REVIEW: SHOP; HALES GALLERY, DEPTFORD, LONDON

THREE TOP executives at the Stationery Office, led by the former deputy governor of the Bank of England Rupert Pennant-Rea, are set to make a profit of up to pounds 13m following the demerger of the company yesterday in preparation for a trade sale or flotation.

LORD IRVINE of Lairg was last night accused of "haughtiness" after using official Government stationery to send an invitation to a few fellow members of the Garrick Club for a party to re-elect one of his friends.

James Urquhart can't find the focus of a bold voyage from colonial forests to the ruins of Stansted Airport; Horse Latitudes by Jay Merrick Fourth Estate, pounds 10.99, 276pp

THE GOVERNMENT is concerned about obesity in the population and our general level of unfitness. This is, of course, directly related to the amount of television we each of us consume in a week, but, as the entire advertising industry depends on television and people watching it, and the entire Government depends on the advertising industry, it has been deemed appropriate to refer to this factor as "increasingly sedentary lifestyles".

Ken Stott's latest role, as an Irish gangster, is the perfect part for an actor whose hallmark is ambiguity

WHEN I left you last week I was expressing a certain queasy foreboding at the thought that at any moment my wife would step into the room and announce that the time has come to get out the Christmas decorations.

Sir: Could someone please tell me where I can acquire one of those cardboard cut-outs of M Thatcher (Review, 24 November)?

The Sketch

Jackie

YOU'RE WALKING in the pitch black. Eerie noises echo behind you and ahead there is spooky laughter. Although you can barely see two steps ahead of you, you carry on. Just then, a hand tugs at your sleeve. Your heart leaps. You let out a scream that hasn't escaped your lungs since the day your brother put a dead mouse in your lunch box. You turn to see a small creature, dripping with blood, bulging eyes staring out from rotting flesh. "Trick or treat, it's Hallowe'en!" shrieks the little devil. Then he produces a Trick or Treat bag with a blood-red Tesco logo on it, stuffed full of moody Mars bars.

Age: Just over 125, a birthday it celebrated by offering share options to all 50,000 employees.

Last Wednesday saw the deadline for the return of self-assessment forms. Well, how was it for you? By Paul Slade

No time to leave your desk for lunch? Fed up with the same sandwiches every day? Caroline Stacey reports on the companies catering for stressed execs, with tasty take-away lunchboxes (and not a bag of crisps in sight). Photographs by Ross Kirkman