Commentariat

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Publisher who enriched the American literary landscape but missed out on The Catcher in the Rye.

Some by-elections dramatise significant shifts in the political landscape, writes Matthew d’Ancona.

Leader: Landscape photographer looks for where man has disrupted nature

‘What are they singing about?” I asked the interpreter. They’d been singing for ages, all the women, shuffling their feet rhythmically, walking around in a big circle. They are a handsome race: tall and slender, with the perfect poise that I assume develops from carrying heavy things on their heads. The women walk as if they are wearing heels, but most of them had bare feet. I’d been helping them carry rocks, for making dry-stone walls. Some of them had children tied on their backs, as well as boulders on their heads, but now the work was done.

Today in Times Comment Libby Purves: Cherie Blair: enough to make you weep David Aaronovitch: Burma - the case for intervention Chris Patten: Who’s afraid of big bad China? Why? Chris Ayres: There will be blood around here too Mick…

Class war has broken out in Crewe. The Labour Party has been sending activists dressed up in Eton top hat and tails to hound the Conservative candidate in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election. As a matter of fact, the candidate in question, Edward Timpson, didn’t go to Eton.

The Blair years have escaped proper scrutiny in memoirs. But there are questions relating to the Iraq war that deserve scrutiny now

The Blair years have escaped proper scrutiny in memoirs. But there are questions relating to the Iraq war that deserve scrutiny now

Douggie Moir was a tank troop leader with the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment in May
1940 and took part in the 30th Infantry Brigade’s defence of Calais against
elements of Guderian’s XIX Panzer Corps, which had swept up from Abbeville
and Boulogne. 30th Brigade had been landed at Calais specifically to hold
the port, but the odds against them were overwhelming. Together with the
greater part of the brigade, Moir was taken prisoner and spent the rest of
the war attempting to escape and helping others to do so — but a home run
eluded him.

PoW whose constant attempts to escape landed him in Colditz and solitary confinement.

[This article escaped early. Withdrawn to be edited.]
Sorry.

Sanctions imposed on Burma have failed to move the junta, but where western governments have proved powerless, nature may be more effective.

I was facing a whole day of interminable terminals – airports, aeroplanes and queues – and felt the best way to approach it was as horizontally as possible, sound asleep whenever I could be. When travelling by air now, I just want to arrive. I’d take being asleep in economy class over being wide awake at the pointy end, any day of the week.

The scale of Labour’s election disaster was apparent within an hour or so of the first results being declared. When yesterday’s counts started coming in, the news became progressively worse and worse. By last night, Labour had lost more than 300 council seats across the country. Overall, its result was the most dismal for 40 years, outstripping the party’s worst fears. Almost nowhere was spared, as northern councils such as Bury and North Tyneside fell to the Conservatives. At the time of going to press, even Ken Livingstone looked set to lose his mayor’s job in London.

The second cup of coffee and the second cigarette are the best of the day, I’ve realised. There’s something about the second time around that beats the first. I’m 40 this year and I’ve already seen most things I’m going to see, but I’m starting to appreciate that seeing things for the second time is when you see them best.

Geographer who addressed the history and iconography of landscape

I’d never been this far up the other end of a bacon sandwich before. It felt like I had stumbled into a parallel pig universe that stretched forever in all directions. Strange place. They were lying down, most of them, decorating a big, cosy cloud of straw like plump sultanas in a cake, with their huge, mad faces all turned in my direction, eyes staring back wherever I looked. One pig’s face is quite enough food for thought, but I was completely overwhelmed by the countless expressions and endless variations of form: a sea of swine.

It was about 15 years ago. I was tearing around Manhattan in the middle of the night with the keyboard player from Blondie and a lady with huge bosoms. It was just another day at the office of rock’n'roll. We’d all met about an hour before and now we were going somewhere in his car, very fast. He was enjoying the empty streets, squeaking the tyres, driving with purpose and glee.