The Sunday Telegraph London back issues from November 1999:
Comment: The family that faces the big reshuffle Vicki Woods and her neighbour assess the Downing Street pregnancy
Nov 21, 1999; ... `IT'LL be interesting, won't it?" said my neighbour theheadhunter's wife. "To see how the family dynamics pan out. Olderchildren, new baby. The little girl's about 10, isn't she?" (Elevennow.) "Mmm. Well, she'll love it, of course." My neighbour the headhunter's wife is a Tory and ...
Comment: How the Russians reduced Chechnya to `a bandit state'
Nov 21, 1999; ... Moscow FIRST there were "sneaky Orientals". Then there were "miserlyJews". Now, thanks to the power of the media to transmit ideasacross borders, another ethnic stereotype has entered the Englishlanguage. Translated from the Russian, the "Chechen terrorist" isbecoming part of the ...
Comment: Archer becomes one of his own characters Politics
Nov 21, 1999; ... THERE is a scene in the film City Hall, a thriller about the fallfrom grace of a New York mayor, in which Al Pacino, realising hispolitical career has been terminated by scandal, says mournfully:"The things I could have done." It is perhaps no accident that thismovie is Lord Archer's ...
Letter to the Editor: Granny wasn't mad
Nov 21, 1999 ... I am a grandchild of Captain Frank Beck and his wife, Mary("Mystery fate of Gallipoli captain drove wife mad", November 14).After spending some time in a sanitorium, Mary returned toDersingham, Norfolk, and led a very active life. She would beremembered as the president of the Women's ...
Letter to the Editor: First news of Nelson
Nov 21, 1999 ... Brian Elvins is correct in saying that The Royal Cornwall Gazettepublished the report of Nelson's victory at Trafalgar before TheLondon Gazette (Letters, November 14). However, the town of Penzancecan lay claim to have been the first in the land to receive thenews. HMS Pickle, ...
Comment: This birth will be the death of politics
Nov 21, 1999; ... THE Blairs have all the luck. On an ordinary day your averagecynical Briton will deplore the fact that the front page of hisnewspaper yet again has a photograph of Cherie Booth, QC, wearingher latest expensive clothes and her old vacuous grin. In the pastweek alone we have watched her ...
Letter to the Editor: The foxhunting enigma
Nov 21, 1999 ... Your report of the street fights in Glasgow following the defeatof the Scottish football team by the English (News, November 14)highlights something I have been puzzled about for some time,namely, why is Dictator Blair so hell-bent on outlawing foxhunting?Foxhunters do not riot. They do ...
Letter to the Editor: Paul out of order
Nov 21, 1999 ... As a primary school classmate of Paul Merton (ne Martin), I findit tiresome that he tells rather nasty stories about one of ourformer teachers, Sister Callista, on television, in his stand-up actand now in The Sunday Telegraph Magazine (November 14). Thesestories are ...
Letter to the Editor: Judge not
Nov 21, 1999 ... The public should not assume that judges are out of touch whenthey profess ignorance of a celebrity's identity ("Judges are tooold", ...
Letter to the Editor: The foxhunting enigma
Nov 21, 1999 ... Dr Patrick Moore writes that he has given up your newspapers,based on his view of the morality of foxhunting (Letters, November14). Surely that is the ...
Letter to the Editor: The foxhunting enigma
Nov 21, 1999 ... The excellent article by Andrew Roberts on children's television(Comment, November 14) reminded me of my pet theory on the anti-foxhunting lobby. Many of its adherents were obviously brought ...
Letter to the Editor: Menace of the marten
Nov 21, 1999 ... As one who has watched pine martens for more than 20 years, it isno surprise to me that they are apparently thriving (Nature Watch,November 14), as the pine marten is an inquisitive, adventurous andhighly adaptable animal. To assume that it is exceptionally shy isonly partly true, for it ...
