For those of a certain age, the name M V O’Brien adjacent to that of a horse in a racecard provoked a frisson similar to that experienced by a prestige-car enthusiast eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new Bentley

Never vast numbers of them at any time. But the name said it all, and with the likes of Nijinsky, Sir Ivor, Roberto, The Minstrel and the rest, all synonymous with excellence – that particular quartet all partnered by his long-standing “equerry”, Lester Piggott – the son of Cork created a legacy bequeathed to his namesake, Aidan. Though he is no blood relation, he surely emerged from a similar gene pool as the man acknowledged as “The Boss” or simply “MV”.
The War in Europe still raged when Michael Vincent O’Brien embarked upon a training career. By the time he retired, in 1994, the first Iraq war was over. It is a measure of the durability of a man who retired 11 years ago that a fascination with ?te bloodstock still resides within him. In the intervening years, O’Brien propelled himself to immortality; first over jumps, Cottage Rake claiming a sequence of three Cheltenham Gold Cup triumphs, followed by a trio of Grand National victories; then transferring his genius primarily to the Flat.In a recent table of the 35 best stallions worldwide, he had trained no fewer than nine: Nijinsky, Sadler’s Wells, Southern Halo, Caerleon, Alleged, Sir Ivor, Roberto, Royal Academy, and Bluebird.His wife Jacqueline has supported him since their marriage in 1951, and as a renowned photographer, she has focused on him and his operation with her Rolleiflexes and Nikons.

Her studies of subjects, both equine and landscape, are renowned.Her soon-to-be launched biography* of O’Brien is testament to a trainer the like of whom we will not witness again. Who but O’Brien, then 73 and in the twilight of his career, would have inveigled Piggott, a 54-year-old grandfather, out of retirement to partner Royal Academy – a horse he had captured for $3.5 million in one sensational bidding bout at Keeneland – to win the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Mile?”It is probably my most abiding memory of all,” Jacqueline admits “Vincent only had a few horses in training by then He had flu and couldn’t go himself. So I went, with my son Charles [O'Brien's then assistant trainer]. Vincent had got Lester to ride, which everyone said was crazy. It was like a miracle.”Only marginally less emotional was the victory of College Chapel who won at Royal Ascot when O’Brien was about to retire “He led the horse in Before that, he’d only led in Nijinsky [of the Flat horses].

The crowd that day burst the sound barrier.”Today, O’Brien spends most of his time in and around their home near Dublin. They spend the winter at Jacqueline’s birthplace in Perth, Australia. He is now “rising 89″, but from his standpoint of godfather of what has become a blue blood empire – his son-in-law, John Magnier, married to daughter Sue, is the guiding force of the Coolmore stud – he can survey the extended family’s fortunes O’Brien still has horses in training with Charles. Magnier’s daughter, Katie, is married to the bright young trainer David Wachman.”He’s in great spirits,” says Jacqueline of her husband. “Though walking is a bit difficult these days.” O’Brien has always been a reluctant self-publicist, and that inclination has not been altered by retirement.

It specifically entailed recovering from a first-innings deficit of 155, which had been extended to 221 by the premature close. They have not got where they are without producing a cricketing trick or two, but playing for this world is one thing, playing out of it another.
For almost all of the first two days this Test went pretty much the way of the three one-day matches between the sides last week; that is, Australia all the way. The proposal to call the whole package a Super Series is looking as wise as Frank Zappa’s decision to name his daughter Moon Unit and his son Dweezil.Nor is that the extent of the misguided names around. The International Cricket Council mandarins must be cringing at the repeated below-par displays of the team bearing their brand. Why did nobody call them Upper Clogthorpe Thirds and be done with it?It is easy to be smart after the event, and one of the objectives of the ICC in arranging these matches was to make money for their members and associates.

