Ditched by Hollywood, she set about reviving her career on stage, which included playing Martha Mills in the Broadway musical comedy I Can Get It for You Wholesale (Shubert Theatre, 1962), and becoming a strong character actress on television. She had already appeared as herself in the first episode of The Bing Crosby Show (1954) But two of her most memorable appearances came in sitcoms. Her Hollywood heyday was brief, but the sudden fame meant that in 1955 she married her second husband, the music pubisher John “Bud” Freeman, in a secret Arizona ceremony at which she wore a red wig and horn-rimmed glasses as a disguise, although the couple were divorced two years later. After she starred as Curly Flagg in How to be Very, Very Popular, 20th Century-Fox cast North in The Lieutenant Wore Skirts (1956), The Best Things in Life are Free (1956), The Way to the Gold (1957), No Down Payment (1957), In Love and War (1958) and Mardi Gras (1958). It was adapted into another film, Living It Up (1954), starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, in which North reprised her show-stopping dance – although production was held up for two months when she broke her right foot during rehearsals. By now using the professional name Sheree North, she worked with Alton again and won a Theatre World Award for her role as the jitterbug dancer Whitey in the Broadway stage musical Hazel Flagg (Mark Hellinger Theatre, 1953), which was based on the 1937 film comedy Nothing Sacred and proved to be her big break. Six years later, she appeared, uncredited, in the slapstick musical Excuse My Dust (1951).

When the choreographer Robert Alton spotted North performing at the Macayo Club, Santa Monica, he signed her up as a dancer in the chorus of the film musical Here Come the Girls (1953), starring Bob Hope. She had already made her film d?t, aged 12, as Roxie, one of the children trying to put on a Broadway show, in An Angel Comes to Brooklyn (1945). Although married at 15 and a mother at 16, she continued to dance in Los Angeles clubs, as Shirley Mae Bessire (taking her first husband’s surname). North, playing a small-town single mother struggling to raise her daughter but with dreams of making the big time, is memorable for preceding a drunken tap-dance routine with the words: “Actually, I was always more of a dancer than a singer.” Born Dawn Shirley Bethel in Los Angeles in 1933, she was dancing for the troops in USO wartime shows by the age of 10 and, three years later, was a regular in the chorus line at the city’s Greek Theatre. Wisely, she carved out a career for herself on stage and as a character actress on television. One notable return to feature films saw North going back to her dancing roots in The Trouble with Girls (1969), one of Elvis Presley’s better pictures, featuring the King as the manager of a 1920s travelling show. Following North’s winning performance in How to be Very, Very Popular, she was cast in other films and groomed as a new Monroe – to whom her 5ft 5½ in, 35½-23½-35½ figure was similar – but 20th Century-Fox then promoted Jayne Mansfield as its new blonde bombshell and she was left out in the cold.

The film was never made, but North also tried out, unsuccessfully, for the Irving Berlin tribute There’s No Business Like Show Business, in which Monroe did finally agree to appear, seeing the song-and-dance routines as a challenge. North auditioned for Pink Tights (sometimes referred to as The Girl in Pink Tights) when Monroe was suspended by studio bosses after failing to arrive on set, deciding that the role – alongside Frank Sinatra – was not good enough for her. She joined Betty Grable, the Forces sweetheart who was making her last film appearance, and stole the show with her sexy dancing in the story of two San Francisco exotic dancers who witness a murder and hide out in a boys’ college.
Of particular note was North’s energetic performance to “Shake, Rattle and Roll”, publicised at the time as “the screen’s first rock’n'roll dance scene”, and the shapely actress was featured on the front of Life magazine in March 1955 alongside the simple coverline: ” Sheree North Takes Over From Marilyn Monroe”. Hollywood’s peroxide-blonde bombshell in reserve was signed by 20th Century-Fox the previous year, when the studio was finding Monroe unreliable during her short marriage to Joe DiMaggio. When Marilyn Monroe turned down the role of a stripper in How to be Very, Very Popular, 20th Century-Fox drafted in Sheree North to star in the 1955 musical comedy.

