The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 2

2 I NEWS TIm Guardian Friday January 23 1998 Boot facts The answer may not lie in the soil Cost: 600 a waak for aaeh Inmate or throo tlntos tha coat of a placa at Pottos School, whara Tony Blair was aducatod Typical Day: 06.00: Revallla, wash, shave, make beds, stand by bads, unlock, block Jobs, breakfast, inspection. 08.40: Development activities, race relations lecture, PT, gym, run 12.10: Lunch, afternoon inspection, one of England's 32 nitrate sensitive areas. As I lie abed now, in the heart of a busy city, my mind's ear still har-kens to the roa of the combine harvester, the explosion of the electronic bird scarer, and the haunting whoosh of the cattle feed mill mashing up yet another diseased sheep as the cycle of life was repeated once again. "On a winter morning, we children would tumble downstairs where Mother was up and about, stirring a great vat of Ready Brek. 'There bain't be no Specified Risk Materials in she would say, a twinkle in her eye.

'it's all good Permitted Additives under the terms of the European "If we were lucky. Father would return before we left for school, stamping the snow from his boots. 'Have you been milking the herd, we would ask, and he would chuckle: Dearie me. no, my darlins, I've been up at Post Office, posting off my application for Enhanced Suckler Cow "On Boxing Day. the squire would pay a visit, and would press a crisp green piece of paper into my palm 'What's this, I would ask, with the round-eyed naivety of childhood.

Why, 'tis a green pound, he said, smiling. "Can I use it to buy sherbert dabs at Mistress Cunning ham's Lord bless the Squire replied. No, green pound is the common name for the agricultural special exchange rate which converts EU Common Agricultural Policy support prices and payments from ECUs into sterling, so you might be able to buy some non-existent olive oil from non existent Italian olive groves, if you be They were happy days. Incomprehensible, but happy. Simon Hoggart YOU realise how much the countryside has changed if you attend Agriculture Questions in the Commons.

Cider With Rosie it isn't. Anthony Steen (C. Totnes) described the ways things were in his neck of the woods. Apparently, when an animal snuffs it, the cost of carting away the cadaver is much too high. "If the South Devon coun tryside was covered with dead sheep lying with their legs in the air.

it would not help the tourist industry the Minis ter should hold an inquiry into the cost of removing animal carcasses from our green and pleasant land." Yukk. In the past, fanners used to grow things (and clear away dead sheep.) Now these quaint old activities have been replaced by three new ones: (a getting cash out of Brussels; (b) demonstrating at Westminster; and (c) master ing the jargon. The jargon is almost impenetrable. At one point, a Liberal asked the minister about Jack Cunningham's jaw jutted out. "I have made my position abundantly clear about modulation," he said.

"I am opposed to modulation!" I began to muse how the old rural idylls would appear if they had been written in today's bucolic dialect. Lark RiseToCandleford, perhaps "I was born on ungrazed native species-rich grassland on The parade ground at Colchester, where the boot camp was jointly run by the Ministry of Defence and the Prison Serv ice Boot camp bites the dust PHOTOGRAPH SEAN SMITH itary purposes." However, the camp's failure to prove any more successful at preventing the youngsters from reoffending is surprising as those who went to Colchester were carefully selected. Ms Quin. announcing the closure decision last night, said the 31.300 a year costs of the places at Colchester was nearly twice that for a typical young offender institution and nearly 9.000 a year more than the cost of the non-military experimental regime at Thorn Cross, Cheshire. The "high intensity" training regime at Thorn Cross.

Alan Travis Hem Affair Utter RITAIN'S first military-style "boot camp'' designed to deliver a tough regime for teenage young offenders is to be shut down after only 12 months, the prisons minister, Joyce Quin, announced last night. The "short, sharp, shock" experiment was imported from the United States by the former Home Secretary, Michael Howard, with claims that it would be more with a regime of square-bash ing and shoe-polishing. It was to be a model for a number of such centres. But it will close at the end of March. The typical day for the 32 inmates included two and half hours of physical training and drill.

