Surprise verdict in the case of the tycoon and 'Ruby Heart Stealer'

A short walk from St Mark's Square, a 13th-century mercantile building is now an intimate guesthouse

First seen as part of a 1912 double bill, Ariadne auf Naxos was revised and reshaped as Europe plunged into the carnage of the First World War. Strauss was profoundly relieved when his son, Franz, was declared unfit for military service. But his librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, had already served as a reservist when the now familiar version of their backstage comedy on high and low art premiered in Vienna in 1916, four days after the assassination of the prime minister in the dining room of a hotel a few minutes' walk from the opera house.

The former England captain today announced he was retiring from football

The problem with ponderous electropop is that as soon as the meniscus of self-importance is pricked, it collapses into risibility, as on Depeche Mode's weakest album in some while.

The American golfer confirmed his relationship with the skier on Facebook this week

On the night I arrived in England from Denmark, I watched the passing countryside from the backseat of the car and found even the trees alien. At fourteen, I was used to being uprooted and deposited in a new space. Plotted on a map of Copenhagen, the many houses and flats I had called home would have looked like enemy bunkers encroaching on the city centre. So when my English-born mother decided to return home, I thought I knew all about moving.

First day of first Test washed out by rain

ENO won’t be able to cash in on its new Verdi, which chooses polemic over pure passion

After years of bright design and statement pieces the inside of our homes are about to get a lot more subdued

Outlook I always preferred Snappy Snaps with its marvellously tacky bright green-and-yellow logo to the more sober Jessops, but I can't remember when I last went to either. A colleague mourned the news that what was once known as "Jessop of Leicester", his home city, had collapsed into administration today. Our jester from Leicester last visited a Jessops branch in 1996.

The Week in Books

Some of Roberto Mancini’s staff are utterly disenchanted with the player

Laura Ashley has cemented its status as one of the high street's best performers with a leap in sales ahead of the crucial Christmas period.