A teenager has been charged following an alleged chemical attack in which a mother-of-three was badly burned and later died.

Joanne Rand, 47, was sprayed with an alkaline substance in Frogmoor, High Wycombe, on 3 June. She died 11 days later.
Xeneral Webster, 18, of no fixed abode, has been charged with one count of attempted grievous bodily harm.
He was remanded in custody to appear at Aylesbury Crown Court on 25 July.
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Police said Ms Rand had been in sitting on a bench when a fight broke out between a group of men and a bottle of liquid, thought to be an alkaline substance, was kicked and went over her.
Ms Rand from Marlow was originally discharged from hospital but later readmitted. She died of her injuries on 14 June.


Cornwall won the County Championship for the first time since 1999 as they beat Lancashire 18-13 at Twickenham.

Matt Shepherd scored 15 points for the Duchy to end a run of two successive final defeats by the Red Rose county.
Shepherd's converted try and penalty saw Cornwall to a 10-6 half-time lead.
Shepherd crossed again in the second half before Evan Stewart's late try for Lancashire ensured a nervy finish, but could not prevent only their second Twickenham final defeat in six years.
Since 2009, Lancashire had only previously once lost the Bill Beaumont Cup, in 2012, when they were beaten by Hertfordshire.
Shepherd missed a penalty in the opening minutes, but he made amends two minutes later, the Launceston scrum-half going in under the posts from 30 metres out.
Steve Collins pulled a penalty back and Shepherd missed a three-point attempt of his own before Cornwall were reduced to 14 men on 27 minutes.
Ben Hilton was sin-binned and Chris Johnson brought Lancashire back to within a point of their opponents from the resulting penalty.
But Shepherd's penalty with five minutes left in the half, coming after Chris Briers' yellow card, ensured that the Duchy went in at the break with a 10-6 lead.
Shepherd took his points tally for the County Championship to 66 when he went over shortly after the break following a line out from five metres out.
That made it 15-6 and, although he failed to convert his own score, his Launceston teammate Searle pushed the gap into double figures with a 63rd minute penalty.
Lancashire did not threaten Cornwall until the final 10 minutes when they put the Duchy under immense pressure.
Searle was sin-binned for an infringement at the breakdown and Lancashire skipper Stewart crashed over with six minutes left, Johnson adding the extras. But Cornwall's 14 men stood firm to clinch a fourth county title.
Cornwall: Searle (Launceston); Dawe (Launceston), Murphy (Launceston), Webber (Redruth), Wedlake (Redruth); Webb (Taunton), Shepherd (Launceston); Freestone (Clifton), Salter (Launceston), Williams (Redruth), Whittle (Camborne), Hilton (Launceston), Fuca (Redruth), Jones (Penryn), Marriott (Redruth, capt).
Replacements: Judge (Launceston), Cook (Redruth), Phillips (Redruth), Goldsworthy (Camborne), Mankee (Camborne), Parsons (Redruth), Chapman (Launceston).
Lancashire: Spragg (Fylde); Dorrington (Fylde), Briers (Fylde), Rawlings (Fylde), Bingham (Rossendale); Collins (Sedgley Park), De La Harpe (Fylde); Black (Sedgley Park), Loney (Fylde), Lewis (Fylde), Nugent (Bergerac), Rawlings (Fylde), Stewart (Fylde, capt), McGinnis (Loughborough Students), Lamprey (Sedgley Park).
Replacements: McGowan (Caldy), Altham (Preston Grasshoppers), Mills (Preston Grasshoppers), Arnold (Fylde), Johnson (Fylde), Brennand (Fylde), Crosley (Hartpury College).


Air pollution is forcing the UK government back to court for the seventh time.

The environmental legal group ClientEarth says minsters failed to conduct their recent public consultation on clean air properly.
It also says the government's pollution plans for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are far too vague.
A government spokesman said ministers were committed to improving air quality.
ClientEarth's case centres on the disparity between the consultation document the government produced for the public, and a related technical document from government experts.
The technical document makes it clear that the best way of combating pollution is for councils to set up clean air zones and then to charge vehicles for entering them.
But the consultation document – produced around election time following a court ruling – said councils should try all other measures before imposing charging zones.
Critics said the consultation had been rendered toothless by ministers’ wish to avoid political controversy.
ClientEarth says the difference between the two documents could open the government to judicial review from members of the public or councils who feel they were not properly consulted.
Its spokesman Tim Reid told BBC News: "The government needs to consult on this issue – it's just not behaving properly. We are dismayed to be taking them back to court again."
The group thinks that even a brief consultation of one or two weeks on charging zones would insulate ministers from further legal challenge as they prepare their air pollution strategy by the 31 July deadline imposed by a previous court ruling.
The other issue before the courts is the relationship between the UK and the nations.
Air pollution is a devolved issue, but ClientEarth argues that the UK government must take overall responsibility for EU laws. It says the pollution strategy for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is "plans about plans".
A government spokesman said: "We have jointly consulted with the devolved authorities on proposals to further improve the nations' air quality and will publish a final air quality plan by 31 July.
"The draft plan sets out steps the UK, Scottish government, and Welsh governments and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland propose to take to improve air quality in our towns and cities."
Follow Roger on Twitter @rharrabin


Bournemouth's Polish goalkeeper Artur Boruc has announced his retirement from international football.

The 37-year-old made 64 appearances for his country, including three at the 2006 World Cup, and is Poland's most-capped goalkeeper.
Boruc has been mainly used as a back-up keeper to Lukasz Fabianski and Wojciech Szczesny in recent years.
"It has not been an easy decision for me and has been one that I've taken incredibly seriously," he said.
"However, after much thought and consideration I feel that now is the right time in order to focus fully both on my family and club career at AFC Bournemouth."


Baroness Grey-Thompson has resigned from the London 2017 Athletics World Championships board, saying her role had become "a bit tokenistic".

The 11-time Paralympic champion added: "I got to the point where I was going round in circles."
Her decision follows the departures of three other board members, including managing director Sally Bolton.
"There are some good people left, but they'll need a lot more support," said Grey-Thompson.
She added that her role was no longer "fun or interesting", adding she had "got tired" of being the one to raise Paralympic issues.
"It needs to be someone else because I don't feel I was having the impact in terms of taking that discussion on,' said Grey-Thompson.
A statement from London 2017 made no mention of Grey-Thompson's concerns, claiming she was resigning for other reasons.
It said she had taken the decision so she "dedicate her full attention to her work in the House of Lords" as well as her role leading an independent working group looking to safeguard people who play grassroots sport.
Heather Hancock and Martin Stewart also stood down last month, amid reports of differences with chairman Ed Warner, who is also head of UK Athletics.
London won the right to stage the championships by beating Doha in a vote in 2011 and will hold the event at the Olympic Stadium.


Bookmakers Ladbrokes has announced it plans to merge with Gala Coral in a deal expected to value the business at £2.3bn.

The move will take it past the current high street leader, William Hill, combining Ladbrokes' 2,100 shops with Coral's 1,845.
Current Ladbrokes chief executive, Jim Mullen, will become boss of the merged company, named Ladbrokes Coral.
The two firms had announced merger talks last month.
Peter Erskine, chairman of Ladbrokes, hailed the merger as a "major strategic step for Ladbrokes".
He added: "Together, we will create a leading betting and gaming business. The transaction will provide an attractive opportunity to generate considerable value for both sets of shareholders."
The best way at looking at the challenges facing the merged betting giant of Ladbrokes and Coral is that they have tried to merge before.
In 1998 that planned deal was squashed by Peter Mandelson, the trade and industry minister at the time, on the grounds that it would dominate the industry. Yet at that time the biggest threat to Ladbrokes and Coral did not even exist.
Betfair is the world's largest internet-based betting exchange and it was not founded until 2000.
It is only one of a huge number of online betting companies that pay lower tax bills, can compete for business both here and around the world and face few of the fixed costs of owning thousands of shops on the British High Street.
The rationale behind this merger is to create a company that will stand a better chance of competing with those online giants.
To fund the deal Ladbrokes will offer 93 million new shares to investors, representing 10% of the company.
Gala Coral has been owned by a number of private equity firms, including Apollo Global Management, Cerberus Capital Management, Anchorage Capital Partners and Park Square Capital, since 2010, when it collapsed under £2.5bn of debt.
Under the terms of the deal, those private equity owners will own 48.25% of the new company's shares, with the remainder being held by Ladbrokes shareholders.
Ladbrokes shares closed down 3.3% at 124.1p.
Before the merger talks began, Gala Coral had appointed Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to advise on a possible stock market debut, initially planned for October.
The deal comes just over a week after online bookmaker 888 Holdings won a takeover battle with GVC Holdings for rival Bwin.party in a cash and shares deal valued at about £898m.


Police in India have broken up a criminal network accused of using water tankers to steal millions of litres of crude oil from the country's biggest onshore field in Rajasthan.

The investigation centres on the Cairn India oilfield in Barmer district and 25 people have been arrested.
Fifty million litres of oil were stolen over a six-year period and sold to two local factories, according to police.
Estimates suggest the crude taken could be worth more than $7m (Â£5.3m).
District police chief Gangandeep Singla told AFP news agency that dozens more arrests could follow.
"The company suspected something fishy was happening and complained to us, and during investigations we found this was an organised ring," he said.
Tankers are used to take waste water from the oilfield. But those involved in the theft were filling two of the five compartments in each tanker with crude, the Hindustan Times reports.
Thirty-nine tankers were used for the theft and 33 have been seized, the paper quotes police as saying. The local factories are alleged to have sold the oil on across India for diesel production and road construction.
Police are looking into allegations that some local staff co-operated with the network.
Cairn India merged last April with Vedanta Resources, a British mining giant.


A special court in the western Indian state of Gujarat has found 31 people guilty of setting fire to a passenger train in the town of Godhra in 2002.

