Spectator articles from October 2007

Spectator archives from October 2007

A man worthy to be Prime Minister.
October 6, 2007... Ten years after New Labour came to power, it is remarkable that the unions can still hold us all to ransom. This issue of The Spectator has gone to press a day earlier than usual, to minimise the risk of disruption to our readers from the...

Diary.
October 6, 2007... Thank the Lord this will be the last time conference-goers have to endure the hellhole that calls itself Blackpool. The last time I stayed in a Blackpool hotel at a party conference was in the mid-1990s. I woke up at 2 a.m. on the first night...

The hoodie-hugging, Polly-praising, huskie-drawn days are over. The Tories are back.(POLITICS)
October 6, 2007... For a party still facing defeat at the next general election, the Conservatives left Blackpool feeling remarkably upbeat. 'It's the spirit of Gallipoli,' said a veteran of William Hague's election campaign. 'They're united against Brown,' mused...

The Spectator's notes.
October 6, 2007... Blackpool Such is the strange rhythm of politics that this turns out to be the most successful Conservative conference for many years. George Osborne, who only a week ago people kept telling me was a disaster, put in a commanding...

Stem cell lab.(Cartoon)
October 6, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "You see what we've done doctor? We're created life!"

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody.(Column)
October 6, 2007... SUNDAY Am shattered from lugging huge bag of policies around. Felt like asking Mr Gove what exactly he'd put in his blasted School Reforms, but just about controlled self. Plus, the poor girls working for Gids are having to cope with a...

The sweet contagion of freedom will outlast the bloodshed in Burma: where the monks have led by inspiration, the younger army officers--who know the present horrors are unsustainable--will follow. Fergal Keane reports from a nation that is slowly waking from a nightmare of military repression and sickening greed.
October 6, 2007... Mae Sot, Thai-Burma border The family had come from one of the villages along the border and their story of life and death came from the heart of Burma's tragedy. They had crossed to Thailand because they did not have the money to buy...

We came so close to World War Three that day: on 6 September, Israel struck a nuclear facility in Syria, an event shrouded in secrecy. Douglas Davis and James Forsyth talk to high-level sources to get closer to what happened.
October 6, 2007... A meticulously planned, brilliantly executed surgical strike by Israeli jets on a nuclear installation in Syria on 6 September may have saved the world from a devastating threat. The only problem is that no one outside a tight-lipped knot of...

Flash Gordon.(Cartoon)
October 6, 2007... A little girl wanted my advice. She wanted to save her pocket money... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] So that she could look after herself in her dotage... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I said that I'd take care of it. [ILLUSTRATION...

Lessons of the tsunami the world forgot: Michael Howard reports on the sad aftermath of the storm that swept the Solomon Islands in April and the need to keep aid out of the hands of its government--and of the EU.
October 6, 2007... At 7.40 a.m. on 2 April the Solomon Islands were struck by a major earthquake and a large tsunami. At least 52 people were killed, more than 900 homes were destroyed, and thousands of people were left homeless. Little attention was paid to...

Blair said to me: 'let's not talk about the war': Robert Harris talks to Mary Wakefield about his new novel, a partial roman a clef about the Blair era, and his sense of personal betrayal over Iraq and the treatment of Mandelson.(Tony Blair)
October 6, 2007... A light rain drifts down over Kintbury village, blurring the surface of the Kennet and Avon canal. It gleams on the railway tracks, pools into fat drops under the roof of the station shelter on the London-bound platform and drips on to Robert...

Global warning.(Viewpoint essay)
October 6, 2007... When we were students, a professor of public health once told us that the death rate declined whenever or wherever doctors went on strike. This was an even stronger argument, he implied, than the purely ethical one against doctors resorting to...

I am not afraid to say the west's values are better: in advance of the next Intelligence (2) debate, sponsored by The Spectator on 9 October, Douglas Murray says that the West has become afraid of its own ethical achievement.(Viewpoint essay)
October 6, 2007... Before sidling off into history last month, the Commission for Racial Equality published a final report. Decades of multiculturalism, it revealed, had left Britain a fractured and unequal nation at risk of splitting up. The Commission's...

