The Sunday Telegraph London back issues from February 2007:
Personally speaking Our Party Animals are not as wild as the real thing
Feb 04, 2007; ... I was at college with David Miliband. I always liked him andflatter myself that I may have once helped a prospective BritishPrime Minister with the art of essay planning. A few years ago, afterthe publication of my novel A Sweetheart Deal, he kindly wrote to saythat he had enjoyed it ....
February is the cruellest month
Feb 04, 2007; ... WHAT ARE PENGUINS CALLED IN THE Arctic? Lost. They live in theAntarctic. I throw this in to try to cheer up a friend who issuffering from SAD. I don't mean she's sitting around feeling anxiousabout the state of the world. (Not that there isn't plenty to bring afurrow to the brow - has ...
SPOT A FAKE
Feb 04, 2007; ... A rogue's gallery of forgeries and reproductions at the RoyalAcademy, 6 Burlington Gardens, W1, provides a caveat emptor for artcollectors. Today only, 11am- 5.30pm; 07000 785 613 REVEL in ambition, treachery and sexual rivalry in David McVicar'sacclaimed production of Handel's ...
CARLISLE'S GO-GO LIFE Music HELL-RAISER, pop diva, buddhist, Miss August ... IT SEEMS the only thing Belinda Carlisle hasn't tried is singing in French _ until now. 'The idea just popped out of my mouth,' she tells John Preston
Feb 04, 2007; ... When I start talking to Belinda Carlisle at her home in the Southof France there are five of us in the room, if you count a one-eyedpug dog, a parakeet and a budgerigar. Outside, the land falls awaydown to the Mediterranean and the only sign of any disturbance is astiff breeze that ...
The sundance kids Film Robert Redford named it, quentin Tarantino stormed it. Catherine Shoard enjoys a walk-on part at the utah film festival that is by turns shallow, passionate ... and profligate
Feb 04, 2007; ... A MAN KIDNAPS HIS WIFE. HE DRAGS HER TO the lake that their deaddaughter was recently fished out of. The wife sobs. The husband getshis rifle out. There is screaming. There is gunfire. There isapplause, and then the credits roll on Snow Angels, the latest grislytale of small-town trauma ...
ART CHOICE
Feb 04, 2007; ... Hogarth Tate Britain, London SW1 (020 7887 8888) Wed to 29 Apr.All human life in sketches, paintings, engravings. Deutsche Brse Photography ...
RENAISSANCE HALLUCINATIONS Art Tintoretto at the Prado
Feb 04, 2007; ... On his return to London from Venice in 1843, John Ruskin wrotewith awe of his first encounter with the art of Tintoretto. 'I feelas if I had got introduced to a being from a planet 1,000,000 milescloser to the sun, not to a mere earthly painter.' Ruskin saw theVenetian master as both ...
GOLD-STAR UGLINESS Notes on a Scandal Dreamgirls
Feb 04, 2007; ... It'll be handbags at dawn. Six am, anyway - that's when the Oscarswind up if you watch them in Britain. Come 25 February, our premieracting dames will slug it out for Best Actress. In the red corner:Helen Mirren, magisterial in The Queen, her handbag a sturdy, patentnumber, her twin-set ...
OTHER RELEASES
Feb 04, 2007; ... Running with Scissors Arthur and the Invisibles Welcome to Dongmakgol Gridiron Gang Great Expectations Running with Scissors (15) The scene is a quack therapist's office in 1970s America. 'I'munhappy,' admits Norman (Alec Baldwin), distant father ...
MY FAVOURITE MOVIES
Feb 04, 2007; ... I saw the film that made me want to be a film-maker when I wasgoing through my pretentious teenage phase. I was a completeFrancophile. At 15 or 16 I went to the Electric Cinema on thePortobello Road, and saw a Jean-Luc Godard film, Pierrot le Fou. It'sa thriller, but a pretentious French ...
