Ronald Porter is a regular contributor to the Conservative History Journal and I am delighted to be able to put his review of Brenton's play about Harold Macmillan on the blog. I hope this might become a new departure for other contributors as well. NEVER SO GOOD [By Howard Brenton ]Lyttelton TheatreReviewed by Ronald Porter.For me it was a total disaster. A big let down. The play was wildly misleading and inaccurate and much of the acting was shallow and unconvincing. Docu - dramas never really work for me. I always find Reality and Truthfulness breaking in and ruining any attempt to convince me that was is going on before my very eyes - to use the late Arthur Askey's phrase - ever really happened.Any play about the life and times of Harold - ' You've Never Had it so Good ' - Macmillan...

This is the first photo that I have come across of Ashenafe Mekonen, the tour guide kidnapped alongside five European travellers in Ethiopia's remote Afar region in early March. The five Europeans - three Brits, one Italian and one French woman - were released two weeks later after diplomatic pressure from their governments. But nothing has been heard of Ashenafe and eight other Ethiopians taken with him. Ashenafe is in his early 20s and was orphaned by the 1984 'Live Aid' famine in Ethiopia. He was brought up in an orphanage in central Ethiopia before moving to Addis to start working as a freelance guide/cook in the travel industry. His many friends in the capital are clubbing together to pay his rent until he returns. The other captives include Ashenafe's friend Debash Baye,...

I know it is hard to believe. But sometimes, even my perfectly-crafted articles don't end up getting used. Here is an article exclusively published for you dear remaining blog readers. By Andrew Heavens African countries will have to make huge increases in public spending to have a chance of meeting international targets to halve poverty by the year 2015, influential economist Jeffrey Sachs told a meeting of the continent's finance ministers on Monday. Professor Sachs said African states had to step up "targeted investments" in health, education, agriculture and infrastructure like roads and telecoms if they wanted to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – a series of global targets on reducing everything from hunger to HIV/Aids infections. He spoke in a recorded video...

I know it is hard to believe. But sometimes, even my perfectly-crafted articles doesn't end up getting used. Here is an article exclusively published for you dear remaining blog readers. By Andrew Heavens African countries will have to make huge increases in public spending to have a chance of meeting international targets to halve poverty by the year 2015, influential economist Jeffrey Sachs told a meeting of the continent's finance ministers on Monday. Professor Sachs said African states had to step up "targeted investments" in health, education, agriculture and infrastructure like roads and telecoms if they wanted to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – a series of global targets on reducing everything from hunger to HIV/Aids infections. He spoke in a recorded...

A pressure group to campaign for the freedom of the eight Ethiopian hostages was formed yesterday. It is called the 'Free The Ethiopian Captives Committee'. The idea is to collect lots of signatures and members, then approach international organisations and ask them to do all they can to bring about the release. At the very least, it will aim to keep the eight in the headlines. It will also steer clear of politics. The committee is not blaming anyone for the kidnapping. If anyone wants to join, they can send an email to freetheethiopiancaptives@gmail.com. Here is part of a story I wrote about the launch yesterday: The eight Ethiopians were seized alongside five European travelers in the country's remote Afar region in the early hours of March 1. The three Britons, one Italian and...

Still no idea of where, why, by whom. And no news of the eight Ethiopians who were with them. Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia's Prime Minister, two days ago said there were reports that at least one of the missing Ehiopians had voluntarily gone with the kidnapped Europeans out of some sense of solidarity. Tony Hickey, the owner of Ethiopian Quadrants, the travel company that organised the tour, said two of the missing Ethiopians were his employees. They were in their early 20s, he said, and both orphans of the 1984 'Live Aid' famine. Every member of the expat community I spoke to last night said they weren't gong to forget the eight Ethiopians now the Europeans were back. St Matthew's Anglican Church (near the Ras Amba Hotel) will be hosting a vigil for them later this week. Expats in...

