that would inevitably lead to a Second World War. All of these things put Robert right at the heart of things. As a reporter, reporters are sensitive to their times and the world around them. They are well informed. I could use Robert to say intelligent things about the culture that he was living in. I think that he makes quite a good Lovecraftian protagonist. He's certainly not a muscular, two-fisted Robert E. Howard type.

HMS: That's right. He's not.

AM: He's much closer to Lovecraft characters, even if there are a couple of areas where it's very unlikely that he'd be the kind of character that Lovecraft would have written. By the time I'd finished writing that first episode of the series, I felt that I at least hadKoreas start first official talks in two years

Head of the North Korean delegation Ri Son Gwon shakes hands with his South Korean counterpart Cho Myoung-gyon before their meeting at the truce village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas yesterday. - AFP

SOUTH KOREA: North and South Korea began their first official talks in more than two years on Tuesday, focussing on the forthcoming Winter Olympics after months of tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme.

The talks in Panmunjom, the truce village in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula, came after the North's leader Kim Jong-Un indicated in his New Year's speech that he could send a delegation to next month's Games in Pyeongchang in the South.

Seoul responded with an offer of a high-level dialogue, and