In total, it is thought that he gave away $380m.J Paul Getty1892-1976Born into a wealthy Minnesota oil family, his early ventures in the industry were subsidised by his father, but he was wildly successful and had made his first million by the age of 24. “Until we reduce the burden on the poor so that there is no real gap between us and them, that will always be our priority I am not so foolish as to say that will happen But that’s our goal.”There is a huge job to do. After retiring at 65, he devoted the rest of his life to giving his fortune away, focusing on projects aimed at improving public education. He built 3,000 public libraries in Scotland, the US and other English-speaking countries. Their products were in high demand because of the building of the American railways, and Carnegie built the world’s first $1bn company. The richest man in the world is becoming the greatest philanthropist of all time.Great and good: the philanthropists’ clubAndrew Carnegie1835-1919The Scottish-born radical, whose family emigrated to the United States when he was 12 years old, amassed a fortune from ironworks and steel rolling mills.

Malaria alone is the single biggest killer of Africa’s children. As many as three million, mostly under the age of five, die each year. Some estimate that there are more than five hundred million cases annually.”It just blows my mind how little money has been spent on malaria research,” Gates has said “We can save many lives for hundreds of dollars each. What has prevented the rich world from attempting this? Do we really not care because it doesn’t affect us? Is that what it is?”As the years pass, Bill Gates, the merciless businessman with ambitions for world domination, is giving steadily way to Bill Gates, the compassionate scientist whose goal is to save millions of lives. He will stay as chairman of the world’s biggest software company, he hopes for the rest of his life. “I don’t see a time in the future when I won’t be the chairman of the company,” he said.

But meantime, each year his foundation will acquire another 5 per cent of Warren Buffett’s fortune for as long as at least one of Gateses – Bill, now 50, or Melinda, 41 – remains active in it. And since Buffett’s investment company Berkshire Hathaway has given its investors a compound annual return of 21.5 per cent, this would mean the value of his gift will steadily increase over time.It will all be more money for the fight against diseases as malaria, Aids and tuberculosis “Global health is our lifelong commitment,” Gates says. His announcement, they said, coincides with Microsoft’s falling share price and troublesome new flagship product, Windows Vista.Bill Gates shrugs. “But with plain old bed nets, sprayed with insecticide, you can get rid of half the malaria deaths in Africa.”Gates has responded not by abandoning his high-tech approach but by giving more money to fund the low-tech solutions, too. He recently gave a $35m grant to Zambia to fund nets, drugs and insecticide for a pilot project with a target to cut deaths by 75 per cent within three years. “We need to prove that children don’t have to die,” Brian Chituwo, the Zambian health minister, said. “And with this money I think we can.” The world can expect more initiatives, not fewer.

Later, the bear was hit by the wing mirror of a car and was even seen sitting down outside a police station.Bruno was last seen alive on Sunday evening by the owner of an inn located about 5,000 feet up in the Bavarian Alps “My guests were having supper I told them to stay inside. Germany was flooded with “Bruno T-shirts” and a mock “Bruno hunt” game featured on the internet.The team of Finnish bear hunters was flown to Bavaria a fortnight ago. Equipped with a bear trap imported from the US, they covered more than 500 kilometres in the high Alps in a search for Bruno.However, the bear eluded his pursuers at every turn. Farmers in the region demanded the animal be shot on sight.Bavaria was forced to admit that Bruno had become a “problem bear” but agreed to join forces with the WWF in an attempt to capture the animal alive, despite fears that its next victim would be human.In the meantime, Bruno turned into a media celebrity, with reports of his whereabouts vying with the World Cup’s progress on television. He was welcomed by the Bavarian state authorities as a sort of ursine prodigal son. Officials noted that the last wild bear was killed in the region in 1835.But within days the animal started on a killing spree which led to the deaths of more than 35 sheep, dozens of chickens and domestic rabbits and the destruction of a beehive. They said that as a result they were keeping the identities of hunters secret.Germany’s Nature Protection Association said the shooting was a “tragedy”.

