The dead parrot! Mrs Sartre!! How did we manage before 'Monty Python'? Very well indeed...

Algeria will need international help to better fight terrorism, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mourad Medelci, acknowledged yesterday. His remarks come just a week after his government was criticised for rejecting offers of help to deal with the four-day crisis at a gas plant which left at least 37 hostages and 29 militants dead.

So, farewell 2012 and, meteorologically speaking, good riddance, says David Randall for whom our weather is beyond a joke

Reports of festive ill will and tedium are exaggerated. Like our Victorian forebears, most of us will be making our own fun at home together