Stephen Littlechild, director-general of Offer, the electricity regulator, studied under Professor Beesley at Birmingham University.One of the unsigned pieces begins: "An IEA-based academic triumvirate believes that they have a duty and carte blanche right to remodel UK utilities."That opening sentence is followed by three pages asserting links between Ms Spottiswoode, Ms Marshall, and professors Robinson, Beesley and Littlechild.Another document is headed "Austrians" and implies Professor Littlechild and Ms Spottiswoode are being guided by some hidden hand. The same headhunters, it points out, were responsible for choosing both director-generals. Professor Beesley, it is incorrectly claimed, received a six-figure sum for his consultancy work. The two-page diatribe ends: "It does not look as though there is much internal expertise such as the [Monopolies Commission] hoped Ofgas would develop - or was supposed to develop as the result of the recruitment of Eileen Marshall according to Spottiswoode." According to the hidden author, the OFT is "not happy with Beesley's involvement as consultant to Ofgas and has raised eyebrows".Roger Turner, managing director of United, said the company became aware of the smears when a number of journalists asked the same questions and appeared to be working from the same brief. "The first time we realised documents were being distributed was in 1993," he said.In May this year, during the standing committee stage of the Gas Deregulation Bill in the Commons, Mr Turner said "there was literature distributed to MPs on the committee".An Ofgas spokesman said the regulator was aware of the anonymous reports "We are concerned this sort of thing is going on. We don't know why anyone is doing it - presumably to try to rubbish what we are doing. We have a requirement to control British Gas's monopoly prices and we will carry on.".
THE HOME of John Keats, a shrine to Romanticism and the place where the poet was inspired to write "Ode to a Nightingale", is falling into decay. The house in Hampstead, London, now a museum visited each year by more than 20,000 pilgrims from as far afield as Japan and America, has damp and rot invading the public areas and the curator's office. Large external cracks run from upper to lower windows, plaster is falling off the walls in the basement kitchens, and the reproduction Regency wallpaper is damp and discoloured. Water threatens to seep through on to some of the 6,000 books. The poet's bedroom is particularly badly affected: a lithograph had to be removed from one wall with large patches of damp and fungus growing on it. The house was completely restored in 1974-5.Built in 1815 as a semi- detached villa, it is where Keats met and wooed Fanny Brawne; he wrote "Ode to a Nightingale" in the garden and walked with Coleridge on nearby Hampstead Heath. Manuscripts, paintings and mementoes are on display, recording the poet's brief but productive residence before ill-health took him to Italy, where he died in 1821.Keats House appears to have become the victim of a lengthy transaction between two local authorities over its future ownership, which has left maintenance on hold.The house was rescued from demolition in 1920 by public subscription, largely from the United States, and bequeathed in perpetuity to Hampstead Borough Council, now the London Borough of Camden.
Last year Camden spent pounds 130,000 on keeping it open, out of a leisure budget in excess of pounds 20m.Keats was born near Moorgate, in the City, and for the past year Camden has been seeking to transfer responsibility for the house to the Corporation of London, which is also responsible for Hampstead Heath.The house's dilapidation comes at a time when interest in Keats's life and work is increasing. Keats is the only English poet to have had two nominations in the top 10 of the recent poll to find the nation's favourite poem: "Ode to Autumn" came sixth and the "Ode to a Nightingale" ninth.On 31 October, admirers of Keats will lay a wreath at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey to celebrate the bicentenary of his birth in 1795. The BBC is running a series of tributes on television and radio.The poet Andrew Motion made frequent visits to the Hampstead house to study its archives for his forthcoming biography of Keats. Lewis, who seemed to glide the distance, was from the start an athlete of god-like gifts. A refund will be given in the event that demand exceeds supply. In the event of any query, please contact Penguin Books Ltd.. Carl Lewis and Linford Christie are by a distance the pre-eminent 100 metres runners of modern times.
Born within a year of each other, they could hardly be more different. Please make cheques payable to Penguin Books Ltd and send to The Independent Book Offer, P enguin Books Ltd, Bath Road, Harmondsworth, Middlesex UB7 0DA. This offer, subject to availability and limited to one book per person, is available to residents of the UK and the Republic of Ireland only The closing date for receipt of orders is 31 October, 1995 Please allow 30 days for delivery. Nothing will ever change that'To Be Honest With You: The Autobiography of Linford Christie' is published on Monday by Michael Joseph, price pounds 16.99 hardbackBook offer Readers of The Independent Magazine can buy a copy of To Be Honest With You for the special price of pounds 12.99 including postage and packing (rrp pounds 16.99).