Riding for Lady Anne Herries, she guided Aitch ‘N Bee to victory at 10-1 – ahead of Ray Cochrane on Pillow Talk and Frankie Dettori on the 6-1 shot Rockstine. “It wasn’t such a significant race to Frankie,” she reflected, sipping her lime and soda, “but to me it was the highlight of my whole career.”At 34, Crombie-Hicks, a 5ft 2in, 7st 7lb bundle of hyperactivity, is about to embark on a career as an international athlete, thanks to her run in the Berlin Marathon two months ago, when she placed sixth in a women’s section won by the Olympic champion, Mizuki Noguchi, bettering the Scottish Commonwealth selection standard with a time of 2hr 38min 42sec.Born in Aberdeen and raised in Portsmouth, her first sporting career started some time after she joined John Dunlop’s stable in Arundel at the age of 16. It will not be her first experience of ?te-class sporting action.
Back on 4 January 1995, as plain Shona Crombie, she rode the winner in the 3.30 at Wolverhampton, the Ash Handicap. Last week she was picked to represent her native Scotland at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

On 19 March she runs in the women’s marathon, which starts and finishes at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. “It’s only £1.65.”

Dressed in her training gear, and fresh from her morning run around the paths and fields of Bourton – with its low stone bridges and its gentle-flowing, tree-shaded River Windrush, known as “the Venice of the Cotswolds” – Crombie-Hicks was contemplating a trip of her own. “Catch the Pulham’s coach on the way back,” the multi-gifted sportswoman and part-time Pulham’s secretary advised. So, apart from the fact that it’s lob- sters rather than fish, and concrete rather than steel, and in Oban rather than on the east coast, I got it dead right Nineteen years later.. In the Rose Tree restaurant, with its adornment of horse-racing pictures, it was only fitting that Shona Crombie-Hicks should proffer a tip. The taxi ride from the train station in Cheltenham to the Cotswold idyll of Bourton-on-the-Water had cost a perpendicularly steep £30.

Professor William Ritchie, the director of the Aberdeen Institute for Coastal Science and Management, said: “In years to come, we will see artificial reefs emerging around the coast of Britain.”The reef’s biggest attraction, it seems, is for lobster “ranching”, where juveniles are planted on the reefs and then grow to eating size. Made with 10,000 tonnes of honeycombed concrete blocks, the reef has seen sea life increase 16 times in the area since 2002, with cod, lobster and other shellfish moving in.The Scottish Association for Marine Science, who are behind the project, are planning a similar reef off Aberdeen. The scheme had worked in Florida, so why not in the UK?Journalists, alas, have a low attention span. I forgot all about it until this week, when I read that an artificial reef in Loch Linnhe, near Oban, had been so successful that others were planned.

Then bigger things that eat the small ones (on land, they’d be called lawyers) would turn up Within a few years, you’d have a thriving underwater town. It would provide commercial and rod-and-line fishing, with the local town policing its reef and stopping the dastardly Spaniards or Russians from nobbling the fish. Too expensive, and all that steel would depress the domestic market.Eric’s answer was to sink them a few miles off the ailing ports and turn them into fish-attracting reefs. Unlike cars, which rot to nothing in a few years, high-grade steel lasts a century or more.Within a short time, small sea creatures would populate the reef. This chap in Aberdeen, Eric something, was pushing the idea that discarded oil rigs could be the salvation of struggling fishing communities.

The guilty man can now be named as Thomas Emmet Brocklehurst of Henbury Park in Cheshire. A time traveller with a shotgun could save a lot of trouble.By the 1930s there were so many greys that the government agreed they were a pest A bounty of threepence a tail was offered after the war. A series of efforts was made over following decades to stop the grey invasion, but none worked.There are three small enclaves of red squirrels in the South: Thetford Forest in Norfolk, where experts have all but given up hope for the reds; on Brownsea Island in Poole harbour; and on the Isle of Wight, both of which are protected by water. Cuddly? With those claws and teeth? “Well, yes, I wouldn’t dare pick one up. But they do come and take nuts out of your hand.”The appeal of the red to Mr Clegg seems to be a mixture of its cuteness, his nostalgia for childhood and an anthropomorphic patriotism “I was brought up with Potter and Squirrel Nutkin. While guests tuck in to a full English, the squirrels nibble peanuts and sunflower seeds. “People are amazed at being so close to such a cuddly creature,” says Mr Clegg.

