‘We kept telling ourselves that we were the best pack in the world and that they were just a club pack’ he

‘We kept telling ourselves that we were the best pack in the world, and that they were just a club pack,’ he said.That was literally true, because all six forwards in Great Britain’s starting line-up came from Wigan. ‘This has to be one of the best performances of any tennis player, ever,’ he said. The glam star of the show, Bette Bourne, is weak and downbeat as the Swanson-esque Hadrian: his limelight is thoroughly stolen by Precious Pearl’s ever- so-precious Antinous, and by Gretal Feather and Ivan in a series of camp cameos as randy servants and supporters of the great god Sandy. THOUSANDS of London commuters were stranded for several hours last night after a hoax security alert caused the closure of four British Rail stations. But holiday dressing for a temperate isle is altogether more downbeat, and therefore more comfortable, than the style required to wear teeny-weeny bright bits and pieces for a strut along some Mediterranean seafront.British holiday dressing is about mixing and matching.

A memorandum warned staff that they should not leave work to visit doctors, dentists or opticians If they do, they must make up the lost time. Lorca’s brooding Spanish tragedy Blood Wedding was transposed to a village in the Western Highlands; Mary Queen of Scots was performed in a circus ring; The Legend of St Julian doesn’t have a script. Earlier this year, with the fifth volume behind me, I began to look more closely at the boxes of letters, journals and ephemera kept by Benn while he was growing up from a precocious childhood. So here comes POETS’ NEWS (11.15pm BBC2), a fascinating-sounding, week-long project in which a selection of top poets, including Michelle Roberts, Benjamin Zephaniah, Roger McGough and Carol Ann Duffy will bring the daily news filtered through their special sensibilities. ‘Now we would like the time to demonstrate that we can produce the results and make the transition to being a more stable company.’Others consider that now the sparkle has been lost, the company, which has limited tangible assets – buying exhibition companies is about buying the goodwill that goes with them, the title and the visitor lists rather than hard assets – will find it hard to recover its former glory.One competitor says that Blenheim, which is known throughout the industry for its aggressive marketing and pricing, will struggle because it has paid premium prices for many of its exhibitions, some of which are not the leaders in their field.Critics point to the pounds 6m Blenheim paid for a series of exhibitions under the Exclusively trademark. The clincher was the client’s discovery that the garden faced south-west, lucky for people with his birth sign. Professor David Weir, the centre’s director, says this success is largely a result of its presence in ‘a place where people don’t want to come to’.

Near the Senlis tollgate 30 miles north of Paris, the fishermen stopped and emptied a truck carrying frozen fish. All the scenes of cruelty in the On The Line documentary, they point out, were shot outside Britain, in Ireland, Spain and the US. Won pounds 1,500 by backing Wales at 33-1 for the rugby union championship, but blew his Test chance in Presidents’ in Guyana. This is no mean feat, but there are serious drawbacks to Eco’s approach.

The Cullen Report on the Piper Alpha oil installation disaster showed how trouble of this kind – taking appalling risks at sea – is widespread even near to home, and in a far more modern industry than shipping. The tarmac is melting in the streets and most of the inhabitants have already joined the yearly exodus to the sea. His which? Winging It by Susan Schmidt, Serpent’s Tail pounds 7.99. The editor of another distinguished newspaper once wrote: ‘Comment is free but facts are sacred’, so we say nothing of Ms Oxford’s opinions, except we feel that we are less stuffy than she suggests.

The League secretary, Peter Donald, said: ‘We want formal proposals put to the clubs to enable an extraordinary general meeting to be called.The Scottish League are responding to the pressures and demands of the clubs who want change.’Players called up by England in future will have to provide a medical certificate to prove they are unfit if they cry off. Spectators are preparing themselves for tedious batting displays against tiring bowlers – fielding for two days and a minimum of 220 overs is beyond most mortals’ reserves of stamina.The tempo of a Test match is slower of course, and they bowl only 90 overs a day. The most likely candidates are an extension in the range of goods on which VAT is paid or an increase in national insurance contributions.One problem with extending VAT to food, fuel, books, newspapers, transport and children’s clothes is that it hits the poor hardest. The methods of the Special Branch were, in essence, cumbrous and slow; yet, compared with those of MI5 and MI6, they were paragons of efficiency. Larger shareholdings will attract a 0.1 per cent commission above the pounds 5,000 threshold Dealings begin on Monday.. Dooland had to qualify by residence and therefore did not play in County Championship cricket until 1953. that invisible piano]Thomas Carlyle was also a political thinker – and how rare such deep, clear minds and humane philosophies are today.