We knew something was wrong as soon as we saw the line of trucks parked up on the road ahead. As we turned off our engines we could hear the dull roar of a river in full flood, just out of sight over a rocky outcrop. The truck drivers and their passengers were out stretching their legs. Past the outcrop, the river was a brown, swirling mass of water that smashed against boulders and carried whole tree trunks along with its force We had driven across this river just four hours earlier when it had been a gentle, sandy stream. Four hours later, heavy rain falling somewhere else over the horizon had sent a wall of water down to block the main road into Turmi, a remote town close to the Kenyan border in Ethiopia's tribal Southern Nations, Nationalities and People's Region (aka SNNPR). It...

Head off an hour after dawn on the road past Menelik Hospital (my beautiful new neighbourhood – who needs Bole). Turn left and take a look at the forested hills that surround Addis Ababa, packed with hyenas and who knows what else. If you were really keen you could have climbed them an hour earlier and watched Haile Gebrselassie on one of his early morning training sessions. Turn right and start walking past the straggled taxi stand, past Sandford English/International School, past the well-heeled parents dropping off children in their 4x4s. Past the old men a few yards down the road, taking their grandchildren to playschool (the one with the Teletubbies painted on its metal gate.) The road curves down to a T-junction – St Matthew's Anglican Church and the Ras Amba hotel to the...

Who would have thought it? Ethiopia's most radical new publication is a fashion magazine. Myfashion is, as far as I know, the country's only home-grown glossy. Issue 2 has everything you would expect - a photo spread on Osman Mohamed Osman's new 'Ras Africa' leather line, an introduction to interior decoration for the Addis elite and an interview with the country's latest supermodel. And then from pages 38-40 there is a society feature on 'Gay Ethiopians behind the mask'. You have to live here to know what an unusual article that is. Homosexuality remains illegal and totally taboo. Any discussions about it are generally hushed and polarised. For a taste of those discussions, have a quick read through the conversations still going on under my year-old post Holding hands. The Myfashion...

The BBC has a series of pictures of children who are living beneath the streets of Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa. They live in tunnels, sewers and drainage holes and are constantly being chased by police between one makeshift shelter and another. These children are amongst the estimated 60,000 and 150,000 that live on the streets in......

Here is a picture of today's Times, seconds after I finished flicking through it during a coffee break in the UN compound in Addis Ababa this morning. I didn't get it off a friend just flown in from the UK. I didn't pay DHL to speed it to my doorstep. I bought it in a bookshop ... in Addis. If you don't live here you won't realise just what an exciting statement that is. Up until yesterday, the most up-to-date British newspapers in town were the week-old copies of the Independent stacked up in the British Council café. People with very good contacts in the British Embassy or DFID could occasionally get their hands on a copy of the Guardian that was just three days out of date. But the best that the rest of us could do was to call early on someone who had just flown in to Bole...

Each blue headline below is a link that will take you to the relevant article...White Farmer Murdered TBM speaks: "A white commercial farmer in Zimbabwe’s southern Chiredzi district was brutally murdered on Sunday night by unknown assailants amid reports that newly resettled black farmers were not happy with his continued stay on his property. The farmer, Joseph Fredrick of Hippo Valley Estates, was one of the lucky few white farmers to retain his farm under President Robert Mugabe’s chaotic and often violent land acquisition programme which began in 2000." The farmer was killed on Saturday night and the unknown assailants made off with ZW$45 million in cash. Police reported that Mr Fredrick's body was discovered on Sunday morning with stab wounds all over. The Police suspect Mr...

Yesterday's Sub-Saharan Informer had an exclusive interview with Biniam Taddese, the 14-16-18-year old who was arrested and put on trial with the opposition politicians, journalists and alleged rioters - then released last week. SSI: Let’s first talk of your arrest. How did police take you into custody? Biniam: It was November 22nd, 2005 that police took me. I was at school the whole morning and when I got back home no one was there, so I went out to play football with my friends. But on my way police stopped me and took me to the Woreda 21, Kirkos sub-city police station. I didn’t know at first why they were taking me, and I was sure they would release me when they found out they were mistaken. After I reached to the station, they told me that I have taken part in the violence...