September 14th

ON THIS DAY NEWS FROM THE BBC ARCHIVES
	1985: USSR expels 25 in tit-for-tat spy row Moscow retaliates two days after Britain expels 25 Soviet spies following the defection of KGB chief Oleg Gordievsky.
	1982: Hollywood princess dead Princess Grace of Monaco dies of the injuries she sustained in a car crash near Monte Carlo yesterday.
	1960: Violence follows army coup in Congo The army says it is in control of the West African state of Congo after a day of heavy fighting which left up to 70 people dead.

New CAMRA survey reveals how pubs have changed

-CAMRA

More than six out of 10 beer-lovers think that today’s pubs are better than those in the 1970s, says the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).

However, according to research carried out for the launch of the 35th Good Beer Guide - which is published today - only 53 per cent of those who could legally drink in 1974, thought that today’s pubs were better.

Out of the minority who preferred things in the 1970s, 45 per cent believe that pubs of that era felt ‘more like a local’.

Of those that enjoy today’s pubs more the smoking ban was cited as their main reason for doing so. Almost one in three think that the ban on smoking is the most significant change to pubs in the past 35 years.

“A large number of pubs could still improve what they are offering the consumer”

Tony Jerome

Tony Jerome, CAMRA’s marketing manager said: “I think it is good news for the pub industry that pub-goers feel today’s pubs are better than those in the 1970s, when the Good Beer Guide was first issued.

“This improvement in pubs means it has never been as competitive as it is today to get in our guide. A large number of pubs could still improve what they are offering the consumer, and should take notice of the results from this poll.

“The smoking ban will obviously have an impact on pubs but that doesn’t necessarily have to be negative. Millions of people are set to return to pubs now that a ban on smoking has been enforced and licensees need to make sure that they are providing the service that these people want.”

CAMRA also revealed the 10 pubs which have featured in every edition of their Good Beer Guide, including Belgravia’s Star Tavern and the Roscoe Head in Liverpool. The guide was first published in 1974 and lists the best 4,500 pubs for real ale in Britain, including information on every brewery in the UK.

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Russia unveils the 'father of all bombs'

Russia's military yesterday announced that it had successfully tested a lethal new air-delivered bomb, which it described as the world's most powerful non-nuclear weapon.

In what appears to be the Kremlin's latest display of military might, officials said Moscow had developed a new thermobaric bomb to add to its already potent nuclear arsenal.

Russia's state-run Channel One television said the new ordnance - dubbed the Father of all Bombs - is four times more powerful than the US's Mother of all Bombs.

"The results of tests of the aviation explosive device that has been created have shown that it is comparable with nuclear weapons in its efficiency and potential," Alexander Rukshin, a deputy chief of the Russian armed forces staff, told the channel.

"You will now see it in action - the bomb which has no match in the world is being tested at a military site," the report said. It showed a Tupolev 160 strategic bomber dropping the bomb over a testing ground. A large explosion followed.

The aviation vacuum bomb, which is also known as a fuel-air bomb, was the mightiest ever created, it added.

Last night's announcement comes at a time of growing tension between Russia and the west, and follows a tumultuous eight months in which Vladimir Putin has denounced US power, torn up a conventional arms agreement with Nato, and grabbed a large, if symbolic, chunk of the Arctic.

Last month Russia carried out a series of war games with China and four other central Asian states, designed to show the country's resurgent military power and the emergence of new regional alliances outside Nato. Russia's strategic nuclear bombers also resumed patrols of the Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

The development of this latest device appears to be another response to the Bush administration's plans to site elements of its missile defence system in central Europe. Mr Putin has denounced the plan, arguing that it upsets Europe's strategic balance, and has vowed to respond.

The US Massive Ordnance Air Blast, nicknamed the Mother of all Bombs, is a large-yield satellite-guided, air-delivered device, which previously enjoyed the dubious accolade of the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in history.

Thermobaric weapons differ from conventional explosive weapons by using oxygen from the atmosphere, rather than carrying an oxidising agent in their explosives. They produce more energy than normal weapons but are hard to control.

The US used similar fuel-air munitions to clear jungle for helicopter landings during the Vietnam War. The Soviet Union also developed its own fuel-air weapons, deploying them against China and in Afghanistan, and the Russian army used them in its second war in Chechnya.

The new bomb comes at a time when both Russia and the US appear to be reneging on nuclear arms limitation treaties signed during the cold war and after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Yesterday the head of a Russian foreign policy thinktank warned that Russia and the US were on the brink of a new cold war involving "an unrestricted nuclear and conventional arms race".

Relations could sink into a serious crisis in a few years, and "domestic and political factors will aggravate the situation rather than help overcome the differences", Sergei Rogov, director of the Russian Academy of Science's US and Canada Institute, told the academy's presidium.

Italy urged to go on pasta strike

Much of the wheat used to make Italian pasta is imported

Consumers' associations in Italy have asked people to refrain from buying or eating pasta for the day, in protest against recent price increases.

The groups are requesting the government intervene to reduce pasta prices.

An increase in the price of wheat in recent months has forced pasta manufacturers to pass on the cost.

Pasta is a national dish in Italy, with each Italian eating on average 28 kg (62 lb) of pasta every year.

Dearer flour

The leader of one consumer association, Elio Lannutti, said the objective of the pasta strike was to forgo pasta for one day, in order to have more of it in the days to come.

A plate of pasta probably costs less than an apple Furio Bragagnolo, vice president of the Italian pasta manufacturers association

Italian supermarkets may mark up pasta prices by 20% by the end of this year.

One large producer of the commodity, De Cecco, described the strike as symbolic, and said it expected little fluctuation in its market as a result.

"There is no dish that costs less," Furio Bragagnolo, the vice president of the Italian pasta manufacturers association told Associated Press agency. "Whoever decides to strike against pasta will spend more on whatever they buy instead. A plate of pasta probably costs less than an apple."

Global warming and the growing use of durum wheat as a bio-fuel are blamed for the steep rise in pasta prices.

The price for durum flour, the main ingredient for Italian pasta, has risen from 0.26 euro per kg (£0.18) to 0.45 euro per kg in the last two months.

'Super-scope' to see hidden texts

Super-powerful x-rays could peer beneath the skin of manuscripts Animation: How synchrotron light unravels the text

The hidden content in ancient works could be illuminated by a light source 10 billion times brighter than the Sun.

The technique employs Britain's new facility, the Diamond synchrotron, and could be used on works such as the Dead Sea Scrolls or musical scores by Bach.

Intense light beams will enable scientists to uncover the text in scrolls and books without having to open - and potentially damage - them.

The research was presented at the British Association science festival.

Iron gall ink, which is made from oak apples, has been in use from the 12th Century, but causes parchment to deteriorate rendering precious documents unreadable.

There are some parts of the Dead Sea scrolls which have not been unrolled Professor Tim Wess

Both paper and parchment - thinly stretched skins from cows, sheep or goats - contain collagen, which reacts with iron ink to become gelatine.

When dry, gelatine is very brittle; but as soon as it gets wet, it turns into jelly, destroying some documents if they are disturbed.

Unrolling the scroll

Now, scientists from the University of Cardiff have developed a technique that uses a powerful X-ray source to create a three-dimensional image of an iron-inked document.

The team then applies a computer algorithm to separate the image into the different layers of parchment, in effect using the program to unroll the scroll.

HOW DIAMOND WORKS Electrons fired into straight accelerator, or linac Boosted in small synchrotron and injected into storage ring Magnets in large ring bend and focus electrons accelerated to near light-speeds Energy lost emerges down beamlines as highly focused light at X-ray wavelengths Diamond opens for business

Professor Tim Wess, who led the research, said: "We've folded up a real piece of parchment and then done a process of X-ray tomography on it. We've been able to recover the structure where we can see the words that are written inside the document."

The team now plans to use the Diamond synchrotron's powerful X-ray source to penetrate many layers of parchment.

The synchrotron, which covers the area of five football pitches, generates light beams that can probe matter down to the molecular and atomic scale.

Professor Wess explained: "The letters have got iron in them, so you shine a band of X-rays through, and you end up with an absorption image, rather like your bones would absorb on an X-ray.

"This is something we can take forward with Diamond, to try to unravel the secrets inside documents that we're too scared to try to open, or that are beyond the point of conservation."

Wish list

The National Archives has donated some 18th Century fire-damaged scrolls that have never been unrolled, due to their condition. But the team also has a wish-list of works that they plan to probe.

Professor Wess said: "There are some parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls which have not been unrolled."

Reading books without opening them was a goal of the project, added Professor Wess. The technique works best with rolled parchment. The flat nature, as well as the thickness of books, presents a challenge.

He said: "I know of books which have been damaged by iron gall ink corrosion where the conservators are actually afraid to open the book because of all the letters. You really end up with a stencil rather than the lettering."

Conserving works

Another target of the project is to image documents before they become too damaged, to monitor levels of gelatine.

The team can then advise on the most appropriate conservation methods, depending on the state of the parchment.

Using modern technology to reveal secrets of the past is a rewarding task.

Professor Wess said: "If you can bring together a £260m ($527m) synchrotron, and the cutting edge science from that, the provenance and the depth of history that you can access when you see these things is actually a revelatory moment."

September 13th

ON THIS DAY NEWS FROM THE BBC ARCHIVES
	1993: Rabin and Arafat shake on peace deal The Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, and the PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, shake hands on the White House lawn in Washington.
	1982: Dingo baby trial opens in Australia A mother who claims her nine-week-old daughter was killed by a dingo appears in court in Australia charged with her murder.
	1988: Cubans blame shooting on 'CIA plot' A Cuban diplomat opened fire in a crowded London street because of an American plot to make him defect, his government says.

Great days out

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Measure For Measure

Which is for you?
Imperial will stay, but metric won't go away. Try a quiz on each

The mozzies are coming

After the wet, then warm, summer, Britain is in the midst of a mosquito explosion. Will the little monsters become a growing menace? And, worse still, is malaria on the way back?

Perched on the low chalk bluff of the Hoo peninsula, offering spectacular views across the Thames marshes, the Kentish village of Cliffe, near Rochester, is these days known for a particularly fine 13th-century ragstone-and-flint church; the remarkable richness of its birdlife, starring Bewick's swans and white-fronted geese alongside gadwall, plovers and godwits; and for a short but fierce tussle with the Blair government, whose aim it briefly was to turn Cliffe into a major international airport. Less well known is that it was the scene of Britain's last recorded outbreak of malaria.
During the closing months of the Great War, a Dr Ronald Ross, winner of the 1902 Nobel prize for medicine for finally demonstrating the link between mosquitoes and malaria, diagnosed the disease in British troops he was tending in Greece and recommended they all be packed off home to Blighty to recuperate. Whoever did the packing failed to follow the good doctor's second recommendation, which was that the soldiers should on no account be billeted in any part of Britain where mosquitoes flourished. Since the marshes of north Kent were positively humming with several million potentially malaria-transmitting mozzies, more than 500 locals duly succumbed to the fevers (though none, happily, died of them).

You might be forgiven, in September 2007, for believing that Cliffe's long and unchallenged reign is about to come to an end. After the floods of July and the heat of August, the winged bloodsuckers are on the warpath, from Norfolk to Devon, Glasgow to Epping. Having drenched ourselves in repellent and successfully evaded their attentions during summer breaks abroad, we are suddenly finding ourselves assailed outside pubs, in our back gardens, even in our bedrooms (worst of all: the incessant, maddening whine in your ear; the nightmarish, three-in-the-morning search-and-destroy mission with rolled newspaper). Itching and scratching like we haven't done since the last time we took a holiday by a windless millpond beside the Med, we are in the midst of a mosquito explosion.

Anecdotally, the evidence seems overwhelming. "My house is overrun with them," says Norwich office worker Mel Tuckwell. "I spend whole evenings swatting them." A Norfolk resident for three years, she says this is "the first time I've seen anything even remotely resembling this. They just don't stop coming." In Poole, Dorset, solicitor Jim Metcalfe reckons he has been "bitten, and bitten viciously, more times in the past fortnight than in the past five years put together. There are lots more of them this year, they seem somehow bigger, and they're certainly cleverer." In Buckhurst Hill, Essex, Mitch Latham, a 28-year-old Australian bar worker who might, you would have thought, be accustomed to insect-induced torment, admits he "started sleeping with a mosquito net last week. My parents couldn't believe it when I told them. I didn't think it would ever come to this in east London, but there are times when it's like Borneo in my bedroom."

Less anecdotally, Ann Grain of NHS Direct reports that in July the organisation's switchboards handled 2,076 phone calls from people inquiring about mosquito bites and how to relieve them (antihistamine for the swelling, hydrocortisone for the itching). In August, the figure soared to 5,374 - a 22% increase on the previous year's 4,179. A sudden sharp rise in cases of myxamatosis, another mosquito-borne disease, in the pet rabbits of Norfolk has also been linked to increased numbers of mosquitoes. And while understandably more circumspect, scientists are prepared to hazard that this summer's level of mozzie activity is, if not unprecedented, at least unusual. "It's the combination of wet weather followed by warmer conditions that has encouraged the greater numbers," says Paul Pearce-Kelly, senior curator of invertebrates at the Zoological Society of London.

Things are likely to get worse. "It depends how the climate actually changes," says Tony Irwin, curator of natural history at the Castle museum in Norwich and an acknowledged expert on Norfolk's fenland and Broads mosquitoes. "But if we are going to be having more wet, warm summers, more pools of stagnant water, that will favour breeding conditions, no question. Likewise, if our winters are going to continue to get milder, then more mosquitoes will survive to breed the following year. The weather could be coming round to favour mosquitoes in a big way, and if we have more mosquitoes, we can probably expect an increase in the diseases they carry."

Those diseases are hardly new to Britain, though for centuries no one imagined they had anything to do with mosquitoes. They feature in Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale, and references to the ague, as malaria and its variants - literally "bad air" - were known until the 19th century, litter Shakespeare's plays. Logically, the malady was also called marsh fever, because the unfortunate inhabitants of river estuaries and salt marshes were particularly prone to it. Sixteenth and 17th-century visitors to the Kent and Essex wetlands typically described them as "unwholesome", "unhealthy", the "noxious vapours arising from the marshes subjecting the inhabitants to continued agues". Many also remarked on the swollen stomachs of the children and their sallow, sickly faces.

In fact, according to Dr Mary Dobson's pioneering (and surprisingly readable) Contours of Death and Disease in Early Modern England, malaria was probably endemic along the estuaries of south-east England, the Fens and the marshy coastal areas of northern England by the 15th century, if not earlier. And if it is impossible to say what proportion of deaths were directly attributable to malaria, it is plain the disease was a serious threat to health. With admirable ingenuity, locals developed a range of remedies to suppress the "terrible rigours" of the ague, based principally, it appears, on large quantities of alcohol, and opium made from locally produced poppies. When things got really bad, they combined the two: Kent and Essex hostelries, Dobson notes, were long famed for a spectacularly potent opium-laced beer.

In his 1727 three-volume Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, Daniel Defoe describes the ravages caused by the ague in the Dengie marshes of Essex, where "our London men of pleasure ... go on purpose for the pleasure of shooting [wildfowl]. But those gentlemen often return with an Essex ague on their backs, which they find a heavier load than all the fowls they have shot." Among those unfortunate enough to live on the marshes, Defoe observed, it was "frequent to meet with men that had from five or six, to 14 or 15 wives ... the reason being that they, being bred in the marshes themselves and seasoned to the place, did pretty well with it; but they always went into the hilly country ... for a wife, and when they took the young lasses into the marshes, they presently changed their complexion, got an ague or two, and seldom held it above half a year, or a year at most."