A spokesman added: “In Austria, where bears were introduced several years ago, the animals walk past picnic tables and nobody bats an eyelid.”In Italy, Bruno’s birthplace, Fulco Pratesi, the head of the country’s World Wildlife Fund, described the shooting as an “act of barbarism”.Bruno wandered into Germany across the Austrian Alps from his birthplace in the Trentino district of Italy on 20 May. In other countries bears and humans live peacefully alongside each other. Only in Germany are bears liquidated.”In Schliersee a press conference was interupted by self-described bear liberationist Bruno Engelhard, wearing a bear costume.Spokesmen for the Bavarian and Austria hunters’ associations said their organisations had been flooded with e-mails from the public, some of which threatened to murder hunters in retaliation for the bear’s death. “Everyone knows that we would have preferred things to have turned out differently, but there was simply no other way of trapping the bear.”However, Bruno’s death provoked a furious response from German and Austrian conservationists, who had enlisted a team of specialist Finnish bear hunters equipped with dogs, GPS position finders and anaesthetising stun darts in a forlorn attempt to take the bear alive.Hubert Weinzierl, the President of Germany’s Nature Protection Circle, described the shooting as: “The most stupid solution of all.” He added: “I am deeply sad The Germans should have taken a more relaxed attitude. The two-year-old bear, nicknamed Bruno by the German media but dubbed “rampant brown bear JJI” by the authorities, was killed by a marksman armed with a powerful hunting rifle at 4.50am near the Spitzingsee lake in the Bavarian mountains yesterday, only hours after a ban on shooting the animal with live ammunition was lifted.
“The shot has been fired and the bear is dead,” said Manfred W?, a bear expert employed by the Bavarian government to track the animal.

Bruno, the first wild bear seen in Germany for 170 years, has been shot dead by hunters in the Bavarian Alps, prompting a public outcry and fury from conservationists who had fought in vain to capture the animal alive after it went on a month-long spree of farm livestock killing in the region. In particular the government is anxious to overturn the law that allows fundamental reforms to be railroaded on to the statute books by a simple majority in parliament.. This could have the merit of making Italian governance more decisive and bold – but many Italians fear that it could pave the way for a leader with despotic inclinations. It was the experience of 20 years of Mussolini’s rule that led the drafters of Italy’s Constitution to give the prime minister such limited powers.Mr Prodi and his centre-left coalition allies have gone out of their way to insist that they are not against reform, only against this one. The government is likely to try to put together a constitutional conference, so the next attempt at reform will enjoy the support of both sides of parliament. In the Italian set-up, the prime minister does not have the power to appoint ministers or dissolve parliament and is very much under the thumb of the president, who serves for seven years.If the reform had been passed, an Italian prime minister would have powers broadly comparable to those of his British counterpart.

If you’d rather have a pen than a pendant, Harrods recently sold the La Modernista Diamonds for £144,612. It has an 18-carat gold point, and is set with 5,072 diamonds and 96 rubies. So who are the big spenders? * GREEKS Greek shipping tycoons are fond of London. The father of Spiro Latsis made his money from shipping but Mr Matsis is now more interested in aviation. It is opening a store in Russia, which will join outlets in Dubai, Hong Kong and the Maldives.

A spokesman for London diamond specialists Wint and Kidd said: “Far more people are coming in and spending money on rarer and more expensive coloured diamonds.” Earlier this month, jeweller Theo Fennell, whose clients include Liz Hurley, Elton John and the Beckhams, reported a seven-fold rise in pre-tax profits, fuelled by demand for signature pieces such as the St George’s Cross heart, above. Whether it’s a polo event – attended by an A-list royal such as Prince William (above) or Prince Harry – or an auction attended by an A-list celebrity, charity offers the nouveaux riches the opportunity to be seen to be generous – and, indeed, just to be seen Jewellery The demand for gems is up. There are many more prepared to spend their money on super yachts than before It’s really quite phenomenal.” Can’t afford one? Never mind Real sailors would probably deride it as a gin palace. Charity events Just because you’ve made your multi-millions doesn’t mean that every door is automatically open to you.

Contributing to a charity event is the time-honoured method employed by the newly rich tycoon who wants to meet the old aristocratic order (and be photographed with them). Sunseeker Charter says its fleet of luxury yachts – all 50 of them – are almost fully booked. Hiring one costs £55,000 a week, so perhaps it’s hardly surprising that sales of top-end yachts are also buoyant. Alev Karagulle, marketing director for Nigel Burgess, which has offices in Pall Mall and Monaco and sells yachts for between £2m and £50m, said: “There are definitely more ultra-high net worth individuals out there. “It’s clearly a factor,” remarked Mark Tennant, Bentley marketing director.

