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The Independent on Sunday (London, England)
The Independent on Sunday is the Sunday edition of The Independent, a daily newspaper in London, England. The Independent Sunday covers local, national, and international news, sports, business, politics, and weather.
Articles from May 16, 2004
`50 Is the New 21': Finance House Backs Conde Nast Rival to `Saga'
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Conde Nast, the upmarket publisher behind Vanity Fair and GQ, is launching a new title this autumn for the over-50s. 2 magazine, which is backed by investment boutique Cavendish Corporate Finance, is aimed at the baby-boomer generation. The monthly publication,...
A Fine, Upstanding Opera Tradition ; CULTURAL TOURIST
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It is always a delight to rediscover how inexpensive it can be to enjoy opera elsewhere in Europe. Last month in Vienna I queued at the Staatsoper an hour before the curtain went up on an otherwise sold-out performance of Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier...
Agenda: This Week's Big Issues
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UN SEEKS TO NAME IRAQI LEADERS ENVOY FINDS HIMSELF UP AGAINST COUNTRY'S POLITICIANS AND CONSTRAINED BY AMERICA'S PLANS What's the story? UN special envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, has been charged with nominating a president, prime minister and members...
A Poet Goes to Oxford
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Professor Christopher Ricks, a literary critic whose works include an analysis of Bob Dylan lyrics, was chosen as the new Oxford Professor of Poetry yesterday. The post, which dates back to 1708, involves three lectures a year and has an annual salary...
ARCHITECTURE: Anyone for Breaking and Entering?
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Some people love the City of London's Barbican Centre, and I'm one of them. We like it because it is so bizarre, and so hopelessly out of fashion. My architecture students love it too. With its endless walkways and Borgesian sense of alienation, it's...
Are Some Ethical Funds Any More Than Hot Air? ; ASK SINDIE Your Money Problems Solved
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I've received a gift of pounds 2,000 and, with quite a spread of investments already, I am considering ethical funds. However, I realise there are different types of ethical fund and that some aren't that green. How can I be sure my investment will actually...
Army Plans to Double Troops in Iraq as Ambushed British Kill 20 in Basra
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British defence chiefs have been drawing up plans to double the number of British troops on the ground in Iraq. It marks the first, more intensively soldiered phase of an exit strategy which would bring almost all British forces out of the country by...
As `Vanity Fair' Editor Reaps Hollywood's Rewards, Critics Seek Scandal in Schmoozing
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Graydon Carter is hardly a man averse to puffing up Hollywood celebrities. As editor of Vanity Fair, with its hundreds of glossy pages devoted each month to the entertainment industry and the effortlessly glamorous players that populate it, puff jobs...
BA's Pounds 1bn Fuel Bill Threatens to Put Cost-Cutting into a Tailspin
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British Airways will tomorrow warn that its annual fuel bill could rise to pounds 1bn, threatening its wide-ranging cost-cutting programme. The announcement will take the gloss off the airline's full-year results presentation, where it is expected to...
BBC to Screen Goriest Medical Drama Yet
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The BBC is to screen one of the goriest dramas ever with a blood- soaked, This Life-style series about bungling gynaecologists trying to cover up their mistakes. In one of the most gruesome scenes, a baby is seen being forced back into its mother during...
Beware. Club Rep Is Coming This Way ; MAN ABOUT WORLD
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I have not been to Faliraki. En route to the airport I saw it once from the main road running down the spine of Rhodes. By night the aureola of neon rising from the coast acted as part lure and part early warning to anyone who strayed within reach. Even...
BLAIR'S IRAQ CRISIS: Caught in the Crossfire of Iraq, Can the Prime Minister Survive? ; Blair on the Brink: Iraq Has Claimed the Careers of a Newspaper Editor, Two Cabinet Ministers and the Top Men at the BBC. and at Westminster There Is Only One Topic of Conversation: Could It Also Claim the Premiership of Tony Blair? Andy McSmith Reports
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The long branches of the Iraq problem spread and spread, tripping up people who were not even aware that they needed to watch their step. Last week a charismatic tabloid newspaper was brought crashing down, and a middle-ranking minister had what must...
BLAIR'S IRAQ CRISIS: The President Will Save Himself First ; the `Special Relationship'; the Two Leaders Are Bound to Each Other - and Both Their Careers Are on the Line
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Tony Blair's predicament has been much noted in the US, and could yet play into an unravelling of George Bush's presidency. But in Washington it is very much a subplot of the consuming Iraq drama. American officials recognise the price the Prime Minister...
