to his other restaurant Herbsaint. 

King Juan Carlos can't rule the Medcup
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:35 +0100
 Just as King Canute proved to fawning courtiers that he could not control the tide, so King Juan Carlos demonstrated yesterday that a royal presence on the race course cannot whistle up an un-cooperative wind. 

Wine: Something For The Weekend?
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:13 +0100

Bread pudding
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:12 +0100
 I've been a big fan of bread pudding since I was a kid. It was commonly found in local bakers and in my gran's larder. We tasted a couple of very good versions in New Orleans, one at a famous restaurant called Mother's and the other at a new favourite of mine, G W Fins. 

Alive! Joy at miracle rescue of Liu Deyun, buried for four days in rubble of his factory
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
It was an agonising 100 hours from the moment the quake struck until rescuers pulled Liu Deyun from the rubble of a fertiliser factory yesterday. Little did he think as went to work on that fateful Monday morning that he would spend the next week entombed in the concertina ruins of his workplace, pinned down under toppled masonry and only able to be freed after sacrificing his left leg in a precarious amputation.

Burma raises cyclone death toll to 78,000 but true figure much higher
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
The official total for the dead in Burma's cyclone disaster jumped to 78,000 yesterday, up from 43,000. The new figure was announced by Burmese state television, which said the number of missing had risen from 28,000 to 56,000.

Prices up, profits up: businesses pass on cost of economic crunch to the consumer
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Concern is rising that consumers rather than businesses are bearing the full cost of the credit and raw material crunches that are destabilising the world economy and threatening to plunge some countries, including Britain, into recession.

Robert Fisk: So just where does the madness end?
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
I am not sure what was the worse part of this week. Living in Lebanon? Or reading the outrageous words of George Bush? Several times, I have asked myself this question: have words lost their meaning?

Deborah Orr: How I walked alone in a Kabul street – and scandalised everyone around me
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
I've just spent a week in a deeply conservative Islamic culture – always wearing a headscarf and always covering my body in the loosest of clothing – for the first time in my life. I thought appropriate dress and hidden fair hair would protect me, and on my first day in Kabul, one of the most liberal cities in Afghanistan, I walked to a meeting 40 yards from my hotel, by myself. 

Dylan Jones: If You Ask Me
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
If you ask me, "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is the greatest seduction tool known to mankind. Or at least an alternative to three or four pints of Wife Beater, half a dozen flaming sambucas, a rented kebab (let's face it, they're not often kept for long) and a night in the cells. I was reaquainted with it a few weeks ago via a YouTube clip of a breathtaking performance of the song by Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Shore from Shore's own TV show in 1959. It's regarded by many aficionados as one of the greatest jazz performances ever, and the duo's vocal dexterity is something to behold.

The Weasel: Mission to Milan
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
What is the most delightful Italian word? For my money, there is one that has the edge on pomodoro, vaporetto, risotto, Lamborghini, parmigiano, and even the overplayed amore. What heart does not leap at the mention of aperitivo? The word is like a smile. In Italy, the early evening aperitivo is more than just a drink. In the humblest of bars, you normally get nuts, crisps, a bit of cheese or mortadella with your birra, grappa or negroni. In posh joints, you get a lavish spread that those untutored in the ways of Italian restraint could easily treat as dinner rather than a prefatory morsel. It is this admirable tradition, especially strong in Milan, that the Italian beer maker Peroni is attempting to introduce to the barbarian north.

My Secret Life: Lennie James, Actor, age 42
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
The home I grew up in... was a bog-standard, turn-of-the-century terraced council house, converted into flats. My mother, brother and I lived upstairs, an Irish man lived downstairs, with a Jamaican family to our left and a Greek family to our right.

Will Self: PsychoGeography
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Ralph Steadman writes: "'It is now clear to everyone that the suicide of civilisation is in progress ... Whenever there is lost the consciousness that every man is an object of concern for us just because he is a man, civilisation and morals are shaken and the advance to fully developed inhumanity is only a question of time ...' As you know, Albert Schweitzer said that and he is fucking right. 