Meanwhile, Maserati’s Quattroporte (above) has helped boost sales of the marque across Europe by 25 per cent in the past year. Private yachts Want to charter your own luxury yacht this summer? You may be too late. The Omaha tycoon Warren Buffet has brought his NetJet private operation to Britain, selling “fractional jet ownership” – a kind of timeshare for the sky. Fast cars Car dealerships for the top marques are bucking the difficulties currently being experienced at the bottom of the market. Sales of Bentleys have increased from 1,000 in 2003 to 8,500 in 2005 A Bentley Arnage costs £150,000. Although the makers of one of Britain’s stateliest cars ascribe their success to the introduction of the sporty Continental GT coupe, the money sloshing around London has helped.

A relative, Vince Landa, ran the fruit machine business and tempted him from London to work with Mr Stafford. Mr Luvaglio became a prime suspect when, at 5.15am on 5 January 1967, a miner found Mr Sibbett’s body in the Jaguar which his takings had enabled him to buy. He was arrested the next day.The timing of the murder was an important part of the court case. Mr Luvaglio and Mr Stafford maintained they were at Newcastle’s Birdcage Club at 12.30am on the night Mr Sibbett was shot, 16 miles away.

He wound up dead in the back of a Mk 10 Jaguar, his body riddled with bullets.
Mr Luvaglio, 69, and Mr Stafford, 71, were convicted of the “One-Armed Bandit Murder”, made famous by Ted Lewis’s book, Jack’s Return Home. In 1971 it was turned into the gangster filmGet Carter, starring Michael Caine and Bryan Mosley (aka Alderman Alf Roberts in Coronation Street), who was bumped off by Caine in the film.But though Get Carter has assigned the murder a place in history, the men convicted of it have always denied the crime and Mr Luvaglio’s family publicly protested his innocence yesterday after he suffered a heart attack which is believed to have left him gravely ill at London’s Westminster and Chelsea Hospital.Through the family, Mr Luvaglio said he did not want to go to his grave with the crime on his name and insisted the Kray twins, widely believed to have failed to muscle in on the Newcastle scene, were responsible. We have been carrying out extensive work in the Hartington Street area and we urge Miss Rooney to work with us on her release.”. The rich pickings offered by the thriving nightclubs and gaming tables of Newcastle upon Tyne in the mid-1960s were irresistible to Michael Luvaglio and Dennis Stafford.

They were doing nicely working for one of the characters who installed fruit machines and booked cabaret acts until another employee, Angus Sibbett, started siphoning off £1,000 a week in takings. Taking people to court is a last resort for the council but we do have a legal duty to collect council tax.”We don’t like to see people jailed for non-payment. “It’s daunting, but I feel that I have to take a stand in order to make this council listen to us,” she said. “I planned this nearly two years ago when I read about that pensioner down in the West Country, and I wanted to find a way of committing civil disobedience – in the way conscientious objectors do so in South American dictatorships and other parts of the world.”Outside court, her brother, Father Liam Rooney, said: “It’s very humiliating to see your sister being handcuffed and taken away from you like that.”It’s not for me to criticise this council but any individual from time to time should be able to challenge an authority on what they find to be unjust.”Derby City Council’s deputy leader, Dave Roberts, said: “We are sorry that Miss Rooney has taken this route.

You could also make out Bar?s snide put-down on “The Enemy”: “Wash your face/ It looks like a burnt-out fireplace.”Jack White was on impressive form with The Raconteurs. The band are merely a side-project for the White Stripes front man, and accordingly he dressed down in a scruffy T-shirt Still, he applied himself with elan. On their record, Broken Boy Soldiers, the group maintain a balanced division of labours between White and the power-pop doyen Brendan Benson, an old friend of his, but on stage it was White’s solos that seared the hotter. His vocals out-muscled those of the tremulous Benson, too, in a dizzying spin through country ballads, dirty blues jams and proggish displays that bewildered the ever-growing audience.Belle and Sebastian were in danger of being blown away by the gusty breeze. By Saturday they are monsters of opacity, ellipsis and multiple meaning Early in the week, Shortz heavily flags his puns.

