Food and Events

We have been asked to do that by the government.”This is one of the ideas that is being kicked around but it is only one of a number of ideas and is at a very early stage at the moment.”. Two weeks into BBC 1’s new schedule, British television is at war with itself – and the outbreak of hostilities will come into the open today. Two weeks into BBC 1’s new schedule, British television is at war with itself – and the outbreak of hostilities will come into the open today.
The row, sparked by the BBC’s decision to move its news to 10pm and fuelled by scheduling changes that have had both the BBC and ITV claiming dirty tricks, it has now become a battle about the nature of public service broadcasting itself.At a meeting of the Royal Television Society, Culture Secretary Chris Smith will face furious ITV executives, armed with piles of evidence gathered over the past fortnight and designed to show that the BBC is in breach of its Charter commitment to public service broadcasting.Chris Smith is sympathetic to ITV’s argument. He is clearly incensed at the BBC 1’s rushed introduction of its new line-up.

In private, he has told TV executives that if the BBC loses news audiences as a result of the move from nine “that seems a clear breach of the purposes laid down in the Charter.”The BBC’s defence is weakened by schedules like tonight’s. EastEnders at 7.30 is followed by the quiz show The Weakest Link at 8pm and more EastEnders at 8.40. Such a dismal parade is hard to square with the public service commitments in the BBC Charter.”If BBC 1 looks like a commercial channel in everything but ads,” says Conservative Culture spokesman Peter Ainsworth, “you have to ask important questions about why it is being funded by a licence fee at all.”ITV is fanning the flames of the dispute, suggesting that the BBC schedule changes should be subjected to a six month review. Peter Ainsworth supports the idea, and has tabled a parliamentary question asking Mr Smith whether he is considering it. At the same time, he is asking Mr Smith to make it clear whether he considers the BBC to be in breach of the charter.Today at the RTS meeting, Chris Smith will take questions from television executives, many of whom believe that the BBC’s governors have been discredited.”If the BBC is forced to back down on the BBC 1 schedule, it’s a resigning issue for Greg [Dyke]“, says an ITV executive. ITV is gathering evidence to support its assertion that the BBC is ditching its commitment to public service broadcasting.The commercial network points out that news audiences have already fallen in the new 10 o’clock slot – despite the temporary support of the last series of One Foot in the Grave and movies like Men in Black.

In the first week, weekday audiences fell to 5.2 million from the 6 million autumn average Week two was much worse. The average fell to just 4.3 million, and Wednesday hit an astonishing low of 3.7 million.ITV lobbyists are supplying politicians of all parties with evidence that the Beeb has been disingenous in its presentation of its plans to parliament. BBC chairman Christopher Bland, they point out, told the Culture select committee that “we would only move a news programme if we thought the audience would be greater rather than less for news”.But the real issue is what is happening to the mix of programmes on BBC 1. “A year ago, during these two weeks, there were more than seven hours of public service broadcasting in weekday peak,” says the ITV executive. “That included Walking with Dinosaurs, The Major Years, Panorama and Inside Story. This year over the same period there is not a single heavyweight PSB programme on BBC 1 weekday peak.”BBC 1 is still carrying excellent Public Service Programmes – such as Robert Winston’s Superhuman – but they are relegated to Sunday night. Panorama has been particularly hurt by its move to a graveyard slot on Sunday.

BAA, the airports operator, yesterday reported a rebound in retail sales, saying it had tackled the downturn in airport shopping following the abolition of duty-free purchases in Europe.
The company also indicated that the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions had quietly dropped its inquiry into competition at airports. An adverse finding could have led to a break-up of BAA.In a reference to the recent train crash at Hatfield, Mike Hodgkinson, the company’s chief executive, said: “We have seen in recent days how fragmentation in other industries has been a disaster.”If you want a world-class industry, you don’t hack it around The inquiry is done. I don’t think we’ll hear any more about it.”BAA was forced into a profits warning last October, after the abolition of duty-free shopping within Europe hit its retail sales unexpectedly hard.Yesterday it reported that, for the three months to 30 September, the first like-for like comparison since duty free shopping ended on 1 July last year, retail profits grew 14 per cent to £132m. For the six months to 30 September, the figure was 1 per cent ahead at £245m.Jonathan Wober, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, said: “The retail problems are largely in the past. It was a question of restoring confidence and that’s basically what they’ve done now.”BAA revealed that, for the half-year, it lost £4.5m on its Eurotunnel shopping concession. BAA is suing the operator of the Channel Tunnel for allegedly misrepresenting passenger growth expectations The number of passengers using the tunnel has fallen. BAA expects a court hearing early next year.At its airports, UK passenger numbers grew 6.6 per cent in the half-year to 69.5 million.