The court acquitted 63 other people of conspiracy and murder.
The Sabarmati Express was attacked by a Muslim mob killing 59 people, mainly Hindu pilgrims.
The attack led to some of the worst riots seen in India and left more than 1,000 people, mainly Muslims, dead.
Gujarat's authorities were criticised for not doing enough to stop the riots.
Those convicted will be sentenced on Friday.  Security is tight across Gujarat and extra police have been deployed in case of communal unrest. All of those accused and convicted were Muslim.
By Soutik BiswasBBC News, Delhi
The Godhra train fire has been a matter of dispute between the Congress party and Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Investigations ordered by governments led by the two parties have contradicted each other on the cause of the fire. The BJP says it has been vindicated by the court's decision - it had always insisted that the fire was a result of a conspiracy by a Muslim mob.
Though the verdict is likely to be challenged in a higher court, many in India are appalled that the tragedy has been used to score political brownie points.
The attackers were said to have forced the train, carrying Hindu pilgrims from Ayodhya, to stop and then set fire to one of the carriages.
"The court has accepted the conspiracy theory. It was not an accident,"  public prosecutor JM Panchal is quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.
Whether or not there was a conspiracy to set the train ablaze or whether it was a spontaneous fire has long been the subject of dispute.
An inquiry commission set up by the state government said in 2008 that the burning of the train was a "conspiracy".
It examined more than 1,000 witnesses during a six-year period, found that 140 litres of petrol had been purchased as part of what it said had been a conspiracy to burn the train carriage.
That commission also exonerated Gujarat's Chief Minister Narendra Modi over the deadly religious riots that followed the blaze.
He was accused of failing to halt the religious violence and some opponents said he indirectly encouraged some of the Hindu rioters.  But the commission dismissed these allegations.
"There is absolutely no evidence to show that either the chief minister or any of the ministers in his council or police officers played any role in the Godhra incident," Justice GT Nanavati had concluded in his report.
But Mr Modi was criticised in 2010 for his "partisan" stance by a separate Supreme Court panel which investigated the riots.
It said he showed "discriminatory attitude by not visiting riot-affected areas in Ahmedabad where a large number of Muslims were killed,"  according to Tehelka magazine and AFP news agency.
The inquiry commission's findings contradicted an earlier probe by retired Supreme Court judge Umesh Chandra Banerjee, who found that the coach fire was not deliberately started.
He concluded in 2005 that the fire began by accident.
He said there was evidence to suggest the blaze began inside the train and that it was not fire-bombed.


There has been a further decline in the number of NHS patients who begin treatment 18 weeks after referral, figures have shown.

Figures up to the 31 December 2016 show 83.8% of patients started treatment within 18 weeks - a fall from 87.1% in December 2015.
The Scottish government's waiting time target is for 90% of patients to start treatment within that timeframe.
Opposition parties have criticised the government for the missed targets.
But the Scottish government said it was investing in long-term reform of the NHS with additional funding for outpatient services, improving specialist surgery and treatment, and allowing people to be cared for in the community for longer.
There has been a steady decline since 2011 and the 90% target has not been met since June 2014.
The figures also show a decline in the number of patients getting new outpatient appointments within 12 weeks.
The Scottish Conservatives' health spokesman Donald Cameron said: "This is all on the SNP's watch and it has to explain the disastrous slump in these crucial waiting times, given it's been running the NHS for almost a decade."
Scottish Labour said the SNP was "sleepwalking into an NHS crisis".
But the Scottish government said it was investing in long-term reform of the NHS with additional funding for outpatient services, improving specialist surgery and treatment, and allowing people to be cared for in the community for longer.
Health Secretary Shona Robison said: "We're investing substantially in social care and community care, with a view to keeping people healthy at home for as long as possible.
"This will, in time, help prevent the need for many people to go to hospital.
"These changes won't happen overnight but they are part of a clear, long-term strategy of matching increased investment in our NHS with reform to ensure our health service is providing care to the people of Scotland long into the future."


Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth are five shots off Branden Grace's lead after day one of the WGC-HSBC Champions.

South African Grace's nine-under 63 gave him a one-shot lead over three players in Shanghai, while USA's Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reed and England's Danny Willett are two back.
McIlroy played despite struggling this week with food poisoning.
"It was probably a little better than I was expecting out there to be honest," the world number three said.
"When I was hitting balls this morning on the range I had not been out of bed for basically 48 hours, so I was really stiff," added the 26-year-old Northern Irishman.
"I needed to loosen up quite a lot, but when I got out there I felt pretty good.
"I've lost 10 pounds since being here. I can't remember the last time I was this light. But hopefully if I have a couple of good meals over the next couple days and rehydrate and I'll be feeling a lot better."
Willett, 28, is still hopeful of pipping overall leader McIlroy in the European Tour's Race to Dubai rankings.
The Englishman was disappointed to drop his only shot of the day on the ninth - his final hole - but delighted to still be in contention to end the year as European number one.
"I've not dropped out of the top two on the Order of Merit all year," said Willett.
"I don't think he [McIlroy] is playing next week and if you can be within touching distance going into Dubai, Dubai could be pretty interesting."
Masters and US Open champion Spieth will replace the absent Jason Day as world number one with a top-10 finish.
The Shanghai event is the second of the season-ending Final Series quartet.
The top 60 in the Race to Dubai rankings are then eligible to compete in the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai from 19-22 November.


A Danish security company has detected an attempt to spread a powerful form of Android malware via text messages.

Mazar can gain administrator rights on phones, allowing it to wipe handsets, make calls or read texts.
However, it will not install on phones where the language is set to Russian.
Additionally, users would have to have unchecked a default setting on Android devices that ensures software may only be installed from trusted sources.
Security firm Heimdal thinks the malicious texts could have been sent to over 100,000 phones in Denmark, though it is not sure whether users in other countries may have received the messages.
This is believed to be the first time Mazar has been detected in widespread, real world attacks.
In the examples studied by Heimdal, users receive an innocuous-looking text providing a link to what looks like a multimedia message.
This link downloads Tor software, which enables anonymous internet connections, to the phone.
Afterwards, the malware itself is downloaded through Tor in an apparent effort to hide the source of the malicious software itself.
One interesting feature of Mazar is that it cannot be installed on smartphones running Android with "Russian" selected as the operating system's language.
Similar controls have been detected in PC malware in the past, according to Morten Kjaersgaard, chief executive of Heimdal.
Infected phones are at risk from a range of threats - from attackers secretly monitoring devices to reading a user's texts or even erasing all personal data from the handset.
Or, the attacker could simply send a lot of texts to premium numbers.
"It can do a lot of damage - maybe running up a big phone bill for which the customer would be liable," Mr Kjaersgaard told the BBC.
"It's not like when you use your credit card and there's an international standard for banks covering [fraud]."
Heimdal tested phones running Android Kitkat (version 4.4) but Mr Kjaersgaard believes the issue is likely to affect all prior versions as well.
Later versions of the operating system have not been tested.
The advice to users is to never tap on web links in text messages from unfamiliar phone numbers and to be cautious of links even if the message appears to be from a known contact since sometimes this can be spoofed.
"Over one billion devices are protected with Google Play which conducts 200 million security scans of devices per day," a Google spokeswoman said.
"Fewer than 1% of Android devices had a Potentially Harmful App installed in 2014, and fewer than 0.15% of devices that only install from Google Play had a Potentially Harmful App installed," she added.


Nigeria's civil war began in 1967 after Biafra declared independence from the rest of the country.

10 August 2015 Last updated at 18:30 BST
In this film from 1969, Biafra's leader Colonel Emeka Ojukwu talks about how Biafran soldiers "have turned the tide of this war", but a year later his army was defeated.
Archive from the Associated Press news agency and British Movietone


Office construction in Birmingham is at its highest level in more than 13 years, a report has said.

The 969,000 sq ft (90,000 sq m) of space being built was "considerably above" the 10-year average of 384,000 sq ft (35,675 sq m), Deloitte said.
Of space under construction, 32% was already let.
Deloitte said from a low of 14,000 sq ft (1,300 sq m) of office construction in its 2013 Crane Survey it was clear "developer confidence has returned".
Updates on this story and more from Birmingham
It said the latest figure was the highest since it began its surveys in Birmingham.
Six new office starts have been recorded this time, which was the most seen in one such report, it said.
After last year's encouraging foreign investment figures showing Birmingham as one of the top places to invest, now comes the Deloitte Birmingham Crane Survey showing development is moving up a gear.
Across the city buildings are either being refurbished, or derelict sites are being developed from scratch.
Lower living costs are tempting more and more people to live in Birmingham and that's making relocation decisions by major companies much easier.
Add into the mix improvements in transport - including at the airport - more Metro lines and the proposed High Speed Two line and it's not difficult to see why Birmingham is now so attractive.
Deloitte said in previous years it had seen "a propensity to develop schemes in... Edgbaston, Digbeth and the Jewellery Quarter" but construction of new space was now more concentrated in the city centre.
More than 690 hotel rooms were being built across three schemes "after a hiatus of hotel development across the city in 2014," it said.
The report said although there was one new residential development of 600 homes, "the delivery of new residential units within the city has been below the 10-year average consistently since 2009".
It also said that, after two years, development of student accommodation had returned to the city centre, with one new project of 650 bed spaces being constructed off the A47 Jennens Road serving Birmingham City University.
Deloitte said its "clients, which cover occupiers, developers, construction firms and local authorities, see the survey as a barometer of developer sentiment and future supply".
It said the first London Crane Survey was published in 1996 and it was now seen "as a flagship industry report".
The research for the latest Birmingham report took place during late September and early October last year.


An ancient creature halfway between a dinosaur and a bird had feathered "trousers" on its hindlimbs.

