The Sunday Telegraph London back issues from October 2003:
Comedians get serious about the US
Oct 05, 2003; ... There is a lot of anti-American humour about. In the Frenchanimated film Belleville Rendezvous, which I saw last week, New Yorkis portrayed as a city filled with enormously fat people. Nothing isdirectly said about this and obesity does not feature as part of thestory. It is just that ...
Sorry Alec, I couldn't let you off the hook He charmed the 'nasty' Alec Guinness, and then dissected him in a biography that outraged critics. How could the gentleman author Piers Paul Read do such a thing?
Oct 05, 2003; ... Piers Paul Read is not a movie buff, still less a theatre-lover."I would never read a biography of an actor, never!" he declares in aquiet, rather donnish voice, in which the faintest trace of hisnative Yorkshire occasionally shows through the gentlemanly patina ofhis accent. So ...
So much to explore, so little time Just why would the happily married, middle-aged manager of a glue factory want to be blown across the Atlantic in a wicker basket? David Hempleman-Adams explains himself to Emily Bearn
Oct 05, 2003; ... Last Tuesday, just before 6pm, David Hempleman-Adams became thefirst person to fly alone across the Atlantic in an open wicker-basket balloon. A previous solo crossing by an American balloonist in1984 was completed using an enclosed, heated capsule. Hempleman-Adams' journey (from New ...
Body scanners take a life-saving quantum leap
Oct 05, 2003; ... The wonders of modern medicine remain a truism until you grasp thebreathtaking power and speed of the very latest body scanners. As Ilay in the embrace of one of these pounds 500,000 miracles ofdiagnostic imaging, it took just 10 seconds for the machine to take200 separate ...
Britain's queen of song
Oct 05, 2003; ... Ask any musician or music-lover to name the half-dozen greatestsingers of the 20th century and you can be pretty sure they willinclude the Yorkshire-born mezzo-soprano Janet Baker. For more than30 years she reigned supreme in her field, filling the vacuum createdby the death of Kathleen ...
Flashes of genius Dance
Oct 05, 2003; ... Oh My Goddess Dance Umbrella Michael Clark's last visit to Sadler's Wells featured a time-coded home video of himself masturbating while a giant hydraulicmodel of a man's arm pumped up and down, mimicking the movement.Anyone expecting more of the same from his latest show, Oh ...
The valet as hero The first ever exhibition of portraits of servants opens in London this month. Its curator Giles Waterfield reveals an unseen history
Oct 05, 2003; ... Nowadays people find the idea of servants embarrassing. Even theword has been replaced by "staff" - more businesslike, lesssubservient. At the same time, we are fascinated by trying tounderstand what being a servant actually meant. For decades we havebeen regaled with fictitious servants ...
Gauguin's mysterious last masterpiece Art
Oct 05, 2003; ... Gauguin Tahiti Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Those arebig questions - there are none bigger indeed for any human being. Andthey were the existential enigmas that in 1898 a despairing,moribund, expatriate Frenchman inscribed on a large painting that ...
Finding Nemo Mr In-Between Bad Boys II Commandments
Oct 05, 2003; ... Finding Nemo (U) That the latest animation from Pixar is good is a given - they'rethe one studio around at the moment incapable of making a dud. Thequestion is, how good? Up there with Toy Story 2? A patch onMonsters, Inc? Yep. Both. Finding Nemo is a treat - sunny, ...
There's no feast without cruelty Theatre
Oct 05, 2003; ... See You Next Tuesday The Deep Blue Sea Pericles The Maths Tutor In Francis Veber's See You Next Tuesday - or rather in the Englishversion by Ronald Harwood - the "Tuesday" signals a thoroughly nastyidea. That's the day on which, once a week, a fashionable ...
Such terrible twits, darling Cinema
Oct 05, 2003; ... Bright Young Things Down With Love Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things (15) - his adaptation of EvelynWaugh's Vile Bodies - comes screaming on to the screen in a frenzy ofcolour. All the glorious young London socialites are dancingfuriously at a party, and snorting simply ...
Drug-like power of religion and sex Music
Oct 05, 2003; ... Parsifal LSO/Davis The last time Welsh National Opera staged Wagner's Parsifal at theNew Theatre, Cardiff, the conductor was Sir Reginald Goodall, whosemeasured and stately tempos created a special atmosphere in thisstrange work that as many find repellent as are uplifted by ...
Rich pickings Radio
Oct 05, 2003; ... You just can't get the vultures these days, don't you find? TheParsis in Bombay do, anyway. They're having real problems with thepesky fowl, as the novelist Ardashir Vakil explained in a fascinating programme, The Towers of Silence (Radio 4, ...
