In the short term, it is not so much that the Western media need to know, but that Russian doctors treating the former hostages were reportedly not told either.The secrecy serves no purpose. Now that it has emerged that the gas was, in fact, responsible for most of the fatalities, the authorities will come under intense pressure to reveal what it was and why it was chosen. The truth is almost bound to reflect better on the decision-makers than the wild speculation which would fill the vacuum.Mr Putin ought to realise that openness and co-operation will strengthen his hand, instead of retreating to the Cold War notion that it shows weakness. National leaders around the world will sympathise with his no-win dilemma over the siege; they will recognise that it may be their sombre responsibility one day to deal with a similar situation.Everyone would have wished that the death toll in Moscow could have been much lower than it was – but it is only by learning from the Russians’ experience that we can improve the odds the next time a group of desperadoes somewhere in the world takes civilians prisoner..

After a five-year rearguard action of heroically mean-minded stubbornness, I have been defeated at last I took the children to Disneyland Paris. By sticking close to my five-year-old daughter, I managed to avoid all the scary rides. Grace and I spent the day on the attractions “not recommended for people under the age of one”. I went to the original Disneyland in California 12 years ago and visited the new (crushingly dull) Walt Disney Studios movie theme park, in Paris, when it opened in March this year.Given the sweet vulgarity of the Disney Corporation’s parallel universe, my first reaction on each occasion was one of pleasant surprise. Everything was more tasteful than I expected; or, rather, in the light of the opportunities for bad taste that a Disney theme park offers, everything is more restrained than you have a right to expect.After a while – seeing the submissive 70-minute queues for glorified roundabouts, ghost trains and roller-coasters – I was reminded of the Christmas that I spent in a Center Parcs holiday resort in France a couple of years ago.

I wanted to make contact with the escape committee and tunnel under the wire. If the people running the Soviet bloc had been more imaginative, they could have made a lasting success of the Communist system by making it more like Disneyland.A universe in which one simplified world-view is relentlessly imposed; in which all national cultures and folk tales are rewritten to fit a preconceived pattern; in which people are deprived, or relieved, of all initiative and choice; in which pleasure is rationed by endless queuing; in which the food is disgusting: such a world, it seems, need not be a failure.Disneyland Paris attracts 12 million people a year, making it by far the most successful tourist attraction in France, with twice as many visitors as the next most successful places, the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower Disney has invented commercial totalitarianism. There are few benches in Disneyland Paris and none of the pleasant areas of lawns and flowers that exist in most other theme parks. Once inside the Magic Kingdom, you are expected to rush from one queue or one shop or one overpriced fast-food stall to the next, spending money and Having Fun. Children apart, no one looks very happy, but plenty of adults come on their own, over and over again.