The Queen is understood to believe a yacht is no longer needed for royal travel.Perhaps it was the prospect of the President of Board of Trade strutting on the bridge or the Royal Navy using it as target for anti-ship missiles, but the Queen seems to have given a sympathetic hearing to the idea of Britannia finding a retirement berth in Hartlepool.Peter Mandelson, the town’s MP and Labour’s former communications director, told MPs he had written to Malcolm Rifkind, Secretary of State for Defence, suggesting that the royal yacht receive a ‘comfortable and dignified’ retirement in the new maritime heritage centre and marina there.’I have discussed this personally with Her Majesty the Queen and she has expressed her interest in this,’ he said Tory MPs howled with delight. ‘But we will be better prepared than last season.’ The top two teams from each group proceed to the quarter-finals.In the Uefa Cup preliminary round next month, Aberdeen will face the Latvian champions, Skonto Riga, while the first competitive game for the new Motherwell manager, Alex McLeish, will be against HB Torshavn, from the Faroe Isles, at Fir Park on 9 August.Wales, for the first time, have three clubs in Europe. Zimbabwe’s first Test will be in India later this year, although England may be trying to avoid them for as long as possible. With most European currencies hitched uncomfortably to the mark, they too are rising against the dollar. I had never seen the like of it, but she, being from the Pacific Ocean, had never come across mackerel before and did not know that catching them in this manner is akin to stopping a torpedo with your toe.Young Emmet, I believe, was conceived under my roof about this time, but Minihan will never give me credit for anything, even the loan of a bed. The club industry view is that Britain turned the corner very suddenly at Christmas Before then business was desultory, now it is booming.

I have no idea how big a ‘load’ is, but the man in the village said he’d bring it when he was ready, maybe this week, maybe next, for pounds 15.Fuel cost comparison tables are available ( pounds 19 for two editions) from Sutherland Associates, Century House, 100 High Street, Banstead, Surrey SM7 2NN. Dickens’s voluminous correspondence impresses because it retains what is great about the novels and largely omits the sentimental gloop The editors have done a superb job, as ever. We don’t stand idle,’ it said.Last year the company sold more than 1.2 billion bottles of spirits, which generated pounds 561m of profits.. JUNIOR doctors voted yesterday for legislation which would make it illegal for them to work for longer than 56 hours a week. But below the frenetic activity, there was curiously little fire, energy or hope.

AT first sight it seems odd that Barclays has been caught up in yet another property mess so soon after the Imry debacle, this time courtesy of Trevor Osborne’s Speyhawk. In desperation, John McNamara, the Red Sox manager, pulled Schiraldi and turned to Bob Stanley, but instead of a fireman’s hose the new pitcher brought a can of petrol.Buckner may have failed to close the back door – ‘The ball just kind of bounced to the left a little bit I didn’t really do anything wrong, I didn’t lift my head up. I enclose references from a merchant bank I own, and you should talk to my bank manager for the background. Sir: It would assist readers of the article, ‘NUM takes action to recover pounds 800m for pension fund’ (2 March), if they were aware of the facts behind what is a major success story for mineworkers and their pensions. A prosecution witness reiterated on Saturday that Iraqi intelligence had links to five Iraqis accused of involvement in a plot to assassinate George Bush during his 1993 visit to Kuwait, Reuter reports from Kuwait City.