A lethal double act Television
Oct 05, 2003; ... Even though miserably few real people watched The Deal (lastSunday, Channel 4), it was plain that all the politicalcorrespondents in the land had done. Indeed, much of the coverage ofthe Labour Party Conference was seen through a Deal prism, withreality - to begin with at least - ...
Life, death and champagne Anne Chisholm considers John Mortimer's prescriptions as how best to live and die
Oct 05, 2003; ... Where There's a Will by John Mortimer Viking, pounds 17.99, 181 pp pounds 15.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 AT THE AGE of 80, John Mortimer - barrister, writer and lifelongenemy of pomposity - has written a book full of good advice. This mayseem an ...
Miller's tale of partners and politics This biography of Arthur Miller makes rather too much of his plays and not quite enough of his politics, says John Gross
Oct 05, 2003; ... Arthur Miller: A Life by Martin Gottfried Faber, pounds 25, 484 pp pounds 23 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 GIVEN HOW famous Arthur Miller is, it is surprising that up tillnow there hasn't been a full-scale biography. Martin Gottfried's newbook fills the gap ...
Tony Blair, the forces' sweetheart The Prime Minister's war record is one of limited military success and a succession of diplomatic disasters, finds Michael Portillo
Oct 05, 2003; ... Blair's Wars by John Kampfner Free Press, pounds 17.99, 367 pp pounds 15.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 MR BLAIR has been to war five times in six years. No British PrimeMinister and few world leaders come close to equalling him. Thatextraordinary statistic ...
The self-made martyr Jenny McCartney assesses a Life of Robert Emmet, the Irish revolutionary whose gaze was fixed on posterity
Oct 05, 2003; ... Robert Emmet: The Making of a Legend by Marianne Elliott Profile, pounds 20, 320 pp pounds 18 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 ROBERT EMMET was the youthful, blushing United Irishman who ledthe abortive 1803 rebellion against the British. It was a minormilitary ...
The oldest form of racism Anti-Semitism may be more than 2,000 years old but it is in rude health, says Paul Johnson
Oct 05, 2003; ... The New Anti-Semitism by Phyllis Chester Jossey-Bass, pounds 16.50, 307 pp pounds 14.50 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 A New Anti-Semitism? ed by Paul Iganski and Barry Kosmin Profile Books, pounds 14.99, 318 pp pounds 12.99 ( pounds ...
Life by the scenic route Paddy Leigh Fermor - war hero, linguist, adventurer - is at heart a great story-teller, says Max Hastings
Oct 05, 2003; ... Words of Mercury by Patrick Leigh Fermor ed by Artemis Cooper John Murray, pounds 20, 274 pp pounds 18 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 PADDY LEIGH FERMOR has lived one of the great picaresque lives ofthe 20th century. He left a minor public school ...
The Literary Life
Oct 05, 2003; ... SUSIE DENT, a lexicologist with Oxford University Press, has longspent some of her time sitting in "Dictionary Corner" on Countdown,the word and numbers game broadcast on Channel 4 each weekdayafternoon. Her role is to say "yea" or "nay" to words concocted froma selection of nine letters ...
The head or the heart? Accessibility in poetry is to be welcomed, says Vernon Scannell of his choice of recent collections
Oct 05, 2003; ... APART FROM the so-called "Performance Poets", whose burblings canrarely stand scrutiny on the page, there are two kinds of poetwriting today: the first seeks the approval of the loftier academiccriticism and ignores the needs and possible limitations of thecommon reader and the second, ...
King of Poldark country Jessica Mann enjoys the memoirs of the novelist Winston Graham
Oct 05, 2003; ... Winston Graham: Memoirs of a Private Man by Winston Graham Macmillan, pounds 18.99, 324 pp pounds 16.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 WINSTON GRAHAM once told a reporter that he was the mostsuccessful unknown novelist in England. The remark was taken ...
Capitalist complaints Geoffrey Owen has doubts about an insider's critique of America's free-market system
Oct 05, 2003; ... The Roaring Nineties: Seeds of Destruction by Joseph Stiglitz Allen Lane/Penguin Press, pounds 18.99, 389 pp pounds 16.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 FOR THOSE who believe that American capitalism is deeply flawed,and that attempts to impose it on the rest of ...
The best of Britons . . . Peter Jones on an ambitious attempt to reconstruct the Ancient Britons from their scant remains
Oct 05, 2003; ... Britain BC by Francis Pryor FRANCIS PRYOR is the David Bellamy of the archaeological world -endlessly enthusiastic, beard constantly on the point of burstinginto flames at the thrilling prospect of finding a reindeer bone. Like Bellamy too, he knows his stuff. He is ...
