But she said last night that she had lost half of these at a fire at her

General — July 22, 2010 at 12:04

But she said last night that she had lost half of these at a fire at her house two years ago.Other winners last night at the London Theatre awards were Sam Mendes – tipped to become the next director of the Royal National Theatre – who was named best director for Company and The Glass Menagerie, both at the Donmar Warehouse, Covent Garden.The best actor was Alex Jennings, for Peer Gynt at the Young Vic, and the best play was David Hare’s Skylight.Adrian Lester won the best actor in a musical award for his role as Bobby in Company, but the best musical itself was awarded to Jolson the Musical at the Victoria Palace. “Then anybody with something to sell will be able to advertise it on the Net, and you or I will be able to send them money electronically, securely That will be really exciting.”. Dame Judi Dench last night made theatre history by becoming the first performer to win two Laurence Olivier Awards for two different categories in the 20-year history of the prestigious theatre awards. Future buyers plan to buy holidays, books, software, CDs, videos and clothes by ordering them through an electronic link to their PC. The amount spent so far by Internet buyers is believed to top pounds 1m.NOP reckons that 6 per cent of Britain’s adult population have logged on to the Internet in the past year.The Mondex trial uses cards with an in-built computer chip. Owners can extract money, encoded as a stream of digital information, from their bank accounts and store it on the chip, and then use it to buy goods just as with cash, or transfer it over specially-equipped telephones to their bank, or even to another person or organisation.Since the launch, almost 10,000 cards have been issued among the town’s 190,000 population and pounds 250,000 has been spent. Mondex, which is a joint project by the NatWest and Midland banks with British Telecom, said more than 700 shops in Swindon now accept payment using the card.Analysts have forecast the rise of electronic commerce for years, but before the Internet entered the public consciousness recently it seemed unlikely Now, Mondex aims to capitalise on its acceptance.

The cards can be used to pay for goods costing as little as 1p electronically. New research from NOP says that 150,000 people have used the Internet to buy something in the past six months, and that half a million intend to do so in the coming six months. Separately, an experiment with “electronic cash” launched by Mondex last July in Swindon has attracted 4 per cent of the town’s population, but has already changed their behaviour as irrevocably as cash machines once did.
The NOP findings emerged from interviews with almost 1,000 people, which revealed they have used the global network to order goods such as flowers and wine using their credit cards. ”If we administered the results we would consult with teachers about how to publish the information and then we would get on with it and do it Parents ought to know how these schools are performing.”. Electronic commerce is catching on in the UK. But a spokesman for the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority said last night that since the protest ended almost all schools had reported their results to the DfEE.Graham Lane, chairman of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities’ education committee, said last night that it believed all schools should disclose results to parents.Mr Lane said local authorities wanted to publish league tables including both test results and data on other factors such as the number of children taking free school meals, but they were being prevented from doing so by ministers.

They did not give any indication of pupils’ abilities, they said.A boycott by teachers’ unions between 1992 and 1994 meant that many schools did not carry out the tests. Others said they had a policy of not releasing results because they did not believe the tests were a fair measure of a school’s performance. In Mrs Shephard’s Norfolk South West constituency, 14 out of 57 failed to do so.Last night a spokeswoman for the DfEE underlined the rules on disclosure but said it was not planning any sanctions against such schools at present.”If someone contacts the school, then under the Parent’s Charter they must give them the information requested. If schools aren’t doing that, local education authorities must make them aware it is something they must do,” she said.Some of the schools contacted argued that publication could identify the results of individual pupils because their numbers were very small.