Agyness Deyn: Smells like Deyn spirit
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Talk to people about Agyness Deyn, learned people, people who know about these things, and they will tell you that she is not like other models. She is kookier, funkier, funnier. They have a point. There are few cheekbones, after all, that can grace both the cover of Time and Grazia, which is why, though she has only been publicly recognisable for a year, a year and a half tops, she is already being talked about in terms of her iconic-ness.

Penthouse & pavement: Images from the inner cities
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
The do-gooding heroine of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film Amélie discovers a public photo-booth in a train station. Under its metal floor, she finds first one, then a dozen, then a score of self-snapped portraits that have been discarded, apparently in disgust. Why? Because they're too ugly, too posed, too starkly truthful, too plain wrong as a visual record of the person sitting on the little red stool and putting in the money. 

Nasser Azam: Portrait of the artist
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Nasser Azam is a Chief Operating Officer at Merrill Lynch as well as an artist with an exhibition at London's County Hall and a sculpture on the South Bank. I'll swing that by you again: Nasser Azam is a Chief Operating Officer at Merrill Lynch as well as an artist with an exhibition at London's County Hall and a sculpture on the South Bank. I have repeated this not because it's extraordinary, even though it is, or on the assumption that you are slow, even though I've been told that you are, but so you can properly get your head around just how enraging this is. For a man to multitask is one thing, but to multitask on this scale? How dare he show us up in this way! Sisters, he must be stopped. Sisters, I will stop him. 

All that glisters: Behind the scenes at V&A's jewellery gallery
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
 It is impossible not to gaze at Cartier's diamond-adorned Manchester tiara from 1903, and not want to reach out and stroke its brilliant, garlanded curves and swirls. Under the watchful eye of Richard Edgcumbe, jewellery curator at London's Victorian & Albert museum, who is showing me round their collection, however, this is strictly verboten without wearing sterile gloves. These are a far cry from the silk versions that its original owner, the Duchess of Manchester, might have worn. "No, these aren't very glamorous," Richard agrees, snapping a glove, "but jewellery isn't just about glamour, it's a declaration of love and loss, of faith and hope." 

Cloister perfection: The Bath Priory Restaurant
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
It's so long since I dined in a country-house hotel, I'd almost forgotten their qualities: the dust of centuries rising from fat velvet cushions, the Miss Havisham curtains, the leather-bound menus, the raised eyebrows when you ask for a second apéritif before dinner... Bath Priory features some of these delights, but transcends them in considerable style. It's a small, Gothic mansion dating from 1835, built with the town's honey-coloured stone, on land once owned by the Priory of Bath Abbey: there's a cloister-like tranquillity about it still. The rooms are blissfully comfortable, and overlook a croquet lawn and swimming-pool. The restaurant's decor seems unchanged in half a century – high-backed leather chairs, worn staff-room carpet, oil paintings of imperial ladies disembarking at Shanghai or Kuala Lumpur. It's extraordinary to find that the present owners did up the place in 1994; you wouldn't be surprised to learn it was 1954. But behind the scenes in this utterly traditional place, something new and rare is being hatched. 

Wine: The light stuff
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Should summer wines be lower in alcohol? In response to demand for lighter styles, retailers are starting to come up with wines that use early harvesting to lower strength – without going so far as ghastly "wines" such as Eisberg that remove the alcohol altogether. 

The Way We Live Now: Office politics
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
When Jimmy Savile said that thing about "office gentlemen and office ladies" in the famous 1981 British Rail ad, everyone knew exactly what he meant. It was about going to the hive and getting a buzz. Back then, more people were going to offices and fewer to factories, and the accepted view of the future of work was that it would look like Canary Wharf. 

