So whatever happens to base rates over the next month or two, do not expect markets to react with theatrical drama. ONE morning in December 1824, the Duke of Wellington received an unpleasant letter. The company is well positioned in shoes and toiletries with products M&S is keen to promote. And Herr von Faninal's ascent into the nobility (the lesser nobility, mind) is beautifully marked in Act Two by the suggestion that he has just moved house.In a vast empty reception room, an enormously ostentatious 18th-century painting has just been unpacked. My wife, Rosemary, and I wanted to be the new generation and we certainly wanted to be faithful. They are now no more Scottish colonists than the Afrikaaner is a Dutch colonist. The account ends on 7 May, and settlement is on 17 May.WPP, the advertising group, is attracting strong American interest following its pounds 88m rights issue last month.

The UN ordered the arrest of Gen Aideed, chairman of the United Somali Congress and Somali's most powerful warlord, following the killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers on 5 June.Since then an additional 10 soldiers from the 26-nation force have been killed. Morceli was prompted by the Algerian public's dismay at their world champion's failure to win an Olympic medal of any kind, a reaction that seemed to take little heed of the fact that a sciatic nerve problem had given him only three clear weeks to prepare before Barcelona 'There was a lot of pressure on my back,' he said. The capital outstanding was increased so further interest was due on the unpaid sums.Abbey National's deputy manager at the secretariat, John Habgood, wrote to the Sullivans to say they should have been alerted to the debt built up by the rise in the balance shown on the annual mortgage statement.'Both the conditions of your mortgage offer and the mortgage clauses make it clear that interest is charged for a year based on the balance outstanding at the end of the previous year, and so interest was correctly charged on this higher balance.'The Sullivans, who live in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, also accumulated arrears because they failed to increase the monthly standing order of pounds 13.87 set up to pay building insurance premiums, and later the contents insurance premiums as well.The mortgage - an interest- only loan backed by a pension policy - is now about pounds 1,300 larger than at the outset six and a half years ago.Abbey National made an ex gratia payment of pounds 50 to compensate the couple for a long correspondence on the subject, and has agreed to accept payments until the end of January to reduce the year-end balance for 1992.The Sullivans have decided to take advantage of this.But Mrs Sullivan believes they should have been given more warning about the debt. It was Chubb-locked and I couldn't lay my hands on the key just then So I spoke through the letter box. Sir: The reason why I, as a Christian, am not anxious to see the continuance of the blasphemy law is that, while the names of God and Jesus Christ are constantly taken in vain in the everyday conversation of this country (and not least on television), it seems to me hypocritical to maintain a special law which in any case is rarely invoked.

TURN the clock back 19 years, to September 1973. Sir Alastair is to continue as co-chairman, but part- time, for another two years. Magistrates have still to decide whether to bring the journalists to court, or refer the issue to a professional body.. An unprecedented fourth title success was already in his safe keeping. Kankkunen and his Welsh co- driver, Nicky Grist, brought their Toyota Celica back to Birmingham after four days of tense conflict in the British forests with a 1min 44sec advantage over Sweden's Kenneth Eriksson, in a Mitsubishi Lancer. In between choruses they practised their Mexican wave.Courier? He was a rock of strength in difficult waters.