Have you ever tried swimming butterfly? I can swim breast-stroke for several miles in open water and I can crawl reasonably well. As for butterfly, if I really concentrate I can just about manage one stroke before the lifeguards start shifting uneasily in their seats.

Britain is to seek the closure of Europe's major dolphin-killing fishing grounds, where most of the boats involved are French, the Government announced yesterday.

Plenty of sun and proximity to booming Exeter continue to lure buyers of all ages to this tranquil Victorian resort town, says Robert Liebman

IN 1960 James Stubblefield became Director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain and of the Museum of Practical Geology (now the Earth Science wing of the Natural History Museum). During his directorship the Survey, the Museum, and the Overseas Geological Surveys were united into the Institute of Geological Sciences (now the British Geological Survey in Keyworth, Nottingham, to which the collections of fossils have been removed).

EUROTUNNEL RIGHTS issues are generally greeted with the same enthusiasm reserved for French blockades of the Channel ports. The last one in 1994 had the dubious distinction of being so badly received that the market price of Eurotunnel shares fell virtually to the level of the deeply discounted rights. But that was when Eurotunnel was a basket case and in desperate need of more cash just to complete the construction phase.

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Some events in history are continually burnished and distorted by imaginative reconstruction; others lie deep in the fog of neglect. Some become metaphors, others don't. So, when a cruise ship and a freighter collided in the English Channel on Tuesday, with lots of damage but no loss of life, to which great maritime disaster did the survivors compare it? To the Titanic, of course. The word appeared in stories and headlines. "I really feared another Titanic ... it was just like a scene out of the Titanic movie ... the noise was just like the Titanic."

Channel accident: International investigation to discover how cruise liner and cargo ship collided off Margate

A MEXICAN woman drowned yesterday trying to swim the English Channel.

SIX BRITISH naturists will tomorrow emerge as nature intended from the chilly waters of the English Channel on to a beach near Calais, writes Mark Rowe.

THE CASUAL observer on P&O Stena's Dover to Calais run yesterday could have been forgiven to think there was some kind of European exodus taking place. Motoring organisations warned of jams on coastal routes while ferries and hovercrafts, many of which were booked solid, warned potential passengers "not to set out unless they had tickets".

EUROTUNNEL yesterday unveiled plans to double freight capacity through the Channel Tunnel to compensate for the loss of duty-free income from the end of this month.