Gardening: The art of planting
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
I'm standing with the award-winning designer Sarah Price in a huge polytunnel in Hampshire. We're looking at a vast sea of green plants: hostas, columbines, foxgloves, spurge, geranium, comfrey, iris and, most particularly, the tufted hair grass, Deschampsia cespitosa. This is a key plant in Sarah's design for her show garden at The Chelsea Flower Show, which opens on Tuesday. The garden is inspired by the landscape of the Black Mountains in Wales, which she knows well. She's planned a calm, contemplative space, with meadow planting meeting a mirror of water, earth banks, drystone walls and pools of the dark cow parsley, Anthriscus sylvestris 'Ravenswing'. The meadow is veined through with perennial plants – lime, cream, white and yellow – with spreads of deschampsia providing the underpinning. By late spring, this is usually coming up to flower but it's been a chilly season. The fat tussocks in their big pots are as green and healthy as can be. But they are showing no signs of producing the tall airy stems that Sarah had visualised. 

Urban Gardener: Calm before the storm
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
If adrenaline had a smell, you'd get a mighty whiff of it in the grounds of the Royal Hospital this weekend. Exhibitors at this year's Chelsea Flower Show depend on it for the next 48 hours as almost a year's planning reaches its zenith. At the Bupa Garden, we have until 8am on Monday morning to nip, tuck and titivate before the Royal Horticultural Society judges don their serious faces, examine their notes and pick any holes they can find before awarding the appropriate medals. Most exhibitors aim to finish their garden by close of play today. This will allow plants to settle and look all the more natural, rather than a scruffy, stuffed appearance that betrays nothing but panic. If the weather is kind in the final three weeks then a few might achieve this, but the reality is that most will work until the last possible moment – lest the rim of a pot, a faded bloom or leaking pond lose them vital points and the chance of a decent medal.

Pets' Corner: How can I make my cat feel more secure?
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
I have two 12-year-old male tonkinese cats. One of them has taken to urinating in one particular corner of the house. And our neighbour's cat keeps coming into our home and eating the leftover cat food. This cat intimidates mine and tries to start a fight. How can I make my cat feel more secure and how can I stop the other cat getting in? Harriet James, via e-mail

The big easy: Mark Hix gets inspired in the deep south
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
I've just returned from a visit to New Orleans where I was a guest of the McIllhenny family, which owns the Tabasco factory. I haven't visited the area since my trip there around four years ago, before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit; so I was witnessing a city that was very much trying to get back on track.

Simon Calder: In the future, no one forgets their tickets...
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Colombia gets a terrible press. Granted, the most diverse and rewarding nation in South America has deep-rooted problems such as chronic political instability, swathes of poverty and prolific narco-terrorism. But as a traveller you can expect to encounter welcoming people who have your best interests at heart. Usually.

Istanbul: Inside strait
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
 By six o'clock in the morning, the traders at Istanbul's Kumkapi fish market have already been working for over an hour. A jumble of one-man lobster boats, hi-tech trawlers and creaky wooden caiques have landed their catches in the harbour behind the stalls. Plastic wheelie-bins of fish, some of them still flapping and squirming in a shimmer of silver agitation, have been manoeuvred up from the jetties. Trestle tables have been piled high with ice. Parsley has been chopped, lemons have been sliced, and the water fountains that will keep the shellfish cool are gushing like geysers. Soon, the buyers from some of the city's fanciest fish restaurants will be arriving to inspect the day's offerings, alongside crowds of local shoppers. 

Barbados: Bowled over
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
 Where did Steve McClaren go when he was sacked as manager of the England football team? Where could Michael Vaughan be found as he prepared for another season as captain of England's cricket squad? Where has Gary Lineker been when he reappears on Match of the Day, sporting that tan? Where does Ian Woosnam live?

Athens
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100

Something To Declare: India; Wales for £6; Southern Med
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100

Trail Of The Unexpected: The game is afoot... Sherlock Holmes and the FA Cup connection
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
As Portsmouth FC take on Cardiff City in this afternoon's FA Cup final, the players from Pompey (as the team is always known) may find themselves watched over by the spirit of an erstwhile goalkeeper and leading light of Victorian England. 

