“A box of the shouters was delivered to Mike’s home yesterday, and went missing off his driveway,” reads a statement from Read’s spokesman. “He claimed that distinction belongs to William Petty, who lasted six days in 1782.”Unfortunately, like many a Home Office statistician, Reid got his facts wrong: Petty lasted more than three months, from 27 March to 10 July.* Mike Read – DJ, West End impresario, and former Saturday Superstore anchorman – is the latest pop genius to attempt a World Cup anthem.Sadly, the marketing campaign for his single, “England, My England”, has met with disaster, after Read purchased a lorry-load of cardboard megaphones, known as “shouters”, customised with his song title.He planned to distribute them to fans in Germany, but a crucial shipment has just been nicked. I’m just not sure yet.”* After all these years, concrete evidence as to how Harold Pinter spends those hard-earned millions.The new edition of the Register of Members’ Interests reveals that George Galloway has received financial support from Holland Park’s best-known socialist.One H Pinter, above, of London W11, made a £2,000 donation to the George Galloway Legal Fund, which was “set up to support my legal actions against the Telegraph Group Limited”.It’s very generous of the old leftie, but Pandora wonders if Pinter’s wife, Lady Antonia Fraser, below, approved of the bung.She is, after all, an occasional book-reviewer for (and therefore recipient of pocket money from) the literary pages of the Sunday Telegraph.* Every day’s a victory for John Reid, who’s now had almost as many Cabinet jobs as he’s had hot dinners.At this week’s Police Federation conference, the Home Secretary revealed that officials are running a book on his survival.”Reid told delegates that his staff have done a league table for home secretaries’ survival rates,” I’m told. Now David Cameron is getting ready to perform the third great PR stunt of his reign. In a bid to publicise his new brand of caring Conservatism, the Tory leader has instructed all of his 197 MPs to spend their spring break working for local “good causes”.
A confidential letter sent by the leader’s office on Tuesday commands his MPs to spend the second half of their forthcoming parliamentary recess helping out with national Volunteers’ Week.”What I would like you to do is either visit, or volunteer to work with, an appropriate local organisation as close to that week as you can,” it reads.”If you could let your whip know what you are planning to do, we will compile the information to make clear how we are supporting the week.”The letter, seen by Pandora yesterday, has met with a mixed response from the Tory rank and file.Although Cameron’s stock is high following the local elections, MPs on the right of his party are upset at being told how to spend their free time.”We’ve got a two-week recess, which starts next Friday,” says one.”Most of us have booked family holidays and aren’t about to cancel them to work in the local Oxfam or whatever left-wing charities Dave wants us to support so he can get a few cheap headlines.”* What, I wonder, will now become of Heather Mills McCartney’s efforts to “rebrand” as a self-help guru?In a cruel twist of fate, Lady Macca is next week due to publish a book on techniques for happier living.It has already been printed, under the (now) faintly ludicrous title Life Balance: The essential keys to a lifetime of well- being.Unfortunately, Wednesday’s news of her sad split from hubby Paul threw the publishers, Penguin, into something of a panic.A spokesman says that their author has already decided not to make a public appearance for the launch.Although shelves of bookstores have already been cleared for its arrival, the tome may now be delayed, or even scrapped.”At the moment, the book is still scheduled to be released,” I’m told “But it could well be pulled.

* First he hopped on his bike and bought a “green” car, then a team of huskies dragged him across the Arctic circle. It might fanciful, but with broadband, mobility, IT services and other new services growing rapidly, investors might yet be wooed.. Rather than focusing on one part of the business, he said BT should be viewed as a whole. Mr Verwaayen described BT as “a bouquet” when addressing investors yesterday. BT also has 30,000 subscribers to its innovative Fusion service which combines fixed-line and mobile technology.With revenue, earnings and dividends set to rise in the current year, it appears the transformation of BT is paying off.

BT’s television service will allow customers to watch programmes when they want but will also enable interactive services and self-generated content.Even plain-old voice is set to be transformed. BT is testing a high-definition voice product that uses its new network capability. It plans to launch the technology this year, meaning the quality of voice calls will improve massively. It has been busy signing up content partners such as DreamWorks. Importantly, some of BT’s major customers, including Unilever, have started contracting BT for additional services on top of the original agreements.BT is also preparing to launch internet-based television in the autumn.