Letter to the Editor: You couldn't swing with Hutch
Nov 21, 1999 ... Whatever Hutch may have been, he was not a swing singer, great orotherwise, as described by Selina Hastings (Review, November 14).Leslie Hutchinson was ...
Letter to the Editor: Noble Cenotaph
Nov 21, 1999 ... I am sorry that Auberon Waugh finds the Cenotaph ugly andungainly, and those who find beauty in it muddled, if not perverse.As one of those muddled persons, I am moved by the sense oftimelessness and grandeur that Lutyens, a supremely religious man,brought to the concept of "Our Glorious ...
Letter to the Editor: Stamp out MPs' wives jam cliche
Nov 21, 1999 ... Amanda Hall says that Louise Patten is "neither the clichedbusinesswoman nor the stereotypical jam-making politician's wife"(City Profile, November 14). I spent more than 30 years working forseven MPs and I do not remember any of their wives ever making jam.They ...
Letter to the Editor: IRA heart
Nov 21, 1999 ... Kevin Myers brought to my mind an evening some years ago when Iwas collecting door-to-door for the British Legion Poppy Fund(Comment, November 14). The door was opened by a gentle, elderly manwho, when I asked him for a contribution, ...
Letter to the Editor: War casualties
Nov 21, 1999 ... Angela Lambert's moving article "The sorrow that never died"(Focus, November 14) is marred by the error "a quarter of a millionBritish servicemen were killed between 1939 and 1945". The figurefor the British ...
Letter to the Editor: Under fire
Nov 21, 1999 ... Mrs G E Cowell claims that she and her husband cannot remember atime when a British Prime Minister was under such malevolent andsustained attack (Letters, November 14) ....
Letter to the Editor: Spelt right
Nov 21, 1999 ... Makers of genuine champagne would surely use the word "millenium"just as on the phoney label in your report ("Alert ...
Letter to the Editor: Heath, a man without remorse
Nov 21, 1999 ... Sir Edward Heath displays colossal vanity and a complete lack ofself-knowledge in his interview with Gyles Brandreth ("Dictators hehas known", Review, November 14). Sir Edward is without question themost disastrous Prime Minister since 1945. In economic policy hemade a complete U-turn, ...
Letter to the Editor: Heath, a man without remorse
Nov 21, 1999 ... In his interview with Sir Edward Heath, Gyles Brandreth says:"You may be thinking that a man who has a barely concealed contemptfor Thatcher, a certain reverence for Mao, and an ...
Letter to the Editor: Heath, a man without remorse
Nov 21, 1999 ... So Sir Edward expects that in politics "you can't just lay downthe law and expect people to follow it". Why then did he take ...
Comment: Baby Blair in romper budget crisis
Nov 21, 1999; ... LAST week journalists were briefed about how many thousands ofpounds of her own money Cherie Blair had to spend on clothes inorder to keep up appearances as the wife of the Prime Minister andavoid accusations from the dreaded fashion commentators that she waslooking frumpy. We ...
Comment: Rhyme & Reason
Nov 21, 1999; ... KEN'S ODYSSEY Labour fails to keep Ken Livingstone off the shortlist for Mayor of London (With apologies to John Keats) Silent up in a tower in Millbank, then, Anji looked at Sally with wild surprise To find they'd been run rings round by Red ...
Comment: Repro-gent Profile The English gentleman The new James Bond film confirms the extinction of a species
Nov 21, 1999 ... WITH a finger on the trigger and a girl on his arm it still looksas though he has got the whole world in his hands: he's in control.Once he was a warrior both cold and sexual. Now he has gone post-feminist and the girls can be hunters too. There's a new sensitivityabroad when he broods ...
Comment: The terror of the rain
Nov 21, 1999; ... Languedoc `IT seemed," an elderly lady told me as she looked at thewreckage of her kitchen, "like the end of the world. I thought thewater was going to fill the whole house and that I would drown." At the end of last weekend, during which a meteorological shadowof death ...