In principle that is wholly admirable, also fulfilling as it does the understandable cravings of the television paymasters who sustain the game.But the desperation to give the matches an official credence they did not quite deserve (or need) was quickly apparent. The ICC chief executives’ committee twice asked their board to make the matches full internationals, so they could be quasi-competitive and enter the records.On the first occasion they were rebuffed, but there was another request after the Tsunami Relief match had been granted official status. That had been an entirely understandable reaction to the tragedy, and thus was a can of worms opened. There will be no end to it now.It seemed rum that the ICC should invoke past clashes involving World teams to boost this series (“Cricket enjoys a welcome tradition of composite teams,” they said in the initial announcement). Yet they have steadfastly refused to grant them official status in retrospect when games – in England in 1970 and in Australia in 1971-72 – consisted of proper five-match series in which the World XI clearly had time to blend as a team.

Jewell knows his team face Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United before Christmas. “It’s going to be a long, hard winter,” warned the September manager of the month. Souness, meanwhile, attributed an insipid first half from his men in part to international exertions He maintained that they improved after Emre appeared. Perhaps, but the difference was marginal.Athletic don’t score many but are so resolute at the rear they don’t concede many either.

Just five all season, and their inspired summer acquisitions, St?ane Henchoz and De Zeeuw, are primarily responsible for that.Wigan’s afternoon was tainted only by the dismissal of Lee McCulloch in the closing minutes for kicking out at Emre. His manager was rather more concerned about Henri Camara’s reaction after being substituted late on. Evidently displeased, the Senegal player went to walk straight down the tunnel, but Jewell summoned him back “He showed disrespect to his team-mates. I’m disappointed with him,” said Jewell.When these clubs last met 51 years ago, at Springfield Park, Dave Whelan was playing the trombone for Wigan Boys’ Club in the pre-match entertainment.

These days, the Wigan chairman can contentedly trumpet his club’s arrival in the Premiership. How long, though, before his counterpart, Freddy Shepherd, whose team have accumulated just two League victories this season, blows the whistle on Souness?. Were you watching, Sepp Blatter? Not bad for a team who “know they will lose”, don’t you think? But it was not just the Fifa president who was left red-faced after his claim that “an Albion official” had told him that Bryan Robson fields weaker XIs against those such as Arsenal was answered with a stunning riposte. Ars? Wenger was positively puce after young Darren Carter fanfared a courageous comeback with a glorious strike that consigned Arsenal to their third defeat of the season and lifted West Brom from the bottom three.
The visitors might well have been depleted but there were long patches when they hinted at the champions of old and only an inspired Chris Kirkland could be any sort of match for them.No Thierry Henry, Sol Campbell, Ashley Cole, Alexander Hleb or Robin van Persie; this lot were, in hindsight, there for the taking. Nevertheless, with an attack boasting Dennis Bergkamp and Jose Antonio Reyes, not to mention nine other internationals, when the ball began to ping around The Hawthorns like lines on a training chart, it seemed that Philippe Senderos’s opener – walloping in Reyes’s inswinging corner on 17 minutes – would be the mere start of it.And, in truth, when West Brom equalised in the 38th minute, Arsenal should have been three or even four clear.

That they were not owed so much to Kirkland as well as to the right flank providing an outlet for their own forays.It was from there that Martin Albrechtsen took Jonathan Greening’s lead to deliver a crisp cross that Senderos could only ricochet into the middle of the area. Awaiting was Arsenal old boy Kanu swinging that maverick right boot to find Jens Lehmann’s right-hand corner. Still in it; ambition very much alive.Their light seemed to be flickering, however, when Kolo Tour?craped paint in the 55th minute and again when Kirkland dispossessed Bergkamp in the six-yard box. On this form Kirkland could dispossess the Artful Dodger in a phone box. If the England 24-year-old’s gathering of Reyes’s free-kick was elegant then his save off Mathieu Flamini’s right-foot fizzer in the 66th minute was a thing of beauty.Still, it was nothing compared to the veritable Miss World lying in Carter’s vanity box. The £1.5m summer signing from Birmingham said he had plenty to prove and, after coming on in the 68th minute, how he proved it.