Pre-tax profits, before exceptionals, increased 5.2 per cent to £322m BAA shares closed up 19p at 583p.. Cable & Wireless, the telecoms company, yesterday announced a £1bn investment in Japan to create a national optical fibre network that will take it into the country’s domestic business communications market for the first time. Cable & Wireless, the telecoms company, yesterday announced a £1bn investment in Japan to create a national optical fibre network that will take it into the country’s domestic business communications market for the first time.
The Japanese telecoms market is only just starting to deregulate, so C&W will come up against the dominant position of the former state monopoly Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT).The move, the single biggest investment by a UK company in the Japanese telecoms industry, will build on C&W’s acquisition last year of control of International Digital Communications, a Japanese operator which carries international business traffic to and from Japan.Graham Wallace, chief executive of C&W, said: “We are in a unique position, among foreign operators, in Japan IDC is the key. The economics works for us because we’re not starting from scratch.”Mr Wallace added that, as Japan is a densely populated country, with a business community very concentrated in Tokyo and Osaka, constructing a national network was relatively inexpensive.C&W was a founding shareholder in IDC, with a 18 per cent stake. It gained complete control of it last year, after a hotly contested takeover battle.C&W will invest the money over five years. Over that period, it aims to grow its Japanese revenues from £300m a year to £1bn.

Japan is the world’s second-biggest market for telecoms services.C&W will offer internet and data services to corporate customers in Japan and has targeted 5 per cent of that market by 2005, which would make it the number two player in the sector.Mr Wallace said: “We would be crazy to go up against NTT across the board, but in the focused market that we are targeting, I’m confident.”C&W shares closed down 16p to 964p yesterday. Analysts said there was some concern about the size of the Japanese investment and its relatively long pay-back time.It compares, for instance, with the £2.2bn that C&W had previously earmarked, to cover 1999-2002, for investment in the US, UK and international links.Mr Wallace said that his company was much better placed in Japan than its international rivals AT&T and British Telecoms, which each have a 15 per cent stake in Japan Telecom.”Japan Telecom is not focused and they can’t dictate, as we can with IDC, its network architecture,” he said.C&W said that although Japan was ahead of Europe and the US in mobile technology, in fixed-line services, the West was more advanced. C&W now plans to bring these more sophisticated fixed-line products and services to the Japanese domestic business market.. It might be viewed as the official supplier to the nation’s sweet tooth, but the chocolate brand Cadbury’s has concluded there is more to life than Crunchie and Curly Wurly bars and begun a project to woo the nation’s chocolate snobs. It might be viewed as the official supplier to the nation’s sweet tooth, but the chocolate brand Cadbury’s has concluded there is more to life than Crunchie and Curly Wurly bars and begun a project to woo the nation’s chocolate snobs.
The company plans a chain of upmarket chocolate cafés, to be called Café Cadbury, with fancy truffles rather than chocolate Buttons likely to top the menu.Traditionalists may scoff, but Cadbury is unabashed. It opened the first Café Cadbury in Bath three weeks ago, andclearly hopes that, if things go well, it will be able to cash in on the success of chains such as Starbucks and Coffee Republic.A Cadbury’s spokesman did not agree that, alongside the coffee competitors, the name might seem a bit old fashioned. He said the company hoped to adapt its brand to “a modern, contemporary, indulgent environment – taking the concept of selling chocolate into the new millennium”.Business in Bath has been “fantastic”, he said.

If the success continues, Cadbury’s plans to open more cafés in towns and cities. Decoration at the chocoholic’s paradise is in Bournville purple, the location is choice – over three floors of a listed building – and much of the fare is a cut above the Wispa experience. The company has developed 50 new lines, including little sorbets coated in plain chocolate and ice-cream covered in melted Dairy Milk. The best sellers have been the new range of chocolate drinks.If the concept succeeds, it will be taken as further proof that Britons are chocolate-addicted. Only the Swiss match British consumption, now at four and a half bars of Dairy Milk per person per week.

The rest of the world is way behind.In Britain, 90 per cent of people buy chocolate at some time during the year Scots eat most and Londoners least. But, statistics show, women who buy chocolate give half of it away, while men eat what they buy.Overall, the British chocolate market is worth almost £4bn a year, and Cadbury’s is the leading brand. Its Dairy Milk bar is described as a “megabrand” and accounts for more than 5 per cent of all chocolate sold So it is no surprise the company wants to do a Starbucks. The spokesman acknowledges Cadbury’s is alert to “burgeoning café society” in Britain – the coffee bar market is worth £500m.Others are following the Starbucks route.

He’s consistent and that’s where he has an edge on [David] Yelland [editor of The Sun] and [Piers] Morgan [editor of The Mirror]. Every now and then, they’ll get involved in some serious issue or a rant about the euro, and that’s when their readers get bored and come to us for some fun.”The Star is big on celebrities, goals and tits – although not as much as in the past It’s a cheeky-chappy paper for lads who go to Blackpool. Ask yourself this: If Freddie Star ate someone’s hamster today, who’d be most likely to splash on the story? It would be the Star.”The paper may survive by default simply because its finances are so intertwined with the Express titles. When Lord Matthews dreamt up the idea for a new red-top tabloid – famously, while taking a bath – part of its function was to soak up excess printing capacity. That relationship may yet save it.United News & Media, which owns the titles, does not publish figures for individual papers, but staff say the Star contributes more to printing costs and other overheads than the Express titles, making them appear more viable.”It’s something that constantly riles us, that we are treated like the poor relation but without us they’d be in trouble,” said one senior Star journalist.