By Saturday, they pop up anywhere.The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and even The Wall Street Journal all have their own puzzles, but The New York Times’ is the gold standard. Shortz – brainy but delightfully approachable for a crossword king – has been at it since he was nine years old. He found a university accommodating enough to allow him to take a degree in enigmatology, or the science of puzzles, and eventually became crossword editor at the Gray Lady, quickly imbuing his section with a wit and slyness for which the paper is not generally noted.He now has followers in every walk of life. In Wordplay, Jon Stewart, the hugely popular anchor of the fake news Daily Show and 2006 Oscars host, refers to Shortz as the “Errol Flynn” of the crossword universe. Devotees will know that the soul of a puzzle lies not in the answers but in the clues On Monday these are straightforward. Another puzzle I well remember depended on repetition of letters. Thus the answer to the clue “the world’s oceans” was CCCCCCC.Unlike the puzzles in British newspapers, the crossword in The New York Times grows harder as the week progresses.

1. Bamburgh, Northumberland Despite the beauty of the beach at Bamburgh, it is one of the few places where you will find yourself more inclined to look inland than out to sea, because of Bamburgh Castle that overlooks it.

Where: Windtek, 109 Portland Rd, Weymouth, Dorset (01305 787900; www.windtek.co.uk)When: call for datesHow much: Beginner day course £95. It involves standing on a small board and grasping 30m lines attached to a power kite. Surfers can steer as they skim along the waves and the large kite permits them to do acrobatics such as jumps, spins and loops. Windtek runs one-day courses for beginners with theory, technique and then the excitement of a practical session.

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

1. KITE SURFING, POOLE Since its invention in France around five years ago, kite surfing has become popular in countries with a surfing tradition. Where: Three Cliffs Bay Caravan and Camping Site, North Hills Farm,
Penmaen, Swansea, Gower (01792 371218: www.threecliffsbay )

When: Easter-October
How much: family tent (two adults and two children) £14, small tent
(two adults) £11

2 TURNER HALL FARM, CUMBRIA. THREE CLIFFS BAY, GOWER

The major attraction of this site is its spectacular position, which offers
panoramic views of the Gower coastline. “The beach is easily, if
steeply, accessible from the site, and it’s never packed because there isn’t
a car park quite close enough for the typical moto-sapiens,” says Andy. Where from Globe-Trotter, 54-55 Burlington Arcade, London W1 (020-7529 5950; www.globe-trotterltd ). How much 33in suitcase with wheels £1,400; 26in suitcase £950..

MyTravel, the tour operator, warned yesterday of fresh losses at its UK business after last month’s terrorism scare deterred holidaymakers Its shares tumbled 12.75p, or 6.4 per cent, to 188p. We are reviewing Ofcom’s proposals with interest and will be responding to them in due course.”Vodafone, the UK’s largest mobile phone operator, said it welcomed the fact that the playing field for termination rates was finally being levelled.Analysts said Ofcom’s proposals were not as severe as many had feared.The regulator also revealed plans to begin a review of termination charges in the text message market. 3’s termination charge would have to be cut to 6ppm by this time, it said.Price caps currently apply only to 2G networks , and as a result 3, which operates only a 3G network, has escaped the charging caps.Ed Brewster, a 3 spokesman, said: “This is a consultation. Publishing a consultation on the future of so-called “termination rates”, which mobile providers charge each other for connecting a call from another network, Ofcom said it proposed to extend price caps to cover 3G networks from March.
It said it was aiming for the average termination charge of the four main networks – Vodafone, Orange, O2 and T-Mobile – to be 5.3p per minute (ppm) by 2010-11 across 2G and 3G networks.

