She reads avidly and widely, from Greek tragedy to Truman Capote. She has identified her favourite literary passage as the “Grand Inquisitor” section of The Brothers Karamazov, an ambiguous dialogue about an imagined return of Christ to earth in Seville at the height of the Spanish inquisition. What this says about Laura is unclear; but [...]

We buy petrol in soft-drink bottles because we can afford only small amounts. And yet Congo is supposed to be one of the great countries of Africa.”Mr Litanda, an economics student, said Congo, with its unparalleled mineral resources and fertility, should be rich and its 50 million people should be driving nice cars “The leaders [...]

The High Court later awarded her £175,000 damages.But it was when Brian McDermott bled to death following a stomach cancer operation in October 1997 that a clinical audit of his work was undertaken, resulting in his suspension three months later.Such was the volume of ensuing complaints that Professor Donaldson, then Northern and Yorkshire regional director [...]

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Is he ready to hit the road again?”I’m not sure yet,” Rusedski said. “Scott and his wife have a good relationship and he just wanted not to be away from her so much. After the US Open we’re going to sit down and figure out which weeks we’re going to be able to travel.”Rusedski’s foot [...]

It’s irrelevant.”Brett and Rennie are sitting upstairs at Whelans, a small music venue in the middle of Dublin. For reasons known only to themselves, the owners saw fit to put church pews in the dressing-room, a touch that is oddly in keeping with Brett’s background. Back in Texas (“land of bigoted, narrow-minded shit-heads”) he became [...]

But he was also capable of great concern and compassion for others.”One of his works that still regularly gets an airing is the musical Blondel, on which he collaborated with Tim Rice Had he lived, they might well have done another. Rice remembers their collaboration with warmth and gratitude: “The joy was that he was [...]

This is internal to the Home Office, and immigration officers are failing to act when people are detained for reasons which do not comply with the Home Office’s own instructions Nor is there a time limit on detention. The Minister, Nicholas Baker, is still resisting giving detainees written reasons for their detention. It would be [...]

There isn’t another experience to compare with it.”Embittered when he was not chosen for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul despite a victory over Roy Jones, who holds the International Boxing Federation 12st championship, and is considered, pound for pound, to be the most accomplished fighter currently at work, McClellan turned professional with Emmanuel Steward. It [...]

The Jerusalem Post accused Leb-anon of “sheltering” the notorious Okamoto – failing to point out that Israel had itself imprisoned him for 13 years but then blithely let him go free in return for captured Israeli soldiers. The five defendants would like to spend the rest of their lives in Leb-anese retirement, which is more [...]

The public is not being allowed to discuss the substance of the changes, only the details of how they are to be implemented.If the government is not much interested in what the public has to say, it seems equally uninterested in the views of the new legislature, installed by China, replacing the previously elected body. [...]

More than 40 per cent of those had costs of more than pounds 500 – the cost of a building survey Simply replacing drains will run into the thousands. For those buying a property built after the turn of the century, the Homebuyers’ survey (from pounds 250) would be adequate.*In its third quarterly review for [...]

The former gate-house to Dillington House in Ilminster, Somerset, is Grade II* listed and looks like a miniature castle, built of hamstone, with arched stone mullion windows and turreted roof. With two bedrooms (one just 9ft by 6ft7ins), open fireplace in the sitting room and outside, landscaped gardens, fish pond and parking space Price pounds [...]

As it happened, a new prophet had arisen in Nuerland, named Wut Nyang. Wut Nyang had been talking about how Riek was left-handed and how, around the turn of the century, the most famous of all the Nuer prophets, Ngundeng, had foretold that a left-handed man would be the salvation of the Nuer. Others claimed [...]

Where is the enthusiasm, the chaos, in this brave new world of blinking technology and oiled abdominals? The answer is that you have to dig a little. But it adds its own unique contemporary hybrid in the music it favours: country and western, mixed with dance tracks. “I’ve always loved country and I want to [...]

So home for intense preparation? “You must be bloody joking,” Baily recalled. Along with goalkeeper Ted Ditchburn, Alf Ramsey and Bill Nicholson, one of four Spurs players in England’s squad, Baily was told to report daily for training at the Dulwich Hamlet football ground in south-east London. “Not many footballers owned cars in those days,” [...]