The press here today proclaimed that Leaping Lena, a Natal Province frog, had beaten the Americans and broken the world's frog-jumping record at the Frog Olympics at Capetown.

Another Wilkinson attempt was charged down before a fine clearing run and kick from Ashton and burgled Scottish line-out worked a penalty chance from wide left.

This character has his own way of viewing all that is wrong, challenging nostalgic rhetoric and the most anachronistic Kiplingism.

A little parapet ran all the way around the square roof, and Pantalaimon often draped his pine-marten form over the mock-battlements on the corner facing south, and dozed while Lyra sat below with her back against the sun-drenched stone, studying the books she'd brought up with her.