Using an ancient tradition the show gives a tantalising witty portrait of a distant world

Using an ancient tradition, the show gives a tantalising, witty portrait of a distant world.'Lift' runs to 12 July (071-413 1459)(Photograph omitted). Managers' lives are probably altered more dramatically, he says. They are kept in virtual isolation, confined to their 6ft by 6ft cell for 23 hours a day. (First Edition) THE 3 per cent insurance tax to be introduced in October will cost poor families up to seven times more than those in affluent areas, according to a study by Harriet Harman, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, writes Patricia Wynn Davies. In his Budget speech, Kenneth Clarke, the Chancellor, said a 'typical' family with motor, home contents and buildings insurance would pay 35 pence extra a week.However, according to Ms Harman's survey of constituencies with the highest and lowest insurance rates, people living in high unemployment areas will be hit far more heavily because premiums are already higher.Ms Harman said a family in a three-bedroom home in Liverpool Riverside (unemployment rate 24.8 per cent) faces a bill of up to pounds 540 for pounds 30,000 of contents insurance, while one in Westmoreland & Lonsdale, Cumbria (unemployment rate 4.6 per cent) pays as little as pounds 77 for the same coverage. Shops are fully stocked with supplies of calvados, some of it with 'D- Day 1944' labels. We then report back to the trustees and recommend areas where things should be tightened up.'Member trustees tend to be entirely unaware.

But anniversaries, in the sense of round numbers of years, seem to have aroused less excitement. Mr Knapp argues the savings involved are far greater than the addition to pay.The key problem is that the offer is made in return for new working methods and the union is seeking an increase for productivity changes already achieved. Once he ate all my Aretha Franklin records.' And then there's Big Bird, 'the overgrown bag of giblets.'Ask him what he likes, and his manner softens. Could not the BBC or some enterprising radio station undertake similar early-morning broadcasts on a regular basis? It might replace such programmes as Today. Several awards went to performers from the early music scene, one of classical music's most flourishing growth areas, and others - to a Viennese modern music festival and a new American opera - focused on the sharp end of current creativity.A new piece of music was commissioned for the occasion from Dominic Muldowney. The bigger blade and shorter outboard lever place different strains on the upper body and these may be disruptive after 10 minutes of hard racing.The crucial difference in last year's very close race, when the crews were level after 14 minutes, was in the steering.

They worked 12 hours a day, ate and drank enough to assuage appetite and ensure a good night's sleep, and got up at seven the next morning to carry on labouring. The great Conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott was her friend and mentor.His last book, On Human Conduct, was dedicated to her and he would always stay under her roof when in London.Shirley Letwin loved social life and was the most generous of hostesses. THE ART world was yesterday confused by news that the star lot in Christie's Old Master sale - an important painting by the Italian Guido Reni, estimated to fetch pounds 1.2m - was withdrawn at the last minute. An inquest into his death resumed in Lincoln Castle yesterday, when evidence was given about how National Health Service hormone treatment has now been changed and how batches of human hormones might well have been contaminated. The coroner, Nigel Chapman, said he would like to know whether, when the rules governing hormonal treatment were changed, all human glands in storage had in fact been disposed of. The women were recruited from health centres, apparently, and moved about more than danced to Billy Cowie's wonderful music, sung in Polish by Juliet Russell, an Enya sound-alike.Light-hearted and warmly enjoyable is the second piece, Falling Apart at the Seams (so it seems). Their benefits are clear to see: 13 dollar-billionaires listed by Forbes magazine, a growing middle class, declining inflation, fiscal discipline, renegotiated foreign debt and a dramatic surge in foreign investment.