Archaeopteryx had pennaceous (quill-like) feathers all over its body, not only its wings, a new fossil - only the 11th of the creature found - reveals.
These "trousers" were probably used for display, say scientists from Germany, writing in Nature journal.
Their discovery adds weight to the theory that feathers originally evolved for purposes other than flight.
Archaeopteryx caused a major stir when the first fossil was unearthed in Germany in 1861 - just two years after Charles Darwin published On The Origin of Species.
With the claws and teeth of a dinosaur, but the feathers of a bird, it was clearly a transitional form - apparent proof of Darwin's theory.
Its German name "Urvogel" means "first bird".
And though earlier bird-like dinosaurs have been unearthed since, many scientists still believe Archaeopteryx was the first capable of "flight" as we know it today.
The 11th fossil specimen was announced in 2011 and is remarkably well preserved, with detailed impressions of feathers all over its skeleton. The feathers are long and symmetrical on its upper leg and shorter lower down.
Previous specimens had shown some evidence of feathered hind legs but this "completes the picture", according to Dr Oliver Rauhut and colleagues at the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology and Geology.
These "trousers", as he describes them, may have been used for display, camouflage, insulation, brooding and manoeuvring while on the ground.
Explore the half bird, half dinosaur features of Archaeopteryx.
Discover more about the fossil that changed everything.
Watch presenter Ben Garrod explain why modern birds are the legacy of the dinosaurs.
They were not primarily designed for flight but might have helped steady the bird during landing, similar to the hindlimb feathers of hawks, eagles and other modern raptors.
The wing feathers of the new specimen show robust shafts - further evidence that the "first bird" really could fly.
Recent studies assuming limited flight ability in Archaeopteryx "might be in error owing to the poorer preservation quality of the feathers," said Dr Rauhut.
"I'm pretty sure it could fly. Though of course there is still a debate about how well it could fly," he told BBC News.
The trousers are also a new clue to the mystery of how flight evolved in modern birds.
Traditionally it was thought that feathers and flight evolved hand in hand.
But the wide variation of plumages in early birds and feathered dinosaurs suggests that feathers first arose for a different purpose, said Dr Rauhut.
"Given the great diversity of pennaceous feathers found within different body regions and across the phylogeny, it seems plausible that the evolution of this feather type (especially in the wing, hindlimbs and tail) was primarily driven by display functions," he wrote in Nature.
Only later were these feathers recruited for flight - which may have arisen many times in parallel in different feathered species, he said.


A coroner has unexpectedly adjourned an inquest into the death of a baby and is considering whether to call for a criminal investigation.

The Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust (RUH) may have perverted the course of justice, coroner Maria Voisin heard.
It emerged lawyers for the trust had removed crucial evidence from a witness statement.
Benjamin King, son of British actor Jamie King, died on 10 May at the RUH.
The hospital has offered its condolences to Benjamin's family.
Ms Voisin, the coroner for Avon, said "the realisation that factual evidence had been removed by a solicitor" was a "very serious matter indeed".
The inquest into the death of Benjamin is now due to resume early next year.
Benjamin was born - by emergency caesarean section - on the 5 May at the RUH.
He died five days later from severe brain damage having been starved of oxygen, it's thought shortly before his birth.
His mother Tamara Podemski, a Canadian actress, had been due to have a caesarean procedure at the hospital the previous day but it had been postponed.
An investigation into the incident, found that postponing the operation was the incorrect decision.
Speaking shortly after the inquest adjournment, Mr King said: "In his short life our son Benjamin has had a profound effect on our family.
"He's taught us the true meaning of love, he asked us to be most courageous, resilient and forgiving versions of ourselves."
He added the family was "horrified" to hear a statement had been altered and the delay to the inquest was "significantly prolonging" the family's suffering.
In a statement Helen Blanchard, director of nursing and midwifery for the RUH, offered her "sympathy and condolences" to Benjamin's family.
"We regret the delay in this extremely distressing process," she said.
"We respect the Coroner's decision to adjourn the inquest and will cooperate fully with her directions.
"We are unable to comment further while proceedings continue."
The inquest is now expected to take place on 16 January.


Theresa May has said she wants to lead the Conservatives into the next general election, telling the BBC she intends to remain in power "for the long term".

Speaking in Japan, the PM said her job was not just to deliver Brexit but to define the UK's place in the world and also to tackle domestic "injustices".
Some reports had suggested she could stand down in 2019 after EU withdrawal.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson gave Mrs May his "undivided backing", but Labour accused her of being delusional.
The prime minister has been under pressure after losing her Commons majority in a snap election called earlier this year.
Mr Johnson, speaking on a visit to Nigeria, said she could "certainly" win an absolute majority at the next general election.
But shadow Cabinet Office minister Jon Trickett said the prime minister was "deluding herself" about her plan to stay in power until the next election.
"Neither the public nor Tory MPs believe her fantasy of staying on till 2022," he said.
"Theresa May leads a zombie government."
The next general election is not scheduled to take place until May 2022, by which point Mrs May - if she stayed in Downing Street - would have been PM for nearly six years.
In the immediate aftermath of her party's failure to win June's general election outright, several MPs called on her to consider her position.
Former Chancellor George Osborne, who has become a newspaper editor after being sacked by Mrs May, said she was a "dead woman walking".
The PM has sought to consolidate her position by negotiating a governing agreement with the Democratic Unionists and overhauling the way Downing Street works, replacing key advisers.
But this has not stopped speculation about how long she might remain in No 10 and about potential successors, although one cabinet minister earlier this summer blamed such talk on too much "warm prosecco".
Asked whether she wanted to lead her party into another general election, whenever that takes place, the prime minister told the BBC's Ben Wright in Kyoto that that was her intention.
"Yes, I'm here for the long term. What me and my government are about is not just delivering on Brexit but delivering a brighter future for the UK.
She said she wanted to ensure "global Britain" could take its trading place in the world, as well as dealing with "those injustices domestically that we need to do to ensure that strong, more global, but also fairer Britain for the future"
The prime minister faces a crucial few months with a number of tests of her authority within the party, including her second conference speech as party leader in October and key Brexit votes in the Commons.
Newspapers reports over the weekend claimed Mrs May had told MPs that she intended to stand down in the summer of 2019 to give her successor ample time to bed in before the next election.
No 10 dismissed the reports as "peak silly season".
Mr Johnson, who received public backing from Mrs May after recent criticism of his performance, said: "I've made it clear I'm giving my undivided backing to Theresa May.
"We need to get Brexit done.
"She's ideally placed to deliver a great outcome for our country and then deliver what we all want to see, which is this exciting agenda of global Britain.
"I think she gets it.  She really wants to deliver it.  I'm here to support her."
The UK is due to leave the EU in March 2019 and supporters of Mrs May have said leadership speculation only serves to undermine attempts to secure the best possible terms of exit.
On the second day of her trip to Japan, Mrs May will hold official talks with her counterpart Shinzo Abe and emphasise the growing security links between the two countries.


A 41-year-old has been charged with the murder of a man found stabbed to death in his home.

Tony Fisher's body was found by his son in Coningswath Road, Carlton, Nottingham on 9 January.
Marcus Barton, of Raymede Drive, Bestwood, has charged with murder and will appear before city magistrates on Monday.
The 58-year-old's home had been burgled and police are keen to speak to anyone who was in the area on the 8 January.
Mr Barton also goes by the name Marcus Pegg.
Twelve other people arrested in connection with Mr Fisher's death remain on police bail.


Ex-footballers Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs's £200m plans to redevelop part of central Manchester have been revised.

A public consultation has opened on the new proposals, which include a single tower rather than two skyscrapers, for the Jackson's Row area of the city.
The former Manchester United stars put the project on hold following criticism from conservationists.
Historic England said the plan was "getting there".
The revised proposals had the potential to "enhance" the area's character "rather than dominate it", it said.
The public body said the previous scheme threatened to "erase" the area's history.
The St Michael's development plan includes a five-star hotel, apartments, offices and a synagogue.
Neville said the scheme would make a "significant contribution" to the growth of Manchester city centre and create 1,500 jobs.
He said they had not shied away from the "passionate debate" on the original proposals and addressed the issues raised "head-on".
"At the same time, we have kept faith with our central vision of creating a true mixed-use destination with a signature development of the highest quality including residential living, Grade A offices, a five-star hotel, exciting retail and leisure units and world-class outdoor spaces," he said.
Work could start by spring or early summer 2018, subject to planning approval, he added.
The plans still include a new synagogue and a public square outside the Sir Ralph Abercromby, the developers said.
Catherine Dewar, from Historic England, said: "The new masterplan still needs work but it's getting there.
"The new proposals... have the potential to enhance the character of the Deansgate/Peter Street conservation area, rather than dominate it, as the previous scheme threatened."
Ms Dewar said the change to the plan for a single tower further away from the town hall and twisted around would have much less impact on the Grade II-listed Central Library, Grade I-listed Town Hall and Grade I-listed St. Ann's Church.
The former police headquarters and the Sir Ralph Abercromby pub "have soul and tell important stories about our city's past", she added.


Newport County have confirmed they will play football at Rodney Parade from next season.

The Blue Square Bet Premier side have struck a three-year-deal to move to the home of Newport Gwent Dragons regional rugby side and Newport Rugby Club.
"This is huge for Newport County Football Club and for the town," said Newport County chairman Chris Blight.
Blight revealed that County had negotiated a break-clause which allowed them to move back to Spytty Park.
"The fact it has all come together after several months of trying to do so is really a feather in everybody's caps," said Blight.
"We have three institutions here - we have got Newport Rugby Club, with a regional side as tenants and now Newport County.
"There are plenty of examples around the country where two clubs are playing in a ground, but here we have three."
It doesn't really matter which game is being watched whether it is rugby or football
Blight had called County's Spytty Park pitch "not fit for purpose" and wanted to move to the home of Newport Gwent Dragons and Newport rugby teams.
He admitted the three sporting teams had struck a unique deal to play at the same 11,000-capacity venue for at least the next three years but hopes to make Rodney Parade a permanent home.
The football club has the safety net of an agreement with Newport City Council, which owns Spytty Park, to return to their former ground for the 2013-14 season if the groundshare does not work out.
"There is a rugby club with a stand which needs bums on seats," said Blight.
"You want to fill that stand as often as you can, it doesn't really matter which game is being watched whether it is rugby or football.
"They need a turnover to go through the club and it is a beautiful stand and I am sure it would be a great shame if it wasn't full on more occassions.
The Rodney Parade pitch has had its own problems and the Dragons have been punished by LV= Cup organisers for calling off their game with Saracens because of a frozen pitch, while flooding has also affected the playing surface this season.
But County have been forced to rearrange a number of home games as their pitch has struggled to cope with the inclement weather.
Spytty Park is owned and operated by Newport City Council and is also home to Welsh League side Llanwern and Newport Harriers Athletics Club.