BLAIR'S IRAQ CRISIS: The Transformers vs the Consolidators ; HOW THE CABINET DIVIDES
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Leaving aside all the personal rivalries and animosities, the real political divide in today's Cabinet is between the "transformers" and the "consolidators". This is the latest version of the divide that has assailed the Labour Party for more than a...
BOOKS: A War That Sucked the Oxygen out of Everything ; Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward SIMON & SCHUSTER Pounds 18.99 Pounds 17.99 (P&P FREE) 08700 798 897
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Bob Woodward is the undisputed king of access journalism and his book promises to provide answers to two important, related questions: Why did George W Bush go to war in Iraq? And why did Tony Blair go to war with him? Inevitably, it is more impressive...
BOOKS: Haunted Journeys through the Human Mind ; Why Reading Scores of Books on Mental Health Is an Annual Pleasure for Mind Book of the Year Judge, Fay Weldon
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Judging the Mind Book of the Year - which I have been doing for the past 10 years - is an annual treat. This year's judges, Blake Morrison, Michele Roberts and myself, read 120 entries between us. These are not the most cheerful books in the world -...
Books: History - Making the World Safe for Wall Street ; What Can Cicero Teach Americans? Cal McCrystal on an Imperial Power That Would Rather Consume Than Conquer; Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire by Niall Ferguson ALLEN LANE Pounds 20 Pounds 18 (P&P FREE) 08700 798 897
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I t may seem a touch premature to report on the collapse of an empire before its fluctuations have ceased. Gibbon conceived the idea of writing his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in 1764, 1,300 years after the Vandals sacked Rome (he finished his...
BOOKS: In Paths of Light ; for Paul Binding, a Fine New Biography of the Poet Stephen Spender Brings Back Memories of a Gentle Friend Too Often Scorned by Critics
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The New Collected Poems of Stephen Spender (l909-l995), edited by Michael Brett, ends with two poems between hard covers for the first time: "Timothy Corsellis" and "The Mythical Life and Love of DH Lawrence". They form an appropriate coda for a writing...
Books: PAPERBACKS
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HHHHI The Sea House By Esther Freud PENGUIN pounds 6.99 A t the heart of Esther Freud's fifth novel is a cache of love letters written by her grandfather, the architect Ernst Freud, renamed in the novel as Klaus Lehmann. Lily, an architecture student,...
Books: When Nature Calls on the Pilgrim's Way ; the Hack's Tale by David Hughes BLOOMSBURY Pounds 16.99 Pounds 15.99 (P&P FREE) 08700 798 897
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David Hughes hates the media. He regularly finds himself "...half- blinded by the daily haze of news and comment in print, on screen... trapped under my own roof in worldwide thickets of bulletins, misted by rumours, foghorned by headlines..." His hatred...
Brad Is the Hero for Our Time. Flawed
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Hollywood has a new hero, his torso rock-hard and rippling with muscle. He, or rather the film he stars in, cost $175m (pounds 104m) and required the presence of 1,000 Mexican extras, as well as 250 Bulgarians from a sports academy in Sofia. The movie...
BUILDING A LIBRARY: The Trojan War by Tom Holland
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Books have been written about the Trojan War for almost 3,000 years. Long before Brad Pitt, the anger of Achilles was the most celebrated theme in ancient Greece. The Iliad should be an automatic choice for any library. The first European poem, it is...
Bush Talks Green on Island Next to Toxic Waste Dump ; Environment: Georgia Beauty Spot Chosen by President for G8 Summit Lies along One of America's Most Polluted Stretches of Coast
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President George Bush is to bring leaders of the world's richest to Sea Island next month to showcase his "environmental stewardship". But the island - the most beautiful of the sub-tropical Golden Isles off the Georgia coast - is in one of the most...
Cannes Diary: Camp Soirees for Arthouse Crowd
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Cannes has a way of making you jaded horribly quickly. But a few things can always be counted on to revive your sense of the extravagant - such as a warm night, a spectacular firework display and the sound of a choirboy singing "Moon River" in Spanish....
Capitalise on Innovation or Lose UK Business ; Analyis
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There is little doubt that the climate for enterprise and innovation in the UK is as favourable now as it has ever been. A reasonably stable economy, along with low interest rates and general ease of access to funds, have played an important part. But...