Depending on who you listen to, up to 33 species of mosquito are currently indigenous to Britain, 20 of which bite and just five of which - the anopheles varieties - are potential transmitters of malaria. In parts of the world with a less well-developed social health system than ours, including large swathes of the Americas, Asia and Africa, anopheles-transmitted malaria remains one of the world's deadliest diseases, affecting up to 650 million people every year and killing between one and three million, mostly young children. There is no vaccine currently available, and the preventative drugs that must be taken continuously to ward it off - as well as the treatments to cure it - are beyond the budget of almost everyone who lives in the afflicted areas.

Here, with the exception of up to 2,000 cases each year brought back by returning travellers, the disease has been eradicated, thanks partly to aggressive marshland draining and larvae-clearing operations in the past century, but mainly to the fortunate fact that mosquitoes are not actually born with malaria: in order to transmit it, a female mosquito - the males do not feed on blood - must first bite a human already infected with it. "What that essentially means is that if you have a public health system that can treat malaria in humans, you effectively prevent its spread," says Chris Curtis, professor of medical entomology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He recently helped both the Royal London Hospital and an old people's home in Dagenham trace the source of mini-plagues that, in the hospital's case, saw one boy bitten 40 times in a single night.

(That we have a cure for malaria at all is, incidentally, largely down to the work of another unsung Briton, Robert Talbor, who boldly abandoned his apothecary's apprenticeship in the late 1660s to develop a patent medicine based on alkaloid quinine, extracted from the bark of cinchona trees introduced into Europe from Peru by Spanish Catholic priests. While quinine was known to be effective in treating the ague, the fact that it was commonly known as "Jesuit's powder" prompted many in Protestant England - including, it is thought, Oliver Cromwell - to reject it as a papist potion, and it took Talbor's secret formula to popularise the treatment. His cure, described in a 1682 tract titled The English Remedy: Talbor's Wonderful Secret for the Curing of Agues and Feavers, earned him fame and fortune; he was knighted after administering it to King Charles II, and also cured Louis XIV of France and Luisa Maria, Queen of Spain.)

But back to our present-day plague. Does it, we wonder, herald a new and apocalyptic invasion triggered by climate change and global warming? Could, as some experts and plenty of tabloid newspapers have predicted, Britain once again become malarial - as, in recent years, have Georgia, Turkey and Azerbaijan? What exactly, in short, are the chances of the mini-epidemic that hit a small Kentish village in the summer of 1918 and spread so rapidly and unstoppably recurring here any time soon? The general feeling among British scientists, fortunately, is: not high. What is clear is that climate change could allow "species that are not native to this country to gain a toehold, and become established here," says Pearce-Kelly.

Nor is malaria the only disease we need worry about. The so-called Asian tiger mosquito, which despite a number of false alarms has not yet reached Britain, is now well established in Italy and has been sighted as far north as Belgium. It can carry Dengue fever, encephalitis and yellow fever. The aedes species of mosquito carries chikungunya, a highly debilitating disease causing fever, headaches and severe joint pain, which last year devastated the French island of La Réunion, affecting 50,000 people and killing, directly or indirectly, 77. And the culex mosquito transmits West Nile fever, which has caused 600 deaths in parts of the United States over the past four years and was recorded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1997.

"All of these species could certainly come to Britain," warns Curtis, "and it's plain that all mosquitoes will thrive in warmer, wetter conditions. So we could well find ourselves coping with a larger mosquito population. But I'm relatively optimistic about the disease aspect - certainly as far as malaria's concerned. Look at Italy, which only eradicated malaria in the 1950s through DDT spraying: its summers are hotter than anything global warming is predicted to hold in store for Britain, yet it's had just five cases of indigenous transmission since then. To me, that indicates that a good public health system is, on the whole, adequate protection." We'll see.

How to avoid getting bitten, in Britain and beyond

There are days when it feels as if every mosquito has your name on it. Your first instinct may be to raid the chemist's or camping store for a spray containing a powerful chemical repellent such as Deet. But there are alternatives, especially in a country such as Britain, where the chances of contracting malaria are infinitesimal, and the greatest danger you face is probably some unsightly bumps and rashes.

"Try heating some citronella oil, if you're sitting outside," says naturopath Michael van Straten. "Eating lots of garlic is also pretty good, and taking a vitamin B complex works too - they hate the yeasty smell [which is why some people recommend eating Marmite]. If you want to soothe the bites, try rubbing a little lavender oil on them."

Johnny Crockett, who runs a survival school, agrees that "mosquitoes are basically attracted to your smell, so anything that masks that is good, such as garlic, for example. If you crush the leaves of elder trees or yarrow, that can help. The only problem is that crushed elder smells a bit like dog poo - that's that masking effect you see."

Once you get into malarial areas, however, forget the herbs. The photographer Don McCullin says you should never sleep without a mosquito net, and that if he had followed his own advice he probably would not have contracted malaria twice. And every seasoned traveller brings out the big chemical weapons, even if some of these repellents have unnerving side-effects. Crockett remembers spraying his legs with one potent concoction and finding that it was eating into the paint on the floor.

The botanist David Bellamy says: "The worst place in the world for mosquitoes is the Kamchatka peninsula in Siberia - that's where they're biggest and nastiest. But I was amazed when I was with the Inuits in Canada: they don't seem to get bitten by them. They told me to take my shirt off and lie down, and try to stay still. But the tickling is too much and as soon as you slap one of them, they all start biting.

"I prefer to use the herbal repellents when I'm in this country, but if you're in malarial country then it's got to be one of the strong chemical ones. And you must keep yourself completely covered too. They don't like wind, and they don't like peat fires, so that's one way of keeping them away."

He confesses to a sneaking respect for the insects. "I have to say, they're nasty little creatures, but they are extremely efficient at what they do."

And sometimes you have got to just get used to it. As explorer and author Benedict Allen says: "When you're on an expedition for six months or whatever, you can't carry that much Deet, and you can't live among indigenous people and keep treating yourself without treating them. If you let the biting get to you, you begin to feel hounded after a while. The most important thing is not to scratch - scratching can go badly wrong in rainforests. If it gets really bad I do take an antihistamine.

"I've come across two different cultures where they use tobacco - in New Guinea they mush up big tobacco leaves in water and then rub it all over themselves.

"It's odd, because I used to get bitten a lot, and then something happened and the mosquitoes just stopped biting me. There are all those folk stories that they like different types of blood, but I can't work out quite what changed. My diet did get better - I started to eat more garlic and onions - partly because rainforests and all the types of places where you find mosquitoes are quite debilitating places."

Most important of all? "A mosquito net impregnated with repellent, which is wonderful because it stops me having to listen to that awful whine at night. It's the worst sound in the world, like a Stuka bomber coming in."

September 12th

ON THIS DAY NEWS FROM THE BBC ARCHIVES
	2001: US declares war on terror The President of the United States describes the destruction caused in New York and Washington as an act of war against all freedom-loving people.
	1977: Steve Biko dies in custody The leader of the black consciousness movement in South Africa, Steve Biko, dies in police custody.
	2005: England win the Ashes England take the Ashes from Australia for the first time since 1987 after the "best ever" series.

September 11th

2001: US rocked by day of terror The United States is in a state of shock after a day of attacks which left thousands dead and the World Trade Center destroyed.

1973: President overthrown in Chile coup President Salvador Allende of Chile - the world's first democratically-elected Marxist head of state - dies in a revolt led by the armed forces.

2003: Anna Lindh dies of stab injuries The Swedish Foreign Minister, Anna Lindh, dies of her injuries after she is stabbed in a Stockholm department store.

2005: Last Israeli troops leave Gaza Thirty-eight years of military rule come to an end as Israeli soldiers lower the flag and pull out.

1978: Umbrella stab victim dies Writer and broadcaster Georgi Markov dies of blood poisoning, four days after he said he was stabbed with an umbrella at a London bus stop.

1980: Famous gem grabbed in armed raid The Marlborough diamond is stolen from a London jewellers in a bold £1m robbery.

1960: Rudolph takes third Olympic gold
The American runner Wilma Rudolph confirms her place in sporting history with a third Olympic gold medal in Rome

EU gives up on 'metric Britain'

Food can show imperial and metric measurements

The European Union is set to confirm it has abandoned what became one of its most unpopular policies among many people in Britain.

It is proposing to allow the UK to continue using pounds, miles and pints as units of measurement indefinitely.

The European Commission will announce later it is leaving all future decisions to the British government.

The decision is being seen as a victory for supporters of the ancient imperial system, the so-called "metric martyrs".

Pint saved

The UK had been due to set a date for phasing out all its imperial measurements within three years.

This would have meant setting a deadline for ending the traditional delivery of pints of milk - and the sale of pints of beer in Britain's pubs.

Every one of Britain's road signs would have had to be changed from miles to kilometres - a move which opponents warned would be both expensive and confusing.

Steve Thoburn made headlines around the world over his campaign

But it was the move, begun in 2000, to make Britain's market traders sell their produce in kilograms rather than pounds and ounces which caused outrage among traditionalists.

Sunderland grocer Steve Thorburn inspired the "metric martyr" movement with his defiance of the order to abandon the imperial measurements.

In 2001, his scales were confiscated and he earned a criminal conviction for selling a pound of bananas from his market stall.

He died unexpectedly from a heart attack three years ago, and while the campaign he founded failed to win traders the right to ignore metric weights altogether, it has brought some results

The traders will continue to be allowed to show both metric and imperial prices for their goods.

'No problem'

Under the plans which have now been scrapped, even displaying the price of fruit and vegetables in pounds and ounces would have become grounds for a criminal prosecution.

I want to bring to an end a bitter, bitter battle that has lasted for decades and which in my view is completely pointless Gunter Verheugen, industry commissioner Pounds, pints and the EU Will we ever go metric?

The decision to back down was made by Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen.

His role includes trying to improve the EU's reputation in member states - and in an interview with the BBC, he admitted the EU had been making itself unpopular on an issue that didn't really matter.

"I organised a huge consultation, and the result was that industry told us there was no problem with the existing system.

"I want to bring to an end a bitter, bitter battle that has lasted for decades and which in my view is completely pointless. We're bringing this battle to an end."

'Extremely misleading'

However, campaigners on both sides of the debate have played down the significance of the announcement.

HAVE YOUR SAY The metric system is actually much easier to use then the imperial system Janet Shaw, Romford, UK Send us your comments

John Gardner, director of the pro-imperial British Weights and Measures Association, said: "I've seen the European Commission statement and what they're saying is it will be allowed to use imperial measurements as additional information.

"We think that the European Commission statement is extremely misleading.

"From our point of view the situation hasn't changed and the campaign goes on.

"If a trader tries to conduct his business in just imperial measurements that will be illegal."

'Business as usual'

The UK Metric Association said the statement does not mean that traders can go back to weighing and pricing in imperial measures, and it will be "business as usual".

Chairman Robin Paice said: "While we regret this proposal to prolong the current muddle of metric and imperial units, it will only delay but not stop the inevitable move toward all-metric shopping.

"Many of the big supermarkets have already stopped giving obsolete imperial prices, and we expect this trend to continue. There is no question of going backwards."

Britain first mooted plans to convert to an all-metric system in 1965.

That led to generations of schoolchildren being promised that they would be the last ones who would have to learn two different systems.

9/11 demolition theory challenged

The study analysed how the twin towers collapsed

An analysis of the World Trade Center collapse has challenged a conspiracy theory surrounding the 9/11 attacks.

The study by a Cambridge University engineer demonstrates that once the collapse of the twin towers began, it was destined to be rapid and total.

One of many conspiracy theories proposes that the buildings came down in a manner consistent with a "controlled demolition".

The new data shows this is not needed to explain the way the towers fell.

Over 2,800 people were killed in the devastating attacks on New York.

After reviewing television footage of the Trade Center's destruction, engineers had proposed the idea of "progressive collapse" to explain the way the twin towers disintegrated on 11 September 2001.

This mode of structural failure describes the way the building fell straight down rather than toppling, with each successive floor crushing the one beneath (an effect called "pancaking").

Resistance to collapse

Dr Keith Seffen set out to test mathematically whether this chain reaction really could explain what happened in Lower Manhattan six years ago. The findings are published in the Journal of Engineering Mechanics.

Previous studies have tended to focus on the initial stages of collapse, showing that there was an initial, localised failure around the aircraft impact zones, and that this probably led to the progressive collapse of both structures.

Once the collapse began, it was destined to be "rapid and total"

In other words, the damaged parts of the tower were bound to fall down, but it was not clear why the undamaged building should have offered little resistance to these falling parts.

"The initiation part has been quantified by many people; but no one had put numbers on the progressive collapse," Dr Seffen told the BBC News website.

Dr Seffen was able to calculate the "residual capacity" of the undamaged building: that is, simply speaking, the ability of the undamaged structure to resist or comply with collapse.

His calculations suggest the residual capacity of the north and south towers was limited, and that once the collapse was set in motion, it would take only nine seconds for the building to go down.

This is just a little longer than a free-falling coin, dropped from the top of either tower, would take to reach the ground.

'Fair assumption'

The University of Cambridge engineer said his results therefore suggested progressive collapse was "a fair assumption in terms of how the building fell".

"One thing that confounded engineers was how falling parts of the structure ploughed through undamaged building beneath and brought the towers down so quickly," said Dr Seffen.

Conspiracy theorists see evidence of a "controlled detonation"

He added that his calculations showed this was a "very ordinary thing to happen" and that no other intervention, such as explosive charges laid inside the building, was needed to explain the behaviour of the buildings.

The controlled detonation idea, espoused on several internet websites, asserts that the manner of collapse is consistent with synchronised rows of explosives going off inside the World Trade Center.

This would have generated a demolition wave that explained the speed, uniformity and similarity between the collapses of both towers.

Conspiracy theorists assert that these explosive "squibs" can actually be seen going off in photos and video footage of the collapse. These appear as ejections of gas and debris from the sides of the building, well below the descending rubble.

Other observers say this could be explained by debris falling down lift shafts and impacting on lower floors during the collapse.

Dr Seffen's research could help inform future building design.

Mobile system promises free calls

TerraNet hope their network will become a standard feature

A new way of making calls directly between phones, for free, is being trialled by a Swedish company.

It is hoping to dramatically improve communications in the developing world.

Swedish company TerraNet has developed the idea using peer-to-peer technology that enables users to speak on its handsets without the need for a mobile phone base station.

The technology is designed for remote areas of the countryside or desert where base stations are unfeasible.

Projects backed by TerraNet recently launched in Tanzania and Ecuador.

TerraNet founder Anders Carlius BBC World Service's Digital Planet programme that the idea for TerraNet came when he was on safari in Tanzania in 2002, and found that poor connectivity meant he could not ring friends riding in another jeep only a few metres away.

"I started thinking, 'couldn't we get phone-to-phone without needing any other equipment, and actually have real voice communication, like a telephone call, between units?'" he said.

Digital identity

The TerraNet technology works using handsets adapted to work as peers that can route data or calls for other phones in the network.

The handsets also serve as nodes between other handsets, extending the reach of the entire system. Each handset has an effective range of about one kilometre.

