PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
The stock market continued its plunge, the FT-SE 100 index closing lower than it did on the day in 1997 when Gordon Brown began his job as Chancellor by promising 'an end to boom and bust'. Mr Brown's minions floated plans for a few more taxes, including stamp duty on those selling houses, and an end to child benefit for the over-16s. A white mother gave birth to black twins after a mixup in her in vitro fertilisation treatment. Lawyers were engaged to debate the awkward matter of who will be the legal parents of the children. The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, ruled that the life sentence imposed on Dr Harold Shipman, the GP now believed to have killed more than 500 of his patients, will be one of the few to be taken literally. The General Synod discussed plans to allow vicars to many members of their flocks on fairground rides, marathon runs and other places beyond the walls of a church. The House of Commons defence select committee opened an investigation into the deaths of four soldiers understood to have committed suicide at Deepcut barracks in Surrey, amid rumours that one of them, a female private, had been forced into a sexual relationship with a corporal. A statue of Lady Thatcher was decapitated by a man wielding a metal pole, who said he committed the crime to save his son from global capitalism. Ulster's marching season began
with an exchange of boulders at Drumcree. Customs and Excise charged a Royal Marines charity 110,000 in VAT for the refurbishment of a 100-year-old memorial. A medical trial on the risks of hormonereplacement therapy was halted when it was discovered that, far from offering revived vitality, the treatment led to strokes, cancers and heart attacks. A head sculpted from the artist's own frozen blood melted in Charles Saatchi's kitchen after builders mistakenly turned off a freezer. Lleyton Hewitt won the men's singles title at Wimbledon in a rather boring match. Serena Williams beat her sister Venus to take the ladies' title.
THE FOURTH of July, which many feared Islamic terrorists had marked in their diaries for fresh atrocities, passed off peacefully save for the shooting of two people at an El-Al check-in desk at Los Angeles international airport. Although the gunman, who was shot dead by police, was a Muslim, investigators insisted that the attack did not amount to terrorism because it appeared to have been provoked by a dispute over payments for chauffeured cars. Abdul Haji Qadir, a former warlord who latterly served as vice-president in the Afghan government, was assassinated in Kabul. Al-Qa'eda was immediately blamed, though it later seemed that the killing was related to Qadir's dabblings in the drugs trade. President Bush ordered American corporations to stop 'cooking the books' and warned the boards of dodgy companies that they faced jail. A government official in Botswana said that the nation faced extinction, after it was revealed that 39 per cent of the adult population is infected with the HIV virus. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was put on trial in Pretoria on 85 charges of fraud and theft. A Royal Navy commander apologised for having 'hazarded' the lives of his 250 crew members after running his destroyer into a submerged rock off Lord Howe Island, between Australia and New Zealand. A terrorist who blew himself up while planting a bomb in Athens enabled police to locate a hideaway of the elusive Marxist group November 17. Swiss air-traffic controllers faced charges after it emerged that a vital safety system was turned off at the time of last week's mid-air collision over Lake Constance, and while one of the two controllers on duty was taking a break. Locals in Brittany announced plans to turn into a rubbish dump the site of the battle of SaintAubin du Cormier, where 500 English archers were slain attempting to prevent the French from annexing the ancient kingdom in 1488. Agriculturists in the United Arab Emirates claimed to have bred cube-shaped watermelons and tomatoes for easier storage.
RJC
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