DVDs
Feb 04, 2007; ... ballad of a soldier HHHHI Nouveaux Pictures, PG, pounds 18.99 Grigory Chukhrai's 1959 film was another product of the Sovietthaw that focuses on how war affects the common man. Its hero wins ashort furlough for bravery and uses it to travel home to mend hismother's roof. The ...
DVDs
Feb 04, 2007; ... man push cart HHHII Altra Pictures, 15, pounds 15.99 This minutely observed portrait of a Pakistani pushcart vendor inNew York is a poignant, measured look at what happens to those forwhom the American Dream doesn't work out. The film meanders alongwith understated ...
SLOW BURIAL BY BECKETT Happy Days
Feb 04, 2007; ... If ever a play cried out to be put on a modest stage, it is SamuelBeckett's Happy Days. All that's needed is some debris to indicate awasteland and sufficient room for two actors to show their heads. Andwhere does the National put it? Why, on its cavernous Lytteltonstage, of ...
Other Theatre Pinter's People Comfort Me With Apples
Feb 04, 2007; ... Pinter 's People Haymarket Theatre Royal (0870 400 0626) to 23 February This is the brainchild of the ramshackle stand-up comic BillBailey (Black Books, Never Mind the Buzzcocks). Harold Pinter haswritten sketches throughout his distinguished career, at timesPythonesque in ...
Other Theatre Ghosts
Feb 04, 2007; ... Bristol Old Vic (0117 987 7877) to 17 February Paul Bowman's taut, discreet production remains faithful to the19th-century sensibility of Ghosts - there is no superimposedreinterpretation to unbalance the work; and there are no gimmicks -apart from a paper storm cloud hanging over ...
HELL'S THE WORD Dance
Feb 04, 2007; ... Emio Greco - Hell Yuri Grigorovich gala All hope abandon ye who enter here: 100 minutes, no interval andthe promise of total nudity. It sounded like hell - and it was. Thelatest slab of performance art by Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholtentoured to the London Barbican last ...
DANCE CHOICE
Feb 04, 2007 ... Cyrano Birmingham Hippodrome (0870 730 1234), 7-17 February. DavidBintley's first Cyrano for the Royal Ballet in 1991 was not a successand the choreographer freely admits it: 'My story was over-complicated but the biggest problem was the score and I didn't do avery good job.' Fifteen ...
CDs Out this week
Feb 04, 2007; ... Supposedly in the vanguard of the New Rave revival, the Klaxonssound eerily polite and untrendy. Their debut is pleasant, but at nostage do you feel that here are daring young men at the bleeding edgeof the dance-rock crossover. Partly I blame the production, whichseems to me stodgy and ...
HIRSUTE'S YOU, SIR POP
Feb 04, 2007; ... POP Bonnie 'Prince' Billy Jamie T Before he began making the records that have established him asthe most enigmatic and compelling songwriter of the last decade and ahalf, Will Oldham - aka the luxuriantly bearded Kentuckian bardBonnie 'Prince' Billy - used to be a ...
Pop Choice
Feb 04, 2007; ... Massive Attack Birmingham NEC (0870 909 4133) Tue; London BrixtonAcademy (0870 771 2000) Wed. Trip-hop collective with a revolving-door policy for band members. The Long Blondes Brighton Old Market ...
EXALTATION IN THE CHURCH POP Arcade Fire The Plastic People of the Universe
Feb 04, 2007; ... The 10 young people currently representing the lusty, thrusting,fantastically adventurous pop absurdists Arcade Fire make theirhiggledy-piggledy way up the aisle of St John's in Westminster'sSmith Square towards a tiny stage. A few hundred devoted fans whomanaged to get tickets for the ...
INTIMATE HEROISM Classical Beethoven Day Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Jurowski
Feb 04, 2007; ... How to explain the special feeling at play last Sunday in theWigmore Hall, where the cellist Steven Isserlis and fortepianistRobert Levin devoted two concerts entirely and exclusively toBeethoven's music for cello and keyboard? The intimacy of these workscalled for - and received - an ...