Any grey caught on red territory will be shot or caught in a trap, jostled into a sack and struck by a fatal blow to the back of the head.
Reds used to be everywhere, but now there are only about 20,000 in England, holed up and fighting for their lives, while there are more than two million greys. Early in the morning they run down from the tall pine trees of the Kielder forest in Northumberland, one of the newly designated reservations, to visit the stone cottage where Don and his wife Sylvia give bed and breakfast. That kind of cynicism does not go down well with Don Clegg, who loves red squirrels with a passion. This is a bloody conflict charged with romance, hatred and a whiff of racism Reds versus greys Small versus big Natives versus invaders The English versus the alien One kind of tree rat versus another kind of tree rat.Sorry. And Professor Ronald Neilson, of Oregon State University, added: “The oceans are generally warming up and there are all sorts of signs that something strange is afoot.”. Imagine the tiger vanishing from India, or the giant panda disappearing from China.

The red squirrel has the same iconic status in England, say those who want to save it. Losing the small, tufty creature that inspired Beatrix Potter to invent Squirrel Nutkin would diminish the soul of the nation, they say, as well as being an ecological disaster. So £1m is to be spent on establishing animal apartheid at 16 reserves across the North, where reds will live without threat from the mortal enemy that has driven them to the brink of extinction in this country: the North American grey squirrel. A Canadian Government report noted that ocean temperatures off British Colombia reached record levels last year as well, blaming “general warming of global lands and oceans”. There were up to 80 times more dead Brandt’s cormorants, a fishing bird, than in previous years.Tests showed the birds died of starvation. “They are not finding enough food, and so they use up the energy stored in their muscles, liver and body fat,” said Hannah Nevins, who investigated similar mass deaths in Monterey Bay.Many fear the ecological collapse is a portent of things to come, as the world heats up.

Water temperatures soared to 7C above normal, which delighted bathers but caused the whole delicate system to collapse. The amount of phytoplankton crashed to a quarter of its usual level.”In 50 years this has never happened,” said Bill Peterson, an oceanographer with the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, in Newport, Oregon.Record numbers of dead seabirds soon washed up on beaches along the coast. These are eaten by zooplankton, tiny animals that in turn feed fish, seabirds and marine mammals.But this year the winds were extraordinarily weak and the cold water did not well up in spring as usual. Normally, winds blow south along the coast in spring and summer, pushing warmer surface waters away from the shore and allowing colder water that is rich in nutrients to well up from the sea bottom, feeding the microscopic plants called phytoplankton.

More from John Rentoul. Never mind the little green Martian who traditionally pays a visit to this planet for rhetorical purposes on these occasions, the average French or German visitor to the websites of British newspapers must be puzzled by such an extreme reaction to two votes in Parliament. In the size of type suitable for reporting a turning point in the Second World War the press declared that it was “the beginning of the end” – an observation that was either banal or wrong. The House of Commons voted to double from 14 to 28 days the length of time that the police may hold suspected terrorists under a judge’s supervision. Meanwhile a state of emergency was declared in France as the suburbs of Paris burned, and in Germany the exhausted parties finally agreed a coalition two months after an inconclusive election. Ambassadors’ witticisms about the tightness of prime ministers’ trousers or the looseness of deputy prime ministers’ vocabulary are usually consigned to the confidential files of the Foreign Office.

Occasionally, as with John Phillips’s famous despatch about the Muscat national anthem, they are so entertaining that they get leaked Rarely, as in this case, they are flaunted. The most famous example is Sir Henry Wotton’s joke, “An Ambassador is an honest man, sent to lie abroad for the good of his country”.. Nothing much happened in British politics last week. The publication of Sir Christopher Meyer’s memoir “DC Confidential” has been condemned by Jack Straw as a breach of trust, and others have warned that it will damage the Foreign Office But the issues raised are much wider. “Only selected lines are left.” I confess I’d had Thursday the 10th in my diary for four weeks.

