But Davies also made long putts on the 17th and 18th for a 72 and a share of second place on 141 with Lancashire’s Lora Fairclough and Sweden’s Charlotta Sorenstam.Results, Digest, page 27. BLYTH TAIT may have been “a bit cautious” when he rode his dressage test on Sam Barr’s Welton Envoy, but the New Zealander was, nevertheless, leading when the first day of dressage was completed yesterday at the Bramham Horse and Hound International Three-Day Event in Yorkshire. The 12-year-old has enough movement and presence to impress the judges even when he is not being asked to show his full potential. “He normally leads after the dressage, except at Chatsworth where he was a bit Bolshie,” Tait said.
This is his first three-day event with Welton Envoy, who was due to run at Boekelo last year until rain reduced the Dutch contest to a one-day event and Tait withdrew because the ground was too wet.Tait has a four-point advantage over Pippa Funnell on the Chatsworth runner-up, Rainbow Magic, with Mark Todd nine points further back in third place on Just a Mission.

Todd took over his nine-year-old mount after Robert Lemieux retired at the end of 1997. The horse is one of “about 10″ that the Kiwi rider will have qualified for the Olympics by the end of this year.Stunning, who is one of them, is about to move to the British rider, William Fox-Pitt. “I’ve not sat on him yet, so we’ll have to get some easy runs while I get used to him,” Fox-Pitt said. “If all goes well, we might go to Burghley.”This year’s Burghley, which runs from 2 to 5 September, will host a new contest devised by the Professional Event Riders Association. Riders will now be competing for the PERA Global Masters Trophy with a first prize of pounds 20,000.

The members would like the contest to be run under the old system of scoring instead of the controversial new rules which were introduced this year.. England 2 South Korea 3

SEUNG TAE SONG punished England three times on the break in their opening game of the Champions Trophy here yesterday as South Korea registered their first victory over England.
In a disastrous opening five minutes England conceded the first goal three minutes into the game when Song latched on to a through ball, drew David Luckes to the edge of the circle before slipping the ball through his legs into the net. A minute later, in a desperate tackle, Julian Halls suffered a hand injury and England’s key defender took no further part in the game.A diving tackle by Duncan Woods in midfield set Mark Pearn off on a long run towards goal which ended with the Reading striker slamming the ball into the roof of the net for the equaliser four minutes from the interval.Good chances fell to Stuart Head and to Calum Giles to put England into the lead before, in the 57th and 66th minutes, Song struck again, on both occasions catching the English defence flat-footed as the South Koreans broke at speed. It was only in the 70th minute that Danny Hall won England’s only penalty corner of the game, which Giles converted for the final scoreline.”After getting ourselves back into the match in the latter part of the first half we gave away too much possession in the second half to sustain control,” said the England coach, Barry Dancer, and stressed the need to regroup quickly for today’s game against Australia.

IRELAND’S LAMENTABLE Test record against Australia – the brave boys in green have leaked well over 200 points to the Wallabies since their last taste of glory 20 years ago – tends to suggest that their new captain, Dion O’Cuinneagain, will have more than enough to occupy his mind at Ballymore tomorrow without the added complication of an uncertain future. Yet O’Cuinneagain, currently short of a day job if not short of prospects, is being pulled in all directions as he prepares to make the most significant career decision of his life. The 27-year-old loose forward has a small mountain of offers on the table, including two from London-based Premiership clubs and another from the avowedly ambitious and commercially cut-throat Irish Rugby Football Union, whose members would very much like their main man to cut his ties with English league rugby and set sail for the Emerald Isle. “I’ll be continuing negotiations with all parties over the next couple of days,” said O’Cuinneagain in Brisbane yesterday as the great and good of both Ireland and Australia pitched up in a local boozer called O’Brien’s to unveil the Lansdowne Cup, an elegant crystal trophy for which the two nations will now compete on a regular basis.
Not unreasonably, the Irish team management would prefer him not to spend too much time worrying about his long-term plans, given that the immediate term looks only marginally less menacing than a Hannibal Lecter cook book. The Australians, extravagantly endowed with the best threequarter line in world rugby, may be without John Eales and Steve Larkham, but as Warren Gatland, the visiting coach, admitted yesterday: “They are one of those sides who can lose world-class players and still hit you with talent that you’ve never even heard of.”For all that, O’Cuinneagain intends to make a firm decision before the end of Ireland’s four-match tour, which concludes with a second Test in Perth tomorrow week.