“All we’ve experienced in recent years, particularly under Lord Hollick, is cuts and asset-stripping. We don’t even own our own building any more; we rent from one of Hollick’s companies.”Whoever inherits the Star will find a shrunken team desperate for investment and demoralised from years of watching The Sun and The Mirror racing farther ahead. “We used to have more than 20 general reporters,” said the insider “Now there are six on the daytime rota and one at night. The Star and Express and the Saturday and Sunday magazines used to cover more or less all of the nine floors of the Blackfriars building; now we’re all squeezed into two so the rest can be rented out to other companies.

The Star used to have a whole floor to itself; now we have to share with personnel, circulation, marketing, promotions and both the Saturday and Sunday Express magazines.”In spite of everything, there is an indomitable spirit about the place; it still rings true that the Star reporter on any job is often the most cheerful. And there is a belief among staff that, given a little investment (for example, they have no political editor), they could take on The Mirror and The Sun again.”During round after round of redundancies, we’ve seen some great talent go into fantastic positions on other papers,” said the Star journalist. “If they were still here, or if we could get them back, we could challenge anyone We still have some very talented people here. The trouble with this market is that you have to get exclusives and – whether buying pictures or celebrity stories – that costs money We’re already getting readers back. Imagine what we could do if we have a bit more help from the top.”In the final analysis, the bean counters will determine the fate of the paper that brought us bingo and colour Starbirds.

It would be sad, however, if were sold off as a vehicle for phone-sex advertisements and cross-promotion of porn mags at a time when, against all the odds, it seems to be turning a corner.. The owners of the Daily Mail have put in a formal bid of nearly £125m for Express Newspapers, sources close to the Mail confirmed yesterday. The owners of the Daily Mail have put in a formal bid of nearly £125m for Express Newspapers, sources close to the Mail confirmed yesterday.
The sum is understood to include a premium the Daily Mail and General Trust believes it must pay to beat an offer of £90m to £100m from the Hinduja brothers. The premium is deemed necessary because a Mail bid would be referred to the Competition Commission, while a Hinduja sale could be concluded without referral.The source said: “Reports that the Mail will also inject £50m a year into the Express papers over a five-year period are correct.” A high level of investment would contrast greatly with the management by Lord Hollick’s United News, which has been characterised by a severe cost-cutting regime.The Mail’s desire to buy The Express papers sends the battle for ownership of the publications and their sister Daily Star on to a new plane.

Until recently, buying interest seemed lacklustre, with an earlier Hinduja bid of around £75m being rejected, and the Barclay brothers walking away from a deal of complaining that they had received insufficient information about the papers’ finances.The very idea of the Mail buying The Express would have been inconceivable until recently. The Daily Express was founded 100 years ago by Arthur Pearson before becoming the property and propaganda creature of Lord Beaverbrook. Apart from a brief period of co-operation between the two titles to promote Empire Free Trade, the papers spent the rest of the twentieth century as deadly circulation rivals.The Mail is said to be motivated by fear that its arch-rivals at the Hollinger group, which owns The Daily Telegraph, will bid for The Express. Yesterday there was no confirmation Hollinger had made an offer but its owner, Conrad Black, is sitting on a big war chest after selling all his North American papers If he wanted, he could easily outbid the Mail. A Hollinger takeover would make particular sense in business terms, as The Express and Telegraph share the West Ferry printing operation in London’s Docklands.David Montgomery, the former chief executive of The Mirror, has also expressed interest in buying The Express.Yesterday sources close to the Mail confirmed the group considers The Express, without West Ferry, to be “barely profitable”.

The choice of McGuinness is particularly telling, as he has historic and well developed links with the IRA, having been convicted of membership of the organisation in courts in the Republic of Ireland and having been a frequent guest at funerals of IRA men. Clinton, after all, needs to take something of substance back with him to America, and, weakened though he may be by the Lewinsky affair, he is still able to exert influence and pressure on this side of the pond to help him do so.
But, clear as these proximate reasons may be, there are still more fundamental factors at work. SO MARTIN McGuinness has been appointed by Sinn Fein to be its representative to deal with the independent international commission on the decommissioning of arms. The decision to support more actively the decommissioning process comes, of course, shortly after Gerry Adams’s declaration that “Sinn Fein believe the violence we have seen must be for all of us now a thing of the past, over, done with and gone”.

With his background and seniority in the republican movement, he should prove, at least, a man with whom the leader of the decommissioning body, General de Chastelain, can do business. It is good news, if a little startling for the naive few who believed Sinn Fein’s tireless protestations that the IRA was really nothing at all to do with it. Sir: The Shellfish network was formed four years ago to campaign peacefully against cruelty to these animals (“Think shrimp”, Magazine, 29 August). Standard cooking methods are to boil, steam, grill or cut up while they are alive and fully conscious. It is a much-neglected subject compared with other issues of animal abuse.

Though relatively “humane” techniques for stunning crabs and lobsters before cooking have been put forward by animal welfare organisations these are not required by law in Britain. We were active in the protest that made Waitrose and Tesco abandon plans to sell live lobsters. We believe we are the only organisation to give a consistently high profile to the shellfish. But they remain at or near the bottom of the league-table of public sympathy.
We are running a national petition calling on the Government to ban the exploitation of shellfish for human consumption and to press for this at European Community level.JULIE ROXBURGHLeatherhead, Surrey. Thus, if coursework were to replace exams, the comparatively slow and illiterate could appear as well-qualified as the quick, efficient and literate. For these reasons, conventional exams should be retained.