to sustain public confidence in our national qualifications,” she adds.The report has prompted the QCA to set up a task force to strengthen authentication of coursework before next summer’s exams. It is to be led by Sue Kirkham, the president of the Secondary Heads Association.. Dawn Shirley Bethel (Sheree North), actress: born Los Angeles 17 January 1933; married first 1948 Fred Bessire (one daughter; marriage dissolved 1952), second 1955 John Freeman (marriage dissolved 1957), third 1958 Gerhardt Sommer (one daughter; marriage dissolved 1963), fourth Phillip Norman; died Los Angeles 4 November 2005. She calls for “robust” checking to detect whether pupils are cheating “It is fundamental … It reveals there were 3,500 cases of malpractice by students in exams last year, although it says that cases of collusion between students out of school still outnumber internet plagiarism by three to one.Ruth Kelly, the Secretary of State for Education, in a letter to Dr Ken Boston, the chief executive of the QCA, says coursework should only be used when it is “the most valid way of assessing subject specific skills”. One in 20 actually drafted their children’s GCSE essays.Teachers also sometimes give their classes too much help, resulting in “coursework cloning”, the report adds. In addition, the report says, many parents are unaware of the limits to the amount of help they can give their children with coursework, and in some cases are supplying the answers to questions.

“When I first came there was still some talk about whether Barclays should focus just on its UK retail business with the exclusion of some of the global businesses People say that is safe and low risk Actually that’s the highest risk strategy you can have. You become a prisoner of one economy and one section of the market and those that have chosen that path have not fared as well,” he said.Mr Diamond added that Barclays Capital, which is based in London but has substantial businesses in New York, other parts of Europe and Asia, is also a different type of investment bank.The major difference is that it eschews the lucrative and high-octane work of advising on mergers and does not deal in shares. And he points out that Barclays Capital’s profits have consistently grown at a higher rate than the risks it has taken on (see chart). He also maintains he has fostered a different kind of culture.”There is a perception – sometimes accurate, sometimes not – that if you’re an investment banker you only care about yourself. I certainly don’t think that is the case in the culture in Barclays Capital,” Mr Diamond said.Some of the moves have been at the highest levels. Naguib Kheraj, Barclays’ finance director who is seen by some as a likely contender to become the next chief executive, was chief operating officer of Barclays Capital.

Roger Davis, the head of the retail bank, also came from the investment banking business.Below board level, about 30 directors and managing directors have moved from Barclays Capital – known as “BarCap” – to other roles in the bank in the past two years, which Mr Diamond says is “fantastic”. He said: “It represents a different bank than it was five or 10 or 15 years ago It is more of a meritocracy. We’re looking for the most talented people at every level.”The latest high profile move – of Paul Idzik, who was head of risk at Barclays Capital – has not inspired warm feelings in the wider bank.Mr Idzik, who is American, took up a new role last November as chief operating officer for the whole of Barclays. On his first day at Barclays’ head office in Canary Wharf, the talk is that he leapt over the turnstile to test the building’s security. Since then he has raised eyebrows further with tactics such as snapping an underling’s pen because it was branded Royal Bank of Scotland and writing on the window after he had filled the whiteboard.Some of the unhappiness among Barclays people comes from the fact that it is rumoured that Mr Idzik has been given the task of firing the bottom 10 per cent of managers ever year.

Reflecting the unhappiness, one senior person close to the bank said: “The turnover of staff is high and that is costing the bank a lot of money.”There is no indication these misgivings are shared by Mr Varley To many, that seems justified. Mr Diamond has won praise and envy among rivals for turning the remnants of BZW into a successful investment bank, which has grown to be the biggest player in the debt market last year in Europe. Its annual revenue growth has outstripped all of its chief rivals and its profits in the first half of this year grew more strongly than other investment banks apart from Lehman Brothers. Since taking over at BGI in 2002 Mr Diamond has also turned this San Francisco-based business into a bumper profit machine.On the investment banking side, Mr Diamond’s intention is to go further. Under his “Alpha Plan”, which was launched last year, his aim is to double the size of Barclays Capital within four years.One competitor at a rival bank said: “I am a Bob Diamond fan and the changes that are going on there are noting more than you would expect from an institution which is pushing through a plan for strong growth.”Others are more sceptical.

