Inside Track

Where readers write back

Don’t just try the cognac when you visit the area: blend your own, says Cathy Packe

For me, a Valentine's dinner requires something simple – yet it should have a decadent edge, too. So chill some champagne or prosecco, and with that I like the idea of pâté simply served with toast and perhaps a little butter to go alongside.

Serves 2

Makes 12 truffles

Lord Windlesham found a place in politics, the media, business and academia, serving in various capacities under Prime Minister Edward Heath in the 1970s.

A mysterious visitor to Edgar Allan Poe's grave has failed to show up for the second year in a row.

Williams' well-backed gelding foils top-weight Denman's brave bid for an unprecedented third Hennessy Gold Cup

One man in Dagestan is fighting against unemployment and migration to revive the circus tradition

If anyone deserves the over-used epithet "national treasure", it is the man who has shed light on the eerie plans for national survival after war. In this expanded edition of Hennessy's masterwork, we learn that the Queen was long left in the dark about how government would continue when her kingdom was "largely a smoking and irradiated ruin".

Don't be fooled by the chick-lit covers and accusations of cashing in on 'the Amélie effect' – the work of France's favourite novelist, Anna Gavalda, is often dark, twisted and characterised by a desperation the author is not quite ready to admit to sharing

King George win sets up dream Gold Cup showdown with Denman

Nicholls' resurgent Gold Cup contender shrugs off heart problems in style