If, as a society, we value literacy, we can thereby ensure that those who have taken the trouble to acquire it are identified by their degree results. This is only fair to them and to their future employers.
TOM SHEPHERDBrighton, East Sussex. Coursework does not give the bright student credit for completing a given assignment to a given standard quickly; and because coursework is usually done on computers, it allows the student who cannot write grammatically, spell or punctuate to appear just as able as his colleague (and future competitor for jobs) who can write well without recourse to spell-check and grammar-check functions. Sir: Coursework and exams are unlikely to be able to furnish “genuinely equivalent academic qualifications” (letter, 28 August). It is true that Diana left behind two sons, but people with children die every day, without ever experiencing a meal at the Ritz in Paris, and their children are left without the benefit of an estate of millions. She lived the life of a privileged aristocrat, who used charitable activities as a public relations exercise to justify a luxurious lifestyle. The fact that working Britons perceived Diana as having a “common touch” and uncritically supported her endless vacations, extravagant wardrobe and worldwide shopping expeditions, indicates just how successful the public relations exercise was.
FRANCES WIDDOWSONToronto, Ontario, Canada.

With the euro, Europe has proved that when it wants to do something, it can. Let’s have the will to do things for ourselves on the international stage! It will take time, I know. But progress has to be made.To carry its partners with it, France must, even more than in the past, develop close and trusting relations with each of the other EU member countries. The time has also come to supplement this ambitious programme in two spheres.Firstly, culture. Their successful completion is the inescapable pre-requisite for the forthcoming enlargement. But they must in no way serve as a pretext for postponing it.

Let me forcefully reiterate: France would like to see the earliest possible accession of all the applicant States satisfying the conditions laid down in the treaties. Enlargement is both a moral duty and an opportunity for Europe.The real difficulties which will have to be overcome must not make us lose sight of the EU’s long-term goal: to form a democratic, peace-loving, powerful and prosperous entity of 500 million men and women, which will be the first in the world. This is our way of counteracting some perverse effects of globalisation and it’s crucial if we are to ensure our people’s lasting support for the European enterprise.The Agenda 2000 negotiations and reform of the institutions will be difficult. Because it gives France back a monetary sovereignty – shared, admittedly – but which it had in reality progressively lost. Because it protects our peoples from monetary crises and fluctuations. Because it establishes for us collective economic disciplines which are the best guarantees of sustained, healthy growth and thus of jobs in all our countries. Because, at last, it will enable Europe to be America’s equal in the decisive monetary sphere.Similarly, we shall soon have to find appropriate solutions in an essential area: the euro’s external representation.

This accelerated economic integration must be supplemented by further progress in the People’s Europe, especially in the sphere of employment and the European social model. This is what gives the institution we have built its unique character. The EU doesn’t want to be the United States of Europe, but the United Europe of States. And, for the first time since the Roman Empire, Europe will, on 1 January next year, have a single currency.Like all my predecessors, and with Helmut Kohl, I wanted to make a success of the most ambitious European venture to date Because it’s the necessary complement to the single market. For the first time, the purpose of this empire forged for intellectual reasons isn’t to ensure the domination of one people over its neighbours, but to assert their union on a basis of respect for each country’s identity and the collective promotion of shared values.

The French, even though they are, justifiably, irritated by certain bureaucratic excesses, grasp the full significance of the adventure on which our continent has embarked thanks to the genius of a few visionaries.
For the first time in history, a power is being borne not by force of arms, but through the freely expressed will of its constituent peoples. The new, often diffuse threats with which it is confronted are the same as those hanging over our main partners. Having drawn a line under territorial and colonial ambitions, while seeking to strengthen the bonds forged by history, France has managed to adapt to a world where the risks, like the components of power, are changing fast and profoundly. In order to promote its interests, France must be able to build up around it different units, varying with the issues involved. In this new set of alliances based on different areas of mutual interest and differing in nature and the intensity of the activities carried out within them, the most important circle is, of course, the European Union. Since the start of this decade, and for the first time for centuries, France has no enemies. SOME PEOPLE think that France has lost some room for manoeuvre with the ending of the bipolar order That’s wrong.

Firstly, because the disappearance of dictatorships is always good news. But above all because, precisely as a result of the ending of the Cold War, France has regained a great freedom of initiative and action. The people of Ireland have spoken and although only some of them are his people, Blair believes in the integrity of the argument and is prepared to take risks for what he believes in. Recalling parliaments and giving laws both sides of the border a sound footing is another step in the new era of trust between the countries.

(“So called,” adds Queneau, “because when the little King of Siam had come on a visit to France and been taken to a concert, what he liked best had been the bit at the beginning where the violins and other instruments were all tuning up…”)The action, such as it is, involves the hopeless passion of one Bernard Lehameau for an English WAAC girl in uniform called Helena Weeds, but most of the time the characters drift around discussing the war’s progress. I HAVE just been reading a First World War novel by – no, not by Sebastian Faulks or Pat Barker, but by a Frenchman who was actually alive when the Great War happened. I have been reading a little-known novel called Un Rude Hiver (A Hard Winter) by Raymond Queneau, which so appealed to me when I first read it that I find myself rereading it once every five years or so. It’s a strange, sad, funny, little story set in Queneau’s home town of Le Havre at a time (about 1917) when the Allies and Germans had not yet thought of bombing it into modernity. No need for Brighton to start sweating just yet.”It would be nice if there were more for young people to do” says Louisa wistfully “Still, there’s always the National Lottery.”.

