The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 13

Tlie Guardian Wednesday September 19 2001 13 National news Tory fury as Oauies made BE3C chief parties of the 1 930s to the horrors of Dunkirk, with an epilogue supposedly written in 1999. Odds 52 joint favourite Oxygen by Andrew Miller The most self -consciously literary book on the list, it has been praised for its fine writing and characterisation, though it is unlikely to go down as well as his Ingenious pain, which won the Impac prize. His two protagonists, Alice Valentine, a retired schoolmistress dying of cancer in the west country and a gay Hungarian writer living in Paris are barely linked at all. Odds 92 The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert A great first novel from an Oxford-born writer who now lives in Berlin, dealing with German war guilt. tells the story of three people from Helmut, in the 1930s, who secretly photographs the deportation of the Gypsies to Micha, almost in the present, who tries to reconcile warm memories of his grandfather with his membership of the SS.

Odds 51 number9dream by David Mitchell High-octane, tricksy and with one foot in the Blade Runner world, this is not the usual Booker fare. After his brilliant first novel, Ghostwritten, great things were expected of Mitchell and this does not disappoint. Set in Tokyo, where he lives, the story is like the city in that it is fevered, hyper-ieal and with characters as garish as the love-hotels and neon bars they inhabit. Odds 61 Hotel World by Ali Smith An overlooked True History Of The Kelly Gang by Peter Carey A rollicking yam told, In Carey's conceit, from "13 parcels of stained and dog-eared papers" left behind by the Irish-Australian bandit as he awaited the hangman in Melbourne jail to justify his actions to his daughter. Written in a muscular early Australian dialect "This history is for you and will contain no single lie may I bum in hell if I speak false" Kelly rages against the lies the government has told about him in the newspapers and tells his side of the siege of Glenrowan.

Odds 52, joint favourite Atonement by Ian McEwan Some critics have hailed this as McEwan's greatest book, others are unsure about the wisdom of using the "Neither William Hague nor Iain Duncan Smith was consulted," a source said. Government sources said there had been no need to consult, because the chairman had for the first time been appointed by an independent panel, rather than by ministers. Tories scoffed at this view, since the panel was chaired by Nicholas Kroll, the most senior civil servant in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. The panel also included Sir Christopher Hogg, chairman of Reuters; Liz Forgan, former head of BBC Radio; and Sir Brian Fol-lett, an academic. Labour will dismiss the Tory criticisms, pointing out that many past BBC chairmen have had Tory links.

Sir Christopher Bland, the departing chairman, was appointed by the Tories in 1996. He was a Conservative member of the old Greater London council and chairman of the Tory Bow Group in the 1960s. They will also point out that the new BBC chairman, who made his fortune as chief economist with Goldman Sachs, was the outstanding candidate. As deputy chairman of the BBC, Mr Davies led the recent review that resulted in an increase in the licence fee to fund the corporation's digital services. Mr Davies was believed to have been the unanimous choice of the selection panel.

Nicholas Watt Political correspondent Gavyn Davies, the multi-millionaire former Labour party member, is today named as chairman of the BBC, the choice bringing a furious response from the Tories who accused Tony Blair of packing the corporation with cronies. David Davis, chairman of the Conservative party, accused the prime minister yesterday of mounting a "final takeover" of the BBC following on from the appointment of the former Labour donor Greg Dyke as its director general. Describing Mr Davies as a "bridge too the Tory chairman said: "The BBC may not be free of charge, but it should be free of bias. Tony Blair has already appointed Greg Dyke to the key post of director general. "Over the past four years Tony Blair has stuffed his cronies into every corner of public life.

It would be a grave misjudgment if he were now to mount a final takeover bid for the BBC." Tories are incensed because Mr Davies has close links with leading government figures. His wife, Sue Nye, runs the chancellor, Gordon Brown's office. Sources at Central Office also accused Downing Street of flouting convention by failing to consult the Conservative party over the appointment. 7 Above, joint favourite Peter Carey; top, left to right, contenders Rachel Seiffert, Andrew Miller and Ali Smith; right, the shortlisted books Main photograph: Eamonn McCabe bridesmaid Bainbridge left out again Hybrid computer virus threatens to hit millions literary device of having a "bad novelist" write the first half. All his usual themes are there the gap between reason and emotion, lust and betrayal against a backdrop that goes from a country house stucco of the patrician Savile Club in London's West End.

