The Week

Diary

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody | 23 September 2006

Monday Look, this thing with the tree isn’t funny. It’s deadly serious. Jed has found out from the ad agency where they got the template and it’s not good news. Terrible showdown with little guy in red specs who looked just like Lord Saatchi’s mini-me. Personally I don’t see it makes much difference that our

Diary – 23 September 2006

Talk about from the ridiculously sublime to the sublimely ridiculous. My fiancée and I have just been staying at the incomparable 13th-century Château de Bagnols near Lyons. Spectacular panoramic views of the Beaujolais countryside; a Michelin-starred restaurant; Olga Polizzi’s taste (our room had a Louis XIII bed); pure perfection in hospitality. Then straight on to Center Parcs

Ancient and modern

Ancient & Modern | 23 September 2006

A group of gangsters’ molls in Pereira, which evidently has the highest murder rate in Colombia, has decided to withhold sex from their boyfriends until they give up their guns. Inevitably they have been likened to the women in Aristophanes’ comedy Lysistrata (staged in Athens in February 411 bc) whose purpose was to persuade their men

More from The Week

Mr Blair’s last bow

In Manchester on Tuesday, Tony Blair will deliver his 13th and final speech as Labour leader to the party’s conference. Over the years, his addresses to the rank and file have been a reliable source of slogans and soundbites that have entered the political bloodstream: ‘Labour’s coming home’ (1996); ‘a thousand days to prepare for

Letters

Letters to the Editor | 23 September 2006

Bill’s legacyFrom John O’ByrneSir: Toby Harnden (‘Clinton: Tony and Gordon just have to work this out’, 16 September) states that the former president ‘feels he was cheated of the chance to prove himself while president; so he is anxious to cement his legacy’. What legacy? Bill Clinton is among the most overrated presidents ever. In