A bookmaker has turned down an attempt by a mystery punter to place £40,000 on a rank outsider in the race to succeed Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster.

Britain's youngest terrorist was behind bars today after a guide to death and explosives was found in the schoolboy's home.

Around 1800, Richard Porson was regularly found under the table in the Cider Cellar, a subterranean drinking den in Covent Garden. The decline of this ragged, hopeless drunk would scarcely be worthy of mention if Porson wasn't also Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge and "an intellectual literary giant".

One of London's busiest Tube stations is to shut for nearly three years, it was announced today.

I've changed the route that I cycle to work over the past few weeks – first because after four years of riding the same way, I was ready for some new scenery, but also because I'm sure it helps make me a better cyclist. While you might think knowing your route back to front is the best way to stay safe, there's a school of thought which says the better you know your way, the more complacent you become. If you've been riding around the same blind corner in the backstreets of Stockwell for several years, and you've never once come across another vehicle, then you're less likely to be paying attention on the day when something does appear. I always try to remind myself that it only takes one bad collision with a car to put me in a wheelchair or worse.

It's just as well the by-line photos accompanying restaurant reviews aren't legally obliged to reflect the actual size of the writer. There has been such a waxing and waning of waistlines in reviewing circles recently that picture editors would be struggling to keep pace. As some of my big-boy peers melt into slender ephebes thanks to no-carb diets, I'm heading in the opposite direction, having adopted a punishing regime of round-the-clock eating in preparation for the judging of the London Restaurant Awards.

On the first Sunday after Eurostar’s move to St Pancras Station, refurbished at a cost of £800m, I was admiring Martin Jennings’statue of John Betjeman near platform 5 when I was approached by an Irish gent.“Are you a relative?”said the genial chap. “You have a bit of a look of him.” This was an ambiguous compliment. After photographing the poet in 1955, Cecil Beaton confided to his diary: “An Edwardian vaudeville tramp … the anonymity of an oyster.”

A WOULD-BE solicitor, who stole a law firm's rubbish and discovered confidential documents relating to the disgraced former Cabinet minister, Jonathan Aitken, was yesterday fined pounds 20.

A TRAINEE SOLICITOR stole private documents from a firm of lawyers with several famous clients, including James Hewitt and the disgraced former cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken, a court was told yesterday.

SOMETIMES IT is hard to know if the money spent by the tabloid press on marketing is really worth it. Every September when the schools go back and holdays are over it is as if a starting pistol goes off. Television advertising money is spent, new magazine supplements are launched, give- aways are given away. And then all the marketing activity stops in October and circulations fall away again.

RELATIVES OF the victims of the Marchioness riverboat tragedy condemned a barrister yesterday for saying a public inquiry into the disaster would be too "traumatic" for the police officers involved.

The week starts on a sedentary note with the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run - a must for classic car buffs. More than 400 enthusiasts from across the world will give their pre-1905 motors a bit of throttle while awaiting starter's orders at Hyde Park Corner some time between 7.30am and 9am today.