"The Scottish play" - as William Shakespeare's  Macbeth is known among actors - has become "the Scottish film" starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard as the infamous couple who murder their way to the throne of Scotland.

But the movie, directed by Australian Justin Kurzel and which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this weekend, has a new interpretation of Shakespeare's tragic hero and why he sets out on his doomed path to power.
"He's suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder," claims Michael Fassbender. "I'm aware that it's a completely modern interpretation of his actions and it's only now we know what the condition is, we were just as puzzled by soldiers returning from World War One with PTSD, society didn't know what to do with them.
"I had never thought of Macbeth in that way, but Justin nudged me and said, 'it's obvious, isn't it' and it fell into place. It's actually in the text, in the banquet scene, where he sees the ghost of Banquo, Lady Macbeth has to step in and say, 'he's known to have these bouts and fits.'
"To me it all makes sense - you can't be away at war, all the time, killing people, you don't see your wife, it's in the text that they've lost at least one child, and it was the key to Macbeth for me - I understood his hallucinations, the erratic behaviour, the fits of madness. Strange how Shakespeare understood post-traumatic stress too.
"And to counter-balance it, I see Lady Macbeth not as the ambitious and power-hungry villainess of history, but someone who is desperately trying to reconnect with her husband and thinks that perhaps if they carry out this enormous act of murder together, it will reconnect them. I find it a more interesting theory than the power-crazy woman. It's less about power and more about filling a void."
Macbeth has been adapted several times for TV and film, including by Orson Welles in 1948, when Welles starred in the title role, and most famously, by Roman Polanski in 1971, months after the murder of his wife, Sharon Tate, at the hands of Charles Manson's gang.
This may have set the seal on the traditional superstition among actors that mentioning the name Macbeth is unlucky; Fassbender refers to it by "that name" and says that "strange things" happened among the crew during shooting.
"It very quickly became 'the Scottish play' for us, " he says. "But the worst luck we had was the weather. That was terrible."
Justin Kurzel, who made his directing debut in 2011 with independent hit The Snowtown murders, adds that there was "a supernatural element to filming in Skye in January, it seemed to be a place where spirits walk".
"We just wanted a very traditional Macbeth - one that would fit in 11th Century Scotland, not a modern re-imagining of it, set in New York or London, so that's where we went - and it poured down nearly every day of the shoot. I'm amazed the crew didn't desert us, having to carry equipment up and down the mountains every day, and these poor extras just standing in the rain in their wool costumes.
"However unlucky it might be though, we're all reuniting - myself, Marion and Michael - for the film Assassin's Creed next year, so it can't have put us off that much."
French actress Marion Cotillard, who won an Oscar for her performance in La Vie En Rose in 2007, believed that "one day I would play Lady Macbeth, but I thought in French, and maybe on the stage."
She was not asked to find a Scottish accent for the role, "because it gives Lady Macbeth a sense of otherness, of being an outsider. Being asked to work on delivering the original verse in English - that was the most challenging aspect of it for me."
Even Fassbender, who was nominated for an Oscar for his part in Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave, said he was "daunted" by the thought of performing Shakespeare.
"But we were all afraid," he adds. "Me at the thought of playing a Shakespearian hero, Marion at tackling the English verses, and Justin because it was his first big feature film. The tension that created actually helped the shoot.
"I don't feel I have to do Shakespeare or anything just because I'm an actor," he qualifies, "but he's inherent in our culture and I just felt privileged at the thought of getting asked to do it. His language and his complexity - that's why he survives, there are so many avenues of interpretation to go down.
"I think it might be time for me to do something on stage soon, in a few years perhaps, but that's not necessarily going to be Shakespeare. I would like to though. I know that so many teenagers are forced to do Shakespeare for their English exams, and Macbeth is always a big favourite.
"So that's almost why I decided to do it - I hope 15 or 16 year olds are going to see it one day, and relate to Macbeth in a way they hadn't before, and see him and his wife as real people."


Pharmaceutical development company Catalent Pharma Solutions has announced plans to create up to 60 new jobs at its West Lothian site.

The firm's Bathgate facility produces, packages, stores and distributes patient kits for clinical trials.
The new roles include warehouse logistics, distribution and packaging equipment operators.
Catalent said the move was in response to increased demand from both UK and global customers.
The jobs announcement comes as the company prepares to celebrate 20 years at its Bathgate base, where it currently employs 220 people.
General manager Angela Cassidy said: "Our Bathgate facility plays a key role in Catalent's global network and we are proud of the work we do in helping important medicines reach patients.
"Catalent's commitment to the site is reflected in the significant investment and expansion that has taken place over the last two decades, including around Â£500,000 invested in the last year alone."
The Bathgate site, which was originally purpose-built as a clinical packaging and logistics facility, was officially opened in 1997.
A 20th anniversary celebration is being planned for later in the year to recognise the site's "past, present and future contributions to the development of new medications".


EU standards on the environment and public health risk being undermined by compromises with the US, Greenpeace has warned, citing leaked documents.

The environmental group obtained 248 pages of classified documents from the TTIP trade talks, aimed at clinching a far-reaching EU-US free trade deal.
Secrecy surrounding the talks has fuelled fears that US corporations may erode Europe's consumer protections.
But the EU's top trade official denied any agenda to lower EU standards.
"I am simply not in the business of lowering standards," said EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem in her blog, after the Greenpeace leak was published.
TTIP's supporters say a deal would create many new business opportunities.
TTIP stands for Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. It would harmonise regulations across a huge range of business sectors, providing a boost to exporters on both sides of the Atlantic.
The 13th TTIP negotiating round took place last week and the European Commission says it hopes to achieve a deal later this year. That could avoid any political risk posed by the US presidential election in November.
The EU's chief negotiator, Ignacio Garcia Bercero, said some of Greenpeace's points were "flatly wrong", and stressed that the leaked text "is not a reflection of the outcome of the negotiation".
Mr Bercero said "it is not correct to say the US is pushing for lowering of the level of protection in the EU".
Greenpeace Netherlands says it obtained classified documents covering two-thirds of the areas discussed.
"These leaked documents confirm what we have been saying for a long time: TTIP would put corporations at the centre of policy-making, to the detriment of environment and public health," said Greenpeace EU director Jorgo Riss.
"We have known that the EU position was bad, now we see the US position is even worse."
Greenpeace says the texts reveal that the US wants to replace the EU's "precautionary principle" for potentially harmful products with the less strict US approach, which aims to manage risks rather than avoid them altogether.
The precautionary principle can force a manufacturer to prove the absence of danger from a product.
It applies, for example, to genetically modified organisms (GMOs), whose possible risks to the ecosystem and the food chain are hotly debated.
The US permits cultivation of more than 170 GM plants, whereas only one type - a maize variety - is approved for commercial cultivation in the EU.
Mr Bercero denied any intention to weaken the precautionary principle.
Greenpeace says the TTIP texts do not refer to the global commitment to cut CO2 emissions, as agreed at the Paris Summit on global warming. Yet the European Commission had pledged to make environmental sustainability part of any TTIP deal.
There is also widespread concern in the EU about the role of commercial arbitration courts, independent of national courts, where firms can sue governments.
It is one of the thorniest issues in the TTIP talks.
There are fears that big US corporations could put excessive legal pressure on some EU states. The threat of being sued could have a "chilling" effect on legislators, forcing them to water down welfare protections, critics argue.
The Commission and many politicians argue that TTIP would bring major benefits for the US and Europe.
Last week US President Barack Obama and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel called jointly for a TTIP deal to be concluded this year. However, thousands of protesters turned out in Hanover in a rally against the deal.
A final TTIP text would require approval by all 28 EU governments and the European Parliament.
A study by the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) estimated the potential gains for the EU as up to €119bn (£94bn; $137bn) a year and €95bn for the US.
The EU's chief negotiator said the 13th round of talks covered 97% of current tariff barriers, which cost EU exporters more than €3.5bn annually.
But Mr Bercero added that "there is still a lot of work to be done".
They were very far from agreement on public procurement, he explained. The EU wants US authorities to give European companies much more market access to compete for public contracts.
Among other tough issues, he said, were: the beef market, the services sector and the EU's protected geographical labels, such as Champagne and Gorgonzola.


Ewan McGregor has directed his first feature film - an adaptation of Philip Roth's 1997 novel American Pastoral - and insists you do not have to be American to tell an all-American story.