Paperback fiction
Oct 05, 2003 ... 1 Four Blind Mice, James Patterson (Headline, pounds 6.99).25,377. 2 Kisscut, Karin Slaughter (Arrow, pounds 6.99). 19,908. 3 The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (Picador, pounds 7.99). 19,291. 4 Red Rabbit, Tom Clancy (Penguin, pounds 6.99). 15,034. 5 The No.1 Ladies' ...
Alien and demon lover
Oct 05, 2003; ... The Nick of Time by Francis King Arcadia Books, pounds 11.99, 316 pp pounds 11.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 THE BURDENS and botherments of age are part of the fabric of TheNick of Time, Francis King's 28th novel, which isn't surprising inthe year King ...
Division and rule
Oct 05, 2003; ... The Sergeants' Tale by Bernice Rubens Little Brown, pounds 16.99, 217 pp pounds 14.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 THE TIME is 1947; the place, Palestine; the hero a tailor andterrorist who "sewed a fine seam and planted a neat bomb and, betweenthe two, he ...
Confrontation in Kabul
Oct 05, 2003; ... The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini Bloomsbury, pounds 12.99, 324 pp pounds 11.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 ELEMENTS of autobiography underlie this unusual novel. Thenarrator Amir and the author were both born in Kabul in the 1970s,escaped to America to ...
Paperbacks
Oct 05, 2003; ... Gallipoli by L. A. Carlyon Bantam, pounds 9.99 THE BRITISH lost more than 20,000 troops in the monumental balls-up that was Gallipoli, the French 10,000, Australians and NewZealanders more than 11,000; Churchill resigned over it, thoughKitchener was as much to blame ....
From nobility to savagery
Oct 05, 2003; ... Wild Boy by Jill Dawson Sceptre, pounds 14.99, 291 pp pounds 12.99 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222 ANYONE WHO has seen Franois Truffaut's 1970 film, L'EnfantSauvage, will be familiar with the bare bones of Jill Dawson's novel.A 12-year-old boy, who had ...
Opening this week Anything Goes at the Theatre Royal
Oct 05, 2003; ... The National Theatre has developed a notable tradition of stagingclassic musicals. Most have subsequently transferred to the West End;but although last year's production, Cole Porter's Anything Goes, wonhuge acclaim, it was beginning to look as though it wasn't going tobe one of them ....
Classical CDs
Oct 05, 2003; ... Mozart Piano Sonatas Andreas Haefliger (AVIF AV0025, pounds14.99). These are exquisite performances, beautifully recorded, ofMozart's last four sonatas, the F major (K533), C major (K545), Bflat (K570) and D major (K576). Haefliger's playing is unmannered,crystal-clear in figuration and ...
Rock CDs
Oct 05, 2003; ... Ulrich Schnauss A Strangely Isolated Place (City Centre Offices,pounds 13.99). My mission this year is to make sure that every one ofyou tracks down at least one Ulrich Schnauss record. He wasrecommended to me by Lemon Jelly and though he did headline at theBig Chill, he's still very ...
Videos
Oct 05, 2003; ... Russian Ark (Artificial Eye, U, video pounds 15.99, DVD pounds19.99) Alexander Sokurov's pioneering guided tour of St Petersburg'sHermitage museum consists of a single 99-minute shot in constantmotion, celebrating the paintings, staged vignettes from history anda final, resplendent grand ...
Theatre
Oct 05, 2003; ... Titus Andronicus Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford, 0870 6091110, until Nov 7. It isn't just blood and violence which havebrought this long-neglected play back into fashion. It has depth andinsight as well, and Bill Alexander's admirable production brings outits full range of feeling ....
Opera
Oct 05, 2003; ... Royal Opera 020 7304 4000. Alice Coote sings title-role in newFrancisco Negrin production of Handel's Orlando (tmw, Fri 7), withBarbara Bonney as Angelica, conducted by Harry Bicket. John Tomlinsonas Boris Godunov (Tue, Thur 6.30). Madama Butterfly (Sat). Lastperformances of Don Giovanni ...
Dance
Oct 05, 2003; ... Northern Ballet Theatre Lyceum, Sheffield 0114 249 6000, Tue-Sat.Revival of the company's vivid and passionate production of Romeo andJuliet. Saburo Teshigawara Sadler's Wells, London EC1 020 7863 8000, Satand Sun. The Japanese artist and dancemaker returns with his troupeKaras ...
