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The IRA launched another terrorist bomb attack last night, when a device exploded in a residential area in west London. There were no reports of casualties in the blast, in Earl’s Court, which happened half an hour after a warning call using a recognised code word was received by the Associated Press news agency. The caller claimed to be from the IRA.
The explosion occurred just before 10pm at an empty house in The Boltons, an expensive residential area. Windows were blown out of the house and in neighbouring buildings.

Police cordoned off surrounding streets.Local resident Winnie Gordon Strauss, who was out walking her dog when the bomb went off, said: “I’ve still got glass in my hair.” Peter Roscow, 40, a business consultant, was at home in Collingham Road when he heard what he said was quite clearly a bomb going off.He said: “It seemed it was much closer than it was. But I remember back in the Seventies when there was an IRA bomb – these things can be very deceptive.”Police immediately converged on the area and began checking beneath cars for further devices, although a brief stand-off was observed because of fears of further devices.The explosion came just one day after the inquest on IRA terrorist Ed O’Brien, who killed himself last February when a bomb he was carrying exploded prematurely on a bus in Aldwych, central London.Last night’s explosion happened less than half a mile from the site of a similar blast on 8 March. Then, a bomb was placed in a rubbish bin outside the gates of Brompton Cemetery near the Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre. There were no casualties, but cars and property were damaged.Security sources have recently suggested that although the IRA has been quiet in Northern Ireland the chances of further attacks in London were high.

A “phoney war” has been in effect since the bombings in London heralded the end of the IRA’s 17-month ceasefire.Those attacks were followed by a series of belligerent IRA statements, but earlier this month the organisation’s Easter message was unexpectedly temperate.The fact that there had been no attacks in Northern Ireland allowed hopes to develop that the series of attacks in February represented a discrete sequence which might not necessarily mean a full-scale resumption of violence.At the same time, however, the IRA mistrust of the British Government has been running at a particularly high level, and there have been no signs of a renewed ceasefire.There had been some early hopes of a new ceasefire, which would allow Sinn Fein to take part in the political negotiations which are due to start in Belfast on 10 June. But these have faded as the poor atmosphere has persisted, with most observers reckoning that the talks are most likely to open without Sinn Fein. The party will, however, probably contest the elections, which are due to take place on 30 May.In the meantime, the general assumption has been that the absence of violence, though welcome, was unlikely to last for much longer No one was sure, however, when a fresh attack might come. Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein President, said recently that the situation was difficult to interpret, adding: “One could hear on the next news broadcast reports of some IRA operation.”. It was an inauspicious end to a decade of royal marriage, brought to a close in five minutes in a cramped courtroom with scaffolding outside. The Duke and Duchess of York began their divorce proceedings yesterday alongside 28 other couples , insisting they remained “the bestest of friends”.

The hearing involved the couples’ names being read out by a cheery clerk to Judge Gerald Angel, who also presided over the divorces of Camilla Parker-Bowles and the Princess Royal. Bottom of the list were their Royal Highnesses, the Yorks, case number 2662/96, whose wedding 10 years ago brought London to a standstill.
At 10.34 the judge arrived to grant the decree nisis for uncontested divorces, including an accountant, a secretary and a company director in the list.The proceedings were interrupted only momentarily by an anxious unemployed car mechanic who wanted to appeal against his costs. By 10.39 it was all over.In stark contrast to Court No1 at Somerset House in London, more reminiscent of a dentist’s waiting room, the Duchess was emerging from a chalet in Verbier, the exclusive Swiss ski resort.She told a throng of reporters it was an “understatement” to describe it as the saddest day of her life.The Duchess, 36, who is expected to receive a pounds 2m settlement when the divorce is made absolute after six weeks and one day, was accompanied by the couple’s two daughters. Eugenie, seven, and Beatrice, six, did not return to school this week to protect them from the media attention.But the Duchess said the girls were “happy and secure”, and she remained the “bestest of friends” with the Duke, who petitioned for the divorce.She said: “I speak to him every day. The children are well, I’m well, the Duke is well, everyone’s well I’ll take each day as it comes. Every day is a new day.”As the Duke reported back for naval duties yesterday in Dorset, the Duchess also denied that the Queen had prompted them to bring their marriage to an end, following their four year separation, and she insisted it was a personal decision.In London, after the proceedings had finished the sun finally came out, but it was miserable echo of the royal wedding in 1986 when the hoods were taken off the royal carriages and the world’s leaders joined the royal family for a breakfast of lobsters and strawberries at Buckingham Palace, while the public cheered outside.The only people in front of the High Court’s Family Division at Somerset House yesterday were some lost tourists.But for the couples who had the misfortune to apply for decree nisis on the same day, it may have come as an unexpected surprise.When the judge asked: “Does any party or person wish to show cause against the decrees being pronounced?”, the young man in a green anorak, alone on the front row of the small courtroom, was forced to make his plea not to pay the costs of his divorce before a throng of journalists.Carlo Giambrone, 28, who is divorcing his wife of eight years said afterwards: “It was a big surprise to me, and although I knew they were getting a divorce today, I didn’t expect to be in the same courtroom. It means that, from the moment of conception, we are what we are and nothing much can be done about it.

“It’s all in the genes” is now the most routine and popular explanation for any human behaviour from crime to creative genius. And, daily, it seems to be affirmed by stories about scientists finding the gene “for” criminality, homosexuality or any other trait that can, however loosely, be classed as deviant.Genetic determinism is the new, scientifically respectable name of destiny. For, though we may no longer use the arcane concept of “blood” to explain intractable differences between people, we do use genetics, the hot new scientific discipline. Destiny is a more persuasive force than ever, not just in British but also in global culture.And the cause, ironically, is the very modern rationality in which progressives place so much faith.