CHANNEL HOPPER: Black, White and Blues
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It's said that the moment when preppy, white college-boys and Wall Street traders adopted the high-five greeting was the moment that many young black men reverted to shaking hands. This was echoed in Marc Levin's Godfathers and Sons, Thursday's offering...
CHANNEL HOPPER: Black, White and Blues
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It's said that the moment when preppy, white college-boys and Wall Street traders adopted the high-five greeting was the moment that many young black men reverted to shaking hands. This was echoed in Marc Levin's Godfathers and Sons, Thursday's offering...
Channel Tunnel Link at Risk of Going off the Rails ; Construction Firm Says Government Delay in Funding Pounds 300m Depot Is Jeopardising the Pounds 3.3bn Project. Clayton Hirst Reports
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The company behind the construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link has told the Government that delays in stumping up pounds 300m could threaten the project. The warning is understood to have been made last week during a meeting between the chairman...
Check In
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Charity on wheels A school has joined a cycling tour operator in launching a charity to help support a village in Laos. Red Spokes, which offers two-wheel tours to countries including Peru, Pakistan and Tibet, takes cyclists on its tour of Laos to the...
Choose the `Mr 0 per Cents' of Credit Cards ; Money
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You could never accuse the credit card industry of resting on its laurels. Ahead of our anticipated summer spending sprees, providers are furiously jockeying for position. At Barclaycard, final details are being thrashed out for its revamp after a year...
CLASSICAL: One More Ring to Bind Them All ; the Valkyrie/ ENO Coliseum LONDON Francesca Da Rimini & Pagliacci/ Opera North Grand Theatre LEEDS Halle Orchestra/ Mark Elder Bridgewater Hall MANCHESTER
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Like a film critic with a closely guarded plot twist, I have some misgivings about drawing attention to the beginning of The Valkyrie. But few readers will be unaware by now of the ear-splitting scream that opens Phyllida Lloyd's production: the boldest...
COVER STORY: Back on the Job ; What Do Michael Nyman, Elaine Page, Jonathan Demme and Robin Askwith Have in Common? Why, They All Cut Their Professional Teeth in the Seventies Working on the Cinematic Subgenre That Time Forgot, of Course. and Now the Great British Sex Comedy Is Making a Resolutely Bawdy - but Properly Unerotic - Comeback. Ooo-Er Missus, Gasps Matthew Sweet, Don't Mind If I Do!
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I wonder if I'm the only person for whom the cinema listings of the Manchester Evening News, circa 1979, were a window upon a strange world of darkly adult possibilities. Every day, on a page facing the stars and the three-frame "Flash Gordon" strip,...
Cricket: Atapattu Makes Zimbabwe Pay Again
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The Sri Lanka captain, Marvan Atapattu, scored his sixth Test double- century yesterday to put his side in command of the Second Test here against Zimbabwe. By the close of the second day he had gone on to 202 not out as the tourists amassed 443 for...
Cricket: Bracewell and Kiwis Add Up to a Challenge ; First Test Countdown Tough Task for England against a Coach and Team Who Always Overachieve
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New Zealand have made an unceasing mission out of being greater than the sum of their parts. The torch lighting the way on this journey has now been handed to John Bracewell. He is not the type to let the flame be extinguished. To nobody's surprise,...
Cricket: Butcher's Consolation Show ; Warwickshire 546 and 171-3 Surrey 302 and 414 Warwickshire Win by 7 Wkts
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Mark Butcher and Graham Thorpe did their best, which is very good. Michael Vaughan will be heartened that both played long and convincing innings against Warwickshire, but Surrey's England batsmen could not resolve their county's unfamiliarly unconvincing...
Cricket: Cairns Shows Clout but Tourists Stutter ; New Zealand X1 409 and 211 Kent 432-9 Dec and 6-0
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Never underestimate the New Zealanders. If there was a 43rd law of cricket that would probably be it. Opponents would be particularly wise to remember it after yesterday's performance by the tourists, which provided many reasons not merely to underestimate...
Cricket: Gibson's Guiding Hand for the Cosmopolitan Crew ; Leics 223 and 430 Notts 366 and 195 Leicestershire Win by 92 Runs
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Seam bowling of persistence, quality and determination earned Leicestershire their first Championship victory of the season, but sadly for those who believe the county game should feed players through to the national side, neither of the main architects...