One view is that Barclays could use some of the capital which is currently being sucked up by Barclays Capital to fuel growth in other areas.Another issue is that, aside from the large but one-off $250m hit in 1998 on Russia’s bond default, the business has not really been tested. Therefore the enduring question of whether a retail bank can take the rough with the smooth of owning an investment bank has yet to be tested.Ed Firth, an analyst at Soci? G?rale, said: “My concern is that it is very difficult to see what drives Barclays Capital. It is not driven by the yield curve or interest rates, yet there is not such a thing as a free lunch. One way we will know what the opportunities are is if we have a downturn in the fixed-income market. That would show how much it is customer-driven business and how much it is riding a wave.”. The failure of the formidable socialite Carla Powell to be appointed Britain’s next ambassador to the Vatican has certainly opened a can of worms.

Aberdeen nearly went two ahead when Barry Nicholson spun and fired low after 29 minutes but the shot went just wide. Nicholson also shot over from a second-half free-kick, while Gary Dempsey went close late on.Hearts looked like a different team after their rollocking. In the end I saw a lot of good things.” Rix added that he was “pleased” to have got his first match out of the way.Aberdeen took the lead in the 13th minute through Jamie Smith, who had a splendid afternoon, running Hearts ragged in the first half. It had been anticipated that he would be mercilessly barracked over his 1999 conviction for unlawful sex with a 15-year-old girl, but in fact he was cheered on arrival by Hearts fans and only mildly taunted by the home support. The fiercest verbal outburst of the afternoon came from Rix, not at him, in the Hearts dressing-room during the break.”I wasn’t very happy, I can assure you,” he said.

“In that first half we didn’t pass the ball well, we didn’t win any second balls, we were two yards off the pace with and without the ball and we looked lethargic.”The first-half performance is difficult to explain and if we play like that at Motherwell next week we will be three or four down To be fair to the lads, we spoke and they responded. But they did not, for reasons that Rix still has to fathom, and so trail Celtic by two points this morning.
“Maybe the slow start was because of the international break, maybe because the lads have got a new coach, maybe the media hype got to them,” Rix said. Substitutes not used: Marshall (gk), Virgo, Lawson, Varga, Wallace.Rangers (4-4-2): Waterreus; Hutton (Lovenkrands, 53), Andrews, Kyrgiakos, Murray; Ricksen, Hemdani, Ferguson, Namouchi; Jeffers, Prso (Thompson, 66). Substitutes not used: Klos (gk), Rae, Pierre-Fanfan, Burke, McCormack.Referee: D McDonald (Scotland).Booked: Celtic: Nakamura, McManus; Rangers: Andrews, Namouchi.Attendance: 58,997.Man of the match: McGeady.. Rudi Skacel’s 11th goal of the season was enough to earn Hearts a point in Graham Rix’s first match as the head coach but this result was more a case of two points dropped for the Edinburgh side. Had they applied themselves with anywhere near the urgency and diligence of the second half in the first 45 minutes they would probably have taken the win necessary to keep them level on points with Celtic at the summit of the Scottish Premier League. “I have to keep fighting and the players have to keep fighting for themselves to get their top form and belief back as soon as possible,” he said.Goals: Hartson (12) 1-0; Bald?56) 2-0; McGeady (61) 3-0.Celtic (4-4-2): Boruc; Telfer, Bald?McManus, Camara; Nakamura (Agathe, 76), Lennon, Petrov, McGeady; Hartson, Maloney (Thompson, 57).