They are still majority owners.The financial terms of the UK venture with BT were not disclosed, except that it and PodShow will “share in the upside”. BT will provide the technical and infrastructure support to the service and promote it.. The telecoms industry watchdog, Ofcom, dealt a blow to the mobile operator 3 yesterday, unveiling plans to level the playing field over call connection charges, by imposing price caps on third-generation phone networks for the first time. Other users of the website are able to “subscribe”, for free, to these shows and so create their own channel of content, or several channels of different types of content.In the US, the PodShow service has 60,000 series available, or 1 million individual episodes. The UK service will have its own look and feel when users enter the website, but the US material can also be accessed.The venture depends on selling the website’s “eye-balls” to advertisers, with companies able to place advertisements on particular shows they like.PodShow was founded by Mr Bloom and Adam Curry, who pioneered the development of podcasting.

While there are millions of user-made videos on YouTube, the idea with podcasting is to commit to a regular show in the hope of building fans That could be five shows a week or maybe two a month. There is an incredible amount of talent and programming out there that never sees the light of day because there is simply no way for traditional media to provide the choice that the audience craves.”He said podcasting “bridged the chasm” between established media, such as BBC and ITV, and new media offerings, such as YouTube and MySpace. The best material will feature on “The Show” section of the website.”People are tired of TV and radio,” Ron Bloom, the chief executive of PodShow, said. “We are moving from a world of broadcasting to a world of ‘all-casting’ where everyone wants a reliable way to create, share and connect. BT is launching a podcasting service to give the nation a platform to show off its talents (or lack of) by making videos and audio clips available on a new internet service. The telecoms giant has teamed up with US PodShow Network to provide the service, to be available to all UK internet users.

In the US, some of the shows on the website – produced by a mixture of amateurs and professionals – have a loyal following and get 10 million downloads a month.
BT PodShow is making a nationwide call for aspiring film producers, musicians, presenters and DJs from across the UK to submit audio and video content. The idea is that if the market falls by 100 points, it is likely to rise by about 161.8 points or by some related ratio such as 61.8 points.. BMW said it was putting another £200m in the UK yesterday as its latest Mini model began rolling off the line in Oxford. The German car maker is increasing production of the iconic car from 200,000 to 240,000 a year, and is investing more than £100m to expand its plant in Cowley, Oxford. Another £60m is being invested in assembly technologies in Swindon, Wiltshire, and £30m on new petrol engines at a site near Birmingham.
The investment will create 450 jobs in the UK.Gordon Brown described the Mini as an icon of “what is really great about Britain” while he visited the Cowley site yesterday. He also thanked the workforce there and said it was an example of “how Britain and modern manufacturing can compete and succeed in the new global economy”.Richard Lambert, the director-general of the CBI, said the BMW investment was a “significant contribution” to the UK economy.BMW’s chairman, Norbert Reithofer, said the company had increased production capacity by 20 per cent at the three English sites that built the Mini and ran flexible shift patterns – allowing for cars to be made seven days a week.Dr Reithofer said the company was a “strong partner” for the UK economy in terms of employment and purchasing power as well as long-term investment.. For example, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, and so on to infinity.

Since then, the company has played down bid talk, and fears over the stuttering US housing market brought the stock back down to earth. The rumour yesterday was that Cemex, the Mexican cement giant, is once again mulling an offer for Hanson to boost its position in the global aggregates market. The bonus of addressing this market is that Omega’s customers tend to be less susceptible to the ups and downs of the economic cycle, although, of course, not immune.Profits at the company are forecast to hit £6.25m by the end of this year and £8m in 2007. Profits soared 54 per cent to £3.1m while sales gained 20 per cent to £13.5m. Omega’s profit margins came in well ahead of budget and it became the only company on the junior market to pay a special dividend this year. All this leaves the group, which is based in Doncaster, well on course to meeting its target of doubling in size by 2010.An Omega kitchen costs between £6,000 and £20,000 meaning that the group’s target customer is the type of person who shops at John Lewis. Omega International, the manufacturer of kitchens, has certainly over-delivered throughout its two-and-a-half-year history on the Alternative Investment Market.Yesterday’s interim results were no exception They beat City forecasts at every level.