Cricket: Lord's Turmoil Brings Fresh Funding Threat ; Uncivil War between ECB and the Counties Puts Sport England Millions at Risk. Stephen Brenkley Reports
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English cricket faces a summer of discontent and a bitter struggle over who runs the game. It has been issued with an ultimatum to reform quickly, or face dire financial consequences that would affect the sport from top to bottom and end any lingering...
Cricket: Round Up - Breese Inspires Durham as Caddick Is Thwarted
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Gareth Breese blew into Taunton yesterday to set up a remarkable one-wicket victory for Durham. The Jamaica all-rounder captains his island as an overseas player and is qualified as a domestic registration by virtue of a British passport. A one-Test...
Cricket: Team England Split by Marsh V Fletcher ; First Test Countdown the Read-Jones Affair Highlights a Damaging Power Battle over Who Should Pick the Side
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A long international season begins on Thursday accompanied by utter confusion. The thorny question of who runs the English game has now been joined by the still trickier conundrum of who picks the England team. Evidence last week showed that the answer...
DANCE: Return of the Real Pan's People ; Celebrating Diaghilev Royal Opera House LONDON
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Today it's barely thinkable that a single person might have the vision, the nous and the commercial clout to revolutionise an entire generation's ideas about dance, modern music and stage design - not to mention the knock-on influence on fashion and...
Days Out: Can You Dig It? Yes You Can ; FAMILY OUTINGS: Diggerland, Devon
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The venue The three Diggerlands - Strood in Kent, Langley Park in Co. Durham, and Cullompton, Devon - are designed for children to indulge their muddiest Bob-the-Builder fantasies. Like a theme park with added grit, they are full of diggers, dump trucks...
Days Out: Make Sure You
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Go wild ... at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire. On the evenings of 21 May and 11 June, the reserve manager, Dave Paynter, will take visitors on a guided tour in search of nocturnal fauna, from badgers to foxes to barn owls....
Days Out: Our Man Went to Mow ; Robert Nurden Gets His Hands Dirty at an Organic Farming Commune in Somerset
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Mike, a former tea-planter in Sri Lanka and a "green Christian", was adamant that the Austrian scythe was superior to the traditional English model. "Look at the way this blade curves just the right amount at just the right point," he said. "Ruthlessly...
Dear Wolfgang Your Personal Concierge Is Always Here to Answer All of Life's Little Dilemmas
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When I lived in Sweden I used to buy Bjorn Borg underwear for its outstanding comfort and durability. My British supplier now gets no response to his calls and fears that the firm may have gone out of business. Can you help? Hugh Seeley, by e-mail Sadly,...
Don't Score an Own Goal on Your Season Ticket ; Money
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It's that time of year again for football fans: not crying into their pints because the season has come to an end but working out how on earth they are going to pay for their season ticket for 2004- 05. Even before the last kick of this campaign, ticket...
DreamWorks Outshines Rivals in Star Power
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DreamWorks, the Hollywood studio set up by Steven Spielberg and the producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, has intensified its war on the rival Disney corporation by announcing plans for major investment in new productions. At a Cannes launch that out-did even...
Drivers to Get Flexible Speeding Penalties
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Ministers are to attempt to head off a revolt by motorists over speeding fines by reducing the punishment for minor infringements. Under a new flexible penalty point system drivers incur just two points if they are caught marginally over speed limits....
Dvd & Video
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HHHHI Dead End DVD rental/retail There's been a traffic jam of road horror movies recently, but Dead End is by far the creepiest. The writer-directors - David Lynch fans, both - know how to be deeply unsettling without relying on special effects or gore...
EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Did I Tell Mum I Was Pregnant? Did I Hell
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At what age does your body start to belong to you and is it no longer the property of your parents or the state? The law is clear, at 14 your parents do not have to be told if you seek an abortion. In all the uproar over the plight of the pregnant 14-year-old...
Emma Gold's Sexploits: Photo Finish
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Jon just sent me a text asking whether I would like him to e- mail me a picture of his erection." "That is disgusting and abusive," said my friend. "Did you bother replying?" "Yes," I said, "I told him to send it." As is well known, what some see as...
ENTERTAINING: A Tale of Two Parties ; to Celebrate Natalie and Jason's Engagement, Guests Arrive at 7pm. Unless They'd Got a `Party-Monster' Invitation. Christian Broughton Joins In
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As any honest host will admit, entertaining is rarely stress- free. There's always a degree of pressure - will the guests enjoy themselves, has anything been forgotten, will everyone get along? But tonight, Natalie and Jason are in their garden in London's...