This result widens the gap between his side and the leaders, Sheffield United, to a daunting 14 points. What’s more, there is no sign that Neil Warnock’s team are about to take their foot off the accelerator after a beginning to the campaign in which they have an unblemished home record of seven wins from seven games and 11 from 13 overall.
Wolves had been determined not to allow the home side to dictate terms, presenting the division’s most attacking side with a defensive challenge by fielding three strikers of their own. But it was United who found the decisive edge.The crucial moment came after 16 minutes, when a moment of poor communication between Wolves defender Joleon Lescott and goalkeeper Michael Oakes handed United a free corner. David Unsworth, whose cross had been headed behind by Lescott, practically out of Oakes’s hands, delivered a deep corner from the right, Chris Morgan headed back across goal and Neil Shipperley nodded the ball in from close range.Wolves might have levelled matters, Unsworth surviving a penalty appeal after bringing down Carl Cort. Later, Rob Kozluk’s intercepting header stopped Cort getting to a Seol Ki-Hyeon cross with Paddy Kenny stranded. But, at the other end, Steve Kabba’s screwed-back shot beat Oakes only to hit a post.The threat to the Sheffield goal from Wolves was negligible until late in the game.

The second-half deployment of Darren Anderton in a sweeper role gave them a focal point in possession but it was not until Hoddle introduced George Ndah and Mark Davies for the final quarter that the home side came under sustained pressure. Two chances fell to Cort, who volleyed a Davies cross wide and was off target again with a glancing header from Anderton’s free-kick.Hoddle was disappointed but remains optimistic. “Poorly though we played, there was nothing much between the sides and I still feel I have a squad that is capable of winning promotion,” he said. “And I’m certain Neil Warnock will not be looking at the table and thinking it is all over.”. Burnley 1 Leeds Utd 2

Eddie Lewis and Rob Hulse were on target for Leeds as they came from a goal down at Turf Moor to beat Burnley and move up to fourth. The Clarets went ahead on the hour when Ade Akinbiyi was tripped and Garreth O’Connor scored the penalty, his sixth goal of the season.

Eleven minutes later Leeds were level, Lewis bending in a free-kick. Four minutes after that Lewis crossed and Hulse, back from injury, headed the winner. “Rob hasn’t been able to train with us, but he put in a real big shift, culminating with the goal, and I’m delighted with him,” Kevin Blackwell, the Leeds manager, said. But neither manager saw a reported scuffle in the tunnel between the players after the match.
Brighton 1 Cardiff City 2Cardiff substitute Alan Lee had been on the pitch for about 30 seconds when he scored the 74th-minute goal that earned the Bluebirds the 2-1 win and dumped Brighton to the bottom of the table.

Jason Koumas scored the Bluebirds’ first, but Paul McShane appeared to have to earned a point with Brighton’s equaliser. Then came manager David Jones’s inspired substitution.Derby County 2 Stoke City 1A relieved Derby County manager, Phil Brown, saw Inigo Idiakez give his Rams the lead in the first minute of first-half injury time, but the Belgian Carl Hoefkens’ first goal for the Potters levelled Paul Peschisolido scored Derby’s late winner. “After not having won for eight League matches when Paul’s winner went in, it was fair to say I enjoyed it,” Brown said.Norwich City 1 Millwall 1Championship reacclimatisation has not come easily to Norwich, and they were again on the back foot at Carrow Road where fast-improving Millwall went ahead after 22 minutes, Adrian Williams heading home. Dean Ashton made it 1-1 when Andy Marshall missed a cross but despite having Barry Hayles sent off and giving away a penalty, saved by Marshall, the Lions took a point.Coventry City 1 Crystal Palace 4Crystal Palace’s improvement continued when they crushed Coventry Darren Ward started the rout, firing in from 10 yards. Matt Heath levelled in first-half injury time but before the break Clinton Morrison headed Palace back in front. Goals by Ben Watson and Jon Macken completed the rout, City’s Claus Jorgensen was sent off between the two strikes. Palace go up to fifth.Crewe Alexandra 3 Luton Town 1Perhaps third-placed Luton Town thought they had an easy task on their hands at Gresty Road, where Crewe were bottom of the table at the start.