Comment: Dyke's vision is obvious or nonsense
Nov 21, 1999; ... NO patriotic Englishman can want England's bid for the 2006 WorldCup to be successful. It would provide yet another occasion fornational humiliation and shame. The hooligan element among Englandsupporters is to be distinguished from the boisterous, "respectable"fans only in a matter of ...
Property: The architect of my dreams - so far Diary of self-builder
Nov 21, 1999; ... Twenty-five years ago, a friend who was an architect lent me abook. Whenever he began a new commission, this architect always gavea copy of the book to his client. I wish I could get my hands on itnow and give it to my architect, Gordon Duffy. The book (I can't remember the title ...
Property: Sold - to the gentleman tailed by the Fraud Squad You, too, can be a lord - all you need is a few thousand pounds. Which is why last week's auction of ancient manorial titles attracted all manner of aspirant aristocrats, including a mysterious man in a Homburg hat. Max Davidson watched the drama unfold . . .
Nov 21, 1999; ... What price a title now that the hereditary peers have beenreduced to an elected rump? Lords used to be rather grand figures,people to whom one deferred because they were, well, lords. Not anymore. They are just well-spoken gents with houses in the country.Their mystique has ...
Sunday Review Feature: My life with NOEL Sir Noel Coward was born 100 years ago next month. In this unprecedented interview, Graham Payn, his close companion and friend for nearly 30 years, tells Gyles Brandreth about their public and private lives
Nov 21, 1999; ... I'VE BEEN to a marvellous party. They were all there - Marlene,Tallulah, Nureyev and Fonteyn, Dickie Mountbatten, Larry and Viv - astar-studded array, in silver frames on top of the piano. And acrossthe room, on the mantelpiece, on her own, in pride of place, lookinglovelier than ever, ...
Sunday Review Feature: `Many of his closest friends were women'
Nov 21, 1999; ... GRAHAM PAYN'S manner is dapper, unflamboyant. He is modest abouthis own achievements, quick to acknowledge the opportunities thatcame his way because of his friendship with Coward. "I met someextraordinary ladies through Noel," he told me. "Many of his closestfriends were ...
Sunday Review Feature: What price a measure of happiness? Time of My Life
Nov 21, 1999; ... TWO professors, one British, one American, have been studyinghappiness, and come up with the joint conclusion that women are mostmiserable at the age of 40, and men at 43. This is very odd, because it is precisely those ages that we callthe prime of life, and prime implies best ....
Sunday Review Feature: The typhoon that took my Susan One year into the sailing trip of a lifetime, disaster struck Gordon Chaplin and his girlfriend. Here he describes how he struggled to save her from drowning when a freak Pacific storm destroyed their boat
Nov 21, 1999; ... IT WAS almost exactly a year since Susan and I had set sail fromFort Lauderdale, Florida. Just before sunset, we dropped anchor inthe lee of one of the little islets that swing like pearls along theencircling barrier reef of Wotho atoll in the Marshalls, in themiddle of the Pacific ...
Sunday Review Feature: A yokel comes to town As a child, the creator of Men Behaving Badly couldn't wait to move to London. Simon Nye reveals his painful metamorphosis from bumpkin to cool cosmopolitan
Nov 21, 1999; ... I GREW up in the Sussex countryside, from where we eyed London -a grey mass pulsing malevolently at the sharp end of the A23 - withsuspicion. My father drove us all up to the city two or three timesa year in a second-hand estate car that identified us immediately ...
Sunday Review Feature: `I can't wait for Armageddon, me' Me and My God The pools winner Viv Nicholson, now the subject of a musical, talks to Frances Welch
Nov 21, 1999; ... VIV NICHOLSON has been a Jehovah's Witness for 20 years. Shebecame famous for announcing that she would "spend, spend, spend"after winning the pools in 1961. She enjoyed five husbands, oftenaccompanied by baths in champagne, but ended up impoverished andalone. "I was very low, ...