But it doesn’t go to the right things.”Stacey agrees: “There’s more for the elderly lot. And they get irritated by the noise, so clubs have to close down earlier.”Profitability may be soaring, but it looks as though it will take some time for the rest of the town to fulfil such a lucrative reputation. They sit around on benches and in tea rooms, making the most of the mild weather before the season draws to an end.”I’ve never noticed that this town is prosperous” says Elsie, 70, out with two friends. “They come in, spend their money and then go back again.” Her friend, Pam, chips in: “If you ask me, the place has lost a lot in the last few years, with all those new-fangled shopping centres and the smaller shops going.

It’s taken the character away.”Further along the seafront, at Worthing’s equivalent to Brighton’s “Grand”, Lillian and Sylvia, in their seventies, are settling down to some sewing over a morning coffee. Louisa and Stacey, both 18 and at college, stick out like sore thumbs in one of Worthing’s seafront pubs – chiefly because they’re under 60 years old.”There’s not a lot to do, clubbing-wise,” admits Louisa “You tend to go to Brighton for that There is money around, definitely. Not like Brighton – I hate that place.”The real challenge, it seems, is to locate Worthing’s flourishing younger population – which is supposedly breathing new energy into an old resort. After a fairly arduous hunt, it becomes clear that they are pretty thin on the ground. “It feels welcoming here, but not particularly wealthy,” says Sylvia Lillian agrees “I like it because it’s so quiet. And while the more entrepreneurial residents boast of an influx of lively young things and a dwindling elderly population, 20 minutes in the town centre confirms the exact opposite.In this light, reports of a new tiger economy seem a little far-fetched – more enthusiastic Labrador, maybe. We offer high quality that people like paying for,” he says firmly, despite the fact that there are enough old people walking past his shop to keep him shampooing non- stop for a week.

But that’s not the sort of clientele that interests him.Which leaves you wondering whether Worthing is a town in serious denial – or at least suffering from a split personality: Milton Keynes aspirations with Bournemouth demographics. Elderly couples stroll along the sea front past the sedate- looking ice-cream parlours and the pavilion, where you can catch an afternoon tea dance or watch Hinge and Bracket. It was a missed opportunity Lancashire were to regret, although they kept Derbyshire’s progress in check, with Wasim coming back after his untidy first spell to remove Dominic Cork and Vince Clarke on either side of the lunch interval, both with his trademark toe-crushing yorker.By then, Cassar was well established, moving to his 50 by pushing Ian Austin away to leg for two and then hammering Gary Keedy for a mighty six. New companies have moved in, with young families.”So there’s not much demand for blue rinses, then? He looks vaguely appalled by the idea “Blue rinses? Ooh no, certainly not.

Enquiries: 0171 287 6767.Charcoal zip up jacket (sizes s-l), pounds 110, French Connection, 249 Regent Street, London, W1 14-16 St Ann’s Street, Manchester Enquries: 0171 399 7200.. Enquiries: 0171 323 5050 Blue shirt (sizes 8-16), pounds 49.95, Inwear, Fenwicks, Brent Cross Shopping Centre, London, NW4 20-22 Victoria Quarter, Leeds Enquiries:0181 871 2155. Lime fine knit top (sizes xs-l), pounds 99, Nicole Farhi, 158 New Bond Street, London, W1. Enquiries: 0171 499 8368.Charcoal waxed cotton jacket (sizes 8-14), pounds 225, and matching skirt (sizes 8-14), pounds 115, Godfrey, Liberty, Regent Street, London, W1 Wade Smith, Temple Street, Liverpool. Blue square toe flat mules (sizes 3-7), pounds 135, Russell & Bromley, as before.(This page, clockwise from top left) Pale grey/green jacket (sizes 8- 16), pounds 225, and matching trousers (sizes 8-16), pounds 125, Whistles, 303 Brompton Road, London SW3 Enquiries: 0171 487 4484.

Enquiries: 0171 629 6903.(Opposite page, small pic) Pale grey shell top (sizes 10-16), pounds 50, and matching cropped trousers (sizes 10-16), pounds 60, Wallis, 272-274, Oxford Street, London, W1 Unit 4, Arndale Centre, Manchester Enquiries:0171 910 1333. Blue square toe mules (sizes 3-7), pounds 135, Russell & Bromley, 24-25 New Bond Street, London W1. Tel: 0171 739 6934.(Opposite page, main pic) White pedal pushers (sizes s-l), pounds 135, matching jacket (sizes s-l), pounds 257, and grey T-shirt (sizes s-l), pounds 54, all from Boyd, Koh Samui, 65 Monmouth Street, London SW6 Wade Smith, Temple Street, Liverpool Enquiries: 0171 385 7782. Photographer assisted by Toby.
Stylist assisted by Natasha Hayman.Make-up by Sharon Willmore.Hair by Jean Marie for Vidal Sassoon at Marina Jones.Modelled by Anna.Shot at Bar & Restaurant; Shoreditch Electricity Showrooms, 39a Hoxton Square, London N1. Plus if you’ve got good ankles and not so good thighs, then you can still wear trousers and get the best of both worlds. In the summer these cheeky little suits, worn with bare legs and flat shoes, will be everywhere so buy them now before every high street store sells out.