But after Gloucester’s try they went back into their shells, with only Strudwick sticking his neck out to score that late try, itself a ho-hum drive off a maul through some ho-hum defence. The ugly nature of the win did not concern Brian Smith, Irish’s coach, whose side are now sitting pretty in third place, whichever way they’ve managed it Dean Ryan, the Gloucester coach was less chuffed “We looked a confused, startled side,” he said London Irish: Try: Strudwick Conversion: Everitt Penalties: Everitt 6 Gloucester: Try: Richards Conversion: Mercier Penalty: Mercier. Irish had begun to chance their arm a bit themselves by then, as well they might with a 15-point lead. Not that anyone got too excited, as the try, inevitably, came from a charged down kick. Gloucester brought on Peter Richards for the second half and the England squad member with the flashing blond hair did get Gloucester moving to an extent, scoring a try to drag them back to within eight points at 18-10 in the 69th minute. They had won four Gloucester throws before they had even had to defend a lineout of their own. The penalties quickly started to stack up for the home side, and Barry Everitt converted five of them in the first half to give Irish a deserved 15-3 lead at the break.

On paper it was a comfortable win for London Irish, given a touch of gloss by Ryan Strudwick’s try in the very last of those long minutes, but those watching had hoped for better. Both sides had been playing some fine rugby of late and had rediscovered their try-scoring touches; the weather was fine and the crowd in good voice. But none of it swayed the two fly-halfs from a policy of relentless kicking.
Irish fared the better from the word go; Nick Kennedy and Bob Casey making a fine mess of the Gloucester line-out. This was a long, long game.

A total of 20 minutes of injury time were played at the end of the two halves, and a healthily sized crowd felt every one of them, so lacking in ambition were both sides. Agreement between the 22-year-old former Salford City Reds rugby league playerand Wasps director of rugby Ian McGeechan was sealed at the post-match press conference.. But then Jackson returned the compliment with a kick right on the Falcons line that Lee Dickson could not take – and Jackson was on hand to score.Neil Baxter agreed to sign up with Wasps after scoring two tries in the 28-20 home win over Bath on his full debut for the Premiership champions. Newcastle got back into it in the 60th minute as Burke chased and caught his own high kick and sped in to score. But then Newcastle did win a lineout, drove it well and Burke joined the line and passed perfectly for James Hoyle to score.Saracens piled on the pressure and were eventually rewarded when Haughton scrambled over for his second try. With Colin Charvis on international duty, Cory Harris – whose wife went into labour over the weekend – also ruled out and injuries to Mark Mayerhofler, Stuart Grimes, Owen Finegan and Hall Charlton Newcastle fielded a weakened line-up.The Falcons were punished for losing their own lineout in the 17th minute as Saracens whipped the ball along the line for Mark Bartholomeusz to put Richard Haughton clear and the winger scored easily.

With the money expected from his sale – to Juventus or Milan – they would be able to put together a package that Keane would find attractive. His response to whether it ushered in a new era would have been less easy for Ferguson to accept: “It’s difficult to say,” Van Nistelrooy said. As captain for the day, Van Nistelrooy was the only player permitted by United to discuss Keane and his openness about his feelings surrounding the departure of his former team-mate will have struck a chord with the Irishman himself. “It’s just a shame that his time has stopped now,” Van Nistelrooy said.

The rest of his team-mates were told by Ferguson that their own thoughts on the matter should not be made public. Post-Keane, United look very much like they have for the last two months, a team that relies upon the brilliance of Wayne Rooney rather than the drive that their former captain once provided them from midfield. The 20-year-old’s run past two Charlton defenders, and flick to Van Nistelrooy for the second United goal, was the game’s outstanding moment – closely followed by the striker’s swivel and finish that restored the lead on 70 minutes. Unlike when United beat Chelsea two weeks’ earlier there was no Keane glowering in the stands to remind his side of what the team is missing.

The prospect of replacing him is no longer an unknown menace that waits to ambush them at some point in the future but a reality that must be dealt with every matchday. Alan Smith’s 36th -minute goal, driven in from Darren Fletcher’s pass, was the best moment of a first half in which United looked liberated and fearless in their attacking football. Charlton managed an equaliser on 65 minutes when Darren Ambrose was allowed to run unchallenged in front of the United area and, after exchanging passes with Darren Bent, struck a shot that drifted sweetly into Edwin Van der Sar’s top right corner. Rooney’s run and pass to Van Nistelrooy changed the game again within four minutes and the Dutch striker sealed the win on 85 minutes with a goal that was his first in 138 for United to be hit from outside the box. While Charlton fall to ninth, 10 points, and two places now separate United, who have a game in hand, from Chelsea. Ferguson has spoken of late of the young players in his team thriving and taking responsibility and on Saturday they did that -with a certain man now gone for good they had little choice.

