By and large the strategy has worked

By and large, the strategy has worked.US casualties have been very few, an uneasy peace has been kept and Bosnia has not featured in the campaign, not least because Mr Clinton’s Republican opponent, Bob Dole, supported the deployment of US forces.But, indirectly, the argument has resurfaced, as the US has exerted strong pressure for Bosnia’s first post-war elections to be held on schedule by 14 September, even though the conditions stipulated by Dayton, including a free press, an end to human rights abuses and the return of refugees to their homes, have not been met. Mr Perry’s remarks, the White House said, were “speculative”.Nonetheless they have lifted the lid off a topic which has mostly been shunned in public by both the European allies and Washington, for fear of turning it into a controversy in the US Presidential campaign.And, taken with the recent statements of other senior American officials, they suggest that however unwelcome the prospect is, the administration is resigned to the fact that an extended Nato presence may be unavoidable.From the outset, the 1995 Dayton peace accords were tailored to minimise the political risk to President Clinton, ensuring that the 18,000 US troops would remain in Bosnia until well after the vote on 5 November, ensuring no flare-up of fighting during the campaign. If Nato chose to stay, then the US should take part in the operation, “including ground troops”.
The White House yesterday insisted that President Bill Clinton plans to stick with his timetable of basing US peace-keeping troops in Bosnia for “about a year”.President Clinton last night insisted that, as of now, he intends to stick to the original timetable. The Nato force could complete its mission “in about a year”, at which point withdrawal would start, he said after a meeting with the European Commission President Jacques Santer, and Prime Minister Romano Prodi of Italy, current holder of the rotating European Union presidency. But the Alliance would not simply “give up on the investment” that it had made in Bosnia. Speaking during a visit to Skopje, capital of the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, Mr Perry made it clear that no decision had been taken. The US Defense Secretary, William Perry, has given the strongest indication yet that Washington is prepared to see US ground troops stay on in Bosnia, should political instability render it impossible for the Nato peace-keeping force to pull out in December, as scheduled.

Why?To cater for all the people who don’t buy pub guides unless they’re over 10 years old.Copies of this guide to second-hand bookshops available from me, only 30p .. OK, 20p Or 10p? OK, free, then But that’s my final offer.. I am always passing pubs that have stickers in the window reading: “We are in The 1983 Good Pub Guide,” and nothing later Why haven’t they taken them down?I don’t know. Why, for heaven’s sake, would anyone want to have a 13-year-old pub guide?Let me ask you a question. We recommend that whenever you find such a coded price pencilled in, you rub it out and write X/BT instead.What does that mean?Haven’t the faintest idea.

But nor will the bookseller.Why is the music in second-hand bookshops always Mozart?Because he is out of copyright.Finally, why do second-hand bookshops sell books that nobody in their right minds could possibly want to buy?Such as?I am always seeing copies of `The Good Pub Guide 1983′ for sale. Everything in a second-hand bookshop is geared to the belief that people have no existence outside bookshops This may, incidentally, be true. However well you know your local second-hand bookseller, you never bump into him in the street. Maybe he only exists in his shop …Why do some second-hand bookshops mark the prices in a strange code, so that instead of it saying pounds 3.50, it might say B/TQ? Is this to make it harder for the customer to haggle, or is it because the bookseller can’t decide what to charge?No, it’s so that the bookseller can look at the customer and decide how much he can sting him. For instance, a book borrowed from a library is something you take home and enjoy at leisure, for two or three weeks A video is borrowed overnight It is a cultural one-night stand.

Video shops do sell second-hand videos, but they’re not called “second-hand”, they’re called, rather unattractively, “ex-rental”. Everything in a video shop is geared up to an evening at home, which is why they also sell sweets, crisps, soft drinks and basic groceries. So why isn’t there an equivalent resale sector?Books and videos occupy an entirely different culture. You then look for the price, but either you can’t find it or you find three different prices pencilled in, two of which were levied on the last two times the book changed hands, so you say loudly: “What’s the actual price of this book?” to which the owner does not reply.Because he is a deaf git?Sometimes, but generally the real answer is that if the bookseller preserves a discreet silence, you might agree to pay the higher price out of impatience or sheer embarrassment.If there are so many second-hand bookshops, why are there no second-hand video tape shops? Surely videos are, for many people, what books used to be.