24-Hour Room Service: Hotel Casa de la Botica, Bogotá, Colombia
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Bogotá and boutique are not two words that normally trip off the tongue in tandem but, surprisingly, tucked away in the old part of the city is Hotel Casa de la Botica, a chic hotel in a former colonial family home. 

My Holiday In: Rome and Florence
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100

My life in travel: Nina Campbell
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
First holiday memory?

Arkansas: Hot springs eternal
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
The Governor's Mansion was a handsome villa in the wealthy part of Little Rock. From a distance, or through a fog of cigar smoke, you could have mistaken the residence of Arkansas's top politician for Georgian; in fact, it dates only from 1950. As I strode up the drive for a closer look, three men in bulky jackets appeared and asked me to leave; tours of the mansion, they said, had been "cut back" for security reasons.

The island of Ischia: Glorious mud
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Dr Paolo Magrassi is passionate about mud. Not, he explained with a dismissive flick of the hand, that common-or-garden variety, that muck. His mud contains a therapeutic array of minerals, he continued, brandishing an A4-length list under my nose to prove his point. Once cultivated, it is washed with thermal waters and tended for a year so the healthy bacteria and algae can reach maturation. 

Venice: Sightseeing and syntax
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
 There comes a point in every language student's life when a period of practical exposure is needed in order for you really to progress. My chance came when I signed up for a month of classes at the Istituto Venezia, a language school for foreigners in the heart of La Serenissima, which also gave me the opportunity to live a bit more like a local in one of the world's most entrancing cities. 

24-Hour Room Service: Castello del Nero, Tavarnelle Val di Pesa
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
The old adage that it takes money to make money certainly rings true at the Castello del Nero. It's clear for all to see that no expense has been spared in renovating this 12th-century castle turned luxury hotel. 

Rome, sweet Rome
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
The villas of Rome are renaissance and baroque dollops of architectural beauty, hugged by parks and gardens situated in the heart of the city – although once they stood in open countryside. In ancient times, Roman villas were farms, but then popes, cardinals and even bankers went on to re-interpret the idea, in the process giving us some of the greatest art and architecture in the city (as well as somewhere to jog).

Hills of Tuscany: Vines and views
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
At first I thought we had walked into a family gathering. About 20 people were seated at a long table under a shady, vine-covered pergola, gossiping loudly in Italian over grappa and coffee. Cheerful, noisy, arms flying everywhere – a typical Italian family at Sunday lunch. Only it was Tuesday and it wasn't a family; they were the guests at Franco and Umberta Lazzari's Agriturismo Orgiaglia in the Tuscan hills – and they were doing what comes naturally when you've had three courses of Franco's delicious cooking, plus large quantities of Chianti and grappa. 

Families: 'Do our children need to take malaria tablets?'
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Q Our children love animals and are now old enough,at three and five, to enjoy a safari. We'd like to visit a game park but I have heard how there are problems giving malaria pills to children. Would it be safest to give them a homeopathic preparation? P Sims, Manchester

James Daley: Sorry, Gordon, still not good enough
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Seven years ago, when I voted Labour for the first time, I truly believed that Gordon Brown and Tony Blair stood for the same things I did. The UK economy was being managed to reap the benefits of the thriving capitalist society that I lived in, while the fruits of this prosperity were being redistributed to help the poorest members of our communities out of poverty and back on to their feet. That was the theory, anyway.

Motoring: How to get out of paying for fines
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Celebrities and dignitaries always seem to get off the hook when they get issued with a speeding ticket or parking fine. Last week, Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff – who was allegedly caught going at 87mph in a 50mph zone – became the latest sports star to have his speeding case thrown out of court because, as his lawyer was quick to point out, the notice of prosecution had not been issued within the specified time-limit. Case closed. 