American Pastoral tells of a family living in America in the boom years that followed the end of World War Two.
Its hero is one Seymour "The Swede" Levov, a high-school athlete and all-round golden boy who marries a beauty queen and sets up home with her in rural New Jersey.
The couple, who are soon joined by a daughter called Merry, appear to be living the American dream. But cracks appear when Merry grows up to be a teenage radical fiercely opposed to the Vietnam War.
From here the film - based on Philip Roth's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel - takes a violent turn that leaves the illusions that underpin both The Swede's life and that of his wife Dawn in tattered disarray.
With its detailed focus on the profound changes that rocked American life in the latter half of the 20th Century, Roth's novel offers formidable challenges to any film-maker who might choose to adapt it.
One might well wonder, then, why the Perth-born, Crieff-raised McGregor picked the project for his feature directorial debut.
"It sort of chose me in a way," says the actor, who also stars in the film alongside Jennifer Connelly, who plays Dawn, Dakota Fanning, who is the grown-up Merry, and David Strathairn as the story's narrator.
"I wasn't asked to do it, I asked to do it. I wanted to play The Swede, and when I felt the opportunity might be slipping away I suggested myself as the director."
McGregor was attached to the project for some years before the director's chair became vacant - long enough, he says, to feel he was up to filling it.
It was, says Jennifer Connelly, just what the film needed. "Ewan was very bold and confident in the choices he made," she declares. "He clearly has a lot of experience on film sets and felt very much at home.
"Everyone loved working with Ewan. He's gracious, kind and supportive and he collaborates with the cast and crew in a very meaningful way.
"I was attached to the film many years ago in a different iteration and I was very excited when it all came back together."
Having spent more than two decades as an actor, McGregor is indeed no stranger to film sets - or to directing, having previously made a short film, Bone, in 1999.
"I've been on sets for 25 years and I've learned what works and what doesn't work for me," he says. "I didn't want to mirror anybody, but I thought I could only direct in the way I like to be directed."
McGregor, meanwhile, only has to bring up the example of frequent collaborator Danny Boyle to bat away suggestions that, as a Scot, he might be in any way unsuitable to film such an all-American story.
"Danny's a northerner and he made Trainspotting, one of the most Scottish films of all time!" he laughs.
"I don't think nationality should matter really. As artists, it doesn't define or confine us."
The mention of Trainspotting is a timely one, as McGregor recently reteamed with Boyle and the rest of the film's cast to shoot a long-awaited sequel.
The actor says he enjoyed working once more with the Oscar-winning director, with whom he clashed over 2000 film The Beach.
Having made three films with Boyle - Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and A Life Less Ordinary - McGregor had hoped to be cast as The Beach's lead, but was passed over in favour of Leonardo DiCaprio.
"Danny and I did have a falling out and we didn't have any interaction for many years, which I regret," McGregor admits.
"But it was great to be back with him and we totally picked up where we left off."
T2: Trainspotting is one of a number of films the 45-year-old has in the can or in the works, with others including Disney's live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast.
Ewan will be heard with a French accent as Lumiere, the talking candlestick voiced by the late Jerry Orbach in the film's 1991 animated predecessor.
In the long term, though, a return to television may be on the cards - starting with the third series of Fargo, in which he will portray twin brothers Emmit and Ray Stussy.
It was television, of course, where the actor got his big break, playing a singing interpreter in the Dennis Potter drama Lipstick On Your Collar.
After Trainspotting, McGregor went on to appear in such big-budget productions as Moulin Rouge!, The Island and George Lucas's Star Wars prequels.
More often than not, though, he has been seen in movies like American Pastoral - modestly-budgeted, adult-themed dramas, which he says are increasingly at risk in today's blockbuster-dominated marketplace.
"The mid-budget, character-based drama in which I mainly lived is the area that seems to have taken the biggest kicking of late," he sighs.
"That sort of world is seeping more into television. To get an opportunity to play this kind of drama on film is sadly getting rarer and rarer."
For Connelly, American Pastoral offered the chance to tell "the story of a family who seem to have everything going their way, and then everything gets derailed".
"I thought the story was very compelling, and I was also interested in the larger philosophical questions it raises," she says.
How the film will fare at the UK box office, or during the upcoming film awards season, remains to be seen. As far as McGregor is concerned, though, the film is everything he hoped for.
"There are always moments here or there, but when I watched the final version I felt it was the film I wanted to make," he says.
"I was never compromised or forced to cut a scene I liked. What you see is my intention."
American Pastoral is out in the UK and Ireland on 11 November. Ewan McGregor and Jennifer Connelly were speaking at the 12th Zurich Film Festival.
Follow us on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, on Instagram at bbcnewsents, or if you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.


Counter-terror police in Edinburgh are carrying out a major investigation into fears a Kurdish rebel group is being financed from the city.

Officers are investigating claims a number of individuals have been linked to the financing of Kurdish militia.
The probe is reportedly being centred on the PKK, known as the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is based in Turkey and Iraq.
Police said they have carried out a number of raids as part of the inquiry.
The investigation is examining allegations of fraud and immigration offences.
The PKK has led an armed struggle against the Turkish government on and off for the past 30 years and is considered a terrorist organisation by the UK.
A senior anti-terror officer has reassured the Scottish public that no-one was in danger at any time.
Det Ch Sup Gerry McLean, head of the Organised Crime and Counter Terrorism Unit, said: "As part of a police investigation along with partner agencies, we executed a number of search warrants in relation to financial investigation and suspected fraud.
"Matters have now been reported to the procurator fiscal, and as such it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.
"I would like to reassure the public that there was no danger to them at any time."
The Herald newspaper reported on Saturday that a formal written briefing has been issued by Police Scotland to the Scottish Police Authority, outlining the investigation so far.
The letter states: "Elite organised crime and the counter terrorism units are leading a multi-agency investigation into individuals assessed to be fundraising for a proscribed terrorist organisation.
"Executive action in collaboration with several partnership agencies was conducted in the east of Scotland.
"Locations were searched under the Customs and Excise Management Act, Common Law Fraud and the Terrorism Act.
"Subsequent investigation identified additional immigration act offences, with a significant sum of money potentially eligible for Proceeds of Crime Act confiscation.
"This operation has provided investigative opportunities to allow continued collaboration with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, Trading Standards and Home Office Immigration Enforcement."
A report has now been sent to the procurator fiscal to assess whether to charge the individuals identified by the police.


A fireman who owned the flat where five people died in a blaze has been jailed for 15 months.

Jay Liptrot, 43, from Prestatyn, Denbighshire, was on trial for manslaughter but the case was dropped after he admitted a lesser charge.
Lee-Anna Shiers, 20, Liam Timbrell, 23, their son Charlie, Ms Shiers' nephew Bailey, four, and niece Skye, two, died in his flat in Prestatyn in 2012.
He was sentenced at Caernarfon Crown Court on Friday.
Melanie Smith was jailed in 2013 for their murder after starting the fire in a row over Ms Shiers' pushchair, which was left in a shared hallway.
Landlord Liptrot denied manslaughter but admitted one count of failing to take general fire precautions, exposing people to risk, which the prosecution accepted after consulting the family of the victims.
The court heard he was one of the firefighters who "was at the forefront of brave efforts" to rescue the five from the flat after the blaze was started.
In a statement read in court, Steve Allen, who lost two children, his sister and nephew in the fire, said: "We hope Jay learns his lesson, not just for him but all landlords."
Ms Shiers' father Peter Shiers also read a statement which said: "That night was horrendous. But Jay has been a great guy to the family for 18 years. He's been an honest and loyal friend.
"We don't think he's to blame for the fire but was responsible for the safety measures."
Liptrot's defence barrister Gordon Cole said all of his client's other properties have now been brought up to the required safety standard but said he will never forget the events of that night.
Passing sentence, Mrs Justice McGowan said: "Jay Liptrot has generally been a good and conscientious landlord. However, his culpability must be categorised as high."
North Wales Fire and Rescue Service's chief fire officer Simon Smith said Liptrot would now be the subject of an internal investigation, adding a custodial sentence meant he "cannot continue as an employee".
"As a responsible employer whose priority is the safety of the public, it is of course of deep concern to us that an employee, as a landlord, failed to take precautions to ensure this property was safe which not only goes against legislation but also against the core values of our service," Mr Smith said.


Japanese shares fell as trading restarted after a three-day holiday, with shares in carmakers hit by the fallout from the VW emissions scandal.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed down 2.8% at 17,571.83.
Shares in car giants Toyota, Honda and Nissan all fell, as they followed the downward trend for the sector after the revelation that Volkswagen manipulated US diesel car emissions tests.
There are concerns the scandal will intensify scrutiny on all carmakers.
Sentiment was also hit by some downbeat manufacturing surveys. The preliminary Nikkei/Markit purchasing managers' index for Japan's manufacturing came in below expectations for September at 50.9.
Although a reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector, the reading was the lowest since June and down from August's figure of 51.7.
On Wednesday, a similar survey of Chinese factory activity recorded the lowest reading for six and a half years.
In China, the Shanghai Composite closed up 0.9% at 3,142.69, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 1% to 21,095.98.
The mainland market has stabilised in recent weeks after dropping more than 40% from its peak in mid-June.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 index ended up 1.5% at 5,071.70, while South Korea's Kospi index finished 0.1% higher at 1,947.10.
Markets in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore were closed for a public holiday.


They appeared on the tee in waves, mass ranks of people who wouldn't have dreamed of abandoning sleep to make it to Troon for the first ball being hit at 06:35 had it not been for the who was about to hit it - Colin Montgomerie.