His career at Sale, whom he joined from his native South Africa in 1997, came to an abrupt end last month – “I had a two- year contract deal that they felt they could no longer honour, so, as we speak, I’m unemployed and looking for work” – and he has been scarred by the experience. “The Premiership looks pretty unstable from where I’m standing,” he said. “I actually received a very good offer from Richmond 24 hours before the club went bust. Can you believe that?”A move to Ireland is very definitely an option and it would make good sense, especially now that I’ve been given the captaincy; I would sign an initial contract with the union and then go with their recommendation as to which province I should join.”They’re trying to develop a New Zealand-style draft system and it appears to be working – you only have to look at Ulster’s performance in last season’s European Cup for evidence of that. But there again, Premiership rugby is of a very high quality, right up there with the top provincial stuff back in South Africa, and it would be a big step to leave that behind. I need to think carefully and make the right call.”If O’Cuinneagain does embrace the Irish domestic scene – his father was a Dubliner and his grandparents came from Galway, so he has legitimate links with Leinster and Connacht – he will not be short of top-class company. Paddy Johns, his predecessor as national captain, has closed his account with Saracens and rejoined Ulster, the European champions, while Malcolm O’Kelly and Garry Halpin have left London Irish and Harlequins respectively after agreeing full-time deals back home.

A number of other Test caps, notably Eric Miller and David Humphreys, made the move last season and blossomed as a result.Whatever the result of the O’Cuinneagain’s deliberations, Ireland have good cause to be grateful for a rare, Lawrence Dallaglio-style versatility that gives the skipper a handle on each of the three back-row positions. Quick enough to play Test rugby on the open-side flank – he was, after all, a Springbok sevens captain not so very long ago – he originally intended to turn out at No 8 tomorrow. However, Trevor Brennan’s shoulder injury means he will now appear on the blind-side, with Victor Costello filling the gap at the rear of the scrum.The Irish will miss Brennan for the St Mary’s forward was precisely the kind of stroppy ruffian who might have forced the Wallaby machine to miss a cog or two O’Cuinneagain remained resolutely upbeat, however. “We’ll be passionate in the grand Irish tradition, but we’ll be disciplined too,” he insisted.

None of the board of directors were paid a bonus for the last financial year after profits fell by 40 per cent.Sir Richard Greenbury, who split his joint role as chairman and chief executive, was the highest paid director with salary and benefits of pounds 810,000 for the year to the end of March.This was down on the previous year’s pounds 969,000. In his new role as non- executive chairman, Sir Richard’s pay will fall to pounds 450,000.The annual report also details the compensation paid to three other directors who were eased out as a result of a wide-ranging shake-up introduced by Mr Salsbury. Derek Hayes was paid a package worth pounds 589,000, Chris Littmoden pounds 420,000 and John Sacher pounds 106,000.As part of a plan to reduce costs and increase accountability, the remaining directors at M&S have all had their pay frozen at last year’s levels.A spokeswoman said: “The board are very aware that we are going through a difficult period. They have not had a bonus and are not getting any increase in salary.”In the report Sir Richard Greenbury warned that trading would continue to che challenging for the rest of the year Mr Salsbury said recovery would take time. “Shares may not regain their recent value within the next year.”. DAILY MAIL & General Trust has had trouble attracting advertisers to Metro, its free daily newspaper launched in mid-March for London Underground commuters, the national and regional newspaper publisher admitted yesterday. Daily Mail has earmarked pounds 10m to spend on Metro for its first six-and- a-half months of publication.