Questions Of Cash: I've been fleeced by my local phone shop
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Q. In September 2006, I signed a 12-month contract with T-Mobile, through Mobile Connections, which provided me with two handsets, with 500 free minutes for each handset. I had to pay £35 monthly by direct debit. This was to be refunded to me each month, providing I presented a paid bill to their Birmingham shop, within 28 days of the date of billing. Three months later, I took a friend to Mobile Connections, but his account application was declined. Mobile Connections suggested I process his application using my bank account, with the staff pointing out that my money was not at risk as the money would be refunded to my account. He took up an 18-month contract with T-Mobile, with £35 taken from my account each month, to be refunded on the same conditions as with my account. 

Wealth Check: 'I want to halve the amount of time I work – and enjoy life more'
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Sarah Canet, 38, from London, returned to the UK from Australia with a debt of £20,000 five years ago. Since then she has paid off her loans, built up £100,000 in savings, cleared the mortgage on her flat and built up a restaurant PR company. After working hard for her money, she's now keen to get her money working for her, while she enjoys life a little more. 

Thrifty living: What I've learnt from 30 months of living thriftily
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
How to wind this up? I know, the credit crunch continues apace, but what have I learnt after a programme of almost 30 months in a strict financial harness?

No Pain, No Gain: Nighthawk swoops to conquer in difficult times
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
The No Pain, No Gain portfolio has suffered a number of uncomfortable reverses since the bottom fell out of the small-cap end of the stock market. So perhaps I can be forgiven for singing the praise of Nighthawk Energy, an AIM-traded group recruited last summer.

Private Investor: Seduced by the romance of black gold
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Let's face it, there is something magnificently romantic about oil and the search for it. You can see that in the recent film There Will Be Blood, and you can sense it in the excitement that greets the price pushing through successive landmarks. At the beginning of the year $100 was breached – wow! But almost as soon as we had got used to that disconcerting notion, along comes the $120 and $125 barrel. The president of Opec says he sees it hitting $200 before long. Even as it stands now, oil has quadrupled in four years. It is difficult to believe that it was worth $10 a barrel only 10 years ago. 

The Analyst: Smaller companies, bigger returns
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
This week, I shall revisit a fund I featured in November last year – Standard Life UK Smaller Companies. Back then, I said that it could make an excellent core holding for the smaller-companies proportion of a UK portfolio – and this is still very much my view.

Funds: Keep an open mind over closed funds
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Investment trusts have been making money for investors for almost a century and a half. Yet, in recent times, they have struggled to contend with the larger and faster-growing unit trust and open-ended investment company (Oeic) markets, which now offer investors much more choice. If you want to invest in a straightforward UK growth fund, for example, there are now more than 300 unit trusts and Oeics to choose from. In the investment trust universe, there's fewer than 30.

The Verdict: Finally, a boxer in the diesel division
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100

Take a long break from the daily grind – and make it count
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Working abroad for a season or two has long been the jurisdiction of the gap-year student, but you don't need to be an 18-year-old, enthusiastically carting around a rucksack heavier than you are, to enjoy a new challenge overseas. 

'We dug for seven hours to find our daughter's body'
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
In the broken remains of their home, a family is preparing to bid farewell to their daughter. Zhou Yating was 16 when the earthquake struck Juyuan Middle School. Even as the funerals begin, strong aftershocks remind people that this catastrophe might not yet have run its course.

Nation looks to Grandpa Wen for comfort
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
He has shouted through a megaphone to survivors in the rubble, hugged rescuers and rescued alike and urged the People's Liberation Army on to even greater acts of heroism in helping the victims of this week's earthquake in Sichuan.

Bankruptcy applications rise by 12 per cent
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
The number of people applying for bankruptcy climbed in the first quarter of this year to 13,080, up 12 per cent on the previous three months.

How the batsman's rod caused Martin-Jenkins to split his sides
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
The veteran cricket commentator Christopher Martin-Jenkins "corpsed" live on air yesterday after he referred to a batsman's "rod" on Radio 4's Test Match Special (TMS).

Woman smuggled baby to keep her council flat
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
A woman who illegally brought a child into the UK from Nigeria in order to remain eligible for a council flat after her own daughter had left home has been jailed for 26 months.