Sunday Review Feature: Loosen up - and avoid trouser-related accidents In Sickness and in Health
Nov 21, 1999; ... IT IS HARD to imagine that clothing could be a serious healthhazard, but more than 4,000 people visit casualty every year withtrouser-related incidents. This fascinating piece of informationcomes courtesy of an annual report produced by the Department ofTrade, "Home Accident and Leisure ...
Style: Fenwick Christmas shopping exclusive
Nov 21, 1999 ... THIS YEAR, the Sunday Telegraph and the Fenwick group of storescelebrate the 10th aniversary of their traditional ChristmasShopping Evenings for readers. The events, held in four stores, provide an opportunity to shopafter-hours in a festive atmosphere. Attractions include free ...
Style: That Pringle tingle This venerable knitwear company, writes Melanie Rickey, has moved on from the diamond-patterned `golf thing' with a classic range in cashmere and a new `face' - the Scottish model Honor Fraser
Nov 21, 1999; ... UNTIL this autumn, Pringle conjured up one of two images: paunchygolfers wearing argyle jumpers embroidered with a lion; or a newform of moulded potato crisp. It did not represent glamour, luxuryand style. But now Pringle is the latest classic company to get a"rip it up and start again" ...
The Arts: Fantasia comes to fruition Walt Disney's grand plans for a `perpetual entertainment' have now been realised with Fantasia 2000. His nephew tells Anwar Brett the amazing story
Nov 21, 1999; ... WHEN it was released in 1940, Fantasia appeared to be WaltDisney's folly. A bold attempt to combine animation with classicalmusic, the film fell disastrously between the high- and low-brow,offending purists while not selling itself successfully to a massaudience. The film failed to ...
The Arts: Three hours of fireworks Opera
Nov 21, 1999; ... Rinaldo La Clemenza di Tito Peter Grimes WITH Rinaldo in 1711, Handel burst upon the London musical scene,although burst is perhaps not the exact verb for an opera lastingwell over three hours. But its effect is certainly that of agigantic vocal firework display, and the Barbican ...
The Arts: We all love a cynic Cinema
Nov 21, 1999; ... Onegin Random Hearts EdTV Fanny and Elvis The Cup SOME memories never fade. For instance, I can't think of EugeneOnegin without being reminded of Tchaikovsky's opera and, inparticular, Ken Russell's use of it in The Music Lovers (1970),which inevitably conjures up the ...
The Arts: Marked for life by Glorious John Michael Kennedy recalls his friendship with the conductor Sir John Barbirolli, whose centenary it is - a man who had `the biggest heart in his profession'
Nov 21, 1999; ... WHILE the great and the good are reopening the Royal Opera Housewith galas and junketing until the real business of opera startswith Falstaff on December 6, the music-lovers of Manchester andlisteners to Radio 3 will be celebrating the centenary of the birthof a conductor who refused the ...
The Arts: Evil vertical take-off Theatre
Nov 21, 1999; ... Macbeth Collected Stories The Chiltern Hundreds THE NEW Macbeth, at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, is thebest production of the play I have seen for a very long time. It hasits flaws, and since it deserves to be judged by the higheststandards they can't be ...
The Arts: 200 per cent from the Norwegians Dance
Nov 21, 1999; ... Dance Tribute to the Art of Football Romeo and Juliet WE DON'T see a vast amount of Scandinavian dance in this countrybut this was put right last week when the capital was suddenly stiffwith feather-footed Norwegians. Jo Strmgren Kompani enlivened theICA's No Way ...
The Arts: Digital hits the spot Radio
Nov 21, 1999; ... " THE COUNTRY has never seen such a fantastic launch of radio -ever," proclaimed Quentin Howard, the chief executive of DigitalOne, last Monday, to a mob of hacks and execs downing Kir Royales ina darkened art gallery in Bermondsey. You missed this fantastic launch perhaps? You can ...