When I was working at Aubergine in Chelsea under Gordon Ramsay, I was one woman among 10 men. Today in my kitchen at the Connaught, I have five women out of 30. I’d like the ratio to be better, but I’m not in favour of positive discrimination. I used to think that my reputation as a rare woman head chef might attract more female applicants for vacancies here, but that doesn’t seem to have happened.I hope my kitchen is a different place from the male-run kitchens where I trained. They were often testosterone-driven environments where no one could admit that they were knackered. I haven’t got much time for the argument that says you need physical stamina to be a top chef and women don’t have it I’ve got just as much as the men. It’s simply that I can admit when I’m done in, while they feel they can’t.

One colleague, who’s still a good friend, used to take pride in telling us after an 18-hour shift that he was still as strong as an ox when we could all see that he was falling asleep on his feet. It was macho nonsense.In my kitchen, it’s fine to say “I’m knackered” after a long day I have tried to make it a more relaxed working environment Some male kitchens can be relaxed. I remember working at the Blue Boar in Cambridge where we were so laid back we’d be drinking B52s at 11 in the morning But that was the exception. In other kitchens there have been plenty of men kicking and screaming and flexing their muscles like rock stars.I don’t believe you bring out the best in people by intimidating them.

New Zealand found the energy to move the ball wide, Roy Asotasi’s lofted pass finding Toopi, who managed to touch down just inside the corner flag, with Jones putting over his seventh goal in seven attempts via the upright.The Kiwis, victors in Australia for the first time since 1991, are now assured of a full house for the return match in Auckland next Friday. They will be without their hooker, Lance Hohaia, who was carried off with a suspected broken leg, but they had shown a spirit that transcended the potential problem of already having a dozen of their better players missing.The Kiwis will also have given the Great Britain coach, Brian Noble, much to think about between now and the meeting of the two sides at Loftus Road on 29 October that opens the British leg of the tournament.. Bradford won the Super League title the hard way at Old Trafford last night, making history by coming through the field to become the first to triumph from third place. This was the day when the Bulls were supposed to run out of steam, but they were the stronger side throughout a gruelling contest and had the players to come up with the crucial contributions.
Leon Pryce, one of the men playing his final match for the club, scored their first try and won the Harry Sunderland Trophy as man of the match for a performance that threatened Leeds from start to finish.”I love Bradford and I can’t put into words what it means to me to finish like this,” said Pryce, who will play his rugby with St Helens next season.Lesley Vainikolo did not get the clear running opportunities he so often thrives on, but he went looking for work and came up with the other Bradford try, while the leadership of Jamie Peacock, a Leeds player next year, helped Bradford hold their defence together.The stability that accompanied the Grand Final preparations of these two old rivals was reflected in both fielding unchanged sides, which meant that two stalwarts, Barrie McDermott and Robbie Paul, started their farewell appearances on the bench.Leeds put themselves under pressure from the start with Willie Poching knocking on from the kick-off.