Unlike traditional IT services companies, BT focuses on delivering services that corporate customers require through the network. In the fourth quarter, the Global Services division grew revenue 10 per cent to £2.4bn as it continued to win business across Europe and North America. That means it can start bundling fixed-line, mobile, television and broadband products as it sees fit. BT will be more able to withstand the threat posed by big-name players. It expects to hit that landmark this year and has already opened talks with Ofcom about deregulation.BT’s success is also the result of its investment in IT services. There were 356,000 such lines at the end of March.Once BT’s competitors have invested in opening up 1.5 million lines, BT’s retail arm will be freed from regulation.

Yet presumably they are eventually to bring about a merger of Havas and Aegis, however illogical this might seem from Aegis’s point of view Here again, M Bollor? presence on the board would be an unhelpful one. If he’s got a merger proposal that would be in the interests of all Aegis shareholders, then he should put it.What he really wants to do, it would seem, is use his minority shareholding to control the company. This is still a perfectly acceptable, relatively common modus operandi on the French corporate scene. Yet for obvious reasons, it is very much frowned upon on our Anglo-Saxon shores.Sir Martin Sorrell’s WPP is out of Takeover Panel purdah next week, when the advertising Goliath becomes free again to bid for Aegis. This is an advertising soap with a lot more mileage in it yet.So farewell then, John StudzinskiJohn Studzinski has looked destined to move on from HSBC from the moment his co-head of investment banking, Stuart Gulliver, was given responsibility for most of the job. The ambassadorial, advisory role that Studs was given as a sop was all very well, but he’s still too young, ambitious and addicted to his trade to be put out to pasture. The new position was never going to satisfy such a consummate networker and workaholic.Now he’s off to Blackstone, leaving everyone wondering what is to become of HSBC’s ambitions in investment banking once he’s gone.

Recruited three or four years back from Morgan Stanley, his brief was to use HSBC’s global reach, contacts and balance sheet to build the investment banking operation into a force to be reckoned with – an advisory business that could stand alongside the best of them. Citigroup, the only other truly global bank, has managed it, so why not HSBC?Ironically, there have been a number of signs recently of the strategy paying dividends. HSBC is currently involved in a number of Europe’s biggest takeover battles, including Lakshmi Mittal’s bid for Arcelor, E.ON’s proposed takeover of Endesa, and Ferrovial’s bid for BAA. Yet I’m not altogether sure HSBC ever really had the stomach for what it would take to join the bulge-bracket firms of Wall Street, or was prepared to make the necessary investment. Nor is it entirely clear what an investment bank really is any longer, with the boundaries between advice, securities trading, private-equity, structured finance and conventional corporate lending increasingly blurred.

The high-profile bit of investment banking -straight mergers and acquisitions advice – is these days a comparatively minor part of the genre.It is in this part of the garden – persuading clients to do deals – that Studs’s talents really lie. Was HSBC ever prepared to pay the mega salaries, or tolerate the the overblown egos, necessary to excel at these rarefied heights of the investment banking game? Now that Studs is going, Mr Gulliver can be relied on to run a ship more in keeping with HSBC’s parsimonious culture. That doesn’t mean that HSBC is abandoning the chase, but it will undoubtedly be a less exuberant approach, more firmly based on the trading side of investment banking, from here on in.j.warner independent.co.uk. Corporate activity rumours have returned to the insurance sector, although judging by the reaction in the market most traders have given up hope of any deals being struck. After months of betting that the French insurance giant AXA would make a play for Prudential, the story doing the rounds yesterday was that AXA has changed its target and is considering making an offer for Aviva, the UK’s largest general insurance group.
Some analysts believe Aviva makes a better fit for AXA than Prudential, even if it does mean a bid would have to be about 25 per cent more than it would have had to pay for Prudential.If a bid does come for Aviva, traders expect to see the price of Prudential shares fall by at least 10 per cent, as the stock has been boosted by a bid premium for several months.

What we found was horrendous.”In court this month, Mr Kouwenhoven’s lawyer, Inez Weski, painted a very different portrait of her client. “There is no proof that my client committed any offence,” she said in her closing arguments. We exposed the rule of blood diamonds, rainforest timber and guns. He also accused Mr Prescott of being to blame for the way pensioners have been hit by rising council tax bills. “The architect of this disaster loses his job and yet he has still got three homes, two Jags and a fancy office in Whitehall,” Mr Heald said.The Deputy Prime Minister’s nickname “Two Jags” dates back to when he was Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions eight years ago, and was found to have a second-hand Jaguar in his garage at home, as well as the official government Jaguar that he was using.The reference to “three homes” refers to the fact that he has use of a grace-and-favour flat in Whitehall and a country house, Dorneywood, in Kent, as well as his family home in Hull Mr Prescott replied: “Just for the record .. I have one house, one car – 10 years old.

