But after taking some falls on them you're quite amazed

But after taking some falls on them, you're quite amazed."It just seems like bureaucrats are trying to get hold of something and bringing in regulations about something they know nothing about."Dawes, whose 140ft route, "Indian Face", on the sheer slab of Clogwyn Du'r Arddu in Snowdonia, is recognised as Britain's most extreme combination of danger and difficulty, says : "This just stops adventure climbing. "They're a crucial part of your armoury," says Fawcett, who recalls their introduction "In the early days we were dubious about them. Testing RPs would be significantly cheaper, but would certainly put up their price.Top climbers are appalled by the news. But this would be expensive: HB Climbing, which makes a variety of equipment, had to set up new procedures in order to meet the requirements."It has cost about pounds 100,000 for our entire range, compared with our annual revenues of pounds 1m," says Hugh Banner. "We've sold almost four times as many so far this year as in 1994.

We have been telling people that these may be the last they get."The tests themselves would require an inspection of the manufacturing procedures in Mr Pauligk's garage, and separate destructive testing of samples. Retailers said last week that climbers were rushing to buy the sets of six, which cost pounds 50."The word is out that RPs might be disappearing. Sales are definitely up," said Adam Hanlon, manager of Rock+Run in Ambleside, Cumbria."We have stockpiled them," said Glyn Padgett, manager of the Outside shop in the Peak District - home to many "desperate" routes requiring RPs. Some of my climbs can only be protected by using them."RPs and similar-sized nuts must be replaced after a long fall because the shock distorts the steel wires dangerously. The message is a signal of Eddy's loyalty to his brother "Boz", marketing director of Death cigarettes, whose battle with HM Customs and Excise will be continued in the Appeal Court next week.That their father is as cool as his boys was demonstrated earlier in the year when tabloids fingered Eddy as the man behind Norman Sphincter, a backside which had been featuring on Channel 4's World Of Wonder. For a lark, Temple-Morris had run up a video of his backside made up as Loyd Grossman. "I did it on the draining board of the kitchen, surrounded by vegetables and cooking utensils," says the contented purveyor of egregious bad taste.Takeover TV heard of it and invited Temple-Morris to extend his rear- end's repertoire to presenting a show "I did Sean Connery as Bond, and Terry Christian," he says The papers rang the MP, hoping for embarrassment or outrage.

But Temple-Morris pere pronounced himself mildly amused.At 30, Temple-Morris is entering the decade during which being interested in the pop end of the rock music business can look silly. With luck, the quality of the stuff pouring out of the clubs should put off the moment when he ought to be schmoozing the controller of Radio 2.The post-punk, post-reggae stuff filling the Radio 1 airwaves bids well to appeal to blokes hanging off scaffolding as well as to bright A-level students (not that they are mutually exclusive). As Scott Peiring, at 40 a veteran record-plugger anxious to get bands on Radio 1's playlist, says: "People like me can only appreciate it - never be a part of it."In the poster, Temple-Morris is trying to persuade a DJ that his favourite band is likely to be as big as Elastica. Which would he nominate as the next big success? "Garbage," he says, "Except they'll be bigger." Hope it's not in your dreams, Eddy.. TOM WILKIE and his family want to travel by train to Wurzburg in Germany, so last week he went to Waterloo railway station, the departure point for the Eurostar trains.

At the "Travelcentre" on the main concourse, they said: "Not us mate, we're British Rail," and directed him downstairs to the Eurostar ticket office. At one of the counters marked "Eurostar and beyond" Dr Wilkie asked the price of a ticket to Wurzburg. Try as he might, the incredibly polite and helpful young man behind the counter could get neither of this two computers to give him any information about Wurzburg.One computer belongs to Eurostar, he explained, and contains all the information about getting to Eurostar's destinations in Paris and Brussels. The other belongs to British Rail International, and contains all the information about other continental rail stations. They don't talk to each other.Dr Wilkie's home computer is linked to a service called Compuserve, which contains detailed information about all British and continental train services, including arrival and departure times. The night before, Dr Wilkie had taken only a few seconds to consult the machine, which planned his route for him.The route involves changing trains at Cologne "That explains it," the man behind the counter said. "There is no connection to Eurostar." Dr Wilkie protested: "But we want to go to Brussels on Eurostar and then link up with the continental rail service from there." But no. Because the journey involves changing at Cologne, it is not a direct service and so tickets must be bought through British Rail International.