The optimists were rewarded two minutes later when Liam Miller, on loan from Manchester United converted Rob Hulse’s pass.”Unbelievable, I don’t know what to say. When Robbie Blake swept in a cross from substitute David Healy six minutes later it crumbled completely. The introduction of Healy had transformed the visitors and his chip tempted Danny Higginbotham into a handball with six minutes to go. Healy scored the resulting penalty himself.”At half-time we were 3-0 down and playing poorly. You’d have to be the eternal optimist to think we could come back from that,” admitted Leeds’ manager Kevin Blackwell.

The 56-year-old, who left Bayern at the end of last season and has not worked since, was quoted in Germany as saying that United had made enquiries about his availability, but that was understood to relate to 2002 when Ferguson had originally planned to retire.Ruud van Nistelrooy was questioned by the Metropolitan police after a Charlton match steward was injured during his goal celebrations among the crowd at the Valley on Saturday. Fifteen minutes later it was game over but with Leeds the unlikely victors.When Paul Butler headed powerfully in from Gary Kelly’s corner in the 71st minute, Southampton’s confidence wavered. The Dutch striker was allowed to join the United squad who left London by train from Euston and it was not clear whether the man was injured directly by Van Nistelrooy or in the excitement around the striker.. In any other walk of life, a gang of young men pulling off a heist as audacious as Leeds United did on Saturday could expect to be banged up for a 10-year stretch. Those present will be talking in hushed tones for years to come of the “Great St Mary’s Robbery”.

A week of high drama on the South Coast started with the abrupt departure of the Saints coach Simon Clifford dominating the headlines. Clifford hit back before the game by suggesting Southampton’s players were “unfit” and prone to “letting games slip in the last five to 10 minutes”. He may have a point.
With 19 minutes of Saturday’s match remaining Saints were strolling at 3-0 up, thanks to first-half goals from Marian Pahars and a double from Nigel Quashie. As a net importer of energy, this is increasingly affecting British prices.Even where energy prices are lower – for instance, gas prices in the Netherlands are less than half what they are in Britain at the moment – it is frequently not possible to access them because transmission is controlled by monopoly suppliers on less than transparent terms. Continental gas supply contracts also tend to be indexed to the price of oil, even though gas is in plentiful supply, causing the price artificially to rise with the cost of the black stuff.All these are good reasons for Mr Wicks to want to shake up the European energy market.

The European Commission itself said in a report published only last week that European directives on gas and electricity market liberalisation were being widely flouted and called on member states urgently to implement them not only in letter, but also in spirit.Don’t hold your breath. It might seem like cutting your own throat to allow high energy prices to continue through support for entrenched monopoly, but some member states don’t see it that way, preferring to protect jobs in established suppliers to creating them elsewhere through free competition.As Continental suppliers grow rich on their captive domestic markets, many of them have used the surplus cash to come shopping over here, buying up the British supply and generator market in a manner which would be virtually impossible almost anywhere else in Europe.It is all very well being a guinea pig in the effectiveness of liberalised utility markets, but there may be a price. After completion of the deal, around two-thirds of Cadbury’s sales will come from its chocolate and sweets brands. The sale is expected to dilute next year’s earnings by about 6 per cent.In the event that Cadbury fails to convince various French workers’ groups to back the deal, it has promised to pay Blackstone and Lion Capital a £63.5bn break-fee – 5 per cent of the transaction price.