A final farewell to the dating game in New York: Amelia Torode marks the wedding of the woman who was her dating 'wing-woman' with some memories of blind dates from Hell in Manhattan.
October 6, 2007... The HBO drama Sex and the City arrived on our shores in 1999. Prior to that television show, it would be fair to say, British women (and, for that matter, men) were fairly clueless when it came to matters of grown-up 'dating'. Sex and the City...

It isn't only rabbits who will suffer from the new surge of myxomatosis: Rod Liddle admits that his horror at the vengeful return of the disease is that of a sentimentalist. But there are serious ecological implications, too, if this foul outbreak continues.(LIDDLE BRITAIN)
October 6, 2007... Caught in the centre of a soundless field While hot inexplicable hours go by What trap is this? Where were its teeth concealed? You seem to ask. 'Myxomatosis' by Philip Larkin Aldbourne, Wiltshire. I saw the rabbit, a young doe, 50...

Arnie on the big screen.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
October 6, 2007... Sir: There's no truth in Fraser Nelson's suggestion that Governor Schwarzenegger changed his schedule in response to polls or any other political considerations ('This will be Cameron's finest hour', 29 September). The Governor was delighted by...

The treaty--to and fro.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
October 6, 2007... Sir: Nigel Lawson is wrong to claim that the Reform Treaty will abolish the need for parliamentary approval of changes to the EU treaties ('Sorry, minister', 29 September). The Reform Treaty will introduce a new, general 'passerelle' that...

Rommel's beating.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
October 6, 2007... Sir: Taki writes with his usual humour and light touch (High life, 22 September). On the subject of Rommel, however, he is wrong to state that no British general 'could match (him) in panache and military acumen'. In fact, two British generals...

In Anita's defence.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
October 6, 2007... Sir: It seems a little unfair that Judi Bevan's critical summing up of Anita Roddick was based on the fact that she wasn't perfect ('Moral superiority in cheap plastic bottles', 22 September). I don't think Anita ever said she was. What's so...

No Turkish delight.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
October 6, 2007... Sir: Bravo to Simon Hoggart for exposing the staged-looking Turkish restaurant scene in Michael Palin's latest BBC travelogue (Arts, 29 September). It was an embarrassment to the usually excellent Palin and to the beleaguered Corporation....

The Tory conference made me feel like Simon Callow in Four Weddings and a Funeral.(SHARED OPINION)
October 6, 2007... Are we sure that party conferences are good things? Are we convinced that they do the job? Certainly, they are great fun. That, I would never dispute. The booze. The talk. And the rooms. Any connoisseur of weird, shabby, out-of-town hotels with...

The countryside should be a place of life, not of death.(AND ANOTHER THING)
October 6, 2007... This is the time of year when I am irritated by the pop-pop of shotguns near my house in Over Stowey. Not that West Somerset is a great county for shooting. It is a place for hunting. I have counted up to 13 packs of hounds in the...

A symbol of change but is she the real thing? Matthew Lynn enjoys a power-breakfast with France's new finance minister, Christine Lagarde--but wonders whether she can drive the reforms the French economy needs.(BUSINESS)
October 6, 2007... It wasn't hard to see what was in it for President Nicolas Sarkozy when he appointed Christine Lagarde as France's new finance minister in June this year. After a glittering career in international law, Lagarde had become a star in American...

Penguin's irrational exuberance.(THE GREESPAN MEMOIRS)
October 6, 2007... What's the biggest threat to the stability of the global economy today? Derivatives? Hedge funds? The credit crunch? Actually it could be Pearson, the company that owns the Financial Times. How so? By allowing its Penguin imprint to pay $8.5...

Find another planet and plant it with soybeans: Elliot Wilson says there isn't enough arable land in the world to make plant-based fuels a viable alternative to oil.(THE BIOFUELS DEBATE)
October 6, 2007... 'Biofuels?' Ricardo Leiman gives an imperious snort, his eyebrows wobbling. 'Bio fuels?' he repeats in an offended tone, as if asked to perform a lewd act. 'There's about 20 million tonnes of processed edible oil on the planet right now--not...

As the party games turn nasty, Sharapova shows bankers the elegant way to lose.(ANY OTHER BUSINESS)(Maria Sharapova)
October 6, 2007... When I bumped into Barclays chief executive John Varley at Wimbledon one mid-week afternoon in July, I thought he looked remarkably relaxed for a man locked in a potentially career-breaking takeover battle with his deadliest rival. We had just...

