A Stranger's London
Right of reply
What do Lord Hume, Hugh Hefner, Simone de Beauvoir, Menachem Begin, Jimmy Carter and Bob Hope have in common? The answer, according to London Times diary, lies in a macabre new project planned for next year by the BBC. The idea is to confront them with their own filmed obituaries, narrated in the past tense. Each subject will then be interviewed by the series' deviser, Peter France, and will have the chance to argue with the BBC summation. The six mentioned above are the people now being lined up for the programme, Famous Last Words, to be made by the Everyman team. The eccentric millionaire Nubar Gulbenkian, who was not above trying to bribe Times journalists to show him his obituary, would have approved.Reunion in court
A security guard saw his daughter for the first time in 20 years sitting on the jury trying him for theft. Ivor Brittan, 64, was being tried at Bristol Crown Court.Suddenly his daughter, whose name has not been released because she is still on jury duty, whispered to a court official and told him of their relationship.
She was discharged from the jury and another member was sworn in. Then Brittan, on the advice of his counsel, Malcolm Cotterill, told the courtroom who the juror had been. Brittan, of Newry Walk, Bristol, was fined £100 on two charges of stealing 50p from Bristol Airport.
He did not get a chance to meet his daughter. She was whisked away to sit on another jury in the same building. "I have never come across a situation like this before," said Mr Cotterill after the hearing.
"Mr Brittan was obviously very shocked" said his solicitor, Kay McClusky.
Brittan has been suspended from his job at Bristol Airport.
Prince without a crown
Prince Edward, the Queen's youngest son, is emerging as a true Royal. At the age of 21 he is going thin on top. Just like his father and big brother Charles.Edward's royal patch was revealed when he escorted his grandmother, the Queen Mother, at the VE Day Memorial at Westminster.
Dressed in his uniform as a second lieutenant in the Royal Marines, he wore the Queen's Jubilee Medal on his chest and the bald spot under his cap. But unfortunately for him, the cap had to come off in the Abbey.
A Buckingham Palace spokesman has admitted the truth "Yes... well, it's very sad at his age..
£125 for woman refused job because she was white
A women's organisation funded by the Greater London Council (GLC) was ordered to pay £125 for discriminating against white people.An industrial tribunal was told that the Safe Women's Transport Group, which provides night travel in the London borough of Lewisham, had advertised for a black or white driver. But when 28-year-old Kathleen Williams applied for the job she was told that only black women would be considered.
The women's group told the tribunal at Chelsea, London SW, that it admitted discrimination but believed it acted within the law.
Mr Williams's solicitor, Tom Kharran, said: "This lady is a white person, she has a right to apply for a job which is funded by public money". Mrs Williams said she was not satisfied with the compensation.
Ferraro fails in the Oxford third degree
Members of the Oxford Union enjoyed a warm buzz of privilege recently.Their president, Neil Sherlock, had managed to persuade Geraldine Ferraro to address them on the NATO alliance, and a queue of eager undergraduates waited to shake her hand. First impressions were good, but by the time she had told one undergraduate for the third time how pleased she was to meet him, it began to dawn on the students that perhaps America's first woman Vice-Presidential candidate was not quite as on the ball as she might be.
Someone asked her what she thought of the current problems of the farmers in the United States: "I don't like them", she said, but whether she meant the problems or the farmers wasn't clear.
Asked what she thought about the position of the dollar versus the pound she mentioned that a strong dollar was great for shopping", displaying what was agreed to be a lamentable lack of gravitas.
Worse, she was very fuzzy on Reagan's decision to impose trade sanctions on Nicaragua and couldn't tell the difference between sanctions and an embargo.
"Boring, banal and vacuous", said the students in the bar. "Thought you were going to offer me an honorary degree" joked Ms Ferraro at one point. Not on the strength of her performance.
Britain 'facing tragic teenage mothers boom'
Britain is on the brink of an explosion in teenage pregnancies family planning specialists have warned. Sexually- active teenagers were afraid to seek contraceptives, and doctors were afraid to issue them, they claimed.Mr Alistair Service, secretary of the Family Planning Association, said more teenagers would become pregnant if restricting contraceptives and sex education to young people was not reversed.
He was introducing a report which compares teenage pregnancies in the US with those in 37 other developed countries, including Britain, Canada, France, Sweden and Holland.
It shows Britain stands half way down the international teenage pregnancy league, with a rate of 45 pregnancies per thousand among 15 to 19-year-olds.
Pill it could save your life, says cancer expert
The Pill is beating cancer. It prevents more disease than it causes - and it could eventually end all female cancers. A leading expert, Professor Malcolm Pike, a director of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, said: "In terms of overall cancer risk, a woman is better off with a low dose contraceptive pill than without it."Its protective effect should make women think twice about giving it up because of cancer fears.
"Long-term use of the pill protects a woman against cancer of the ovary and of the womb lining. If you take oral contraception for five years, you reduce the risk of getting this disease by half”.
Professor Pike told a meeting of the Family Planning Doctors' Association that eventually a contraceptive pill would protect women against breast cancer.
