Iran’s youth prove rock ‘n’ roll is a universal language, regardless of the risks.

NASCAR superstar announces 2010 race line-up plans

Amstrad, the consumer electronic goods maker controlled by Sir Alan Sugar, saw its stock slide 7.4 per cent yesterday as the company unveiled a sharp fall in first-half earnings due to slowing sales of BSkyB digital set-top boxes and the cost of subsidising its new e-mailer phone. Amstrad, the consumer electronic goods maker controlled by Sir Alan Sugar, saw its stock slide 7.4 per cent yesterday as the company unveiled a sharp fall in first-half earnings due to slowing sales of BSkyB digital set-top boxes and the cost of subsidising its new e-mailer phone.
Ominously, Sir Alan warned of continuing uncertain trading conditions for both products. Shareholders, he said in a statement, should expect further losses on the e-mailer, while future sales of BSkyB set-top boxes would be “dependent” on the uptake of satellite services, which is facing growing competition from ONdigital and the cable companies.Martin Bland, finance director, said: “This is a transitional year with the establishment of the e-mailer and the new GSM mobile phone. Meaningful sales of the phone will come through in fiscal [year to July] 2002.”Sir Alan, for his part, was at the High Court yesterday fighting yet another libel trial to safeguard his reputation, and unable to discuss Amstrad with journalists. This latest suit contests allegations made in the Daily Mail that Sir Alan, who has agreed to sell his controlling stake in perennial mid-table muddlers Tottenham Hotspur, had been parsimonious in making funds available to the club to buy star players.However, investors in Amstrad, could be forgiven for being more interested in the future of the consumer electronics group, which Sir Alan chairs and in which he has a controlling 30 per cent stake.

Since the dot boom imploded, Amstrad has plunged from an all-time high of 607.5p to yesterday’s close at 112.5p, down 9p. That values the group at £90m.The interim results offer a glimpse of a company seemingly in decline, apparently frozen between the past and the future. Not only did sales and profits fall, there was also the admission that the e-mailer and the new GSM handset will not recharge the business until 2002 at the earliest.Pre-tax profit for the six months to 31 December plunged to £1.5m from £8.2m in the year earlier period, while sales declined by a third to £41.4m. About half the profit decline was incurred through start-up losses at Amserve, the division that includes the e-mailer and in which Dixon’s has a 19.9 per cent interest.In one respect, the e-mailer is typical Amstrad. Find a hot new product niche – in this case e-mail – and move into it with a piece of consumer electronics gear that provides the service at a fraction of the price of existing products. The e-mailer combines a telephone, display screen and qwerty keyboard for £79.95 – a fraction of the price of entry level PCs.At the moment, around 78,000 e-mailers have been sold through Dixons and other retailers, with 120,000 expected to be in use by summer. Unlike other Amstrad products, the e-mailer has a recurring revenue stream since the company gets a fee from users’ message volumes.Amstrad said revenue from the device was currently running at about £20 per year or £1.5m for the current installed user base.

That reflects a 12p user fee, collected by British Telecom, to send and receive each e-mail or mobile text message. But it could be just the tip of the iceberg should the product make mass market inroads.The next move is to sell advertising, which would be placed automatically on the screen of the phone. Given the prominent position and frequent use of phones in most homes, Amstrad believes that the e-mailer screen can become a highly attractive proposition for advertisers as the user base expands.Should the product succeed, and at the moment it has no direct competition, the upside for Amstrad might be substantial. Despite investor scepticism, computer users over 30 years old will remember the last time Sir Alan took on the computer makers and, rather improbably, won.Who, after all, has forgotten the PCW 8256, the first mass-market word processor, complete with printer, launched in 1985 for £399? And then the European-wide success one year later of the PC1512 which, for the same price and less than half the cost of competing terminals, provided consumers with an IBM compatible computer.These products conferred celebrity status on Sir Alan and for some years placed him firmly in the vanguard of Britain’s entrepreneurial elite. Moreover, they also helped the country to take the lead, outside the US, in consumer PC usage.Though only a fool would right off Amstrad, a return to the top table in the UK consumer electronics industry on current form would appear unlikely. Indeed, Beeson Gregory, Amstrad’s house broker, has cut year to July 2002 pre-tax profit, the year of anticipated recovery, to £6.5m from an earlier forecast of £9.5m.But Beeson analyst Howard Brooks, commenting on the e-mailer, reminds: “Defining a new consumer product category can be seen as risky. But Amstrad are on their own and they’re not having to fight five or six big brands for the opportunity.”For Sir Alan, the e-mailer, it would appear, is a wager on finding a new beginning..

