The Sunday Telegraph London back issues from August 2003:
WANTED: A SUITABLE BOY
Aug 03, 2003; ... Spice Girl or Nice Girl? Intelligent, not entirely repulsive-looking Sikh woman, good sense of humour,risks social death by ageing arranged-marriage machine. The phone rings. My mother's voice is low and clipped, her eyesdowncast, her feet playing with the telephone wire. She ...
How Miss Wilbur aroused my Latin passion Jeffrey Eugenides, whose Pulitzer prize-winning novel, Middlesex, is soon to be published in paperback, describes how a dead language helped bring his 'family epic' to life
Aug 03, 2003; ... My first Latin teacher, Miss Wilbur, wore her sunglasses duringclass. Behind those smoked lenses she taught us the rudiments ofgrammar, tested us on vocabulary and led us in conjugational,sometimes conjugal, chants: "Amo, amas, amat . . ." I don't rememberMiss Wilbur ever standing. I ...
The first rascal of rap Interview Dizzee Rascal has crammed a lot into his 19 years: four school expulsions, a much-lauded CD, a Mercury prize nomination and a stabbing - allegedly by rival rap fans. What next?
Aug 03, 2003; ... In a recent song, Dylan Mills (professionally known as DizzeeRascal) describes himself as "a problem for Anthony Blair" - a roleto which he appears committed. At 19 he is already one of rap music'smost talented performers (his debut CD, Boy in da Corner, has beendescribed by critics as ...
Why should I change my face? Bullied and depressed, Vicky Lucas once thought surgery was only the way to deal with her disfigurement. Now she tells Julia Llewellyn Smith why Cherubism is 'fundamental to who I am'
Aug 03, 2003; ... Whatever the insult thrown at Vicky Lucas, the chances are she hasheard it already. "Popeye, Desperate Dan, Chubby Cheeks," she sayswearily. "None of it terribly original. But the names aren't so bad.It's the staring I hate." Then she hoots with laughter. "The otherday I was walking ...
The real miracle of IVF happens in the womb In Sickness and in Health
Aug 03, 2003; ... The recent and much-celebrated 25th anniversary of the birth ofLouise Joy Brown provided the excuse to re-read yet again the movingaccount of that momentous event, written by the two doctors involved.The dramatis personae in "the sensational story of the world's firsttest-tube baby" ...
The greatest show on Earth Yann Arthus-Bertrand's aerial photographs show us our planet as we have never seen it before, and it is dazzlingly beautiful. He talks to Julia Grey
Aug 03, 2003; ... The French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand's progress throughhis Earth from the Air exhibition outside the Natural History Museumis impeded by his insistence on stopping to collect every scrap oflitter. "Ah! I 'ate the paper!" he cries. "Everything I do must beflawless." His ...
On the rack of a passionate parallelogram Art
Aug 03, 2003; ... Euan Uglow It is easy to construct a case against Euan Uglow (1932-2000), ofwhose work a wide-ranging retrospective, Controlled Passion, is onshow at Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, until October 11. To beginwith, he seems to have spent a good deal of his time tormenting ...
Opera
Aug 03, 2003; ... Die Fledermaus I'm afraid this was not the night they invented champagne. As theheaps of empty bottles rose higher and higher, so patience withGlyndebourne's new production of Die Fledermaus grew shorter andshorter. This is the first time Johann Strauss II's operetta has ...
Cultural revolution's desert song Opera
Aug 03, 2003; ... Santa Fe Opera Festival Santa Fe's is one of the most sensational opera houses in theworld, situated six miles outside the city in the desert. The theatreis open at the sides to let in the cool night air. Moths flit aroundthe auditorium. When I was here four years ago the ...
My grandpa's a cyborg Cinema
Aug 03, 2003; ... Terminator 3 Legally Blonde 2 Kirikou and the Sorceress Spy Kids 3D Well, he took his time about it, but in the end Arnie was as goodas his word. He's back. After a decade of films we didn't want to see(Jingle all the Way, Collateral Damage) and political ...