The Arts: Boys in white go to Bosnia Television
Nov 21, 1999; ... A BIG week for BBC drama. And a big week, too, for dramatisedconflict. Leigh Jackson's two-parter, Warriors (last night andtonight, BBC1), was set in 1992 and followed British members of theUN Protection Force in Bosnia as they attempted to stop the Serbsand Croats from butchering the ...
The Arts: Fine art is the only possible teacher Art
Nov 21, 1999; ... 45-99: A personal view of British painting and sculpture Critic's Choice: A selection by Bryan Robertson WITH the millennium countdown comes the stocktaking. Timelyexhibitions, 45-99: A personal view of British painting andsculpture by Bryan Robertson at Kettle's Yard, ...
Books: A one-man grand projet The Sun King may have had his equals - though not many - as a monarch, but not as a builder, says John Adamson
Nov 21, 1999; ... Louis XIV by Ian Dunlop Chatto & Windus, pounds 25, 488 pp pounds 20 (free p&p) 0541 557222 ONCE UPON a time, Louis XIV was regarded as the archetype of theabsolutist king. Ermine-robed, swaggering, powdered and bewigged,his image gazes imperiously from a ...
Books: Millennium Reputations Which are the most overrated authors, or books, of the past 1,000 years? Continuing our series, the poet Paul Muldoon nominates William Faulkner
Nov 21, 1999; ... WHEN I was in my mid-twenties, largely because of my earlyinfatuation with As I Lay Dying, I began systematically to work myway through the books of William Faulkner. I was half-way throughone of those strung-out, stilted, "stentorian" sentences in, Ithink, Go Down, Moses, when I threw ...
Books: Compliments for fishing George Melly discovers why Max Hastings and Robert Hughes fell for fish - hook, line and sinker
Nov 21, 1999; ... A Jerk On One End: Reflections of a Mediocre Fisherman by Robert Hughes Harvill, pounds 12, 117 pp pounds 10 (free p&p) 0541 557222 Scattered Shots by Max Hastings Macmillan, pounds 20, 245 pp pounds 16 (free p&p) 0541 ...
Books: Ministers versus mandarins There is nothing new about the struggle for ascendancy between Downing Street and Whitehall, says Sue Cameron
Nov 21, 1999; ... The Powers Behind the Prime Minister: The Hidden Influence ofNumber Ten by Dennis Kavanagh and Anthony Seldon HarperCollins, pounds 19.99, 388 pp pounds 16.99 (free p&p) 0541 557222 WHEN THE Prime Minister decided to bring his own team of personalpolicy advisers ...
Books: The grassy knoll gets crowded
Nov 21, 1999; ... The Shot by Philip Kerr Orion, pounds 12.99, 370 pp pounds 10.99 (free p&p) 0541 557222 PHILIP KERR's latest book centres on a professional hit-mancalled Tom Jefferson and, as another character remarks: "If that'san alias, mister, it's a mighty patriotic one." ...
Books: More pig than prig Julie Burchill, who pioneered `journo- porn', is not impressed by this new effort in the genre
Nov 21, 1999; ... Scandal by Amanda Platell Piatkus, pounds 5.99, 297 pp pounds 5.99 (free p&p) 0541 557222 UNTIL 1989, fictional journalists were either bumbling fools orcynical loners: Ambition, my first novel, changed all that. Theheroine, Susan Street, was invariably dolled ...
Books: The diaries of a dingbat Jane Shilling finds Bridget Jones older, madder and reliant on self-help books
Nov 21, 1999; ... Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding Picador, pounds 12.99, 422 pp pounds 10.99 (free p&p) 0541 557222 IT IS hard to believe that a few years ago, none of us had heardof Bridget Jones. Since the first volume of Bridget Jones's Diarywas ...
Books: Knights used as pawns Christopher Howse praises a history of the Knights Templar, an order destroyed by a Pope and a Christian king
Nov 21, 1999; ... The Templars by Piers Paul Read Weidenfeld & Nicolson, pounds 20, 350 pp pounds 17 (free p&p) 0541 557222 ON FRIDAY 13, 1307, James of Molay, the Grand Master of theTemple, was arrested in Paris, along with another 15,000 throughoutFrance - the Templar knights, ...
