I have a recurring dream. I am standing in the hallway of the flat where I spent my childhood and where my mother still lives. The wallpaper is dark green stripes and through the windows of the sitting room I can see trees in full leaf in the sun outside. I am in a state of some agitation as I am very concerned that I am still living 'at home' and then suddenly, I remember that it isn't true, I do have somewhere else to live after all. I have a home of my own.

The fractious relationship between Walt Disney and P L Travers, the author who created Mary Poppins but despised Hollywood's saccharine portrayal of her magical nanny, will be dramatised in a new film starring Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson.

Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks set to star in movie about writer's battles with Hollywood

The Secretary of State for Scotland tells Matt Chorley why he is quietly confident as he takes on Alex Salmond

When the Halifax shut its doors in the West Yorkshire town of Horbury last July, 10,000 residents were left without a bank nearby. The move caused anger among locals, especially businesses, who were forced to travel to Wakefield or Ossett, about three miles away, to visit their nearest branch.

There have been many greater American Secretaries of State. But if diligence, modesty, civility and concern for his staff were the sole requirements for the job he held for four years under President Bill Clinton, Warren Christopher would be without peer.

In 1998, the House of Lords Select Committee on the Proceedings of the House had to reverse its decision to tell peers not to speak with their hands in their pockets, and look where it got us: a Speaker of the Commons in a lounge suit, correctly condemned over the weekend by Baroness Boothroyd (a former incumbent of the post) for losing respect.

A corrupt police officer and four other men who plotted to kidnap a bank manager were jailed today.