The Irish accent is on heroism
Aug 03, 2003; ... Veronica Guerin (18) When I first heard that the blockbuster Hollywood producer JerryBruckheimer and the director Joel Schumacher were to tackle the storyof Veronica Guerin, the murdered Irish journalist, I felt a smallsinking of the heart. Hollywood simultaneously adores Irish ...
The city with a fringe on top David Gritten talks to Edinburgh Festival director Brian McMaster about the cuckoo that's too big for the nest
Aug 03, 2003; ... This is a frustrating Sunday for Brian McMaster, the director ofthe Edinburgh International Festival. To the wide world outside theScottish capital, today marks this year's launch of what isgenerically known as "the Edinburgh Festival". But it's not hisfestival, the high-culture ...
Back home with Mother Russia Ghosts, fairies, elephants, palanquins, odalisques, collapsing temples and a cast of thousands - the Kirov Ballet's London season defies all expectations, writes Louise Levene
Aug 03, 2003; ... I have a nasty feeling that Hell, for ballet-goers, is a room fullof people debating the rival productions of Swan Lake. Normal peoplehear of a good ballet, go and see it, then happily cross it off theirlist. Balletomanes behave rather differently and frequently see thesame work so many ...
All for obsessive love Theatre
Aug 03, 2003; ... Edward II A Comedy of Arias Pericles The Globe Theatre's current production of Christopher Marlowe'sDido, Queen of Carthage does the author no favours, but now it hasmade him amends with its new version of Edward II. This is still thestrongest play with an overtly ...
Chick-out time Television
Aug 03, 2003; ... Affronted by its portrayal of men as lumps of disposable bedroomfurniture, I have felt it necessary to keep a close eye on Sex andthe City (Channel 4, Friday). These are tough times for men. The oldcertainties are collapsing. We're not sure who or what we are anymore, and it doesn't help ...
Mercenary games Radio
Aug 03, 2003; ... Not all jokes come off. There was a joke that definitely didn't inthe extraordinary programme that began a new series of BetweenOurselves (Radio 4, Tuesday), in which Olivia O'Leary talks to "twopeople with similar experiences". "Have you killed a lot of people, Karl?" O'Leary ...
Scandal and shell shock This account of a First World War seduction seeks to defend the wrong person, says Frances Wilson
Aug 03, 2003; ... Patsy: The Story of Mary Cornwallis-West by Tim Coates Bloomsbury, pounds 16.99, 262 pp pounds 14.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 MARY "PATSY" Cornwallis-West "loved to be mad", which evidenceditself in her preference for descending the stairs on a tea-tray ....
Kafka's happiness Dora Diamant's life would have been interesting, even without her lover, says John Gross
Aug 03, 2003; ... Kafka's Last Love: The Mystery of Dora Diamant by Kathi Diamant Secker & Warburg, pounds 16.99, 402 pp pounds 14.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 FRANZ KAFKA met Dora Diamant in July 1923, when he was staying ina seaside resort in northern Germany and ...
He followed the script to the letter Noel Malcolm on a soldier- scholar who, when not winning hearts and minds in Baghdad, deciphered the languages of ancient Persia
Aug 03, 2003; ... Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages ofBabylon by Lesley Adkins HarperCollins, pounds 20, 424 pp pounds 18 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 READING THIS absorbing biography of the 19th-century soldier-scholar Henry Rawlinson, one cannot ...
The Literary Life
Aug 03, 2003; ... THE winner of the 2003 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest - set up tocommemorate the dreadful opening of his novel Paul Clifford: "It wasa dark and stormy night . . ." - is Mariann Simms. Her bid for infamybegins: "They had but one last remaining night together, so theyembraced each other as ...
A laying on of hands This study of the piano and piano playing hits all the right notes, finds Michael Kennedy
Aug 03, 2003; ... Piano Notes: The Hidden World of the Pianist by Charles Rosen Allen Lane, pounds 12.99, 246 pp pounds 11.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 IF THERE is a better or more controversial book than this aboutthe art and practice of playing the ...
