Daily Post

You've Got the Lot in Cardiff ... So Keep Your Greedy Hands Off Kyffin

THE TV advert boasting that the National Botanic Garden is "only an hour from Cardiff" says it all. In attempting to launch ourselves as a modern nation, we've fallen into the trap of creating a god out of our capital city. As with every god, particularly tin ones, not everyone will want to grovel at its feet in abject admiration. But it will still suck verve and energy from other directions. Not to mention young talent - and loads of money. Our money.

The Car's the Star ; Philip Key Talks to One of the Stars of the the Classic Children's Story, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

IT IS, explains actress Marissa Dunlop, like going on the best fairground ride in the world. She is talking about the experience of riding in the flying car, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, in the musical show of the same name. The car really is the star of the musical which arrives at Liverpool's Empire Theatre for a two-month run from September 18.

Festival Celebrates Our Cultural Links ; the Interview Big Names Have Been Lined Up for the Fourth Liverpool Irish Festival. Philip Key Reports

IT WON'T be, explains Simon Glinn, a festival to wave the tricolour flag or hold a Guinness drinking contest. He is referring to the Liverpool Irish Festival which kicks off for a month-long celebration next month. "It is not an Irish festival but a Liverpool Irish Festival in which we will be celebrating the links between Liverpool and Ireland, the whole of Ireland. I cringe when I see it referred to as the Irish Festival."

Ornamental Happiness Is the Avant-Garde Dream of a Very English Rose ; Theatre

ROSE ENGLISH is one of those visionary artists only occasionally thrown up by British theatre, an actress part of the time, the rest creating some of the most intriguing entertainments staged anywhere. As an actress, she has typically appeared in the film, The Witches, and played a pathologist in Cracker, but it is as a deviser of unusual entertainments that she made her name.

Classical

THEY come to Theatr Clwyd from far and wide, from Liverpool, Wrexham and across Cheshire to the Sunday night Chamber Music Series. Not only is there fine music to be heard, but that priceless luxury, a free car park underneath the theatre from which you walk up into the auditorium. The new Series starts on Sunday, September 24, with the appearance of one of the most exciting young cellists before the public today.

Cd Review

Cherish - Do It To It THERE'S an R&B girl group gap to be filled, now that Destiny's Child and TLC are no longer, and Cherish could fill it nicely. The four sisters' debut single is infectiously catchy, easy to dance to, and is sure to be a club anthem that's here to stay. One listen and you'll be hooked.

Film: Dvd View

Little Britain - The Complete Third Series (15) MATT LUCAS and David Walliams's cult comedy creation moved to primetime on BBC 1, introducing a host of new characters including Dudley and his mail order bride, Ting Tong, and former Olympic gymnast Desiree, arch rival of the formidable Bubbles. The two-disc set includes all six episodes.

Film: Enjoy the Ride ; the Big Picture

Little Miss Sunshine (15) Starring: Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin and Paul Dano' directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. 95 mins.

Film: Also Showing ; Right at Your Door (Cert 15) Rating: **

OBVIOUSLY filmed on a mini-budget, Right at Your Door examines the effect on a young married couple of a terrorist attack on Los Angeles using dirty bombs. This being a poverty row production, we never see the bombs going off or the damage they might cause. The nearest we get is a plume of smoke observed from their home in the hillside above the city.

Obituary: Ian Hamer

WHEN the mother raised her baton under the shimmying lights of the grand ballroom, the couples on the sprung floor hugged one another, waiting for the dance to begin. For she was a fine and brave lady, who had begun her career in showbiz as a pianist and exhibition dancer.

The Daily Postcard

The Right Direction ; Lew Baxter

THAT WILY Roman sage, Seneca, once muttered that, if a ship doesn't seemingly have a destination, then no winds are favourable, or something along those lines. So, let's ponder where we are currently steering with the Capital of Culture shindig.

Thought for the Day

MY FATHER died last year. One of the prayers talks about there being no person on earth who does only good and sins not. My mother objected to that phrase -"He was a really good man, he didn't sin" were her words. I'm sure she was right. Yet all of us, be we ever so saintly, do things which we regret.

Is the World Ready for 'Super-Manny?'

WOULD you hire a man to look after your children? In other words, dump the nanny and get a "manny"? It's an emotive issue, whatever the gender of the Mary Poppins interloper, but a male nursemaid does give it a touch of spice. But it's also a sign of the times that we still think it a talking point' a man taking low wages to look after children. Wow.

Great Scott, Save Us From Sharon

LIKE a blast from the past, Selina Scott took up Channel 5's offer in its series, Don't Get Me Started, to sound off about the lack of jobs for women over 50 years old on telly. Could this be the same gorgeous, pouting Selina Scott whose high cheek-bones and more than passing resemblance to the late Princess Diana was doubtless irrelevant to her getting a top totty job reading News at Ten? Or as a launch presenter on the BBC Breakfast Time?

The Yorkshire Poet

THE Yorkshire poet Simon Armitage is being touted as the Poet Laureate in waiting, although Andrew Motion holds the title until 2008. Mr Armitage's poem commemorating the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers, "the silent prongs of a tuning fork, testing the calm" continues: "Then a shudder or bump. A juddering thump or a thud. I swear no more, than a thump or a thud", is a sub-GCSE effort.

The New Film of Pd James's

THE new film of PD James's futuristic nightmare novel, Children of Men, is set in a childless, Orwellian Britain during 2027. It's a country of shabby streets plagued by urban guerrillas and terrorist bombs. Nothing new there, then. Hailed as the best film at the Venice Film Festival, it describes how uncontrolled pollution and reckless attitudes to our natural resources result in mass human infertility. The Government offers free suicide pills to those who can't cope with the hopelessness.

Actor Rupert Everett's

ACTOR Rupert Everett's rollicking memoirs, Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins, are deeply risqu, but very funny. He claims the Hollywood divas are all either barmy, unhinged or seriously bonkers. He talks about Madonna's evolution from "puppy fat and boot boy legs" into an alabaster goddess, causing director John Schlesinger to murmur: "My dear, she looks like a vampire."

Climate Change 'an Immediate Threat'

BRITAIN'S new climate ambassador warned today that climate change was "an immediate threat" to the nation's security and prosperity and must be tackled "whatever it costs". John Ashton, special representative for Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, warned that the costs of not solving climate change and increasing greenhouse gas emissions would lead to more conflicts around the world.

City's Super School Opens Its Doors

LIVERPOOL'S newest "superschool" opens its doors to 1,200 pupils on Monday - in the same building that many of them have already been using for several years. The pounds 30m North Liverpool Academy will have to use the existing Anfield High premises on Priory Road as its temporary base until new state-of-the-art buildings are ready to open in September, 2008.