SOME of us will have marched for peace. Others will feel that Saddam Hussein deserves everything that's coming to him, and war is the only way to liberate ordinary Iraqi people. But whatever your view, you're probably in a pretty cushy position, comparatively
ONE of the biggest and most important archaeological sites in the country has received a cash boost for its project. The Bestwall Archaeological Project has been awarded the first part of a grant that could be worth more than £160,000 from English Heritage
I HATE being brief. I like to wang on. And no, I don't like the sound of my own voice, at all, but I feel driven nevertheless to be voluble and passionate. I don't like to give anyone short shrift. However, short shrift is exactly what I'm going to have
FRIDAY (28) Cheese (Verdi's/Mariner's, Maiden Street, Weymouth): Cheese appearances tend to be as rare as hen's teats, but worth the wait for fans of passionate, intricate guitar pop, I'd have thought. Splinter (Finn M'Coul's, Westham Road, Weymouth):
IN a dolls' house shop in Dorset someone left behind a copy of The Borrowers, the classic children's story about doll-size characters who live behind a skirting board scavenging from humans to survive. It wasn't left there by accident. It was a book "
Evolutionary biologist Dawkins moved time on with his Selfish Gene book arguing we were mere servants to our genes. (Kow-tow to your Wranglers now.) This is a pot-pourri of brainy thoughts, reviews, polemics and even a lament for Hitchhiker's Guide author
Borders is running a Sci-Fi three for two alongside its regular three for two promotion. Here is the top 10: 1 The Man In The High Castle - Philip K Dick 2 2001 A Space Odyssey - Arthur C Clarke 3 Neuromancer - William Gibson 4 Solaris - Stanislaw Lem
Not unlike Monica Lewinski, these days Bill Clinton's distant cousin Grisham must trouser an awesome advance for he's a surefire bestseller. The lawyer-turned-author's back on form with another legal thriller. A jaded litigator in the Office of the Public
Motion, normally in poetry, produces a beautifully-crafted fictional biography about a doctor called Cake who calls to his deathbed a Dr Tabor who writes mediocre verse. Years later, shortly before Tabor hangs up the stethoscope of life, he publishes
FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD Jack Hartman, a pupil at St Edward's School in Poole, reached the quarter-finals of the prestigious Aerial Masters event in Welwyn Garden City last weekend. The Masters is the culmination of a series of qualifying events held throughout
A DEPLETED Dorset men's team have maintained their Lawn Tennis Association Inter-County Cup Group Two status with a victory over South Wales. It is the first year that Dorset has played in this group, which is an excellent achievement for such a small
Discover the magical world of the fairies with six 24-piece jigsaw puzzles. The Fairy King and Queen invite everyone to Princess Petal's birthday party, and children, (of four-plus), can guess what presents the fairies are making for the royal baby, then
Taylor is haunted by a guilty secret and her mother is depressed. Her two friends have such normal, happy lives they seem a world away from her. When Kat, two years older, takes her shopping she is flattered but hasn't the money to keep up. Her life begins
Based on historical events, Bloody Tower is an account of a fictional teenager, the daughter of the Tower of London physician. When Edward VI dies, appointing Protestant Lady Jane Grey his successor, Catholic Princess Mary immediately ousts her cousin
McCaughrean never writes the same book twice. Here she tells an unsentimental account of the growth of a prairie town in America's mid-west whose survival depends on the train stopping. The townsfolk, including the children, do their damnedest to make
Rigbey's rising stamp of success saw her land a literary prize with her first novel eight years ago. This one's equally low-key and absorbing. High-powered banker returns home after the murder of her dad, triggering uncomfortable memories and unearthing
No, dieters, it's not about that packet of frozen eclairs but something on the Seriously Scary Stuff shelf. After the anthrax attacks in America, storyteller Preston takes a non-fictional look at bio-terror and what would happen if some chumps let the
Wilson, who won a Gold Dagger Award with A Small Death in Lisbon, takes a stab at a similarly complex but glitteringly intelligent tale set in Spain. Det Insp Falcon starts to fall apart after seeing the horrific face of a murder victim whose eyelids
The man from the Proulx is reluctant land swindler Bob Dollar, sent to find sites in the Texas panhandle on which his bosses can build industrial hog farms. He chews the fat with cowboys and eccentrics, discovering bacon farms are far from a yeee-hoo
Prof's book accompanies TV programme looking at the days when the map was half ours. Was the British Empire a good thing? Blemished but yes, reckons Fergie. (You can stand on the clifftop and stare, proudly, at what remains of our colonies today... just
