Fletch has been helpful in that respect, but I wouldn’t hold him responsible in any way for our failings on the field.’Many think Fletcher’s main problem lies in his brutal honesty with the media. His frankness and independence of view won him the trust of his co-directors and bank officials and in 1984, towards the end of the traumas of Midland’s investment in Crocker Bank, he was appointed a deputy chairman of Midland.In that capacity he also took on the role of chairman of the remuneration committee, a task which needed extraordinary skill in the period of ‘Big Bang’ and its aftermath.As a deputy chairman, Meaney proved to be an influential personality during the chairmanships of Sir Donald Barron, Sir Kit McMahon and myself. In human terms, St Jovite needs a half-hour lie-in, a soak in the bath and four cups of coffee before he gets into gear, and that will leave his door wide open to a 10-furlong specialist. I had no choice as it was a very big foghorn and not far away. She is a director of Sears, which has no connection with Sears Roebuck & Company, the US retail group.. (First Edition)

Police praised a six-year-old girl who fought off a sex attacker who tried to grab her in a park at Bransholme, Hull.. A bit of both, probably, but which ass do we blame when one of the club season’s showpieces descends so low that its penalty / free-kick count ascends to a stratospheric 48?

Thus did Bath v Wasps, first v third in the Courage Championship First Division, disappoint 8,000 at the Recreation Ground who drew more excitement as each penalty pushed the total towards an infamous half-century than from much else that occurred.
Bath won the more vital statistic by a conclusive 24-8, their third and biggest victory over Wasps this season.

And now here’s Laurie McLaurie with a look at what’s on Radio 4 today’.That’s when I switch off. With the Bank of England ready for a second week of heavy buying in the markets, the finance ministers, who meet in Bath on Friday, will draw up detailed plans for dealing with the possibility of a ‘no’ vote in the French referendum on the Maastricht treaty on European union.The ministers’ agreement will allow the Bank of England to draw on Bundesbank cash to buy pounds, so supporting sterling even while it remains above its ERM floor of DM2.7780.Sterling’s continued weakness will not be eased by a poll in Le Parisien newspaper yesterday giving ‘no’ campaigners 53 per cent, with 47 per cent in favour – the largest majority against so far.At the informal finance ministers’ meeting, France’s Michel Sabin will give his assessment of the referendum’s outcome and the implications if the French reject Maastricht. But had they more players in the side with the enthusiasm and stamina of Peter Winterbottom, they might not now be in such a position.Winterbottom of all people could have been excused a more sedate entry into the fray after his hernia operation, but he knows of no other way to play the game and how it must have saddened him to see the careless profligacy of so many of his colleagues.Harlequins: S Thresher; A Harriman, W Carling, M Evans, M Wedderburn; P Challinor (B Short 8 min), R Glenister; M Hobley, N Killick, A Mullins, S Dear (A Challis 67 min), A Snow, M Russell, P Winterbotton (cpt), C Sheasby,Wasps: A Buzza; J Abadom, F Clough, G Childs, C Oti; A Thompson, S Bates; G Holmes, K Dunn, J Probyn, R Kinsey, D Ryan (cpt), F Emeruwa, M White, M Greenwood.Referee: F Howard (RFU).Scorers: Childs (try, 8min) 0-5; Thresher (pen, 26 min) 3-5; Thresher (pen, 29 min), 6-5; Emeruwa/Buzza (try/con, 47m) 6-12; Buzza (pen, 71 min) 6-15; Evans/Thresher (try/con, 83 min) 13-15.(Photograph omitted). Sir: We are concerned that the threatened cuts in the Government’s expenditure on overseas development are to occur at a time when living standards for the poor have been declining throughout much of the Third World. Actual spending rose by pounds 600m last year, taking borrowings to pounds 4.25bn or 50 per cent of shareholders’ funds. Flaubert was genuinely moved at her funeral, and in homage wrote Un Coeur Simple. Simone Vanderpump was restrained from publishing details relating to the two years she spent as a cook for the Duchess..

A MAN appeared in court in Aberdeen yesterday charged with conspiring to overthrow the Government or force ministers to set up an independent Scottish government, writes John Arlidge. He now has plans to set up a property development company and is acquiring skills that will help him to get a good start.’The fee waiver scheme is a godsend,’ he says ‘The course has helped me to define my goals. They cannot have equality and a separate existence.Religious and racial discrimination have been justly the subject of far more serious accusations against sport and it was gratifying last week to hear of a decline in racist abuse in football. Unlike Freud, he never invoked or adopted the guise of a scientist. and that’s only the few who stray from the dark confines of the dressing-room where the television set is often tuned to another event. One poster portrays a topless woman with udders in place of breasts over the caption: ‘Today a cow, tomorrow you]’The campaign appears to be having an effect. All that happened was that a tightening in budgetary policy was swamped by a historically unprecedented monetary easing.And the important message for the Major administration is that the Thatcher recovery proved neither that toughing it out necessarily works, nor that low inflation automatically leads to economic recovery.This time the Government is adamant that there will be no sterling devaluation and (by implication) that monetary policy can only be eased at the pace permitted by the Germans.

THE GOVERNMENT yesterday reacted to a steadily rising tide of loyalist violence by reversing a 20-year-old policy and announcing a ban on the largest Protestant paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association. Georgina Meinertzhagen, 16, fell from a second-floor bedroom window of lodgings in Oxford, where she was attending a tutorial college. Gaza City, Jabaliya, Rafah and Khan Younis have different coloured boats. First, there is the impression that to be religious you must choose between correct stupidity and dangerous common sense. The bottles are racked and twisted by a quarter-turn everyday to ease the sediment to the neck, whence it is frozen and ejected.