Holloway's Joan of Arc Hunger strikes, force feeding . . . the Suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst had much to put up with, says Kate Chisholm
Aug 03, 2003; ... Sylvia Pankhurst: A Crusading Life, 1882-1960 by Shirley Harrison Aurum Press, pounds 20, 291 pp pounds 18 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 MENTION OF THE Pankhursts, mother and daughters, provokes sniggersin some quarters; adulation in others. These were women ...
Lord Archer's true crime Theodore Dalrymple searches these journals for insights into prison life and the prisoner himself
Aug 03, 2003; ... A Prison Diary: Vol II. Wayland: Purgatory by Jeffrey Archer Macmillan, pounds 16.99, 310 pp pounds 14.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 MANY, PERHAPS most, of us have done something at some time in ourlives that, morally if not legally, would merit fitting ...
Paperbacks
Aug 03, 2003; ... Y: The Descent of Men by Steve Jones Abacus, pounds 7.99 A MIXTURE of society, stupidity and testosterone has created thecrisis of modern manhood, and the Y chromosome, the vessel ofmanhood, is the most decayed, redundant and parasitic part of thehuman genome. In ...
Paperbacks
Aug 03, 2003; ... White Lightning by Justin Cartwright Sceptre, pounds 6.99 A TYPICALLY polished effort by a consistently underrated novelist,White Lightning tells the story of James Kronk, an expat SouthAfrican who returns to his homeland to visit his dying mother. Hebuys a ...
Plumbing the depths of time Graham Farmelo on Lives of two pioneering geologists who showed just how old planet Earth really is
Aug 03, 2003; ... The Man Who Found Time: James Hutton and the Discovery of theEarth's Antiquity by Jack Repcheck Simon & Schuster, pounds 15.99, 247 pp pounds 13.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 Revolutions in the Earth: James Hutton and the True Age of the ...
Moved to tears Which book, poem or play has made you cry more than any other? Continuing our series, the historian Paul Johnson chooses Robert Louis Stevenson's Requiem
Aug 03, 2003; ... I HAVE cried, once, at Tennyson's In Memoriam and once, too atAdomais, Shelley's lament for the dead Keats. But one little poemthat always makes me weep, when I come across it by chance, is R. L.Stevenson's Requiem. I cry because Stevenson, with his hopelesslungs, was under sentence of ...
Money ruled the waves Saul David enjoys a lively study of the age when maritime skill - and fiscal prudence - put Britain on top
Aug 03, 2003; ... Maritime Power and the Struggle for Freedom: Naval Campaigns thatShaped the Modern World, 1788-1851 by Peter Padfield John Murray, pounds 25, 451 pp pounds 23 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 THIS IS the second of Peter Padfield's trilogy of books on thedominant ...
Civilised barbarians
Aug 03, 2003; ... The Advocate by Marcello Fois Harvill, pounds 10.99, 116 pp pounds 10.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 MARCELLO FOIS has won fame on the Continent with a sequence ofcrime novels set in his native Sardinia. The Advocate is the firstEnglish translation of the ...
Literary laughs
Aug 03, 2003; ... The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde Hodder & Stoughton, pounds 10.99, 360 pp pounds 10.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 "MR GRNKSGHTY?" "Yes?" "How do you pronounce your name?" If that exchange leaves you cold, you will hate The Well of LostPlots ....
An echo of London past Caroline Moore relishes this characteristically macabre novel from Peter Ackroyd
Aug 03, 2003; ... The Clerkenwell Tales by Peter Ackroyd Chatto & Windus, pounds 15.99, 213 pp pounds 13.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 THE CHIEF "character" in Peter Ackroyd's novel is medievalClerkenwell. This will be no surprise to readers of Ackroyd'squirkily crammed ...
