3 JANUARY 2004

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p olice in plain clothes armed with guns are being put

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on international flights thought to be at risk from hijacking, according to Mr David Blunkett, the Home Secretary. and Mr Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Transport....

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o guns on planes

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lyv hen, at the insistence of the US Department of Homeland Security, the first armed 'sky marshals' take to British transatlantic flights, it is to be hoped that the in-flight...

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T he recent story in the Sunday Times about the hundreds

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of people who have declined honours in the past 50 or 60 years was fascinating. Contrary to the usual interpretation, it showed that the system is actually fairer than I...

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Whatever Hutton reports, there is no case for getting rid of Andrew Gilligan

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ithin the next few weeks Lord Hutton will publish his inquiry. None of us can know where, if anywhere, his axe will fall. Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, may be feeling his...

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Escape from barbarity

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Theodore Dalrymple says he is turning his back on the ugliness and emptiness of Britain and moving to France, which for all its faults he considers a more civilised country than...

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Ancient & modern

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Donald von Rumsfeld, the sinisterly bespectacled US defence secretary, has won a gobbledygook award from the Plain English campaign for the following (paraphrased) apergu:...

Air defence

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Norman Tebbit does not like the idea of armed marshals on British flights, but believes that they are necessary T here is in this unpredictable world some comfort to be found...

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Marshall arts

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Peter °borne had a bet with Lord Marshall that there would be no euro referendum in 2003. He won, and was treated to a slightly edgy dinner at Brown's T his interview came about...

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Face invader

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Sam Leith has a facial — and is troubled to find that he has to remove all his clothes I haven't felt like this since I last went to visit the dental hygienist with my mum. I'm...

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History must not repeat itself

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David Pryce-Jones on the danger to Iraq of the Arabist tradition at the Foreign Office T he capture of Saddam Hussein clears the way to self-government in Iraq. due to be...

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Mind your language

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So many much-loved books have been badly done on television — The Irish RM, and just now The Young Visiters, which anyone could have seen would be difficult to do well on telly...

In defence of

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Wacko Jacko Leo McKinstry explains why he has the gravest doubts about the charges brought against the weird and plastic Michael Jackson I n Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie described...

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THEODORE DALRYMPLE

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Sad to relate, none of our utterances will be remembered after our deaths, for all the passion with which we uttered them: unless, that is, we happen to belong to one of the...

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Stabbing

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Matthew Norman I was on a semi-working holiday. My idea was to investigate the South African phenomenon of 'family suicide', in which the depressed Afrikaner father would shoot...

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A defeatist historian

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From Patrick Beeley Sir: Correlli Barnett's article on the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq ('Why alQa'cda is winning', 13/20 December) continues the theme of defeatist gloom...

From Cotrelli Barnett Sir: Since Mark Steyn was kind enough

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to refer to me in his latest rant in your journal ('The triumph of George W. Bush', 27 December) he might have checked his facts first: I am not, and have never been, a...

Deciding who gets what

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From Christopher Hen eghan Sir: Robert Gore-Langton ('Organ minders', 27 December) seems not to appreciate how offensive it is to suggest that a surgeon might make less effort...

How bad is Africa's Aids?

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From Hugh Russell Sir: In 'Africa isn't dying of Aids' (13/20 December), Rian Malan pours scorn on my piece 'Aids: It's worse than you imagined' (1 March), and I hope to God...

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From Jakob von Uexkull Sir: Congratulations on publishing Rian Malan's

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report, which no doubt will generate furious reactions. Having researched this field for 10 years, I can confirm that his conclusions make sense. In reality, the situation is...

From Don Bundy Sir: We all hope that your cover

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story is true. But Rian Malan's polemic is little more than a selective view of the precision of estimates, and has as much urgency and reality for people affected by Aids as a...

Don't blame the HSE

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From Kevin Myers Sir: Gus Alexander wonders whether too much Health and Safety is bad for you (Arts, 13/20 December 2003) and cites the papertrail response by the construction...

Blacks and the New Deal

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From Nick Georgano Sir: I was interested in Geoffrey Wheatcroft's comment in his review of Conrad Black's biography of FDR (Books, 13/20 December) that 'during Roosevelt's...

Wrong Knox

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From Digby Anderson Sir: When I wrote about the Epiphany (`Go to work on Christmas Day', 13/20 December) I quoted a certain 'Knox'. I meant Ronald Knox. Somewhere in the haste...

The last word?

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From John Laughland Sir: Having initially pretended that my review of his book contained '22 errors and misrepresentations', Christopher Booker is now reduced to defending a...

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Détente is back in fashion, thank heaven, and the horrors of Barn could change history

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hould liberal internationalists feel irritated when neoconservative hawks piggyback on to the successes of our own approach, and take the credit for them se Ives? No, we should...

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All, all are going, the old familiar faces

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T he sudden death of Glynn Boyd Harte, aged only 55 and at the height of his considerable powers, is a tragedy for British art, already in a desperately anaemic condition under...

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We're lucky not to be caught in the toils of a manic-depressive currency

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et us greet the new year with an olive. 2004 may yet be the year of the two-dollar martini, with our chances brighter and the dollar cheaper than at any time tor a decade and...