Even basic privileges such as watching a black and white television or listening to a radio had to be earned. The Chief Inspector of Prisons, General Sir David Rams-botham, criticised the plan as little more than a sop to the "Bring Back National Ser vice" brigade. takeover Transcending the gay play ghetto BT shares soar on Murders 'were set up by UFF' Microsoft at centre of speculation over exploratory merger talks drill, current affairs, PT, shower 1 6.30: Evening meal, parade, activities 1 0.46: Supper, lock up, writing letters, room games, lights out Staff: 13 out of the 23 staff were military Including a sergeant major Uniforms: Military fatigues have to bo which is run solely by the prison service, is to continue. The Prisons Minister said it represented value for money and had "a more sharply focused and better integrated set of activities." John Whittingdale, Conservative MP for Maldon and East Chelmsford, criticised the condition to close the Colchester boot camp, saying it had been a great success and the decision was only a cost cutting exercise. He said all 36 young offenders who had graduated had gone into jobs or education and claimed only one had reoffended.

It seemed unlikely yesterday that any of the main parties would ask for the UDP expulsion on Monday. Bertie Ahern. the Taoi seach. said he viewed the de velopment as grave Mr Flanagan said he was convinced of UFF involve ment in the killings of Mr Treanor. Larry Brennan, aged 52.

shot dead on Monday, and Ben Hughes, aged 55. murdered on Wednesday. He based that on intelligence and forensic evidence. No organisation has claimed responsibility for the murders of Mr Brennan and Mr Hughes. The Loyalist Vol unteer Force, opposed to the three year old loyalist ceasefire, admitted it killed Mr Trea nor.

Mr Flanagan was also scathing about the IRA. which on Wednesday rejected the British and Irish govern ments' proposals for negotiation. He said. "I think the IRA continue to pose us all a serious threat They are undoubtedly active. The ceasefire holds and is at no immediate risk, but that does not mean the IRA are completely inactive." not1.

"Xf w'-jnot- it jcfrprt Pnjomi Prison governors last night welcomed the closure decision, saying they had urged the Government to close it soon after the election but had been turned down. "Better late than never," said David Roddan, Prison Governors' Association general secretary. "We are pleased that common sense has now prevailed and this gross waste of resources will come to an end. US-style boot camps have long been discredited and we think that the military personnel and resources involved should be used for mil rumours PHOTOGRAPH FRANK MARTIN potential springboard for his ambitions in Europe. Late last year a team of senior lawyers from Microsoft held exploratory talks with the UK telecoms watchdog Oftel.

Some observers doubt that Microsoft capitalised at around 100 billion against BT's 37 billion market price tag would see much logic in mounting a bid for BT, and suggest that a joint venture would be more likely. Outlook, P9 21 BBaBaBaaaBBw' HataBBBBBBB vBaaBaBw aXaE aBBBBHpVsBHBBa the sixties. Horace's awkwardness stems partly from the fact that he was very much in love with Judy's ex-partner, Jerry; even more from the fact that he is expecting the arrival of a rented stud. It would be cruel to reveal Elyot's manipulation of the plot. But through the experience of the lonely, hesitant, life-fearing Horace, he touches poignantly on a uni versal theme: the way we cling, in desperation, to some golden moment in the past as a protection against the uncertain present Horace's life has clearly been defined by his unfulfilled love for the young Jerry; and Elyot cunningly suggests this is a source both of constant painand strange contentment.

Not everything in the play works. The very artfulness of the plot, in which every loose end is tied up. gives an over-resolved feeling. It remains, however, an in telligent play about a common experience: the Proustian no tion that the true paradise is the one that we have lost. Ian Rickson's production is sensitive to the play 's changes of tense.

Adrian Scarborough cap tures precisely Horace's mix ture of romantic longing and fear of commitment Callum Dixon is also suitably tenta live as his younger self, and there is good support from Oliver Milburn. as the youthfully-idealised Jerry, and from Daisy Beaumont as the hippy ish student Judy. Bill Gates: European ambitions Chris Barrto and Simon Beawls BRITISH Telecom was at the centre of frenzied takeover speculation last night after British and American investors rushed to buy its shares amid suggestions that the group could face a hostile bid from the United States and even fall prey to the software giant Microsoft. It ended an extraordinary day for Microsoft that included partial settlement of a legal battle with the US government and a warning that its profits would be hit by turmoil in Far Eastern markets. BT shares hit a record high as investors derided that Britain's seventh biggest company was about to become the latest victim of bidding wars among the world's telecoms industry.

One analyst said BT and Microsoft were in exploratory talks prior to a merger or alliance that would create a new media combine, ranging from computer software and Internet technology to effective in stopping teenage tearaways from reoffending. But official research concludes it is neither more effective than existing young offender institutions, nor, at an annual cost of 31,000 a year for every place, a source of value for money. The camp, opened last February, is based at the army's military prison at Colchester, Essex, and is run jointly by the Ministry of Defence and the Prison Service. The yearlong pilot scheme has cost more than 1.2 million and was supposed to provide the handpicked 18- to 21-year-olds voice, data and broadcasting transmission systems. There were also suggestions in the City that BT may be bought by US telecommunication groups including Bell Atlantic, and GTE, as the Americans look for an entry into the European market which is about to become open to competition.