Books: We are a good mama Andrew Roberts is not persuaded that Queen Victoria ruined her daughters' lives
Nov 21, 1999; ... Victoria's Daughters by Jerrold M. Packard Sutton, pounds 19.99, 370 pp pounds 17.99 (free p&p) 0541 557222 WHAT MUST it have been like to grow up with Queen Victoria for amother? Pretty unpleasant, in the opinion of the American popularhistorian Jerrold ...
Books: Meaningful feelings Anthony Daniels tries to find out what lies behind our displays of emotion
Nov 21, 1999; ... How Emotions Work by Jack Katz Chicago UP, pounds 19.50, 407 pp pounds 16.50 (free p&p) 0541 557222 WHEN PATIENTS ask me to explain why they feel as they do (bad,otherwise they wouldn't ask), I often wonder what would count as asatisfactory explanation. Am I to ...
Books: The fine art of letters Nicholas Bagnall enjoys a painterly correspondence
Nov 21, 1999; ... First Friends: Paul and Bunty, John and Christine - andCarrington by Ronald Blythe Penguin, pounds 25, 157 pp pounds 22 (free p&p) 0541 557222 PAUL AND John are the Nash brothers, whose paintings, much totheir annoyance, used sometimes to be confused by critics ...
Books: Who is to blame for the Balkans? Noel Malcolm on an inconsistent attempt to write a history of a complex region
Nov 21, 1999; ... The Balkans 1804-1999: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers by Misha Glenny Granta, pounds 25, 726 pp pounds 23 (free p&p) 0541 557222 AMONG OLD Balkan hands, Misha Glenny rejoices in the nickname"Misha Gloomy" - not because he is a particularly ...
Books: Paperback best-sellers
Nov 21, 1999; ... Fiction 1 The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett (Doubleday, pounds 16.99). Estimated week's sale: 12,900. 2 Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years, Sue Townsend (MichaelJoseph, pounds 14.99). 9,717. 3 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, ...
House & Home: What are you actually paying for? The market value of these two houses is similar, but the one on the left costs eight times as much to rebuild. Ross Clark compares the value of bricks and mortar with land, location - and snob value
Nov 21, 1999; ... THE BOOMING housing market was last week blamed for a rise ininflation. But the cost of goods and services such as bricks, cementand building labour is hardly rising at all compared with that ofthe finished product - a house - which is galloping upwards. So whenyou shell out pounds ...
Books: Paperbacks
Nov 21, 1999; ... Schubert by Richard Baker Little, Brown, pounds 12.99 FRANZ SCHUBERT is the quintessentially Viennese composer, andthis biography brings both him and the Vienna of his day aliveagain. His friends, his social life, his sad attempts at love, but,above all, the vast ...
House & Home: Wreck of the Week Cloford Manor, Frome
Nov 21, 1999; ... THE INSIDE of Cloford Manor in Somerset is, in parts, little morethan a shell. The stone-built Grade 2-listed building has not beenoccupied since 1964 and, in the words of the estate agent, "requirescomplete restoration". A roof of corrugated fibre cement covers asizeable section. Most ...
House & Home: Mud always sticks It's cheap, simple and long- lasting, but has been sadly neglected. Now, says Martin Jackson, the art of building with rammed earth is making a comeback
Nov 21, 1999; ... IT IS the universal building material, from Uganda to Peru. InAustralia it is the fashion statement of the moment, and both LeCorbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright worked with it. Building houses from rammed earth also has a long history inBritain - but for the past 70 years or so soil ...
House & Home: When paying in cash can prove a false economy On the level
Nov 21, 1999; ... IN AN IDEAL world, getting work done on your home should bestraightforward. After all, everybody has to get the builders in atsome time; and there are lots of builders around who make theirliving by doing the work. So why should engaging a builder be anymore complicated than buying a ...