Writing on the Wall is a selection of 20 essays by leading women writers

Writing on the Wall is a selection of 20 essays by leading women writers. CHAOS and frustration reigned yesterday, with dealing systems thrown into disarray by big problems with computer links to the Stock Exchange Automated Quote System. Only 45 per cent of the 1,622 Palestinians interviewed in the West Bank and Gaza supported the peace agreement. However, when it was suggested that pounds 200-plus was maybe a bit steep for just a single room, even though it was convenient for Harrods, the receptionist relented and came up with pounds 185. Then, in the midst of a bitter dispute over testing, he was booed and hissed.Earlier this week the NAHT published a survey showing that eight out of 10 head teachers found the rules unacceptable.

While Love Life made ironic use of vaudeville, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue uses a minstrel show performed at a White House dinner party to much the same end. (There have been no weekly sales for two years, which says something about the market.)Even with estimates in the pounds 60- pounds 300 range, the recession ensures that bidders are discriminating and auctioneers keen not to offer junk daubs or damaged stock.ROMANTIC BONDAGEBloomsbury Book Auctions, Thursday (1pm) has a collection of French 19th-century books in 'romantic' bindings - elaborate gilt-stamped boards, hand- coloured vignettes. When we are together, I think we tend to be kind of funny about 80 per cent of the time We can't help but be like that. We ran to the window and there was smoke coming from the car.'The MP, his wife and two children, were not hurt in the blast, which caused serious damage to the car.Shortly afterwards, a bomb was found under the car of Dr Brian Feeney, a leading SDLP member who resigned his seat on Belfast council at the last elections Bomb disposal experts carried out a controlled explosion. But Japan has actually managed that relationship very badly, running up its vast trade surpluses and blocking US efforts to get into the Japanese market.

Up to 21 million Americans suffer from paraskavidekatriaphobia, the fear of Friday the 13th, according to Donald Dossey, a behavioural scientist, AP reports from Marcellus, New York. He had never been one to linger over drinks, so the faltering course of his later career is easily attributed to alcoholism. However, on the two occasions that Wasps gained a foothold in Orrell territory in the second half, Andrew, Noel's invitation burning a hole in his pocket, banged over two more penalties. In a one-day match spanning Sunday and Monday they matched Denmark's 192 and were awarded the points having lost two fewer wickets. Calor, which has restructured over the past two years with the loss of 1,500 jobs, more than doubled net profits in the first half to pounds 17.5m on a turnover of pounds 153m.Under the terms of the agreement, Calor will market the gas while Alliance will arrange for the supplies to be sent via British Gas pipelines according to the daily needs of Calor's customers.Alliance, which already supplies 19,000 customers in the UK, said there would also be full competition between the two in selling to end- users.

In Bosnia and Somalia peace, however fragile, is being underwritten by United Nations authority and contingents of foreign troops wearing blue helmets. As he watched his train chuff round the yard, Richard said: 'As long as I leave my mark on this planet, I don't care much what happens.' No wonder we no longer fear the camera taking our souls, if the only immortality we believe in is on earth.In no danger of achieving immortality, two new BBC1 sitcoms should be buried without delay. She has not played since losing to Leila Meskhi, the Georgian, in the first round of the United States Open last September.Capriati had become disaffected with tennis, and her year ended with the embarrassment of being cautioned for shoplifting in a Florida jewellery store. It seems you're having second thoughts about using the lovely Ulrika Jonsson to model 'tight-fitting clothes' in your next mail order catalogue, just because she's three months pregnant. Even so, it offered a foretaste of what may become a dour Test series. This Californian fizz is superior to most of the cut-price champagnes currently being touted as bargains - and has the advantage of being widely available.WINES OF THE WEEKMumm Cuvee Napa is an uncomplicated fizz with a refreshingly, tangy fruitiness, pounds 8.49- pounds 8.59, Safeway, Oddbins, Victoria Wine, Tesco, Sainsbury. A defendant who is confronted with strong circumstantial evidence, identification evidence and/or a contested confession, and is then told that testing the evidence may cost him or her an extra year or more in jail, may well decide not to take the risk.It is right that a defendant should be properly informed about the likely sentence, and it is right that the defendant's attitude to the crime should be taken into account when the judge considers the sentence, but a 30 per cent reduction in exchange for a guilty plea at committal is not based on these principles - merely on a desire to reduce costs.The Bar Council's report demonstrates that significant numbers of cases collapse for reasons that have nothing to do with the defendant.

If we succeed in a war we cannot force a political solution on the other side because the international community would not back us,' Gen Shalev says.In war the generals have also learnt, however, that they can rely on nobody else - no US or UN force - to help when it comes to the crunch. Estimates of the indigenous population of the Americas in 1492 range from something under 10 million to 100 million. Blackburn Rovers .2 Norwich City. It has start- up capital of pounds 150m and its 1,900 salespeople are expected to sell more than 200,000 policies this year, bringing in premiums of about pounds 800m. Mix the walnuts and jam and fill the centres with the mixture Pour the beer around the apples and sprinkle with the sugar. Suddenly Anderson's hero had taken off, lured into daily newspapers as a strip cartoon by the giant syndicate King Features. But it also discovered that the system's efficiency had hardly been improving with age, and that its problem potential had already been identified.From 1991, 'a man was stationed on each side of the course to operate a pulley designed to assist the tape to rise.' To add to the air of genteel decay, 'in 1990 a man had to be employed just to hold the catch secure on the gate-post on the outside of the course, in case it slipped off.' And this is supposed to be the greatest steeplechase in the world.On 18 February 1993, Rod Fabricius, Aintree's acting clerk of the course, made a note during a planning meeting.