Welcome to this week's Picks, where the sombre yet uplifting funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, has left us, along with the rest of the World, in reflective mood. Our selection this week highlight subjects and themes that played an important role in her life.

There are few who do not associate Diana's name with charitable works, so it seems fitting that our first pick should be Channel 5 TV's Give 5 campaign. This site highlights a week of programmes (starting from Monday, September 8) designed to raise awareness, stimulate action and boost funds for five charitable causes. The five charities are the Leonard Cheshire Foundation, Centrepoint, Shelter, Crisis and the House of St Barnabas.

Kirsty Young, Pattie Coldwell, Julia Bradbury and William van Hage are among the Channel 5 presenters joining Mariella Frostrup in the campaign, which will focus on one of five issues each day. A host of celebrities -- including Jenny Agutter, David Bellamy, Diane Keen, Patti Boulaye, Diane Louise Jordan, Vicki Michelle -- are also taking part. The charitable causes include Fostering, Street Children in India, Nature Conservation in Towns and Cities, Tackling Homelessness and Disability.

Diana's last campaign was aimed at stopping the deployment of landmines, which kill or maim dozens of people every day of the year. Disarmament and its consequences are also the concern of the Arms Conversion Project, which was established in 1988 to help smooth some of the economic consequences of beating swords into ploughshares. The group was set up by Nuclear Free Authorities and provides advice, guidance, research, briefings, speakers, information and an enquiry service on the issues of defence diversification and arms conversion.

In his moving funeral oration, Earl Spencer urged people to avoid turning Diana into a saint, because that would be to diminish her. He said: "to sanctify your memory would be to miss out on the very core of your being, your wonderfully mischievous sense of humour with a laugh that bent you double."

Ways in which that sense of joie de vivre manifested itself was in a love of films (she was a regular, unannounced visitor to the Odeon Cinema in London's Kensington High Street, where she sat in the back row to avoid disturbing other customers), music and other forms of cultural expression. Our last three picks this week reflect that:

The London Symphony Orchestra: This is the first of what promises to be a monthly magazine providing information on recordings and archive material, features on artists and composers, email bookings, audio and video, offers and promotions, regularly updated reviews and news. The current issue includes a free prize draw for anyone signing their guest book.

The Scottish Cultural Resource Access Network: A project funded by the Millennium Commission to build a networked multimedia resource base for the study, teaching and appreciation of history and material culture in Scotland. By the year 2,000 SCRAN will provide easy access to 1.5 million text records of historic monuments and of artifacts held in museums, galleries and archives, plus 100,000 related multimedia resources. In addition, SCRAN will have commissioned 100 multimedia essays, based on these resources, for educational use.

Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery: US comedian Mike Myers grew up in the UK in the 1960's and 70's and this film is his homage to the rash of psychedelia-drenched television shows that set the style for the period. You know the kind of thing -- The Avengers, Jason King, and The Prisoner. The website is a riot of cod-60's design motifs -- swirls of colour, cheesy music and words like "groovy". It's fab, man, check it out.

Finally, we end with another quote from Earl Spencer: "Thank you for the way you brightened our lives, even though God granted you but half a life. We will all feel cheated always that you were taken from us so young and yet we must learn to be grateful that you came along at all. Only now that you are gone do we truly appreciate what we are now without."

Sites featured in Picks of the Week

• Give 5 campaign - a week of charitable TV programmes.
  
• Arms Conversion Project - beating swords into ploughshares.
  
• The London Symphony Orchestra - music, and a prize draw too.
  
• The Scottish Cultural Resource Access Network - preserving Scottish heritage for the millennium.
  
• Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery - saving the world from Dr Evil.
  

Yahoo! is a trademark of Yahoo! Inc.
Copyright © 1994-2000 Yahoo! All Rights Reserved.