He had passing affairs, and found his first true love with a fellow called Jo.Such was the region’s national ambiguity that, with the German invasion, Seel’s family wept; their neighbour was overjoyed The Vichy government sold it down the river A friend joined the Hitler youth. Life continued, with hopes of work in textiles, as all round, Jews left. Youthful romance with a girl languished after he sent her images from his missal, but in the choir, during Mass, and on the beach during Dieppe holidays, he had intimations of homosexuality.His confidence grew among the “zazous” – the stylishly dressed – who gathered near a caf?hose patrons joined them in brief encounters. Seel had an early aversion to masculine violence – as when the teacher punished him for screaming on opening his desk to find that fellow pupils had put dead birds in it. Only in the past two decades did he describe that unusual, picaresque and particularly horrible odyssey – and, supported by his wife and children, reclaim the homosexuality which brought such trouble 64 years ago.
The last of five sons, he was born in 1923.

His parents ran a high-class patisserie/teashop, while an aunt left after an affair with a Protestant but not before giving her nephew a watch as a Communion present. Pierre Seel, writer: born Mulhouse, France 16 August 1923; married (two sons, one daughter); died Toulouse 25 November 2005. Had the 16-year-old Pierre Seel’s watch not been stolen in the Alsace town of Mulhouse in 1939, his life might have turned out very differently Events made him an ambiguous but courageous war hero. Apache Tomcat/5.5.25 – Error report HTTP Status 503 – Too many incoming HTTP requeststype Status reportmessage Too many incoming HTTP requestsdescription The requested service (Too many incoming HTTP requests) is not currently available.Apache Tomcat/5.5.25. Apache Tomcat/5.5.25 – Error report HTTP Status 503 – Too many incoming HTTP requeststype Status reportmessage Too many incoming HTTP requestsdescription The requested service (Too many incoming HTTP requests) is not currently available.Apache Tomcat/5.5.25. Apache Tomcat/5.5.25 – Error report HTTP Status 503 – Too many incoming HTTP requeststype Status reportmessage Too many incoming HTTP requestsdescription The requested service (Too many incoming HTTP requests) is not currently available.Apache Tomcat/5.5.25.

He drove us all mad taking pictures of everything.”However, Lloyd, who died in 1971 aged 77, shot all his photographs in a 3D technique that meant they have had to be processed differently to turn them into two-dimensional images.The exhibition, Harold Lloyd: Silent Pictures, runs until 11 February.. He was a comic genius of silent cinema who made more movies than Charlie Chaplin. But Harold Lloyd also loved being on the other side of the camera, taking more than 300,000 photographs including shots of films stars such as Marilyn Monroe.
Highlights of his collection are to go on public show for the first time alongside stills from the films that made him a star, including The Freshman, The Kid Brother and Safety Last, from which the still of Lloyd hanging from the hands of a clock high above the street has become an enduring image of American film.Lloyd’s granddaughter, Suzanne Lloyd, who travelled with him as he took many of his images, said he would have been thrilled at the exhibition, which opens at the Proud Central Gallery in London today “He was at the cutting edge of doing things He had a great eye And this photography is part of that He always had his camera. The show won four Baftas.Gill Hudson, the editor of Radio Times, said: “The appeal of both Wood and Walters goes much further than their comedy. As for Walters, she broke free from the ‘just comedy’ tag years ago, and has turned into one of the most versatile actors of a generation.”The executive producer of the British Comedy Awards, Michael Hurll, said: “I think it is an award to two of the nicest and most talented ladies in British comedy, an award that is overdue and so richly deserved.”Ricky Gervais, Ronnie Corbett and Ant and Dec will be among the celebrities attending the awards ceremony in London next Wednesday..

Admittedly, Northern’s move was designed to thwart a hostile takeover bid from Trafalgar House whereas Pennon says it is merely trying to maximise the efficiency of its balance sheet. Nevertheless, Professor Littlechild concluded that the wool had been pulled over its eyes and reopened the whole price control issue on the grounds that there was clearly more spare cash sloshing around the industry than it had let on.Ofwat, by contrast, appears to be quite unfazed by Pennon’s announcement, suggesting that it would probably have made only a marginal difference to its calculations had it known in advance about the payout.Pennon has tried to buy off a customer protest by announcing a one-off rebate of £20 for every household in the region – about enough to halve the increase in bills this year But it has not been entirely successful. Pennon has now demonstrated that Ofwat let the industry off the hook.There is an intriguing parallel with what happened in the electricity industry a decade ago when Northern Electric announced plans to hand back £500m to shareholders a few short months after the industry regulator, Professor Stephen Littlechild, had set new price controls for the industry. Ofwat did not think it needed quite that much to finance its capital expenditure programme. But it still sanctioned a 25 per cent increase in charges in an area that already had the highest water bills in the country.The regulator bought the argument that shareholders in the water companies could no longer afford to bear so much of the cost and customers would have to be squeezed. The industry, so the argument ran, had already achieved all the easy cost savings it could and so bills would have to start rising, rather than falling as they had done in the past. The water industry has repaid shareholders their original capital so many times since privatisation in 1989 that no one should perhaps be surprised by the latest example of largesse.