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A disturbing absence of disturbance

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Anita Brookner THE AMATEUR MARRIAGE by Anne Tyler Chatto,iI6.99, pp. 306, ISBN 0701177349 A nnc Tyler has written 15 excellent novels — this is her 16th — which proceed...

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The best band in the land

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Rupert Christiansen ORCHESTRA: THE LSO A CENTURY OF TRIUMPH AND TURBULENCE by Richard Morrison Faber, £20, pp. 320, ISBN 0571215831 B eing of the same age and provenance as...

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Nourishing alphabet soup

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P. J. Kavanagh THE ALPHABET by David Sacks Hutchinson, £12.99, pp. 395, ISBN 0091795060 A lphabets have always fascinated: Ben Jonson, Samuel Johnson (who didn't approve of his...

Rivals at the court of King Adolf

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Graham Stewart THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLES: THE LIVES AND TIMES OF HITLER'S INNER CIRCLE by Anthony Read Cape, 125, pp. 984, ISBN 0224060082 0 ne of the Great War's consequences may...

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Brutal but beautiful Brooklyn

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Robert Edric THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE by Jonathan Lethem Faber, £12.99, pp. 470, ISBN 0571219330 T here is currently a vogue for the all-encompassing, minutiaecrunching,...

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The gentle art of murder

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Simon Heffer KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS by Michael Newton BFI Film Classics, £8.99 pp. 96, ISBN 0851709648 1 t often seems that more rubbish is written about the cinema than...

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Fakirs and fakers

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Nicholas Harman THE RISE OF l'HE INDIAN ROPE TRICK by Peter Lamont Little, Brown, £1499. pp. 288, ISBN 0316724300 E verybody knows what unicorns are, and everybody knows there...

Two very different islands

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Diana Hendry MISS RANSKILL COMES HOME by Barbara Euphan Todd Persephone Books, 170, pp. 330, ISBN 1903155363 R eviewirig this novel in 1946, when it was first published,...

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Old-style Irish enterprise

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Patrick Skene Catling LEAVES FROM THE FIG TREE by Diana Duff Summersdale Travel, £7.99, pp. 318, ISBN 1840243635 1 rishness is perceptible almost everywhere, if you look with...

A man who asked the right questions

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Jane Rye LONDON RECORDINGS by David Sylvester Chalk), £22, pp. 202, ISBN 0701162678 D avid Sylvester's first ambition was to be a professional cricketer, and he possessed to...

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A glutton for work

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D. J. Taylor ORWELL: THE 'OBSERVER' YEARS Observer Books/ Atlantic, £12, pp. 272, ISBN 1843542609 G eorge Orwell started writing for the Observer in 1942, brought there by the...

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Friends in high places

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Emma Tennant SIKKIM HIMALAYA by David Lang Pomegranate Press, £29.95, pp.200 ISBN 0953349373 D avid Lang first heard about the Himalayas when he was a little boy. As his father...

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Terrific double-act

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Mark Steyn Stuck On You 12A, selected cinemas decade after the Farrelly brothers' irst feature, Dumb and Dumber, they've gone back to their roots. I'm speaking of coiffures:...

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Proud to be uncool

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Marcus Berkmann Ts it digni fi ed to remain obsessed by pop 'music well into your forties? I used to worry about this when I was about 28, but now I'm 43 I find I don't give a...

Knowing when it's time to go

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Simon Hoggart W atching an old and much-loved television programme die is like seeing the same thing happen to a favourite pet — the inevitability makes it no less sad. Take...

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Digital dilemma

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Michael Vestey N o doubt many people have received a digital radio as a Christmas present and are enjoying the very clear sound quality that it offers. I wrote in November that...

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A kingdom for a horse

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Charles Moore O ne of my recurring dreams is that I am driving through central London when suddenly I turn a corner and find myself among fields. The gardens of Buckingham...

Tear-jerker victory

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Robin Oakley CD iding a horse is like dealing with a ..[Xwoman — you simply have to know which buttons to press,' said French trainer Guillaume Macaire not long ago when...

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Bursting at the seams

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Taki Gstaad B pack up in the mountains once again, with a bit of snow for a change. It's getting close to my 50th winter up here (1956) and the place is not improving, that's...

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My Uncle Scrooge

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Jeremy Clarke I t was blowing a hooligan outside. There was a knock at the door, which was open, and there was this doctor — the biggest doctor we'd ever seen — stamping his...

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Behind bars

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Petronella Wyatt Johannesburg T he South African sun is beating down on my brother's garden. We have just returned from a shopping mall in Johannesburg. Jo'burg is full of...

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I've got a little list. . .

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MICHAEL HENDERSON O ne of the world's most original paintings hangs in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (about 300 do, actually, but one in particular commends itself)....

Q. Last year my husband and! bought a house on

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Exmoor which came with two cottages superfluous to our needs. We have been renting these out as holiday lets. Out of six recent lettings three of the punters, all of whom...

Q. Re double-breasted suits (22 November). The double-breasted suit has

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one particular merit. If (when) one develops what the Australians call the 'veranda over the toy shop', the DBS automatically becomes single. C.B., Barkway - , Herts A. Thank...

Q. As a Christmas card, a friend of mine sent

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out a picture of herself and her husband in a helicopter with their new country house in the background. How should! gently point out that this was a lapse in taste? Name and...