so then, lionel shriver, it's a battle between the mind and the body.man of very strong mind and, thank god, able—bodied, but are you, right now in your 60s, contemplating, like the character in your novel, stashing away a supply of deadly drugs so that there might come a time when you would say to yourself, "i want, while i can, i want to end my life "before it becomes agonising and counterproductive"? well, i haven't, like my characters, actually stashed a little black box at the top of the refrigerator. um... but i...i can see the attraction of... ..of feeling that you have some kind of control, not necessarily to leave the building whenever the least discomfort strikes, but to feel that they can exercise some kind of agency. and, you know, we seem to be, especially in britain, terribly paranoid about the so—called slippery slope, but what we would discover if we changed the law is not that we have this cascade of people queuing up to kill themselves, but how few would actually take advantage of such a law. it's intriguing to me that you wrote this n

coming up at 5:30pm, hardtalk with the writer lionel shriver. good afternoon. are on their way to the team hotel near watford just over 2a hours before they take on italy in the european championship final at wembley. victory tomorrow night would be the first major tournament win for the team since the 1966 world cup. the italian side has landed in the uk. their manager, robert mancini, is due to speak to journalists in the next hour. our sports correspondent john watson reports. england train for the final time at their base in burton today, ahead of the biggest game of their professional lives. standing between them and a first major trophy in over half a century, former winners italy, who arrive in london this afternoon. it's a great occasion, you know, for the country to be involved in, and the lads have done the whole country proud. yeah, we'rejust... i think everybody�*s got that sort of butterfly feeling in the belly that we can obviously win a first major trophy for a very long time. ending england's drought in major tournaments has been a plan long in