Stephen Malkmus looks tired. A two-day road journey back from promotional duties in Malmo (with a spot of rest and recreation in Amsterdam) has taken it out of the former singer of the “medium-big college-rock band” Pavement (his words) by the time he reaches London to promote his eponymous début solo effort

Stephen Malkmus looks tired. A two-day road journey back from promotional duties in Malmo (with a spot of rest and recreation in Amsterdam) has taken it out of the former singer of the “medium-big college-rock band” Pavement (his words) by the time he reaches London to promote his eponymous début solo effort.
It’s a very decent record, not a million miles from his best work, touchingly clad in a sleeve featuring a portrait shot of the man himself on a Hawaiian beach. “I tried some other covers, but that seemed right, between irony and seriousness,” Malkmus confesses “It gets under your skin, you know It was an effort to be entertaining and interesting. Some people want to see it as a huge ego thing, like, ‘It’s all about Steve now.’ ” Some people, eh? Some former workmates, perhaps? “My attitude is that I’m gonna be here in two years probably… if the well doesn’t run dry.” He indicates the interview situation, and laughs.He could be doing exactly this for the rest of his life?He gives as good as he gets. “You probably started out reporting on schools in some distant borough,” he replies, “and now you’re here…”Malkmus’s reputation as something of an intellectual, at least by rock’s shallow standards, has a good basis.

He’s currently reading the works of the fin-de-siÿcle pervert Baron Corvo in the back of the van, having ploughed through Conrad’s Nostromo, despite, like many, failing to warm to it. (Oh, and he once worked as a security guard at New York’s Met Museum.)His songs are as unpredictable as his choice of reading-matter Take “The Hook”, a heartwarming tale of skulduggery at sea. It certainly offers a new perspective on the old band-as-marauding-gang cliché. Has anyone else ever sung lines like: “At age 18 I was kidnapped by Turkish pirates; after some torture, they considered me their mascot… by 31 I was captain of the galleon”, in the voice of a jolly Lou Reed?”The pirate thing is already a rock’n'roll cliché. Keith Richards has always been a swashbuckling guy who should have worn an eyepatch more often,” Malkmus offers “It would have looked good on him Or a patch over his mouth, before he got his new teeth.. ” Such musings are the stuff of Malkmus’s lyrical style. The downright catchy “Jo Jo’s Jacket” leads from the opening line “I’m not what you think I am” into a rhyme with “Siam”, which is somehow logically followed by a detailed description of Yul Brynner’s best role, as a robot in Westworld.

‘They call him my brother-in-law.’Yeovil’s 18th-minute lead stemmed from Hereford’s bizarre tactical ploy of leaving the right-back position unfilled. But a poll last month showed that 53 per cent now believe that she told the truth, and 37 per cent still believe Thomas.(Photograph omitted). He decided to leave GM for a new job at Volkswagen, Europe’s largest car maker. Unita is believed to be supported by Zaire and private sources in South Africa.A threat by the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo against Unita on 15 September unless it honoured the May 1991 peace accords is a hollow one, according to most military analysts. The Federation of Women’s Institutes has been bolder in its critique of the nuclear industries than the labour movement There is no Silkwood at Sellafield.. The account ends on 29 October with settlement on 8 November.

