How do you read a company annual report?

[Pootle]

What should you be looking for when reading an annual report from the perspective of researching a company. Reports are generally over 100 pages long and I'd like to know which sections to head straight for with regard to knowing how well a company is performing.

[factor-fiction]

The phrase I rememeber from exam questions about accounts was "apply a few key ratios".
A good one is % Return on capital employed. The profit figure itself is a good starting point- if the company has madea big loss then that's a clue that things may not look too good.
Any accounting/business finance textbook or website will give you some ratios/measures to use