Peter Williams, finance director, conceded that Metro’s advertising revenue has developed “fairly slowly” amid scepticism among media buyers.
“We have no detailed readership survey, but we’re going to build that up,” he said. Metro is distributing 300,000 copies daily but expects to give away 350,000 by month end. Just prior to launch, Metro’s original editor was replaced in a bid to make the paper more like a national newspaper – its prime competitors in the London market.The company warned yesterday that year to September pre-tax profit growth would lag first-half gains due to Metro’s losses and the costs of developing on-line and broadcast ventures – estimated at pounds 30m.At the interim stage, Daily Mail reported underlying pre-tax profit rose 19 per cent to pounds 86.2m as turnover gained 14.7 per cent to pounds 754.1m. The shares closed down 1.8 per cent at 3,407p.The publishing group is also launching an Internet portal site in September called CharlotteStreet to target female surfers of the Web.Circulations for the six months from the year earlier period rose 4.1 per cent to 2.35 million copies per day at the Daily Mail and 5.2 per cent to 2.33 million at the Mail on Sunday.

Evening Standard sales were unchanged at 450,000 despite a 5p cover price increase to 35p in October.Total ad revenue for the three titles grew 9 per cent in the half from a year earlier. Total revenue at Northcliffe Newspapers, the group’s regional newspaper arm, grew 1 per cent.. THE MUSIC group, EMI, yesterday unveiled a key plank in its strategy to build an Internet presence by acquiring a 50 per cent equity interest in musicmaker , a private US Internet supplier of compilation music, writes Bill McIntosh. EMI’s purchase coincides with plans for musicmaker to seek a US listing by month-end that is expected to value the company at over $200m (pounds 123m). A planned May float of the online company was pulled in order to do the deal with EMI.
EMI, whose artists include the Rolling Stones and Janet Jackson, said there was no cash element to the deal, but it will supply music from its back catalogue and current repertoire under an exclusive five-year licensing agreement.”This is really expanding the way consumers enjoy music as well as creating tremendous new revenue streams,” said Jay Samit, senior vice-president of new media at EMI Recorded Music.

Musicmaker has over 100 other licence agreements with music rights holders and a current catalogue of 150,000 songs for compilation.How much EMI will add to that depends on how many of the UK company’s artists agree to release material for musicmaker ’s compilations. “This is the first deal of its kind where we’re selling music on a song- by-song basis where we have participation with a major music label on an exclusive basis,” said Bob Bernardi, chairman on the online firm.Consumers will pay from $9.95 to $24.95 depending on the number of tracks for custom-compiled CDs.. SHARES IN Eidos, the computer games publisher famous for Tomb Raider, crashed 9 per cent yesterday when the group revealed that a key game planned for release in June was delayed by a month, writes Andrew Verity. The group told analysts that it had been forced to delay the release of Soul Reaver, part of the popular Legacy of Cain series of games for the Sony Playstation, from June to July.
The news coincided with an announcement that the company’s founder and non-executive chairman, Stephen Streater, had resigned with immediate effect.Eidos emphasised that Mr Streater had founded Eidos in 1990 as a 10-man company exploring video compression technology. It was only five years later that Charles Cornwall, the chief executive, bought two games companies and forged Eidos’ new identity.The shares, which on Wednesday were included for the first time in the FTSE 250 index of mid-cap companies, have trebled in price since October.