I suspect on the benches opposite, most people have got a lot better than that.”. Gordon Brown is to throw his weight behind Tony Blair’s controversial plans to build a new generation of nuclear power stations in a setback to opponents of the move. The Chancellor believes that giving nuclear power a new lease of life is part of the solution to Britain’s energy problems. But he admits privately that the public, parliament and environmental groups will need to be convinced about the cost and benefits of the nuclear option.

Allies of Mr Brown said yesterday there was “no real difference” between him and the Prime Minister on the issue, and that he is personally convinced a new nuclear programme is the right way forward.
His backing is a boost for Mr Blair and, following their agreement on pensions, will be seen as a sign that they can still work together on difficult policy issues despite tension between them over when the Prime Minister should stand down.Opponents of nuclear power had hoped Mr Brown, the overwhelming front-runner to succeed Mr Blair, would block the Prime Minister’s plans, to be formally recommended in the Government’s energy review in July.Public opinion is sharply divided. A Populus survey for the Stockholm Network group of think tanks found that 46 per cent of people agreed that “if Britain is to lessen its dependence on foreign energy imports and meet its target for reducing carbon emissions, we may have to build new nuclear power stations in this country.” However, 42% would rather Britain failed to meet its carbon emissions targets and continued to import energy from abroad.Mr Blair faced further criticism yesterday for pre-empting the review by saying in a speech on Tuesday that its first draft had put the nuclear option back on the agenda “with a vengeance.”Friends of the Earth will file a request under the Freedom of Information Act for the draft to be published in full so that there can be a public debate about the “stark facts” on which Mr Blair said he based his judgement.Tony Juniper, the group’s director, said: “He must publish details of the briefing he received from the Department of Trade and Industry, which he has now made so public, so that we can have a transparent and open debate on this issue.”Mr Blair may not need legislation to authorise more nuclear power stations but more than 50 MPs have signed a Commons motion calling for a debate and vote in parliament.It was tabled by Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Willott, who accused Mr Blair of showing “blatant disregard for the views of the people”. But they became mobsters who will go down in history as horrors. They thrive on the corruption and greed in the dark corners of the world.”OTC was given permission by President Taylor to build roads to export the timber and these roads were in turn used to funnel arms to rebel groups in border areas destabilising Sierra Leone, said prosecutors.Professor Crane, the author of the indictment against Mr Taylor, who is now in jail in Sierra Leone, awaiting probable trial at The Hague, adds: “(Mr Kouwenhoven) represents the kind of financier that has ruined large parts of West Africa for personal gain He was a close intimate of Charles Taylor. According to Greenpeace, it is the last bastion of the forest elephant in west Africa.”These were thugs,” says Professor Crane of Mr Taylor and his Dutch business partner.

“Small-time crooks and bit-players who took advantage of the absence of law They were nobodies. The rainforest is home to 9,000 species of plants and 1,300 species of vertebrate animals. Timber was the Liberian government’s biggest source of income, worth $100m (£53m) a year, the UN says.The OTC was granted huge timber concessions in Liberia’s ancient rainforest and the environmental impact of the illegal logging that saw trade increase tenfold in the space of four years was massive. His ships would come into the port in Buchanan, unload Serbian and Chinese arms, bought via a Russian arms dealer – a regular at Hotel Africa – then load up with freshly felled rainforest timber.The prosecution has presented ships’ manifests and logbooks, backed up by personal testimony from former employees of OTC and members of Mr Kouwenhoven’s militia. I could describe to you the horror but you wouldn’t take it in, you couldn’t …

The early indications yesterday were for more selling, particularly in the commodities sector which has been the main beneficiary of the three-year bull run the London market has enjoyed.Errol Francis, the manager of the Credit Suisse Income Fund, agreed that UK equities offer reasonable value, particularly in the large-cap stocks. “The market was due a correction after a very strong run, but markets are likely to remain volatile throughout the summer until there is more clarity on the direction of US interest rates and inflation,” he said.. During the dot boom, when the index peaked at 6,930.2, the market traded on a forward price-to-earnings ratio of nearly 22 times. According to Goldman Sachs estimates, the London market trades on about 12.5 times expected earnings.Market makers saw a dramatic increase in selling on Wednesday afternoon as fears over US inflation led to the London market falling more than 170 points.