Brad Meyers crossed the Leeds line without being able to ground the ball.Bradford lost Paul Johnson temporarily when a tackle on Richard Mathers left him feeling groggy, and showed their own nerves when Michael Withers fumbled Kevin Sinfield’s kick to give Leeds a first chance.McDermott was given a thunderous welcome from Leeds’ supporters when he came into the game. His first tackle was not as welcome, laying out his old mate Adrian Morley and allowing Paul Deacon to register the first two points.It was a shortlived lead, because Leeds went to the other end on the back of a Bradford mistake and, on the last tackle, Andrew Dunemann stabbed through a cunningly angled little kick which was seized by Danny McGuire for the night’s first try.Bradford equalised through Deacon when Dunemann knocked the ball out of Ian Henderson’s hands, and then took the lead by exploiting one of the half’s series of unforced errors.This time Ali Lauitiiti spilled the ball under no real pressure and, from that gifted possession, Deacon threw out a searching pass to Pryce, who juggled but recovered to beat the defence for the try.Morley was penalised for raising his forearm to McDermott as their reunion continued and Leeds, uncharacteristically, took the two points through Sinfield’s penalty. It was a fair reflection of a dour first half.Shontayne Hape was denied a try at the start of the second because Vainikolo had impeded Mark Calderwood going for Deacon’s high kick. Leeds were equally disappointed when Withers’ tackle prevented Chev Walker from grounding the ball.There was no denying Vainikolo in the 56th minute, however, Jamie Langley making inroads and the giant wing going over from dummy-half for his 34th try of the season.Two good positions for Leeds broke down through the poor handling that plagued them as the game grew ever more tense. Bradford should have edged further ahead with a penalty after Lauitiiti’s high tackle interrupted a storming run from Morley, but Deacon missed.He also put his side in trouble by kicking straight into touch, but they survived to go up to the Stretford End and see Iestyn Harris put over a drop goal for a precious extra point.Leeds battered away but the cutting edge was missing and their coach, Tony Smith, admitted: “They deserve their win tonight. They were hungrier than us and they took their opportunities.”Leeds: Mathers; Calderwood, Walker, McKenna, Bai; McGuire, Burrow; Bailey, Dunemann, Ward, Ellis, Poching, Sinfield (capt). Substitutes used: McDermott, Lauitiiti, Diskin, Jones-Buchanan.Bradford: Withers; L Pryce, B Harris, Hape, Vainikolo; I Harris, Deacon; Peacock, Henderson, Fielden, Meyers, Johnson, Radford.

Substitutes used: Paul, Vagana, Langley, Morley.Referee: A Klein (London).. If the Powergen Cup has done nothing else it has better prepared the English clubs and the Welsh regions for the rigours of the Heineken Cup. I have heard from teams either side of the border that the physicality and intensity of the Anglo-Welsh clashes so far this season have been, in most cases, greater than they have met in their domestic games.. A cramped room above the Wales team’s indoor training centre in the Vale of Glamorgan is not the best place to evade outsized egos. So it is a relief to slump on a sofa next to Ryan Jones and hear the Ospreys and Wales back- rower say in his good-humoured baritone: “I don’t have a celebrity girlfriend and I’ve always got time for people as long as they’re polite enough.”. Apart from Ulster’s triumph in 1999, when the English clubs boycotted the competition and those who soldiered on were subdued by the hostility of the reception in Belfast, the Heineken Cup has been an Anglo-French affair. Toulouse, who won the first in 1996, collected Europe’s blue riband for a third time last season, and in between it has been worn by Bath, Northampton, Leicester (twice) and Wasps.

He was brushing some of our players off today to keep possession. You can plan all you want but if a player is in that sort of mood it’s difficult to cope.”At the moment, Rooney is churning out mini masterpieces at a rate Mozart would envy, but while his excellence is taken as read, several other United players were a revelation on Saturday.Darren Fletcher, 21, and John O’Shea, 24, an unpromising central midfield on paper, were dominant on the pitch and Cristiano Ronaldo, 20, teased and tormented Bolton into a grotesque mess out wide.”Goodbye and good riddance,” was one United fanzine’s epitaph for 2005 on Sir Matt Busby Way, but if anyone was glad to see the back of the year it was the 20-year-old winger.The death of his father and an unsettled life outside football undoubtedly took a toll on Ronaldo, who spent much of the last 12 months looking like a trick trying to find a purpose. “Not only did he frighten us with his skill, he frightened us with his physical attributes. Too exuberant for Bolton was the second.The 20-year-old Wayne Rooney, inevitably, was at the core of a display that was as good as any provided by United this season.”He was the catalyst,” Allardyce said.

