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Prague Greens smash symbols of global market

EVENTUALLY, it seems, every dream must turn sour. Four Prague police officers were injured and several dozen people arrested at the weekend in protests in which shop windows, including that of McDonald's on Wenceslas Square, were smashed.

The start of something big for small-scale living

PETER ANDREWS has just added to the long list of British eccentricities. He's formed the Secret Shed and Handmade Hideaway Society - and is hoping that it will soon become a familiar name to all but a dedicated troglodyte.

It's spintime, and cuckoos are all around

PERHAPS I should write to the Times. The other day, as we lay- in later than usual (thank goodness for half-term) both my wife and I thought we heard a cuckoo.

Letter: Spengler described our world

BERNARD Noble's description of the impact of global communications on societies - commercialised subversion and fragment-

Allotment holders dig in to protect their patch

A parliamentary committee will investigate the plight of allotment gardeners this month as their plots are eaten up in the rush to build new housing. Enthusiasts hope MPs can persuade ministers to act but, writes Fran Abrams, there has been little sign that this will happen.

A mother's place is in the wrong

MADONNA AND CHILD: Towards a New Politics of Motherhood by Melissa Benn, Cape pounds 12.99

Skiing: green channel

One would think that sliding down a mountain on a couple of slats of wood was one of the least environmentally damaging things a fun-loving tourist could do. Unfortunately, when there are thousands of us doing it all at the same time our need for chalets, roads, ski-lifts, water and fuel puts a heavy burden on the environment and on the local villages. We even often need snow made for us by gas-guzzling snow cannons.

Property: The ethical ideal home

Consumer pressure has forced suppliers to offer environmentally- sound house products. Gareth Lloyd tells you where to find them

Books: More snow falling on readers

After Miss Smilla came a storm of icy chillers. Now the genre's gone green, says Jane Jakeman

Letter: National voices stifled by march of the market

Neal Ascherson calls for writers and thinkers "to answer the question: Who are we, and what are we like?" (2 November). While the question of our identity and the problem of finding a way forward are linked, they are not the same question. While England needs a platform from which people "with passionate imaginations can survey their nation and report what they see", it also needs a forum in which "the way forward" can be sensibly discussed.

Ecological reward

Two American pest control researchers received this year's World Food Prize for work on cutting the use of insecticides on crops while maintaining or increasing yields.

Bath sneak home

Bath 27 Borders 23

KEEP OFF THE GRASS - IT'S THE ROOF

BUILDINGS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY: CENTRE FOR UNDERSTANDING THE ENVIRONMEN T, SOUTH-EAST LONDON; In the first of a series on new architecture, Rachel Barnes discovers an ecological wonder that's got the aesthetics right too

A green ideal

Sue Wheat looks at a housing project designed with a difference
Career Services

Day In a Page

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Beards, brawn and body art

Beards, brawn and body art

Meet London’s new batch of male models
Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention

Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention

British love of shows such as The Bridge, Borgen and The Killing shows no sign of fading
Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?

The Great Green Wall of Africa,

Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?
Laughter Inc: the cheering growth of the chuckle industry

Laughter Inc

The cheering growth of the chuckle industry
The bad science scandal: how fact-fabrication is damaging UK's global name for research

The bad science scandal

How fact-fabrication is damaging UK's global name for research
To the manor born: The female aristocrats battling to inherit the title

Female aristocrats battle to inherit the title

A passionate protest is gathering pace among the women of Britain's aristocracy, who believe that men should no longer automatically inherit the family pile and title.
Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten

In pictures: JFK's visit to Berlin in 1963

Photographer Ulrich Mack accompanied Kennedy on the entire trip. The results are an astonishing record of a watershed moment.
Eat shoots and leaves: Mark Hix gets creative with fresh peas, mangetouts and sugar snaps

Mark Hix gets creative with English peas

English peas and their offsprings, such as mangetouts and sugar snaps, are great tossed into a salad, says our chef.
Ceviche with a smile: Chef Martin Morales has turned South America's elegant cuisine into one of London's hottest food trends

Chef Martin Morales: Ceviche with a smile

Morales has turned South America's elegant cuisine into one of London's hottest food trends
Incredible edible: Guerrilla gardeners are planting veg for the masses in West Yorkshire

Incredible edible: Guerrilla gardeners

Holly Williams joins the volunteers who have turned a small town into a thriving community with a guerrilla gardening scheme that has provided a blueprint for sustainability.
Seasoned to taste: The restaurants that draw happy diners back year after year

Seasoned to taste: Food institutions

In an industry famed for short-lived success and pop-up pretenders, it takes something special to stick around.
Anatomy of a waiter: Service staff spill the secrets of their trade

Anatomy of a waiter: Staff spill their secrets

Next Sunday is the first ever National Waiters' Day. To celebrate, we share tales from the restaurant trenches by those in the front line.
Drink in the sun: The season's best wines

Drink in the sun: The season's best wines

From complex English sparkling wine to juicy Sicilian reds...
Iran election: Farewell Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, we’ll miss you – but not that much...

Robert Fisk

Farewell Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, we’ll miss you – but not that much...
India sends its final telegram -(Stop)-

After 163 years India sends its final telegram -(Stop)-

Mobile phones and the internet have superseded the once-essential service