There appears to be little doubt that the Zawahiri tape was genuine, but there are more doubts about the Bin Laden one.The final, and perhaps most daunting, feature of this war is that there are no deals that can end it. Understanding and trying to alleviate popular discontent in the Islamic world is important. But with such people as al-Qa’ida there are no maps to be redrawn, no coalitions to be created, no compromises to be hammered out, no complicated treaties that diplomats can devise. We are faced with enemies who know that they are fighting for God and whose divine, irreducible aim is the destruction of Western society. They will not parlay that ambition away.We should not underestimate the depth of the change that 11 September wrought on American society and the extent to which Americans are now ready to fight back.

Nonetheless, despite some US rhetoric and the cartoon criticisms it has aroused, America’s reaction to 9/11 has so far been cautious and restrained. The most thought-provoking, and, in its way, the most alluring work in Knussen’s programme was not the premiere of La Passione, the new composition that gave the festival its title, but Ittrospezione III (Concept II), dating from 1965: an imaginative take on the severe, fragmented atonality and baffling formal juxtapositions so redolent of its period.The idea of intertwining female voice and solo violin that is a central feature of the new work – a half-hour setting, with large ensemble, of the “outsider” Italian, early-20th-century poet Dino Campana – is a promising one. Andriessen’s own late-night improvisations at the piano, with the astonishing Dutch vocalist Greetje Bijma, offered another, if much more compelling, tangent.The second evening, too, started with a rarity. And it continued mainly with Martland’s own compositions, which have unfortunately now become a model example of how easy it is for Andriessen’s pupils to ape his manner without finding enough of their own to say to sustain a compositional career. This festival celebrating the music of the 63-year-old Dutch composer Louis Andriessen is the strongest confirmation yet that this Sixties revolutionary-turned-musical minimalist has now been accepted as one of the most significant composers of our time.

“But we are terrified we will be pushed into some horrible little house, as we aren’t convinced we can afford what we really want.”Fairview and Rialto Homes, Ferry Quays, from £290,000 (020-8560 8042) Laing Homes, Westfield Gardens, Dorking, Surrey, from £399,000 (0800 085 8438) McCarthy & Stone, Bingley, West Yorkshire from £83,450 (01274 562738) FPDSavills, Parsons Green (020-7731 9400) Beaney and Pearce, Chelsea (020-7590 9500) Douglas & Gordon, London (020 7225 1225) Strutt & Parker, Ipswich (01473 214841). “If you downsize, you have to pay more money, as houses in this price range are very high.”The Morgans could stay put, “where they prefer living anonymously and can go out in their nightdresses” without being observed, but know they should listen to their son – a GP, who is extolling the practicalities of living in town. Mary Morgan, 67, and her husband, Christopher, are struggling to sell their five-bedroom home, Church Farmhouse in Campsea Ashe, Suffolk, currently on the market at £525,000 through Strutt & Parker in Ipswich.Having shelled out considerable money on their children’s education and worrying about dwindling pensions, Mary says many of their friends are “sick to death of spending hours sitting on mowers”. The Morgans are looking to re-locate to Woodbridge or Orford, but she points out that a three-bed house on a busy road in Orford with no kitchen or garden to speak of fetches well over £400,000. “Once their children have left home, they find they are rattling around in the family house and instead of just trading down in that area, they decide to move into a city.” Security and car parking come top of the list of must-haves and “both come standard in modern developments”. With additional time and money, empty-nesters take advantage of the proximity of museums and galleries that were not accessible in the country. “They have traded down in size, but certainly not in their quality of living.”Ed Mead of Douglas & Gordon, also in Chelsea, notes that “the recent spate of house builders’ advertisements in the print media often feature older models rather than trendy young things”.