Having experienced and even courted notoriety, Lawrence chose to live the second part of his life in obscurity. When a “film merchant called Korda” proposed a biopic, he did what few of us would do today, and said no.So what to make of the sensational news that during the time he was serving in the RAF under the name first of Aircraftman JH Ross, then as TE Shaw, he paid a Mrs Bryant of Newark two of the three shillings he earned a week? A closet heterosexual after all, was he? Or just an indiscriminate masochist, not fussy who did the flogging – a glistening Ottoman on a kilim in a tent in Wadi Safra, or a powdered married lady strapped for cash (sorry about the “strapped”) on the doormat of a two-up two-down semi in Newark?Secrets of the human heart? Let the dead fret about the dead, the living don’t give a damn
More from Howard Jacobson. An explosion in commercial fish farming has caused a huge fall in the population of wild salmon, with 15 per cent of salmon rivers in Europe and North America found to be barren in a survey by the World Wide Fund for Nature. The conservation groups are calling for a crackdown on the practice, the establishment of aquaculture-free zones and a stop to commercial fisheries.”Research shows that farmed fish negatively affect wild Atlantic salmon,” said Bill Taylor, president of the Atlantic Salmon Federation.”Escaped farmed fish interbreed with the wild salmon, which weakens the wild gene pools, and compete for food and habitat. Confinement of fish in cages also contributes to the spread of disease and parasites,” he said.Next week a multinational summit on salmon preservation will be held in the Faeroe Islands to draw up a programme of action.Research by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) on 2,000 salmon rivers found the wild salmon was already extinct in 15 per cent of them. Only 43 per cent of the rivers surveyed were considered to be “healthy” – with sustainable stocks – but of those 90 per cent were in only four countries – Norway, Iceland, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland.In Scotland records from the 18th century show that salmon fisheries on the rivers, Tay, Spey, Tweed, Don and Dee regularly produced colossal catches.

While supplies of wild salmon remained plentiful for the best part of the 19th century there was a gradual but steady decline throughout the 20th century, partly due to over-fishing and netting.In the late Sixties, with the advent of commercial fish farming, the hope was that pressure would be taken off the wild population.But the very explosion of these fish farms is what conservationists now fear has accelerated rather than prevented the demise of the wild salmon. If we do not see a moratorium on further expansion or any serious consideration that some farms may have to move, then we will fail in safeguarding these magnificent fish.”The coalition would also like to see governments buy back the licences from drift net fisheries, which operate on the coasts of Ireland and England and on the wild salmon’s migratory feeding grounds off the Faeroe Islands and west Greenland.. All of England’s football matches will be staged at the new Wembley stadium for the next 30 years to pay for the £715m project, the Football Association said yesterday. It has remained empty, at the cost of £300,000 a month, as the football authorities, the Government and the City wrangled over the scheme to replace it.The Football Association announced yesterday it had clinched a “heads of agreement” deal with the German bank Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB) to build the new stadium.

The deal is expected to be completed by mid-August, with work starting on the new stadium the following month. It would open for business in mid-2005.WestLB will put an estimated £400m into the project, with the rest of the money coming from the National Lottery and the FA.Adam Crozier, the FA chief executive, speaking in Japan, said: “This marks a major step forward in helping us to succeed in our desire to build a stadium that will be among the finest in the world.”There is still much to be done but we have never been more confident that the final details can be worked out.”He acknowledged that the FA would have to sacrifice its “England on the Road” campaign to pay for the stadium. The policy of playing England internationals at venues around the country, forced on the FA by the closure of Wembley in 2000, has proved a success with full houses from Newcastle to Derby, Liverpool to Tottenham.Advocates argue that the time away from Wembley has broadened the support base, with more families attending games and a less intimidating atmosphere prevailing.But Mr Crozier said the initiative would have to be abandoned to make the new 90,000-seat stadium financially viable. The new Wembley will provide 17,500 corporate seats to help recoup costs.The stadium will cost £358m, although other costs, such as roads and parking areas, will push up the price.Tessa Jowell, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said: “This is a really important day in the countdown to the new national stadium. It hasn’t always been straightforward and there is still work to be done So let’s get on with it.”. The makers of the BBC programme Kenyon Confronts yesterday denied claims that they duped trainers into making incriminating comments.