For most of us the story about the tortoise and the hare has had the quality of a soothing myth; an improving tale, its purpose to console the slower or dumber amongst us that we too can sometimes succeed. It ain't true, though it makes us feel better. But it now seems that Aesop was right all along. A motorway full of hares, says the Government, will travel more slowly than one full of tortoises. And the answer is to make chelonian reptiles of us all.

A rural garden centre in Cheslyn Hay, Staffordshire, has called

PHIL DAVISON

BY LUCY ROBERTS

The "Sunshine State" is running out of sand and Florida's desperate authorities want to transport replacement supplies from the Bahamas, 50 miles away.

Newly wed Rosie Millard gets down on her knees to help an ancient reptile survive the deadly pressures of modern life on the US Virgin Islands

Getting there: the closest intercontinental airport to the US Virgin Islands is San Juan in Puerto Rico.

TV Review

SHELTER by Jayne Anne Phillips Faber £14.99

UNDERRATED The case for Elizabeth Jenkins While Taylor and Jenkins both found new readers, Jenkins remains a secret

Only five weeks to go, and Regent Street is all lit up

THE SYSTEM of warning cones and flags when a fence cannot be jumped safely worked well at Carlisle yesterday when a race was declared void because one of the runners had fallen fatally on the first circuit.

CAST your mind back over recent Festivals of British Racing at Ascot and a common thread quickly emerges. Who could forget Warning winning the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, in the pouring rain? Or Selkirk's late surge to take the same race? In the pouring rain.

MEHTHAAF produced a scintillating display in the Tripleprint Celebration Mile here yesterday. The daughter of Nureyev caught the trailblazing Emperor Jones inside the final quarter-mile and quickened clear to beat him two and a half lengths, with the favourite Turtle Island a disappointing third, three-quarters of a length away.