I had failed to snare even a pair of blue jeans.Churlishly I glanced across at the lemon baby doll tops (£34.99); you’d have to pay me to wear it, I thought. As for the remaining sequinned cardies (£119.99, yes really), let’s just say I could see Camilla Parker-Bowles in one.Listen up, Stella: if you want to keep us peasants onside, pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap And make sure there’s enough to go round. Otherwise we’ll think you’re manipulating us.It’s certainly what sassily dressed Alex Atty, 16, who is studying for her A-levels, thinks. “I am not liking this ‘I’ll be a celebrity and do a clothes range thing.’ It’s poncey. She obviously thought: ‘I’m getting a bit old, I want to be in the public eye, so I’ll do a clothes range.’”. She is the Kate Moss of designers: girls love her, want her, want to be her.Which is presumably why hundreds of them pitched up at 6am to queue outside the Oxford Circus branch of H & M.

Women want a part of her, which is presumably why, in the frenzy and excitement of last week’s shopping spree, they forgot to feel patronised when she offered up a few golden crumbs to the hungry hoards That’s why she has sold out. She is playing to the gallery.Can punters not see that Stella is merely using them, the common hoards, to reinforce her brand? Make them mad for it, make them want it, make them weep when they fail to bag a trademark silk camisole or black tuxedo jacket that, for once, is affordable.It’s like cocaine: give a first-time user one line, just one line, and they’re hooked, chasing that first euphoric hit for ever and a day. They won’t succeed, of course, since Stella won’t be selling any more of her poor people’s diffusion line.Santa’s sack is empty: Patrick Barnston of H & M’s merchandising department informed me yesterday morning the collection was a one-off.”It’s been a huge success,” he told me as we surveyed the dregs of Thursday’s sale in the High Street Kensington branch. Sure, she wasn’t launching herself as a singer (that would have been embarrassing) or a gourmet purveyor of soya sausages, but she was undoubtedly hoping to trade on daddy’s surname. Branding, she knew even then, is everything.It was only when I won one of her frocks at a charity auction in the late 1990s that I realised she had edge That dress turns heads to this day Her clothes are sexy, sophisticated, elegant. However young and groovy you think you might look and act, the eyes of the teenager who beholds you can only see a crusty old saddo, anyway. I think in future I shall model myself on that nice Mrs Gillick..

Go Stella! The celebrity fashion designer must have raised a glass or six this weekend following the launch on Thursday of the Stella McCartney collection for high-street chain H & M. OK, it wasn’t all roses and laurels: she didn’t get the Designer of the Year gong, after all. That fashion “Oscar” went to Christopher “chav” Bailey, the man who took Burberry into the high street and beyond. But she did, single-handedly, orchestrate a degree of hysteria among the nation’s women not seen since well, the nation’s young women screamed at her dad Paul.
Exaggeration? Maybe But hype has, regrettably, become Stella’s middle name. It’s not just Patricia Hewitt and her “healthcare professionals” who are putting the boot in. The other week, a gang of academics gathered in Scotland to denounce the “helicopter mothers”, for hovering over their children, not letting them make mistakes, failing to give them necessary freedoms and so on Much of what they say is, of course, true. It is not possible for your child to learn by your mistakes; it has to make its own.

Its circulation has fallen by 2.7 per cent year on year, the Mail on Sunday by 6.0 per cent. There may be a message in that.What he will make of the fluffy, “spa-like” relaunched Sunday Telegraph also remains to be seen It has not had a friendly reception. Media Guardian sniffily described it as “having a long way to go”.The Telegraph has also raised its price to 65p, the same as The Independent but 5p more than The Times and Guardian. This will not help, although the Telegraph sells a high proportion of copies at a reduced rate.Then there was that other hypothesis, that quality sells while tabloids are less popular than they were. The evidence is this: the four general quality daily titles last month sold 70,000 more copies than they did a year ago, 2.28m. The four general quality Sunday titles last month sold 31,000 more copies than a year ago, 2.75m.This is the only sector of the market where sales are rising. The red-top tabloids are selling 220,000 fewer copies than a year ago.

The mid-market titles, Mail and Express, are selling 169,000 fewer.Have we entered the age of the intelligent newspaper, as long as it’s the right size?Peter Cole is Professor of Journalism at the University of Sheffield. Little Britain, the cult comedy that has now become a catchphrase-spawning mainstream hit, is to take over BBC1 for an entire evening this week. To mark the start of the third series, which begins on Thursday, the couple’s stars, David Walliams and Matt Lucas, have scripted the continuity announcements for the night’s viewing. The voiceover will be provided by Tom Baker.
Unsuspecting viewers will be treated to such lines as: “In half an hour, Jenny Dickens’ classic serial Bleak House. But first let’s see what the poor people are up to in the first of two visits this evening to the EastEnder [sic].”There will be further gobbledygook prior to a Children in Need preview show, The Great Big Bid, when Baker announces: “Hello telly viewers, you’re watching the BBC One. At nine o’clock it’s Little Britain – the greatest show in the history of broadcasting …”It is thought to be the first time BBC1 has tried such a stunt..