With a healthy dividend yield of 4 per cent, that is too cheap, and the shares deserve a further re-rating.Omega InternationalOur view: BuyShare price: 280p (+32.5p)Under-promise and over-deliver That is the key to success as a publicly listed company. If those numbers are hit, which now looks very likely, the shares still trade on an undemanding multiple of just 11 times, falling to just 8.3 times forecast 2007 earnings. Given the current popularity of its Dr Who, Scooby Doo and Peppa Pig ranges, it ought to be a very merry Christmas. The last quarter normally counts for about 50 per cent of annual sales. A new toy, the Robosapien V2, part of the company’s robotics range, was recently voted the No 1 toy for children in a survey conducted by battery manufacturer, Duracell.The house broker, Charles Stanley, increased its full-year, pre-tax profits forecast to £5m, giving per-share earnings of 6.74p for 2006. For the six months to the end of June, it boasted of a 23 per cent jump in pre-tax profits to £49.7m. This gave it room to reward shareholders with a 17 per cent rise in the interim dividend to 6.3p per share.SIG, which does 95 per cent of its business in the UK and mainland Europe, operates in a consolidating industry.

This is forecast to start to positively impacting SIG and other building materials players some time in the next 12 months and, as last time around, should support higher prices for at least two years.Such conditions will mean that SIG is able to continue to report the kind of strong profit growth it unveiled in its interim results yesterday. Looking ahead, Next said it plans to boost its internet and catalogue offering where recently new product lines have included jewellery and electricals.However, it was a different story at the group’s high street stores. The high-profile meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were in disarray yesterday after some of the world’s leading charities threatened to pull out of the event in protest at heavy-handed policing by the Singapore government. Oxfam and at least 15 other pressure groups are furious that the authorities have banned 28 activists from entering the country and deported two others The police have also forbidden any public protests.. Norwich Union owner Aviva today said it will cut 4,000 jobs in the UK by 2008. The UK’s biggest insurer said 1,000 jobs will move to India while a further 500 roles in IT will be contracted out.
The move is part of a plan to cut costs and “improve efficiency” at Norwich Union in the UK.

The first was that Apple was to offer its customers movies for the first time available for download over the internet via its iTunes site and which can be watched on an iPod. The second, potentially more far-reaching announcement was the creation of a device, provisionally titled iTV, with a likely price tag of £160. This small, sleek box, still under development, was described by Jobs as the “missing piece” that will bring digital content – films, music, photographs, television programmes from the computer to the TV screen.Has there been a breakthrough?The new iPods will offer improved capacity to store music and video. Why is this in the news?

Steve Jobs, the man who brought the world the iPod, revolutionising the music industry and changing the consumer habits of tens of millions of people worldwide, took to a stage in San Francisco this week to announce the latest line of products from his company Apple. As well as unveiling a new generation of lower-priced, portable digital music players, he also disclosed that Apple was joining the scramble to deliver video over the internet.
There were two key announcements. * Allegations of anti-Semitism have dogged Ken Livingstone since he compared Jewish journalist Oliver Finegold to a “German war criminal” and a concentration camp guard earlier this year. Ken repeatedly refused to apologise for the remarks and was found to have brought his office into disrepute.

It took intervention by the High Court to save him from being suspended as London mayor.
He also upset Jewish groups by hosting an event attended by the Muslim cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, accused of anti-Semitism and encouraging suicide bombers.The row burns on: celebrations this weekend to mark the 350th anniversary of the readmission of Jews to England have been snubbed by a senior Jewish organisation because of the mayor’s involvement.The Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women (Ajex) are boycotting the Leicester Square festivities, Simcha on the Square, because the mayor’s office helps fund it.”We will not support it,” says chairman Harold Newman. “I’ve told all of our members that any of them who wish to attend are welcome to do so, but because of Ken Livingstone’s track record and his comments about Jews, and his failure to subsequently apologise, we don’t want anything to do with him.”He is not someone we wish to be associated with.”Livingstone has this time opted for diplomacy and will send his deputy, Nicky Gavron. A spokesman said yesterday that Ken could not be reached to comment.* William Jefferson Clinton and Kevin Spacey have long been buddies. On Saturday night they joined forces to sell the most expensive tickets ever to London’s Old Vic theatre – £57,500 apiece.Spacey flew to Toronto to chair Bill’s 60th birthday and charity auction. Guests including Jon Bon Jovi and comedian Billy Crystal (who joked about older men’s sporadic urination) raised $20m for Clinton’s Aids initiative.An unnamed bidder paid $230,000 for four tickets to see Spacey perform the lead in Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon for the Misbegotten, which opens tomorrow. The prize includes flights to London and dinner with Spacey after the show.”Kevin hadn’t planned it,” says his spokeswoman. “He was onstage and saw the astronomical sums paid for other lots.”There were two $650,000 bids to accompany Clinton to Africa.

