'Some people are now comparing the Germany of the 1930s with Russia of 1993. Louis won't cough up until he sees some big stars - preferably Laura Loveday. Apart from the recommendation for a Criminal Cases Review Authority, there is much in it that would promote good practice. And every evening those same couples lose their earnest expressions and roll around helpless with laughter in the adjoining Opera House auditorium for the Michael Barrymore show. The seaside variety show never went away, but suddenly, through its latest exponent, it is tremendously popular.OK, that is less a tribute to the art form than the notoriety of the artist, a Saturday-night television star with 14 million viewers and a new pounds 3m contract from London Weekend Television, and an off- stage life that is also a throwback to another era: the working-class boy turned millionaire whose old mum pleads from her council flat for him to get in touch, and who succumbs to alcohol problems and dries out in a bizarre American clinic run by a Benedictine monk.What is also interesting is that this highly paid, highly regarded comedian, with a catchphrase 'Awight' that is as popular as it is banal, is spending his summer not just on television, but doing the most testing entertainment of all, playing live to an audience with an age range of 4 to 90.John Fisher, head of variety with Thames Television, says he is 'the top light entertainer in the country, a position Bruce Forsyth held 15 years ago and Max Bygraves held in the Fifties'.I attended the first night to find out what makes Barrymore so popular The first notable factor is the audience.

It offers splendid employment for the redundant jockeys of the Household Cavalry. The President has been absent from Moscow since his return from Georgia on 3 February, except for a brief meeting with John Major.Georgia's former president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who committed suicide in December, will be laid to rest with full honours in the neighbouring self-proclaimed Chechen republic on Thursday. Although the poll provided grim reading for the Tories - putting Labour at 51 per cent and the Tories at 26 - it also suggested that, if anything, they would fare even worse with an alternative leader.Mr Lilley told the 92 Group - the most important caucus on the party's right: 'The vast majority of this group backed John Major to become Prime Minister We made the right choice. There is not much most people can do to escape the claws of the latest Budget.

You score by making your customers (or your patients) glow.7) Beyond change. An expected series of strategic acquisitions planned by Bunzl kicked off yesterday when the paper and packaging company announced plans to raise pounds 16.75m to buy a catering division from GKN, the engineer. This includes work with the police on the length of time they should be allowed to keep criminal records on computer.The registrar is also looking at a new banking practice of passing on information to credit reference agencies. Fittingly they were on two areas he had made his own: the ancient novel and satire. Over tea (milk, two sugars, one Marlboro after another) Christy Turlington emerges as a bright woman who knows she's been dealt a good hand.

In general, however, they would prefer increases in indirect rather than direct taxes.The Chancellor, Norman Lamont, justified the Government's last increase in VAT to 17.5 per cent - introduced in 1991 to cut poll tax bills - on the grounds that 'the basic necessities of life' such as food, domestic fuel, transport and children's clothes were exempt. But trading was again brisk with, in two-way business, many investors still prepared to take the view that an interest rate cut will occur before the March Budget. Then, before Black Wednesday, a net balance of 14 per cent of manufacturers said they expected to cut output in the following four months.A particularly alarming finding is that manufacturers still have many more unsold goods on their storeroom shelves than they want.Stock levels leapt sharply in July, and this month's survey will show that they remain high. Direction and acting are atrocious: both are partly redeemed by the following sketch, about two drunken Irishmen outraging gentility in a Pimlico post office. But she resolutely doesn't take sides: she surveys the scene with the benign sympathy that never came naturally to her cast of high-grade egoists.It is a matter of taste whether the price the reader pays for this good-natured approach is too high. But I think it is very sad.It is the biggest competition in the world, and when we are talking about elite athletes, potential medallists, we should be giving them a 110 per cent chance Now we are missing about 20 per cent.