The good thing about us being big is that we are able to give the banks a run for their money.”. London shares had a topsy-turvy day yesterday with traders still unnerved by recent share-price falls. An early-morning sell-off saw the FTSE 100 fall 56 points, wiping out all gains made this year, but it recovered to close just 3.9 lower at 5,671.6. It was just above the lowest close for the year – 5,633.8 on 24 January. However, many equity strategists remain upbeat on prospects for the year and urged investors not to panic.
Peter Oppenheimer, the head of European portfolio strategy at the investment bank Goldman Sachs, is still broadly positive on UK equities and said most of the underlying factors behind the rising equity markets remain strong. “There has certainly been a shift in inflation expectations and the last few sessions have shown a rapid reduction in appetite for risk,” he said.

“Even so, we see no problem with valuations of the UK stock market and we remain overweight in equities globally.”Even taking into account the bull run over the past three years, which has seen the FTSE 100 more than double in value, most industry experts believe London shares are not expensive. And he offered rare words of praise for Halifax, normally Nationwide’s fiercest rival He said: “Banks have started to learn some lessons They realise that customers are important HBOS is doing well – good on them. It claims to have saved customers £690m in the past 12 months from the lower fees and better interest rates it is able to offer because it does not have shareholders to satisfy.Nationwide has not faced any attempt to convert it into a bank for many years – a result, it claims, of having won the argument in favour of mutuality. It is attracting 3,000 new members a day.The society is predicting a rise in house prices of between 3 and 6 per cent in the coming year, calming fears of a crash in the market.Mr Williamson said he was sorry to see Standard Life, the only other remaining large mutual in the financial services sector, decide to convert to a plc. Of 1.2 million mortgage customers, only 69 are in arrears by three months or more.The society, which is the fourth-biggest lender, is poised to start competing fiercely for new business once again and predicts a honeymoon period for mortgage borrowers.Nationwide, the product of more than 100 mergers since it was formed in 1848, is now the second-biggest player in the savings market. Savings deposits grew by 23 per cent in the year to £8.3bn.Nationwide has total assets of £120bn, making it easily the world’s largest building society.

To which one can reply that the unfortunate soul cannot have been following state politics of late.These days Kansas is an extraordinary laboratory whose experiments could hold lessons for the entire country. Recently, a novelty greeting card caused a stir locally when it depicted a corpse lying in a Topeka street A passer by asks what was the cause of death “Boredom,” comes the answer. This is a strange place, where moral and cultural issues outrank those of the pocketbook. Carried to extremes, the habit has brought national and international ridicule on the state. But it also provides an intriguing explanation of how Republicans have come to dominate national politics – and where those national politics may be heading now.A hour or so’s drive east of Abilene lies the Kansas state capital, Topeka, with its handsome honeyed stone statehouse, modelled, like its peers across the country, on the Capitol in Washington, DC Outwardly, Topeka’s distinction ends there The streets are wide and depressingly empty On every corner seems to be a parking lot. If, like me, you fly into Kansas City on the Missouri side and then have to drive across 250 miles of the state to get to the geographic centre, the cost is anything but funny.Soaring oil prices, war in Iraq, worries over immigration and falling living standards – anywhere else these factors would be decisive in politics But not in Kansas politics Seen from here, 9/11 and the “war on terror” seem far away. But Kansas’s 2.7 million people are scattered across a territory as large as England.

Here, without private transport you are lost.Europeans may laugh at a local petrol price that works out at 40p a litre. The rail tracks that bisect Abilene link the town to Kansas City and beyond. But the 40 trains a day that pass through are all freight trains, carrying coal and wheat – not people. The vast Oglala aquifer, which stretches under seven plains states, is now being depleted so fast here that the irrigation on which farming in western Kansas depends may be impossible in a couple of decades.And then of course there’s the price of petrol, which powers cars, trucks and all the farm machinery that churns across the expanses of America’s wheat basket Outside the major cities, public transport does not exist.

