When neighbouring countries are both hailed for their gastronomic prowess, it’s only natural that there is a bit of healthy competition.

Serves 4 as a main course

Even small balances can cope with surprise expense and avoid costly credit card route

Call it crazy, call it genius, but undaunted by the British weather, the Aldeburgh Festival is mounting one of its most ambitious projects ever: Benjamin Britten’s operatic masterpiece Peter Grimes, live on the Aldeburgh beach. The shore faces eastwards to the North Sea, the winds can bite and storms often re-sculpt the pebbly surface. It is sold out nonetheless. Staging this opera here is certainly appropriate: the action takes place in this small Suffolk fishing community and Britten’s music is filled with powerful evocations of its sea and sky.

The man from Somerset used the ploy to get a free taxi ride, a hotel stay, two bottles of cava and "some fags"

He denies the paper's claim that he injected cocaine

Michaela Turner was given an eight-week prison sentence suspended for six months

Liver disease, the only major illness with an increasing death rate, is claiming a rising number of victims because of discrimination in the NHS against sufferers, a report has found.

Aussie Angle: I look at this team and I just don't know where the senior players are

The Australian batsman has spoken publicly about the incident for the first time

Old Vic, London

In the English theatre, you can go for years without bumping into either of the two best-known plays by James Baldwin, the African-American essayist, novelist and eloquent spokesman for the Civil Rights movement.

The outlawing of drugs such as cannabis, MDMA and LSD amounts to the “the worst case of scientific censorship since the Catholic Church banned the works of Copernicus and Galileo”, the former Government drugs advisor Professor David Nutt has claimed.

Turkey's prime minister will meet with a group of protesters occupying Istanbul's central Taksim Square this week, the deputy prime minister said on Monday, as the government sought a way out of the impasse that has led to hundreds of protests in dozens of cities.