Dance
Aug 03, 2003; ... Cullberg Ballet Playhouse Aug 11-14. A double-bill of work fromthis modern Swedish company of powerful and expressive dancers. Homeand Home is by Cullberg's new artistic director Johan Inger and isdanced to a chef's salad of Amon Tobin, Andre Ferrari, BogdanRaczynski and Bach. Fluke, by ...
Art
Aug 03, 2003; ... Craigie Aitchison Ingleby Gallery, 6 Carlton Terrace 0131 5564441, Wed to Sep 13. Expect dogs, still-lifes and crucifixions,painted in brilliant, fresco-like colour and in his unique innocentbut sophisticated manner. Winifred Nicholson in Scotland Dean Gallery, Scottish ...
Cinema
Aug 03, 2003; ... This year's Edinburgh International Film Festival (Aug 13-24,www.edfilmfest.org.uk) has the theme of `New Europe', with ShaneDanielsen in a second year as festival director. The show opens with David Mackenzie's Young Adam, a film based onAlexander Trocchi's cult 1960s novel: it's ...
Concerts
Aug 03, 2003; ... Usher Hall Aug 10-16. Sun 10, 8pm: the Royal Scottish National Orchestraopens the Festival with Garry Walker conducting Gyorgy Kurtag's Stelefor large orchestra (complete with Wagner tubas); Sir CharlesMackerras takes over for Janacek's Glagolitic Mass, with theEdinburgh Festival ...
Theatre
Aug 03, 2003; ... THE big opening attraction of the official Festival is Chekhov'sThe Seagull, directed by the celebrated German maestro Peter Stein atthe King's Theatre Aug 11-23 - Stein's first production in English.Fiona Shaw plays Madame Arkadina; Iain Glen and Jodhi May are among astrong supporting ...
Comedy
Aug 03, 2003; ... Tina C Pleasance. Gloriously bad-taste comedy from Chris Green's C& W-diva creation who, with her usual sensitivity and clarity ofvision, is now a lifestyle guru. Bradley Walsh Assembly. For those with a cruel streak: an old-school TV schmoozer enters the bearpit as he makes his ...
Opera
Aug 03, 2003; ... Festival Theatre, Aug 10-16: the first of two cycles (both soldout) of Wagner's Ring in Tim Albery's production for Scottish Opera -Rheingold, Aug 11; Walkure, Aug 12; Siegfried, Aug 14;Gotterdammerung, Aug 16). Richard Armstrong conducts, Elizabeth Byrnesings Brunnhilde, Matthew Best is ...
Fringe
Aug 03, 2003; ... Return Journey Assembly A veritable coup. Sir Anthony Hopkinsdirects Bob Kingdom's powerful evocation of Dylan Thomas. To Aug 18. 12 Angry Men Assembly. Twelve funny men, more like. Comics BillBailey, Ed Byrne, Phil Nichol, Stephen Frost and Jeff Green, interalios, show off their ...
Can this really happen to a Cornish Beach? It has angered locals and environmentalists. It contravenes Government guidelines. It does not even have up-to-date planning permission. But, writes Ross Clark, plans for the development of cafes, bars and 511 apartments at 'The Beach', Carlyon Bay, are confidently going ahead
Aug 03, 2003; ... Besides the usual socks and suits, visitors to Selfridges inrecent weeks have been drawn to an alluring model of a development of511 apartments on a Cornish beach. "The Beach at Carlyon Bay is oneof life's rewards," reads the publicity blurb issued by thedeveloper, the Ampersand Group ....
Postcode of the Week W9 Maida Vale, London
Aug 03, 2003; ... Maida Vale is either the epicentre of the housing slump in London,or is home to some particularly honest estate agents. According tothe property price index compiled by Hometrack, which is based onfigures supplied by local agents, prices in W9 fell by 1.5 per centin June and by a further ...
Word on the Street
Aug 03, 2003; ... John Prescott's detailed plans for new homes in "Thames Gateway",unveiled last week, are an admission of defeat. For 50 years, stateplanners have been trying to shift people and businesses away fromthe crowded London area to new towns and to less populated parts ofthe country. Those ...