This collaborative routing of calls means there is no cost to talk between handsets.

When a TerraNet phone is switched on, it begins to look for other phones within range. If it finds them, it starts to connect and extend the radio network.

TerraNet say their network is perfect for communities like students

When a number is dialled a handset checks to see if the person being called is within range. If they are, the call goes through.

While individually the phones only have a maximum range of 1km, any phone in between two others can forward calls, allowing the distance to double. This principle applied many times creates a mini network.

However, Mr Carlius admitted that this has created big problems with having enough available frequencies.

The system can also be used to make calls to other TerraNet mesh networks via a net-connected PC fitted with an inexpensive USB dongle.

"If you look at places like Africa, South America, India, China, we're really for the first time giving people a digital identity," he added.

"People are able to talk to other people using a phone number.

"With our stuff, we are giving the low-end man or woman the chance to talk locally for free."

Ericsson backed TerraNet - but other companies are sceptical

And TerraNet phones currently only work with a special handset - although Mr Carlius said he hopes that it will eventually be a feature available on all phones, like Bluetooth.

He said that were this to happen, it could potentially spell the end for the current Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications model. About 70% of all mobile phones use this technology.

Mr Carlius said large mobile firms did not like the idea of using a peer-to-peer model to make calls.

"One of the biggest things against us is the big operators and technology providers really pushing against us, saying this technology doesn't work and it doesn't have a business model," he said.

"This is fine - just join us in Lund and see how the technology works, and ask our customers how our business model works."

Mr Carlius said that mobile phone manufacturer Ericsson had invested around £3m in TerraNet, and this indicated that the business model for the network is sound.

September 10th

ON THIS DAY NEWS FROM THE BBC ARCHIVES
	1973: Bomb blasts rock central London Scotland Yard hunts a teenage suspect after two bombs at mainline stations injure 13 people and bring chaos to central London.
	2000: Daring rescue frees jungle hostages One British paratrooper is killed and 11 injured during a bold mission to rescue six hostages being held in the Sierra Leonean jungle.
	1988: BBC presenters in helicopter crash The television presenters Mike Smith and Sarah Greene are seriously injured in a helicopter crash in Gloucestershire.

Pavarotti back in singles chart

Luciano Pavarotti was buried in Modena on Saturday

Luciano Pavarotti has made a posthumous comeback to the UK singles chart, nearly 15 years after his last hit.

Download sales of Nessun Dorma saw the track rise to number 24, following the tenor's death on Thursday.

The track made number two in 1990 after being used as the BBC's theme to its coverage of the World Cup in Italy.

Teenage singer Sean Kingston stayed at number one with Beautiful Girls, while Hard-Fi's Once Upon A Time In The West entered the album chart at the top.

Pavarotti also enjoyed two number one albums - the Essential Pavarotti in 1990 and 1991 - but his last success in the singles chart was in October 1992, when Miserere made number 15.

TOP FIVE SINGLES 1) Beautiful Girls - Sean Kingston (above) 2) Hey There Delilah - Plain White T's 3) Stronger - Kanye West 4) 1973 - James Blunt 5) Sexy! No No No - Girls Aloud Source: Official UK Charts Company

Thousands of people gathered in the 71-year-old's home city of Modena, northern Italy, for his funeral on Saturday. The service culminated in a recording of Nessun Dorma and a fly-past by the Italian air force.

Girls Aloud entered the top 10 at number five with Sexy! No No No, while Elvis Presley re-release (Let Me Be Your) Teddybear came into the chart at number 14, its first appearance since 1957.

A week ago Hound Dog re-entered the chart at the same position, but has now dropped out again.

Sean Kingston also has a top 10 album to celebrate, with his self-titled release entering the chart at number eight.

US rock band Plain White T's made their UK album chart debut at number three with Every Second Count, while south-east London's Athlete entered at number five with their third album, Beyond The Neighbourhood.

Solar plane flies into the night

Zephyr reached a maximum altitude of more than 58,000ft (18,000m)

A lightweight solar-powered plane has smashed the official world record for the longest-duration unmanned flight.

UK defence firm Qinetiq, which built the Zephyr unmanned aerial vehicle, said it flew for 54 hours during tests.

The researchers believe it is the first time a solar-powered craft has flown under its own power through two nights.

The previous unmanned endurance record was set in 2001 by a jet-powered US Air Force Global Hawk surveillance aircraft which flew for more than 30 hours.

The record attempt was announced very late FAI spokesperson

The Zephyr's 54-hour endurance flight will not enter the record books because representatives from the world air sports federation - the FAI - were not notified about the secretive test.

However, they were informed about a second, 33-hour flight which could still become an official record.

Zephyr's development team say that whatever the result, it believes it has built a record breaker.

"This aeroplane is going to go a lot higher and a lot further," Chris Kelleher, Zephyr's technical director and "pilot", told the BBC News website. "You ain't seen nothing yet."

Night flight

Zephyr was originally developed to take pictures of a giant helium balloon that attempted to break the world altitude record for a manned envelope in 2003.

Find out more about Zephyr

The attempt was shelved after the Qinetiq 1 balloon sprang a leak.

However, the defence firm has continued to develop the "strato-plane" for military applications, as well as for Earth-observation and communications.

The latest tests took place at the US military White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

On the first flight, the aircraft, which has a wingspan of 18m (59ft), flew for more than two days before it developed a fault. The second, shorter flight was curtailed when thunderstorms threatened the propeller-driven plane.

"What was proved - and what was a world first - was that the aircraft was flown using its solar electrical power system through two complete diurnal cycles," said Paul Davey, Zephyr's business development director.

"The aircraft was flown on solar power and charged its batteries during the day, discharged its batteries during the night, and remained aloft the following dawn when the cycle was repeated."

During the flights, Zephyr reached a maximum altitude of more than 58,000ft (18,000m).

Record bid

The plane is launched by hand and is flown manually to 10,000ft.

"On the ground we have all of the instrumentation a pilot would see on a manned plane," explained Mr Kelleher.

The current record holder is Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk

"We have a basic instrument panel, we have a forward-looking view [from a camera], and we have all of the telemetry coming down to us."

An autopilot took over the controls for the remainder of the tests.

Although, the first flight was more than 20 hours longer than the current record, it will not enter the record books. The Qinetiq team did not pre-notify the FAI (Federation Aeronautique Internationale) of its first flight, a requirement of an official world record.

And, although they did notify the body of the second flight, no FAI official was present to oversee it. "The record attempt was announced very late," said an FAI spokesperson.

However, the Qinetiq team believes that air traffic controllers at the White Sands base will verify the 33-hour, 43-minute flight, which took place on the 31 August.

The FAI spokesperson said the organisation was waiting for details of the tests to be submitted.

Planetary explorer

Zephyr is not the first solar-powered plane to fly through the night.

Helios broke up over the Pacific, west of the Hawaiian island of Kauai

A craft called SoLong, developed by US firm AC propulsion, flew for 48 hours in 2005.

However, unlike Zephyr, the craft was not under constant power for the duration of the flight. Instead, it occasionally had to glide or soar.

Other companies and organisations have also developed similar craft.

The US space agency Nasa developed both the Pathfinder and Helios vehicles.

The agency believed the vehicles could one day be used as a replacement for satellites or as unmanned drones to explore other planets such as Mars.

Helios, the successor of Pathfinder, set an altitude record in 2001 for a non-rocket-powered winged aircraft when it climbed to 96,863 feet (29.5km).

But in 2003, the vehicle broke up on a flight from the US Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

Fragile cargo

Others currently building solar-powered planes include Switzerland's ETH.

Its experimental Sky-Sailor craft is much smaller than Zephyr, with a wingspan of just 3.2m (10ft), and is designed for use on Mars.

All of these prototype vehicles have flown autonomously or controlled by a pilot on the ground.

But in 2010, Swiss balloonist Bertrand Piccard plans to launch Solar Impulse, a manned plane in which he will attempt to circumnavigate the globe.

To carry the precious payload, the craft will have a huge wingspan of 80m (262ft), wider than the wings of the Airbus A380.

As the plane is piloted by only one person at a time, it will have to make frequent stopovers. The current plan is for the journey to be broken into five legs each lasting between four or five days.

Lightweight plane (31kg) is launched by hand Flies autonomously and can climb to more than 58,000 ft (18,000m) By day it flies on solar power and recharges batteries. By night it is powered by rechargeable lithium-sulphur batteries

September 9th

ON THIS DAY NEWS FROM THE BBC ARCHIVES
	1971: British diplomat freed after eight months The British Ambassador, Geoffrey Jackson, is released eight months after being captured by extreme left-wing guerrillas in Uruguay.
	1987: Liverpool fans to stand trial in Belgium Twenty-five English football fans involved in the Heysel stadium disaster are extradited to Belgium.
	1999: Report urges sweeping reform of RUC The Royal Ulster Constabulary should undergo wholesale reform, a Police Review Commission report recommends.

Mobile phone technology turns 20

Nokia's 1100 is the world's best-selling handset

The technology behind the mobile phone is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

On 7 September 1987, 15 phone firms signed an agreement to build mobile networks based on the Global System for Mobile (GSM) Communications.

According to the GSM Association there are more than 2.5 billion accounts that use this mobile phone technology.

Adoption of the technology shows no signs of slowing down with many developing nations becoming keen users of mobile handsets.

Future phones

Robert Conway, head of the GSM Association, said the memorandum of understanding signed in 1987 is widely seen as the moment when the global mobile industry got under way.

Although work on the GSM technical specifications began earlier, the agreement signed in 1987 committed those operators to building networks based upon it.

GSM FACTS China has 445 million GSM customers There are 2.5 billion GSM connections worldwide 64% of mobile users are in emerging markets About seven billion text messages are sent every day Source: GSM Association

"There's no doubt that at the time of the agreement in 1987 no one had an idea of the explosive capabilities in terms of growth that would happen after the GSM standard was agreed," he said.

Since then, he said, the numbers of people using GSM mobiles has always outstripped the predictions.

Once the preserve of the well off, mobiles were now "the everyday gadget that's essential to people's lives," he said.

In the UK there are now more mobiles than people according to Ofcom statistics which reveal that, at the end of 2006, for every 100 Britons there are 116.6 mobile connections.

Figures from the GSM Association show it took 12 years for the first billion mobile connections to be made but only 30 months for the figure to reach two billion.

"In the developing world they are becoming absolutely indispensable," said Mr Conway.

This was because handsets were now cheap and mobile networks much less expensive to set up than the fixed alternatives.

There are so many phones that recycling them is a problem

But getting mobiles in to the hands of billions of people was just the start, said Mr Conway.

"The technology is a gravitational force that brings in to its orbit a huge amount of innovators," he said.

In the future, he suggested, high-speed networks would be ubiquitous adding the intelligence of mobiles to anything and everything.

"The technology will be in the fabric of your clothing, your shoes, in appliances, in your car," he said.

For instance, he said, the ubiquity of mobile technology could revolutionise healthcare and see people wearing monitors that gather and transmit information about vital signs.

Phones too could change radically in the future.

"You'll pull them out of your pocket and they'll look like a map but unfold like a screen," said Mr Conway. "We're now on the verge of another wave and that's going to be stimulated by mobile broadband."

September 8th

ON THIS DAY NEWS FROM THE BBC ARCHIVES
	1943: Italy's surrender announced General Dwight D Eisenhower tells the world of the secret capitulation five days ago by the Italian Government.
	1950: Miners trapped underground by landslide Rescuers say 116 miners trapped in Knockshinnoch Castle colliery in Scotland following a landslide are safe.
	1998: Real IRA announce ceasefire The dissident republican group behind Northern Ireland's worst atrocity declares its violence at an end.

How do you choreograph fireworks to live music?

A burst of colour from Sunday evening's display in Edinburgh

Fireworks flooded the sky and melodies filled the air to herald the end of the Edinburgh International festival. But how did the event organisers ensure a loud shower of shells during the crescendo and a silent scattering of stars in the soft sections?

The first festival of its kind took place in 1947 and for the past 27 years, a firework display from Edinburgh castle has impressed crowds craning their necks towards the ramparts, which rise from a central promontory of rock.

On Sunday 2 September, 250,000 sets of eyes and ears experienced the combined effect of over 100,000 fireworks and more than 50 musical instruments. But how was the show choreographed to satisfy both senses?

The six key stages of setting fireworks to music

"With synchronicity, sympathy and symmetry", said pyrotechnician Keith Webb, 46, whose company Pyrovision designed and executed the 35-minute display.

As pyrotechnical director of the show, his role was to scrutinise his team's timing and that of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and to make any immediate adjustments to ensure the fireworks exploded in time to the music.

THE ANSWER Codes are called out by a score reader, alerting a 'firer' to send electronic pulses which ignite the fireworks Festival ends with a bang

His was one of four essential timekeeping roles: a conductor to lead the orchestra, a score-reader to call out a series of firework codes, a "firer" to ignite the fireworks and a director to compensate for any timing differences.

"The challenge is to call the code fractionally before the cue, to take into consideration the time it takes for my call to register with the person setting off the firework and for him to press the button," says score-reader Andrew Moore.

He had to call several of the 198 codes, each corresponding to a particular set of fireworks, two or three seconds before the cue, to allow for their "rising time" and "burst delay".

It's a job that demands lightning-quick reflexes, says firer Gary Dunn, who compares it to a "sprinter setting off on the gun".

Mr Webb explains his role thus: "If, for example, the conductor speeds up, I might overrule the score-reader's call, telling the firer to kill a set of shells; otherwise you could end up with loud banging in a quiet section of the music."

Silver waterfall

Several tricks of the trade enable him to deal with such situations: lighting a firework at both ends will decrease its duration, as will igniting a second firework before the first has finished, creating a layering effect.

The display was 'scripted' over 24 pages

During the orchestra's live performance of a medley of American music from the early 1900s, individual fireworks were used to pick out single notes.

"We used Roman candles to mimic the military beats of the snare drum in Gershwin's Strike up the Band," says Mr Webb.

Fireworks were also used to enhance the tone of a piece. During Barber's Adagio for Strings, which was poignantly used in the film Platoon, silent flashes of colour flared from the castle battlements, echoing "the emotional pull" of the piece.

A silver waterfall, which has become the centrepiece of the annual show, was also supposed to cascade down the north face of the castle during this piece. However, a technical fault meant that the 1,250 volt charge failed to ignite the length of 70 upside-down fountains.

In order to cover the visual gap which would have been left, Mr Webb overruled the score-reader's call, setting off the next set of fireworks early. The fault was repaired and the waterfall was ignited during the last minute of the finale.

"Each year, I hear people saying the waterfall was their favourite, and it gives me a secret buzz," says Warren Griffiths, who erected the specially-designed effect.

Funny fireworks

And there's even scope for humour. A series of hummer mines, which make a "sliding" sound were used to tell the story of a cowgirl slipping from her horse in Copeland's Buckaroo Holiday. A firework, which exploded into the shape of a horse's tail, was also used for a "literal visual image".

THE SHOW IN NUMBERS More than 100,000 fireworks, equalling four tonnes 35 minutes of music 250,000 spectators 56 musicians 24-page firework script 198 ignitions Finale: 133 fireworks in 3 secs

Symmetry is a key design element of theatre productions, and firework choreography is no different. The north wall of the castle was divided into two: stage left and stage right, with pairs of corresponding fireworks mirroring each other.