Double amputee wins right to race in the Olympics – but is he fast enough?
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
A double amputee is preparing to make Olympic history after he was given the green light to compete for a place in races against able-bodied athletes at this summer's Beijing games.

CBI sounds alarm at lack of engineering graduates
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
A growing crisis threatens to engulf British businesses because of the slump in the number of manufacturing and engineering graduates coming out of UK universities, the head of the CBI warned yesterday. Richard Lambert, the director general of the CBI, said that major UK companies were already struggling to recruit the engineers they desperately needed and that foreign businesses would no longer want to invest in the UK if they could not rely on finding the skilled workforce they need here.

Picasso's heirs and the mystery of the evil stepmother
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Two of Pablo Picasso's heiresses are suing an author over her book about the artist's second wife, Jacqueline Picasso.

EU may force car makers to reveal emissions in adverts
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
The European Union is preparing to introduce tough new rules on car advertising, forcing manufacturers to include conspicuous and easily understood information about petrol consumption and emissions. 

Zimbabwe presidential run-off date set
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
The long-delayed second round of voting in Zimbabwe's presidential election will be held on 27 June, it was announced yesterday, despite worrying reports that violence against the political opponents of the government is intensifying.

Alaska's capital goes green after avalanche cuts power lines
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Juneau, the capital of Alaska and a popular cruise-ship stop, has had little to celebrate since an avalanche wiped out the lines supplying it with hydroelectricity. But four weeks later it has become a model for energy conservation, with its citizens doing everything from unplugging tumble-driers to regulating airport runway lights.

'Cyber-bully' accused of driving girl to suicide faces 20-year term
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
A Missouri woman accused of pretending to be a smitten teenage boy on MySpace and driving a 13-year-old girl to suicide with cruel messages faces federal charges that could lead to 20 years in jail.

Hollywood detective faces life in prison over wiretaps
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Anthony Pellicano, the Hollywood detective who was convicted after a nine-week trial on 76 counts ranging from illicitly wiretapping stars to running their names through police databases, could be jailed for the rest of his life when sentenced later this year.

How picture phones have fuelled frenzy of honour killing in Iraq
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
A dark pool of dried blood and a fallen red scarf mark the place where Ronak, who had fled to a woman's shelter in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah when she was accused of adultery by her husband, was shot three times by a man hiding on the roof of a nearby building.

Driving Miss Ada
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
 One winter's day in 1930, an elderly woman approached Charlie Heard, a taxi driver, as he waited for a fare in Geelong, a country town west of Melbourne. Was he interested in a "long fare", she asked him. "Yes," he replied, thinking she meant Melbourne. Ada Beal told him: "I want to go to Darwin and back." 

Leading article: Alex Salmond's success is taking Scotland closer to independence
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Alex Salmond can look back on his year as Scotland's First Minister with some satisfaction. The SNP leader has used his minority government to maximum effect over the past 12 months and, in doing so, has strengthened his party's support among the Scottish population. Those who predicted that the pressures of office would squeeze the nationalists' popularity have been confounded. Indeed, the difference between Mr Salmond's serene year in Holyrood and the meltdown experienced by his fellow Scot, Gordon Brown, in Downing Street is unmistakable.

Leading article: The biggest tragedy for Burma
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
While the grim death toll from the earthquake in China is at least relieved by pictures of survivors pulled from the wreckage and a relief effort that has been massive, organised and immediate, the situation in Burma goes from bad to worse. To the catastrophes of flooding and starvation is now being added the scourge of disease, as the first signs of what could well prove an epidemic of cholera are reported. Unless a massive international aid effort is launched from this very moment, the number of deaths in the Irrawaddy delta could rise from the present 78,000 reported dead and missing to twice this figure and even more. 

Leading article: Final straight
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Before engaging in the complex and technical debate about whether the South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius should be permitted to compete in the able-bodied Olympics, it is useful to take a step back and reflect on what a remarkable thing Mr Pistorius has already achieved, and what a trail he has blazed for other disabled sportsmen and women.

