This is an exceptional memoir. "I ply my parents' trade," says Julia O'Faolain; and she is uniquely placed, by inheritance and skills, to take over where her parents left off. Born in 1932, she was brought up on folk tales, of which her mother Eileen O'Faolain published several collections, and on stories of the Black and Tan war and Civil War, in which both parents were active participants.

Tour de France winner has one last unfulfilled wish to share his victory with his late mother Jane

I recognise her. Hasn’t she been on the news?

This week I've been eating... posh picnics

The striker won the treble with Bayern last season

The reigning champion was forced out of this year's race due to injury

Italy’s supreme court has declared that clues that implicated Amanda Knox in the killing of British student Meredith Kercher had been underestimated by the judges who quashed her conviction for the crime and freed her from prison in 2011.

On page 334 of Inferno, Dan Brown's tweedy Harvard iconographer Robert Langdon reveals to Sienna Brooks - a British-born misfit genius who gallops around three favourite tourist destinations with him in this latest adventure - that "We're in the wrong country". Cue a flight out of Venice, where a plot rammed to bursting-point with guide-book factoids and the vintage formulae of apocalyptic science-fiction has shifted from its opening location in Florence.

Team Sky rider drops to 11th place overall after caution following Friday's crash; Vincenzo Nibali retains lead

Featuring vine-draped landscapes, imposing towers and former cigar factories

Tuscan sun

Now... BA Holidays is offering three nights in Istanbul, departing in May, for £279pp. The package includes accommodation at the four-star Avicenna Hotel, next to the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, plus breakfast and flights from Heathrow. Ba.com/holidayfinder

Seven days after investing so much nervous energy in the Grand National, the sport today contemplates as tepid a Saturday as can be found in its calendar. But respite is almost immediate, with an engrossing week of Classic trials starting in Ireland tomorrow.

Financial might of rivals means Italian football must pull together says Conte following defeat to Bayern Munich