Rock
Oct 05, 2003; ... Damien Rice. After a career-making performance at GlastonburyFestival, his Jeff Buckley-flavoured current album is becomingsomething of a coffee-lounge staple. Glasgow King Tuts Sat, 0870 1690100. Athlete. This year's surprise success story - which is at oddswith the plodding ...
Cinema
Oct 05, 2003; ... Young Adam (18). Ewan McGregor is back in Scotland - in 1950sGlasgow - for the first time since Trainspotting. He plays Joe, abrooding canal barge-hand, alter-ego of beat novelist AlexanderTrocchi, whose lusty debut gets its first big-screen treatment here.Its canalside couplings and ...
Concerts
Oct 05, 2003; ... Bridgewater Hall 0161 907 9000, today, 7.30pm: Cecilia Bartolisings arias by Salieri and his contemporaries from the age of Mozart,accompanied by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (repeated atSymphony Hall, Birmingham, 0121 780 3333, Tue, 8pm). Wed, 7.30pm:Heinrich Schiff plays ...
Art
Oct 05, 2003; ... Gothic: Art for England 1400-1547, Victoria & Albert Museum,London SW7 020 7942 2000, Thur to Jan 18. Late Gothic is in fact themost English of medieval styles. It was from the 14th to the early16th century that Perpendicular, a truly national idiom, bloomed.This show tackles the second ...
A Sporting Chance Where the 'wow' factor wins
Oct 05, 2003; ... Country sports lovers may dream of owning an estate with apheasant shoot or grouse moor, of being able to fish a private beaton a river or of finding foxes in their own coverts. If only.Sporting estates are luxury items and, even given the funds,opportunities are few and far between. But ...
Market Watch Oldham
Oct 05, 2003; ... When a town's property prices take an upward leap, estate agentsare usually quick to offer theories as to why: a new train service ison its way, a cappucino bar has just opened, or whatever. But in thecase of Oldham where, according to the Nationwide, house-priceinflation is running at ...
Word on the Street Our bungalows and semis are worth more than every farm, factory, suspension bridge and jumbo jet
Oct 05, 2003; ... Here's a party question for you: what is Britain's most valuableasset? The Crown Jewels, the White Cliffs of Dover, Windsor Castle?Not according to the Office of National Statistics. The Government'snumber-crunchers have assessed the value of every item of worth inthe United Kingdom, ...
Sorry Carly, we're too vain Money is not enough to buy into New York's smartest addresses, as the singer Carly Simon discovered recently. You have to be the 'right kind of person', says Charles Laurence
Oct 05, 2003; ... Up at number 740, Park Avenue, the imposing block of flats whereJacqueline Kennedy Onassis grew up, the residents are credited withintroducing the high-water mark of New York's "co-op" housing rules:if you do not have $100 million in liquid assets, please do notapply. Prices of flats at ...
Ask Jeff Vital smoke alarms
Oct 05, 2003; ... As a small landlord, some 10 years ago I converted a building intothree flats. Smoke alarms were not required by law at that time, butI wonder whether they are now a legal requirement, and whether Ishould install them? JA, Nottingham Jeff replies The Building Regulations ...
Ask Jeff Ornate ceilings
Oct 05, 2003; ... We have a Victorian house with ornate plaster coving and ceilingroses in two downstairs rooms. Unfortunately the ceilings are not ingood repair and we have been warned that they may fall down. Is therea way of repairing them without removing the plaster, or having thedecorative elements ...
Pesky pesticides
Oct 05, 2003; ... The construction industry has always had a difficult relationshipwith health and safety. It is not all that long ago that if you worea hard hat, goggles or ear protectors on site, you risked beingcalled a pansy. Thankfully, in recent years legislation and educationhave changed all that, ...
GARDEN SOLUTIONS BORDER PATROL
Oct 05, 2003; ... Like shots of beautiful women in fashion glossies, those stunningborders you see in gardening books and magazines are not achievedwithout a good deal of titivation. In their gloriousness, theyprobably only add to the frustration of gardeners whose own plotslack continual colour and ...
Dried fruit and flowers
Oct 05, 2003; ... Autumn is traditionally the time for preserving produce, and I'vebeen boiling up my usual vats of runner bean chutney and blackberryjam. This year I've also been experimenting with a method of foodpreservation which, although it has existed since time immemorial, isa new one for me: ...
FSA to launch ad campaign on endowment shortfalls
Oct 05, 2003; ... THE FINANCIAL Services Authority (FSA) is to embark on a multi-media national and regional advertising campaign this week in a bidto widen awareness of the need to act on endowment mortgageshortfalls. The campaign will include advertisements in the tabloid press, aposter campaign ...
