Mr Fry warns against being seduced by investments that promise a return suspiciously higher than the norm, particularly if the word "guaranteed" appears.He says "guaranteed" high-income bonds often mislead investors with promises of attractive returns, while failing to make clear that if stock-market performance is poor, the income will come out of your initial capital investment."Some investments promise returns from 7 to 10 per cent, but there is a danger you won't get all of your capital back," he warns.For a safe investment in a time of market turbulence, Mr Fry recommends gilts, issued by the government to raise money They are the safest investment around, he advises. If you have an interest- only loan you can work it out, otherwise call the lender.Some customers are jumping out of five-year fixes charging between 7.5 per cent and 9 per cent and then re-fixing for three years at just over 5 per cent, Ms Hotten says."It's important to look for a product with no penalties," Ms Hotten adds. She also recommends discounts, which will ensure you always pay less than the standard rate."The Alliance & Leicester and Nationwide are offering discounts without redemption penalties," she says. A sample current offer is 1.55 per cent off standard rates for two years at Nationwide Building Society.InvestmentsJonathan Fry, managing director of Premier Asset Management in Guildford, recommends reviewing your investments to check they are sufficiently robust to weather a recession and the anticipated fall in yields."Investments you took out two or three years ago should be re- viewed; to do nothing is to put your head in the sand," Mr Fry explains."Many big fund managers have not performed as well as you might like - Schroders, for example."He says some insurance-based companies such as Prudential, Scottish Equitable and Royal & Sun Alliance have seen good investment performance recently. Yes, Mr Ifield, you-oooooooooou too will be remembered - and not lightly forgiven."Sterling stuff, and the predictions still hold water today.

Ifield's singing career never recovered from my onslaught, though in subsequent years he has done much to make amends. "If our children turn into brash womanisers, yodelling at all and sundry, future generations will know only too well that the blame should be laid firmly at the door of Mr Frank Ifield. The then editor of the Daily Telegraph wrote me a letter (telephones were not employed at the Telegraph until February, 1982, and then only for first-hand reports of the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race) asking me, as an expert on "youth culture" (not a phrase we used much in those days), whether I would pen them a piece explaining why Mr Ifield found it necessary to sing "You-ooo-ooooooou" rather than the more compact and conventional "You". Was he, perchance, in pain? And was it his normal habit to buttonhole young ladies, force himself upon them and announce - correctly or incorrectly - that he remembered them? And, if he did indeed remember them, was it the action of a gentleman not to mention them by name (Prudence, Agatha, Henrietta) but instead to employ the all-encompassing "you", or, more accurately, "you-oooooooooou"? Needless to say, I worked long and hard at that piece, and as day broke over my study, I laid down my pen having concluded in a chilling final paragraph that Ifield represented a significant threat to the nation's youth. It is many a moon since an editor rushed to his telephone and begged me, on bended knee, to provide him with 1,000 tightly-written words on the very latest trend in "pop" music(!) But here goes.

If I recall correctly, the last time it happened was back in the July of 1962, when Mr Frank Ifield stormed the charts (dread activity!) with his Number One hit, "I Remember You-oooooooooou", or words to that effect. As a senior columnist, I am still young at heart, with my finger firmly on the proverbial pulse The Brit Awards The Brit Awards The Brit Awards Hmmm.... The Brit Awards. It is Europe, not Nato and the United States, that should be solving the problems in its own backyard. For all Madeleine Albright's bustling about the capitals of Europe, her aggressive and morally self-righteous approach to ancient European quarrels is unlikely to promote life, liberty or happiness.If the bombs start to fall, they had better be well-aimed, and followed swiftly by magnanimous diplomacy and an ethical - though not moralistic - plan for the creation of just and lasting peace It is probably too much to hope for.. A Europe able to speak with one voice, and to act militarily as one unit, represents a far greater threat to the pretensions of tyrants such as Milosevic than promises of intervention by, as in this case, Britain and the United States - with the EU in the background. As we argued here a month ago ago the missing link in the forging of an effective British foreign policy is Europe.