Peep, peep! Look out Thomas, there’s a troublesome rival on the tracks. After 60 years of the little blue engine’s supremacy on the rails, a new character is hoping to shunt him out of the affections of fans. Underground Ernie is to be launched by the BBC early next year on CBeebies, its digital channel for toddlers. Ernie, a Tube supervisor, is joined by a fleet of trains, each named after a line on the London Underground – Bakerloo, Circle, Jubilee, Victoria and Hammersmith & City.
With an uncanny similarity to Thomas and his pals, each of the trains has a face, although these are computer-generated animations, unlike the Fat Controller’s engines on the island of Sodor which are model trains.And like Thomas the Tank Engine, which was originally voiced by Ringo Starr (and later by Michael Angelis), Ernie’s show will have big names behind it. Match of the Day host Gary Lineker will provide the voice of the main character and is understood to be in line for a share of the profits.Thomas merchandise has been one of the biggest spin-off hits for children’s TV since the series was launched in the 1980s. A Thomas board game is expected to be one of this year’s biggest sellers.Lineker, aformer England football captain, said: “I’d never done that sort of voiceover work before and it was a fantastic experience I just can’t wait for the train set.”. GENERAL

1 For what achievement did Londoners in the 19th century have most reason to thank Sir Joseph Bazalgette?
2 Of which small organisation, composed of people who have appeared on a certain TV show, is Pass the in-house, periodical magazine?”3 Arnold Hagenbach and Sam Chippendale built which chain of shopping malls in Britain?4 Which electronic children’s toy, first sold by Bandai in 1996, takes its name partially from the Japanese for egg?5 Which notorious New York newspaper proprietor and playboy (1841-1918) has given his name to an expression of shock or surprise?HISTORY/GEOGRAPHY1 Which is the largest island in the world (continents excluded) through which the equator passes?2 What are Bora, F?and Pampero examples of?3 Who was the first US President to have been born (1924) in a hospital?4 The Orteig prize ($25,000) – led to which historic feat of 1927?5 Making a major breakthrough in public health in London in the mid-19th century, with the prevention of which disease is Dr John Snow most closely linked?LITERATURE1 Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys is an account of the life of Antoinette Cosway – a prequel to which famous Bront?ovel of 1847?2 Walt Whitman’s poems “O Captain! My Captain!” and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” are a response to his grief over which event of 1865?3 Charlie Higson (TV Comic actor – The Fast Show) has published a children’s book SilverFin.

I think it’s a result of what’s possible in production values at high volumes. Clothes are better-made now.”She picks out the denim jacket from the McCartney range as a case in point. “But even though they’re well made, clothes that last are not what anyone wants any more. Marks and Spencer should stop worrying about bullet-proofing their pieces and concentrate on the design.” M&S, whose fortunes have been more closely followed than possibly any other brand, does not employ Paris/New York/Milan designers.

The anonymous folk who churn out their shirtwaisters and slacks keep a low profile.The only real “name” now at M&S is George Davies. The founder of Nextmay not have catwalk kudos, but his business nous and eye for a trend goes down well withM&S customers. They may even gain the store a lasting fan base which the quick hit of a McCartney or Lagerfeld cannot achieve.As Thody points out, the quality of the H&M merchandise does not match the name on the label No one would expect a £59.99 jacket to last for ever. The Prada wool coat you saved months for will still be going strong, both in design and quality, in 2007; the Zara cotton coat with this-season ruffles and frogging is already starting to look tired.What no one talks about is where, and how, the clothes are produced That’s just not a fashionable topic of conversation. Meanwhile the style cycle spins exceedingly fast: on Friday more than 500 pieces from the H&M range were being offered on eBay – with few takers.

She had big flicked hair and fantastic legs and we got on instantly. She was sensible but also had a fun, wild side and we spoke the same cultural language. We balanced and complemented one another perfectly.We did lose touch when I went through a particularly dark period. I was working as a hostess and I cut myself off from everyone.