CDs Out this week
Feb 04, 2007; ... Mozart is not a composer one usually associates with ChristianThielemann. This is his first recording of his music, and his accountof the Requiem is testimony to his understanding of the work. Hefavours a performance style between authenticity and the 'normal', with close attention to ...
CLASSICAL CHOICE
Feb 04, 2007 ... Agrippina English National Opera, London WC2 (0870 145 1700) Mon,Thur, Sat. ENO's record of success with Handel looks set to continuewith his first operatic masterpiece. David McVicar's ...
WHEN PREZZA TOOK ORDERS FROM EDEN Radio
Feb 04, 2007; ... Prescott at Your Service Archive Hour: SAS - The Originals In Our Time: Genghis Khan Last autumn, John Prescott apologised to the Labour PartyConference. 'I know in the past year I let myself down, I let youdown. So, Conference, I just want to say sorry.' He'll go ...
COMMONS AS MUCK Television
Feb 04, 2007; ... Party AnimalsSo You Think You Can Nurse?Strictly Lady Sumo The Smallest People in the World HHHHI Over the brow of the hill they come in carefully disorderedfashion - yet another bunch of coke-snorting, big-boozing, sexuallylight-fingered, demographically ...
Autobiography Michael Burleigh salutes a woman who has braved oppression in both Islamist Somalia and liberal Holland
Feb 04, 2007; ... Infidel: My Life AYAAN HIRSI ALI THE FREE PRESS, pounds 12.99, 353 pp T pounds 11.99 ( pounds1.25 p&p) 0870 428 4115 For about two years, the parochial world of Dutch politicsexperienced violent disorder in its consensual micro-cosmos. Thestriking-looking ...
Oddities Claire Harman on learned pigs, speaking cats and canaries that fire cannon
Feb 04, 2007; ... The Cat Orchestra & the Elephant Butler: The Strange History ofAmazing Animals BY JAN BONDESON TEMPUS, pounds 20, 320 pp T pounds 18 ( pounds 1.25 p&p) 0870428 4115 Before movies, before television, there was Toby the Sapient Pig.For a not particularly small fee, ...
Politics The left has tied itself in knots: can it Free itself? asks Anthony Daniels
Feb 04, 2007; ... What's Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way BY NICK COHEN FOURTH ESTATE, pounds 12.99, 405 pp T pounds 11.99 ( pounds 1.25p&p) 0870 428 4115 All politics is local, as Burke once said, but the principles ofpolitical philosophy ought to be universal or they are not ...
TITLE DEED HOW THE BOOK GOT ITS NAME 'THE SUN ALSO RISES' BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY
Feb 04, 2007; ... The Sun Also Rises began life as a short story entitled 'CayetanoOrdez' (the name of the bullfighter who was the model for PedroRomero in the novel). As the story lengthened the title was changedto Fiesta: A Novel (later its European title) and then, shortlybefore publication, The Sun ...
Memoir Selina Hastings is gripped by an account of paternal snobbishness and sadism
Feb 04, 2007; ... In My Father's House BY MIRANDA SEYMOUR SIMON & SCHUSTER, pounds 14.99, 270 pp T pounds 12.99 ( pounds1.25 p&p) 0870 428 4115 With wearisome inevitability Miranda Seymour's publisher haschosen to promote In My Father's House as yet another 'posh miserymemoir'. Such ...
Music This history of punk rock gets Charles Spencer spitting
Feb 04, 2007; ... Babylon's Burning: From Punk to Grunge BY CLINTON HEYLIN VIKING, pounds 20, 694 pp T pounds 11.99 ( pounds 1.25 p&p) 0870428 4115 I can remember the precise moment when I first became aware ofpunk rock. It was autumn 1976, I'd recently joined the staff of theSurrey ...
History George III may have gone mad but he wasn't all bad, says Brendan Simms
Feb 04, 2007; ... George III: America's Last King BY JEREMY BLACK YALE, pounds 25, 475 pp T pounds 23 ( pounds 1.25 p&p) 0870 4284115 After a particularly dismal experience with home-grown monarchs inthe 17th century, England was taken over by a series of ableforeigners. In 1688, ...