Memory speaks volumes.(Book review)
October 6, 2007... THE WHISPERERS: PRIVATE LIFE IN STALIN'S RUSSIA by Orlando Figes Allen Lane, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 784, ISBN 9780713997026 [telephone] 20 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 It's a dangerous business, oral...

How and why the twenties roared.(Book review)
October 6, 2007... BRIGHT YOUNG PEOPLE: THE RISE AND FALL OF A GENERATION, 1918-1940 by D. J. Taylor Chatto, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 307, ISBN 9870701177546 [telephone] 16 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 Attempts to...

Never a dull moment.(Book review)
October 6, 2007... SCOTLAND, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY: 2,000 YEARS OF SCOTTISH HI STORY BY THOSE WHO SAW IT HAPPEN edited by Rosemary Goring Penguin/Viking, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 483, ISBN 9780670916573 [telephone] 20 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling]...

Accentuating the human factor.(Book review)
October 6, 2007... GRAHAM GREENE: A LIFE IN LETTERS edited by Richard Greene Little, Brown, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 446, ISBN 9780316727938 [telephone] 16 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 It is a commonplace to say that...

For richer, for richer.(Book review)
October 6, 2007... HORSES & HUSBANDS: THE MEMOIRS OF ETTI PLESCH edited by Hugo Vickers Dovecote Press, 17.95 [pounds sterling], pp. 205, ISBN 9781904349549 In her introduction to this extraordinary memoir, Etti Plesch warns the reader that the life she is...

A ghastly crew.(Book review)
October 6, 2007... FOOLISH MORTALS by Jennifer Johnston Headline Review, 14.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 250, ISBN 9780755330522 [telephone] 11.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling]p&p) 0870 429 6655 Jennifer Johnston is adept at economy. Here is a...

Relishing the death throes.(Book review)
October 6, 2007... THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE by Piers Brendon Cape, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 800, ISBN 9780224062220 [telephone] 20 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 Piers Brendon does not much like the...

A case of missing identity.(Book review)
October 6, 2007... CONAN DOYLE by Andrew Lycett Weidenfeld, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 527, ISBN 9780297848523 [telephone] 16 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 This could have been a wonderful book. Take a scene from it which...

How now Browne cow?(Book review)
October 6, 2007... THE CORAL BROWNE STORY: THEATRICAL LIFE AND TIMES OF A LUSTROUS AUSTRALIAN by Barbara Angell Angell Productions Pty Ltd, $Au 45, pp. 240 ISBN 9780646473222, email: biz@angellpro.com.au www.angellpro.com.au CORAL BROWNE: 'THIS EFFING LADY'...

The worst of friends.(Book review)
October 6, 2007... NEMESIS: THE BATTLE FOR JAPAN, 1944-45 by Max Hastings HarperCollins, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 670, ISBN 9780007219827 In this his latest book Max Hastings aims not so much to write another history of the war in the Pacific but to describe...

Inheritance.(Poem)
October 6, 2007... Inheritance It glinted on your finger all my life, Clicked on your whisky glass or the steering wheel. You used to twist it off to wash your face In restaurant Gents before we had a meal. The seal's a warlike...

Riding out the storm.(Book review)
October 6, 2007... BEECHCOMBINGS: THE NARRATIVES OF TREES by Richard Mabey Chatto, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 289, ISBN 9781856197335 I share with Richard Mabey a love of trees. Beechcombings begins with the great storm of 1987, although Mabey's love of trees...

The pleasure of his company.
October 6, 2007... Some writers have the ability to poison one's daily existence. James Salter, I have discovered, is one of them. To read him is to be painfully reminded of how mundane, how blurry, how fatally lacking in glamour one's own life is. Still, if...

Examine my thoughts.(Excerpt)
October 6, 2007... The following extracts are from The Blind Eye: A Book of Late Advice by Don Paterson (Faber, 12.99 [pounds sterling].) Please don't be misled by the apparent self-certainty of these utterances; be assured that after each one I nervously...

Surprising literary ventures.(Alternative reading)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 6, 2007... A Journey into God (1988) by Delia Smith [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A Journey into God is one of four books by Delia Smith on the subject of Christian spirituality, the others being A Journey into Prayer, A Feast for Lent and A Feast for...

