JANUARY. Mr Peter Mandelson resigned from the Cabinet, this time
because he could not remember having made a telephone call in which nothing improper was said in favour of Mr Srichand Hinduja and his brother Prakash. Social workers took away twins adopted over the Internet by Mr and Mrs Alan Kilshaw. Parliament approved, as it thought, the cloning of embryos to provide experimental material. Mr Bernard Rayner, a pigeon-food seller in Trafalgar Square, gained an injunction preventing Mr Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, from rescinding his licence. An earthquake killed thousands in Gujarat. Mr George Bush was sworn in as 43rd President of the United States as his predecessor, Mr William Clinton, pardoned his own half-brother for distributing cocaine.
FEBRUARY. Foot-and-mouth disease was found in Essex. Mr Arid l Sharon became Prime Minister of Israel. Donald Bradman died, aged 92. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman separated after 11 years of marriage. Manic Street Preachers played to 5.000. including President Fidel Castro, at a concert in Havana. Seven tons of sprats died in Rosyth dockyard and neighbours complained of the smell.
MARCH. A vast open grave for half a million livestock slaughtered in the foot-and-mouth epidemic was dug at Orton, Cumbria; a quarter of a million lay dead in fields uncollected for days. Mrs Elizabeth Filkin, the parliamentary standards commissioner, upheld a complaint against Mr Keith Vaz, the Minister for Europe. Nine Romanian gypsies were found in a tool compartment beneath a train at Waterloo. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe visited Brussels where Mr Peter Tatchell, the homosexual campaigner, tried to arrest him. Subcornandante Marcos, the leader of the Zapatista Liberation Army. smoking his pipe through an opening in his balaclava, led 10,000 Indians in a protest march to Mexico City. A mufti in Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa against Pokemon cards. APRIL. The number of livestock slaughtered rose to 2,338,000. A vast pyre with 4.000 carcasses burnt near Holsworthy in Devon. Mr Tony Blair postponed local elections due in May, and his plans for a general election. Thousands of anarchists were penned in Oxford Circus by police. Palestinians and Israelis continued to kill each other. China hung on to the 24 crew of an American spy plane that crash-landed. Mr Junichiro Koizumi, a long-haired man, was elected Prime Minister of Japan. Perry Wacker, the driver of a lorry in which 58 Chinese people died as they tried to enter Britain, was jailed for 14 years. Mr Steven Thoburn of Sunderland was convicted of selling bananas by the pound. Kelpie, a corgi of the Queen's, died. aged 17. MAY. The number of livestock slaughtered rose to 3,077,000. Mr Blair called an elec
tion for 7 June. Mrs Blair claimed that Humphrey, the former Downing Street cat, was still alive. Mr John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, gave a left jab to a man who threw an egg at him in Rhyl. About 500 Asian youths threw petrol bombs at police in Oldham, Lancashire. and attacked a pub called the Live and Let Live. Douglas Adams, the author of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, died, aged 49. Ronald Biggs, the great train robber, flew back from Brazil and went to prison. The Pope visited Athens and apologised for the sack of Constantinople in 1204.
JUNE. The number of livestock slaughtered rose to 3,453,000. Labour won the election with 413 seats (10,740,168 votes) to the Tories' 166 (8,354,460 votes). President Mohammad Khatami of Iran was returned to office in a landslide. An English Heritage report asserted that 'tall buildings can make positive contributions to city life'. Timothy McVeigh, who had killed 168 people by blowing up a tall building in Oklahoma, was executed by poisonous injection after eating two pints of mint-chocolate-chip ice-cream. A Hamas suicide bomber killed 20 Israelis in Tel Aviv. Cardinal Thomas Winning, Archbishop of Glasgow, died, aged 76. Police fired on protesters in Gothenburg, wounding three, since the use of teargas is not permitted in Sweden. A storm on Tristan da Cunha blew sheep into the Atlantic.
JULY. Foot-and-mouth moderated after the death of 3,616,000 livestock. Hundreds of youths in Bradford threw bricks and petrol bombs at police: a horse was stabbed. A policeman shot a protester dead during a G7 summit in Genoa. Mr David Trimble resigned as First Minister of Northern Ireland because the Irish Republican Army still gave no sign of decommissioning weapons. Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Yugoslavia, was flown to stand trial in The Hague. Mr David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, was angry about a Brass Eye programme presented by Mr Chris Morris satirising media treatment of paedophilia. Eleven teenagers died when lightning struck a mango tree outside Ouagadougou. AUGUST. The Real IRA set off an 88th bomb in Ealing. west London, injuring seven and causing much damage. The foot-and-mouth total reached 3,800,000. Mr Kim Jong-il, the leader of North Korea, went on an eightday train journey through Siberia, eating his favourite donkey meat. Emmanuel Milingo, the former Archbishop of Lusaka, aged 71, returned to the Vatican after having gone through a wedding ceremony in May with a 43-year-old Korean member of the Unification Church in New York. Lord Longford died, aged 95. Larry Adler, the harmonica player, died, aged 87. The Queen Mother celebrated her 101st birthday. The Prince of Wales fell off his polo pony.
SEPTEMBER. Two hijacked passenger aeroplanes were flown into the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York, which collapsed, killing thousands. President George Bush of the United States launched a 'coalition against terrorism', in which he was speedily seconded by Mr Blair. Osama bin Laden, the Saudi terrorist leader sheltering in Afghanistan with the connivance of its Taleban rulers, was blamed. Parents in Belfast took little children to the front entrance of a Catholic school day by day protected from jeering Protestants by soldiers. Traffic wardens in Southend-on-Sea had their uniforms adjusted after people complained of the initials SS on the collars. OC'TOBER. America began air strikes against Afghanistan: British forces played a smaller role. Mr Blair continued to fly about in an effort to bolster the coalition. A man in Florida died of anthrax, and then others in New York and Washington contracted it, through postal infection. Lord Hailsham died, aged 94. The Institute of Animal Health found that the brains it had been studying for four years to see if sheep developed spongiform encephalopathy were not sheep's brains at all but cows'. Chimneys near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, fell down in an earthquake.
NOVEMBER. Mr Blair flew about. America bombed Afghanistan, and the Northern Alliance advanced against Taleban positions, taking Mazar-i-Sharif, besieging Kunduz, then moving into Kabul itself with little fighting. The number of homes in Britain with access to the Internet fell from 40 to 39 per cent. The High Court found that the law in Britain did not cover human cloning. DECEMBER. Palestinian suicide bombers killed 25 Israelis in a 12-hour period; deaths in the previous 14 months totalled about 230 Israelis and 780 Palestinians. Kandahar fell, and American and Afghan forces bombarded Tora Bora where alQa'eda forces hid in tunnels. George Harrison, the former Beatle, died, aged 58. The European Union said that from 1 January refrigerators would be hazardous waste.
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