Pennon, the owner of South West Water, has turned on the taps and is handing £200m back to shareholders.
Odd, therefore, that only nine months ago South West Water was pleading poverty. It told the regulator, Ofwat, that it needed to raise customer bills by one-third if it was going to keep Cornwall’s beaches clean for the next five years. He told MPs: “There was a framework agreement and that is now part of sector by sector negotiations.”. He said the Treasury was “running scared” of organisation such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies that had called for an independent body to date the start and end of the cycle.But Mr Brown said that would take away responsibility for fiscal policy from the House of Commons and run counter to the “whole history of parliamentary democracy”. The Chancellor played down the threat of tax increases, saying he would meet his self-imposed fiscal rules, which limit borrowing to the amount needed for public investment over the economic cycle, by maintaining “tough fiscal discipline”.Mr Brown also triggered fresh speculation he wants to reopen the deal between the Government and civil service unions that would allow current public employees to retire at 60. There was no statement with the decision and the City was left divided over whether there would be a rate cut in the New Year.Royal Bank of Scotland said it expected a cut in early 2006.

“We continue to view the risks as skewed to the downside,” said Ross Walker, its UK economist. “Growth remains below trend and there is little prospect of a rapid acceleration.” But Chris Iggo, a senior strategist at AXA Investment Managers, said: “Rates will be left at this level for some time as evidence emerges that consumer spending is recovering on the back of a stronger housing market.”The Bank is forecasting a rebound in growth next year to 2.5 per cent and over 3 per cent in the following years, although most in the City think those are too optimistic.However the Chancellor used the Bank’s figures to defend the growth and public finance forecasts in his pre-Budget report against accusations of “over optimism” by the Conservatives.David Ruffley, a Tory MP on the select committee, accused Mr Brown of using a “spin cycle” when he changed the timing of the economic cycle used to determine his golden rule. “We had to cool down the housing market and consumer demand in the economy,” he said.Mr King said last month there had been a “quite sharp rise” of 2 percentage points in the ratio of taxes to household disposable income in the past couple of years. “In the second half of 2004, disposable incomes were lower in nominal terms than a year earlier, so it was hardly surprising that households had less to spend,” he said.The Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee yesterday left the base rate at 4.5 per cent, as widely expected by analysts and business leaders. He said it was significant that rates rose four times in the run-up to a general election, which he said was the first time it had happened in living memory.”That was bound to be the major factor in affecting consumer spending,” he said. “I don’t think anybody should be in any doubt that four interest-rate rises was bound to be the major factor in affecting consumer demand in the economy.”Damian Green, a Tory member of the committee, said the Treasury was using tax rises as “old-fashioned demand management”.

“No elephant can hear properly in a city, and the smog affects vision. For creatures who feel vibrations through their feet, city traffic is terrifying And I hate it when drunks force them to drink beer. It is an affront to their dignity.” Officially, all Thai elephants are prohibited from the highways, obstructing the flow of traffic, or fouling the roads. (Their urine can scour away paint within minutes.) At age 61, working elephants must, by law, be set loose in the forest for mandatory retirement, but bogus elephant birth certificates have become big business, especially since legislation to protect wild elephants makes it prudent to have convincing identification papers when making a sale A healthy elephant can cost 500,000 Baht (£6,900). On a typical night cadging handouts outside Bangkok’s karaoke bars and massage parlours, an elephant can clear £50 for its owner. But eating roadside leaves coated with exhaust car fumes can induce an severe bellyache, so passers-by are urged to treat the creatures to 50p packets of vegetables or sugar cane sold by their handlers. Baby elephants attract the most admirers and are nimble at splashing through sewage culverts to dodge the law enforcers.

