PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
If you want a straight interview that will be £20,000 but if you want something kinky. . Mr David Mellor, the Heritage Secre- tary, offered his resignation after the People reported his visits to the flat of a 31-year- old actress, Miss Antonia de Sancha. Mr Major declined the offer and promised he would stand by Mr Mellor 'through thick and thin'. Amid calls for privacy laws to control newspapers, the Sun claimed that before the election a Cabinet minister had told the paper the names of three women whom he falsely accused of having had affairs with Mr Paddy Ashdown. This alle- gation was denied by every Cabinet minis- ter. Children as young as six took part in riot, looting and arson in the Hartcliffe area of Bristol at the weekend. Younspeo- ple in Burnley followed suit the next day. A half-naked youth was apprehended inside Buckingham Palace a few yards from the Queen's bedroom after he had scaled rail- ings. He said that he had done it as a protest, but was unable to explain what he was protesting about. The Government cut the rate of interest on its First Option bonds to avert increases in mortgage rates by building societies which saw the bonds as competition. Mr Antony Gecas, a man of Lithuanian descent living in Scotland, lost a libel case against Scottish Television,which had accused him of being a mass-murder-
ing war criminal. Mr Kevin Maxwell was ordered by a court to refund £406 million to Maxwell pension funds; he had previous- ly declared his assets to be £211,000. Britain's highest ranking policewoman,. Ali- son Halford, Assistant Chief Constable of Merseyside, dropped her action for sex dis- crimination in return for being allowed to retire early on full pension plus a lump sum of £142,000. Lady Helen Windsor married Mr Tim Taylor in what was called a 'fairy- tale wedding'; the fairy tale was not speci- fied. Mr Conrad Black married Miss Bar- bara Amiel in a private ceremony. A moth- er was stabbed to death on Wimbledon Common in the presence of her two-year- old son. Nick Faldo won the Open golf championship. The painter John Bratby died, aged 64.
AN ITALIAN anti-Mafia judge, Signor Paolo Borsellino, and six bodyguards were killed by a 1,000-lb bomb in a Palermo street. His murder came two months after that of his friend and predecessor Judge Giovanni Falconi. Germany was persuaded by international entreaty to keep down its Lombard lending rate, which influences European money markets, but raised its discount rate, which has chiefly domestic
effects, by three quarters of a percentage point. Sarajevo airport was closed to aid flights after the collapse of what was proba- bly the 39th ceasefire. But Lord Carrington returned to Belgrade for further peace talks after differences with Dr Boutros Boutros Ghali, the United Nations Secre- tary General, over UN custody of whatever heavy armaments the warring sides might surrender. Mr Ross Perot withdrew his can- didature for the American presidency as Mr Bill Clinton was adopted as the official Democrat runner, achieving a 23-point lead over President Bush in opinion polls. The Pope had a tumour the size of a large ()raw removed from his bowel, the inner cells of which 'were beginning to lose their benign characteristics'. Mr Vaclav Havel resigned as President of Czechoslovakia, as his country split into two. Mr Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel, flew to Cairo for talks with President Mubarak of Egypt, the first meeting of the two coun- tries' leaders for six years. A Japanese schoolmaster was reprimanded for adminis- tering electric shocks to pupils who gained bad marks: the worse marks, the bigger the jolt. Dr Barbara Thiering, an Australian divinity don, claimed that Jesus was a
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