‘Let’s go find some quirkiness,’ you can see them enthusing every Monday morning, as they commission another production company to tail a tinker, a tailor or a candlestick maker. He is reported to be yearning for the symbols and trappings that would go with that office: his face on the currency and postage stamps and, of course, a national airport for state visits. To carry out all the projects a further pounds 500,000 is sought by the charity.For every donation to one or more of 15 charities working in the region, the Independent will add 10 per cent, up to pounds 30,000.If you would like to support one or more of the charitable organisations please send a separate cheque for each donation, made payable to the organisation – with the wording as below – and send to: Bosnia Appeal, The Independent, 40 City Road, London EC1Y 2DB.1 War Child; 2 Victims of War Appeal (former Yugoslavia) – this for the Red Cross; 3 Care; 4 Cafod (Bosnia); 5 Christian Aid (Bosnia); 6 Edinburgh Direct Aid; 7 Feed the Children; 8 Help the Aged Former Yugoslavia Appeal; 9 Islamic Relief Bosnia Fund; 10 Marie Stopes International (Bosnia); 11 Oxfam; 12 The Refugee Council; 13 Save the Children Fund; 14 Scottish European Aid; 15 UNA Trust Bosnia.Letters, page 13(Photograph omitted). Yet Graeme Souness had one more ace up his sleeve from among his substitutes. It has never been published.Supergun: Scott has not heard evidence in public from Customs officers, or from executives at the manufacturing and transport companies who supplied the parts to Iraq.Royal Ordnance: now part of British Aerospace, Royal Ordnance was a member of the ‘European explosives cartel’ that supplied material used in Iraqi weapons.A professional adviser who has followed Scott from the outset acknowledged that to call all those witnesses would delay the inquiry’s outcome beyond its expected August conclusion.

Steelers are taking legal action against the BIHA over the matter and their second place remains at the moment.
Steelers at least played in two tight, competitive games over the weekend. Twenty-five years ago, the British drank tea, beer and water from the tap. THE IRA has come a long way since the late 1960s, when it was a small, badly-organised group based in the backstreets of Belfast. More rarely, along comes an acronym which seems to fit the bill exactly. Poverty deprives them of opportunities, isolates them and drains their confidence and self-esteem; it also diminishes the ability of families in the same community to support each other.Save the Children works on the premise that what parents in such circumstances require is not coercion or lectures on how to get parenting right, but practical services that can help them to overcome the barriers imposed by their environment.

Twitter adds Tweetie to its roster of service add-ons and announces that the app’s creator, Loren Brichter, will join the company’s mobile team

Director, Public Relations,+1-212-805-2347,; Jonathan Leacock, Manager, Public Relations, +1-212-805-1299,, or Cara Krystofiak, Coordinator,Public Relations,+1-212-805-2380, , all ofBeaute Prestige International USA. Service is an incident-specific,reasonable-effort repair service for certain products and applications listedat received the highest numerical score among television service providersin the South region in the proprietary J.D. NEW YORK, Aug. KELOWNA, BRITISH COLUMBIA, Aug 24 (MARKET WIRE) — QHR Technologies Inc.

Banks across Southeast Asia are struggling against a tideof bad loans sparked by the worst recession since the Asianfinancial crisis 11 years ago. Additionally a Lunch Symposium will be held on Monday, August 31 at 1:00 p.m.CET in room 04/05, where conference attendees can learn more about theversatility and precision of the CyberKnife System’s treatment planning anddelivery technologies. Terremark Worldwide, Inc.Media RelationsXavier Gonzalez, orInvestor RelationsHunter Blankenbaker, Copyright Business Wire 2009. Leroy Hood Selected as Plenary Speaker for the 22nd Annual SupercomputingConference, SC09PORTLAND, Ore.–(Business Wire)–SC09, the 22nd annual event in the SC conference series, recognized globally asthe premier international conference on high performance computing, networking,storage and analysis, announced today it has selected world renowned Biologist,Dr Leroy Hood, as a plenary speaker Dr.