Stripped of several players thanks to a chest virus (cynics suggested it was a form of “Arsenal Flu”, given the match at Highbury tomorrow night), United fielded seven players aged aged 24 or under during this match Too raw, was the first reaction. United scored four times, hit the post twice and would not have been flattered if they had doubled their tally.On Ferguson’s 64th birthday age, inevitably, was a talking point and so it proved, although not in the manner expected. Unfortunately for him, Manchester United’s players took it seriously.
Told by their manager that Bolton would be fresher, they tore at their opponents from the whistle, imposing their will so emphatically that opponents widely regarded as being as physically intimidating as any in the Premiership were reduced to rubble. “Sir Alex’s mind games might work on Mourinho and Wenger,” he chortled, “but they don’t on me.” He was undoubtedly right.

Allardyce found Sir Alex Ferguson’s claim that Bolton Wanderers had not done as much as they could to ensure Wednesday’s game against Middlesbrough had gone ahead to be laughable. Sam Allardyce had little reason for festive cheer in the wake of this dismantling of his team, but he did guffaw at one suggestion. “Maybe,” he said, breaking into a smile, “it will be a little calmer.”. The contest will have a bearing on whether, after a World Cup summer, one of the clubs might have to return early to prepare for Champions’ League qualifiers.Their last League collision at Highbury will also be the first since Vieira and Roy Keane departed the respective camps.Ljungberg was asked what difference their absence would make. But Villa, showing that they had learnt from the timid pre-Christmas display against Manchester United, could have been in command by that stage had Milan Baros been less wasteful in front of goal.O’Leary now takes his team to West Bromwich Albion for today’s derby, the last in a sequence of four matches in eight days that is the sporting equivalent of a dance marathon.A run of one defeat in eight means confidence is high, but with fatigue and stiffness becoming factors and his bench “down to the bare bones”, he added: “I wouldn’t like to have to dig myself out of a hole [at the Hawthorns] with 15 minutes left.”Arsenal have an extra 30 hours to rest and prepare for United’s visit tomorrow. His robust approach prompted Freddie Ljungberg to state pointedly, without naming Flamini and Fabregas, that young players have to learn to be both technical and physical in today’s Premiership.Arsenal improved after half-time, Ljungberg twanging the bar and Kolo Tour?iscuing with the goal at his mercy late on.

“People don’t realise how significant it is and how close it is. The world needs to be alerted to it.”The whaling moratorium, voted through at the IWC meeting in Brighton in 1982 and brought in four years later, has been a rare environmental success story. It was intended originally, not as an outright and permanent ban on whaling, but as a pause to give whale stocks time to recover while their numbers were assessed comprehensively, and new ways of managing huting were introduced, based on the close study of whale population dynamics.Most anti-whaling countries, including Britain, are now firmly of the view that commercial whaling should never resume. Britain’s original position was to be “guided by the science” but that view has hardened over the years, and the UK now believes “that properly regulated whale watching is the only truly sustainable use of whales and other cetaceans [dolphins and porpoises]“.HUNTED: THE MAIN TARGETS* COMMON MINKE WHALEBalaenoptera acutorostrata. This year, he thinks, they will.”This would be the most enormous setback for whale and dolphin conservation,” he said. Some of the newcomers, such as Mongolia and Mali, do not even have a coastline.Mark Simmonds, international director of science for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, believes the Japanese already had their majority at last year’s IWC meeting in South Korea but administrative hitches meant they were not able to exercise it.

