11 February 2006

Gstaad I am personally in touch with British Muslim leaders and appealing to them to spare the life of my friend Claus von B

Q. My new husband has baggage from his previous life in the form of two best friends, a couple he has known for over 20 years. The female member of this couple drives me nuts. My husband, who adores her (and definitely does not fancy her), says she is not trying to wind me up,

Dick Francis spent more than ten years gathering material for his biography of Lester Piggott, a man not famed for his spendthrift ways with cash or words. ‘I know you think Sir Ivor was the best of your nine Derby winners,’ Francis said to him one day. ‘Tell me about him.’ Piggott thought for some

A seasonal competition: which phrase will BBC commentators utter most over the next fortnight: a) ‘winter wonderland’; b) ‘mountain magic’; c) ‘oh, bad luck, Great Britain’? The Winter Olympics have begun: bobble hats, fur-collared greatcoats, frostbitten noses and hour upon hour of various forms of sliding. The media battalions easily outnumber the 2,500 competitors; the