But Jane got in touch a couple of years later and we fell back into our friendship straight away.Friendship today may mean a whole number of different things, but the words unconditional love spring to mind. In a nutshell, it’s when you’ve messed up and you’re being a pain in the arse but your mate is still there for you. When you are at your weakest, you are at your most selfish and you have nothing to offer. To have a friend who can offer you wisdom, advice and support at times like that is really special.

The balance is redressed when you are there for your friend, too.When I think of the things that Jane’s been through for me – her contribution to my life has been massive and her wisdom has been profound. I feel totally indebted to her.Jane A sign of true friendship is being able to go through phases of drifting apart but always being there for one another. Stella and I have known each other for a very long time so it’s only natural that we’ve had moments of being close and moments of not seeing one another, but we’ve never questioned our friendship.I remember meeting her very clearly It was in the late 1980s in the Rock Bar in Covent Garden. She was with her drama school crowd and looked very cool – a willowy blonde dressed in black We clicked instantly even though we’re very different With Stella, nothing is ever done in half measures I’m more centred and calm. Her life is always full of drama and mine is comparatively boring.But despite our differences, I know that she is always there for me and vice versa That is the essence of a true modern friendship. You need to know that someone will be there and not judge you, no matter what happens.The role of friendships has changed over the past few decades. Friendships have become much more important for women, particularly single women.

The situation is about to get worse. The Government was wrong to dismiss such a scheme out of hand.. Each day brings more evidence that the National Health Service is slipping into a financial crisis.

But yesterday’s proposals fell disappointingly short of what might have been. Establishing a nationwide series of “managed zones” – in which prostitution would be legal and where brothels would be licensed – was being seriously considered by the Home Office at one stage. This would have represented a significant step forward in dealing with prostitution. Encouraging prostitutes to work in groups, and getting them off the streets, undoubtedly makes them safer.

In the end, only a minor liberalisation of the laws governing prostitution was unveiled yesterday. The Home Office minister, Fiona Mactaggart, proposed that prostitutes should be permitted under the law to work in small groups, of two or three, from a flat We would welcome this. Still very much at home in the classroom during her many school visits and devoted to her own children, she was an excellent speaker and a perceptive, at times stringent, critic.As a writer able to produce a succession of brilliant, stand-alone novels, each one perfect in itself, she is irreplaceable.Nicholas Tucker. A few years later, after the collapse of her marriage, she made Oxford her home.

One of the main causes of deaths was “controlled flight into terrain” where an aircraft hits the ground at full power with the crew seemingly unaware of the danger. Another major cause is where there is a loss of control of the plane for whatever reason. Until 2004 the figure for fatal accidents had shown a consistent decline.
David Learmount, a safety specialist, points out in the latest edition of Flight magazine that many of the fatal accidents last year involved aircraft registered in states with “struggling economies” where regulatory activity was low on the list of political priorities.For the last two decades, airlines in Africa and in parts of Latin America and Asia were responsible for a small percentage of flights, but most serious accidents. Mr Learmount says there was a “continuing absence” of fatal accidents involving major world airlines and up-to-date aircraft.Nigeria had two fatal crashes last year in which a total of 225 people were killed, while Sudan saw three fatal accidents, all involving old Soviet-built aircraft.

A West Caribbean Airways crash in Venezuela in August claimed the lives of 152 passengers and eight crew.While most fatal crashes involved older aircraft, the disaster in the hills north of Athens last August in which 115 passengers and crew died, happened to a more modern jet. According to early reports from the investigator, the flight crew failed to set the pressurisation controls correctly during pre-flight checks. That mistake was made worse when the crew did not respond to warnings that the cabin was not pressurised as the Helios Boeing 737-300 aircraft climbed.The chief investigator will point out that crews of other 737-700s have failed to pressurise the aircraft, although crew recognised the warnings in time, according to Flight magazine.Two of the latest generation of aircraft operated by major carriers suffered serious runway over-runs last year because of “marginal” weather conditions and tail winds. An Air France Airbus A340 landing at Toronto Pearson airport was destroyed by fire after overrunning the landing strip and diving into a ravine. All passengers and crew escaped with their lives.In a second incident, a Southwest airlines Boeing 737-700 overshot the runway at Chicago Midway, crashed through a fence and killed a child in a passing car. Passengers and crew were unhurt.Airline safety reached a high in the first half of 2001, with 114 people killed in 13 accidents and not one crash involving a major airline..