Put the spare bed to work Owners of fine homes who find it hard to make ends meet have a ready-made solution to hand - empty bedrooms they can use to take in paying guests. Emily Bearn reports
Aug 03, 2003; ... As the owners of some of our loveliest country houses havediscovered, the proverbial pot of gold is not buried at the end ofthe garden: it is hidden in the spare bedroom. With school fees topay and roofs to maintain, many homeowners have found that the onlyway to make ends meet is to ...
The last rural idyll in Britain Beautiful and remote, mid-Wales is experiencing a long-overdue property boom - which is why buyers are fighting over old barns, says Sonia Purnell, and prices are going through the (ruined) roof
Aug 03, 2003; ... Five years ago they were practically giving them away. No onewanted the ruined homesteads, the crumbling barns or the remote,tumbledown cottages scattered across the rolling hills and meadows ofmid-Wales. But now the once distinctly unfashionable county of Powysis the target of an ...
Can dry rot live in mortar? Ask Jeff
Aug 03, 2003; ... My local wood treatment company has told me that even though mywindows are to be replaced with a set of PVC-U French doors and thehouse has a concrete floor, it will still be necessary to treat andreplaster the walls around the windows as the dry-rot fungus can livein them and spread ...
Water in the aerial cable Ask Jeff
Aug 03, 2003; ... On a rainy evening at home recently, I noticed a smell ofelectrical overheating, which I traced to my video recorder. Iunplugged it from the mains, and at the same time removed the aerialconnector and plugged this into the television. On investigating theVCR, I was surprised to find ...
My Property Nightmare Kitchen catastrophe
Aug 03, 2003 ... Before her first baby was born in October 2002, June Green washoping to have a new kitchen installed. The work began, but eventsrapidly went from bad to worse. "We had commissioned a builder whomwe knew to fit the kitchen, which we had bought from our local Magnetshowroom in London," she ...
Four golden rules Bricklaying isn't easy, but I'd never discourage anyone from having a go themselves On the Level
Aug 03, 2003; ... If you want to build brick walls then you have to start with thecorners, and the bricklayers' mantra - as I mentioned last week - is"level, gauge, plumb, straighten". So you lay a course of bricks -say, five in one direction and four-and-a-half in the other (becauseof the half-brick on ...
Garden Solutions
Aug 03, 2003; ... I rarely create garden designs that do not involve altering groundlevels. It is one of the most satisfying (and good value) ways thatyou can radically change a garden. Within a few hours you can makeawkward spaces flat and usable, terrace steep banks, sink outdoor-dining areas to make ...
Plant Tips
Aug 03, 2003; ... SOFT FRUIT BENEFITS from correct pruning, rewarding you withplentiful fruit and neatly shaped bushes that will last longer thanleggy, woody ones. Currants and gooseberries can be pruned any timebetween fruiting and late winter. Blackcurrants fruit on the youngergrowth - easy to spot as ...
Summer fruit Urban Gardener
Aug 03, 2003; ... We have been eating summer pudding for weeks. The fruit cage at myformer allotment has had its most productive summer yet (wouldn't youknow it?), and the friends who have taken over my old plot havegenerously invited me to share the produce of the currant bushes andraspberry canes I put ...
Dixons ditches Freeserve for AOL
Aug 03, 2003; ... DIXONS, the retail chain, is to terminate a five-year jointventure with Freeserve - the internet service provider it created -following an offer from rival AOL that could be worth up to pounds10m. The move ends one of the most profitable relationships of thedotcom boom, from ...
Vodafone set to swallow pounds 145m Project Telecom
Aug 03, 2003; ... VODAFONE, the mobile phone giant, is preparing to snap up ProjectTelecom, the troubled mobile services provider which is valued ataround pounds 145m. Project was until recently among the most admired of the new breedof niche telecoms operators but was forced to issue a profits ...