Historical results are notindicative of future performance.CDC CorporationInvestor RelationsMonish Bahl, orCDC SoftwareMedia RelationsLorretta Gasper, Copyright Business Wire 2009. To date, IMAX hassigned contracts for more than 220 IMAX digital projection systems worldwide,with more than 100 currently in operation.”Including IMAX theatres in these new locations will provide our customers withthe most immersive premium movie-going experience on the planet, which isbecoming increasingly important as the technologies in regular movie theatresand in the home continue to improve,” said Ms. For the channel and pricing structure, 86downstream industries are analyzed. Promotional code ASVPFD9 must be used for all vacationbookings. Hong Kong 70 Market Overview 70 Security Technologies Adopted in Hong Kong(2004) – Ranked in the Order of Usage 70 Types of Computer Attacks in Hong Kong(2004) – Ranked in the Order of Impact 71 5d. EDT(including the holiday, Monday October 12) or by emailing our customer servicecenter at .

Modelling indicates that certain areas of the oxidemineralization may remain open for expansion. PLANSPONSOR magazine sponsored the Advisor Communications award category and wasresponsible for selecting the winner. A fourth accomplice was described in court documents as a leader of the Puerto Rican Liberation Movement who participated in the plot but did not board the plane He was acquitted of charges in 1969 In the late 1960s and early 1970s, dozens of U.S. Additionalinformation about National Fuel Gas Company is available on its Internet Website:investor.nationalfuelgas or through its investor information service at1-800-334-2188.National Fuel Gas CompanyAnalyst Contact: James C.

On the handset side the company saw a decline in units sold year-to-year, but an improvement from the immediately previous quarter. There is still an urgent requirement for a simple, rapid test whichis easily deployed at point of care. * No treatment-related increase in glucocorticoid-associated adverse events suchas glucose levels, glaucoma, cataracts, infections, weight gain, bone loss orfractures were observed.About Synavive (CRx-102)Synavive is a novel dissociated glucocorticoid product candidate designed toenhance the anti-inflammatory benefits of glucocorticoids, without associatedside effects. Rite Aid is one of the nation’s leading drugstore chains with more than 4,800stores in 31 states and the District of Columbia and fiscal 2009 annual sales ofmore than $26.3 billion. The best way to unlock the profitable stock recommendations and marketinsights of Zacks Investment Research is through our free daily emailnewsletter; Profit from the Pros. Later in the session, the company had to temporarily transfer quote processing to a backup system.The interruption on the NYSE and in the NYSE Amex cash equities trading was later resolved.The benchmark S&P 500 is up 53.2 percent from the 12-year closing low of March 9. [.N][USD/] [ID:nN30482062] * Consumer sentiment data counters above-forecast thirdquarter growth numbers in the U.S economy.

The best way to unlock the profitable stock recommendations and marketinsights of Zacks Investment Research is through our free daily emailnewsletter; Profit from the Pros. All have sinned and come short.So the question in my mind is not why a sampling of Buffalo fans was so willing to accept this man who is generally considered a pariah, but why an apparent majority of the general population, including football fans, in our society are so unwilling to forgive animal cruelty when murderers, gangsters, spouse batterers, deadbeat dads and more play in NFL stadiums every week, having served nothing more than a two week suspension and not a day in jail?Sure, animals are helpless. They depend on the love and compassion of their owners Animal abuse is egregious. The entire line will retail for under $20 and is appropriate forchildren ages 6 and up. We seek safe harbour.Contacts:Silvercorp Metals Inc.Rui FengChairman & CEO(604) 669-9397 or Toll Free: 1-888-224-1881Silvercorp Metals Inc.Lorne WaldmanCorporate Secretary(604) 669-9397 or Toll Free: 1-888-224-1881(604) 669-9387 (FAX)Email: ebsite: 2009, Market Wire, All rights reserved.-0-.

