If you drive due west from Paris, heading for the skyscrapers of La Défense, you might not realise you have left the French capital. The Arc de Triomphe remains visible in your rear-view mirror. The broad avenue ahead of you is an extension of the Champs Elysées.

From idiot abroad to Masters champion - Bubba Watson has come a long way in the last 10 months.

For over a half a century and for tens of millions of Spaniards the grainy baritone voice of the actor and film dubber Rogelio Hernandez was indistinguishable from those of some of Hollywood's greatest stars, from Marlon Brando and Tony Curtis to Richard Harris and Cary Grant.

Animal lovers have reacted with horror after a stallion was mutilated and killed in what police called a "sickening" attack, the second on a horse in the space of a week.

Two of the best-known independent cinemas in Paris have “abolished Christmas” to protest against the monopolisation of popular “art” films by the big, French cinema chains.

All is not bliss in the Elysian fields.

Accident in training is not life-threatening but is enough to end the career of trainer André Fabre's Classic winning colt

Whether you call in en route to Spain, or make a special trip, this cultured and historic city in southern France delivers a memorable stay.

From the Arc de Triomphe being crushed to the Eiffel Tower being struck with lightning or knocked over by a sandwich, here are the top ten films that feature Paris being destroyed.

A quotation from Martin Luther King appeared on Twitter on Monday afternoon and swiftly went viral. It was soon being posted en masse on every social networking site. Those who felt disquiet at the jubilant response to Bin Laden's death could now express their emotions with a cast-iron quote: "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." There was only one problem – King didn't say it.

France is the most fractured country in the world. How can you govern a country which has 1,000 different cheeses, eight rival trades union federations and several flavours of all political movements, including the Trotskyists?

It's a rare pleasure and a small one at that – but there's something about a provocative museum label that can really lift the spirits. I encountered one just the other day, while visiting the Getty Villa in Malibu – a reproduction Pompeiian mansion that houses his collection of ancient artefacts. One of the highlights here is the Getty Kouros – one of those highly formulaic sculptures of male youths that advance towards you out of Archaic-era Greece, one foot slightly before the other and the torso crisply etched. The Getty acquired the statue in 1985 from a Basle dealer in antiquities but its subsequent history hasn't been entirely unclouded, as its description candidly reveals. It reads like this: "Greek, about 530 B.C., or modern forgery". Come across this without foreknowledge, as I did, and you'll probably do a double take at the insouciance of that phrase. Quite a lot rests on that "or", you think. After all we're not talking about a decade here and there in date of origin, or a few hundred miles between the possible site of its creation. This isn't a conjunction linking two equally acceptable alternatives. It's very much an Either Or. It's the real deal or it's bogus.