In the dearth of understanding of the mechanisms of the mind and the brain, and the effects of their diseases, we still tackle their mysteries by aping early man: invoking divine intervention or taking shelter in simplistic dogmas.Popular books sustaining such myths overflow from the shelves We live in a very credulous world. Any right-minded alien visiting us would wonder whether there is intelligent life on earth. As with most domains of human knowledge, the various disciplines loosely lumped together as neurosciences are not exempt from personal beliefs, prejudices, faith, hopes, hunches, and ultimately myths.The neuroscience and psychology literature is the principal myth-maker. Nevertheless, the scientific tradition has embedded rules which decrease the chance of blunders existing for very long. The acceptance of these rules in accruing knowledge marks the difference between science and beliefs, between what we do know about the mind and the brain and what we think we know about them. Perhaps more important, accepting these rules allows us to admit what we do not yet know.Understanding how the brain functions through the methods of science can be a creative endeavour; unsubstantiated beliefs are tedious.Sergio Della Sala is the editor of `Mind Myths: exploring popular assumptions about the mind and the brain’ (Wiley, pounds 19.99).

11 June 1999 Regina v Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and Regions, ex parte Bath and North East Somerset District Council

Court of Appeal (Lord Justice Roch, Lord Justice Otton and Lord Justice Pill) 26 May 1999
THE SECRETARY of State for the Environment, Transport and Regions had jurisdiction to hear an appeal against the failure of a local planning authority to determine an application for planning permission or for listed building consent within the necessary time period, notwithstanding that the local authority had determined that the application was invalid.The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal of Bath and North East Somerset District Council against the dismissal of its application for judicial review of the decision of the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and Regions to hold a public inquiry into the council’s failure to determine certain applications for planning and listed building consents.The council was the local planning authority for the City of Bath, which was a Unesco-designated World Heritage Site containing a 1,915 hectare conservation area and about 5,000 listed buildings.Applications for planning and listed building consents were made to the council by Ski Enterprises (UK) Ltd (“the company”) which involved internal and external alterations to a listed building and a material change of use. Considerable detail, by way of narrative and drawings, was supplied to the council in support of the proposal.The council wrote to the company stating that the documents which had been submitted were not adequate to enable them to consider the proposal, and that the applications could not be accepted or processed further until additional detailed information was provided. The company declined to provide the detail requested on the ground that until they knew whether the change of use was acceptable in principle, the detail could not sensibly be provided.The council then told the company that the applications had not been registered and would not be processed further until receipt of the details requested. The company appealed to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and Regions, pursuant to section 78 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and section 20 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, on the ground that the appellants had failed, within the appropriate period, to determine the applications.The Secretary of State fixed the time and date of an inquiry into the appeals.

The council applied by way of judicial review for an order prohibiting the Secretary of State from holding a public inquiry, on the ground that he had no jurisdiction to hear the appeals as the council had decided that the applications on which they were based were invalid, and it was the sole arbiter as to whether sufficient detail had been included with the applications.Meyric Lewis (Sharpe Pritchard) for the council; Alice Robinson (Treasury Solicitor) for the Secretary of State.Lord Justice Pill said that in the light of Geall v Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and Regions (unreported, 11 December 1998), and upon a purposive construction of the statutes and a consideration of the statutory scheme as a whole, a right of appeal under section 78 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and section 20 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 arose even when the local planning authority had formed the view that the application which was the subject of the appeal was invalid.The words “which the local authority considers to be valid” should not be read into section 78 or section 20 to govern the word “application”. A determination of invalidity by the local authority did not exclude the right of appeal to the Secretary of State on the question of validity.The applications in the present case accordingly remained applications for the purpose of triggering the operation of the appeal provisions in the legislation notwithstanding the view of the council that the applications were invalid.. “TODAY I had a slapping walk.” One might think this a Bright Young Thing’s remark, not that of the cerebral poet Wallace Stevens when writing to his wife in 1912. The OED omits its survival in America this century, but notes the two 19th-century usages: large and fast. In each case, this refers to both men and horses, as does spanking, which goes back to the 17th century, possibly from spanke, Danish for strut.