[ID:nT71201] While Japanese Economics Minister Kaoru Yosano said onMonday that Japan was facing its worst economic crisis sinceWorld War 2, he added that the government was not consideringtaking additional stimulus steps until parliament passes abudget for the fiscal year starting on April 1 [ID:nTKX004208] Trade was thin with U.S. Twenty-four months from now, doesn?t it still make sense that B.J. Ideally another left fielder would be nice, giving Marcus Thames the option to either play out in left or DH. He’ll only have two rows of cars in front of him when the green flag drops and his final practice session was very encouraging for a driver that has good success on the road courses. Free kick to the US at the other end, and Dempsey wants it.Full time: Dempsey of course misses the net, and Busacca blows his whistle to signal the end of the match. As can be noted, sometimes a team is “favored” (wins more than 50% of the time) in a different number of our games than the expected record shows We list this record as the Absolute Record.

Right now, there’s still too much animosity between Sosa, the fans, the organization, and baseball itself over the steroid allegations, the corked bat (yes, still) and the way he left Chicago.Look at the players the Cubs have honored: Billy Williams, Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Ryne Sandberg, Maddux, and Fergie Jenkins. Louis, when they had an opportunity to start in the absence of four national team players on international duty. It will be the first time that Lawler has fought since last July, but he is not concerned with the long layoff.“The whole time I was out I was training thinking I was going to fight any day and it just didn’t happen that way,” Lawler said “I’m in shape. To make this possible, WeddingWire hasintegrated Carbonfund ’s weddings carbon calculator as a tool onWeddingWire’s personalized wedding websites.Martha Stewart Weddings Editorial Director Darcy Miller believes, “With thestate of the planet on so many people’s minds, it is natural that brides andgrooms want to incorporate a green aspect to their wedding.The offering ofthe carbon calculator on a couple’s wedding website is a great way to educatethe couple and their guests about offsetting their carbon footprint andthrowing an eco-savvy event.”After reducing one’s carbon footprint, carbon offsetting is the only way tobecome carbon neutral. are traversing toward that destination.We had the opportunity to speak with Reed Harris and he was very candid on a number of issues ranging from the future of the WEC lightweight division, Brown vs.

No other media brand has dared to create such openinteraction with its readers and event participants About Boston-PowerBoston-Power, Inc. (NYSE: AVB), The Pepsi Bottling Group (NYSE: PBG),HEICO Corporation (NYSE: HEI), General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM) and ChicagoBridge and Iron (NYSE: CBI). Welterweight champion: ”When I stand next to Manny I look at him and think: ‘How are you going to hold me off?’   He is a great fighter, that’s why everyone accepts him as the pound-for-pound champion, but I have advantages, and one of them is that I am a more polished fighter than I was and I’m at a weight that is natural for me. Once they got the lead, they didn’t let up,But any team that can allow Carlos Boozer to score 28 points in the first game, 20 in the second game, and 23 more tonight, along with 22 rebounds, does not have the killer instinct of a champion.The Lakers, in my opinion, do not have that trait and have not had it all season long. So with that being said, this is now a tournament to see who will face you in a few weeks for the No 1 Contendership. Colorado Rockies (4-8|18) – Tulowitzki had cooled down significantly, but Marquis is doing fantastic.26. I am not condemning Dimitroff, because on the contrary, I like him But I do not fully trust him.

Baltimore Orioles A 12th straight losing season looks inevitable for my beloved Baltimore Orioles. Whatever the reason, it is time to reclaim the kingdom. As boxing continues to counter mixed martial arts by providing fans with the most compelling matchups, there is still something missing. After the trading scandal, SocGen Chairman and CEO DanielBouton, Citerne and investment banking head Jean-Pierre Mustieroffered their resignations, but were retained by the board. Chicago Bears: Hakeem Nicks, WRThe Bears need a receiver, badly. Bradley’s right foot contributed to the only two goals of the night, as the U.S. He allowed just 1.19 base runners per inning.He was promoted to high ‘A’ Potomac in 2008, and was even better, going 3-1, 1.65, fanning 10 per nine innings while walking just two.