Monty, aged 53 but still a man-child underneath it all. His first Open since 2010, his 22nd in all and maybe - probably - his last. On his home course too. The course he played as a young teenager. The one he knows every inch of.
He drew people to him as assuredly as the Pied Piper. He promised drama and he delivered. Again. We'd say that there has never been such a big crowd present for the first game of an Open Championship if it wasn't for the fact that none of us had much of a frame of reference.
There was a journalist standing to the right of that first tee who has been coming to the Open since 1962. Fifty four years and he couldn't recall when he'd last - or if he'd ever - made the effort to watch the first match going off. "You make the effort for Monty, though, don't you?" he said. "You don't want to miss that." You don't.
Monty's day finished with a battling level-par round of 71, but the bottom line tells you little of what happened to him out there. Stuff always happens to Monty. Good stuff, bad stuff. Stuff.
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Before he hit his approach to the first green, he was distracted by a cameraman unwrapping some tape from his equipment at the top of a nearby grandstand. "He wasn't aware of what was directly below him, which was me," said Monty.
Monty glared - as only he can. He put his shot into the greenside bunker and then glared again. Two strokes into his Open and there was already a scene.
How many times have we seen that glare? You could construct a top-50 and still some memorable moments would miss the cut. Everyone who has followed him over the years has their favourites, their Monty meltdowns that never get old or lose their capacity to make you laugh.
There was the time at the US Open at Oakmont in 2007 when a spectator, boozed-up and just about able to stand up, called out to Monty from behind the ropes.
The great man was in no mood for chat, not when he was in the midst of shooting 82 and certainly not with a guy who had a half-eaten burger in one hand - tomato sauce dribbling down his arm -  and a bottle of beer in the other. "Yaaay Monty," he hollered.  "It's all there baby!"
Monty stopped dead in his tracks, eyeballed the guy, darkly muttered 'What did he just say to me?' and then walked on shaking his head.
In the Monty annals, you have to add the 2008 USPGA at Oakland Hills.
He shot 84 that day. At one point, he thinned a wedge across a green. A lady, within his earshot, cried out: "Gee whizz, ain't that a kick in the ass!" As sure as night follows day, she knew the stare was coming. "Did I really say that out loud?" she whimpered. She did. Monty heard it. Monty didn't like it.
That's why he had an army of people with him at the crack of dawn on Thursday. For that reason and for others. His bunker shot on that first hole? It was an impossible job. He knew it the moment he saw his ball drop in there. He tried to get it out - and failed.
"No-one in the field would have got it out of there," he said. "It was buried right in the face. Horrendous. My first attempt hit one of the top rivets of the bunker and spun up and as soon as it came down it landed in my footprint. My footprint is bigger than most, so that's no good.
"I had a chat with Alastair [McLean, his caddie] and he didn't have anything at all. He was useless at that stage. We all were. I tell you, the best shot I hit, probably one of the best shots of my life, was the fourth out of the bunker."
He came out sideways and chipped and putted for a double-bogey six. His playing partners, Luke Donald and Marc Leishman, both birdied. Three down on the field after one hole - it wasn't meant to be like this.
We strapped ourselves in for an implosion, but instead we got a fightback. The front nine at Troon are the scoring holes. If you don't make merry on that stretch then you're doomed, such is the attritional nature of the journey coming in.
Monty gathered himself and birdied the third and the fourth. He was disturbed again on the tee at the sixth but birdied that one too. He came to the eighth, the famous 123-yard Postage Stamp, having undone all the damage from the opening hole.
He was one-under par and feeling good. With Monty, more than any other golfer possibly in history, you can tell how he's playing by the way he's walking.
He walked tall, threw his approach to the left of the flag on eight, his ball obediently missing the slope into a graveyard bunker and rolling kindly to seven feet. He rolled that one in, too. Birdie.
"Thank you, thank you," he said to the gallery. No stares now. No distractions. All he could see was fairways and greens. When he birdied the ninth, he got it to three-under. He looked at one of the giant leaderboards and there he was, right up the top.
"I had a quick look. I was number one on there. I thought, 'That's all right'."
Everybody says that the secret to Troon is to make your birdies early and then hang on for grim death from the brutish par four 11th flanked by whins on the left and the railway line on the right. Jack Nicklaus took 10 here in the 1962 Open. Monty took half that number but still dropped a shot.
He was having to scramble now. He made a 40-footer on 13 to save par then dropped another shot from the sand on 14 and another after driving way left on 15.
He was back to level par and needed to hole from 20ft on 18 to stay there. The putt dropped and Monty soared.
"I tell you what, a lot better players than me would have taken 71 after being two-over after the first hole. One of the easiest holes on the course, if not the easiest, and I'm two-over. So I'm proud of myself for hanging on because it was easy to score 78 there. Simple."
And Friday's second round? The aim remains the same. Make the cut, nothing more, nothing less. He knows what's coming, though. On Thursday, the weather was benign. On Friday, it's expected to be grim.
"This course hasn't shown any teeth yet," he said. "This is three out of 10. Friday we're talking seven or eight out of 10. It's going to be very different."
It was approaching 11:00 and Monty had somewhere he needed to be instead of yakking at the back of the 18th green. He said that a smell of bacon came wafting across the fairway out there on the seventh hole and he'd wished he could halt play and feed his face. That moment had now come.
"Just finished my opening round in the Open championship and I'm off to have my breakfast," he laughed.
He'd have ordered the full Monty, no doubt. He deserved it.


"I have made so many massive mistakes of ego, I can't tell you," says Nolan Bushnell leading the way into his crumbling office two floors above a slightly decrepit Los Angeles row of shops.

Inside the offices of Mr Bushnell's latest start-up - Brainrush - a handful of young men are eagerly banging away on keyboards late on a Saturday afternoon. Ego doesn't seem to be much in evidence here - at least yet.
While the firm, which was created in 2010, has grand ambitions to transform US education via games, Mr Bushnell remains best-known as the man behind a very different gaming enterprise - Atari.
Now 72, he co-founded Atari, one of the world's first video game companies, back in 1972. It introduced the concept of personal computing, albeit in game form, to millions of households around the world.
Mr Bushnell is also the man who was initially behind Chuck E Cheese's, the ubiquitous pizza and gaming restaurant chain that has been the site of many a US child's birthday party (this author included).
But despite all of those early successes - and actually, partly as a result of them - the crumbling office that Mr Bushnell now finds himself in is no deliberately shabby-chic LA decision.
After his breakout success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mr Bushnell made several missteps that eventually led to some entrepreneurial failures and financial ruin.
"When I was 35, I was insufferable. I thought I could do no wrong and I got really sloppy," he says.
Now, Mr Bushnell has a habit of referring to his own entrepreneurial journey as if it were a never-developed Atari game.
Mr Bushnell has been a serial entrepreneur from a young age.
He founded a television tube repair business as a teenager that was successful partly because he took advantage of his older customers' penchant to underestimate his technical prowess by undercharging them for his services - but overcharging them for parts.
Later, he worked at amusement parks while putting himself through university to get an electrical engineering degree.
He chalks the creation of Atari up to a bit of good luck: "I was probably the only electrical engineer that understood television, and understood the coin-operated game business [from the amusement park] in 1969," he says.
By combining the popularity of arcade games as well as the nascent personal computer industry, Mr Bushnell and his partner Ted Dabney found success with games such as Pong, Asteroids, and Centipede, which were played, initially, on the Atari 2600 console.
And unlike today's efforts - in which blood and gore in games is both the norm and a scourge - Mr Bushnell said the company believed firmly that it could be successful without resorting to murder.
"We felt that, you could blow up a tank, you could blow up a plane, but we didn't want violence against a human being," he says.
Mr Bushnell also emphasises that the popularity of Atari's games was primarily due to his ability to find and hire talented, creative workers, including one you may have heard of - Steve Jobs.
"I've always valued passionate employees over anything else, and, it turns out that there's a huge percentage of the population that are actually dead - they don't know it, but, in terms of their processes, they're just waiting to be buried," says Mr Bushnell.
But Mr Jobs, like a lot of his earlier employees, had passion and as a result, "was an extremely hard worker".
"He would sleep under his desk at night, and wake up in the morning ready to go," Mr Bushnell remembers.
That unfortunately did come with a bit of a downside: "I think part of the reason [Steve] smelled bad was 'cause he wouldn't necessarily go home every day."
When Mr Bushnell decided to sell Atari to Warner Brothers in 1976 for an estimated $30m (£19m), (a move intended to expand the firm's offerings, but one Mr Bushnell says he now regrets), he carved yet another path, becoming the first of a still-growing list of 20-something Silicon Valley millionaires.
"I want Jobs and [Bill] Gates and [Mark] Zuckerberg and all of these guys to thank me for blazing some of [those trails], because it was much easier once there were several notable successes from [people] in their twenties," he says.
But with that success came hubris.
By the mid 1980s, both Chuck E Cheese and Atari had basically imploded - as had Mr Bushnell's fortunes. Later efforts, including uWink, an entertainment complex featuring food and games as well as robotic assistants, failed to take off.
But Mr Bushnell remains undeterred, and says he still thinks he has another successful effort in him. He says he's taken inspiration from his children - some of whom have eschewed university in order to immediately start their own entrepreneurial endeavours.
"How many companies have you started by the time you're 18? If the answer's zero, I wouldn't invest in you," he says of their entrepreneurial verve.
He thinks that biotechnology and virtual reality will be game changers - in addition to his efforts to revolutionise schooling in the US by capitalising on research into cutting edge brain science in order to both personalise education and to make courses more adaptable.
He basically wants to make education as addictive as Atari's old video games.
"An interesting life can't be all violins and flowers," he says.
"When you lose a game of chess, you don't go and jump off a bridge,  you reset the pieces and do it again.
"It's a game!"


Plymouth Argyle have signed right-back Gary Miller after he turned down a new contract with Scottish Premiership club Partick Thistle earlier this month.

It is the second time Pilgrims boss Derek Adams has signed the 29-year-old, having brought him in at Ross County.
Miller has spent all of his career north of the border, also playing for St Johnstone, Ayr Utd and Livingston.
He is a fourth summer signing for the League Two club, after Yann Songo'o, Connor Smith and Ryan Donaldson.
Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page.


A man has been jailed for starting a blaze which caused £3.5m of damage to the thatched roof of a listed building.

Fire took hold in the Grade II house in Node Court, Codicote, Hertfordshire, the early hours of 12 July 2015.
Police said the blaze, which "ravaged" the roof, had been "the largest of its kind in the UK".
Joshua Bozier, 24, of Dalton Way, Whitwell, admitted arson and was jailed for three years and four months at Cambridge Crown Court.
Bozier had smashed the window of a car parked next to the building and set it alight, Hertfordshire Police said.
More on this and other news from Hertfordshire
It spread to the thatched roof, totally destroying it and causing extensive damage to the building itself.
Investigators described Bozier's actions as "mindless, fruitless and reckless".
The blaze in the building, which housed a number of businesses, was "thought to be one of the most costly arsons the country has known", Det Con David Quinn said.


A man who built up an arsenal of weapons, including a submachine gun, that he stored in his bedroom has been jailed for 11 years.