Over the past six years, at least 14 nations have been recruited to the IWC as Japan’s supporters, most of which have no whaling tradition. Trade sanctions should certainly be a possibility.” Mr Singh added: “I have been attending IWC meetings for years, and a number of resolutions which have been passed aimed at stopping scientific whaling have had no effect whatsoever. Diplomatic demarches, notes to Japan, have had no effect either.”If there is any seriousness in terms of saving whales, this seems to be the way.”But time is pressing if the anti-whaling countries want to act, because in June, at the IWC meeting to be held in St Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean, the whaling nations seem likely to secure a voting majority for the first time.It would be the result of an intense diplomatic campaign by Japan to get small developing countries to join the IWC and vote in its favour, by offering them substantial aid. We think the like-minded countries should look at them.”They need to take this issue to the International Court, because international pressure is required. Japan ignores it.Some campaigners are now calling for the anti-whaling countries – the so-called “like-minded” group, led by Australia, New Zealand, the US and Britain – to take legal action against Japan over the “scientific” whaling issue.”Scientific whaling needs to be stopped, and legal action needs to be taken against Japan in the International Court,” said Joth Singh, director of wildlife and habitats for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.”We believe there is, in fact, an opportunity to do that, and we have contracted a lawyer in Australia who has done an evalutation of the possibilities of legal action. “Politicians who are supposed to be anti-whaling especially need to wake up to it, and press their governments to put as much effort into saving the world’s whale populations as the whaling countries are doing to exploit them.”Greenpeace has decided to take the fight directly to the Japanese, and has sent two of its large campaigning vessels, Arctic Sunrise and Esperanza, to the Southern Ocean to try to hinder whaling operations directly. Four days before Christmas, the Norwegian government announced it would increase its 2006 whale hunting quota by a further 250 animals to 1,052, following a unanimous recommendation by the Storting (Norwegian parliament).Iceland, which recommenced whaling three years ago, also under the “scientific” label, killed 39 minkes last year and is expected to hunt a similar number in 2006.That all adds up to by far the bloodiest bout of whale slaughter since the days of full-scale commercial whaling and has greatly angered environmental campaigners.”People should wake up to the scale of what is happening this year,” said the whaling campaigner for Greenpeace UK, Willie McKenzie.

Although this is widely seen, and even accepted, as part of youth culture, it hugely distorts clinical priorities, and prevents us from attending to serious medical problems: two life-threatening Ecstasy overdoses, a ketamine overdose, and four stabbings just last night.Whilst not wanting to dampen New Year’s celebrations, we hope that people consider that the financial cost of the nominally free £800 ambulance ride to the hospital is not the only cost to be borne in mind.DR KINESH PATELDR KATE TATHAMLONDON SW6Raise a glass to Mozart’s talentSir: It was disconcerting to see Philip Hensher’s normal critical acuity desert him on the subject of Mozart(“Unhappy birthday?”, 27 December). The temporary scarcity of women on the streets led to build up of kerb-crawling, subsequently addressed by the Sexual Offences Act 1985. Since then there have been various additions to the law, but the situation does not improve.May I suggest that this is because the law itself is a major part of the problem. The Home Office has failed to review the law and its impact upon sex workers, instead it has developed a new ideology which makes victims of women and demons of men. This is unlikely to help anyone.DR HELEN J SELFBOXLEY, KENTSir: Interesting article from Joan Smith on prostitution. Just a few rather obvious points: there is a difference between sex and rape; between work and slavery; and between grown women and children.

However, the women rapidly relocated in private flats, bars and clubs. This Act is still in place and no consideration has been given by the Home Office to the repeal of its injustice.The result of the Act was an immediate and dramatic reduction in street prostitution. We must equally address male assumptions that this is part of the natural order.ELIZABETH SIDNEYCHAIR, INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF WOMEN AGAINST FUNDAMENTALISM AND FOR EQUALITY, LONDON N7Sir: Joan Smith rashly accuses other people of lazy thinking; she would do well to acquaint herself more thoroughly with the extensive literature on prostitution and our varied attempts at regulation.In 1959 the Macmillan government passed the Street Offences Act, which carried the stigmatising label of “common prostitute”. But for all serious purposes, his premiership is already at an end He has lost his authority. Mr Blair is now concentrating all his energies on his legacy, but that is too late. It rapidly became clear that Charlie’ s economic policy went no further than the price of a triple Glenmorangie in Mrs McTumshie’s bar in Tain.As for Mr Blair, I predict that he will leave office in May 2007, following the 10th anniversary of his becoming Prime Minister. With the help of the Building and Loan Company run by George Bailey (James Stewart), the Martinis and their children are able to move out of the slums run by the mean banker Potter (Lionel Barrymore) and buy a home of their own.
Brunetti was often cast in mother roles – such as Ma Romano, mother of a young delinquent (John Derek) in Nicholas Ray’s powerful drama Knock on Any Door, and the mother of the gangster and actor George Raft (Ray Danton) in The George Raft Story.