The pyrotechnical interpretation of Ives' Three Places in New England however was punctuated by a series of seemingly random flares erupting from the battlements to mimic the "disjointed" nature of the music.

"It's often difficult pieces of music like this which are our most successful. A fresh challenge pushes you to come up with the best ideas," says Wilf Scott, of Pyrovision.

A choreographed firework display takes several months' planning. Having laboured for four weeks preparing the material, a team of 14 spent seven days installing the fireworks at the castle.

After listening to the music "about 100 times" and sourcing specific firework effects over a period of months, it took a fortnight to design the show.

While pyrotechnicians can prepare for many eventualities, they cannot predict the weather. Conditions are monitored every hour during the week before an event and on the day of the show, test shells are exploded and the debris monitored to determine the wind strength and direction.

These findings are passed to the police, ambulance service, and council health and safety officials, who may decide to cancel the display, relocate spectators or remove some of the larger fireworks.

Fortunately this year's choreographed display was not hampered by the weather and the famous waterfall, though somewhat delayed, was yet again on everyone's lips.

1. The orchestra plays the music 2. In time to the music, a firework code is called by the score reader 3. As the code is called, a "firer" sends an electronic pulse to the distribution box 4. The box directs the pulse to the fireworks denoted by the code 5. The fireworks are ignited 6. The director monitors the timings, communicating to his team any compensatory adjustments

Hatching a new style of thatching

Every thatched roof tells a story about its maker In pictures

Thatched cottages were a feature of ancient Britain. But like so many traditional crafts, thatching has failed to attract willing young apprentices. So what made one 19-year-old quit sixth form to train as a thatcher?

There's not a flat cap or a chewed piece of straw between them, but Dave Bragg and Matt Williams are on a two-man mission to breathe new life into the ancient practice of thatching.

Encouraging young people into the thatching trade is vital to its survival - in 2005, there were vacancies for 300 thatchers in England alone.

It appears too many potential apprentices are put off by the fuddy-duddy image.

An afternoon with Dave,34, and Matt, 33, would change that.

As the Rumpelstiltskin Thatching Company, based in Oxfordshire, they are marrying 21st Century ideas about sustainability and locally-sourced materials, with the long-established traditions of their area.

And they have taken on their own apprentice, Tom Cummins, to make sure their skills are passed on.

'Something different'

Dave and Matt's latest project is a pub - the Horse and Groom in the village of Caulcott - and they are willingly assisted by 19-year-old Tom.

The thatchers are passionate about their area's heritage

Dave says: "We've had lots of work experience kids and to be honest they're a nightmare. The work ethic is usually appalling, but Tom really impressed us."

Tom says: "I'd started sixth form because I didn't know what else to do, but I left after a year.

"I decided I wanted to learn a skill, but not something ordinary like bricklaying, something different. I thought about being a blacksmith or a farrier, but went for thatching."

Tom's apprenticeship takes four years and includes 12 weeks at Knuston Hall college in Northamptonshire.

Each week he learns a different thatching feature - eave, gable, window, chimney and so on. Students work on small mocked-up roofs and their efforts are assessed.

Even Matt and Dave could find themselves back at school soon. That's because a new level three NVQ in Heritage has just been created which they hope to gain.

Long straw

Thatch has been used for roofs in the UK since the Bronze Age, 4,000 years ago. But in the mid-20th Century it was dying out.

In Oxfordshire and elsewhere, thatched buildings were seen as old-fashioned and the long straw needed to maintain them was expensive, hard to find and time-consuming to lay. As a result many were destroyed.

When you look at a roof you can see how generations of thatchers before you did it Dave Bragg, thatcher Revival in traditional skills A classroom for heritage

But just when things looked grim, a different material appeared - combed wheat reed. It was cheaper and more readily available and so thatchers seized on it and used it to revive their trade.

Thatching survived thanks to combed wheat, but at the expense of tradition - something Dave and Matt now want to change.

"Combed wheat doesn't fit at all in Oxfordshire," Matt explains. "It was never traditionally used.

"Without combed wheat there wouldn't be a thatching tradition to carry on and we don't want to rage against that, but in the 60s and 70s, they ripped out so much long straw, it was sacrilege."

The thatchers want to go back in time and have set about returning combed wheat roofs to long straw, one building at a time.

Dave smiles: "It's quite controversial what we're trying to do."

All-English

Before deciding to be a thatcher, Dave was a motorbike courier in London.

Apprentices learn their trade at college then put it into practice

Matt, by his own admission, was an Oxford University drop-out. He got into thatching by accident after answering an advert in a shop window.

He later found out there had been thatchers in his family for hundreds of years.

Both found apprenticeships at the same firm and after learning their craft, decided to go it alone.

Dave says: "Our old boss would say to people, 'Oh thatching hasn't changed for a thousand years', and we would look at each other and think, 'That's completely wrong.' It has, and it has to keep changing to survive."

A key part of Rumpelstiltskin's philosophy is to use only English materials and no imported straw.

They are also taking the radical step of growing their own materials using medieval seed varieties.

Matt explains: "We're working with an archaeo-biologist - he's been digging ancient seed out of roofs.

"You see, over time, straw was deliberately bred to be short and weak because it was easier to harvest, but that's the opposite of what we need for thatch. Old varieties are much stronger and longer."

Matt and Dave also work closely with local conservation officers because they need listed building permission to convert roofs back to long straw. Once converted, however, they are protected forever in that state.

"We still find the occasional roof with an unbroken long-straw history and it's such a buzz," Dave says. "When you look at a roof you can see how generations of thatchers before you did it and we try to incorporate that."

Mind games

One of Britain's top scientists is joining the likes of Chris Tarrant and Nicole Kidman by putting her name to a new wave of computer games designed to keep the brain fit.

As if the gym was not tyranny enough, now there's another fitness routine that's playing on the insecurities of the masses - the brain workout.

HOW A BRAIN GAME WORKS

Picasso aims to train visual memory. Users have a few seconds to memorise the right-hand design.

After part of the design disappears, shapes are picked from the left to fill empty squares.

The mouse is used to pick up one of the squares on the left, indicated here by its lighter shade.

The chosen square is dropped into one of the empty squares. It is accepted if it is correct.

The process is then repeated until the empty squares are correctly filled in as little time as possible.

MindFit's creators compare this kind of brain exercise to a physical workout in the gym.

A percentage score is given and can be stored for future comparison.

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But at least couch potatoes will not have to stir from the sofa to take part. This path to cerebral salvation can be navigated sitting down, in front of a screen, with a computer game.

A current advertising campaign by Nintendo suggests commuters put their sedentary time to good effect by improving mind functions like memory and concentration with a brain game.

The latest program to take the grey matter on a road test is MindFit, to be launched by one of Britain's best-known scientists, Baroness Susan Greenfield, on Thursday. Others include IQ Academy and Anagrammatic.

MindFit is PC-based software providing a collection of games (such as Picasso, explained above) that its creators say can halt the mental decline associated with ageing, based on trials in Israel among 121 volunteers aged over 50.

Bruce Robinson of MindWeaver, the company behind the software, says the different exercises target certain cognitive functions like memory, visual spatial awareness and concentration.

"If you use the analogy of a fitness room or gym then it has the equivalent of all the machines to exercise this variety of functions and has an online personal trainer aligning the exercises that you do to match your particular abilities and match your own performance."

There is now good scientific evidence to show that exercising the brain can slow, delay and protect against age-related decline Susan Greenfield

Brain training is gaining popularity, Mr Robinson believes, partly because people are getting more interested in monitoring their wellness and brain health, and partly due to people living longer and dementia becoming more common in society.

It is not just older people who are being targeted. The education system has long been aware of the potential use of computer games and a survey last year suggested about a third of teachers used gaming in the classroom, to sharpen motor and cognitive skills.

Many brands have devised games that specifically aim to develop mental agility in people of all ages.

Nintendo's Brain Training series, inspired by prominent Japanese neuroscientist Dr Ryuta Kawashima, has sold 10 million units - helped by endorsements from Chris Tarrant and Nicole Kidman. Olivia Doran, 69, from Hertfordshire, received one as a Mother's Day present in March. She spends about 45 minutes a day on a hand-held console playing brain games and Sudoku.

Brain rewiring

"My 'brain age' was 75 when I started so that was a bit of a shock," she says. "But my average has come down to 27 now and I'm proud of that. It goes up and down. If you're tired when doing the exercises then your brain is a bit poor."

Nicole Kidman is plugging More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima

The exercises Olivia does include arithmetic calculations, recalling four to six numbers in their correct sequence and working out the time difference between two clocks. Another involves drawing a design from memory.

"In the beginning I wanted to do it because I wanted to make sure I stayed with it, but I do enjoy it too," she says.

"I have noticed the difference to an extent. I can remember little snippets - things I hear on the radio - a little bit more accurately."

Research done on animals has linked stimulation from visual tasks to the strengthening of neuron connections in the brain, says Professor David Moore, the neuroscientist who founded MindWeavers.

Stronger connections between neurons have not been demonstrated directly in humans because a test would require putting an electrode into the brain, he says, but neuro-imaging of whole human brains shows activity in the same areas when people play these games.

Waistlines

"When you do a difficult exercise on MindFit, what you're doing is engaging a population of neurons that are responding to what they see on screen or hear, and this population are all firing together in a synchronised way. That strengthens the connections with other neurons."

OTHER WAYS TO WORK THE BRAIN Physical exercise Reading aloud Crosswords Sudoku Memorising telephone numbers The existence of 'brain food' such as fish is debatable

This seems to prevent the onset of cognitive decline and could in the long-term provide an alternative to drugs, says Professor Moore.

Daily life provides some of this stimulation anyway, he says, but the computer games record and assess an individual's performance, so can chart progress and keep the difficulty level at the right point.

But not everyone is convinced that gaming is the best way to improve brain power.

Ben Goldacre, who writes a column in the Guardian about the media's misrepresentation of science, says: "There's no doubt that maintaining and practising mental agility is protective in the long-term but there's a question about whether it needs to be a fancy and proprietary system.

"People are trying to commercialise common sense and over-complicate it."

These games are often no better or worse, he says, than doing a crossword, a Sudoku puzzle, a computer game or a sport that exercises hand-eye coordination.

There's also a practical and more realistic reason to believe it won't be a craze that will sweep the nation.

For those that find it hard enough to do 15 minutes of moderate exercise a day - and resent being told they should - taking the brain for a workout may remain a forlorn hope.

10 Things

Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. Rock stars are twice as likely to die prematurely as the wider population.
More details

2. The collective noun for meerkats is a "mob".
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3. In Ethiopia it is almost the start of the year 2000 and the beginning of millennium celebrations.
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4. Bees can detect explosives.
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5. There are 287 franchised World Trade Centers around the world, including one in Hull.

6. Clarissa Dickson Wright became the country's youngest female barrister at 21, a record she still holds.

7. An RAF Tornado costs £40,000 an hour to fly.

8. Depression is a more disabling condition than angina, arthritis, asthma and diabetes.
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9. Sitting straight is bad for backs.
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10. A suspect in Portugal is called an arguido and has certain rights.
More details

Sources: 5 - Financial Times (7 Sept); 6 - BBC Radio Five Live; 7 - Times (7 Sept)

Soggy summer in stats

Just a year after recording one of the country's driest summers, the UK has suffered its wettest ever.

All parts of the country had above-average rainfall, with the Midlands and north-east England soaked by nearly double their regional averages.

While many blame climate change for the dramatic contrasts, weather forecasters are less inclined to leap to such conclusions.

"It is difficult to directly link the climate change angle into the past UK summer," Met Office weather forecaster John Hammond says.

"Last summer [2006] saw the UK weather often dominated by areas of high pressure and winds blowing in from the south or south-east, bringing very warm and dry air.

"This summer has been completely different, with low pressure dominating the weather scene, thanks in part to the jet stream being that much further south than we would normally expect at this time of the year."

But a cold water current in the eastern Pacific - La Nina - also played a part, according to Mr Hammond.

"There is statistical evidence that when La Nina occurs, here in the UK we can have more in the way of westerly winds, and therefore more unsettled conditions, like this summer."

RAINFALL

WETTEST UK SUMMERS 2007 - 362.1mm 1956 - 358.4mm 1985 - 342.7mm 1927 - 336.3mm 1931 - 327.0mm Source: Met Office Send us your comments

June was the wettest on record in the UK and July the fourth-wettest. And while August rainfall was little more than average, the combined effect of so many days of seemingly endless rain was to make 2007 the UK's wettest summer on record.

A total of 362.1mm fell on the UK during the three months regarded by meteorologists as forming the summer - beating the previous high of 358.4mm, set more than 50 years ago.

Records were also created in several parts of England and in England as a whole.

And while last month largely provided respite from the rain, temperatures dropped, giving most areas their coldest August for at least a decade.

RESERVES

See river flows in more detail Enlarge Map

Rivers all over the country were unusually high this summer.

Most of the principal rivers in England and Wales recorded flows in July even higher than those of June, when floods plagued much of the north-east.

Many of those monitored by the Environment Agency had flows more than four times the long-term average for July, when it was the Midlands' and West Country's turn to endure severe flooding.

All but four sites in the south-east were considered exceptionally high for the time of year.

While last summer there were hosepipe bans and drought orders to try to conserve water, there was no such problem anywhere in the UK this time.

Reservoirs all over England and Wales were close to full in July - a highly unusual situation.

In July, only two reservoirs were below their norms for the time of year, and three-quarters were more than 90% full.

However, that does not necessarily mean there won't be a problem again next summer.

Most summer rain fails to replenish stocks - much of it is used up by extra consumption, evaporation and natural loss.

"If reservoirs are full, groundwater aquifers will still absorb water, but most rain that falls goes into rivers, which go out to sea," explains the Environment Agency's Adrian Westwood.

"Normally groundwater gets recharged during the winter."

So whether it's wellies or water rationing next summer may depend more on what happens in the next few months than the past few.

Most say UK is in 'moral decline'

32% of people said they would try to stop teenagers spraying graffiti

More than four in five people believe that Britain is in moral decline, a survey has indicated.

The poll, for new BBC One show The Big Questions, found only 9% disagreed that moral standards were falling.

Of 1,000 adults asked, 62% said religion was important in guiding the nation's morals, while 29% disagreed that faith had a role to play.

And people said they were more likely to help a stranger who had collapsed than try to stop anti-social behaviour.

Children fighting

The survey also found:

• 93% of people would help if someone had collapsed in the street

• 61% would try to intervene if they saw two children fighting

• 32% said they would get involved if they saw teenagers spraying graffiti

• 24% would say something if someone was talking too loudly on a mobile phone while on a bus or train

The survey also compared attitudes between generations.

HAVE YOUR SAY There is no moral decline. There is just the change in perception of what's moral Vladimir, London Send us your comments

It found that people aged 16 to 24 were more likely than those in older age groups to agree that religion had a key role to play in guiding the nation's morals.

The survey was conducted by polling company ComRes between 31 August and 2 September.

The Big Questions will be shown on BBC One on Sunday 9 September at 1000 BST

Emmerdale's Amos actor dies at 87

Ronald Magill's character was a mainstay of the Yorkshire soap

Former Emmerdale star Ronald Magill, who played Amos Brearly, has died at the age of 87, his long-time friend Bernard Palmer has confirmed.

Magill joined the ITV1 soap when it began in 1972 as Emmerdale Farm, and appeared in the role for 19 years.

