1733: Britain's first lioness dies in the Tower of London where she had been looked after by the Keeper of the Lion Office. 1909: The first Boy Scout rally is held at Crystal Palace. 1955: Richard Baker becomes the first TV newscaster to appear in vi...

Sir: We have all grown used to the apparent inability of politicians from all parties to admit when they are in the wrong, but David Alton's performance ("Secret lives of the new moralisers", 1 September) was exceptional. Asked "Do you do your own ir...

Sir: The time has come to show some respect to the IRA and the UVF/UFF. These are the soldiers who have stuck their necks out for peace. It is they who risked their lives fighting for their communities, protecting them from hostile forces and avengin...

Sir: It may be good political fun to label anyone who attempts to introduce a moral element into politics as a "moraliser", and to turn a microscope on their own personal behaviour, but it has serious implications ("Secret lives of the new moralisers...

Sir: The announcement that foreign holidays are to be dearer next year with a more restricted choice ("Travel firms raise prices and cut capacity", 30 August) causes my family no concern, since no places need be reserved for us. We are one of the man...

Sir: I offer John Walsh (Diary, 31 August) a little Promenade illumination. The Promenaders in the arena of the Albert Hall often yell messages to their fellow-Prommers in the gallery, and vice versa. For example, last Monday night the cry went up: A...

Sir: Your front-page comment on the anniversary of the peace process ("The pessimists have been confounded", 1 September) was a classic example of an interesting phenomenon to have appeared among many media commentators over the past year. This is th...

Sir: Mr Justice Sedley's ruling ("Travellers' victory puts evictions in doubt", 2 September) that the Wealden travellers must be treated with common humanity and cannot be evicted by the fiat of local government under the Criminal Justice Act without...

But it is not only Bosnia. There has been growing unease about other key aspects of policy as well, and it is certainly a priority, as well as an excellent opportunity, for the new Foreign Secretary to review the whole foreign policy situation radica...

What is worrying is that they are both right. The Nolan report laid down that, in future, ministers should have their appointments treated in the same way as senior civil servants. So they could either wait two years after leaving office before takin...

Francis D Bowles Dundee

I belong to that group (I am 47) and it is a myth that we were all involved in sit-ins, drugs, free sex and the like. We had less freedom than young people today and there was still pressureto marry, get a good job and raise a family. Only the brave ...

Unlike a great many alternative therapies, art, drama, music, and dance movement therapies have registers for practitioners. Qualified, registered arts therapists undertake training, clinical experience, supervision and personal therapy before practi...

An inquiry has just been ordered into the killing in 1994 of Christopher Edwards in Chelmsford Prison by his cellmate, a paranoid schizophrenic with a long history of violence. Richard Linford, who stamped Christopher Edwards to death, admitted mansl...

In the 1930s Bradford ratepayers spent pounds 3m on the Nidd Valley Scheme. This guaranteed a water supply without any constraints until the creation of the regional water authorities in 1974. Then hosepipe bans became a nearly annual event, but we h...

Tom Egan, Eglwyswrw, Dyfed

The most spoilt generation in history has parented the most neglected children in history. It doesn't matter what race, gender or sexuality you are in England, it's class that counts - as the upper-middle-class 1968ers have proved. John Fletcher Shep...

Sir Ronald Millar, playwright, political speechwriter, and Old Carthusian on Peter Hobson, disgraced headmaster of Charterhouse Without tolerance the foundation for democracy and respect for human rights cannot be strengthened and the achievement of ...

n HOW do you know when the silly season is over? You know the silly season is over when someone (thank you Ms Ysenda Shorte-Circular, my royal correspondent) rings you up with an outrageous story about Baroness Thatcher. I mean, can you believe that ...

Mona Sahlin, a 38-year-old, has emerged as favourite to be leader of the Social Democrats and next Prime Minister of Sweden. Ms Sahlin is the sort of feminist who would thoroughly alarm most conservatives and it is unimaginable that a British version...

The shame is the loss of innocence. When we first came to live in this London street 30 years ago, our car stood, night and day, carelessly unlocked in the gutter outside. The morning when, settling into the passenger's seat as my husband started the...

But dole has a long and once quite respectable ancestry, common to many Germanic languages. It is no relation of dole as in doleful which originated from Latin and is brother to that charming word much favoured by the Arthurian chronicler Sir Thomas ...

To most foreign correspondents, this peculiar honour falls in distant, inhospitable countries where tyrannical regimes consider freedom of speech a luxury their people cannot yet afford. To me, it happened in Italy, and for the most preposterous of r...