LITERARY LIFE
Feb 04, 2007; ... The 2006 Costa Book of the Year will be announced on Wednesdayafter such literary luminaries as Kate Adie (news reporter), CliveAnderson (chat show host), Simon Mayo (radio DJ), Erin O'Connor(model) and Carol Thatcher (TV personality) have made up their minds.William Boyd's novel, ...
Dynasties Richard Davenport-hines on a bitterly told tale of money, sex and masterpieces
Feb 04, 2007; ... The Thyssen Art Macabre BY DAVID R. L. LITCHFIELD QUARTET, pounds 25, 472 pp T pounds 23 ( pounds 1.25 p&p) 0870428 4115 Years ago the playboy multi-millionaire Heini Thyssen commissionedDavid Litchfield to write his biography. After many boozyconfidential sessions ...
Fiction Frances Wilson meditates on the blood-sucking nature of celebrity
Feb 04, 2007; ... Imposture BY BENJAMIN MARKOVITS FOURTH ESTATE, pounds 10.99, 208 pp T pounds 10.99 ( pounds 1.25p&p) 0870 428 4115 It is in the nature of both vampires and writers to feed offothers in order to reproduce themselves, but ever since thepublication of 'The Vampyre' in ...
Debut Matt Thorne enjoys a meeting of political satire and pooteresque whimsy
Feb 04, 2007; ... Salmon Fishing in the Yemen BY PAUL TORDAY WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON, pounds 12.99, 323 pp T pounds 11.99 (pounds 1.25 p&p) 0870 428 4115 Most debut novelists tend to be in their twenties or earlythirties. Although writing courses nationwide are packed with ...
Fiction Harriet Paterson on sibling rivalry
Feb 04, 2007; ... Oystercatchers BY SUSAN FLETCHER FOURTH ESTATE, pounds 14.99, 373 pp T pounds 12.99 ( pounds 1.25p&p) 0870 428 4115 Moira sits at the hospital bed of her sister Amy, who is in apersistent coma after a fall. Night after night she has sat there,for four years, trying ...
Fiction David Robson enjoys observing alpha-males battling it out on the high seas
Feb 04, 2007; ... Heart of Oak BY ALEXANDER KENT HEINEMANN, pounds 17.99, 253 pp T pounds 15.99 ( pounds 1.25p&p) 0870 428 4115 Like one of those well-paid Chelsea football club reserves whowould be automatic choices in any other Premiership side, AlexanderKent has been a peripheral ...
Debut Jane Shilling finds this family chronicle more descriptive than revealing
Feb 04, 2007; ... Wintering BY DEREK JOHNS PORTOBELLO, pounds 15.99, 199 pp T pounds 13.99 ( pounds 1.25p&p) 0870 428 4115 Derek Johns has been a bookseller, editor, publisher and literaryagent - and none of these experiences has been sufficient to deterhim from becoming a writer as ...
CRIME FICTION
Feb 04, 2007; ... William Landay's The Strangler (Bantam, pounds 12.99) is set inBoston in 1963 - corrupt politicians in the pay of crookeddevelopers, bodies piling up in a Mob war and half the police forceon the take; President Kennedy has just been assassinated and thecity is being terrorised by a man ...
PAPERBACKS
Feb 04, 2007; ... UNSPEAK by Steven Poole Abacus, pounds 7.99Does it bother you the way that 'global warming' has been subtlydowngraded to 'climate change'? Are you irritated by the unspokenassumption that, if you are not a Friend of the Earth, you are anEnemy of the Earth? Then ...
PAPERBACKS
Feb 04, 2007; ... LOST COSMONAUT by Daniel Kalder faber, pounds 7.99The anti-tourist, declares Daniel Kalder, 'does not visit placesthat are in any way desirable'. True to his manifesto, he eschewsglamorous holiday destinations in favour of the grottiest Russianrepublics he can ...
