The security manager had offered them a reference, Carl told me.I could believe it. The house, though dilapidated, didn’t look like as though it had been empty for a decade or more. The collective had cleaned it up; collective plumbers and electricians had been at work.They had decorated the walls and scrubbed the floors When we went to the kitchen they apologised for the mess There wasn’t a mess. At least, not what a family with three kids thinks of as a mess.The collective must move on next week, though God alone knows that Bohemian Hampstead would rather have them here than have the place neglected for another 15 years by a distant property company, or rebuilt by Ceaucescu’s architects. But what Carl and co really want is somewhere they can stay for five years, a development awaiting planning permission, perhaps.They could take care of it until the owner wants it back I cannot imagine better tenants.. The fate of Jeffrey Archer now lies in the hands of the men and women of the jury who left court number eight at the Old Bailey yesterday to begin their deliberations.

The fate of Jeffrey Archer now lies in the hands of the men and women of the jury who left court number eight at the Old Bailey yesterday to begin their deliberations.
Before they departed, they were asked by the trial judge to consider, among other things, alleged lies told by Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare in efforts to concoct a false alibi.Finishing his summing up, Mr Justice Potts told them they might conclude that Lord Archer had lied in a press statement he issued when he resigned as the Tory candidate for the mayor of London, and also lied to his former friend Ted Francis.The Tory peer had been forced to withdraw from the mayoral race after admitting that he had asked Mr Francis to “cover up” for him for the time he is alleged to have spent with prostitute Monica Coghlan, in September 1986, by the Daily Star newspaper. Lord Archer sued over the claim and won a then record £500,000 in damages.In both the statement he issued, and in discussions with Mr Francis, he claimed he was having dinner at the time with his mistress, Andrina Colquhoun. Ms Colquhoun gave evidence that she was, in fact, on holiday at the Greek island of Skiathos on that evening.Mr Justice Potts told the jury that just because Lord Archer may have lied did not necessarily make him guilty of the perjury and forgery charges he was facing. “If you think there is or may be an innocent explanation for any lies that you find Lord Archer told, then take no notice of them,” he said.The jury of six men and five women retired at 12.34pm yesterday, on the 30th day of what has been one of the highest-profile trials of recent times.Lord Archer, in a black suit and black tie after the death of his mother, Lola, looked on intently as they made their way to their room A few of them glanced back at him. Mary Archer, sitting just outside the dock in a navy suit, watched her husband watching the jury.Lord Archer, 61, denies three charges of perverting the course of justice and two of perjury. Mr Francis, 67, denies one charge of perverting the course of justice.. An award-winning novelist said yesterday she could hear an echo of the South African apartheid regime in the way Britain treated its refugees and asylum-seekers.

An award-winning novelist said yesterday she could hear an echo of the South African apartheid regime in the way Britain treated its refugees and asylum-seekers.
South African-born Beverley Naidoo has been awarded the Carnegie medal given annually by the Library Association for “an outstanding book for children and young people”.The children’s author used her speech at the ceremony in London yesterday to attack politicians and the media for inflaming racial tensions by constantly denigrating asylum-seekers. On arrival in Britain, they were plunged into a world of “public indifference and increasingly overt hostility to their plight, fuelled by the irresponsibility of politicians and media prepared to appeal to the lowest common denominator”, she said.Her award-winning book, The Other Side of Truth, tells the story of a journalist fleeing from persecution in Nigeria to Britain through the eyes of his 12-year-old daughter.She spent time visiting refugees to research her book. “Four years ago, the so-called ‘hotel’ for refugees given temporary respite near Heathrow Airport felt like an army barracks,” she said “Now our politicians talk proudly of barracks. Campsfield House, where refugees are held near Oxford, is nothing like a house. It is a prison at the end of a leafy lane.” She said asylum-seekers were subjected to constant “little gestures of contempt and humiliation” by those put in charge of them which “rankled as deeply as the confinement”.”Images I saw while researching constantly took me back to South Africa,” she said. “The long queue forced to wait outside the gigantic Immigration and Nationality Department at Croydon brought back childhood memories of the Pass Office in Johannesburg.” She said the report by Sir Herman Ouseley into Bradford, the scene of riots earlier this week, had shown “just how deeply racialised our society remains”.”Mr Blair and New Labour, you say you are about social change,” she added “Well, I ask you to stop paying lip-service.