WHEN TRAINERS make grand predictions for horses it is easy - indeed prudent - to ignore them, but when the objective judges at Timeform do so it is harder to dismiss. It distinguishes between child benefit, which it terms a 'categorical' benefit because it is neither means-tested nor based on contributions, and retirement pension, which it calls 'contributory'.The new paper on nursery education and child care plans to canvass the option of scrapping child benefit, which goes to all parents including those who are well-off. THE Takeover Panel is investigating statements made by Owners Abroad in its defence against a pounds 300m bid from Airtours to make sure nothing misleading was said and no material information was left out. When he was not picking arguments with opponents and officials he represented as big an individual threat to United as they will face. The book is set in 2013, when people can be screened for disposition to criminal violence.

The last of four Harrier jump jets is due to leave next month.The Guatemalan turmoil shows how fragile democratic institutions still are in parts of Latin America, despite progress made since the 'lost decade' of the 1980s, when debt and dictatorship isolated it from the rest of the world.Many Latin American countries have now achieved 'middle-income' status under elected civilian governments pursuing free-market policies Foreign capital has flooded in. In the Hawaii studio where the painter has worked since 1980, he kneels on the floor, surrounded by china palettes, and selects his brush with care before drawing the first line of a new work with a single faultless stroke. WITH A WARNING that 'ugly tensions' could shatter Britain's complacency, the Commission for Racial Equality yesterday launched wide-ranging plans to tighten and extend anti-discrimination legislation. For many of the drugs on its banned list there is not a shred of evidence that they have any performance-enhancing effect. Without the animals, the place would become woodland of a sort. Some are crooks and incompetents, however, doing nothing for their money and at times swindling leaseholders.Ms Barrett's prospective landlord was neither: in fact, he did not exist.

So far, the states have been slow to react to the federal law, and only Michigan has a local edict that specifically includes obesity in a list of handicaps.Fat people claim that at least 90 per cent of jobs should not require any physical standards, but obviously the ones that should include policemen, firemen and ambulance workers - or any others who encounter emergency, life- threatening situations.Of all the disabled in this country, I have to say the fat-impaired are the hardest to feel sorry for, especially after watching Americans eat. Here, too, is the evocation of a childhood often lyrical, sometimes cruel.Innocents in Africa is appearing at the right time. Cynics may say that this reflects nothing more than an increase in the amount of time and effort being put into the fishing; but it seems certain that the physical improvements in the river have made some difference.Yet the real test will come early in 1996, the first year in which the company's own carefully planted fry should start to return. 'All Michael wanted was to get a job,' Butch Lewis, their manager, says. The contract was described as having all the mutual benefits of one drawn up by a Mafia don. Scandalous scribblings of the rich and famous are revealed at Sotheby's literature sale, Monday (10.30am).