From the horse's mouth: Jane Feaver talks to Michael Morpurgo about the staging of his first world war novel.(ARTS)
October 6, 2007... Following the National Theatre's hugely successful productions of His Dark Materials and Coram Boy, an epic realisation of Michael Morpurgo's War Horse opens at the Olivier on 17 October. Originally published in 1982, the book was, the author...

Bucolic pleasures.
October 6, 2007... Moore at Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, until 30 March 2008 Michael Kidner: no goals in a quicksand Flowers East, 82 Kingsland Road, E2, until 13 October It's tempting to think we know everything about Henry Moore (1898-1986),...

Scottish love affair.(Millais)(Biography)
October 6, 2007... In 1838 the Duke of Sussex was presenting the awards for drawing at the Society of Art, when the silver medallist failed to appear. His Grace complained that he was taking his time, until someone pointed out the nine-year-old Mr J.E. Millais...

Water falling, rippling, bubbling, breaking on rocks or trapping layers of light in its depths is the focus of Christian Wharton's exhibition at Cattura Fine Art, Harlequin Centre, Exeter (until 22 November).(Brief article)
October 6, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: Water falling, rippling, bubbling, breaking on rocks or trapping layers of light in its depths is the focus of Christian Wharton's exhibition at Cattura Fine Art, Harlequin Centre, Exeter (until 22...

Sinking spirits.(Opera review)
October 6, 2007... Carmen English National Opera The opera season at ENO began with a new production of Carmen. It was an occasion so dispiriting that I've been toying with the idea that the management had decided on provoking a mass act of critical suicide...

Teaching shifts.(Music)
October 6, 2007... Wherever I go, I hear that music in schools is not what it used to be. By this it is not meant that the music which used to be taught is now taught according to different principles, but that the music which used to be taught is now not...

Knowing when to stop.(Pop)
October 6, 2007... One of the rudest things you can ever say about a pop record is that it's overproduced. We have all said it at some point in our lives, often before the age of 20, when you must repeatedly demonstrate to your contemporaries that you can hear...

Saved by Jim.(Jim Broadbent )(Movie review)
October 6, 2007... And When Did You Last See Your Father?, Nationwide, 12A Although And When Did You Last See Your Father? is probably not a great work of cinema, and may not even be a work of cinema at all--it could easily be 90 minutes of above-par Sunday...

Dynamic duo.(Theater review)
October 6, 2007... Macbeth Gielgud Rhinoceros Royal Court Life After Scandal Hampstead If you can, get to Macbeth. Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood have set a benchmark that will remain for years. Never mind impersonating the murderous couple,...

Survival tactics.(Radio)
October 6, 2007... You couldn't move across the BBC's airwaves this week without stumbling on an anniversary programme celebrating 40 years since the launch of Radios One, Two, Three and Four. The Corporation even laid on a self-congratulatory 'Radio Week' on...

Today's issues.(Television)
October 6, 2007... So the big question this week is: is the Today programme a viper's nest of evil pinkoes, all of whom should be put in sacks and dropped into a deep well? And the answer is: yes. Shame, though, really, because wrong and bad though it is...

At Casa Verde, five in the afternoon after Rimbaud.(Poem)
October 6, 2007... At Casa Verde, five in the afternoon after Rimbaud I ripped my feet to bits walking the pilgrim trail to Guadalupe as far as Hidalgo. At Casa Verde I ordered a bottle of beer and the special: greasy tortillas, fried cactus,...

Smoking zone.(Low life)
October 6, 2007... As of this week my boy (17) is no longer legally entitled to buy cigarettes. His half-brother (16) the same. It must be galling for a teenager finally to reach an age when he or she becomes legally entitled to join the adults in one of their...

Blot on the landscape.(Wild life)
October 6, 2007... Malindi I watched a nest of baby turtles hatch on the beach in front of my mother's house recently. What a hellish start to a life, I thought. You burrow up through sand and plastic rubbish discarded by tourists. On the race towards the...

Just say no.(The table)
October 6, 2007... In New York, I head for Citarella on Broadway only to be confronted by a noisy demo at the entrance. (Among New York foodies, Citarella is to Whole Foods what in London Waitrose is to Tesco.) People in straw sandals and peasant dresses are...

One in a million.(Bridge)(Brief article)
October 6, 2007... I've often heard bridge lovers remark that what makes bridge so endlessly fascinating is that every hand is different: however often you play, you'll never pick up the same hand twice. Of course, strictly speaking the number of possible...

