And when Charles and Sebastian lounge before some imposing pediment we can never really believe anything other than that

And when Charles and Sebastian lounge before some imposing pediment we can never really believe anything other than that the film crew has gone to some National Trust property for the day. Sebastian likes things because they are pretty, not because they are important or historically significant. Fatally, so does Charles Sturridge.The project's structure - the past as a hall of mirrors, Waugh writing in the Forties about the Twenties, filmed in the Eighties - has simply provided more ways for it to seem dated. But never mistake Mr Annan's gentleness for evasiveness or fear.It was 13 months ago that he replaced Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the Egyptian Copt whose Gallic conceits and patrician ways the Americans could no longer stomach, to become the seventh Secretary General of the UN, and master of the hideous skyscraper standing sentry over 41st Street and East River in midtown Manhattan.The official reason Washington defenestrated Mr Boutros-Ghali was his failure to streamline the UN's bureaucracy. But these are qualities that will not avail him much in Baghdad as he presents Britain and America's demands.

A little tinkering around the edges perhaps, to save the dictator's face; but on the substance he has no choice but to be firm. The first hint of fudge or waffle, the first whiff of curbs on the powers of the weapons inspectors - and cruise missiles and F-117 Stealth fighters will be about their destructive business. But if he fails, it will not be because of bad manners. The first epithet that comes to mind with Kofi Annan is "dignified". There is an unruffled quality to him and everything he does, the gracious wisdom of the African gentleman of a certain age Even when critical he is the epitome of politeness Never does he lose his cool.

AT FIRST glance it looks a diplomatic mismatch to rival the night in Las Vegas a couple of years ago when the amiable but hapless Frank Bruno found himself in the same ring as Mike Tyson: Kofi Annan away to Saddam Hussein in Baghdad; the lamb, in the person of the soft-spoken Ghanaian Secretary General of the UN, against the wicked lion of Araby What is more, we have been round this course before. That some patients can obtain this treatment and some cannot, depending on where they live or who treats them, is due to the unfair system in which doctors work. The fact is that at present individual GPs, and in the future larger groups of GPs in primary healthcare groups, will continue to make decisions about the rationing of healthcare which some sections of society find arbitrary, unfair or difficult to accept. A slight shifting of weight from one foot to the other, perhaps, in a moment of high strain, an aide reports, "that's about all the tension you can see".So how will he cope with President Hussein? "His instinct always is to avoid confrontation and seek consensus," says another colleague. He was left to cool his heels for 24 hours in the ante-rooms of one of those now infamous "presidential palaces" before being received The rest needs no recounting Can this secretary general do better? Maybe not.