Whether Stevens’s walk from Manhattan was long, brisk, or both, he enjoyed it, and thought of the poet Comtesse Mathieu de Noailles’ phrase: “J’ai le gout de l’azur”, although, eight years earlier, Stevens wrote, “God! What a thing blue is! It is one of the few things left that bring tears to my eyes (or almost) It pulls at the heart.”. EVEN BEFORE kick-off in Sofia on Wednesday night there were indications that it would not be all right on the night, notably the sight of Gareth Southgate, in full England kit, queuing for the public toilets, the dressing- room facilities being too grim for words. The same may apply to England’s fate come the autumn though, doubtless, the headline writers will find the words. The pall of despondency which fell over England at the final whistle will not have been improved upon being met on their return by headlines such as “Hopeless”, “On their knees”, “Second-raters” and “A load of Bul”.
It was a harsh reaction to what, in ordinary circumstances, would be regarded as a decent result, but it matched the mood of the team and coaching staff.

BANKS AND building societies yesterday resisted pressure to cut mortgage interest rates by the full quarter point announced by the Bank of England’s Money Policy Committee. The Halifax said it would not drop its headline standard variable rate from 6.85 per cent, declining to comment on its plans for savings rates. Nationwide made no cut, saying only that it was reviewing its rates.
Abbey National dropped its standard variable rate mortgage by 0.1 per cent to 6.85 per cent from 1 July, promising that savings rates would not fall further than this.It is the second time in a row that most lenders have declined to pass on the Bank of England’s cut, depriving the average borrower of pounds 25 a month.However, a string of recently launched “direct” mortgage banks did follow the Bank’s cut. Norwich Union’s tracker mortgage, which promises to follow base rate cuts, dropped from 6.1 to 5.85 per cent Virgin Direct cut its rate by 0.25 points to 6.2 per cent. And Standard Life Bank cut its rate by 0.17 points to 5.88 per cent.Consumer groups and housing market experts said most banks were defending their profits at the expense of their customers.Mick McAteer, senior policy officer at the Consumers’ Association, said: “There is always this sting in the tail in interest rates and it highlights the need for a vibrant building society sector. The listed banks simply have to maintain their margins to keep their shareholders happy.”John Wrigglesworth, a housing market expert, warned that lenders would suffer a drop in income even if they kept mortgage and savings rates the same. The lower base rate meant they made less interest on their reserves.”Lenders are caught between the rock of bad publicity and the hard place of reduced income.

What I fear is that some banks may try to make up the loss by introducing fees and charges on their accounts,” Mr Wrigglesworth said.A spokesman for Abbey National insisted that the full cut could not be passed on because savings rates had to be maintained.”Deposit rates are getting to the point where you might as well stash your savings under the mattress,” the spokesman said.. AIRTOURS has vowed to press on with its attempt to persuade the European regulators to clear its pounds 852m bid for rival First Choice Holidays, even though it confirmed yesterday it would allow its bid to lapse. Airtours said it was still confident its deal would be cleared after the four-month investigation by Brussels, and that it would then be able to rebid.
However, it decided to lapse its bid as it had been unable to satisfy the European Commission that the takeover would not lead to an oligopoly in the UK package holiday market that could work against the public interest.Under Takeover Panel rules, Airtours is prevented from bidding for First Choice again within 12 months. But Airtours is hoping the Panel will consent to a change enabling Airtours to come back with another offer when the EU investigation is completed in October.In the meantime, First Choice has 21 days to persuade shareholders to support its preferred option of a pounds 1.5bn merger with Kuoni. Airtours said yesterday it had no intention of bidding for the combined Kuoni-First Choice if the merger goes through.One institutional shareholder in First Choice said: “We will do nothing until the Takeover Panel decision. We always said the Kuoni deal was fine, but the Airtours offer was better.” First Choice shares fell 24p to 181p, below the 188p value implied by the merger with Kuoni. Airtours shares dipped 2p to 517p.Mr Crossland expressed disappointment at the prospect of missing out on First Choice for a second time after failing with a bid in 1993 But he added: “This is a deal I would have liked to do.

