It has no nutritional value, yet we consume pounds of it each year – much of it hidden in 'healthy' foods. Sophie Morris discovers ways we can kick the habit

Bobby Digital is the alter-ego of RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan. This guise has acted as a repository for his more idiosyncratic, left-field ideas, with often stunning results.

An unsettling rural tale that shows why townies fear the countryside

SOME NEW French movies tour the country and, if none recalls the Truffaut era, this human behaviour leavens the SFX fodder of the multiplexes - and has one boggling at the subtitlers' efforts.

Anyone for liquid toast and marmalade? Get ready for the Jus Cafe, a whole new spin on the craze for fresh juice

Annie Bell Fabulous fruit salads with pomegranates, persimmon, papaya and Christmas figs. Photograph by Patrice de Villiers

Christmas dinner is a doddle. Michael Bateman suggests saving up inspiration for post-Boxing Day dinners, when an international selection of recipes can help you get through the turkey glut

The first major Christmas tree I decorated was for Polo Ralph Lauren, at their flagship store in Bond Street. The tree was based on a large evergreen pine, with the most wonderful collection of preserved dried fruits, including oranges studded with aromatic cloves, and bundles of richly scented cinnamon sticks. I have also decorated a six-metre tall metal Christmas tree for the San Lorenzo restaurant in Beauchamp Place. Here, I covered the metal frame with lengths of blue pine run through with a mass of small white pea lights. The tree was then dressed with open wicker baskets, mounded high with herbs, spices and dried fruit.

Annabel Karmel suggests ways to steer your child away from sugary cereals; BREAKFASTS

A photograph of members of the Killgallon family, of Pimlico, London, receiving a Care food parcel from the United States in August 1948. The charity Care at the time was in its infancy: it started in the United States in 1945 to assist post-war Europe by sending over food, tool kits, farming implements and other useful items. Americans were encouraged to make up and send packages to friends or needy people in Europe; a 22lb box would feed a family for several weeks. In 1947, Care sent pounds 100,000 worth of packages to Britain to mark Princess Elizabeth's wedding; by 1955, Care had delivered over 1.1 million packages to Britain alone.

Sir: To say (Gazette, 3 January) that Phineas Quimby was 'the teacher of Mary Baker Eddy' (the founder of Christian Science) is like saying that one raisin is the producer of the Christmas pudding. The raisin makes a contribution but in no way does it produce the pudding; in the same way Quimby contributed to Mrs Eddy's growing understanding but in no way was he her teacher.

DRIED cherries? It sounded like a good idea - much better than most new foods, which seem to have been created in the sterile imagination of the marketing department. I had never heard of them, never mind eaten them. Allow me to let you into the secret.

PRUNEAUX D'AGEN - the world's best dried plums - are known to consumers throughout Europe. French people who have never visited their point of origin (in the south-west around the towns of Agen and Villeneuve-sur-Lot), nevertheless know the name refers to something rather special . . . something that is top of its class. The same goes for the Germans, the Dutch, the Irish and the Italians, eager consumers of tonnes of pruneaux d'Agen, bought in lavishly decorated packets which explain and extol the pleasures of this most special fruit.