Nor should too much be read into the unease of the Greeks, Italians and Germans. They all have problems with public opinion, but would rather stay a difficult course than risk the destruction of the Alliance.If the operation to enter Kosovo is couched not as an invasion but as a humanitarian operation to help the internally displaced and hungry, it is likely that political turmoil in European capitals will be avoided (with the possible exception of Athens). But if there is going to be real fighting on the ground, people would be well advised to consider what this would entail.There will be casualties, and casualties mean coffins returning to RAF bases, and bleak funerals. I don’t doubt that the military battle will be won by Nato; what nobody can say is how high the price will be in terms of military and civilian casualties. There tend to be two views of the Serbs as fighters: 1) they are fierce guerrillas who will fight for every inch of ground; 2) they are drunken blackguards who will flee once Nato attacks. There is no way of knowing until the fighting starts, but I suspect the truth is somewhere between the two.And when the war is over, we have the prospect of the most turbulent peace. Does anybody seriously think that Albanians and Serbs will live alongside one another again?It is fair to surmise that any Nato advance into Kosovo will be accompanied by an exodus of the Serb population.

Guarantees of safety from Nato commanders will not impress the Kosovo Serbs, particularly if their army is fleeing north towards Belgrade. It is the attitude of the KLA and the returning refugees that will define the choice to be made by ordinary Serbs. And there is precious little appetite for reconciliation among the Kosovar Albanians who have been driven out by Milosevic. One repeatedly hears from refugees that they will never live with the Serbs again. The flight of thousands of Serbs will be embarrassing for Nato commanders whose moral task has been to defeat the very idea of “ethnic cleansing”.As for the KLA’s wider ambitions, it will emerge from this war strengthened in terms of its support base.

The refugee population has been radicalised by its experience; it has seen that – up to now, at least – the only people fighting its cause on the ground are the KLA. There may be some handover of weapons to Nato, but expect the KLA to stay armed and determined to pursue independence. Precisely how Nato plans to reconcile the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia and the political goals of the KLA, we do not yet know. I only hope somebody is making plans.It is at this point – when the fighting has stopped – that the idea of a wider Balkan peace conference becomes critical. As we have been told to the point of tedium, there is a great deal more at stake here than the future of Kosovo itself. We will need a framework that maps out the political and economic future of the region well into the next century. And sitting around the table we are going to need Nato, the Russians, the Kosovar Albanians, the Macedonians, the Albanians and, critically…

the Serbs.But don’t expect to see Mr Milosevic at that conference, or even managing events from Belgrade We passed a point of no return with him this week. Peace, when it comes, will be troublesome enough without those malign fingers pulling strings.The writer is a BBC special correspondent. THE PASSION for pebbles of Britain’s gardeners is putting the country’s shoreline at risk It is time to call a halt to this madness Watch television programmes about it by all means Buy best-selling books by DG Hessayon. But on no account must you really do any gardening, this weekend or at any other time. Our futile attempts to stay in touch with Nature outside our back doors have become a threat to Nature in her own habitat First it was peat, now it is pebbles. Gardening today is merely an extension of the home-decorating business, so that whatever is fashionable is required in industrial quantities, and we dig up the countryside to provide it

This is not gardening, it is conspicuous consumption Hardly anyone actually grows anything any more.

Everyone drives to the out-of-town garden centre and buys a garden in kit form – soil, peat, pebbles, stone features and all. Old railway sleepers are the latest popular feature, price pounds 23 each You buy lawn like carpet, by the square metre Then you buy plants. Preferably fully grown, in pots so that you can move them about if your designer layout turns out to have the wrong feng shui. Then you forget to water them, throw them out and drive off to the garden centre to buy some more.
The idea that any form of wildlife might live in gardens fills most modern horticulturalists with horror. They would not mind a blue tit or two perching photogenically on the blue plastic RSPB bird feeder.