His functions were to mollify the brothers and shield Mr Blair

V "I didn't try to make it; it came from inside me," says Sir John Tavener of his The Veil of the Temple, designed to last from dusk till dawn in church and 150-minutes long on the new RCA Red Seal/Sony CD released next Monday. Starting with Sufism and ending among the Hindus, it reveals the Blessed John in unprecedentedly ecumenical form, but I'm reassured to find his prejudices still intact. When I ask what he means by this being "an attempt to restore the sacred imagination", he replies: "It's about a dimension in art which has got totally lost. When humanism came in with late Beethoven, art for art's sake became the goal, leading to things like the artist currently exhibiting his own excrement in the Tate."

The title indicated homage to the recently deceased Luciano Berio, but the event reflected the homage he had paid to the folk music of North America, France, Iran, Azerbaijan and the islands of the Mediterranean.

Tangled roots of genocide

THERE WERE bits of the Christmas blow-out I enjoyed. I liked the sloe gin, the pickled walnuts and the homemade mince pies. I also liked Some Like It Hot, not that this has much to do with food, unless you include Jack Lemmon marvelling at Marilyn's jouncing rump: "Like Jello on springs." But, in general, I can't say I'm too distraught to have reached the fag- end of Yule.

SERGEI BADALIAN, the head of the Armenian Communist Party, suffered the fate of many current Communist leaders of the former Soviet Union in failing to move beyond his natural constituency of nostalgic hardliners. Although the largest party in post-Soviet Armenia (it claims some 50,000 members), the Communist Party never came close to attaining power and the most Badalian himself managed was third place in presidential elections.

EQUAL INTEREST QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL LONDON

EVERY OFFICE in the country has a portrait of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, on display. The same picture hangs in Murat Cano's office but there is a twist. Across it is printed a quotation in Ottoman Turkish, in the beautiful Arabic script that Ataturk banned.

Why is the cult Canadian director so fascinated by buried secrets? Nick Hasted asked him about his own life-story, and found out

YILDIZ CELIK watched as two Turkish helicopter gunships passed low overhead, the fight against the Kurdish rebels that has made her a refugee in her own country in its last throes. But for Ms Celik and the people of Diyarbakir, the suffering is not over yet.

A REMARKABLE fightback by Denmark in Naples last night put paid to Wales' hopes of reaching the European Championship finals.

FRANCE CAME from behind to secure a precious 3-2 victory against Armenia in Yerevan last night to give themselves a chance of qualifying for next summer's European Championship.