Gareth Rees refuses to discuss Prince William, whose rugby he oversees at Eton, but he cannot stop talking about King. Alex King, that is.

Sex discrimination would be removed from the royal succession under a measure put forward yesterday by the former deputy Conservative Party chairman, Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare.

Teenagers scornful of plan to restrict their liberty Rebecca Fowler discovers

ANOTHER VIEW

What went on at the Prince's hormonally charged ball? An ex-partygoer has some revealing memories

David Blunkett, the Labour education spokesman, yesterday defended Tony Blair's decision to send his son to a grant-maintained school and warned the party against nostalgia.

As Prince William starts at Eton tomorrow, Judith Judd takes a look at Britain's most privileged public school. Right: we compare Eton with Cherwell, a top state school

RHYS WILLIAMS

As chief executive of the FA, you could revive the reputations of two national institutions by allowing Prince William and Prince Harry to presid e over the Cup Final

The Threepenny Opera Donmar Warehouse, London

It is a social reflex that those discussing the behaviour of the Prince and Princess of Wales mutter at some point: 'the poor children'. But this sentimental afterthought should really be a hard-headed forethought. For Prince William Arthur Philip Louis is probably the most interesting figure in the current constitutional quasi-crisis. Although he has not yet published a book - perhaps he is even now working with a Blue Peter presenter on the authorised child's-eye account - it is in the person of Prince William, aged 12, that the true scale of the crisis surrounding the British monarchy becomes clear.

Sir: David Woodhead of the Independent Schools Information Service (letter, 27 September) is mistaken in claiming that parents using private education, by 'paying twice', are in some way helping the state system.

As news of the dollars 5bn damages spread through the trading floors of the United States on Friday night, the oil giant Exxon's stock actually rose from dollars 58.75 to dollars 60.25 per share. Investors had been fearing much worse. This was only one year's profits, and it had been the biggest environmental lawsuit in US history - in which 14,000 or so plaintiffs had been looking for an award of dollars 15bn. Exxon had a turnover last year of dollars 111bn.

ANCHORAGE (Reuter, AP) - A federal jury yesterday ordered Exxon Corp to pay dollars 286m ( pounds 187m) to more than 10,000 commercial fishermen for damages suffered in the massive March 1989 oil spill off Valdez, Alaska.