His character was renowned for running the Woolpack pub with Henry Wilks, and for his distinctive bushy sideburns.

The actor, who began his career on the stage, had a number of small TV parts before landing the role of Amos.

The larger-than-life landlord was a mainstay of the soap - along with Wilks and Annie Sugden - until his departure in 1991.

However, he returned to the soap for brief appearances later that decade, including his marriage to Annie in 1995.

HAVE YOUR SAY A class character actor who played his part brilliantly when soaps had some credibility Colin Healey, Plymouth Send us your comments

Mr Palmer, 58, who was friends with Magill for more than 15 years, said the actor "loved" working on Emmerdale.

"They were very much a family, and he enjoyed it very, very much indeed," he told the BBC News website.

"Professionally, he was word-perfect, and I think that went back to his repertory days when he had a lot of lines to learn."

Mr Palmer said that off-screen, Magill was "very much a dapper gentleman".

"No matter where he was, he always had time for fans. If they came over to him, he would put his knife and fork down or whatever, and speak to them.

Magill (l) returned in the early 1990s for a few one-off episodes

"It was the character of Amos that people loved, but I think it was an integration of the character and him," he said.

"He gave it his soul. Amos wasn't just a character. You always felt like you knew him."

Emmerdale's executive producer, Keith Richardson, said everyone on the programme was "deeply saddened" at his death.

"His endearing performances secured Amos Brearly a place as one of the best-loved characters in Emmerdale's history," he said.

Theatrical background

Magill was born in Hull in April 1920, but was raised in Birmingham.

He started his career on the stage, and was artistic director of the Nottingham Playhouse in the 1960s.

He also had a small part in the 1970 film Julius Caesar, with Charlton Heston and Sir John Gielgud.

Magill made his debut as Amos Brearly in the first episode of Emmerdale, transmitted in October 1972, and left the regular cast in January 1991. His final appearance was on 7 July 1995.

The sideburns really stood out for me, and I think that goes for everyone Steven Murphy, Inside Soap magazine

Steven Murphy, editor of Inside Soap magazine, said Magill would be fondly remembered by Emmerdale fans.

"I watched it from a very young age and just remember him being one of the archetypal characters of the time, and there have not been many like him since," he said.

"The sideburns really stood out for me, and I think that goes for everyone. If you say his name, people still remember his sideburns and 'Nay, Mr Wilks' catchphrase."

He went on: "It was a much tamer time in the Woolpack in those days - there was none of the sex and sin we see these days, but there were still strong, dramatic storylines.

"I think his legacy lives on in characters like Betty and Edna, strong, older Yorkshire characters that you can have a bit of fun with too."

September 7th

ON THIS DAY NEWS FROM THE BBC ARCHIVES
	1940: London blitzed by German bombers The German airforce unleashes a wave of heavy bombing raids on London, killing hundreds of civilians and injuring many more.
	1992: Troops kill 24 at ANC rally At least 24 people are killed and 150 injured when soldiers fire on an African National Congress demonstration in South Africa.
	1952: Egyptian army ousts prime minister Following the recent coup in Egypt, General Mohammed Neguib forces Aly Maher out of office and assumes control himself.

Is it the World's Smallest MP3 Player ?

Yes, this product is actually called the “Ultimate Smallest MP3 Player”. It measures just 24mm x 24mm x 24mm and features 2GB of built-in memory for all your favorite tunes. How small are we gonna get before we lose the thing under our fingernail ?? And what’s with the headphones being heavier than the device itself ?? Whoosh! Anyhow, it’s got an in-built FM radio, 2GB of memory (200 hours of non-stop music) and handles MP3, WMA, ASF and WAV.

But there is more to the tiny device than 200 hours of non-stop music. There is a built-in 3.7V lithium battery, which will enable hours of continuous playtime between charges. It also comes with a USB adapter, making it easy to use with your PC or laptop while requiring no drivers or software installation. There is even a built-in FM radio to allow you to listen to your favorite radio station or keep up with the breaking news.

Ultimate Smallest MP3 Player Official Site

How to convert docx to doc without Microsoft Word 2007

Suppose, your client just emailed a Microsoft Word 2007 document ending with a .docx extension but you have no clue about how to open and print the file or convert from docx to .doc and other text formats. No worries, here's are some very simple solutions on handling .docx file when you don't have Microsoft Office Word 2007.

The .docx files, which are now the default file extension in Microsoft Word 2007, are essentially a bunch of zipped XML documents - you can even rename the file extension from .docx to .zip and then extract the file contents using Winzip or some other decompression tools.

In order to convert .docx documents to .doc format, just download the free Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack from here. This will help you open, print, edit and save .docx files in Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003.

And if you are on Mac, you can get the Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac here - this converts .docx to .rtf (rich text format) files which can be viewed in Office for Mac and other Mac word processors. It is also possible to open and edit a .docx file in OpenOffice or StarOffice using the free Open XML Translator from SourceForge which converts .docx Word documents to .odf and vice versa.

The Word 2007 docx format is currently not supported by GMail Word viewer or Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

Source : Digital Inspiration

Obituary: Luciano Pavarotti

One of the greatest figures of the opera world, Luciano Pavarotti, has died aged 71. He was diagnosed last year with cancer of the pancreas.

Health problems dogged Pavarotti's farewell tour

Pavarotti was born in Modena, Italy, on 12 October, 1935, the first and only child of a baker.

As a boy, he was more interested in football than music and earned his first local fame as a member of the town's soccer team.

He first sang in the town chorus with his father, an opera lover and gifted amateur tenor.

When the Rossini Male Chorus won first prize in an international competition, Pavarotti decided to pursue music full-time.

His professional debut came on 29 April, 1961, in one of the great tenor roles, Rodolfo in Puccini's La Boheme, at the opera house in Reggio Emilia.

After Italian success came engagements in Amsterdam, Vienna, Zurich and London.

In 1965, he made his US debut in a Miami production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor with Joan Sutherland - the start of what would become a historic partnership.

Audience frenzy

It was in the United States in 1972 that Pavarotti produced one of his legendary performances.

The singer found international stardom as one of the Three Tenors

In La Fille du Regiment at New York's Metropolitan Opera, he sang nine effortless high Cs - causing the audience to erupt in a frenzied ovation.

His recordings became best sellers, covering a wide range of the opera repertoire as well as anthologies of Neapolitan and other Italian songs.

But Pavarotti's fame broadened dramatically when he took part in one of the most remarkable classical concerts of recent times during the 1990 World Cup - as one of the Three Tenors.

With Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo, Pavarotti was broadcast around the world singing a selection of famous arias and popular songs.

The broadcast was a major ratings hit and the subsequent record became one of the biggest-selling classical discs of all time.

Huge concerts

His 1992 concert in London's Hyde Park, in the presence of Charles and Diana, the Prince and Princess of Wales, was the first classical concert in the history of the park and drew some 150,000 people.

In June 1993, more than 500,000 fans gathered to enjoy his performance in New York's Central Park. That September, he sang in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in Paris to a further 300,000 fans.

He gave his final opera performance in New York in 2004

While many in the classical world criticised the outdoor concerts as mere stunts, his defenders said he was doing a valuable job in popularising opera - and letting large numbers hear one of history's great voices.

There were also grumbles about his duets with pop stars like Sting, Bono and Bryan Adams.

But Pavarotti was also dedicated to the development of young singers, conducting standing-room-only master classes at conservatories around the world.

In March 2004, he gave his final performance in an opera in Puccini's Tosca in New York, where he received a 11-minute standing ovation.

Later that year, he announced he would begin a 40-city farewell tour in 2005 before "taking his leave".

Ill-health wreaked havoc on his schedule, however, with many concerts cancelled or postponed as he battled back problems, laryngitis and a throat infection.

Wallace and Gromit statue planned

Wallace and Gromit have won three Academy Awards

A statue of Wallace and Gromit is to be built in Preston, Lancashire - the home city of their creator Nick Park.

The Oscar-winning animator is working on designs for a permanent bronze tribute to the pair.

Preston City Council must raise £100,000 to build the statue which it says would give a "boost" to the area.

Mr Park, who dreamt up the characters as a student, said the statue would be "a wonderful honour".

He said: "This is a really exciting project and I'm delighted to be working on the designs.

"As a Prestonian myself it would be a wonderful honour to have a statue to the characters in my home city."

Were rabbit

Councillor Ken Hudson, leader of Preston City Council, said the statue would have a positive impact on the city.

"We've seen how such statues and public art can create an excitement and boost for an area - for example with the Sir Tom Finney statue at Preston North End and the Eric Morecambe statue in Morecambe," he said.

"We think a Wallace and Gromit statue could have a similar effect and we will be working hard to secure the £100,000 funding for it."

Nick Park is an honorary freeman of Preston

Mr Park joined studio Aardman Animations in 1985.

Since then he has won four Oscars, three for Wallace and Gromit films, and is an honorary freeman of Preston.

The most recent Wallace and Gromit film, The Curse of the Were Rabbit, took £9.1m in its first week at the box office in 2005.

Money for the statue has already been donated by the council, Aardman Animations and developers Grosvenor Ltd.

It is hoped the rest will be raised from private sponsors and that the work will be in place by the end of 2008.

Space pile-up 'condemned dinos'

The collision would have occurred in the asteroid belt Enlarge Image

A colossal collision in space 160 million years ago set the dinosaurs on the path to extinction, a study claims.

An asteroid pile-up sent debris swirling around the Solar System, including a chunk that later smashed into Earth wiping out the great beasts.

Other fragments crashed into the Moon, Venus and Mars, gouging out some of their most dominant impact craters, a US-Czech research team believes.

Its study, based on computer

modelling, is reported in the journal Nature.

"We believe there is a direct connection between this break-up event, the asteroid shower it produced and the very large impact that occurred 65 million years ago that is thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs," Dr Bill Bottke from the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, US, told BBC News.

Rock swarm

A number of studies have considered what appears to have been an increase in asteroid strikes on Earth in the last 100-200 million years - something like a doubling over the long-term norm.

Dr Bottke and his colleagues have attempted to show that this surge was probably triggered by the catastrophic disruption of a 170km-wide rock in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter about 160 million years ago.

The mountainous object's break-up - induced by a collision with a space rock under half its size - resulted in the cluster of fragments visible today and known as the Baptistina family, they say.

It is thought the dinosaurs could not cope with the impact's effects Enlarge Image

The researchers have modelled the evolution of this cluster and concluded that it would have lost many of its original members to the inner Solar System.

The analysis shows, the team says, that one large shard from the break-up probably created the 85km-wide Tycho impact crater on the Moon 108 million years ago.

But even more likely, they contend, is that a still larger fragment dug out the 180km-wide Chicxulub crater off what is today the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

This is the impact scar many scientists link to the Cretaceous/Tertiary Mass Extinction, which saw the dinosaurs disappear into the fossil record.

'Inevitable' outcome

"The [Baptistina] break-up event took place very close to what one might describe as a 'dynamical superhighway', a way for objects to escape the asteroid belt - and many of them did so," explained Dr Bottke.

"These fragments began to wander the region where the Earth and Moon are located; and in fact, so many escaped that it became almost inevitable that some of the larger pieces were going to hit the planets of the inner Solar System."

The Chicxulub crater has left its mark on Mexico Enlarge Image

Chemical analysis of projectile material connected to the Chicxulub event is also said to tie its impactor to the type of rocks that make up the Baptistina family.

Philippe Claeys and Steve Goderis from the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, write a commentary on the research in Nature.

They say that unless a rogue comet came from the outer edge of the Solar System ("a rather unlikely event"), the Baptistina asteroid family remains a likely source for the Chicxulub impactor.

"It is a poignant thought that the Baptistina collision some 160 million years ago sealed the fate of the late-Cretaceous dinosaurs well before most of them had evolved," they write.

Dr Bottke's colleagues on the study were David Vokrouhlicky and David Nesvorny.

September 6th

ON THIS DAY NEWS FROM THE BBC ARCHIVES
	1997: Diana's funeral watched by millions Britain and the world say farewell to Diana, Princess of Wales, at the end of an unprecedented week of mourning.
	1972: Olympic hostages killed in gun battle All nine of the Israeli athletes kidnapped on Tuesday from the Olympic Village in Munich are killed in a gun battle at a nearby airport.
	1965: Indian Army invades W Pakistan Indian troops have invaded West Pakistan, crossing the border at three points in an attack which appears to be aimed mainly at the city of Lahore.

Pub News

Top stories:

Scotland takes action over supermarket alcohol pricing

The Executive is to ban a range of alcohol promotions in the off-trade under the Licensing Act

GBL to import cocktail brand

Authentic pre-mixed Caipirinha Cocktail from Brazil is now available to UK pubs

IPA in rugby promotion push

Greene King's flagship beer brand unveils major marketing activity ahead of World Cup

Gaelic or Gallic...

Critics claim LVMH's Glenmorangie makeover is ditching its Scottish heritage

'Beer hunter' Michael Jackson dies

Enthusiast who made craft beers fashionable

Guinness Red to roll-out

Diageo's latest Guinness variant to be stocked in selected pubs across central England next month

more news

Latest features:

Bulmers Original over ice - what's the verdict?

There may well be advantages in being the first with a more lucrative draught version of an over-ice cider ­ but it's not without its risks either, says Adam Withrington

Bottled Lager: Keep the faith

The market may be on a downturn, but there are still gains to be had in bottled lager, learns Nick Yates

Bottled Lager: Czech invasion

The story of Czech lager on these shores is an example of how to conquer a market - send in an advance guard of bottles and then follow up with draught

Ready to rise to the challenge?

With the five pubs now selected, the scene is set for the Cocktail Challenge - to see if pubs can successfully incorporate cocktails into their drinks offer, using spirits and soft drinks they already stock and with the help of the experts

Oktoberfest: Here's to beer

October is generally one of the quieter months in the pub calendar so take a leaf out of the Germans' book by celebrating beer - and food. Albeit on a slightly smaller scale, perhaps.

Rugby World Cup: The beer world cup

Beers from around the rugby world battle for the ultimate prize. Nick Yates referees

more features

Other news this month:

• Magners owner sees flat sales growth
• Sauza plays long game
• Cuban beer launch
• JW Lees strikes deal with Czech brewer
• Worthington's signs up with Dragons
• Calls for watershed on TV alcohol ads
• Pubs urged to raise standards on real ale
• Fiirst female head brewer for Wentworth

more news

Get all the latest news and advice from the UK's leading pub trade information resource – www.thepublican.com

'Beer hunter' Michael Jackson dies

Beer lovers are mourning the loss of writer Michael Jackson, who has died at the age of 65.

Best known as the presenter of the TV series The Beer Hunter, Michael wrote and broadcast on his favourite subject - great beer - for more than 30 years.

His newspaper columns and books, including the Great Beer Guide, the World Guide to Beer, the Pocket Guide to Beer and Ultimate Beer, became essential reading for both beer enthusuasts and anyone who enjoyed good food and drink writing.

In a consumer market dominated by wine writing, he helped to keep craft brewing, both in Britain and around the world, firmly in the public spotlight. He also helped to champion the microbrewery movement.

Michael had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for more than 10 years.

Can Airbus make it big in Asia?

Just before dawn earlier this week, Hong Kong residents scaled the heights of one of the city's tallest peaks to await a spectacle.