There are also problems with bringing business people into public service.’Since the early 19th century, quangos have executed public functions at arm’s length from ministers. The announcement expected on Wednesday that a third of the 400 schemes in the national road building programme are to be postponed indefinitely is likely to inspire even further campaigns against environmentally damaging new roads. At this stage ANC security personnel were telling reporters that if the Inkatha people ‘attacked’ one more time, they would simply open fire. ‘But keep an eye on acquisition expenses like legal and survey fees, as you cannot write them off.’Do not skimp on the survey, however, or the place might fall down as soon as the first tenant walks in And remember that such inspections are not foolproof. Two years ago, two men working for the military regime stole one of the artist’s paintings. He won the Commonwealth title in Auckland, but then suffered a severe knee injury which kept him out of action for 18 months.

Taking its title from an article of the Public Health Code under which persons suspected of drug-trafficking can be held in police custody for up to four days, the film is short on plot and long on procedural detail: it prowls the same patch as Bob Swaim’s La Balance and Maurice Pialat’s Police. Gatting came good, and my hunch is so will Hick.England getting runs is one thing, bowling India out is quite another, of course. Simple justice and commercial logic suggest that now is the time to remove the handcuffs.’Gloom at end of tunnel, page 21. Non-executive directors would be more effective if they got out of the boardroom and spent more time finding out about the operations of the companies over which they preside. To prevent landings of these small fish we are calling for a ban on the landing of ungutted fish. Lord Ashley received a special award for outstanding work for the disabled

(Photograph omitted).

She is correct to highlight the lack of funding available to train nurses and social workers as, being state-run, such projects fall outside the remit of most agencies. SCOTTISH EQUITABLE has become the latest insurance group to accept a proposal of marriage from an outside company to put it on a firmer financial footing. He missed two match points at 5-4 in the second set and another two in the tie-breaker which he won 10-8 on his fifth match point.Martin, 17, from Bristol, did well to come back from a break point down against Baily, the Southampton 17- year-old who was seeded 15th.Jeremy Bates and the Zimbabwean Bryon Black were beaten 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 by the No 1 seeds, Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde, of Australia, in the men’s doubles quarter-finals. Joyce, who was born in the Seychelles, moved to Britain when he was four and lives in Bedford, has improved from 10.73 to 10.47 this summer.The manner in which he won yesterday drew comparisons with Christie. The effect is highly entertaining.Apparently, Masson intended something else: a work of social criticism in the lineage of his The Assault on Truth: Freud and Child Sexual Abuse.

Tax, she says, is not important – she doesn’t pay it because she only works part time. The Henley Research Centre worked out that a pub customer who drinks at lunchtime and in the evenings is worth pounds 788 per year. His book ‘Hunting People – 30 Years of Interviews with the Famous’ is published by Mainstream, pounds 7.99.(Photograph omitted). With much money at stake, Mr Burke and Mr Coyle rubbed their hands in roadside dust and picked up their bowls again.(Photographs omitted). Crash Test Dummies: Stratford Phoenix Festival, 071-284 4111, Sat.(Photograph omitted). A DOCTOR was believed to have made legal history yesterday when he admitted endangering the health of patients by performing surgery knowing that he was carrying a highly contagious form of hepatitis.