Former settlements have become ghost towns, a majority of Kansas counties are seeing their populations fall And there are other, even more irreversible, trends. The myth is of a kingdom of doughty independent farmers; the reality is an ever-mightier agri-industrial complex of fewer and larger farms, and a steady decline in the rural population. The worries here mirror those everywhere else: about wage rates being driven through the floor, about the strain immigrants place on stretched hospitals and schools, about a creeping erosion of national identity.Kansas cherishes its help-thy-neighbour ethic But it is not a place to be poor. Without immigrant workers, the giant meat-packing plants at Garden City in the south-west of the state, where almost half the population is Hispanic, simply couldn’t function.

Kansas by definition is as far from America’s borders as you can get, but it, too, is affected by the issue of immigration that currently consumes the country. And even now, I’m not all that disappointed in our President, who I think was trying to do what was best for our country.” Disappointments will continue, Bergmeier predicted, but sooner or later the troops will be home.But there’s more than Iraq on the minds of the crowd in Bankes. It sums up the mood in this corner of the US heartland as well as anything. Iraq, he wrote, “is a four-letter word…I haven’t been a harsh critic of the war and probably won’t start now; like many Americans I believed in the weapons of mass destruction theories… “We were right to go in,” counters Bill Sunde, “the trouble is we don’t have enough troops.” Lynn Peterson agrees: “The miscalculation was, we should have brought in more forces, sooner.”But this is hardly a ringing endorsement, given that this is Abilene, one of the most Republican parts of a Republican state, where unaffiliated voters outnumber Democrats, and Republicans far outnumber both.

Back in Abilene, a local district attorney based his 2004 election campaign on a promise to get rid of a highly visible adult entertainment store on the interstate just outside town He won the election. Decades of vigorous campaigning by the pro-life lobby have failed to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Cultural conservatives have made electoral advances in Kansas and across the country, but despite every effort of the Kansas board of education, Darwin still rules. “Democrats just support programmes to keep themselves in power,” she told me What about the evolution row, I asked. “I feel we shouldn’t teach about Darwin unless we teach about intelligent design,” she replied, adding that she herself was a creationist.

“This country was founded according to God’s law, and we did so well. Now we’re going the other way, and look what’s happening.”So the fight will go on, even though the political victories change nothing. I was reading What’s the Matter with Kansas? over a decent ribeye steak when my waitress saw the title and asked what it was about.”Oh,” I replied, “It says that ordinary people in Kansas have been duped into voting against their economic interests when they back Republican candidates.” But the waitress, a mother of three called Linda McGinty, was having none of it. I was having dinner in the Topeka Steak House, a rough and ready place a few miles east of town, where customers roll up in their pick-up trucks and SUVs and most are on their way home by 8 pm.

Well, when he opens the boot of his Lexus he’s going to get a nasty surprise. There’s not much room in there for anything more than a change of boxers and all his party’s policy documents, ie, not very much at all.You can squeeze in a couple of suitcases, but the hatchback Prius is a more capable carrier Its boot holds 408 litres, against the Lexus 450h’s 286. A diesel hybrid might be a different matter, but given that Lexus is aiming at the US market, and the US doesn’t love diesel, I doubt we’ll see one soon.Mr Cameron’s stated reason for passing on the offer of the Lexus’s smaller brother, the Toyota Prius, was that there wasn’t enough room in it. True, being a petrol rather than a diesel machine, the Lexus has the edge on particulate pollution, and it is way better than its petrol counterparts, but it’s not that great either. The official verdict is that this Lexus pumps out 186g of CO2 every kilometre. That’s about the same as a Mondeo, but it’s not that far astray of the equivalents for the Lexus’s main opposition, the German diesels.So the BMW 530d manages 179g/km and the Mercedes-Benz E320 a credible 194g/km. Emissions of CO2 and other noxious substances are very low for a car of this size and bulk.

If you choose to exploit all of this machine’s performance, you’ll find it getting you to 60mph in under six seconds, from 50mph to 75mph in 4.7 seconds and onwards to a (governed) 155mph.All that, and an official average of 35.8mpg. There are various buttons and gearbox settings you can select that push your Lexus along the spectrum from slightly wallowy vaguely green limo to full-on sports saloon. Having said that, this Lexus is equipped with an override that turns the CVT box into a six-speed sequential one. Maybe those Lexus engineers are almost as clever as they say they are. Coupled, as it is in this hybrid, with the Lexus’s smooth 3.5-litre petrol V6 and its 292bhp, you have a car that has very capable performance indeed – about the same as a 4.5-litre petrol V8, for the sake of argument, which is why Lexus has given it the model designation 450.Electric motors also deliver their power smoothly, and Lexus has added a sort of mini-auto gearbox within the electric unit that helps it deliver even more low-down punch. You may not have thought of a hybrid as a performance machine – and it isn’t perfect – but the electric motor and petrol engine makes for an intriguing combination.The downside is the constantly variable transmission (CVT) gearbox, which has a whiney, thrashy quality, and the extra weight of the batteries, which will take the edge off performance. More often, it helps the petrol engine out, cutting its efforts, improving performance and fuel consumption.Perhaps the most impressive thing about it is the strength of that electric motor, which has a maximum power output of 197bhp – on its own about the same as that found in the V6 Jaguar X-type’s petrol unit, say.