Airbus wants to drum up more Asian business

After an hour or two of anticipation, they were rewarded by the sight of something they had never seen before: the biggest aeroplane in the world, flying above Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour on Monday morning.

It was all part of a publicity ploy from European manufacturer Airbus, which makes the A380.

The flight follows more than a year of bad publicity brought on by production delays.

There was more embarrassment just two days before the aircraft's arrival for Asia's largest airshow in Hong Kong. The plane that made Monday morning's flight had scraped its wing in Bangkok and had to have its wingtips removed.

John Leahy, Airbus's chief operating officer for customers, admits it has not been a smooth ride.

"Every plane is difficult to build - the bigger the more difficult," he says.

"It's been a manufacturing nightmare to build it. Now we've got the production process solved. It took a two year delay, though."

Rivalry

Still, the plane has been a hit with locals. Despite several security barriers and long lines, many of the delegates at the Hong Kong Asian Aerospace show turned up to see just how big it was, both inside and outside.

But some critics say that the A380's sheer size and pulling power have not stopped it from lagging behind Boeing in Asia.

In China alone, for instance, 60% of the commercial planes are made by Boeing.

The American manufacturer did not fly down any of its planes to Hong Kong for display; instead, visitors to the airshow had to make do with plastic models at the manufacturer's exhibition booth.

China is going after Boeing and Airbus's low-end market Jim Eckes, IndoSwiss Aviation

Larry Dickenson, a senior vice-president at Boeing, says he is confident of his company's lead over Airbus in Asia.

"They have a lot of ground... to recover," he says. "They are in a different situation from us, driven by different motivations.

"We have our plans. We have our planes. We have the products that the airlines and the world prefer."

Home-grown talent

But even as the two giants in plane manufacturing slug it out for a slice of Asia, one Chinese manufacturer already has lofty ambitions of its own.

Just a few steps from the Boeing booth at the show, China Aviation Industry Corporation 1 - otherwise known as Avic1 - has a display of its own aeroplane.

The ARJ21 is one of China's first passenger jets, capable of carrying nearly a hundred people.

Backed by the Chinese government, the manufacturer hopes to take on its western rivals.

Jim Eckes, an aviation analyst from IndoSwiss Aviation, thinks they may have a good chance.

"China is going after Boeing and Airbus's low-end market," he says. "They're displaying here on a par not quite as big as Boeing or Airbus - but they're here."

Higgins enters Dublin tournament

Alex Higgins will face Fergal O'Brien in the first round

Alex Higgins will return to competitive action when he plays Fergal O'Brien in the VC Poker Irish Professional Championship in Dublin on 26 September.

The 58-year-old two-times former world champion has not competed since last year's Irish tournament.

World number four Ken Doherty starts his title defence against Dungannon's Patrick Wallace on 25 September.

Number two seed Joe Swail begins his campaign against Colm Gilcreest while Mark Allen faces Garry Hardiman.

The tournament, which was revived two years ago having not been held since 1993, runs until Sunday, 30 September at the Spawell Club, Templelogue.

Doherty, the 1997 world champion, beat Michael Judge 9-4 in the 2006 final.

First round draw
Ken Doherty v Patrick Wallace (8pm, 25 Sep)
David Morris v Vincent Muldoon (5pm, 26 Sep)
Gerard Greene v Leo Fernandez (5pm, 25 Sep)
Michael Judge v Dessie Sheehan (2pm, 26 Sep)
Fergal O'Brien v Alex Higgins (8pm, 26 Sep)
Mark Allen v Garry Hardiman (2pm, 25 Sep)
Joe Delaney v Eamonn Kelly (11am, 25 Sep)
Joe Swail v Colm Gilcreest (11am, 26 Sep)

September 5th

ON THIS DAY NEWS FROM THE BBC ARCHIVES
	1975: London Hilton bombed Two people are killed and 63 injured as a suspected IRA bomb explodes in the lobby of the Hilton hotel in central London.
	1997: Mother Teresa dies Mother Teresa, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who devoted her life to helping the sick and the poor, dies at the age of 87.
	1986: Karachi hijack ends in bloodshed The 16-hour siege on a Pan Am jet in Pakistan comes to a bloody end, with at least 17 people dead.

Eurostar's record run means French can finally forget about Waterloo

The Eurostar train pulling into St Pancras in record time...

If only every train driver put his foot down as soon as the doors closed and hurtled as quickly as possible to your destination, failing to stop at any stations en route.

A Eurostar train travelled the 306 miles (490km) from Paris to London yesterday in a record 2 hours, 3 minutes and 39 seconds via the newly finished 68-mile High Speed 1 from the Channel Tunnel to St Pancras.

We exceeded the 186mph (300km/h) speed limit for much of the journey, travelling at up to 202mph. The train swayed and lurched too much to allow a trolley service, much to the disappointment of dozens of journalists on board. The stink of brakes filled the carriage as we rounded a bend and headed down under the Thames on the new northeastern route into Central London.

The driver appeared to be making a final effort to finish within the golden two-hour mark. But a 50mph speed restriction in Calais, imposed after the discovery of wartime excavations under the track, had cost us about four minutes. Eurostar had tried everything to lighten the load and boost the speed, including leaving 350 seats empty and taking as little liquid as possible.

Related Links

• A 276-mile headstart, but still a tie . . .

• Going the distance

• To southern France, by train

The journey was still 15 minutes faster than the previous record of 2 hours 18 minutes, achieved in September 2003 on a train to Waterloo.

Guillaume Pepy, Eurostar’s chairman and head of SNCF, France’s state railway company, claimed that the French would much prefer to arrive at St Pancras. “The French can finally forget about Waterloo,” he said.

But they may be disappointed by the scenery on the last few miles into St Pancras. Until November 14 Eurostar trains will continue to run on conventional lines at 60mph through north Kent and then South London, passing James Bond’s headquarters (MI6), Big Ben and the London Eye.

From that date they will head east on the new 186mph line passing under the Thames near the Dartford Crossing before shooting across the industrial wasteland of Rainham Marshes and Dagenham. Perhaps it is just as well that the train then enters a series of tunnels, sparing our continental cousins views of Stratford and Hackney.

It feels odd for a Paris train to approach London from the north, but the arrival into the Gothic splendour of the refurbished St Pancras Station, a Victorian engineering wonder, is undeniably impressive. The station has been transformed in the three years since its days as Midland Mainline’s grimy, noisy terminus. Light streams through the enormous glass arched roof. The ironwork has been painted in the original eggshell blue. It is a fitting landmark for Britain’s only high-speed service, even if the streets around King’s Cross have yet to be improved by the planned regeneration.

The fastest London-to-Paris journey on a scheduled service from November 14 will be 2 hours 15 minutes — 20 minutes faster than the current journey. But timetable changes from December 9 will bring greater benefits, with the earliest train from London arriving in Paris before 9am local time, instead of the present 9.30am.

The last departure for London will leave half an hour later, at 9.13pm. Catching the first and last trains will add more than an hour to that romantic day trip to Paris.

Eurostar has promised not to raise fares, which will continue to start at £59 return. It is also making throughtickets available for the first time from 145 larger stations in Britain, with returns from Manchester to Paris starting at £84. Passengers who previously had to buy two tickets will save up to £50.

Eurostar hopes that faster journeys will raise passenger numbers from 8.3 million this year to ten million by 2010. But that would still be only half that predicted when the £5.8 billion High Speed 1 was approved a decade ago. However, punctuality is expected to rise above 95 per cent because Eurostar will run on dedicated tracks. Britain’s most expensive piece of railway will be the emptiest, with fewer than two trains an hour.

Despite the opening of High Speed 1, Britain continues to slip down the world league table for domestic high-speed rail journeys. It is now in ninth place, the fastest journey being from London to York at an average of 108mph. The world’s fastest journey is from Lorraine TGV to Champagne TGV in eastern France, at an average of 175mph.

The world sex chart

If you’re not already a regular reader of the Foreign Policy magazine website, you really should be. It’s particularly fascinating on international comparisons. So now it turns its attention on the pastime that unites the world: football sex.

The graph below shows the national average of sexual partners for various countries. Bottom of the shag pile come India and China, with an average of 3 sexual partners each. The top bedpost knotchers are Turks, with over 14 sexual partners each on average. And we Brits are pretty virile, averaging around ten sexual partners each.

A few other things come out of the data. It comes as no surprise that the greater the level of unprotected sex, the greater the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases. Norway is the biggest culprit, with 70 per cent of Norwegians admitting to having unprotected sex without knowing the other persons sexual history. That explains why their rate of STDs is at a huge 21 per cent.

Fascinating stuff. But then it always is though, isn’t it?

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Foxit PDF Reader 2.1

Foxit PDF Reader 2.1

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Livestock breeds face 'meltdown'

Northern hemisphere breeds displace drought-resistant cattle Enlarge Image

Many of the world's rare species of livestock face extinction unless conservation measures are taken now, a group of researchers has warned.

They said modern agricultural methods had overlooked the benefits of genetic traits that have evolved in breeds found in developing countries.

Drought or disease tolerant attributes would become increasingly important to farmers in the future, they added.

The findings were presented at a UN summit on animal genetic resources.

Striking a balance

Researchers from the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) said that the global market was dominated by a few breeds, selected for their high-yield characteristics.

They added that a report published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that 90% of cattle in industrialised nations came from only "six tightly defined breeds".

The global livestock industry is based on a few northern breeds

But these breeds, from northern temperate regions, were displacing long-established farm animals that were able to cope with conditions found in many developing nations, which was home to 70% of the world's breeds.

They warned that Uganda's indigenous ankole cattle could become extinct within 20 years because it was being displaced by the holstein-friesian, which was able to produce more milk.

However, they said that some farmers had lost their entire herds during a recent drought because the friesians were unable to walk long distances to reach the nearest water supply.

Carlos Sere, the ILRI's director general, said the long-term success of livestock farming depended upon striking a balance between the animals and the environment.

"If you look at the developed world, it has largely adapted the environment to suit high producing animals," he told BBC News.

Adapting in arid Africa

"There are barns, optimum diets, health care, vaccinations. You can get high output in a very controlled environment by optimising a lot of the parameters."

But, Dr Sere said, developing nations did not have the resources to adapt the environment, therefore the animals needed to adapt to the environment.

"They have to survive droughts, pests, diseases, and be able to walk long distances - these traits emerge over thousands of years," he said.

"All these traits, through natural selection and mankind's intervention, have developed a whole array of unique genes that are adapted to these things."

However, because the global market was based around a limited number of high-yielding breeds, the valuable global genetic resource was at risk, he added.

The ILRI researchers made four recommendations to ensure the long-term survival of livestock diversity:

• establish genebanks in Africa to store semen, eggs and embryos
• allow great mobility of breeds across national borders
• encourage farmers to maintain a variety of indigenous livestock
• use advanced genomic and geographical mapping to match breeds to suitable environments

While it might face opposition from campaigners, Dr Sere said the genebank would come into play only if the other recommendations failed.

In-situ conservation also keeps indigenous knowledge alive

"What we are saying is that this is insurance that the world is buying," he said.

"In-situ conservation makes a lot more sense because it is cheaper but it also has the very important advantage that it involves the local communities.

"You are not only conserving the genes but you are maintaining the local indigenous knowledge."

However, he added that it was necessary to establish the genebanks as soon as possible because "once the breeds are gone, they are gone forever".

Spreading the risk

Another recommendation that could face opposition amid concerns over biosecurity was moving livestock across national borders.

Poultry farmers across the globe are on alert for signs of avian flu, and farming in the UK is just returning to normal after a localised outbreak of foot-and-mouth, a disease that devastated the industry in 2001.

"We are not saying avoid the whole health dimension," explained Dr Sere. "The central point we are making is that the broader a species is spread, the higher the chance the species will [survive].

"When you have Country A, which has displaced a breed for a higher yielding one, which then realises that the climate is changing or disease pressures change, there is a chance to get it back.

"By having a multi-location use, the chances are much higher than if the resources were just owned by one country."

The researchers' recommendations were presented by Dr Sere at a scientific forum ahead of political discussions at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's first summit on animal genetic resources.

Delegates at the five-day gathering hope to reach agreement on a global long-term strategy to ensure the survival of the world's livestock breeds.

Stone, wood and love

Two young glaziers are working on York Minster's Great East Window

Britain's historic buildings - some of the jewels in our architectural crown - are crumbling, not because of a lack of money, but because of a shortage of traditional skills.

Watch stonemasons at work and as you feel the tang of dust in your throat, hear the clash of metal and material and see objects painstakingly appear, it's hard not feel a certain frisson of magic.

Never mind shopkeepers, ours used to be a nation of trades people and craftsmen, but now it is easy to think those days are gone. When York Minster's spectacular Great East Window was recently found to be in a dilapidated state, there were no glass conservators in the country who could repair it.

Historic building stock is an invaluable asset to the UK, for homes, businesses and as a huge tourist draw. And just a look at TV programmes like Grand Designs and Restoration shows the desire to protect and "do-up" the old is there.

But according to an English Heritage report in 2005, there was a shortfall of 6,500 craftspeople in England alone.

Within that were gaps for 500 speciality bricklayers, carpenters and slate and tile roofers, 400 joiners, lead workers and stonemasons, 300 painters and decorators and 300 thatchers.

THREATENED SKILLS Stonemasonry Steeple jacking Dry-stone walling Bricklaying and lime work Lead working Painting and decorating Carpentry and joinery Iron work Thatching A classroom for heritage

Stonemason Mike Moody is chair of the National Heritage Training Group (NHTG) which is now trying to unite contractors, unions, heritage bodies and colleges to tackle the problem.

He says: "Historically, the construction industry has moved away from the value of the artisan to the value of the professional, and the push to get more people into university has driven down the status of the craftsman."

Mr Moody believes we are already seeing the consequences of a lack of skill.

"During the 1960s, 70s and 80s there was some horrendously poor work done on our heritage structures and we're starting to see an exponential rise in the number of buildings on the at risk register as a result.

"And by the time the industry finally recognised this, there was no-one to fix the problem."

'Cheap and quick'

Nationally, one in 30 Grade I and II-listed buildings are on English Heritage's at risk register.

But beyond that are 5.9m historic buildings - those constructed before 1919 - which make up a fifth of the total stock in England and Scotland and a third in Wales. In England, about 89% of those are private homes.

Their maintenance and repair is worth an estimated £3.5bn a year - if there was anyone to do the work.

Many of the UK's historic buildings are in dire need of repair

Seamus Hanna, heritage and conservation manager at industry body Construction Skills, says the problem has its roots in much wider economic and social change.

"After World War II there was a lot of movement away from building to manufacturing and processing. There was also more prefabrication of buildings. Everything became about building quickly and cheaply.

"On top of that, families used to stay together in the same area and skills were handed down. Later, people dispersed more, so that didn't happen."

Traditional repairs take longer and cost more - something which puts off builders and owners alike - but the consequences of not doing them could be severe.

"These buildings are the backbone of our tourist industry and losing them would be an economic disaster," Mr Moody says.

"People come from all over the world to see them, but how long will they keep coming if all that's left is an empty space and a plaque telling them that something great used to be there?"

Lottery fund

Since the 2005 report, a lot of work has been done.

The NHTG has introduced mentoring schemes and regional skills action groups, and most recently an NVQ Level 3 in Heritage has been created.