Underperforming police officers could be sacked more easily under plans set out by Tory leader David Cameron today. Mr Cameron called for modern employment contracts so bad officers could be kicked out of the force.
He said the performance of the police had not improved in line with the money poured into the service. He said you could not be tough on crime unless you were also tough on police reform. Mr Cameron said that meant police pay and conditions must be modernised to ensure better performance. He also promised that a Tory government would make police forces more accountable to local communities.

In a speech at Dalston Youth Project in Hackney, east London, Mr Cameron said it was vital to ensure local flexibility for police pay and conditions. He said officers tended to be paid according to their length of service or seniority rather than in relation to their skills and performance. He also called for a reform of police pensions so people could join and leave the force at the right time and the right level. He said it was wrong that police who had given good service, and for whom it would be better if they moved on, had a huge incentive to wait around until 30 years’ service was up. He also said the issue of the large number of officers kept on restricted duties but on full pay through sickness must be tackled. Mr Cameron said pay and conditions must be reformed to insist that policing was a full-time occupation and officers should not have second jobs.

Although many come from China and Russia, the EU produces them too; the UK is particularly good at poisonous “vodka” Crest Some developing countries have few Western brands. They have locally produced, traditional products and an economy based on counterfeits My tube of Crust toothpaste came from Tripoli. A Libyan housewife unfamiliar with the Roman alphabet would have no reason to believe that Crust was any different from Crest. Throughout Africa, companies make badly copied Western products from “Lewis” jeans to useless malaria drugs Would you brush your teeth with Crust? Nor would I. Arsenal At home we’ve a collection of football shirts, travel souvenirs, which are regularly worn and washed. The genuine ones haven’t faded or ripped – neither have the fakes. In a tiny Marrakech shop the owner told us that not even the actual team can afford real ones.

China churns out illegal Arsenal counterfeits, indistinguishable from the real thing They are snapped up from market stalls and off the internet. Ever tried telling a 10-year-old he can’t have this season’s strip? Ping The US government allows you to import one item of each type bearing a “questionable” trademark every 30 days The French would arrest you Varying laws and ethics foster different attitudes. In America counterfeits are called “knock-offs” to make them sound acceptable. In a culture where there is an emphasis on demonstrating success while saving money, you’reinviting counterfeiters in.

News of the delay sent Sony’s stock tumbling 1.8% to £26.61 today. Kutaragi announced the decision after the close of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Ken Kutaragi, the head Sony’s video game division, made the announcement at a hastily called news conference after reports of the delay surfaced in the business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun and other papers.
The PlayStation 3 is critical for Sony Corp.’s profits and brand image, so a delay is seen as a major setback for the Japanese electronics and entertainment company as it struggles to mount a recovery after several years of poor earnings. “It is also necessary to convince them to stay for a longer time. This will help Africa to be more prepared for the next drought.”. Sony will put off the release of its much awaited PlayStation 3 machine until November from its planned spring debut because of delays in finalising its next-generation disc technology, the company said today. “It is our challenge to get the donors to trust that their help is making a difference,” he said.

“There are a number of important countries that are not willing to help out because they are disenchanted and think the situation is hopeless,” said Mr Bondevik, a former Norwegian prime minister.He was reluctant to point the finger, but it is known that there have been particular difficulties in persuading the US and Arab nations to respond to the crisis in Africa. But the UN special humanitarian envoy for the Horn of Africa, Kjell Magne Bondevik, said he was struggling to get the international community’s attention. Up to 95 per cent of cattle in some areas have died because of the drought and local economies are crumbling. In Wajir, north-east Kenya, about 70 per cent of small shops have closed because customers are unable to repay mounting debts.Even if the drought does break in April when the rains are due to arrive, millions of people will need years of external help simply to survive.The United Nations has appealed for $400m (£230m) to help the drought victims.

The drought conditions extend throughout the Horn of Africa, where 2.6 million Ethiopians and 1.7 million Somalis are also suffering from food shortages. Oxfam will warn today that pastoralists may take 15 years to recover their livelihoods unless they receive appropriate support. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, this time round, we devoted as much money and energy to saving 3.5 million of our fellow citizens as we do to making war in other regions of the globe.”
Part of The Constant Gardener was shot in Loiyangalani, in the drought-affected district of Turkana. “In the worst drought of the decade, 3.5 million people in northern Kenya are in imminent danger of starving to death, dying of thirst, or being killed in fights for survival,” he said.