Brussels condemns pounds 3.3bn BE rescue
Aug 03, 2003; ... THE EUROPEAN Commission has ruled as "unlawful" the Government'spounds 3.3bn rescue of British Energy, the stricken nucleargenerator. In a preliminary judgement, the Commission also said thatunlawful aid would have to be repaid by BE to the Exchequer. The initial ruling, disclosed ...
Steinmetz's 'Pink' gem goes on the market for $100m
Aug 03, 2003; ... BENNY STEINMETZ, the billionaire Israeli diamond merchant who isone of the backers of the proposed management buyout of the propertycompany Chelsfield, is quietly marketing one of the world's mostvaluable diamonds. The Steinmetz Pink, shown here being worn by the actress ...
Davies: 'FSA will go public about probes' Watchdog responds to demand for more openness about investigations
Aug 03, 2003; ... THE FINANCIAL Services Authority is to soften its ban ondisclosing the investigations it mounts into financial misdemeanoursby companies and individuals. In an exclusive interview, Sir Howard Davies - the FSA's chairman,who retires in September - says that he has taken on board ...
'Cautious' Standard Life closes door on open annuities market
Aug 03, 2003; ... STANDARD LlFE has turned its back on the open annuity marketbecause it is no longer willing to take the risks posed by increasinglongevity. The Edinburgh-based insurer is deliberately offering unattractiveannuity rates to people shopping around for a retirement pension,although ...
Halifax keeps price cuts under wraps
Aug 03, 2003; ... THOUSANDS of people with Halifax household insurance policies havebeen missing out on potentially huge reductions in their monthlypremiums after the bank failed to apply a new pricing system topolicies held by existing customers. Halifax changed the way it calculated home insurance ...
Fund managers move on at increasing rate
Aug 03, 2003; ... TWO IN three fund managers have been at the helm of theirrespective unit trusts for three years or less, according to newfigures due to be published next week. According to the latest edition of the fund management industry'sbible, the UK Fund Industry Review and Directory 2003, ...
Equitable test case slams ombudsman's report
Aug 03, 2003; ... A MAN referred to only as "Mr P" in the recent ParliamentaryOmbudsman's report on the Equitable Life affair has come forward tocomplain about the manner in which his case was treated by theombudsman, Ann Abraham. Stewart Simpson was one of 539 people who complained to their ...
Investors cold-shoulder with-profits bonds Sales collapse by up to 80 per cent as market value reductions and the Equitable crisis take their toll on confidence
Aug 03, 2003; ... SALES of with-profits bonds plummeted by up to 80 per cent in thefirst half of 2003, after investors lost faith in the value ofsmoothed returns. Across the four largest with-profit providers - Legal & General,Norwich Union, Prudential and Standard Life - sales fell to just ...
How the Hawk fought off an Italian predator The MoD had doubts and the Treasury wanted to peg costs, but BAE won the order for Britain's new trainer aircraft. Mary Fagan explains why
Aug 03, 2003; ... When executives at BAE Systems took a call from the Ministry ofDefence last Wednesday morning, there were gasps of relief all round.Against all the advice of the Treasury (and significant internalopposition within the MoD itself) BAE had won an pounds 800m deal tosupply its Hawk jet ...
Aberdeen to pull plug on British Land deal
Aug 03, 2003; ... ABERDEEN ASSET Management is today poised to pull out ofnegotiations with British Land over the sale of Aberdeen PropertyInvestors, its property funds management business. Martin Gilbert, Aberdeen's chief executive, has broken off hisholiday to try to save the deal but is believed ...
Fund managers lose faith in stock market
Aug 03, 2003; ... BRITAIN'S top-rated fund managers' confidence in prospects for theUK stock market has fallen to its lowest level for five months,according to a new survey. The research, carried out by Citywire, the financial publishingand data group, reveals just 8 per cent of fund managers ...
LSE sets about ditching London Clearing House
Aug 03, 2003; ... THE London Stock Exchange is making good on its threat to abandonthe London Clearing House, the settlement company, by holding talkswith four companies about alternative clearing deals. The initiative comes after a bitter row erupted six weeks agobetween the two sides over LCH's ...