Ambitious debut novel set in 1861 when the Land of the Surprising Shogun opened its doors to the West. In come the missionaries, one a redemption-seeking beauty and another with a pistol and mission of his own. They team up with Lord Genji (and his dangerous
Yer mam's German and makes you wear lederhosen; yer've an Aran sweater and yer dad's more Oirish than drizzle. The bhoys call you Eichmann and yer real name's Hugo. Sure it's a wunderbar t'ing, so it is, that you foind yer own oidentity as a beeootiful
Swash my buckles but America's celebrated Captain Kidd wasn't a pirate at all but a privateer (as opposed to a private eye) sent by governments to chase skull-and-crossbones buccaneers. Well-researched biog focuses on Kidd's fascinating duel with high-seas
Heartbreaker does a My Fair Lady on a mousy girl and marries her. But the jolly rogerer's indiscretions force his company to scuttle him off to America. The mouse then metamorphisises after realising her husband's a rat. In the chic-lit coop where fluffy
MINEKO entered the secret, now fading world of the geisha at four to be trained in arts such as singing, dancing, being nice to unpleasant people and mince-walking. Now 52 and retired, she's the first geisha in 300 years to shed light on the Japanese
SIXTEEN students are massacred at a school in the barbecue capital of Texas and 15-year-old Vernon's set to be roasted on the spit as the scapegoat. Its wit is raw but the substance's well covered with a dip of satirical sauce. ED PERKINS
JUST going out is a painstaking - and painful - experience for Donna Butler. She lives in a first floor flat, but the block has no lift, making the journey downstairs on two crutches a risky exercise. But once she has reached the lobby and negotiated
PORTLAND United expect a tough Jewson Wessex battle when they travel to the New Forest tomorrow to face Lymington and New Milton (3pm). Blues' boss Nick Preston says his side are confident of getting a result though at Fawcetts Field. "We are on the back
BEMERTON HH RES 0 WEYMOUTH RES 2 LEAGUE leaders Weymouth Reserves kept up their Jewson Wessex Combination title challenge with a comfortable 2-0 win at Bemerton Heath Harlequins last night. The Terras second string cruised through the clash thanks to
CHANGES to bus timetables are causing chaos in a West Dorset village. And now a petition has been launched in Broadwindsor to get the First bus company to reconsider it latest schedules. Mr John Hillier, and his wife, Elsie, both 84, used to get the 9.30am
ONE of Weymouth's most popular tribute bands will make a triumphant return to the stage this weekend at the resort's Pavilion Theatre. The five-piece Here and Now, who emulate the band Steps, were the stars of last year's summer season, during which their
A BRACE of entertainment is coming to Bridport Arts Centre next week, starting with a performance of Agamemnon by The Actors of Dionysus. This fast-paced and highly physical play tells the story of how Agamemnon returns home after the Trojan war with
BENJI Reid will perform a trilogy of dance pieces at Dorchester Corn Exchange tomorrow night. His show, called The Pugilist, will combine dance, puppet boxing, music and poetry, but the show is only suitable for age 15 and over. The Pugilist, which is
A PROGRAMME of pieces by Stravinsky, Bruch and Menselssohn is on offer on Saturday night when Dorset Chamber Orchestra performs in the county town. Conducted by Robert Jacoby, the ensemble will include clarinettist Timothy Orpen and viola player Rebecca
THE WORLD'S top big band musicians are in Bournemouth next month for a concert tribute to the music of George Gershwin. The cream of session musicians will be led by Scottish saxophonist and composer Duncan Lamont, and include trumpeters Stuart Brooks
MOURNERS who turned up for the funeral of their life-long friend were barred from the service by the dead man's son. More than 30 friends of 90-year-old Maurice St John Howe turned up at Weymouth Crematorium to remember the war veteran they called a true
WEY Valley students Stephen Taylor and Chris Tattersall are getting ready for the challenge of a lifetime. Stephen, 16, and Chris, 15, have been selected from young people across the country to take part in a 120-mile trek before climbing 4,300 metres
SHOCKED David Kingston was flooded with bookings for an unexplained mysteries conference in Dorchester after the success of a Stephen Spielberg UFO drama. He claimed fans were coming from the United States, Israel, France, Holland and Italy for the one-day
LYME Regis is expecting an American 'invasion' in the autumn when a Jane Austen conference is held in the resort. The publicity and advertising committee, which is recommending a co-sponsorship deal with the museum to help host the event, learned on Tuesday