Asked how the five judges could be so heartless as to drop Bainbridge "when the public clearly wanted one of their number, writer and critic Philip Hcnsher, retorted: "So we are to let the prize be decided by public sentiment then? I thought it was a literary prize." Last night there was no reply from Bainbridge's London home. The jury chairman, Kenneth Baker, former Tory minister and part-time poet, was equally bullish, batting away Rebecca Allison A hybrid new computer worm was last night posing a serious threat to millions of commercial servers and home PCs. Reports of the worm, known as Nimda, were being received from all over the world by computer security experts in Britain who recorded more than 45,000 cases in five hours. The worm contaminates emails and infects websites so that when a user visits a compromised site, the browser can infect the PC. Nimda is thought to be the fastest the "Beryl with a flowery flourish to the effect that "this Booker list has reconnected with the reading public This is a very rich year indeed.

Everyone has their own views, of course, because this has been a truly splendid year for fiction." Baker asserted that the final six had been arrived at unanimously. One or two of his colleagues privately begged to differ, but there appeared to have been no tantrums, fist fights, or raised voices among the jury of grandees as the longlist of 24 was whittled down novel would be selected by a Booker jury that had gone out of its way to suggest it wanted an accessible winner. Miller, who won the Impac award, richest in the world, for Ingenious Pain, was one of three less obvious choices, showing this jury is no respecter of reputations, nor to be cowed by public sentiment. But it was the exclusion of Bainbridge, described by the late Auberon Waugh as the "greatest writer never to win the that caused most protest when the six were announced amid the gilt and 'Survey undertaken by NOP Market Research among 1,000 randomly selected bank customers Interviews were conducted by 2000 To maintain a quality service, calls may be monitored andor recorded. Applicants must be 18 or over.

We reserve the right ATM owners may levy a charge This will be advised prior to transaction Credit facilities are subject to status Written details, products and services available upon request. First Direct is a division of HSBC Bank pic. contender for the Orange Prize, these interlinking stories of hotel life are told by the ghost of a chambermaid who haunts its corridors after dying in the dumb waiter when a dare went wrong. A very clever and experimental second novel. Odds 61 Fiachra Gibbons although the final reckoning is yet to come.

This was the first year in which the judges revealed their longlist, selected from 119 novels nominated by publishers or judges. Having made a killing on Bainbridge, who was attracting heavy betting even at odds of only 31, the bookmakers William Hill last night were making Carey and McEwan runaway favourites. The outsider could be Rachel Seiffert. She lives in Berlin, and her debut novel, The Dark Room, deals with the barely explored area of German war guilt. telephone between 30 Nov 2000 and 17 Dec to decline to open an account for you Some quotations and terms and conditions of our AS 55- looker Fiachra Gibbons Arts correspondent Beryl Bainbridge, the eternal Booker prize bridesmaid, was last night snubbed for a sixth time when her novel failed at the penultimate hurdle for Britain's greatest literary prize.

According to Queeney, a small but beautifully formed account of the last days of Samuel Johnson, had been the clear and popular favourite for the 21,000 prize. However, none of the judges, the Guardian has learned, argued strongly for her work to be channels that offer the and information for And of course, if spreading virus to date. It arrives in email without a subject line and containing an attachment: "readme.exe". Jason Holloway, UK general manager of security software company F-Secure, believes the worm could be more destructive than the Code Red worm that affected 250,000 machines in days. "That was an internet worm and this one is a hybrid.

It is ingenious from a technical point of view but it is very, very worrying," he said. US Attorney General John Ashcroft said last night there was no evidence to link Nimda with terrorist attacks. free access to AOL have 21 among the six in the final reckoning. Instead two former Booker winners, the Australian Peter Carey, with True History of the Kelly Gang, and Ian McEwan, with An Atonement, emerged as the most fancied to pick up the prize on October 17. Other shocks were that Melvyn Bragg's acclaimed A Son of War and Nick Hornby's even more admired How To Be Good failed to make the final six.

Andrew Miller's Oxygen was among the six. Though warmly received by critics, it had not been thought the best in entertainment you and your family. you need any support details required. who'd have thought banking could be so rewarding? lljMlllfrliiMCTBinllihMiiMilMdiflMa I fir "p'lFi 1 And when we say 'free' we really mean it. Absolutely nothing else to pay for.

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