Though the men were swiftly released Russia has cut transport and communications links to its neighbour which has angered Mr Putin with its pursuit of closer ties with Nato. Europe set the scene for a showdown with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, at a summit this week, after it made a blunt call on Moscow to stop its harassment of Georgians. A toughly worded statement agreed by EU foreign ministers urged Russia “not to pursue measures targeting Georgians in the Russian Federation.”
However France and Greece, which led efforts to tone down the text, agreed to it only when it also made reference to a United Nations resolution which called for restraint from Georgia. Yesterday’s communiqu?which was stronger than expected, comes just three days before Mr Putin attends a dinner with EU leaders at their summit in Lahti in Finland. Poland and other former Soviet-bloc nations made clear their determination to take Moscow to task both over Georgia and human rights following the murder of the campaigning journalist Anna Politkovskaya. However ministers insisted that, in calling on Georgia to lower its rhetoric, they were taking a balanced approach. Stop for a sandwich there and you are within their sights.Chris had visited the ship with his daughter the previous week and read all this on a plaque.

Only someone slightly obsessed with quizzes, who had one to write by the following Tuesday, would have had the nous to turn this magnificent fact into the sort of question that warms the cockles of the heart.The point is that a question like this sets the standard, and challenges the rest of us to come up with something better. We are all working on it, when by rights we should probably be doing something important, like earning a living or remembering the names of our children. It probably goes without saying – because we wouldn’t be listening anyway – but the quest for the perfect quiz question never ends.Marcus Berkmann is the editor of, and Russell Taylor a contributor to, The Prince of Wales (Highgate) Quiz Book, to be published by Hodder ( www.hodderheadline.co.uk) on 2 November at £12.99. To order it for £11.50, including free p&p, phone Independent Books Direct on 08700 798 897 or visit www.independentbooksdirect.co.uk.

First there was the vertiginous, 182ft steel and plastic slide offered as art. Now there is the trio of stomach-churning fairground rides being touted as science. A week after the German artist Carsten Holler’s installation of five slides was unveiled in the turbine hall of Tate Modern, the Science Museum began a mission to advance its cause, apparently by inducing fear and nausea in paying members of the public.. To illustrate this, all these guns are trained on London Gateway, which they could take out with a single volley. Without those words the question would be unanswerable and therefore boring and irritating As it is you feel you should be able to work it out. “Theoretically lethally”: hmm.After much cogitation we put down something to the effect that HMS Belfast’s guns probably had a range that encompassed London Gateway services, for which we were given one point out of two The actual answer was far better. HMS Belfast rests permanently on the Thames, and its guns, now silent, have a range of 12.5 miles.