That motor can pull the Lexus along on its own for very short periods at very low speeds. As with all hybrids, it uses power otherwise wasted while braking and decelerating to charge batteries that can drive an electric motor. Whatever you made of it, the most welcome outcome of all the fuss is that the ideal of greener motoring and awareness of the alternative technologies already on the market have gained wider currency.So now we’ve all heard of the hybrid Lexus 450h, what are we to make of it? Like all Lexus cars, it is a superbly built, comfortable, fast cruiser, full of fun technology (like the colour reversing-camera) To be sure, this is a very clever machine. You may remember when this particular bit of political stuntery was exposed. The Lexus 450h is the official car of the leader of the Opposition, or rather, the car that the Tory leader’s chauffeur, paperwork and clothes travel in behind Mr Cameron when he’s riding his bicycle and being all green for the media.

Elena Glurdjidze is a lively Virginia, quailing and then reproving the ghost. As Cecil, her foppish suitor, Juan Rodriguez does his best to animate Tuckett’s feeble jokes.Back in the present day, Warp Moves, a one-off show part-commissioned by the Brighton Festival, mixes contemporary dance with artists from the music label Warp. His acting has a mocking flourish, while he makes the most of every dancing opportunity. His steps are clean, strong and boldly phrased, and he carries himself with grandeur After his injury, James Streeter stepped in with aplomb. The ballet becomes a play-within-a-playhouse, with ghosts popping up in the boxes.Sue Blane dresses the dancers in bold colours and Edwardian frills, leaving them plenty of room to move.Portasio, who danced most of the opening night, rises above the Baker handicap to become a splendid Ghost. The ghostly dinner party should be the show’s comic highlight, but the timing isn’t good enough.Dick Bird’s set is satisfyingly theatrical He frames the stage with a false proscenium and opera boxes. Worse, this isn’t a voice we can take seriously.Tuckett’s mime and dance-scenes doodle along beside Martin Ward’s bland pastiche score, filling in the time with steps and gestures without really taking off.

It’s quite clear that Andre Portasio isn’t speaking those words; the recorded voice undermines his authority. Things are kept straight by a narrator, the actor Tom Baker, booming away on tape.This is the ballet’s most serious mistake We have a hero who spends half his time miming to playback. Tuckett plays around with the plot, reducing Wilde’s sentiment but leaving the story less clear. The Canterville Ghost was planned as a family show, and as such it hits enough of the right buttons There are clear characters, bright design, some easy comedy. But the show is thin and slack.
The ballet is based on Oscar Wilde’s story. The ghost tries to drive out the rich American family who move into his stately home; Virginia, the sweet, teenage daughter, brings about his redemption. Tuckett’s new work for English National Ballet had to wait for a second Sir Simon This long, unscheduled interval was no help.

The original singer Rita Lee is absent, but the Baptista brothers and Zelia Duncan are superb.The songs have some delicious harmonies and effects. The artist Biljana Tutorov provides a running video commentary, while the contrast between Vedran Peternel’s mixing and sampling,and violinist Isabel’s dramatic playing, adds a bracing air of immediacy.
The mercurial and laconic frontman Darko Rundek, singing in several languages, keeps the audience in high spirits and on its toes.His minimal guitar playing complements Djani Pervan’s brilliant drumming or Isabel’s far-reaching violin.Led by Moreno Veloso and producer Kassim, Rio’s Orquestra Imperial, with their four vocalists, two guitars, brass, keyboards and six drummers, play samba in the spirit of Tropicalia with a love for the history and roots of Brazilian music.An unlikely choice of Yes’s “Owner of a Lonely Heart” swings the orquestra into a rockier sound, and after an overlong first set, the second half’s live recreation of Tropicalia’s first album, Tropicalia ou Panis et Circensis, is a sublime delight. The semi-acoustic, jazzy space music of Cargo Orkestar, who were formed in Paris from a largely exiled Eastern European diaspora, showcases here the new CD, Mhm A-Ha Oh Yeah Da-Da. Songs almost meander into being from seemingly chance collisions between instruments

There is a strong sense of theatre. Most successful was the hit single “Sugar, We’re Going Down”, with its slabs of industrial sound crowbarred into a three-minute pop structure.