Mr Rabin, who is committed to achieving Palestinian autonomy within nine months and has told the Palestinians he is offering them the best deal they will ever get, had a great interest in finding a peaceful way out of the crisis.Similarly, it seems, the Palestinian leaders – who will also be meeting Mr Baker – were keen to end the siege peacefully, and display their own capacity for leadership and calm. BRITAIN’S emphasis on educating the middle class at the expense of basic vocational training was denounced as a national disgrace last night by one of the country’s leading experts. Education appeal committee hearings for special needs cases are due to be replaced by independent tribunals. There is absolutely no difference.’At University College Hospital in London, Chris Lavy, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon who is treating Namko Mulamehic, 33, for severe leg injuries, said: ‘When I asked him if he was a soldier, he smiled and said: ‘Everyone in Sarajevo is a soldier’.’ Mr Mulamehic was injured when a grenade exploded near him during hand-to-hand fighting last month.At Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, David Wilson, the chief executive, admitted that Ahdin Dugonjic, a dental technician, and Senad Mirvic, a welder, both of whom require treatment for facial injuries, could have been involved in the fighting. Wednesday had the luxury of being able to bring in Chris Waddle for his first match this season, leaving Chris Bart-Williams to roam in midfield and Carlton Palmer to take a central defensive role. As the moral philosopher Mary Midgley argued in her book Beast and Man, a decade ago, we cannot hope to construct a system of morality by a process of pure reason, totally separating values from facts. At least 357 fundamentalists have been sentenced to death in Algeria since a state of emergency was imposed in February 1992, and 26 have been executed..

After all, as Ree tells the story, the virtues of deaf sign languages were largely ignored until Saussurian science corrected the prejudices of history.But this is rather too quick, for it forgets that the human use of scientific knowledge must always itself depend on some larger framework of ideas, a framework with no authority but the questionable commendation of history. Ree is right to urge a constant interrogation of the past in the interest of finding the right way forward Indeed the case of Saussure himself makes the point. Despite his insights, Saussure remained a victim of the historical prejudices that his own theories undermined, and was never able to appreciate the essential unity of signed and spoken languages.Even so, some readers may wish that Ree had offered more science. He is so good on the significance of modern phonetics that it seems odd that he ignores other scientific questions. He says little about the grammatical comparisons between deaf and spoken languages, or about the biological imperatives that drive the deaf towards signing when speech is unavailable. Saussure is treated at some length, but Noam Chomsky appears only in a couple of footnotes, and Charles Darwin not at all.But this is carping.

Grammar and biology are only two of the many topics where Ree will leave his readers asking for more. I was also disappointed he did not spend longer on Chinese ideography, or on the sign language of Native Americans, or on the hearing children of deaf parents, or on many other issues I resolved to pursue further. It is a virtue of this philosophical history that every layer it removes turns out to uncover even more interesting layers below.. Sheer Blue Bliss

by Lesley Glaister Bloomsbury pounds 15.99
Happiness is the prize for late 20th-century man – be it in the form of artistic fulfilment, absolute fame, the ultimate orgasm. Forget duty: that’s been long abandoned, and celestial heaven is too long a wait.Patrick Mount was a man of his time: an eccentric botanist for whom finding paradise on earth was the reason for living. Until he disappeared in the 1960s, he believed he had found the perfect way to bliss through his elixirs, potent herby concoctions that would enable him to experience the seven stages of perfect joy.

But now all that is left of Patrick is his picture, about to be unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery, years after it was painted by his portraitist and lover, Charlotte Benson. She meanwhile has long since abandoned society for windswept solitude by the sea in Norfolk.For Tony, though, Patrick is as alive today as he is. His obsession with the story of Mount and his elixirs has dominated his entire life and being. The opening of the National Portrait Gallery exhibition is the moment when Tony realises that his quest for bliss can be attained.As soon as we encounter Tony, we are beset by a sense of dark dread. Glaister paces the tension acutely through the pages of this disturbing novel, tempting us to read on to the inevitable, terrible denouement.Glaister’s eighth novel might be dubbed a story of the search for total bliss, but this is sheer gothic horror – and all the more satisfying for it. Like many of her earlier works, she convincingly portrays the demons behind what at first glance seems so commonplace, so mundane.

Cesc Fabregas scores the third as Arsenal underline their English title credentials with a 4-1 thrashing of Wolves at Molineux to go second in the Premier League.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has criticized the leading clubs in Europe for not allowing eligible players to feature for their country at the current Under-20 World Cup in Egypt.