However, another analyst suggested that the speculation about a bid from Microsoft was overplayed, and that BT with its poor record on investment in modern networks had lit-tle to offer Microsoft's chief, BiU Gates. BT is regarded as a target because it will receive 7 billion before the end of the year for its shareholding in the US telecoms company MCI the US company it tried to buy but which was snatched away by WorldCom, the entrepreneurial telephone and Internet group. As 30 million BT shares changed hands yesterday, both Microsoft and BT declined to comment. How- MnfcpM Atim Oil' Im) ever, BT's chief executive. Sir Peter Bonfield, has already admitted, in the aftermath of WorldCom's successful $37 billion play for MCI, that all telecoms companies are potential takeover targets.

Mr Gates has made no secret of his ambition to dominate the world of communications as computing and telecommunications converge. In the US he has made a series of strategic investments in telephone companies and cable TV. He clearly sees Britain as a Michael Billington Th Day I Stood Still Cottesloe IT'S doubles all round at the Cottesloe. InStoppard'sThe Invention of Love, the dead A.E. Housman communed his younger self.

Now in Kevin Elyot's wistful, elegiac The Day I Stood Still, another shyly repressed gay hero encounters himself when young and recalls his unfulfilled passion for a straight student chum. The emotional pattern of Elyot's play is weirdly similar to Stoppard's. But all resemblances end there. For Elyot's intricate 110-minute play is, in many ways, a continuation of ideas explored in his 1994 hit. My Night With Reg.

Once again we have a sexually nervous hero living off past memories and an ever-present sense of death and decay; and even if there is not quite as much bounce and wit as in the earlier work, Elyot once more shows himself capable of transcending the ghettoising definition of the gay play. What is particularly strik ing is the way Elyot plays so assuredly with time. Set in a north London mansion block, his play moves confidently from present to future to past. It starts with Horace, a soli tary museum worker and part-time novelist, being unexpect edly visited by Judy, an old friend from student days in i Oft jnd VM tap jp rajwmd rtrf VKtm drvnpnorn tjnt Dy pmr. vd fki wdmrt WbflpwnRjMdrm continued from page 1 eluding punishment beatings, in an effort to keep the talks inclusive, allowing the UDP to stay would be seen to undermine the rules on which the talks are founded.

The other option, forwarded yesterday by Lord Alder-dice, leader of the Alliance Party, when he met Tony Blair and Ms Mowlam at Downing Street, is that the UDP could be asked formally to renounce its link to the UDAUFK, and to condemn violence. The UDP is keen to stav in the talks, and most of the other participating parties are convinced of its leader ship's desire for peace. Hut the drawback for the (io eminent in that solution is that Sinn Fein could then claim to keep its scat at the negotiating table if the IRA called off its ceasefire. Gary McMichael. UDP leader, said bis party would be at Lancaster House when the talks move to London on Monday.

"The only way forward is through democratic dialogue We want an end to the current spate of violence and are win king to that end." the the be It's the fastest Intel notebook processor ever: Intel's new 266MHz Pentium1 vWy Processor with MMX technology. Now. just days after its launch. Dell have pentium' it in the new Inspiron 3000 266XT notebook. A stunningly hightech, high spec system, incorporating a 13.3" XGA TFT screen, the Inspiron 3000 Dili INSPIION" 3000 J46XT I MTU PENTIUM' PROCESSOR WITH MMX HOMOLOGY 2MMHZ 13.1" IC Til SCMIN (1014 7tl MSOUmOM 12MR I AM 512KB HIGH PERFORMANCE UCHC 3.301 HARD DRIVE MX CD ROW DRIVE EXTRA HIGH PfRFORMANCi 1 2R-RIT PCI GRAPHICS (ONTRMUR WITH 2MI VIMO RAM INFRARED COMMUNICATION PORT HrDA 1.1 C0MPAT1RU) ZOOMED VIDEO SUPPORT 2 CARDWS PCMCIA TYPE SIOTS OR 1 TYPE HI INTEGRATED SYNAPTICS TOUCHPAD MICROSOFT OFFICE SMAU MISINESS EDITION EXECUTIVE CARRY CASE 266XT is supnsingly affordable.

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