Serb Troops

JONATHAN AITKEN took a carefully planned last supper with close friends and family as he prepared for an almost inevitable prison sentence today. It will be the final humiliating chapter in the dramatic downfall of a man who once boasted incredible wealth and was tipped as a future prime minister.

Sir: Why all the fuss about Leonardo's Last Supper (report, 26 May)? It is known that technical problems started when it was barely finished. Flaking paint got lost over the intervening centuries and repair has meant compromise or approximation for a long time. Why no fuss about all the other old masterpieces which now look like 20th- or 21st-century art? It seems that every period restores to the taste of its time. Nobody complained when, years ago, objections could have helped pictures by great masters to remain masterpieces. Do we only care for lost causes?

The Daily

ENSEMBLE MODERN/PETER RUNDEL BARBICAN LONDON LONDON SINFONIETTA/ OLIVER KNUSSEN QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL LONDON

EVEN AFTER 2,000 years or so of Biblical scholarship, there are many questions unanswered. For instance, I have met a few religious teachers and theologians and biblical experts in my time, and I have even met A N Wilson once or twice, and none of them could solve for me one of the big problems of the New Testament: what was the seating plan at the Last Supper?

CHRISTIANE WUILLAMIE, the founder, chairman and chief executive of international financial services IT company CWB, visits the Royal China restaurant in London at least once a week.

HARD-PRESSED PARENTS want schools to provide their children with dinner and breakfast as well as lunch, according to a poll published today.

STEPHEN TWIGG, who won Enfield Southgate for labour from Michael Portillo, could be in danger of following Fiona Jones in the Newark election expenses fiasco. Mr Twigg appears to have started his re-election campaign in Southgate already, and runs the risk of making himself liable to incurring election expenses during the next two to three years.

A NEWBORN baby died because a tired doctor missed out a decimal point when prescribing a heart-slowing drug, an inquest was told yesterday.

A fictional mother and daughter battle it out over the cello

Rugby Rebel:

DR JOHN

Dan Rosen, writer of The Last Supper, adds a directing credit to his CV with this blackly comic thriller which unfurls like a Les Diaboliques for the Scream crowd.