ENTERTAINING: What's on the Menu? Pop the Question (and the Bubbly)
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Who's who? Jason Greenbaum (who runs a retail-space design firm, Blacks) and Natalie Kingham (a fashion designer who has her own label, Skirt) live here with their daughter, Tigerlily, who's eight. They've invited around 50 guests but then it is a rather...
Equities Cower as Rampaging Crude Breaks 20-Year Record ; the Week That Was
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There seems to be no stopping the rapacious path of crude. Despite calls last week by Opec member Saudi Arabia that the oil cartel's production quotas should be lifted, the price of oil continued to surge and US prices closed above $41 for the first...
Ethel Threw an Egg at Churchill. after 90 Years, Is It Time She Was Pardoned?
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The suffragettes, whose lawless campaign of arson, window smashing and civil disobedience scandalised Edwardian England, could soon be officially exonerated. With turn-out at next month's elections expected to be at an all- time low, a group of MPs is...
Fake or Real, Shots Define This War
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The Daily Mirror's admission that its photographs of British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners were fakes only highlights the importance of images in this war. It was the Mirror's demand for visual evidence to support its informants' claims of abuse by...
Film: ALSO SHOWING - Naughty Journalists. You Couldn't Make 'Em Up
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The makers of Shattered Glass (12A) had to be extra careful about getting their facts right. The film recounts the story of Stephen Glass (hence the duff, punning title), a 24-year-old journalist on a highly respected, Washington-based current affairs...
FILM OF THE WEEK: I've Been Dying to Meet You
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The third instalment of George Romero's "zombie" trilogy is the one critics don't talk about. Night of the Living Dead (1968): ground- breaking. Dawn of the Dead (1978): a masterpiece. Day of the Dead (1985): what was the question? Which goes to show...
FILM STUDIES: She Could Have Been a Contender. She Could Have Been Sybil Fawlty
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On the 20th anniversary of her death (from cancer, at the age of 52), the National Film Theatre is offering a short season in tribute to Diana Dors. You might guess from the alliteration in her name that Diana Dors was what her England (and the News...
FILM: Wooden Horse, Wooden Acting, Wouldn't Bother If I Were You ; Troy Wolfgang Petersen 153 MINS, 15
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In Jean-Luc Godard's Le Mepris, Jack Palance plays a Hollywood producer presiding over a doomed screen adaptation of The Odyssey. Watching the rushes, Palance complains that the material won't work: "It's all very well," he thunders over footage of naked...
Focus: One of These Women Is an Evil Murderer ; Maxine Carr Never Killed Anyone. She Was Convicted of Perjury, Not Murder. Yet She Has Been Given a New Identity on Her Lease from Prison, and Forced into Hiding. Beatrix Campbell Explains Why Maxine Was Re-Made in the Image of Myra Hindley and Why Her Treatment Should Alarm Us All
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Myra is dead, long live Maxine, wherever she is. The woman in Ian Huntley's life has been mobilised as the successor to the woman in Ian Brady's life, a new recruit to the monstrous regiment of murderous women. She killed no one, of course, but the new...
Focus: To Love, Honour, and to Pay? ; Should a Wife Be Entitled to Half Her Husband's Future Earnings When They Get Divorced? Lawyers Say So in a Landmark Case That Could Change the Way Couples Embark on Marriage. or It Might Just Put Them off the Idea All Together
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When Ray and Karen Parlour divorced in 2002 he offered to pay her pounds 120,000 a year in maintenance. It would be a large sum to most people, but he was a football star for Arsenal and England, earning a fortune. So a judge branded his offer "thoroughly...
FOOD & DRINK: Eating out - A Spiffing Time Was Had by All ; Enid Blyton Eat Your Heart out - Oliver Peyton's New Inn the Park Restaurant Serves Strawberries and Cream, Terrace Cocktails and Lashings of Ginger Beer
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There is a man walking his ferret in St James's Park. A guide dog is released from his harness and goes off to sniff the flowers, keeping a wary eye on his charge. A very small red duck indulges in a rather embarrassing mating ritual with a magnificent,...