A DISTINCTIVE fishing boat has made a reappearance in Lyme Regis after an absence of more than 50 years. A Beer Lugger might sound like some sort of device for carrying booze back to your home but in reality it is a beautiful fishing boat named after
A WIDOW who has lived in Lyme Regis all her life has accused the town council of being mean after she was charged £57.65 for burying her husband's ashes at her mother's grave. Beryl Derrick, 78, of Kings Way, is angry because the council charged her extra
CHERRIES chairman Peter Phillips believed the consultation period to allow fans to present their views before ticket prices for 2003--04 were decided by their board yesterday was "very useful". Here is AFC Bournemouth's full detailed ticket pricing structure
ANALYZE THAT (15) Four years after Analyze This, Harold Ramis directs and co-writes the sequel-by-numbers, reuniting all the major cast members from the original. Analyze That is a depressing rehash of the first film, which makes the fatal error of jettisoning
DESMOND Morris, who started with animals before progressing to human beings and their odd behaviour, found fertile ground in the British pub. "In a strange way," he said, "pubs bring out the best in people. They turn couch-potatoes into bar-performers
Tomalin pipped her writer-hubby Michael ("Spies") Frayn to swallow the £30,000 Whitbread trophy with this empathic biography. It peeps into the life of the 17th-century naval administrator who wrote a candid diary with gripping entries about gripping
Q is for Quality in this classy offering in Grafton's superbly-plotted alphabet series that continues to develop her feisty but flawed private detective Kinsey Millhone's character. Two ailing cops recruit Kinsey to try to crack an unsolved homicide case
"There are big babies and little babies. Do-lots and do-little babies. Happy babies, cross babies... and I'll-show-you-who's-boss babies." Right enough and your very own little angel will love looking at them all in this cute book - ideal for experiencing
A 17-YEAR-OLD girl has claimed she was seriously sexually assaulted during a night out. Police said the teenager, from Weymouth, alleged that a man attacked her today at around 2am in Weymouth town centre. A spokesman said the incident is alleged to have
THE number of cars in the Dorchester, Weymouth and Bridport areas has spiralled by a quarter in the last decade, new figures reveal. The Driver Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) says that 77,378 vehicles are now registered in the area, up from 62,540
CHANGES to bus timetables are causing chaos in a West Dorset village. A petition has been launched in Broadwindsor to get the First bus company to reconsider its latest schedules. John Hillier and his wife Elsie, both 84, used to get the 9.30am bus from
A MOTHER who fought a three-year campaign to stop a mobile phone mast being put up near her home is urging anti-mast campaigners to join a protest rally in London. Jane O'Meara, of Hazelbury Bryan, near Sturminster Newton, says telecommunication companies
ZURICH Financial Services is to spend £1.7 million creating 230 jobs in Wales - in an announcement timed just weeks before it axes 400 jobs in Bournemouth. Swiss insurance giant Zurich is to double the size of its Cardiff base thanks to a grant from the
LYME Regis Town Council looks set to take the lead in helping to buy the former gasworks site for community use. The recommendation to investigate the idea was made by the finance committee on Wednesday night, despite a warning from town clerk Michael
THERE will not be an immediate return of buses to the Christchurch Market this Monday. A new road traffic order to allow buses to drive through the High Street on Mondays comes into force this week. But Dorset County Council and the bus companies have
A LYME Regis landmark building is changing hands this weekend after five years under the same management. Judy and Nick Simmonds are leaving the Bay Hotel on Marine Parade. Taking over are new owners Larry Gibbons from East Devon and Peter Moles from
SOLARIS (12A) Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh has remade Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 Russian sci-fi drama, based on the novel by Stanislaw Lem. It's an expensive gamble - a ponderous arthouse picture with a price tag close to $50m - which has so
JACKASS THE MOVIE (18) THIS disclaimer bookends Jackass: The Movie, "Warning: the stunts in this movie were performed by professionals, so neither you nor your dumb buddies should attempt anything from this movie." The film is the feature-length version
ADAPTATION (15) Weird is good - or at least the Academy Award voters think so. The surreal second collaboration between director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich) has been blessed with four Oscar nominations: Best Performance
ADAPTATION (15) screenwriter Nicolas Cage is unable to complete a movie adaptation of a bestseller - see review. RATING PPPP SOLARIS (12A) Psychologist George Clooney arrives on a space station... and sees his long-dead wife - see review. RATING PPP JACKASS