It expresses itself.”
In fact, there is every indication that Mr Jospin, and the French left generally, were upset by the timing of the declaration, just before the European elections. They are also alarmed, and a little puzzled, by the implication that the new German government feels more comfortable ideologically with Blairism than Jospinism.Mr Jospin’s right-of-centre domestic opponents have been making hay with the Blair-Schroder doctrine, claiming that it proves their thesis that French socialism is stuck in the age of tax-and-spend dinosaurs.Members of Mr Jospin’s pink-green-red coalition have condemned the British and German leaders. Dominique Voynet, leader of the French Greens, said it was a “stab in the back”. Both countries had signed up to a common, socialist platform for the European elections, which made no mention of the “third way”, she said They had no right to “betray” Mr Jospin at this time. The Communist leader, Robert Hue, also said the statement was a “serious blow” to the French Prime Minister.The French socialists insist that the scarcely veiled Anglo-German criticism could be put to electoral advantage. In the European Parliament campaign, they have been attacked by the Greens, Communists and ultra-left as being too “liberal”: it was useful to be accused of being too far to the left.Mr Jospin was more direct in a campaign speech on Wednesday night “Third way or new centre?” he asked.

“No! I prefer to follow our path, the path of the modern left .. of growth, social progress and modernity.”. FORMER PRESIDENT Ronald Reagan’s vision of a national missile defence system that could knock enemy missiles out of the sky came a stage closer yesterday after the US military successfully tested a crucial part of the “star wars” technology. The Pentagon said that the Ballistic Missile Defence Organisation and the US army had conducted a “successful intercept with a target by the Theater High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile” at the White Sands missile range in New Mexico.
In other words, it had successfully used a missile to destroy another missile, a technological capability crucial to a missile defence system.The successful test was the 10th of a 13-test series and followed six attempts in which the missile missed its target. This record prompted President Bill Clinton to order the military to review the multi-billion- dollar programme only last month.In the latest test, conducted at dawn yesterday, a Hera test rocket was intercepted in flight by another missile over the White Sands range. If the technology becomes reliable, the US will be able to destroy scud ballistic missiles such as those fired by Iraq during the Gulf War before they reach their intended targets.Earlier this year, President Clinton bowed to pressure from the Republican- controlled Congress to proceed with the missile defence programme, and committed more than $6bn (pounds 3.75bn) to a national missile defence programme. But thetest failures raised questions about the reliability of the system being developed by Lockheed Martin for the US Army.The last failed test, on 29 March, made the company liable to forfeit $15m under the terms of its Pentagon contract.. FOOTPRINTS RECORDING a boyish prank or dare performed more than 25,000 years ago have been discovered by scientists in an underground cavern in southern France.

If you look at India or South Africa, the multiplicity of languages is preserved by having an international alternative language.”Should we remember what happened to Irish and Welsh, and treat this with scepticism? Or should we learn to stop worrying and love World English?Oddly enough, Dr Strangelove provides an insight into the current success of World English. After the end of the Cold War, the machinery by which English was promulgated for propaganda reasons began to run down The Voice of America mellowed, losing its lunatic edge. In turn, the forbidding radio stations of the East faded into silence. The excitingly stern announcer of Radio Tirana stopped telling the world in boastful phonetic English that the number of Albanians in higher education had risen to 1 per cent. And at the moment this battle ended, the new democracies of Eastern Europe embraced the English language with a voracious, goggle-eyed enthusiasm.As a beneficiary of this process, this is an issue upon which I find it difficult to take a detached stance. In 1990, without a single reference or teaching qualification, I managed to get a summers’ employment in a language school in Poznan, in north-west Poland. My pupils were the children of new capitalists, kids whose parents sent them to be schooled in the only commercial language that mattered.

