Possibly William Boyd wished to write himself into the history books as the Australian poets Jim McAuley and Harold Stewart did in 1944 with Ern Malley and the Angry Penguins. If so, maybe he should be grateful that his little ruse was not as success...

It is a little hard to recall that, a few months after the proclamation of the State of Israel in 1948, Winston Churchill told the House of Commons that this event was "one of the most hopeful and encouraging adventures of the 20th century". Indeed h...

Such a figure is Joseph Crabtree (1754-1854), poet and polymath, in honour of whom the Crabtree Foundation was formed in 1954 at University College London. Articles have been published which have hinted at an element of hoax. Would that more journali...

It was the man next to me in the pub who had asked me this innocuous but challenging question. It took me unawares. This was partly because I had no idea what I was doing for Easter, and partly because I had no idea what I should be doing for Easter....

I became visibly aroused even though there were other people present. Nine pages in the Sun, five in the Mirror never mind all the rest. They were asking for it. It's not really my fault is it? In my defence all I can say is that this is a mutually c...

They did it before. Unionists and nationalists once before united in an attempt to make a fresh start in Northern Ireland, in the Sunningdale agreement of 1973-74, in a deal eerily similar in many respects to that which is now on the table. It was ha...

The suggestion that the books would have disintegrated "in time" if they had remained where they were is unconvincing for those of us who have handled books and manuscripts up to 500 years old which still appear to be in pristine condition despite th...

And, no, James wasn't slyly exploiting tabloid affronts to privacy and decency. He has points to make. Unlike Bryan Gould's autobiography, which reviled Mandelson as "queeny", giving the Sun the chance to run "Gould `Outs' Mandelson" in hypocritical,...

What is needed now is not more laboratory tricks, but real political action, like that of Iceland Foods in declaring their own-label products non-GM. Other retailers and companies would do well to follow their lead. And, yes, I do mean political acti...

CSL Food Science Laboratory launched such a test last October at a meeting of food industry, laboratory and biotechnology companies that was attended by, amongst others, Nuclyx. Since its launch, this service has already been used by a number of inte...

The facts are as follows. Total Department for Education and Employment cash plans for 1998-99 (after allowing for the debt sale and the transfer to local government of funds for nursery education) represent a cash increase of 6 per cent over 1997-98...

In his analysis of the reasons for bad civil service advice, he blamed the anonymity of that advice and the continual shifting of civil servants from one department to another. It is always the department's advice. The individual civil servant respon...

PETER RUSSELL Glasgow

DAVID W McCRIRICK Weymouth, Dorset

It was common knowledge in my family that the phone was tapped. A friend who was a local GP, and like my Mum and Dad a member of the local branch of the Communist Party, had been told as much by a terminally ill Post Office employee. I used to wonder...

But release from guilt - and the realisation that our endless fascination with Hitler and the war he unleashed is entirely justified - came quickly, from the most unexpected quarter, Time magazine. Driven by that eternal American obsession with lists...