Yet, while overall momentum was often masterly, some stretches, and important individual moments, lay a little inert.By contrast, the middle act was altogether sensually alive: Klingsor’s glinting evil, the languorous then sparkling seductions of the girls, then Kundry’s deeper insinuations, were intense and passionate; as the contretemps mounted to violent confrontation, Rattle’s mixture of coherence [...]

Her son Winston Churchill, Tory MP for Davyhulme, was at her side when she died; she is expected to be buried alongside her husband, Averell Harriman, at his estate in New York, after a memorial service in Paris and an official funeral in Washington probably next week.
President Bill Clinton, the last political protege of a [...]

Small businesses like hers have the most to gain, she believes, because it helps them to expand without having to borrow.”There is no way I could have bought all my new equipment, computers and plain paper fax, and update all my computers, in a cash-only world,” says Ms Streamer. “It has also allowed me to [...]

The first is by making additional voluntary contributions (AVCs) to your company’s own pension. In effect, you are allowed to increase your contribution to 15 per cent of your income. There is full tax relief at the marginal rate on contributions and they can include shift allowances and overtime pay, which can be useful if [...]

“I believed we’d either crack the discipline issue within two or three weeks or we’d end up with egg on our face. I knew the staff would be wanting to co-operate and that, deep down, the kids would want to.”His approach has not been heavy-handed. “You don’t want to totally constrain them, but they like [...]

He wouldn’t say boo to a goose, he was such a quiet fellow and seemed so reserved. It’s a terrible tragedy.”Christine Reeve, who used to do the same Avon round as the injured mother, said she had delivered goods to the Stuchbery family. “He was one of my customers, his wife bought deodorants and things [...]

Obviously, we’d like him to step into the car and be on the pace straight away, but he’s not and it’s something he’s got to work out. I could hardly imagine that he believes that was a particularly great performance.”This time last year, both Williams drivers were the class of the field. Now McLaren- Mercedes [...]

The game of rugby now finds itself in a strange position. On the one hand, the laws themselves remain as complicated as they ever were, in some respects more so. But, on the other hand, players, administrators and referees are all in their different ways trying to make the game more flowing, more watchable, more [...]

Just think of how the decisions that will bear down most immediately on an incoming Labour government will be less about changing Britain than responding to an external and fast-moving set of circumstances over which they have only limited control, with which any party in power would have to deal, and of which no potential [...]

The Government is always careful to exclude unidentifiable public expenditure from its statistics, which invariably favours England. The statistics which Michael Forsyth and the Government use (and abuse) conceal as much as they reveal.LINDA MACNISHForres, Moray. Wedded bliss
Sir: Petronella Wyatt (“Marriage? No, I’d rather live”, 28 March) lists among her reasons for wishing [...]