In one class I taught the son of Poland’s largest lingerie manufacturer, placed there in the hope that he would, one day, be able to broker those girdle deals in perfect RP. In another, there was the son of a crisp magnate, whose completely inedible product – like hyperinflated Cheesey Wotsits without the cheese flavouring – would only gain a foothold in foreign markets if young Boleslaw (or whoever) could be trained to produce nibble hard-talk in the language of Shakespeare and Milton. This ethos was everywhere.As capitalism spread through Eastern Europe, World English continued to grow, boosted by the Anglophone nature of the Internet. Business conducted in the English language began to produce $7,815bn annually The number of people learning English topped a billion. So for Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates and me, the good times rolled. When I was doing postgraduate study at university, I supplemented my British Academy funding with two World English-related jobs.

The first involved teaching English to the children of Russian mafiosi in a wood-panelled crammer college. The second found me compiling articles for the Encarta CD-Rom Encyclopaedia. I did Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, WB Yeats, Dylan Thomas, DH Lawrence, HG Wells, and a handful of others. Without World English, Microsoft and the odd Muscovite Mr Big, I wouldn’t have got through college.According to the Encarta World English Dictionary, World English is “the English language in all its varieties as it is spoken and written over the world” The nearest comparison comes from the Ancient World. During the period of the Roman Empire, Latin was the language of administration, government, literature and scholarship in Europe, Asia and Africa.

She stopped at a photograph of Albert Einstein with an inscription, and spoke with admiration of this wonderful man n. Kos or Kusadasi

Lunn Poly has seven nights in Kos on a room-only basis for pounds 265 per person based on two people sharing, departing Manchester on 7 August, and 14 nights in Kusadasi in Turkey for pounds 389 per person in the 3D-rated Barbados Apartments The flight departs Newcastle, 7 August. Available from 800 UK Lunn Poly shops.
DubaiFlightbookers (0171-757 2444) is offering five nights in Dubai for pounds 359 per person up to 14 August staying in a four-star resort.TunisiaAn offer from Panorama (01273 427777) which caught our eye is seven nights in Tunisia at the Hotel Cleopatra in Hammam-Sousse for pounds 359 per person half-board departing Birmingham on 8 August.The DordogneAnd if you fancy something a little different, Travelbag Adventures (01420 541007) has an eight-day “Dordogne a Pied” walking holiday for pounds 495 per person leaving on 7 August. Including return train travel from London, local transport (when not on foot), seven nights’ accommodation, some meals and a tour leader, the trip explores the pilgrimage town of Rocamadour and medieval Martel.IsraelImaginative Traveller (0181-742 8612) has reduced its eight-day “Israel Connection” tour starting on 11 August by pounds 70 to pounds 665 per person. The price includes return flights to Cairo on KLM from Heathrow (and regional UK airports), transport, seven nights’ accommodation, meals and a guide. Highlights include a walking tour of Jerusalem’s Old City, Nazareth, the port of Akko, and the Dead Sea.The eclipseIf you haven’t made plans for the eclipse yet, Voyages of Discovery (01293 433030) has slashed prices on its 11-night Eclipse Cruise to pounds 695 per person (originally pounds 1,740-pounds 1,970).

Leaving on 7 August, you’ll view the eclipse off the coast of Le Havre.All details and offers correct at time of going to press.. THE GREATEST moment of your life is either a dozen days or five months away, according to which camp in the travel industry you believe (personally, I would side with neither; an industry whose business is selling dreams is not one in which unswerving faith is likely to be rewarded). Depending on your circumstances, you may have thought that an event such as getting married, surviving a Cabinet reshuffle or your team winning the treble was of supreme significance. But the travel trade would like to persuade you otherwise.
The 12-day wonders think you should travel somewhere to observe the last total eclipse of the millennium, which takes place on 11 August.