‘Speed’ echoed the walls to us galloping through.” Speed echoed through my formative years, as cars became faster, jets broke the sound barrier, Donald Campbell’s Bluebird tumbled to destruction on Coniston Water, rockets hurtled to the Moon. So it was only natural that, when I finally learnt to drive – a late starter at 30 – and bought myself a Fiat 127, I would hit the road like a dervish released from a dungeon Oh yes, I remember those days. Her head went down, reared back up, plunged down again, and suddenly we were galloping for the first time, myself and two tons of barely-controllable horseflesh, and I yelled with delight, like the narrator of Browning’s ” How They Brought the Good News From Ghent to Aix”: “I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three ‘Good speed’ cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew. I submitted happily to the torture of the Rotor, which whizzed round so fast that, when the floor dropped away, you were pinned to the wall by centrifugal force, ducking the flying vomit from revellers 10 yards to your right.
When I learnt to ride a horse, the exhilaration was like learning a new way to breathe. After weeks of walking, trotting and cantering, I guided a grey mare called Winter Lady through a gate in the Brecon Beacons and the teacher murmured, “OK, lead them off – you can go as hard as you like.” The mare, as though she’d heard him, set off at a run It became a canter. I ran everywhere, like Billy Whizz in the comics, before his name became slang for amphetamines. Living a bus ride from Battersea Fun Fair, I spent joyous summers being flung through the air in the Waltzer, the Water Splash, the Big Dipper.

Breaking the law on Britain’s roads has never been easier, but for John Walsh, it took a short, sharp session at one of the Government’s new traffic schools to get him back on the straight, narrow – and slow

I was always a speedy kid. I would have had trouble painting in the middle of a canvas that size while still being able to see the landscape as well. With six separate ones, I could take some away for a while and still keep the whole picture in my head.”David Hockney: A Year in Yorkshire opens tomorrow and runs until 28 October. He’d always regarded himself as a model citizen behind the wheel – cautious, polite, and mindful of other drivers.

But then he began clocking up speeding convictions faster than a gangland getaway driver, and soon he was mourning the loss of his licence Even that didn’t teach him. The show includes two impressive six-part canvases two by four metres in size, which he has combined to make one work.”To draw from nature on this scale was thrilling and, I realised, new,” he says in the exhibition catalogue “It could not work with one canvas 12 foot by six foot… He made his name painting sun-filled canvases depicting his adopted home of California. But at the age of 69, David Hockney has returned to record the landscapes of his native Yorkshire. In a sequence started last year, the artist of that Sixties icon, The Bigger Splash, has been painting the changing seasons of the Wolds near his home in Bridlington.
Working outside regardless of the weather, Hockney has produced 25 new paintings which are going on show at the Annely Juda gallery, London, in his first exhibition of oils in Britain for nearly a decade. Howsham Mill, Howsham, North Yorkshire, North of England winner Now vandalised and roofless, this Grade II corn mill was constructed to use the fast-running water of the river Derwent and also provide an attractive Gothic revival landscape feature for Howsham Hall.

Cromarty East Church, Cromarty, Ross-shire, Runner-up Late 16th/early 17th century post-Reformation church with category-A listing at the mouth of the Cromarty Firth. Cemetery includes gravestones carved by Hugh Miller, an eminent Victorian naturalist.. The quarry closed in 1997 but locals want to use the site for the repair and manufacture of heritage engineering items. Cushendun Old Church, Cushendun, Co Antrim, Northern Ireland winner Deconsecrated in 2003 because of dwindling congregations, this parish church was one of the most significant buildings in this National Trust village, which was designed by Clough Williams-Ellis. Dennis Head Old Beacon, North Ronaldsay, Orkney, Scotland winner Category-A scheduled ancient monument built in 1788-89 and one of the oldest surviving purpose-built lighthouses in Scotland The residents hope to restore it as a tourist attraction. Pen Yr Orsedd quarry workshops, Nantlle, Wales winner Grade II* listed 19th-century slate buildings, including offices and a hospital.