“The Music Or The Misery” suggested the band were becoming less fidgety. It was very slick, but with constant calls to join the Fall Out Boy “family”, you wondered if this would be a lasting commitment or a short-term fling.Civic Hall, Wolverhampton (01902 552121), tonight. He boasts the biggest set of lungs since the glory days of David Coverdale but was unable to add enough character to differentiate between Wentz’s two types of song. Wentz writes so densely that the vocalist struggled to fit in the words.Their only chance to make an impact was to cram in enough musical tics to suggest attention-deficit disorder, as sudden changes of pace and rapid fills instead of solos kept us on edge. To top it all, Fall Out Boy are mates with Jay-Z.The band emerged to the sound of Bon Jovi’s “Living On A Prayer”, an odd choice. Wentz and guitarist Joe Trohman, at least, constantly urged the crowd to participate, when they were not attempting to outdo each other in risky leaps over podiums and steps.

The singer, Patrick Stump, meanwhile, hidden under a tightly worn trucker’s cap, kept himself busy by playing the more complex guitar patterns and unleashing his extraordinary voice. No matter how much they spun round, pogoed or jumped off speaker stacks, the latest heroes of parental-guidance punk showed a distinct lack of drama. Perhaps they had too much to say: the Chicago outfit have become mainstream pin-ups thanks to an audacious fusion of emo-rock’s searing honesty and the pop sensibility of Green Day.
Also mixed in was a smidgen of straight-edged fundamentalism (no drugs or booze for three members), alongside a set of emotional problems topped by bassist Pete Wentz’s overdose on prescribed meds for anxiety attacks. Given his particularly cute looks, and as their heart-on-sleeve spokesman, Wentz is central to Fall Out Boy’s vilification by the hardcore fraternity. Bright and articulate, the college-educated lyricist also plays the role of entrepreneur, with his own clothing range plus a record label that has unleashed the more rhythm-based band Panic! At The Disco as well as The Hush Sound’s folk-based style. Had they closed the show at that moment, however, the crowd should not have felt short-changed..

Pain, usually on both sides of the head, and sometimes nausea and vomiting as well as muscle weakness and depression Occur when the body adapts to pain relievers. Around 5 per cent of adults have daily headaches, and it’s estimated that a third of these may be due to drug rebound. DRUG-REBOUND HEADACHE When an occasional headache becomes daily, it may be a drug-rebound headache, the result of overuse of pain relievers. Harvard researchers say that sumatriptan, when given by injection, can end about 75 per cent of attacks within 15 minutes Inhaling pure oxygen also eases symptoms. TREATMENTS Calcium-channel blockers can prevent attacks, while steroids may prevent further attacks.

CAUSES Not yet known, although one clue may lie in the discovery that cluster patients tend to have a spot above an eye where there is reduced blood flow. Each attack usually lasts between 30 and 45 minutes, but can be quickly followed by another, sometimes several times a day, before suddenly stopping for months or years. Studies of cluster patients show that they are more likely to have hazel-coloured eyes. SYMPTOMS Usually begin as a minor pain around one eye, but then spread to the remainder of that side of the face Other symptoms can include a runny nose and droopy eyelid. Usually start between the ages of 20 and 40, and male sufferers outnumber women 10 to one. WHO GETS THEM? Relatively unusual, affecting around one in 1,000 people. Some research shows that a room humidifier can prevent these headaches.

CLUSTER WHAT ARE THEY? One of the most painful of all headaches – sometimes described by women as being worse than childbirth – they get their name because attacks usually come in clusters. TREATMENTS Aspirin and ibuprofen to temporarily relieve pain, or a decongestant when sinuses are blocked. Antibiotics may also be prescribed, and antihistamines when allergies are the cause. CAUSES Allergies and colds that lead to inflammation of the nose and sinus membranes are the usual culprits. Sinuses get congested and become infected as bacteria or viruses infect the lining. SYMPTOMS Pain or pressure around the eyes, cheeks and forehead, as well as tenderness of the skin and facial bones.