PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Teachers belonging to the two biggest teachers' unions were instructed to count every minute that they work in school in order to protect themselves 'from exploita- tion': this in order to ensure that teachers do not spend more than 1,045 hours a year with pupils, more than 30 hours a year on parents' meetings, more than 10 minutes a day supervising the arrival and departure of their pupils, more than 95 hours a year on marking and preparing lessons and more than SO hours a year discussing the `wider educational needs of the school'. British and French railways failed to meet an Easter deadline for signing an agree- ment to use the Channel Tunnel. One Eurotunnel executive said that this might `lead to us walking off the top of the cliff . A number of letter bombs was sent by the IRA to senior civil servants and top offi- cials of the Prime Minister, including her press office', Mr Bernard Ingham. All of the devices were recognised and none exploded. Mr Mark Ryder won his fifth world eel eating title by swallowing a pound of elvers in 32 seconds at the annual contest at Frampton on Severn. An amateur radio ham, Mr Brian Tutt, a butcher from Herne Bay, saved the lives of two German, yachtsmen adrift off Ascen- sion Island when he picked up their May- day message. Mr Anthony Tudor, the choreographer, and the Scottish Labour MP, Mr Harry Gourlay, died.
A REVOLT by elements of the armed forces in Argentina was damped down for the time being by the government in Buenos Aires, although the terms on which this was achieved were not made public. The Palestine National Council — the `parliament' of the Palestinian cause met in Algiers. The various factions within the Palestinian political and military move- ment are said to be searching for a greater degree of unity of purpose. Following the talks.. in Moscow between the American Secretary of State and Mr Gorbachev, both superpowers began a detailed considera- tion of the present proposals for a possible summit later this year. European nations sought assurances from the United States that, whatever deal is struck in terms of `de-nuclearisation', Western Europe should not be left vulnerable to the massive conventional forces of the Warsaw Pact; a view also publicly expressed by General Bernard Rogers, the former Nato Supreme Commander. Over 120 innocent people were killed in an ambush in Sri Lanka when Tamil militants stopped three buses in a torrential downpour, separated the Sinhalese passengers, and shot them. A bomb which exploded at a crowded bus station in Colombo killed over 100 people. The People's Daily reported that a concert in Peking's Great Hall of the People, conducted by Mr Edward Heath, raised over £500,000 for a Chinese charity for the handicapped. Beekeepers in the Nether- lands were angered by the use of bees in their government's Aids information cam- paign. A television cartoon equated bees flying from flower to flower with the spread of the disease. A beekeeping spokesman complained: `A bee doesn't come to a flower for sex. It comes to get nectar.' Eleven Good Friday penitents in the Philippines were 'crucified' for an hour with five-inch steel nails driven through
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