Dutch drug dealers, who are now to be permitted to sign on for unemployment benefit. According to a social affairs ministry spokesman: "Dealers who keep to the rules under which sales of soft drugs... are tolerated should be able to sign on like anyo...

Anatoly Karpov will not be too dissatisfied with his second place, half a point behind Kramnik. He too was undefeated, and his tally of 61/2 points will even have gained him a few rating points. The biggest surprise of the tournament, however, was Pe...

Sir: A positive side of F. R. Leavis's judgement was in his encouragement to his students not to make a career in English studies, but to use the studies as a base from which to leap in interesting directions - by taking the Part II of their degree i...

Sir: The one and only fact in John Lyttle's article "Dear Caravaners" (24 July) is that West Country police have found a high level of faults in caravans. This is clearly a real problem, and most responsible caravaners would welcome a safety certific...

Mr John Marshall was the founder of the city's prosperous flax-spinning industry and, with typical Victorian exuberance, he decided to build a massive new headquarters. Rejecting the new-fangled enthusiasm for Gothic, Marshall wanted a building which...

Sir: Andrew Marr writes (20 July) that the Bosnian Serb strategy has been to destroy "multicultural" life and create a "Greater Serbia". This is an unfair allegation. Bosnian Serbs wanted to stay in a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia. Considering their tragic...

The Blackberry Stain Summer "And don't forget a drop of sherry from the pepper bottle!" said Briony Hewlett. "It would hardly be a Bloody Mary without a bit of sherry steeped in chilli pepper!" "OK, mother," muttered Heliotrope, shaking her beautiful...

The guiltiest party was the country's elite; a "liberal establishment" committed to the New Jerusalem (that is, the welfare state), softened by a century of public school education and almost wholly divorced from industry and business. They were an a...

The original idea, welcomed as over-hastily by the Independent as by the Treasury, was to prevent highly paid corporate executives from exploiting a tax loophole which treats gains on capital more generously than income. But then battle commenced. An...

The Herald of Free Enterprise and the Estonia both sank extremely rapidly. The fundamental problem is that the vast open car decks become unstable as soon as water gets in. In heavy seas the water sloshes around and can very quickly cause a capsize. ...

Jill Casey and Kay Preddy, playing for the British women in the recent Generali European Championships in Portugal, appeared to have had a lucky escape with the North-South cards on this deal. Firstly, they ended in a contract of Six No-trumps - a de...

1824: The first public opinion poll is held in Delaware and shows Andrew Jackson leading John Quincy Adams in the contest for the US presidency. A tradition of incorrect predictions was thus established. 1851: End of the Window Tax, which had run sin...

Sir: Executive share options are ineffective as an incentive, because their value depends much more on the stock market than on the company's performance. Nor do they encourage employee share ownership because, as a matter of fact, most holders sell ...

Sir: Your leader "Drawing a line in Bosnia" (21 July) and the London meeting are still within the old game. Now is the time to change the game. I propose an economic conference to plan the reconstruction of former Yugoslavia. This will cost about $8b...

France's renewed emphasis on national sovereignty promises far-reaching repercussions for French links with Germany and the future of the EU. In his blustering debut on the European stage, Chirac has underestimated - or chosen to ignore - the effect ...

(It is Gibbon's Decline and Fall he is talking about, and he goes on to say, rather splendidly: "With our more elastic methods we may consider his manner pompous, but he lived in an age when Dr Johnson's turgid periods had corrupted our literature.")...

Sir: The Very Rev Brandon Jackson ("The cross I chose to bear", 21July) claims that The crisis arose because my bishop chose to believe the story of a girl he described to me as "pretty hopeless". That is a surprising assertion. The issue of the Bish...

Sir: Employee X is granted options over shares worth pounds 15,000 under a savings-related share option scheme. Any gain will continue to be dealt with under the capital gains tax regime, with a consequential annual exemption of pounds 6,000. Employe...

Bodmin beastism n a rarefied form of morbid condition prevalent in the South-west regions of the British Isles. Sufferers imagine that their neighbourhood is being stalked, literally, by giant panthers. Liberal doses of sceptism laced with ridicule a...

As we report today, statisticians at Warwick University have worked out a magic equation that is supposed to sort the incorrigible from the redeemable. It's a fiendishly complicated sum. Those who try to use the equation will certainly find it more d...

Sir: The articles by Zbigniew Brzezinski and David Howell (21 July) calling on the West to support the Bosnian Muslims ignore one important fact. The Bosnian Muslims, not the Serbs, have initiated nearly all the recent fighting in Bosnia - including ...