He has always been the man who took the weight out of lightweight. As long as no one took any interest in Liberal policy, this did not matter, but at the last election they did, so it did. Surely the Liberals will find themselves a new leader in 2006, and put poor Charlie Kennedy out of his misery. Over the past month, he has made a good start, and there is much more planned On this, I can make a confident prediction. The next year will see one of the most exciting periods in Conservative electoral history. The Tories will make tremendous efforts to reposition their public image.The other two parties are already worried, with good reason. He thinks that it is caused by chronic incompetence in public relations He is determined to put that right.

I speak to Paul Ince a lot and we reckon we are the most hated [people there]. Since that move to Chelsea for £11m he has been back to Upton Park three times and has lost on two occasions so this time there may be an important precedent to set, but nothing, Lampard said, to prove “I don’t go back with anything to prove, far from it. I go back there as runner-up in the world player of the year and with a Premiership medal,” he said “Coming from the area, I know what people are like. At 27, Lampard’s priorities stretch much further than a parochial settling of scores at the dangerous end of Green Street, E13, but at lunchtime today, the most successful English footballer of the last two years will be transported back to a time before success and acclaim were his for the asking.
He left West Ham in the summer of 2001, shortly after his father Frank Snr and Harry Redknapp had been deposed as the management of the club, with a record of 24 goals in 132 Premiership games including three in his last four matches that helped stabilise the side in 15th place. No one really knows why West Ham’s support came to dislike so intensely a footballer born into the tradition of their club but one thing is certain: when Frank Lampard returns there today he does so as a man who has found his place in the world. The Premiership title, the certainty of a place in the England team, the Football Writers’ player of the year award and a runners-up’ place in the Fifa world player of the year poll, have seen to that. The abuse began when he was a teenager warming up on the touchline at Upton Park, and the hissed allegations of nepotism, the contempt for a local boy, remain a mystery even to this day.

We probably took the frustration out on Wigan today.”A disappointing end to 2005 cannot disguise a wonderful year for Jewell’s team. He admitted that he had pondered making changes to freshen up his side and will now certainly do so.”But at the start of the year, we would have settled for being where we are now,” Jewell said with some understatement “There is no crisis.”. It was Tugay who upstaged him that day; on Saturday, it was Reid’s turn.A defence marshalled by that inspired signing Ryan Nelsen also did a good job in keeping Jason Roberts and Henri Camara as quiet as they have been all season. The upshot was that this was a game which, at the end of their annus mirabilis, Wigan never really got into.The simplistic explanation was that Blackburn were fresh, following the postponement of their game on Wednesday night, and the Latics were leg-weary. The pronouncements of Sir Alex Ferguson on this subject have alerted the game to the potential for sharp practice over postponements, but the Blackburn manager was adamant that his side had wanted to play against Sunderland.”I’d argue all day against any suggestion that we didn’t want to play,” Hughes said. “It was a home game against the bottom of the league and we were desperate to get the game on. He has also been used as a wide player, but looked a natural in what might be described as the Steven Gerrard role, driving forward from central midfield.

“He has sometimes lacked a little belief in his own ability, but he showed what he is about today,” Hughes said.Reid was not on his own. Savage showed all his usual energy and mercifully little of his usual petulance alongside him. Outside them, there was pace and verve from David Bentley and Morten Gamst Pedersen, who scored a marvellous goal of his own.Just as he did against Fulham in August, Pedersen found the net with a left-footed volley from an unfeasibly narrow angle. Rovers were without the suspended Tugay, which has been the cue in the past for some sub-standard displays; there were no such problems at the JJB.”Robbie Savage and Steven Reid were magnificent in that crucial area of the field and Steven capped it with that goal,” Hughes said. He admits that injuries have made Reid’s Blackburn career a stop-start affair since he arrived from Millwall.