I don’t agree that this look cuts your legs in half and makes them look short. Really wide trousers are still best worn long and floppy but with straighter ones you should be aiming for mid calf. I love this look – not only can you saw inches off last years trousers if you so wish, but they look so nice at this length, really modern and fresh. But the greatest change in suits is in the trousers: they’re worn very short. They’re either loose and pyjama-y or neatly tailored but with either the feel is clean No unnecessary lapels or details. Suits are such a lovely shape this spring. But do you know, I believe Chris Woodhead will understand.The author’s name has been changed..

The protests failed, my contract was duly terminated and Christine and I relocated to England, where we have lived happily ever after.None of the above will be comprehensible to anyone who has never been hopelessly in love. If only they had known what to look for, they would have found it in abundance As it was, they left empty-handed. I remain convinced that they were either from the tabloid press or the local authority, seeking evidence on which to sack me. My landlady reported that two men had been snooping around my flat, in the wake of a Communist paper implying that I was being removed for alleged left-wing sympathies. Students, parents and staff all agreed that it was essential that I should stay. The entire school went on strike, there were protest marches in the city centre, a TV documentary was made and the story was front page news in German newspapers.

For some reason, this comment seemed to arouse emotions of extreme agitation in said boyfriend. Surfacing after much encouragement, I felt impelled to remind him not to overstew my teabag because the last few times the cuppa’s been way too strong. There was my boyfriend, making my cup of tea, cooking breakfast and gently reminding me it was time to get up. The bestselling book, Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus, by American psychologist Dr John Gray, has mutated into a UK group workshop led by former Relate counsellor Chrissie McDonald. She is now sitting in my living-room, giving a potted demonstration of the workshop and trying to improve my relationship with the help of a metaphorical swimming-pool.
Never mind all this water malarkey, I say, I’ve got examples of my relationship angst straight off the press Take the morning of her visit. Other people seem to be hanging out in the deep end, paddling pool, shallow end, the cafe, even up on the diving-board.

These are not the observations of a swimming nerd, but of a woman who’s just been Mars and Venused. At the moment I’m in the wave machine, but would rather be in the Jacuzzi. My boyfriend is locked in the changing-rooms but is also hoping to make it to the bubbles. I remember going on business trips to exotic places but it wasn’t the same standing in front of the Niagra Falls without Sandy.Journalist: What are you most looking forward to about growing old together?Lionel: Being together.Michael: Yes What matters is that I’m going to have my friend with me.. You are hopeless with those.Sandra: What I really mean by friendship is being completely relaxed with someone.Gloria: For me it’s about sharing.Michael: Yes.

When you first fall in love things like sexual attraction are at the forefront but as you get older the priority shifts to friendship.Lionel: And what makes a good friend?Sandra: You need to have lots in common.Michael: Hmm, but look at us I like playing with cars and computers. Whereas nowadays it’s all written down that people should be getting this and that so if they’re not, they feel deprived.Journalist: Is fidelity essential?(Long pause)Sandra: Well, we had one or two little “experiments” in the Sixties.Gloria: Us too.Sandra: You have to eventually be able to talk about it and understand that if one of you has gone off and had a little adventure it’s not so important that it’s going to break up your marriage. Every magazine now is telling you you’ve got to have multiple orgasms and if he doesn’t do this there’s something wrong…Michael: …they never tell men how to have multiple orgasms, I note.Sandra: We had to experiment as we went along and wonder about other people. Sandy encouraged me to go for a change but she knew if it didn’t work we wouldn’t have any money for food.Gloria: I think many people now start off with too much as individuals and so haven’t got enough to aim for and achieve together.Sandra: I think that’s true sexually as well. I can understand that, but marriage is all about letting yourself need each other Sometimes you have to take risks Like when I was 40 and unhappy in my job. People are handling money as if, at the back of their minds, they know they’re going to have to divide it up again.Michael: I suppose people don’t like the idea of losing their independence financially. And I do find it odd when I hear a husband and wife say to each other, “You owe me pounds 10″, as if they’re keeping an account on each other.Lionel: These prenuptial contracts seem sad to me.

I like receiving cards and I’ve never missed giving Gloria a birthday, anniversary or Valentine…Sandra: Could I marry you please?Journalist: Was money ever an issue?Sandra: Right from the start our money has been our money. The money that will be spent on that rubbish over the next few days would be enough to feed most of the poor in Africa.Sandra: You only read that yesterday – what’s your excuse for the past 40 years?Lionel: Well I think these touches are important. For our wedding present he bought me a suitcase.All: A suitcase!Michael: Look, I don’t believe in all that card stuff. One thing that does disappoint me, mind you, is that Michael isn’t more of a romantic He never buys me flowers or Valentine’s cards. We always took Tuesdays off to make up for Lionel having to work on a Saturday and did something together.Sandra: When you get out of your environment all the humdrum irritations get into perspective. Of course there was a period when the children were young and life revolved around getting them to school, feeding them, and we couldn’t be bothered to talk about anything else.Gloria: When our children left I felt we were back together again as a couple It was lovely But you have to make things to look forward to.