Older elephants, senses dulled by the city, often are less agile. The largest animal recovering at Lek’s Elephant Nature Park is Max, who measures 11ft tall at the shoulder. The former logging elephant was the victim of a freak traffic accident which left him looking “like some kind of Frankenstein,” Lek recalls. While the elephant was trudging along a southern highway after completing his nightclub begging rounds, an 18-wheel truck mowed him down Max was felled and dragged 15ft. Ironically, the hit-and-run vehicle on the superhighway was an illicit logging truck, travelling without lights to evade the authorities who would shake the drivers down for bribes.

Karl Cullen, a volunteer keeper from Dublin, says: “If Max had not managed to get back on his feet within 72 hours, his internal organs would have been crushed by their own weight. A family bought him for a prestige pet to keep in their back garden.” But Max failed to thrive. His prolonged and painful recovery seemed to dull his appetite. “He was a bag of skin and bones when he got here and could barely move, but he is incredibly strong now,” Cullen adds. When Max’s facial wounds are cleaned each day, the big animal still winces, and sometimes puts his trunk into his mouth for comfort, as if he is sucking his thumb Lilly is another recovering elephant. Records show she was born in 1955, and she is an ex-speed freak.

Her former owners had not been content with the money she brought in from working at a trekking park, and made her moonlight at a second job. Her food was laced with methamphetamines and Lilly was put to work by night hauling illegally felled teak logs. As she built up a tolerance for the drug, the dose had to be increased, and one day after so many sleepless nights, Lilly had a breakdown She would stand motionless and stopped grazing. Her saliva could not be controlled, so Lek was summoned to the rescue. Jokia, a three-ton blind elephant, is another unlikely survivor. She can negotiate her own way to the river and back, and has been adopted by a sympathetic female elephant who gives her pointers through rumblings and trumpetings, squeaks and ultrasonic vibrations. A mahout’s badly aimed slingshot put Jokia’s left eye out, and her owner blinded the remaining one with an arrow in a fit of pique after the sulking elephant broke his arm.

We believe progress cannot be made that way.”She said this while maintaining with a straight face that the US – which accounts for 25 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions – was acting as a beacon to the rest of the planet when it came to tackling climate change. The Canadian Prime Minister, Paul Martin, said: “To the reluctant countries, including the US, I said this: there is a such a thing as a global conscience and this is the time to listen to it. “We lead the world in climate change science – $2bn (£1.14bn) this year,” she said.Such an unwillingness to participate has led to criticism from other countries. It has said it will not agree to “negotiations” on such an issue and refuses to agree that it involved in such a “process”.Sometimes, the semantic pedantry it uses to get through these two weeks of talks while avoiding any meaningful commitment becomes farcical.At a briefing on Wednesday, the senior US official, Paula Dobriansky, the undersecretary of state for global affairs, declared: “We firmly believe negotiations will not reap progress … (Given US opposition to any greater level of commitment, most campaigners place the US in the category of bad cop/Cop).The US has refused to adopt legally binding targets to cut the emission of greenhouse gases, and has insisted it will not agree to any binding commitments for the post-2012 periods. The Cop is expected to approve a bland agreement to further talks.

Of these 155 countries, 36 industrialised nations, including the UK, have agreed to an overall reduction to 5 per cent beneath 1990 levels.Much of the attention this week has focused on the US, a member of the Cop rather than the Mop, since President George Bush rejected Kyoto in 2001. In the bureaucratic shorthand, this meeting is known as the Cop (Conference of Parties).The second meeting is for 155 nations which recognised that, while important, such an agreed statement was not enough by itself. In 1997, they agreed to the Kyoto protocol demanding cuts in the emission of greenhouse gases (This is the Mop – the Meeting of the Parties). The largest is the annual gathering of the 190-odd countries who agreed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil there was a need to tackle climate change.