Safety inspectors called for a change in culture on Britain's farms after a survey revealed that workers risk their lives by using defective machinery.

Farmers protesting against beef imports plan to step up their blockade of ports today, one of the busiest days for meat imports from the Irish Republic.

After much deliberation, The Bookseller has awarded its annual "Diagram Prize" for the Oddest Title of the Year. The prize has gone, rather surprisingly, to The Joy of Sex: Pocket Edition, ahead of The Prostate: A Guide for Men and the Women who Love Them, and Method for Calculating the Size of Stone Needed for Closing End-Tipped Rubble Banks in Rivers. This year's short-list had displayed an unusual level of sensitivity by including Interpersonal Violence: The Practical Series, and Attractive and Affectionate Grave Design, though there was considerable surprise that the strongly tipped From Coherent Tunnelling to Relaxation was not featured among the top three.

A woman was suspended from power cables for 90 minutes when she drifted off-course during a charity parachute jump at Netheravon, Wiltshire, yesterday.

A driverless tractor steered by satellite that can find its own way around a crop field with pinpoint precision could help to usher in a "third agricultural revolution", it was claimed yesterday. Researchers at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, expect the tractor to be the first of a new generation of fully automated farm and construction vehicles.

Albeit they had had a good result the year before in the by-election at Glasgow Bridgeton, it was the 9,750 votes in the by-election in West Lothian in May 1962 that launched the resurgence of the Scottish National Party. (Dr Robert McIntyre, the then SNP chairman, had represented Motherwell for a fleeting period at the end of the Second World War.)

A stone coffin thought to contain the remains of a high-ranking Roman official has been unearthed on the site of a housing development in the West Country.

8. The Island of Pumpkins, East Japan

Army engineers yesterday successfully recovered the last of four prototypes of the bouncing bombs used in the Dam Busters raid.

Sir: The bulldozers at Har Homa must stop. They were set in motion to serve the short-term domestic interests of Mr Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, but unless reversed, their effects will spread far beyond the Middle East and risk sending dangerous vibrations worldwide.

When Richard Merriken told farming friends in the UK that he planned to take on the running of a vast farm on the edge of the Hungarian puszta they thought he had taken leave of his senses. "Can't say I envy you, old boy," was a typical response. "It will never work."

Investors traditionally find the high technology area of the stock market a minefield. An area of dramatic growth and potential, it is more volatile than the overall stock market. One canny approach, however, is to focus on service companies which profit from growth and changing products without the risk that a technology may be replaced by a rival. Two companies that fit the bill and look set for growth are MSB International, at 417.5p, and Ideal Hardware, at 695p.

From the horse's mouth ...

Country house owners are taking high-tech measures against a new breed of clever, bold and often violent crooks, reports Ian Burrell