You draw strength from each other that makes the losses and bad times bearable. That’s what love’s about.Lionel: Yes, it’s not a sudden dewy-eyed thing that hits you out of the blue. It’s a shared history built out of all those minute-by-minute, day- by-day experiences. And when you’ve invested all that, you don’t want to lose it.Journalist: How do you avoid boredom?Sandra: Someone once told me the secret of a good marriage is routine On Monday you do the washing, Tuesday the vacuuming .. I thought, I wouldn’t want to be alive if it got like that. Politeness matters more than people realise.Lionel: I can remember us rowing over the silliest things like the baby’s bottle – how many spoonfuls of milk precisely should go in, how hot.Gloria: You go through life thinking trivial things are so important and then something awful happens – like a bereavement – and it puts it in perspective. The modern way is to get out every feeling but if you say something really hurtful you can never take it back.

But the vision is overloaded by faith in psychiatry and director Barbra Streisand’s emotionalism. The promise of healing is as heavy as velvet – and Nolte is not really subject to happy resolutions.And now Affliction and The Thin Red Line. Affliction is Paul Schrader doing a Russell Banks novel, set in New Hampshire in winter, in which Nolte is a sad failure, still intimidated by the father who beat him, yet shrugging the violence off on others. It came from the Robert Stone novel Dog Soldiers, with Nolte playing Ray Hicks, a sailor who returns from Vietnam carrying heroin for a friend, and then gets mixed up with violence and the friend’s wife, played by Tuesday Weld. Directed by Karel Reisz, Who’ll Stop the Rain doesn’t quite work, but it has scenes with Nolte and Weld – as great an actress as he is actor – that are models of incoherent tenderness and gradual awakening to love and helplessness.Then there’s “Life Lesson”, the Martin Scorsese episode in New York Stories, in which Nolte plays a painter who needs to fall in love with his female assistants. They were bigger hits – and Murphy vehicles – but Nolte did a nice job in them, like a well-trained supporting actor.So where do I get off with the claim that Nolte is unique, a lion and a wreck, and so on? Would you believe it, the proof is just five or six pictures.

The first is Who’ll Stop the Rain (l978) – without a question mark, or much audience. In Mulholland Falls he was so cocksure he was plump, until his life shattered. But that was another film that never drew a crowd.So why the fuss? Well, early on, in what was a comeback role, he played the tramp in Down and Out in Beverly Hills. That was a clever remake of the Jean Renoir classic Boudu Saved from Drowning, and Nolte was redoing the Michel Simon role. Simon – this is history, forgive it – was one of the great physical beast actors, as you can see in Boudu or Jean Vigo’s L’Atalante.Nolte matched him, and Down and Out was a hit. For the rest, Nolte’s rather aimless career was held in place by 48 Hrs and Another 48 Hrs, where he was the dour sidekick to Eddie Murphy. Who remembers Extreme Prejudice, Weeds, Farewell to the King, Blue Chips, I’ll Do Anything or even I Love Trouble (l994), an uneasy pairing with Julia Roberts? Sweet nothings and kissy-kissy are not Nolte’s game.That’s a dozen bad films There’s more.

As Jefferson in Paris, he seemed throttled by high collar and prosy talk In Oliver Stone’s U-Turn, he was a comic-book dude. Mother Night – in which (do you believe this?) he played a famous American writer who becomes a broadcaster for the Nazis – was fascinating, but no one saw it. Grace Quigley, with Katharine Hepburn, was a disaster, during which Ms Hepburn told him he should stop drinking if he wanted a career. It’s not just that he couldn’t compete with Jacqueline Bisset in a wet T-shirt in The Deep. What possessed him to play Neal Cassady in that arty version of the Kerouac story, Heart Beat? Who was expected to watch Cannery Row or understand Everybody Loses – two films he made with Debra Winger, a sport and a risk-taker if ever there was one, but an actress who chuckles at the memory of Nolte, as if to say, “Can you believe that guy?”. There have been years when you wondered if anyone was handling his career – and recent years.

But he’s an actor, and actors are meant to trick us with their appearance.Not that Nolte has always helped himself. (Don’t slip past Nebraska, though, for that mid-western state, far from the sea, has also given us Fred Astaire, Henry Fonda, Robert Taylor, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, and even James Coburn.) And why forget the giants? Nolte is six foot one, and he can easily get up to 250 pounds, but he is reportedly small as Noltes go – he has a sister as big as he is.Do you believe that in a smart and well-to-do family Nolte grew up unable to read? That he drifted from one bad college to another trying to make the football team, or that he played for several universities without settling? That he slipped away into Mexico, struggling to read Jack Kerouac; that he lived in a whorehouse? Do you believe that – or is it a version of the American dream? And finally, having never graduated, that he just went away?So that after he had been convicted for burning draft cards with a suspended 45-year sentence, he spent – or tells us he spent – the next 12 years wandering around America with small theatrical companies getting no attention, until, by the time he was cast as Tom Jordache in the first ever TV mini-series, Rich Man, Poor Man, he was 35? He didn’t look it. He is on view, or will be soon, as both a dumb bastard – as a country cop and a man trapped in the genetics of violence – and as a colonel at Guadalcanal, a ranting, pleading hanger- on to real troops, longing for medals and respect He is too old for both parts. (In Affliction, the former film, he is only six years younger than the actor playing his father, James Coburn.) But Nolte still seems young, for he has that denial in American manhood that dreads age.