A SERIES of anti-social drinking zones is to be launched in Purbeck. Members of the public will be consulted over a proposed list of places which includes dozens of roads in Swanage and Wareham. Purbeck district councillor Nick Cake said: "This is not
(Cue Dr Who music.) Now we're back in the 16th century with a deftly-handled biog about the orphaned Catholic cousin of Protestant Queen Elizabeth growing up under the protection of tough Bess of Hardwick. (Even her name makes me want to confess to the
Anorak's passionate book for obsessive fume-heads about the recent history of loonies-on-wheels, those sporting rivals who go round in circles with sometimes tragic consequences. Ed Perkins
Fascinating travel memoir that was Radio Four's Book of the Week about a young, romantically-wounded Englishman who goes to Spain to learn flamenco and find passion among pluckers. Picaresque experience finds him mixing with dodgy gypsies and meeting
Danni's parents run a sanctuary for abandoned donkeys. Drama ensues when an orphaned foal goes missing and a horse, seeking refuge from ill-treatment, arrives on the doorstep. An exciting and unsentimental story with the donkeys emerging as the real stars
Fourteen-year old Erin's Dad is bankrupt and the family have to move to a council estate. At first Erin feels she has nothing in common with her neighbours, especially Liam the class heart-throb, but when she learns some of them have much worse problems
Cheerful, greedy Olga, everybody's favourite guinea pig stars in this bumper volume. She mingles with the local fauna (hedgehog, tortoise, toad and disdainful cat), brings up a family and gives complex and vain answers to questions such as why guinea
Charming, cheeky Olga returns in this new book. Cleverly, she and her hutch have insinuated themselves into the Sawdust family's lounge. From here she accidentally destroys jigsaws, indulges in a bit of hypnotism and is frightened by a fox peering in
There are certain things a girl needs to know in order to become a woman and it's usually her mother who teaches her. But Gabby's mother died when she was three so she has to rely on her dad's girlfriends, on her best friend and on her own increasing
Kez and her mum are Travellers. Their encampment is raided by police, her mum disappears and Kez is taken into care. From here, aided by two unlikely side-kicks, she investigates the murky background to her own case. An all-action thriller which tackles
Julian's dad walks out (his mum has already left) and leaves him to cope alone with his six-year-old sisters. Desperate to avoid them all being taken into care, he pretends his dad is still at home and manages as best he can. But something sinister infiltrates
Best known for her sassy Sun column, not-so-old Moore follows up Fourplay (her first novel) with this little tickler. Woman meets her Captain Fantastic then has a last hot fling before her wedding, to which the happy couple's ex-boyfriends and girlfriends
You could say Ludlum's almost ghost-written this himself for the thriller master died two years ago. Vintage Ludlum pumped out posthumously, it features Janson who owes a debt to an influential kidnapped bod threatened with beheading by terrorists. Janson's
The Guv'nor was bare-knuckle fighter Lenny McLean who became a cult hero after his autobiography came out but died soon afterwards. Val, his devoted wife, enters the ring in with a wallop of anecdotes. That bareknuckle stuff's for jessies compared with
JUICILY-IRREVERENT collection by the funniest man dead, ranging from father telling Dudley about how mother got pregnant through sitting in a chair and had to sleep with Dirty Uncle Bertie to stop him getting up to anything, to the radio phone-in calls
RACHEL goes with friends on a hen week in Turkey but their emotional baggage gobbles the fun. One hasn't got over her own abusive marriage and the other can't take the plunge with her fiance. (They'd have been better off in Bournemouth, paintballing and
DEEP thoughts emerged when scientists and philosophers met the Dalai Lama to discuss the emotions that drive the impulses that lead to violence. Glad I wasn't there. I'd have wanted to punch the nearest windbag after 10 minutes. ED PERKINS
It's that time of the season when the calculators come into play for rugby clubs at either end of the league table. Both Dorchester and Swanage and Wareham have five South-West Division Two East fixtures remaining and time is running out for both clubs
BRIDPORT go into battle at Odd Down tomorrow in another important Screwfix Direct Western League Premier Division fixture, kick-off 3pm. It's an opportunity for the struggling Bees to make ground on their Bath-based opponents, who have shown some indifferent
A BEAMINSTER duo are in training for a 1,000-mile cycle ride the length of Britain. Ben Sandford-Smith, 41, and Robert Fooks, 24, are hoping to raise up to £10,000 for a children's charity by pedalling from John O'Groats in Scotland to Land's End in Cornwall
