“Then I shot him”

GOOD EVENING. Reports are just coming in that a number of hostages are being held at a house in Cricklewood. At this moment in time, it is not quite clear who is holding them or why, nor have the police as yet been able to identify the hostages themselves. However, Trevor McDonald is down there now and will attempt to bring us up to date on the situation. Trevor?

He left the Leverhume Collection at The Royal Academy MAHOOD wondered,that if paintings could sell soap, what could they do for Government policies

I HAVEN'T seen the Spotlight Casting Directory for some years. Cali it some decades. Does it still have those beautiful Rupert Brooke profiles. smooth young throats framed in swept-back Byronic collars, which kindled my suggestible heart to an actor's career that came, as it happened, to nothing? Probably not. These are grittier times. Acne and sweatshirts are more likely to be today's hallmark of juvenile talent, judging from the close-up' in the corner of my viewing room. If it's regular features and good shirts you're after, watch the snooker.

IF ONLY four minutes are left. there may not be time to consult architect, consult building society, obtam planning permission, hire builder, sack builder. hire another builder, consult building society and pay money into bank. By then, your desirable residential area may have been compulsorily purchased by a twenty megaton bomb in order to make way for a glowing crater in the rubble-without so much as a whisper of planning permission.

TO anyone who remembers Berlin in the late 1930s the present free-world carve- up never fails to shock. You used to be able to walk along the Unter den Linden and through the Brandenburg Gate with your head down to give a sort of protection against the easterlies thar came at you like jumbo razor-blades, having had nothing to check them since crossing the Urals.