Dominic Birch, 21, was caught after police intercepted a package containing an Uzi heading to his house in Buxton, Derbyshire.
Jurors at Derby Crown Court found him guilty of possessing firearms with intent to endanger life.
He also pleaded guilty to importing firearms and ammunitions illegally.
Judge Nirmal Shant, who sentenced Birch, told him it was a "mystery to those around you as to why you have involved yourself in these matters".
"All describe you as a good, kind son, employer, boyfriend and worthwhile friend, which is in stark contrast to the haul of weapons you stored in your bedroom," the judge said.
Derbyshire Constabulary investigated Birch with the support of the National Crime Agency and the Metropolitan Police's gun crime unit, Operation Trident.
Det Ch Insp Jason Hendy, from the Met, said Birch is "a very dangerous individual who had no qualms about obtaining lethal firearms, including a submachine gun".
But in mitigation for Birch, barrister Adrian Farrow said there was "no evidence that he would have used any of the firearms at any point".
Birch pleaded guilty to an offence relating to the importation of illegal firearms and drugs possession and supply offences, and was due to be sentenced on those charges.
However, while he was on bail, police received further intelligence he had bought more weapons.
They then searched his home and work addresses and seized loaded weapons including a Glock pistol, AK47 type weapon, FEG self-loading pistol and a Skorpion submachine gun.
Hundreds of rounds of live ammunition and a gun disguised as a pen were also found.


At least nine children are reported to have died as houses in Niger's capital, Niamey, collapsed following heavy rain.

The rain has caused floods and extensive damage, including to one of the main markets in the city centre.
Homes collapsed in several parts of the city, trapping or killing those inside, AFP reported Zourkaleini Maiga, secretary general of the local authority, as saying.
Last month, the UN warned that 106,000 people in Niger were at risk of floods.
One woman told local television that three of her four children had died while sheltering from the rain by the wall of a neighbour's house.
Two television channels, Tele-Sahel and Tal-TV, had their programming interrupted on Tuesday evening when their studios flooded, AFP reported company officials as saying.
Reports in Nigerian newspapers have also spoken of transport links with northern Nigeria being cut in the past few days, as two road bridges on key routes were washed away in the Mokwa area and a railway line was severed.
One blogger posted images purporting to show a tanker and other vehicles that had come off the road as one of the bridges gave way.
Niger's government declared a state of emergency on the country's state roads following the bridge collapses, the News Agency of Nigeria said.
It quoted Niger's state commissioner for information Jonathan Vatsa as saying: "Road users should henceforth be very careful and take precautionary measures while travelling on the roads as anything can happen. The federal roads in the state are no longer safe.
"I advise drivers of trucks and articulated vehicles to be conscious especially when approaching a bridge."
The rainy season in Niger, which lasts for at least three months, has just started.
Floods last year affected tens of thousands of people and killed dozens, mainly in the desert regions of Agadez and Tahoua.


The jury in the trial of a former police and crime commissioner (PCC) accused of breaching the data protection act has been discharged.

Adam Simmonds, 40, denied sharing details about a police probe involving Wellingborough MP Peter Bone.
The jury at Southwark Crown Court failed to reach a verdict after more than 12 hours of deliberations.
It had been a "very novel, complex and sensitive case", the judge said. A retrial will now be considered.
Mr Justice Green had said the prosecution's case was that Mr Simmonds "wrongly conflated" his role as Northamptonshire PCC with his political role and found it "difficult" to distinguish between the two.
It was alleged he disclosed information about a fraud investigation involving Wellingborough MP Peter Bone.
The investigation into Mr Bone was dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service in 2014.
Defence barrister Mark Harries had told the court Mr Simmonds was "deeply concerned" about delays in a decision as to whether Mr Bone should be prosecuted or not.
Everything the former PCC had done was "in good faith", he added.
Mr Simmonds, of Northcote Road in Leicester, was the first PCC for Northamptonshire after his election in November 2012. He held the post until May 2016.
He had denied a single charge of unlawfully obtaining or disclosing personal data in the three-week trial.
The prosecution asked for seven days to consider a retrial, which was granted.
The judge said the case may be "a court record for the number of notebooks used".


Maqbool Fida Husain was India's most iconic and prolific artist - and painted right up until two weeks before his death in London at the age of 95.

"I have expressed only 10% - 90% is still inside. I don't think I will be able to do it, I think I have to take that with me to my grave," he told an interviewer last March.
His peers and admirers marvelled at the energy of this indefatigable painter - artist Anjolie Ela Menon says he "ran ahead of all of us - he had such energy".
So much so that he declared five years ago that he planned to work on "three major projects": histories of Indian civilisation, "other civilisations" and a history of "cinema which is close to my heart".
Husain was a protean maverick who embraced the free market, took to making cinema, angered Hindu radicals at home with his provocative work, gamely took leaving India in his stride, accepted Qatari nationality and loved fast cars, including a red Ferrari that he owned.
When his admirers in India got worked up about his self-imposed exile, he calmly told an interviewer: "Nothing is stopping me; I can return tomorrow. But please know I remain an Indian painter whether I am painting in Paris, London, New York or Qatar."
Husain was born in Pandharpur in Maharashtra in western India in 1915. His father was an accountant in a textile mill. His homemaker mother died when he was two years old.
Her passing made a strong impression on him "as seen in his portrayal of his mother", writes Najma Husain in her book, Husain's Art.
His artistic abilities were noticed by the family with his easy mastery of the Arabic calligraphy he had to learn as a young boy. Husain would sell his school books to buy painting materials and he loved to paint landscapes.
A self-taught artist, his impulses were awakened by the street art and the colours and sights he would observe as he rode his bicycle as a boy.
Husain travelled to Mumbai (then Bombay) from his home town as an 18-year-old to chase his dreams of being a filmmaker.
However his first job was painting cinema signboards to support his wife and family.
Working on billboards and hoardings helped him paint using bold lines and deep colours on large canvases when he turned to painting murals and large works of art.
He embraced the street around him, living in bazaar lanes where prostitutes and street vendors peddled their wares.
Husain rose to prominence as a painter in the 1940s.
Following India's independence he joined the Progressive Artist's Group, a bold new breed of artists like Francis Newton Souza, SH Raza and Akbar Padamsee.
The group wanted to break free from the traditions and sought freedom in content and technique.
Their bold themes were considered anarchic as they brought Indian elements to Expressionist styles and Cubist forms.
Artists were considered an elite group who enjoyed the patronage of the royals in pre-Independence India. Husain's arrival on the art scene soon after Independence in 1947 was hailed as both anarchic and liberating.
Until his last he was considered a maverick, instantly recognisable with his uncombed mane of hair. He chose to go barefoot, like most poor Indians, twirling an oversized paint brush at posh parties and coffee shops.
Husain remained a painter who enjoyed street art, and the colour and popular forms of art.
But he was most captivated by the cinema and loved the moving images that had an impact until the very end of his career.
His first film Through the Eyes of a Painter was made in 1967 and won a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.
The Bollywood-loving artist also made films in Hindi that celebrated Indian women, especially peasants and women in traditional dress.
His series of lithographs and oils on Madhuri Dixit, a Bollywood diva of the 1990s, were very popular. He directed the film Gaja Gamini as a tribute to the actress in whom he said he had found a muse.
He also directed a film, Meenaxi - A Tale of Three Cities. The lead was played by another Bollywood actress, Tabu, whose grace Husain said inspired him to make the film.
Husain belongs to the elite club of Indian painters like Tyeb Mehta and SH Raza whose works have sold for more than $1m.
In 2008, Husain's Battle of Ganga and Yamuna sold at Christies for $1.6m even as protesters lined outside the auction house condemning him.
His critics accused him of selling out to the market, but Husain remained unfazed.
He would paint a mural as a gift after a good meal at a small roadside cafeteria in Calcutta and also draw huge crowds to his painting of a mural set to Indian classical music that was bought for an exorbitant amount.
Towards the end of his life Husain was attacked and reviled by right-wing groups and people who found his paintings of bare-breasted Hindu goddesses offensive.
He was dejected and left the country following court orders targeting his properties across India.
But he never showed any bitterness towards his homeland. "What has happened with me is a small thing. We remain a free country," he told an interviewer last year.
Husain's enduring legacy would be of a liberal who embraced all forms of beauty and colour around him. India's streets and culture remained his enduring inspiration.
"Is your life like a red Ferrari?" an interviewer asked him as he took to the wheels of his favourite car some time ago.
"You can say so," said Husain of a life lived to the brim.
Sudha G Tilak is a Delhi-based writer on art and culture.


James Murdoch, 39, was once the clear front-runner to take charge at News Corporation, the world's biggest media organisation that was founded and is still controlled by his father Rupert, 81.