FOOD & DRINK: Gracious Me! Goodness ; No Grease, No Gloop, No Gunk - the Recipes in Atul Kochhar's New Book Don't Look like the Fare on Offer at Your Local Indian. Then Your Local Probably Doesn't Have a Michelin Star. Simon Beckett Explains
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When Atul Kochhar came to the UK in 1994, it was with a very definite mission in mind. "I'd never travelled outside India, and I wanted to know more about the world. I thought the best way would be to find jobs abroad." He chuckles. "I never knew I'd...
Football: A Final Tinker, a Guard of Honour and a Flood of Tears
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As predicted, it all ended in tears for Claudio Ranieri yesterday, as the dewy-eyed Italian departed the Bridge for what looks like the last time under a moving guard of honour from his players. A pensive Ranieri later admitted that he had shed several...
Football: Ameobi Buys the Ticket That Lets Newcastle Dream Again ; Operation Europe Relief for Sir Bobby as Wobbly Week Ends with Uefa Place; Liverpool 1 Owen 67 Newcastle United 1 Ameobi 25 Half-Time: 0- 1 Attendance: 44,172
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Newcastle United discovered their season, which had threatened to turn to lead, had a silver lining at its end as they lurched unsteadily into the Uefa Cup. It was not the Champions' League, for which they had real aspirations until last week, but at...
Football: Cole Has Charlton Smiling ; Charlton Athletic 2 Euell 36, Cole 53 Southampton 1 Prutton 64 Half- Time: 1-0 Attendance: 26,614
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Alan Curbishley was determined to ensure Charlton's season which had promised so much did not end in disappointment - and he would have left The Valley a happy man after the 2-1 win over Southampton on the final day of the Premiership season. The Addicks...
Football: Dennis V Menace: Wise Is Keener Than Ever ; Millwall's `Little Blackguard' of a Manager Has Had His Day as an Underdog in a Final before. Nick Townsend Looks at a Team with Real Bite
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When the Great Designer drew up his plans for Dennis Wise, eagerness to please was never included in His scheme. Where the Millwall player- manager is concerned, DNA means Does Not Accommodate. Not the media, anyway. Take Friday, first thing, at The...
Football: Euro 2004 Countdown- Southgate Fears Weaken Case for Sven's Defence ; Eriksson Hopes to Avoid Catastrophes of the World Cup - but Injury Cloud Won't Go Away
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England's head coach, Sven Goran Eriksson, will spend one last anxious day with his mobile telephone switched on before finalising the list of 23 players in a provisional list for Euro 2004 to be revealed at London's Cafe Royal tomorrow. The final selection...
Football: From the Invincibles to the Immortals ; Henry and Vieira Confirm Arsenal's Place in Pantheon; Arsenal 2 Leicester City 1 Henry Pen 47 Dickov 26 Vieira 66 Half-Time: 0-1 Attendance: 38,419
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For a tantalising period in sunny north London yesterday, it looked as if the plug in the match programme for a video of "Arsenal's record- breaking season" might have been in breach of the Advertising Standards Act. Leicester City, invited to drop in...
Football: Gronkjaer's Send-Off for Ranieri ; the Premiership Chelsea Say Farewell with a Flourish as They Finish with Yet Another Clean Sheet; Chelsea 1 Gronkjaer 20 Leeds United 0 Half-Time: 1-0 Attendance: 41,276
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They paraded the silverware at half-time. Unfortunately it was Chelsea Ladies with the booty - a couple of trophies landed in their own resurgent season. Nothing less than a jug or two would have saved Claudio Ranieri's pancetta, however realistic that...
Football: John Earns Birmingham Just Reward ; Blackburn Rovers 1 Cole 24 Birmingham City 1 John 83 Half-Time: 1-0 Attendance: 26,070
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An 11th goal of the season in his 100th Blackburn appearance neither answered the questions hanging over the future of Andy Cole at Ewood Park nor did enough to end Rovers' season with a third consecutive home win as, not for the first time, manager...
Football: McBride's Double Seals Fine Finish for Fulham ; Bolton Wanderers 0 Fulham 2 McBride 45, 78 Half-Time: 0-1 Attendance: 27,383
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Fulham finished the season with the best possible riposte to the pundits who put them high on their list of relegation candidates back in August. A goal in each half from the striker Brian McBride was enough to lift them to their highest position in...
Football: Mirfin Gives Terriers Bite
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Huddersfield Town took a giant stride towards a date at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff in two weeks' time for the Third Division play-off final when goals by Iffy Onuora and David Mirfin earned a 2-1 win over Lincoln City at Sincil Bank. The Terriers...