I have been fortunate enough to witness a total eclipse, in India, and can confirm that to witness the light draining from a cloudless sky is a truly, er, cosmic experience worth travelling a long way to see.The significant word there is “cloudless”. There is still time to make plans for being in Romania, Turkey or Iran on 11 August. These are locations on the path of totality where the weather is likely to be fine enough for you to see the hole in the sky.Most of us, though, will stay closer to home, in the far south west of England or northern France. (Page 11 of next week’s travel section will preview the French options.) But do not be taken in by Ealing Council’s promotion: “Total Eclipse of the Park, a unique event to celebrate the solar eclipse from one of the most beautiful vantage points in London”. There will be no total eclipse in London, or anywhere in the UK apart from south-west Cornwall, south Devon and Alderney.Wherever you are on the day, if there should happen to be a break in the clouds, do not look directly at the sun. The eclipse glasses that are being sold for spectators along the line of totality are even more essential for people in the rest of Britain, who will be able to witness a partial eclipse (about as much fun, I imagine, as only partially surviving a Cabinet reshuffle). Deep in the retina there are no pain receptors to give an early warning, and infrared rays from the sun can cause permanent eye damage.

Says Anne: “We like musicals and concerts, we don’t normally go in for serious drama.” John says: “That goes for me too.”Emma Barnsley (19) and her sister Caroline (18)Emma has come from Lytham, near Blackpool, with her family to receive her Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award. They’re still arguing whether to see West Side Story or Starlight Express “We’ve been to musicals quite a few times,” says Emma “Phantom was my favourite. It was so dramatic.”Phil Owen (34)Phil is a chartered surveyor who works nearby and goes to the theatre in London about once every two months The last play he saw was Art. Today, he’s trying to get tickets for David Hare’s Plenty, starring Cate Blanchett. “It’s the last week of the play, so that’s why I’m here,” he says n. hen architect Frank Gehry hits town, the place is never the same again Not only does the skyline change.

Fame and fortune follow in his slipstream, even in nowheresville Take Weil-am-Rhein near the Swiss border in Germany. His chair museum next to the Vitra chair factory pulls four architectural tour parties every day, 10 years after it opened. Or Bilbao, where Gehry turned a down-at-heel town into an international destination. More curvaceous than a supermodel and taking as many photocalls, the Guggenheim, sculpted in tensile titanium, made Frank Gehry a household name, even in Britain where we have been slow to recognise his pulling power. Not for want of trying, on Gehry’s part – he is still grouchy about losing the commission to design a millennium bridge over the Thames to Norman Foster, and the new Tate Gallery at Bankside to the Swiss duo of Herzog & de Meuron. Now the architect who can command silly money for his signature on a building has waived his fees to design his first in Britain, a small, low-budget cancer care centre in Dundee, in honour of his friend, Maggie Keswick Jencks, who died of cancer in 1996.

The first Maggie’s Centre cancer care unit, by architect Richard Murphy, opened in Edinburgh in 1997, inspired by her vision of better quality care and support for patients and their families as they dealt with the disease. Neither hospice nor hospital, these centres are designed to complement orthodox treatments – symbolised in Dundee by a Gehry bridge over a man-made lake, linking the Maggie’s Centre to Ninewells Hospital.
At the Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre (also designed by Murphy), sketches and models of the cancer centre are on show, along with profiles of other Gehry landmarks. Gehry’s first sketches for his buildings are deceptively like doodles. He then likes to flesh out his ideas with building blocks – the legacy of a childhood spent playing with them on his grandmother’s verandah in Toronto. Sketches become piles of blocks which are stacked, skewed, split and coloured on tracing-paper sites. Then his studio assembles models, which constantly change size, in paper and cellophane, or in spiralling balsa wood These models are tools, not iconic objects Finally they are transferred to a computer. Bits of chain-mail, perforated wire mesh and titanium lying about the exhibition illustrate Gehry’s fascination with finding the right membrane to contain his genius.’Frank O Gehry: The Architect’s Studio’ is at the Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre, 152 Nethergate, Dundee, until 29 AugustMaggie’s Centre, DundeeThe Maggie’s Cancer Care Centre in Dundee will be built next year.