RENEWED calls for a crime-busting booze ban on the streets of Bridport are set to cause the town council more headaches. Police are again asking them to consider applying for a by-law to prohibit the consumption of alcohol in designated areas. Top of
THE EXPECTED closure of Bridport's courthouse could help to unlock up to £1million in funding to renovate the town hall. Transferring court sittings to the historic building and retaining Frampton's butchers shop there should meet the requirements for
THERE is just over a week to go until the 16th annual Weymouth Music Festival takes place, which this year promises to be bigger and better than ever before. The non-competitive event, which will be held at Weymouth College in Cranford Avenue and in St
AFTER playing possibly the world's most famous lion, Aslan, in a Christmas production of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, actor Patrice Naiambana now turns his attention to Africa. He presents The Man Who Committed Thought at Weymouth College next
CASTERBRIDGE Male Voice Choir is on the look-out for new members. The ensemble, which mainly specialises in romantic songs from the 19th century, as well as more modern pieces, is inviting new recruits to go along to the weekly rehearsals that are held
FRIDAY (28) Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Weymouth Pavilion (2pm) Half a Sixpence, Weymouth Pavilion Unleashed, Warehouse Theatre, Weymouth The Pugilist, Corn Exchange, Dorchester Ensemble Vero Modo, Nether Compton village hall Uri Geller, Octagon Theatre
NEW financial chief Jason Vaughan has made a handy £400,000 for cash-strapped Weymouth and Portland Borough Council with some moves on the stock market. Mr Vaughan, who joined the council at the end of last summer and has been working to turn the financial
WORKERS at Weymouth bus depot have been praised as some of the most environmentally-friendly employees in the region. They have scooped £1,000 after being picked by First bus chiefs as the team which exercises some of the best practices and controls when
JULIET Taylor, Jessica Jones and Heather Slater from Portland St John Ambulance were doubly honoured when Borough Mayor Coun Hazel Bruce presented them with awards. Cadet Officer Juliet, 31, who joined the Portland Division when she was nine years old
A FORMER firefighter's bedroom caught light yesterday, the day he was due to install two fire alarms in his home. The walls, window, carpet and a chest of drawers in the bedroom of occupier Ron Graham, 51, were heat and smoke damaged while a bedside table
BUSINESSMAN Richard Thorogood today told of a successful visit to Australia to develop tourism links with Dorchester. The former chamber of commerce president jetted to his home city of Perth for talks with a travel firm and to develop plans for an art
A POPULAR Weymouth attraction threw open its doors to welcome a charity. A group of youngsters from the nuclear disaster-hit area of Chernobyl enjoyed a fun-packed day at Sharky's play area on Weymouth quay. Sharky's owner Tony Harris, who enjoys close
PLANS for a pavilion in the style of an old tithe barn have been submitted for the Gillingham and Shaftesbury Showground. If granted permission, it will be the first permanent building on the Motcombe showfield. The proposed pavilion would measure 45m
FIRMS are today being urged to make better use of their time after a new survey revealed that staff were spending 15 hours a week in meetings that were often irrelevant. A survey of 1,500 office staff by recruitment firm Office Angels showed that an increasing
NO major changes in holiday brochures for Lyme Regis and West Dorset are planned for the immediate future, Lyme Regis publicity and advertising committee has been informed. And it was recommended that following a meeting between interested parties on
LYME'S so-called 'welcome' signs were blasted for being unwelcoming at a meeting of the town council's publicity meeting on Tuesday. Deputy mayor Ken Meech said that the signs on the outskirts of the town were once glorious. Now they were a disgrace,
WORKMEN at the site of the old Charmouth House Hotel, currently being converted into five homes, have become archaeologists after finding pieces of 17th century pottery, clay pipes, medieval bricks and Victorian woodwork. Workers have been putting aside
SEAN O'Driscoll is one of the leading contenders to scoop the Nationwide League Division Three manager-of-the-month award for February. O'Driscoll is high on the list of possible candidates after guiding Cherries into the top three following four wins
NEIL Moss is urging his Cherries team-mates to start reproducing their home form on the road in a bid to prevent 'Mad March' turning into the spell from hell. Moss insists Cherries must find a quick cure for their recent bout of travel sickness to ensure