Football: Petulance Leaves Ince Down and out ; Wolves 0 Tottenham Hotspur 2 Keane 34, Defoe 57 Half-Time: 0- 1 Attendance: 29,389
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As Arsenal celebrated their astonishing success, their north London neighbours, Tottenham, ended their most disappointing Premiership season with a note of promise. Not that their fans' cheers for Robbie Keane's opener, drowned out by those from the...
Football: Replay | 4 January 1889 So How Good Were the Heroes of Preston North End?
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Let's get the silly stuff out of the way first: the long trouserly shorts, the moustaches, the risible pay, the trams that took the players to home games, the League season that demanded only 22 matches each, and the indisputable fact that none of them...
Football: Rougier Gives City the Edge
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Huddersfield Town and Bristol City took positive strides towards their respective divisional play-off final dates at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff in two weeks' time with home legs to follow. In the Second Division play-off at Victoria Park, Hartlepool...
Football: Scholes Rides His Luck to Realise Elusive Goal
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As the terrace anthem has it, "Paul Scholes, he scores goals". Not as often as he would like to, for either club or, especially, country, but certainly at crucial times in the FA Cup campaign that comes to a conclusion in Cardiff on Saturday. Add a gnawing...
Football: Scottish Cup Final - Magnificent Seven Rides out, and It All Ends in Tears ; Lethal Marksman Larsson Takes His Time over the Next Move as Emotional Farewell Holds Sway
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There will almost certainly be tears. Every parting is the same, but the one at Celtic Park this afternoon is invested with such mass appeal that it will create a genuine sense of sorrow. When Henrik Larsson walks up that tunnel for the last time, after...
Football: Scottish Cup Final - Sense of Romance That Fills Brewster with Hope ; Lethal Marksman Larsson Takes His Time over the Next Move as Emotional Farewell Holds Sway
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The removal of the Elgin Marbles by the British is regarded by Greece as the biggest piece of larceny ever. Yet the Greeks may also want to stake a claim for Craig Brewster if he picks up a different sort of national treasure next Saturday. The Scottish...
Football: Stars Gather for Touching Story of Danny Wallace
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Danny Wallace recalls the moment he knew his football career and, for a period, much of his life was over. It was one evening back in 1995 when he turned out for the reserves during a frustrating 18- month spell at Birmingham City. "The whole of one...
Football: The Battle for Anfield; `the Club Need Money, Not a Troublemaker'
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On Wednesday morning, Steve Morgan walked into the casino that is the Premiership, stepped up to the table marked Liverpool and placed the biggest bet of his life. By Thursday afternoon, he had lost his gamble. Did he forget that the house always wins?...
Football: The Men for All Season ; It Is the Biggest Moment since I Arrived. My Dream Has Always Been to Play a Whole Season Unbeaten. It's Something Unique; Arsene Wenger Arsenal Manager
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At the end, his daughter, seven-year-old Lea, was jig-jogging on the pitch among the euphoric Arsenal players, savouring the moment that had been her father's vision. The architect himself, Arsene Wenger, preferred to stand quietly and absorb it all...
Football: The Men for All Season ; Unbeatable, Unforgettable as Henry Gets Arsenal out of a Spot and Shows Way to History
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A few grainy photographs are all that remain to remind us of those Invincibles, clad in their knickerbockers and brandishing spectacular moustaches or beards and sporting severe centre partings. Until yesterday, at a hothouse Highbury, those proud men...
Football: The Millwall I Knew - Pint of Bitter and a Packet of Cripps
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Before I go to watch Millwall play Manchester United in the FA Cup final on Saturday I shall give Harry Cripps's jockstrap a pat for luck. I ought to point out that Harry won't be wearing it at the time because, sadly, he died almost 10 years ago, but...
Football: Van's the Man as Villa Succumb to Stage Fright ; Aston Villa 0 Manchester United 2 Ronaldo 4, Van Nistelrooy 10 Half- Time: 0-2 Attendance: 42,573
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Aston Villa fell dramatically at the final hurdle, their home defeat against a Manchester United side reduced to nine men costing them a place in Europe next season on goal difference following Newcastle's annexation of a point at Liverpool. United had...