If only someone would put him in a play, set in Ketchum, Idaho, on that morning when Ernest Hemingway came downstairs alone, talking to himself, and then managed to trigger a gun with his toes. For Nolte could get the grandeur and the bogusness, the terrible fearful act, all in the same moment.But wait: can he be 65? Or is that part of the lying he’s found as hard to abandon as alcohol? The story is that he was born in Omaha, Nebraska – but as long ago as l94l? – to a family of giants. Nick Nolte’s voice can shift from gruff menace to whimper on one word; his body can collapse from wrestler to infant in a puff.You have heard that he isn’t charming, or comfortable That is the point He claims to have been 65 last Monday. This is a dangerous man, an actor you can hear breathing – who makes you feel like the last air left in the room.
All those descriptions are valid, and part of his remarkable tension – that he understands how a man can be simultaneously a lion and a wreck. Yet he could fail to win, because he has not come all the way yet, or done with the painful journey of being himself

But watch out if he ever comes home.

According to economists at the Nationwide Building Society, Islington in north London came out as the top “hotspot” last year with growth of 29 per cent. The “new Labour” factor accounts for part of the rise but the area is also closely linked geographically and financially to the City and banks’ bonuses were good at the start of 1997 and 1998, which created an influx of cash buyers. Ealing in west London came second in 1998 with a 23 per cent rise. Part of the boom there is down to the “BBC factor” – extra workers were relocated to nearby White City from central London last year And it’s not only London owners who have benefited. If you are truly warped, you can even use a website to draw up a graph comparing the value of your house with a similar property anywhere else in the country ( www.upmystreet ). But be warned: don’t do it if you live in Rotherham because the line would point depressingly downwards; house prices here dropped 10 per cent in 1998. For those who bought in parts of London in 1995 and 1996, however, this gives the opportunity to be unbearably smug.

The value of homes in certain parts of the capital have risen by more than 20 per cent in a year. (I plead guilty on this one – since 1996 I have made pounds 70,000 on a flat bought for pounds 107,000. Go on, just hate me.)
So there has been a boom, but it’s been patchy. Announce that your modest home is now worth twice as much as you paid for it and you are guaranteed to engender seething resentment and prickling jealousy among those of your friends who haven’t been so lucky. Pays lip-service to family values and prayer but has been exposed as a liar and an adulterer.Gus, head of the fictitious newsroom in the Channel 4 satire, ‘Drop the Dead Donkey’: A hopeless toady to those above him and patroniser of those below, with a penchant for management jargon Described as “slimy, grasping, untrustworthy”.. Few legal stimulants can generate as much instant passion as a good house-price debate. Mark Tully, BBC India correspondent, accused him of creating a “climate of fear”.

The late Dennis Potter said that “fear and loathing was swirling jugular high” under his ruling.
Robert Maxwell, the late head of the Mirror newspaper group: Not-so- benign dictator A browbeater extraordinaire, of family as well as employees Routinely publicly humiliated employees, including his sons “A man of immense ego… he had a complete disregard for the sensibilities of others,” wrote journalist Roy Greenslade. A Department of Trade and Industry report deemed him unfit to run a public company.Bill Clinton, US President: Leading exponent of “Do as I say, not as I do”. “If you ask your typical Footsie chief exec what makes a good leader he’ll tell you smugly that it is something that you either have or you haven’t.” A sea- change in thinking will not come overnight “We just have to keep bashing away,” says Ian Lawson.

“Apart from the bottom line benefit, it is the right way to deal with people That might sound corny But these are human beings, not human doings.”. Chris Evans, television and radio presenter: Has given his staff dressingdowns on air. His former personal assistant said, “People are treated appallingly at Ginger [his company] and the climate of fear comes from the top. Everyone is so scared of Chris they call him God behind his back.”

Sir John Birt, Director-General of the BBC: Michael Grade said Birt made the BBC “an airtight fortress from which no stray opinion is permitted to escape”. “If people are fully engaged they must be more use to the organisation they work for,” says Ian Lawson. “If the most you have from your employees is compliance they won’t do so well.”However, not everyone is won over.

“The big bosses are going to take some convincing,” sniffed one Financial Times columnist. When they leave or are brought down, which often happens – look at Mrs Thatcher – there is a vacuum. “The historical paradigm about leadership is that a leader is usually a man, often a military figure, very focused so that nothing will get in their way. This kind of white-charger leadership is very charismatic – they lead and everyone follows But it’s very personality-centred. “The top 100 consistently underrated themselves – they showed a real humbleness and a willingness to learn.”It is to companies’ advantage to take these new principles on board, says Ian Lawson. The bottom 100 don’t listen, don’t comment, don’t seek feedback, don’t recognise stress in others – they are all task and ego-focused.” However, getting these old-fashioned types to change their ways may be difficult. “The bottom 100 managers consistently overrated their own performance, even though their teams thought they were rubbish,” says Ian Lawson.