Scratching a living: cartoonists have a growing following, says Jenny Wilhide.(STYLE AND TRAVEL)
October 6, 2007... Can you imagine The Spectator without cartoons? It would surely lose its heart and soul. Imagine the New Yorker without the funnies--what a dismal thought. Cartoons have long been the forgotten art form. So familiar on the printed page,...

Driving Miss Johnson: Rachel Johnson cruises the south of France in style.(STYLE)
October 6, 2007... So here I am, driving two and a half metric tonnes of machine, a purring, gleaming advertisement for the centuriesold skills of British coachbuilding, and I know what the trucker in the wife-beater vest in the stubby Decaux lorry is thinking....

Happy anniversaries: Bill Cashmore tries to be in two places on the same day.(ARMCHAIR TRAVELLER)
October 6, 2007... Last year, I made a mess of my first wedding anniversary by foolishly taking my wife's plea of 'Let's not make a big thing of it' at face value. She was disappointed by the lack of anything bar a simple (but heartfelt) verbal acknowledgement....

Spectator wine club.(Buyers guide)
October 6, 2007... A visit to Averys of Bristol is always a delight. They are one of our oldest wine merchants, and while most of the stock is kept these days in a modern warehouse out of town, they still have a cellar in central Bristol. This is a cellar...

New champ.(CHESS)
October 6, 2007... At last the crown prince has become king. Vishy Anand has been so close to the supreme title for years, yet like Rubinstein, Tarrasch, Nimzowitsch, Bronstein, Korchnoi and Keres before him, some obstacle always seemed to block his path. Twelve...

Taking the rap.(COMPETITION)
October 6, 2007... In Competition No. 2514 you were invited to recast a fairy tale as a rap. I thought that fairy tales might translate well into the language of rap. After all, violence is a dominant theme in both genres (especially in the Grimms' original...

1835: Chefs.(CROSSWORD)(Brief article)
October 6, 2007... In each of seven clues an extraneous letter occurs in the definition part. The letters in question, taken in clue order, form a definition of the unclued lights, and also represent the puzzle's title. One unclued light is hyphened. ...

Ten years on, I'm still prone to a townie's faux pas when I go deerstalking.(STATUS ANXIETY)(Viewpoint essay)
October 6, 2007... As a lover of good drama, my favourite week of the year falls in the late summer when I make my annual pilgrimage to Scotland. The fabulous scenery, the weird and wacky costumes, the inventive use of language--it all adds up to a very memorable...

Mind your language.(Book review)
October 6, 2007... I was having lunch with friends last week in a fairly swanky gastropub, and the menu promised a ballontine of quail. The waiter told me that ballontine meant that the quail had been deboned, then stuffed. It was quite nice to eat, but I...

While you were away.(SPECTATOR SPORT)(Cricket)
October 6, 2007... This corner has already broken its fundamental annual rule not to get worked up about football till the clocks are altered at the end of this month--there is ample time ahead to concentrate on soccer's unending imbroglio of speculation,...

Dear Mary.(YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED)
October 6, 2007... Q. An elderly relative has developed the disgusting habit of licking her knife after using it for, say, jam, and then using it again to help herself to butter. It's horrid having to take butter from a dish into which some one else's...

From clunk to cluck.
October 13, 2007... Rattled, hoarse and angry, Gordon Brown did not look a happy man at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday. Small wonder: it is only weeks since his clunking fist was pounding the Tories into submission. Now, he has allowed himself to be...

Diary.(internet as a communication medium)
October 13, 2007... An internet executive taking to the streets of London without a BlackBerry is about as rare a sight as the Circle Line working normally. But sometimes you have to let go of the familiar to discover important home truths. So it was that at the...

The Spectator's notes.
October 13, 2007... Damocles was the courtier who told Dionysius the tyrant that his happiness was complete. Dionysius ordered Damocles to his banquet and sat him under a sword suspended by a single hair for the whole of dinner. I hope David Cameron is doing the...

The Gordon Brown Election Date Disaster!(Poem)
October 13, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Gordon Browm was a man of substance and spin, Whose prudence appealed to many women. He ruled about him with a clunking fist, But bottled out of confrontation like Scotch mist. As soon as the...