ProShare offloads its investment club arm
Oct 05, 2003; ... PROSHARE, the lobby group set up in the early 1990s by theGovernment to promote wider share ownership, has sold its investmentclubs division. It has been bought by Digital Look, a financialinformation provider, for an undisclosed sum. The deal, said to be worth a "significant ...
Injunction threat may delay Penrose yet again
Oct 05, 2003; ... ONE OF the parties being sued by Equitable Life is thought to beinvestigating the possibility of slapping an injunction on theTreasury to prevent it from publishing Lord Penrose's report beforethe case has been concluded. When asked whether the report might be subject to ...
Motor insurance premiums fall for first time in seven years
Oct 05, 2003; ... THE AVERAGE motor insurance premium has fallen for the first timein more than seven years, according to a new index from Confused.com,the online insurance broker. Figures to be released this week will reveal a fall of 0.8 percent in the national average premium over the past three ...
Blair promises rethink on pounds 1.4m pensions ceiling Revenue's follow-up report on taxation delayed
Oct 05, 2003; ... THE prime minister's office has stepped in to block thepublication of the Inland Revenue's long-awaited follow-up to lastyear's consultation paper on pensions taxation after a last-ditchappeal from the CBI. The paper, which had been expected this week, has been the subjectof a ...
Barrett turns down the Barclays chairmanship
Oct 05, 2003; ... MATT BARRETT, the chief executive of Barclays, has decided not tobecome chairman of his bank. Earlier this year, the board of Britain's third-largest bankoffered the chairmanship to Barrett. In recent weeks, directors hadset him a deadline for deciding whether to accept the ...
Eddington maps out strategy to land Iberia
Oct 05, 2003; ... ROD EDDINGTON, the chief executive of British Airways, hasoutlined a strategy for buying Iberia, the Spanish airline, based onthe revolutionary structure of last week's merger of Air France andKLM. Air France and KLM announced a complex deal on Tuesday that willmake the national ...
Rupert Murdoch 'barred from voting' on his son's big Sky job
Oct 05, 2003; ... RUPERT MURDOCH'S hopes of having his son appointed as chiefexecutive of BSkyB, the satellite TV group, could be dashed by thecompany's voting rules for board meetings. The Sunday Telegraph has examined BSkyB's articles of association,its basic code of governance. These appear to ...
Sainsbury set to reveal further trading shock
Oct 05, 2003; ... J SAINSBURY will stun the stock market this week when it reportsflat growth from existing stores and admits that it has missed out onthe recent bumper sales enjoyed by its rivals. The downbeat trading statement is further evidence that the long-promised turnaround at Sainsbury is ...
Powergen to buy pounds 1.2bn Midlands Electricity The German-owned group is poised to reinforce continental utilities' stranglehold on the British energy market
Oct 05, 2003; ... POWERGEN, the UK energy group now owned by Eon of Germany, ispoised to buy Midlands Electricity in a deal worth about pounds1.2bn. The German giant is locked in talks this weekend with Midlands'owners, Aquila and First Energy of the US, and bondholders, who areowed more than ...
Have patience, Dana is a long-term winner
Oct 05, 2003; ... HOW long should an investment be held before you assess whether itis successful? Ought one to be influenced mainly by a company'sresults or by its share price performance? Warren Buffett, the world's most successful investor, treats hisholdings as almost permanent and focuses on ...
Sunny Bournemouth, the home of enforced pensions
Oct 05, 2003; ... THE LABOUR party conference was abuzz with the C word. It was onthe lips of every minister involved in any way with the pensionscrisis. Hitherto, it has been the policy that Dare Not Speak Its Name- except, of course, for welfare purists such as Frank Field, whorapidly discovered that ...
Exxon stakes its claim in the great Russian oil rush The US giant seems ready to pay $25bn for a 40pc stake in YukosSibneft. Mary Fagan explains why
Oct 05, 2003; ... When the giants of the world's oil industry met at the WorldEconomic Forum in Moscow late last week, all eyes were on LeeRaymond, the head of the mighty ExxonMobil of the US and MikhailKhodorkovsky, his billionaire oppo at Russia's Yukos. Exxon appears to be preparing to pay up to ...
Ocado delivers a mounting deficit
Oct 05, 2003; ... LOSSES at Ocado, the online grocer which counts John LewisPartnership among its backers, have risen to pounds 39.1m, accordingto documents filed at Companies House. Ocado has now lost pounds 76.8m since it was founded in June 2001,by three former Goldman Sachs bankers. The pounds ...