It's not something I like about myself, but it's often a means to an end I can't stand working in a bad atmosphere. Mr Whittam Smith, who became chief executive in 1987, shortly after the daily newspaper was launched, said yesterday that he had been planning for some time to devote himself entirely to the day-to-day running of the newspapers. (Most of the work on which his reputation now rests, ruthless, complex short stories, such as 'Mrs Bathurst' and 'Mary Postgate', were written after he won the prize, in 1907 at the age of 42.) When Michael Berkeley began thinking about an opera based on The Jungle Book, he spoke to a number of possible librettists - the poets Craig Raine and Peter Porter, the novelist David Malouf - and even chewed over Kipling's case with Salman Rushdie: they were unanimous in saying how underrated Kipling was.In the end, it was Malouf who joined forces with Berkeley, and the result of their collaboration, Baa Baa Black Sheep, will be premiered at the Cheltenham Festival tonight. Yeltsin promised a referendum and now this.' Irina, a historian, said Mr Yeltsin had betrayed the young members of his government to save himself. He eventually bought the business out for a price he could finance from his own resources and from money within the business, without having to go to outside venture capitalists.The deal was completed on 9 July, almost exactly two years after CRT took over Sewells. A vehement burst from the trio set a mood for 'Pleasure it is', not the pastoral wallow the poem suggested. And in any event, the BSO evolved into a largely touring enterprise, with 70 per cent of its concert work away from home across nine counties in the south-west.

The study, entitled Corporate Giving, It's Your Job to Do Something About It, shows that just over a third of companies have increased their level of support over the past three years, with fewer than one in seven giving less than they did three years ago. Furthermore, most respondents to the study, sponsored by medical research charity Action Research, said that current levels of support would not fall in the medium term. I have never run away from a challenge in my life, and I am surely not doing it now.'Mr Clarke predicted the party would not 'feed' leadership speculation. The survey team has since identified ring garths at Watendlath, Rosthwaite and Grange in Borrowdale, at Wasdale Head, Little Langdale, and Loughrigg, and in Patterdale and Yewdale.The survey team was able to identify the ring garth because other walls always abutted on to it, indicating it must have been built first. Clinically the technique is still experimental, though regarded widely as having great promise for the treatment of Parkinson's disease and possibly for other neurodegenerative disorders.Hitchcock additionally treated large numbers of patients whose problems required the more common, though nonetheless demanding, operations of general neurosurgery.Hitchcock's academic life was very full. Hotopf had already studied how well letters to newspapers were comprehended, deploying a theory of visual perception, and this theory he redeployed on Richards and on the understanding of him by critics. Prospects for Scotch whisky were the best for many years.Euro Disney found the prevailing gloom too much, falling to a new low of 513p, down 27p.The Greycoat rescue plan left the shares 1.5p higher at 25.5p.

There was the Home and Away round ('Definitely have to go away please, David') and the Picture Board ('I'll try four, David'). But that decision will not affect the current bitterly fought spending round.Mr Rifkind's pointed remarks, in a speech interrupted by a series of complaints from senior backbenchers about 'fatuous' and 'fatal' Treasury plans for further cuts of up to pounds 1bn, came after two reports from the Commons Defence Select Committee warning that any further reductions would undermine Britain's ability to defend itself.Mr Rifkind had earlier put his case at an inconclusive meeting of senior ministers at Downing Street. BRITAIN'S imports of hazardous wastes, most of which come from near European neighbours, have more than doubled in recent years, government figures published yesterday reveal. The one-for-two rights issue, at 40p a share, was accompanied by the warning that it is to write off half the value of Civil & Marine, its sea- dredged aggregates business, at a cost of pounds 60m. He has a fondness for the instrument now, though in his teens he was only too glad to drop it Don plays the clarinet. This is a process by which one ethnic group systematically expels members of another from their homes and resettles the area with its own people.