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody.
October 13, 2007... MONDAY What can I say?! Happiness and General Wellbeing levels through roof! Dave is the greatest! We're definitely going to win in 2009!! But more importantly, I have been seconded on to the Brown Attack Unit! Am at centre of fevered...

The election sprint has turned into a marathon. Can Dave keep the lead? Fraser Nelson says that the Tory leader has emerged triumphant from Brown's disastrous election gambit and the spending review, and has seized the intellectual initiative. The challenge is for him to keep it for two or more years.(David Cameron and Gordon Brown)
October 13, 2007... For a man whose economic policies had once again been stolen by the government, George Osborne looked unusually cheery as he delivered the opposition response to the pre-Budget report on Tuesday. Alistair Darling had brazenly claimed as his own...

Flash Gordon.(Gordon Brown)(Cartoon)
October 13, 2007... Caption: AND I'D LIKE TO TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO SAY THAT I THINK GORDON BROWN IS A VISIONARY LEADER AND NOT A CONTROL FREAK [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Meet the next Saddam--minus the torture: Con Coughlin talks to General Mohan al-Furayji, the Iraqi commander in charge of Basra, a tough man who has already helped to contain violence in the south.(Saddam Hussein)
October 13, 2007... Basra No one's elected him, he flourished as an army officer under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, and by the strict standards set by Washington's neoconservative ideologues for turning Iraq into a beacon of Western democracy, General Mohan...

I beg to differ ... Scotland.
October 13, 2007... Scene: The last day of Creation. God is busy creating a wonderful land, full of handsome, inventive people, with fantastic mountainous scenery and rivers and lochs full of fish. St Peter, who's been looking over his shoulder, asks: "Aren't you...

The terrible secrets of Beijing's 'black jails': Aidan Hartley was arrested while investigating the appalling conditions inside these Chinese prisons--the grim reality concealed by propaganda as the city prepares for the Olympics.
October 13, 2007... A crowd of faeces-stained, starving figures with haunted eyes stared at us from behind the bars. Some looked cold and wet, as if they had been hosed down with water. Most of them were old, and some handicapped. They began wailing and pleading...

I beg to differ ... England.(Brief article)
October 13, 2007... Many years ago I lived in Sydney, and spent a lot of time at the beach. The sand was fine and hot, the beer was cold, and wherever you dropped your towel you could hear the Beach Boys bouncing from a thousand trannies. Who could have asked...

Democracy can't compete with the history of kings: Hywel Williams says that the intellectual legacy of the 20th century has concealed the depth of monarchy's roots--and we can see its resilience as an institution in the Middle East.
October 13, 2007... Archaeology in north-eastern Syria was once a poor relation to the great sites that lie to the south and over the Iraqi border. Southern Mesopotamia is long established as the area that shows the urban roots of advanced civilisation. Ur may or...

'They come at two or three in the morning': before dawn in Burma's capital, Fergal Keane risks the roadblocks and talks to fugitive monks in a safe house--who tell him that 'we will do the same again'.
October 13, 2007... Rangoon The first few rows were taken up by the more ostentatiously pious of the congregation, elderly women mostly and a few schoolgirls wearing last year's Holy Communion dresses. To their left, sitting in front of a statue of the...

[Intelligence.sup.2]: we should not be reluctant to assert the superiority of Western values.
October 13, 2007... The great thing about the [Intelligence.sup.2] debates is their vitality, pace and compression. A week-long seminar couldn't have covered as much ground as we traversed in 100 minutes on Tuesday night. The motion 'We should not be reluctant to...

Monaco's man with a plan takes his place centre stage: Prince Albert knows that the principality is an ancient, glittering asset but wants to turn it into a modern, eco-friendly brand--as he tells Freddie Sayers.
October 13, 2007... Last week Prince Albert II, ruler of the tiny Mediterranean state of Monaco since his father's death in 2005, came to London to unveil his vision for the principality. The playboy of the gossip columns was nowhere to be seen: on display at a...

Memories of the Venetian palace where I lived: the story of the landlady who rented the Palazzo Mocenigo to Byron stirs Robin Lee's recollections of a place populated by brilliant decadent ghosts of an astonishing past.
October 13, 2007... 'There are cities that mark a definite stage in life's development. For no reason that the mind can immediately follow, they absorb and localise the workings of the imagination: till the outlines of their rooftops, the colour and configuration...