Football: Wanchope Double Fires City ; Manchester City 5 Wanchope 16, 30, Anelka 41 Sibierski 89, Wright- Phillips 90 Everton 1 Campbell 60 Half-Time: 3-0 Attendance: 47,284
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When the only suitable judgement of a match concerns the merit payment that rewards finishing positions in the Premiership, a distinctly end-of-season lack of intensity is probably inevitable. So it was at the City of Manchester Stadium yesterday, where...
Football: Yakubu Hides the Pompey Cracks ; Portsmouth 5 Yakubu 4, Pen 14, 31, 83, Sheringham 80 Middlesbrough 1 Zenden 27 Half-Time: 3-1 Attendance: 20,134
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There have been mixed messages from the management at Portsmouth this week about the future of the club, but the fans showed their opinion during this substantial victory. "We want Milan with Harry and Jim," was their chant, and it now looks as if they...
Games: Bridge
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If a contract requires 10 tricks to be taken, then it matters not in which order those 10 tricks are won. The concern is to take 10, the timing is down to declarer. North opened the bidding with One Diamond, South responded One Spade and West made a...
GARDENS: High Achievers ; Climbers and Containers Can Transform the Smallest Garden into an Urban Oasis. Christopher Stocks Explains Why You Must Reach for the Stars
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The first garden I could really call my own was a second-floor window box Primrose Hill, London. Its spreading inches might not have impressed, say, Capability Brown, but what it lacked in size it made up in productivity. From year to year I became more...
Gay Couple Ready to Make Legal History
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The cake will be chocolate, the readings will be from Winnie the Pooh and the setting will be a very English country garden. This is not the plan of a wedding soon to take place in Sussex or Surrey but rather in the United States. More specifically,...
Give Us What We Want: Clothes That Fit and No Fuchsia Bras
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If the sudden rise in Marks & Spencer's share price is any indication, the appointment of Kate Bostock as the store's new head of womenswear is going to have the lady shoppers of Middle England bursting out of their control-top knickers with unrestrained...
Hamish McRae: The Cost of the Black Stuff Shouldn't Sabotage Recovery but We Could Slip Up on Cheap Cash
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Spring was in the air in Paris last week at the OECD's annual forum. Instead of the gloom, or at least concern, of recent years, there was a bright glow. This year will be the best for global growth for four years and next will be pretty good too. The...
Her Outdoors: You Give Me Fever, Fever That's So Hard to Bear
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Ohhh, hay-fever sufferers say between sneezes, if only people understood it's not a wussy ailment that only nerdy kids at school used to get, it's truly awful, like having flu. They are wrong: hay fever is much worse. With flu you don't get your face...
Him Indoors: Pull Yourself Together or It's Curtains for Us All
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I don't know much about curtains. I don't even know what I like. We've come to an impasse in the great project, just at the moment of completion. Everything is finished apart from the curtains. New facilities, a dishwasher, a deck, the bookcases, the...
HOMES: Design for Living; 147 Tongue Chair
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Am I alone in the sad habit of rehearsing my answers to celebrity questionnaires? I doubt it. At least we persona non significata will never fall into the cliched answer traps they do. Exhibit A: how many famous people when asked which decade they wished...
How Rupert Murdoch Saved the Planet (and Other Tall Stories)
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Will Rupert Murdoch and Jake Gyllenhaal together save the planet? It seems an unlikely pairing, and an even less likely prospect. But environmentalists and top scientists are predicting - at some risk to their reputations - that the septuagenarian mogul...
How to Get along with Generation Y: Book Review ; CoolSearch - Keeping Your Organisation in Touch and on Edge, by Jean Lammiman and Michel Syrett CAPSTONE/JOHN WILEY & SONS, Pounds 16.99
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Just about everybody of a certain age - whether in business or not - has shared with others of their generation the view that today's youth is neither as committed nor motivated in the same way as its predecessors. For all those frustrated by the refusal...
HOW WE MET: SIMON PEGG & JULIA DAVIS - `He Brings a Stupidity out in Me'
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The actor and comedian Simon Pegg, 34, was born in Gloucester and studied at Bristol University. He made his name in Channel 4's cult sitcom `Spaced', and wrote and starred in the recent film `Shaun of the Dead'. He lives in London with his partner....
Ifill Flowers - Thanks to Premium Bonds ; Millwall Winger Could Still Have Been at College - or Playing with His Dad. Ronald Atkin Reports
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As he runs out at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff next Saturday to face Manchester United in the FA Cup final, Paul Ifill will be entitled to a small, disbelieving shake of the head. Is this really happening to me? It is a feeling he will share with...