Letters: Balmoral embarrassment
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Sir: I heard Cherie Blair describe herself as a "good Catholic girl" during an interview to promote her book. Yet she admitted in the memoir that the reason she conceived her son Leo was that she omitted to take her contraceptives with her during a stay at Balmoral for fear of embarrassment when her bags were opened.

Howard Jacobson: Rebel too strongly against seriousness and what do you end up with? Boris Johnson
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
There are actually people out there seriously discussing Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister after David Cameron – a sort of Lord of the Bedchamber-in-waiting. But don't think Gordon Brown chewing on shadows for a decade in the dark hinterland cast by Tony's glitter; this is to be a suave succession of toffs. Men, at least, who have been taught manners. "After you." "No, after you." England returned to its natural legislators, right-honourables with confidence and quiffs. David, Boris, and thereafter some podgy, deeply unserious blue-eyed Fauntleroy presently fagging at Eton.

Christina Patterson: Patterns in the marble, and a lesson in history
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
On Monday, in Damascus, I saw the light. It was bouncing off the gleaming marble tiles of beautiful courtyards, glittering on exquisite medieval mosaics, filtered through the holes in the roof of the old souk and, most dramatically, sparkling on the fountain of the courtyard of the 18th-century caravanserai off the road which the Bible, in a rare stroke of irony, calls (because it isn't) "the road called straight".

Richard Ingrams' Week: This is where a dodgy grasp of history gets you
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
When Lord Levy was first taken on by Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister told him: "I want you to be my Lord Goodman figure." 

The Week in Arts: Behold a natural wonder - film buffs in full flight
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
I have often – OK, occasionally – wondered why film is the only art form to have "buffs". You never hear of theatre or dance or world music buffs. Television has its couch potatoes, but never anything as intellectually enticing as a buff. Yet anyone who visits their multiplex a couple of times a month expects to be referred to as a film buff. 

Frith Banbury: Veteran theatre director who was a champion of dramatists such as Robert Bolt and Rodney Ackland
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
'The play produced by Frith Banbury" – that old style of director's credit appeared in the programmes of some of the most distinguished theatrical successes of the 1950s. The name itself, along with that of the impresario Hugh ("Binkie") Beaumont, seems to evoke the West End at its most French-windowed, all that the "revolution" at the Royal Court supposedly swept away. Indeed, Banbury did direct many of that era's sleekest productions, in partnership with the H.M. Tennent management headed by Beaumont, including Waters of the Moon (Haymarket, 1951), Tennent's Festival of Britain production, starring Edith Evans, Sybil Thorndike and Wendy Hiller.

Murray Jarvik: Inventor of the nicotine patch
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Over the course of his life Murray Jarvik contracted, and survived, a daunting series of illnesses: rheumatic fever, chronic heart problems, polio and even lung cancer – although he never smoked.

John Phillip Law: Actor best known for 'Barbarella'
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
An imposingly tall, blond actor, John Phillip Law made his strongest impression on screen in the outlandish science-fiction fantasy Barbarella (1968), playing the handsome blind angel who travels with the space-age heroine (Jane Fonda) through vast galaxies to find the panacea that will enable him to fly again. Despite notable roles in several other films, he never quite broke through as a major star, and spent many years starring in Italian-made action films and straight-to-video fare.

Stan Hey: 6-5 against
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
It is the pub quiz final – which team was the only one outside England to win the FA Cup? (Cardiff City in 1927); which team won the Cup then held it for seven years? (Portsmouth in 1939 – there were no further finals until 1946). Neither club has won since, so today's final has a distinctly old-fashioned feel to it.

Sport on TV: Write or wrong, Dunphy outshines dull Rangers
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Eamon Dunphy, Millwall midfielder turned acerbic controversialist, is always good value – and so it proved on last Sunday's South Bank Show (ITV 1). In one of his occasional sporting forays Lord Bragg of the Big Quiff, Carlisle United fan turned Arsenal season-ticket holder, was exploring David Peace's dark, gritty novel about Brian Clough's 44 days in charge at Leeds, The Damned United.