PAPERBACKS
Feb 04, 2007; ... NOMAD'S HOTEL Cees Nooteboom Vintage, pounds 7.99Cees Nooteboom's perfect hotel has erratic, old-fashioned taps and'a hall porter you would have liked to have as your father'. Heseldom finds it, but his quest for it, in such diverse locations ...
PAPERBACKS
Feb 04, 2007; ... Cell by Stephen King Hodder, pounds 6.99A man attacks a dog on Boston Common. A woman savages anotherwoman outside an ice cream parlour. Within minutes, the Pulse, avirus affecting users of mobile phones, has devastated civilisationas we know it ....
PAPERBACKS
Feb 04, 2007; ... SUITE FRANCAISE BY Irene Nemirovksy chatto & Windus, pounds 7.99The fate of Irne Nmirovsky is inseparable from her book. Writtenin medias res, in the summer of 1941, with its Jewish author inconstant fear of arrest, it is two parts of a projected large-scalenovel about ...
PAPERBACKS
Feb 04, 2007; ... THE NIGHT WATCH by sarah waters VIRAGO, pounds 7.99Here is a compulsively readable tale of sexual entanglements -both lesbian and heterosexual - during the Blitz. Telling her storybackwards from 1947 to 1941, Sarah Waters expertly unravels thehistories of ...
TURN ON STEPHEN COLE WAKES UP AND SMELLS THE COFFEE
Feb 04, 2007; ... MY COFFEE HISTORY GOES BACK to Expresso Bongo and Cliff Richard: Icaught the end of the era of espresso bars _ frothy coffee producedby those wonderful hissing machines. About 16 months ago, I was filming in Bulgaria and my hotel roomhad a Gaggia coffee maker in it. When I'd ...
GIZMOS OF THE WEEK
Feb 04, 2007; ... Designer Mark Sanders is a busy lad. Not only did he create theStrida folding bicycle, he has also designed the Chop 2 Pot choppingboard for Joseph Joseph. The polypropylene board hinges along threeaxes, allowing you to dice your carrots and then turn the board intoa chute to slide them ...
TAKE FIVE DIGITAL RADIOS PROMISE CLEAN SOUND, FREE OF CRACKLE AND HISS. BUT DO THEY ALL LIVE UP TO THAT PROMISE?
Feb 04, 2007 ... ROBERTS MP-30 An upright design that might not be to everyone's taste, althoughthe relative lack of depth means it's good for positioning on ashelf. It's packed with features that you're unlikely to need or use.An exception is the 256Mb SD memory card onto which you can ...
ROAD TEST 'multi-sports vehicle'? nonsense. the seat altea is just a spacious family car, says Neil Lyndon
Feb 04, 2007; ... 'WHAT WOULD YOU SAY,' I ASKED MY wife, 'if I told you that Seatdescribes the Altea XL as an "MSV'', meaning multi-sports vehicle?' 'I'd be a little perplexed,' she answered, guardedly. 'I wouldhave described it as a fairly spacious family car.' At the bottom of the gulf ...
BRIDGE
Feb 04, 2007; ... TWO OF THE AGE-OLD questions arose on one hand. Do we cover anhonour with an honour and when do we take our aces? If only we couldget those decisions right every time. As it turns out, the defence onthis week's hand answered both of them correctly ... Dealer North East/West ...
CHESS
Feb 04, 2007; ... THE CORUS CHESS FESTIVAL, in Wijk aan Zee, Holland, has threeclosed tournaments, and more fighting chess tends to be found ingroups B and C. In this year's C group, a 12-year-old Chinese girl,Hou Yifan, played astounding chess and, at the time of writing, had 5/8. Ian ...
POKER
Feb 04, 2007; ... AT A CONGENIAL AND occasionally wild tournament table, the youngtyro asked Wise John if he could recommend any poker books. 'I don't think I could,'Wise John said. 'Why not?' the tyro sneered. 'Don't you read?' 'A little learning is a dangerous thing,' Wise John ...