But the phone-hacking scandal that engulfed News Corp's newspaper operations in the UK has become a major impediment to Mr Murdoch Jr's elevation to the top job.
James's roles as head of the London-based newspaper arm and chairman of the satellite broadcaster BSkyB looked increasingly untenable as MPs, the police, regulators, and rival media groups delved deeper into what went on at the newspapers.
After months of allegations against the firm and its journalists, James announced he was stepping down as executive chairman of News International in February 2012.
He also resigned from his role as BSkyB chairman in April 2012, saying he did not want it to be undermined by "matters outside this company". He remains, however, a non-executive at BSkyB.
James is now based at News Corp's headquarters in New York, where his role as deputy chief operating officer, chairman and chief executive of international operations makes him effectively number three in the pecking order.
But he is unable to escape the hacking furore.
The UK media regulator Ofcom has now made damning criticisms of his conduct. His actions "repeatedly fell short" of those expected of a senior executive, Ofcom said.
Some shareholders in the US are taking legal action against News Corp, and there remains a chance that authorities there may launch investigations.
His troubles began when it became evident that phone hacking at News of the World tabloid was widespread, rather than the actions of a single "rogue reporter".
The paper was subsequently closed by the Murdochs in July 2011.
In the months that followed, MPs questioned how much James Murdoch knew about the extent of the wrongdoing, although he denied having seen emails that discussed widespread hacking.
He then faced a challenge over his position on the board of satellite broadcaster BSkyB, while the NoW's stablemate, the Sun, was accused of having a "culture of illegal payments" to public officials.
James Murdoch was called to give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into press standards on 24 April, where he denied knowledge of the widespread phone hacking or of attempts to cover up the affair.
But questions about exactly what he knew and when refuse to go away.
Born in London in 1972, James is married to American Kathryn Hufschmid, with whom he has had three children.
He is the youngest of Rupert Murdoch's three adult children from his marriage to Anna Torv, the others being sister Elisabeth and brother Lachlan.
James has risen higher in the company than his older siblings, who went to work for their father but later left his employ.
However, it did not always seem likely that James would follow in his father's footsteps.
Schooled in New York, he studied film and history at Harvard University, but dropped out in the mid-1990s without completing his degree.
Gaining a reputation as the family rebel, he set up an independent hip-hop label, Rawkus Records, which launched the career of rapper-actor Mos Def and gave an airing to the then little-known Eminem.
Rawkus was eventually bought by News Corporation.
In 1996, he was appointed chairman of another News Corporation music label, Australia-based Festival Records, also going on to take charge of the company's fledgling internet operations.
Four years later, James was appointed chairman and chief executive of News Corporation's Asian satellite service, Star Television.
He remained there for three years before taking up the top job at BSkyB in 2003 where, at the age of 30, he became the youngest ever boss of a FTSE-100 listed company.
The move prompted accusations of nepotism in some quarters, amid concerns that he was too inexperienced for the top position at BSkyB.
However, he was widely accepted to have done a good job during his tenure at Star.
Media lecture attack
He successfully expanded BSkyB to incorporate broadband internet and telephone services, while continuing to grow its TV subscriber base.
Even then, many felt James was being moulded into the role of heir to his father's media empire.
By the time he took control of News Corporation's operations in the UK, Europe and Asia, he had grown in stature.
He began to exhibit the combative qualities that established his father as one of the most powerful media moguls in the world.
In 2009, James delivered the keynote MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival, during which he took aim at the UK establishment.
In his speech, 20 years after his father delivered the same keynote address, James said a "dominant" BBC threatened independent journalism in the UK.
Family affair
He also blamed the government for regulating the media "with relish".
Meanwhile, reports suggested his relationships with his elder siblings could, at times, be fractious. Elisabeth and Lachlan were said to be closer to each other than to James, and both appear to have done more to distance themselves from their billionaire father's media operations.
James, however, created his own space within the family business.
In March 2011, he took up the newly created post of News Corporation's deputy chief operating officer, effectively making him the third most senior individual in a media empire that includes publishing, TV and film operations across the world.
The promotion came four years after he took control of News Corporation's operations in the UK, Europe and Asia.
And within a few months, he was fighting the hacking scandal that engulfed the NoW.
His decision in July 2011 to close the 168-year-old paper - the first British title bought by his father - was seen as a sign that he wielded substantial power.
"In a crisis, he was immensely impressive," one of his colleagues said.
The decision came after a slew of allegations that staff at the News of the World had hacked into the mobile phones of crime victims, celebrities and politicians.
In an interview given following the announcement of the paper's closure, Mr Murdoch said the allegations were "shocking and hugely regrettable".
Throughout the controversy, James stood shoulder to shoulder with his father.
But he later faced claims that he had been told hacking was more widespread at the News of the World than was originally admitted.
Mr Murdoch told MPs in July that this had only been made apparent to him near the end of 2010, repeating the assertion when questioned by MPs for a second time in November.
However, former editor Colin Myler and ex-legal chief Tom Crone later said they had informed Mr Murdoch by email in June 2008 that phone hacking might be widespread.
In a separate letter to MPs investigating phone hacking, Mr Murdoch then said he was "confident" he had not read the full email chain and so was unaware of the suggestions.
However, campaigners continued to press over the matter and a report by the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee is expected later this year.
Mr Murdoch wrote to the MPs again in March to say he took his "share of responsibility for not uncovering wrongdoing earlier" but added he had "not misled Parliament. I did not know about, nor did I try to hide, wrongdoing".
In the wake of the furore over phone-hacking, News Corporation dropped a bid to take full ownership of BSkyB.
Shortly afterwards, James survived as a director of the broadcaster, despite facing calls to resign at the company's annual meeting.
But on 3 April 2012, he stepped down from his role as chairman of BSkyB.
Since 2011, News International has agreed settlements with dozens of public figures over allegations their phones were hacked by the News of the World.
And the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics has heard of the existence of a "culture of illegal payments" to public officials at its stablemate, the Sun.
It was Mr Murdoch's father who flew to the UK to rally to the daily tabloid's defence, saying those practices "no longer exist" in its newsroom, and launching a new Sunday edition.
Andrew Neil, former editor of another flagship Murdoch title, the Sunday Times, observed: "Rupert... has decided James has nothing more to offer here in London."


Tonight HMS Bulwark is poised to carry out another rescue of migrants.

It's one of about a dozen warships and civilian vessels trying to tackle the human tide of thousands of people leaving Africa for Europe.
It's no easy task. They're having to cover an area of around 70,000 square miles, trying to spot the  small boats crammed with desperate people hoping to be rescued and taken to a safer world.
Bulwark was already sailing towards the Libyan coast when we flew on board by Merlin helicopters. Over the past month she's already rescued almost 1,800 people. The helicopters have helped spot thousands more, directing other ships to help.
And as soon as we landed there were reports of another 3,000 migrants leaving Libya's shores in 14 boats.
The figures are staggering, as is the scale of the problem. More than 43,000 people have already crossed the Mediterranean this year - that's a 50% increase on the numbers for last year. There are an estimated half a million people now in Libya waiting to make the same crossing.
The officer in charge of the British contribution to this search and rescue mission, Commodore Martin Connell, says it's "tragic". It is, he says, "the most grim situation you could possibly find. Most of these boats won't make it".
They're picking up people in inflatable dinghies and rotting wooden vessels that often don't even have an engine. The human traffickers responsible for this trade in human misery often just leave the people who've paid them hundreds of dollars to drift in the ocean. "If I could get my hands on some of these smugglers" he says, before pausing and adding simply: "they don't have much regard for human life."
On Saturday afternoon the defence secretary also flew out to Bulwark to get a briefing from the commodore and to thank him and the crew for their work. But even Michael Fallon admitted to me that this was like putting sticking plaster on a massive problem.
He said European countries needed to work together to tackle the root cause - the criminal gangs that trade on human misery - and try to bring stability to countries in chaos. Not just Libya from where most of these migrants leave, but also their countries of origin across east and West Africa.
Mr Fallon is giving little detail about how that can be achieved, other than insisting it won't involve putting "British boots" on the ground. But there is, so far, little sign of reaching a consensus. While Britain is helping rescue the migrants, it's not offering them asylum. Some EU nations want to share the burden of resettling refugees, but the UK is one of a number of countries resisting that move.
Over a nine-hour period on Saturday, European warships and coastguard vessels rescued another 3,000 migrants.  Commodore Martin Connell says he can't remember "so many vessels rescuing so many people in such a short time".
In the morning Bulwark will launch her helicopters and landing craft in the expectation that they will be taking on more desperate people.


Mansfield Town have signed Oxford United winger Alex MacDonald and midfielder Alfie Potter from Northampton Town.

MacDonald, 26, has made 30 appearances this season, scoring three goals, and joins on a free transfer after having his contract cancelled.
Potter, 28, had been released by Northampton Town, for whom he scored once in 32 league games.
Stags manager Steve Evans has now made eight signings during January.
They have already signed goalkeeper Jake Kean, defender Hayden White, midfielders Joel Byrom and Ben Whiteman, and strikers Yoann Arquin and Shaquile Coulthirst.
Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page or visit our Premier League tracker here.


Turkey's PM has said Syrian rebels backed by its military have driven out "all terrorist organisations" from a strip of Syrian land bordering Turkey.

Monitors said the presence of so-called Islamic State (IS) on the border had been ended. Turkey also describes Kurdish groups as terrorists.
The advance cuts off IS supply lines it used to import fighters and weapons.
Separately, Syrian state forces recaptured parts of Aleppo lost to rebels last month.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim made the announcement about Ankara's military successes in a televised speech on Sunday.
He said: "Thank God, today, from Azaz to Jarablus, our 91km of borderline with Syria has been entirely secured.
"All the terrorist organisations were pushed back - they are gone."
As well as IS, Turkey considers the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish group, to be a terrorist group. The YPG, which is backed by the US-led coalition, had been gaining territory in the north of Syria.
Mr Yildirim said Turkey would never allow the formation of an artificial state in the north of Syria.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "rebels and Islamist factions backed by Turkish tanks and warplanes" had taken several villages on the border between Turkey and Syria "after IS withdrew from them, ending IS's presence on the border".
Also on Sunday, Syrian government forces put rebel-held districts in the east of Aleppo under siege once again, monitors said.
Reports said government troops had recaptured two military academy sites in the south of the city and severed a recently-established rebel supply line.
Aleppo: Is besieged Syrian city facing last gasp?
The story of Syria's bitter conflict
The government offensive was backed by Syrian and Russian air strikes.
There are about 250,000 civilians living in the city's rebel-held areas.
Aleppo has been divided by the country's bitter civil war, with various rebel groups controlling parts of the east of the city and pro-government forces the west.
Pro-government forces slowly surrounded the city and in July cut off access to rebel-held areas.
The brief supply line established by rebel advances early last month allowed some goods into the area but aid agencies have been unable to reach the population.
Operating with support from Russia and Iran, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad intends to recapture all of Aleppo from the rebel fighters.
Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama said on Sunday that the US and Russia were struggling to reach a ceasefire agreement on Syria.
Speaking to reporters at the G20 meeting in China, Mr Obama said: "We have grave differences with the Russians in terms of both the parties we support but also the process that is required to bring about peace in Syria."