Nadal sets up Djokovic test as Federer cruises
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
 Holder and top seed Roger Federer scored a comfortable 6-3 6-3 win over unseeded Spaniard Fernando Verdasco at the Hamburg Masters yesterday to ease into the semi-finals. 

Brian Viner: Germany says auf Wiedersehen prat to a great anti-hero
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Every year on FA Cup final day, the broadcasters like to remind us that the big match is being beamed live to 184 countries around the world, and will be watched by an audience of 1.6 billion people, from fishermen in Shanghai to beekeepers in Saskatchewan. This we take as affirmation that English football still rules the planet. Never mind the inadequacies of our national team, unable to qualify for Euro 2008; never mind the dwindling number of Englishmen playing for our leading clubs; the blue riband occasions in English football still capture the world's imagination. So we are told, and so we like to believe. 

Chris McGrath: Phoenix Tower offers distraught Cecil the prospect of reparation in Lockinge Stakes
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Let us hope that he has not been relying too heavily on something so precarious. But the anguish in Henry Cecil was so obvious at York on Thursday that you have to fear otherwise. 

Point-to-Point: Lady Myfanwy a strong attraction
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
That tough Welsh mare Lady Myfanwy (2.30) looks set for her 10th win from 11 starts this season in the ladies' open at Bredwardine, Herefordshire, today. The seven-year-old's sole defeat came in a Leicester hunter chase won by Minouchka and the winner and third (Rydal Park) have won five races between them since.

Rugby risks becoming a different ball game
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
It is not easy to imagine Kevin Keegan as a rugby man: he would not have been a fat lot of use in the line-out, and even at scrum-half, a position specifically designed for the vertically challenged, his temperament would have worked against him. Remember the anti-Manchester United diatribe a few years back? Had he lost his rag like that against the All Blacks – or even against those amateur teams who draw their players from the less salubrious areas of Gloucester – he would have been left to contemplate life as a public laughing stock from his hospital bed.

Mears and Stevens return as Bath battle on two fronts
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
It is a confusing time of year. Steve Borthwick, the new England captain, played his final game for Bath at the Recreation Ground without realising it, while Lawrence Dallaglio, one of the half-dozen most celebrated players of the professional era, does not know for sure whether he will kiss goodbye to the game he loves at High Wycombe tomorrow or at Twickenham next weekend. Leicester, meanwhile, have flummoxed themselves by qualifying for a Premiership semi-final they publicly declared to be beyond them. Contrary to expectation, not least their own, they may yet retain their title.

James remains among leaders to steer career back on course
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
England's Lee James, close to giving up golf and applying for a job as a postman last year, now finds himself with a chance to win the Irish Open at Adare Manor this weekend.

Newton's ancestry leaves Scotland relatively bereft
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Scotland have failed in their bid to add Hull KR's Clint Newton to their World Cup squad, but have higher hopes of one of his team-mates. Newton, the son of the golfer, Jack Newton, was born in America and brought up in Australia. He was hoping a Scottish strand in his ancestry would qualify him for the tournament, but the link turned out to be a great-grandparent, rather than the required grandparent.

Surrey 278 & 151-7 Hampshire 227: Hampshire rally after Tremlett is laid low
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Everything seemed to be stacking up against Hampshire yesterday when their first innings ended abruptly, still 51 runs shy of Surrey's first innings total. Their England fast bowler Chris Tremlett was afflicted by back spasms which prevented him from batting but, more significantly, meant he could not bowl.

Lancashire 113 & 233 Notts 202 & 147-3: Voges sees off Lancashire in rapid fashion
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Much as Nottinghamshire had cause to feel pleased with themselves after seeing off Lancashire in under seven sessions, it would have been difficult even for them not to have some sympathy for the plight of their opponents.

Chambers set to take on BOA in bid for Beijing Olympic place
Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:01 +0100
Dwain Chambers yesterday signalled his intention to challenge the Olympic ban imposed on him by the British Olympic Association by seeking to contest the trials for the Beijing Games.

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