A little place in the snow France is chic, the US gives a bang for your buck... for a good investment try Bulgaria A second home in the mountains is every skier's dream. There is an avalanche of new property options, but rising prices - and temperatures - make it hard to choose.Nicola Venning offers a buyer's guide to resorts worldwide
Feb 04, 2007; ... A snow home in the mountains is every skier's dream and these daysthere are properties to suit every taste and every pocket. From thechic resorts of France and Switzerland to the tempting bargains inthe US and Canada or the budget buys of Bulgaria or Morocco, thechoice is endless. The ...
Return of the town square The centres of our communities are often dreary and unloved places. But that is set to change with a series of developments, says Maia Sissons
Feb 04, 2007; ... When you think of a town square, what comes to mind? A car park-cum-roundabout with a grubby statue and a few dreary shops, quiteprobably. Unless you spent last summer on the continent, in whichcase you might fondly remember sipping a cappuccino on a sun-drenched piazza while bright ...
Less is more for downsizers They are well off, fancy-free, and know what they want - but older buyers face a dearth of properties that meet their aspirations. Nicola Venning reports
Feb 04, 2007; ... Tired of rattling around her four-bedroom family home, andexhausted by maintaining the big garden, Jacqueline Pearce decided at74 that she needed a smaller place which would be easier to lookafter. Her son lives in Putney, so she boldly decided to move fromCleveland, in North-East ...
Edible weeding
Feb 04, 2007; ... Winter isn't normally a time that I would associate with weeding,but this year's mild weather has meant that many weeds have beenflourishing. It is also meant that the ground has been workable enough toremove them easily. There are few gardening tasks more satisfyingthan pulling ...
Sainsbury bidders plan massive non-food assault
Feb 04, 2007; ... BIDDERS circling J Sainsbury are plotting a high-risk strategy totransform it into a hypermarket operator with vast new non-foodranges such as clothing and electronics to compete with Tesco. CVC Capital Partners, KKR and Blackstone, who are assessing a pounds 11.5bn bid for ...
Channel 4 moves on iPod
Feb 04, 2007 ... In another challenge to US new media giants, In another challengeto US new media giants, Channel 4 is to make its first foray intoconsumer electronics by teaming up with Korean manufacturer iRiver toproduce a rival to the iPod. The Channel 4 device will be able to store over 1,000 ...
Mobile giants plot secret rival to Google European telecoms groups meet to devise alternative search engine to arrest the slide in call revenues
Feb 04, 2007; ... EUROPE'S biggest telecoms groups are aiming to create a mobilephone search engine that could challenge Yahoo! and Google, the USgiants. Vodafone, France Telecom, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, HutchisonWhampoa, Telecom Italia and one American network, Cingular, are amongthe ...
Torex has a month to avoid going bust
Feb 04, 2007; ... THE MAJOR lending banks to Torex Retail could pull the plug on theembattled software provider in just four weeks.The banking syndicatebehind embattled IT business Torex Retail could pull the plug on thecompany in just four weeks time. The Sunday Telegraph understands that Torex, ...
Camelot eaves nothing to chance
Feb 04, 2007; ... CAMELOT, the National Lottery operator, has teamed up with Orange,the telecoms giant, in an attempt to see off competition from Sugal &Damani, the Indian lottery brand, for the third lottery licence. Camelot already gives lottery players access to its games throughthe internet, ...
KBR to lose aircraft carrier contract
Feb 04, 2007; ... AMERICAN defence contractor KBR is to lose its role as projectmanager of the alliance to build two new aircraft carriers for theRoyal Navy. The decision, which is expected to be formally ratified in thenext fortnight, will be regarded as a U-turn by the Ministry ofDefence which ...
Racecourses rile bookies with exclusive TV coverage
Feb 04, 2007; ... A CONSORTIUM of Britain's leading racecourses is to clash with themajor bookmaker brands when it launches a television channelproviding exclusive coverage from its venues. Racing UK will be sold to Britain and Ireland's 10,000 bookmakerson the strength that it will be the only ...