BUILDINGS AT RISK Battersea Power Station, south London Tynemouth Railway Station, Tyne and Wear The West Pier, Brighton Soho Foundry, Smethwick, West Midlands The Mausoleum, Ryedale, North Yorkshire Rothley Castle, Alnwick, Northumberland

There are also heritage academies being created, the first in the Cotswolds with two more planned for the North.

As well as the NHTG, a lot is being done through the Heritage Lottery Fund.

At York Minister, two historic glass conservators are now being trained on the job as they repair the Great East window.

In Northumberland, 50 young trainees have been recruited to repair dry-stone walls and hedges.

And in the Norfolk Broads, until recently, there was only one millwright to repair 74 mills - now five apprentices are in training.

Liverpool's Royal Insurance Building is on the at risk register

Mr Moody is pleased with the efforts so far, but now he wants to see a sea-change in attitudes.

"Contractors have to open their doors to trainees and customers need to demand it. At the moment, the cheapest quote wins and the cheapest contractors are the ones who don't spend money on training.

"Gradually, this lowers the skill level across the board until the historic fabric starts to suffer."

Better training and greater awareness have led the optimistic to hope for a 20% reduction in the skills shortage in England by the time the sector is surveyed again next year.

Progress is certainly being made, but much more needs to be done.

Joybubbles set the tone

Covering the passing of significant - but lesser-reported - characters of the past month.

Ms Helmsley left £6m to her dog

• The property tycoon Leona Helmsley was immensely rich - but certainly won't be remembered for her generosity. As New York's "Queen of Mean", she had a reputation for greed and the high handed treatment of employees. She famously told one servant that "only the little people pay taxes" and, having fiddled the books on a grand scale, she was ordered to spend 18 months in jail. In her will, she left £6m to her dog Trouble, while two of her grandchildren got nothing.

• Dr Jim MacKeith also dedicated his life to helping others, but in a rather different way - putting right some of the most notorious miscarriages of justice of recent times. As a forensic psychiatrist, he became concerned about the confession evidence used in many high profile criminal cases. Teaming up with an Icelandic psychologist, he produced a way of measuring the suggestibility of defendants. Their groundbreaking work was recognised worldwide and contributed to the decision to free the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six.

• Crime certainly paid for John Gardner, who wrote more than 50 books including 14 Bond novels. He had a varied early life, joining the Royal Marines in the last days of the war and briefly serving as priest, before becoming a theatre critic. His first attempt at a serious thriller was said to be a disaster, but he eventually found success by turning his hero, Boysie Oakes, into a character designed as a counter-point to James Bond. When the Fleming family asked him to revive the 007 brand, he was flattered but always said he wanted to be remembered for his own literary creations.

• Vice Admiral Sir Ian McGeoch made his name with the sort of exploits Bond would have much admired. As a British submarine commander during World War II he sank numerous German and Italian ships in the Mediterranean, winning several awards for his bravery and daring. In early 1943 his submarine was hit by an enemy destroyer. He lost the sight in one eye and became a POW in Italy. He made numerous escape attempts before walking 400 miles to Switzerland. From there he walked to France and, with the help of the Resistance, skied across the Pyrenees to Spain, where he got a boat home.

• Although the American make-up artist William J Tuttle never worked on a Bond movie, he did contribute to the success of many other films. During the 50s and 60s he was head of make-up at MGM, working on some of the most famous faces of the day, including Marlon Brando, Kirk Douglas and Sophia Loren. Although in 1965 there was no official category for make-up, he was awarded an Oscar for his work on "The Seven Faces of Dr Lao". In it he transformed Tony Randall into a series of different characters, including a Chinese man, a sea serpent and an abominable snowman.

Astor gave away vast sums of money

• Brooke Astor life might be said to be the stuff that movies are made of. As the wife of Vincent Astor, the American heir to a huge fortune made in the 19th Century, she enjoyed a privileged life of high fashion and parties. But she once said "money is like manure and should be spread around". True to her word she gave away nearly a £100million and visited many of the housing projects and charitable organisations she helped.

• Joe Engressia's unusual life also reads like a movie. Blind from birth, he discovered as a child that he could whistle at perfect pitch. He used the skill to make free long distance calls in an age when access to the telephone network was based on a series of tones. He was prosecuted in 1971 and abandoned his activities - which are seen as an early form of computer hacking. In his 30s, he changed his name to Joybubbles and surrounded himself with toys, claiming he wanted to remain five years old forever.

Among others who died in August were: the Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni; the music promoter Anthony H Wilson; the countryman and TV presenter Phil Drabble; the actor Mike Reid and the former Conservative MP Lord Biffen.

Quiz: Highway Code

From Monday learners hoping to gain a full driving licence will have to answer more questions (50 in total) on the Highway Code.

Here's a sample of 10 questions, set by the Driving Standards Agency, any or all of which could appear in real test.

You'll need to get at least nine correct to achieve the new pass rate.

QUIZ LINK HERE

First outing for faster Eurostar

Eurostar began carrying passengers in 1994

Eurostar has completed its inaugural journey from Paris to London via Britain's new high-speed line.

The train - carrying members of the media - has arrived at St Pancras International station, instead of Waterloo, for the first time.

The 186mph (300km/h) line is expected to cut journey times from Paris to London by 20 minutes to 2hr 15min. It will open to the public on 14 November.

Construction of the line and revamping St Pancras cost £5.8bn in public funds.

The high cost of the project is partly due to some major engineering challenges, including laying track to pass over the River Medway, under the River Thames and through 11 miles of tunnels beneath London.

PROJECTED JOURNEY TIMES London-Paris 2 hrs 15 mins London-Brussels 1hr 51 mins London-Lille 1hr 20 mins New link to Channel Tunnel

The 306-mile (490km) test-run is expected to set a new record for the journey time between Paris and London.

The train left Paris at 0944 BST and was expected to reach speeds of up to 186mph - 50% faster than domestic rail services.

The BBC's Nick Higham, on board the train, said a GPS device had recorded a speed of 202mph in France and 175mph in Britain.

The train joined the new 68-mile (110km) line, known as High Speed 1, at the Channel Tunnel near Folkestone, before arriving at St Pancras at 1148 BST.

It passed through the new £100m Ebbsfleet International station near Dartford, in Kent.

Seven services to Paris and five to Brussels will start running from Ebbsfleet from 19 November and a ticket office has been opened at Bluewater Shopping Centre two miles from the station.

It's as quick and more frequent and we will be matching airline prices Richard Brown Eurostar chief executive

Trains have always travelled along the French section of the route at high speeds, but were forced to slow down on the British side because they shared a track with commuter services in and out of London.

Richard Brown, chief executive of Eurostar, said he hoped that by 2010 10m people would travel by Eurostar each year.

"Today marks Britain's entry into the European high-speed rail club."

He said journey times to Paris, even for people travelling from Yorkshire, would be broadly the same as for those flying due to lengthier check-in times at airports.

"It's as quick and more frequent... and we will be matching airline prices."

Nigel Harris, managing editor of Rail Magazine, said he was thrilled to be among the first passengers to travel on the new high-speed line.

Trains will run from the new St Pancras from November

He said it would mean hundreds of thousands of people from north of London would be able to travel to Paris without facing the drag of travelling across London on bus, Tube or train to get to Waterloo.

Critics though say that unless passengers start their journey in London, the cost of rail travel to reach St Pancras is prohibitive.

But Mr Brown told BBC News 24 negotiations were under way with train companies which operate north of London to put in place "attractive through-fares" from Yorkshire, Scotland and the Midlands to Paris and Brussels.

Eurostar tickets from London to Paris start from £59 return.

London and Continental Railways (LCR), the company behind the construction of the new line, said it was the first new railway for 100 years and Britain's largest single construction in history.

A spokesman for LCR said it would be a "very powerful catalyst" for regeneration.

He said LCR had a commitment to repay some of the £5.8bn in government money from profits generated from large areas of land bought around the track.

Of the funding, £800m went on redeveloping St Pancras station, meaning the cost of installing the line was about £73.5m per mile.

This compares with £28.4m to build a mile of a three-lane motorway in 2005, according to a Parliamentary answer from May last year.

St Pancras station will eventually be linked to the site of the 2012 Olympics at Stratford, east London.

'Clearest' images taken of space

The Cat's Eye Nebula as imaged conventionally by the Palomar 200in telescope (l) and with the Lucky Camera (r)

A team of astronomers from the US and the UK has obtained some of the clearest pictures of space ever taken.

They were acquired using a new "adaptive optics" system which sharpens pictures taken from the Mount Palomar Observatory in California.

The images are twice as sharp as those from Hubble Space Telescope.

The new system, dubbed "Lucky", is the result of work by a team from Cambridge University and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

Our techniques can do very well when the telescope is bigger than Hubble and has intrinsically better resolution Craig Mackay, University of Cambridge

Pictures taken by Hubble are normally much better than images from ground-based telescopes because the Earth's atmosphere has a distorting effect.

The Lucky camera overcomes this problem in two ways.

First, it uses one of the most sensitive light-detection systems developed to date. This comprises a chip that has very low electrical noise and so can see much greater detail.

Secondly, the software system is able to distinguish when the atmospheric distortion starts and stops.

The Globular cluster M13 as imaged conventionally by the Palomar 200in telescope (l) and with the Lucky camera (r)

The inventor of the system, Dr Craig Mackay of the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, says it is rather like looking at an object through a heat haze.

"The object is distorted by the haze most of the time," he explained, "but every now and again there are moments when the haze drops and you can see it very clearly."

The Lucky system gathers together all the clear pictures and throws out the distortions to produce images that Dr Mackay believes are the clearest ever images from the ground.

"The images space telescopes produce are of extremely high quality but they are limited to the size of the telescope," Dr Mackay added.

"Our techniques can do very well when the telescope is bigger than Hubble and has intrinsically better resolution."

Two images have been published to date. One is of the globular star cluster M13 which is at a distance of 25,000 light-years.

Stars that are as little as one light-day apart can be differentiated in the picture.

The other shows very fine detail in the Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC6543).

September 4th

ON THIS DAY NEWS FROM THE BBC ARCHIVES
	1997: Suicide bombings put peace visit in doubt Eight people are killed and over 150 injured in a series of suicide bomb attacks in the centre of Jerusalem.
	1978: Floods devastate northern India At least two million people are made homeless as the worst floods in living memory hit northern India.
	1957: Homosexuality 'should not be a crime' The Wolfenden Report suggests consenting sex between homosexual adults "in private" should no longer be a criminal offence in Britain.

Mobiles to become digital wallets

Soon you could be paying for parking with a handset

The UK's big five mobile phone firms have switched on a payment system that turns handsets into digital wallets.

Called PayForIt, the scheme is designed for those buying goods and services with a value of up to £10.

The industry hopes it will be used to pay for ringtones, train tickets, parking fees and eventually as a payment system on web shops and sites.

Any cash spent via the scheme will automatically be added on to a customer's phone bill.

Cash crunch

The scheme standardises the way phones can be used to make payments so the process is the same no matter which operator a customer has signed up for or which handset they are using.

Mike Short, chairman of the Mobile Data Association, said PayForIt had been developed as an alternative to other systems such as premium rate SMS.

Many people, said Mr Short, were unhappy using that payment system because of past uncertainty about how much they would pay and who they turn to if things go wrong.

"It's for those customers who have not felt comfortable with mobile transactions or payments," he said.

Trust in mobile payments would be boosted, said Mr Short because shoppers will know who they are buying from and what they are spending.

Anyone paying for goods with PayForIt will see an information screen that lays out what they have bought, who it has been bought from and how much it will cost.

"It's about opening up the micro payment choices," said Mr Short, "but it's not a total cash replacement."

PayForIt will appear as a payment option on sites that people can get to via their handset and soon will also appear as a way to pay on websites too, said Mr Short.

Bad experiences have made some way of paying via handset

Companies such as I-play, Gameloft, EA, Multimap, SonyEricsson and Samsung have become the first to sign up and let people pay using the PayForIt system.

PayForIt was first announced in March 2006 and the official start date for the scheme was 1 September.

"Most big brands would not use premium rate SMS to run their services, it's not a good experience, it's not consumer friendly," said Anuj Khanna, a spokesman for Tanla Mobile which is one of the firms administering payments made via PayForIt.

"It's entirely geared at the low value, high volume transaction market," he said.

Paul Hunt, an expert on mobile commerce at consultancy Atos Origin, said there had been many failed attempts to set up similar schemes in the past. He said PayForIt has a good chance of success.

"There's a much wider age range of mobile users and the capabilities of handsets have changed," he said. "The click to buy reality is catching up with the hype."

But, he added, the backers of the scheme had to work hard to distinguish PayForIt from alternatives to ensure people realise how it differs from other schemes.

September 3rd

ON THIS DAY NEWS FROM THE BBC ARCHIVES
	2004: Russian school siege ends in violence More than 200 people die after a three-day siege at a Russian school came to a bloody end.
	1939: Britain and France declare war on Germany Britain and France are at war with Germany following the invasion of Poland two days ago.
	1998: All feared dead in Swissair crash A Swissair plane flying from New York to Geneva crashes in the sea off the coast of Nova Scotia, just over an hour after taking off.

Flying high

Eddie the Eagle's spectacularly bad performance as a ski jumper at the 1988 Olympics made him a hero of sorts - and a national joke. Since then he's been working as a plasterer. But now his life story is being made into a film starring Steve Coogan.

'What annoys me," says Mrs Eddie the Eagle, "is when the papers call him a loser. Eddie's anything but a loser." Her charming six-month-old daughter, Honey, who I seem to be holding, regurgitates some milk on my lapel.

"Would a loser compete in the Winter Olympics even though he had no sponsorship? Could a loser come from a country where there are no ski jumps and yet compete at the highest level?" says Mrs Eddie (real name Sam Edwards) as her three-year-old daughter Ottilie presents me with her plastic tiara and insists that I wear it. "I think not."

Good points. One might add: would a loser come last in both the 70m and 90m ski jumps at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics and yet cultivate his brand image so cleverly that he recently sold the film rights for his life story for a substantial(ish) sum and got top British comedian Steve Coogan to play him? Would a loser have worked last week as an after-dinner speaker on a P&O cruise? Would a loser be in demand as a motivational speaker? I think not.

We're in the living room of the Edwards family home in the Cotswold village of North Woodchester, near Stroud, awaiting the arrival of the world's most-derided ski jumper, the man variously branded Mr Magoo, the Barmy Brit, clown, chump, a disgrace to ski jumping (gosh, that must have hurt), and a very British kind of hero. I half expect Eddie the Eagle to arrive through the living-room window, brush off shards of glass and greet his wife with a cheery: "Hi, darling, I'm home. Only minor lacerations tonight."

While we wait, I snoop. On a little shelf are Eddie's Winter Olympic medals. So they give medals to people who come last, I think, with the chippiness of a person whose last award was a bronze swimming badge 30-odd years ago. Ottilie pirouettes across the floor and taps me with her plastic wand. She tells me she has already been skiing on Gloucester's dry slopes. Will she follow in daddy's ski steps? "She's more into ballet," says her mother. And Honey? "Give her a chance. She's only six months old."

A pick-up truck pulls up outside bearing the legend "Michael Edwards - plasterer and general builder". A man who has spent a hard day tiling floors climbs out covered in dust. It is our hero. The bottle-bottom glasses have gone, but the Bob Hope-like ski jump of a nose, rhyming with his slightly elongated chin, remains. Which tragicomic way will he choose to enter the house? Falling down the chimney? Through a wall? Instead, he comes through the door in the traditional manner and gives Ottilie a kiss.

"You'll have to shower if you're going to be photographed," says Sam to her husband of the past six years. What happened to Eddie's specs? "I had eye surgery three years ago," he says. "I've got implants. It does wonders for your confidence and it's great for sports. Improved my golf no end."

Does he agree with any part of Coogan's recent description of him as "quirky, dysfunctional, slightly nerdy, but his balls must be made of titanium"? "I don't disagree with any of that," says Eddie. "Except I think I'm more eccentric than dysfunctional. Nerdy? Maybe. But I don't mind the rest. I've been called worse." I take this as confirmation that his balls are made of titanium. Possibly my weirdest scoop.

By this stage, Eddie is lying on the floor as part of some complicated pose for the photographer. There has never been a more obliging subject. "The problem with Coogan is he isn't the right age. The film is going to be about a little window of my life when I was 24 in Calgary. He's in his forties. But he is a great sitcom comedian, which is what I wanted. My fear was that it would be someone who just did slapstick." Has he seen Coogan play the big-stomached pest controller in Saxondale? "The sitcom where he plays an ex-roadie? Yes," says Eddie, 43, as a cloud of scepticism darkens his otherwise chirpy face. "He does seem very old in that."

Who should play him then? "Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise would be ideal." "Don't be daft, love," says Sam, adding: "We thought Chris Martin would be ideal." Coldplay's singer? "No, the one in the BT adverts who was in My Family," she says. "He's a good comic actor," says Eddie. They mean Kris Marshall, who, I learn, was raised in the Cotswolds, appropriately enough. "Robin Williams has been mentioned," adds Eddie. Isn't he pushing 60? "No, ROBBIE Williams."

"But we don't get excited any more," says Sam, sadly. "Every year there's a new name. Last year it was Martin Freeman out of The Office. And then it was James McAvoy." Who will play Sam? "Oh, I'm not going to be in it." How does she know? "I've read the script." What did she think of it? "She doesn't think very much of it," answers Eddie. What about him? "I haven't read it. I've only just started it. And the opening scene in the film didn't happen."

Reportedly, the script, by Times journalist Sean Macaulay, is currently being polished by Steve Coogan and his writing partner Henry Normal. Declan Downey, the Bafta-winning director of Father Ted, will helm the as yet untitled picture. Filming is due to start in January, and the release date is due to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Eddie's cataclysmic Canadian pratfalls.

What does Eddie remember of Calgary? "Everything, unfortunately," he says. "It went wrong as soon as I arrived. My bags exploded on the carousel at the airport, so I jumped on and chased after my pants and slippers." Do Olympians generally take their slippers to competitive events? It seems unlikely.

How come he managed to represent Britain at ski jumping? "At the time there was a rule that a country could send one representative to each sport in the Olympics. I loved skiing and as a kid I wanted to be a stuntman, so I decided to put them together." Why did he, in particular, get the nod from the British Ski Federation? "Nobody else applied. I mean, I wasn't completely incompetent: I'd done a 77m jump, which wasn't big by Olympic standards, and I held the record for stunt jumping [10 cars and six buses]. I realised two years before the Olympics that I might be able to get to Calgary because no one else was going to apply and so started training. I got a lot of advice from Austrian and French ski-jumping coaches, but because I can't speak French or German, a lot of it went over my head."

His first major competition was the 1987 World Championships in Oberstdorf in which he came 98th in a field of 98. Already though, the media had realised that, in the charisma-free world of ski jumping, here was a true star. He just wasn't very good at his chosen sport.

By the time he arrived at Calgary, he had been given the ironic soubriquet Eddie the Eagle (critics suggested that the Briton, who was 20lb heavier than the average ski jumper, flew like a brick). He was widely expected to wind up in traction rather than on the medallists' podium. But first, he had to get out of the airport without major injury. For a few minutes, it seemed unlikely that he would. "As we were walking to the arrivals lounge, I saw a huge sign saying, 'Welcome to Calgary, Eddie the Eagle.' I said: 'Who's that for?' And somebody replied: 'You, you twerp.' So I walked towards it. It was 2.30 in the morning and the automatic doors had been turned off, so I walked into the glass and my skis bounced off the doors." And he says he doesn't want slapstick. "That's when I got the nickname Mr Magoo."

Did it all go downhill from there? (So sorry.) "Yes. Everything I did went wrong." He had to wear glasses for short-sightedness, but they sometimes fogged as he sped towards possible death. From the beginning, though, his legend was embroidered with falsehoods. "They said I was afraid of heights. But I was doing 60 jumps a day then, which is hardly something someone who was afraid of heights would do." But he was afraid of jumping? "Of course I was. There was always a chance that my next jump would be my last. A big chance.

"They also said I didn't go to the gym because it made my legs ache. Again, untrue. I was spending three hours in the gym every other day and on days when I wasn't in the gym I did 15-mile runs. People said I was playing at sport, but I trained very hard."

Olympic ski jumpers don't come from Cheltenham, I submit. "True. I got the skiing bug when I went on a school trip when I was 13. When I got back I spent every spare moment on the slopes and dreamed of going to the Alps. So, after my GCSEs, I did. I paid my way from odd jobs. And then when I found out the criteria for Olympic entry for the ski-jumping event, Calgary became a realistic possibility for me." Even though there were (and are) no ski jumps in Britain? "That didn't seem to matter at the time."

Did he have any financial support? "None. Actually, a couple of months before Calgary I got a few grand from the Cotswold Paper Company, but by that stage I'd already been eating scraps from rubbish bins and at one point dossing in a mental hospital."

Was there a moment in Calgary when he thought, this is going so badly it's time to pack my slippers and return to Cheltenham? "No, I never contemplated quitting." As a result, he faced derision. "They said I was not an athlete, which I was, that I was bringing the sport into disrepute, which I wasn't." How far was he behind the competition? While Eddie's best jump was 73.5m, Matti Nyaken, the double-gold winning Finn, recorded 118.5m with his first jump.

After Calgary, the International Olympics Committee changed the admission rules, hoping to keep the likes of Eddie out. The so-called "Eddie the Eagle rule" required Olympic hopefuls to compete in international events and place in the top 30% or be in the top 50 competitors. "I thought I could make that rule for the 1998 Winter Olympics, so in 1997 I competed in Lake Placid. I was jumping very well. In Calgary, I did 73.5m on the big hill, 55m on the small. There I did 86m on the small and 115m on the big. But, even though I came 29th or something, they said the competition only had five nations rather than six so I couldn't go to the Olympics. Even though by then I had a good sponsor [Eagle Airlines, a Guernsey carrier]." So ended Eddie the Eagle's Olympic dream.

Worse yet, by then he was recovering from bankruptcy. Most of the money from ad campaigns, his top 50 UK single Fly Eddie Fly and his two Finnish hits Mun Nimeni on Eetu and Eddien Siivella (the Finns adored his mispronunciations of their native tongue) had gone. "I sued my trustees for mismanaging the trust. Eventually they settled out of court."

But he made more money out of his life story thanks to after-dinner gigs, motivational speaking and a book called On the Piste, the film rights to which he sold in 2000. "I get about a thousand dollars every time they renew the option, which is every six months or so, and in 2003 I got a £25,000 lump sum." So he's still awaiting the life-changing, movie-money payday? "Yes. That's why I plastered three ceilings in a day this week, which, I can tell you, is very hard work. That said, I earn a comfortable living from appearances as Eddie the Eagle."

He invested some of those earnings in a second house three years ago, and did a law degree. "I got into the law when I sued my trustees. I loved studying as a mature student." Just don't call him Legal Eagle.

By now we're walking on a nearby hill called Selsley Common for another photo op. Far below, the silvery Severn curls majestically through the flatlands. What a lovely place to live. "Yes, I'm a very lucky man." How did he meet his wife? "I was put up to it." Oh come on, she seems nice. "She is. A friend arranged for us to meet at a Radio Gloucestershire barbecue. We just clicked. Vegas wedding. We got married at a drive-through chapel and then went back to the hotel for champagne and pizza in the Jacuzzi. Great craic."

We walk back to the car park in the gathering gloom. "They always mention me in the same breath as Dunkirk or the Beagle II [the British satellite that got lost on Mars]." Does he feel like a failure? "Not a bit." As we walk, he tells me about his speaking engagements, his plans to do a master's in law, his project to turn the seven-bedroom second home into a B&B, and of his not unreasonable hopes of a big cheque from the movies' money men. Then he drives home to tuck in his daughters. Loser? I think not.

And here are some other great sporting failures ...

Trevor the Tortoise
Trevor Misipeka weighed 21 stone when he puffed his way through a 100m heat at the World Athletics Championships in 2001. The American Samoan found himself in the race only after a rule change barred him from his intended event - the shot put. He finished four seconds behind the winner, earning himself the nickname "the Tortoise", but said he was delighted with the result.

These days Misipeka is a professional American football player with the Steamwheelers in Iowa. His weight is now up to 23 stone, and he says he has no regrets about running the race. "Even though I was last, I felt the fans thought of it as inspirational as well as humorous," he says.

The Jamaican bobsleigh team
The 1988 Calgary Olympics were awash with unlikely heroes - not only Eddie the Eagle, but Jamaica's first bobsleigh team. Training without snow in the heat of Kingston, they practised the push start on a flat concrete surface at a military base, using a makeshift sleigh.

The four-man crew crashed out of the event, but their determined efforts inspired the film Cool Runnings, and when the team made it back for the 1992 Olympics they surprised everyone by beating French, Russian, American and Italian teams to 14th place.

Team member Devon Harris, now a motivational speaker living in New York, says the former Olympians are planning a reunion. "Unfortunately we didn't make any money from the film, because we didn't know how Hollywood worked," he says. "I'd advise Eddie to be very careful."

Michael White, another team member, also lives in New York and works in retail, while Dudley Stokes runs an import and export business in Jamaica, and Chris Stokes works for a Jamaican bank.

Eric the Eel
Swimmer Eric Moussambani barely managed to stay afloat for his 100m freestyle race in the 2000 Olympics, but the 22-year-old from Equatorial Guinea was catapaulted to victory (in that heat, at least) after his two competitors were disqualified for false starts. He was an instant hero. It emerged that Eric the Eel, as he became known, had only taken up swimming eight months before the games. His winning time of 1 min 52.72 secs is the slowest in Olympic history.

He did get better at swimming. By 2004 his personal best for the 100m was down to less than 57 seconds, but a visa bungle saw him denied entry to the games and he was so disappointed he said he was considering retiring.

September 2nd

ON THIS DAY NEWS FROM THE BBC ARCHIVES
	1945: Japan signs unconditional surrender Japanese officials sign the act of unconditional surrender, finally bringing to an end six years of world war.
	1979: Ripper suspected of 12th murder Police discover the body of a young woman - thought to be the 12th victim of the "Yorkshire Ripper" - in an alleyway near the centre of Bradford.
	1984: Seven killed in Sydney biker shootings A 14-year-old girl and six bikers are killed in a gun battle between rival gangs in a suburb of Sydney, Australia.

10 Things

Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. The Islamic revolution in Iran was equivocal about the role of music, and to this day, music can be heard on state television but instruments are not shown.
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2. The French word for their new Arab middle class is beurgeoisie, deriving from the French "beur" meaning child of Arab immigrants.
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3. Prison officers are on average assaulted eight times a day.
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4. The average failed marriage will have lasted 11.5 years.
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5. A woman will own an average of 111 handbags in her lifetime.
Daily Mail, Friday 31 August

6. It's an imprisonable offence to keep money you notice has been wrongfully deposited in your bank account.
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7. Orchids are as old as the dinosaurs.
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8. The chances of a woman having two sets of triplets naturally are one in 64 million.
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9. Sniffer dogs are used in the fight against pirate DVDs. They cannot smell the difference between fake and genuine though.
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10. Police speed guns can be jammed by devices used to control electronic gates and garage doors.
Daily Express, Friday 31 August

September 1st

ON THIS DAY NEWS FROM THE BBC ARCHIVES
	1939: Germany invades Poland German forces attack Poland across all frontiers and its planes bomb Polish cities, including the capital, Warsaw - Britain and France prepare to declare war.
	1983: Korean airliner 'shot down' The United States accuses the USSR of shooting down a civilian airliner which is missing off Russia's eastern coast.
	1997: Diana driver was 'drunk and speeding' The driver of the car in which Princess Diana was fatally injured had been drinking, French investigators reveal.

File-sharers forced to play fair

Tribler has also been made to work with the PlayStation 3

Researchers have found a way to enforce good manners on file-sharing networks by treating bandwidth as a currency.

The team has created a peer-to-peer system called Tribler in which selfless sharers earn faster upload and download speeds but leechers are penalised.

The technology is being assessed by a European broadcasting body looking at ways of piping TV across the net.

Tribler has also been used to turn Sony's PlayStation 3 into a video-sharing device.

Fair sharing

While file-sharing networks are good ways to help lots of people get hold of large files often they have far more people taking from the system than they do giving.

Peer-to-peer networks can become sluggish if too many users download content without sharing with others.

Using bandwidth as a kind of currency helps to encourage better habits said Dr Johan Pouwelse, an assistant professor at Delft University of Technology, Amsterdam and co-creator of Tribler.

Dr Pouwelse has been working with associate professor David Parkes from Harvard University to add an accounting system to Tribler to encourage users to upload as often as they download.

"In our model your TV would use "TV watching minutes", our form of P2P currency, to download content," said Dr Pouwelse.

"The TV would connect directly to the internet and provide video on demand in HDTV quality.

"After you watch a program on TV, the system would automatically share this program during the night with other people, until your 'TV watching minutes' credit is healthy again," he said.

"If we get this right, it would mean quite a change in the TV business," said Dr Pouwelse.

Using bandwidth as a currency helps make sharing fairer

Using bandwidth as a currency can remove some of the problems seen in file-sharing systems such as BitTorrent, said Dr Parkes.

"In peer-to-peer, I can build up credit by offering upload capacity and then use the credit for download in the future," he said.

"There is still a balance, but the balance is on the order of days rather than seconds and this time-shifting can be welfare enhancing, said Dr Parkes.

Future proof

Tribler has already caught the attention of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which is trying to create a standardised internet broadcasting system across Europe.

"Tribler is a good candidate," said Franc Kozamernik, senior engineer at the EBU.

"We are in the process of testing it and checking whether it fulfils our requirements or not," he said.

The EBU has already tested a number of other P2P systems and is in the process of building a media portal which will allow EBU members to publish their radio and television channels across Europe.

Overlaid on Tribler is social networking technology that helps to police the system and encourage fair sharing.

A passionate community was as effective at policing content as a central administrator, said Dr Pouwelse.

"I was doing research back in 1999 looking at an obscure website called Slashdot," he said. "It was a technology-related news website controlled by volunteers and it actually worked. A few people would post bad things but 99% of users were nice."

Peers can "gossip" or report on the behaviour of malicious users.

And because content is not stored on a central server, it is harder for malicious users to attack a P2P network, said Dr Pouwelse.

"One user cannot bring the network as a whole down," he said. "Just as the electric grid has no central elements, Tribler has no central element and should be more robust.

"The only danger is what is sometimes called a 'cascading failure'. It happened to Skype a few days ago. But in four years, Skype broke down just once."