Dominique Strauss-Kahn's travails show we no longer apply different moral standards to those with power

The presents are under the tree, which means that it's time to try your hand at Simon O'Hagan's fiendish brainteaser. If you dare...

Gastronomes will struggle to keep their mouths from watering at the possibilities of these delectable treats

Feast your eyes on part one of our ultimate Christmas gift guide: this week, terrific toys for boys and girls, foodie treats, addictive gadgets, literary treasures and much more…

We don't really grow quince in this country on a commercial scale, so it's always nice to get a call from friends who have quince trees and want to see the fruit go to a good home.

Makes a litre of quince gin

Evershot, in West Dorset, reeks with literary association. It turns up in Tess of the D'Urbevilles as "the small town or village of Evershead" where Tess pauses on her way to call on Angel Clare's parents: "She made a halt here and breakfasted a second time, heartily enough – not at the Sow and Acorn, for she avoided inns, but at a cottage by the church." The church is St Basil's (patron saint of hoteliers, I expect) and the poet George Crabbe was rector there. Had poor Ms D'Urbeville lived a century later, she could have had her breakfast at Summer Lodge, a former dower-house whose grounds were part-designed by Thomas Hardy, when he was the local architect.

The drinks giant Diageo hailed its performance in emerging markets yesterday after profits rose despite sales of Guinness falling again in Europe.

Who knows which of our business leaders the Chancellor George Osborne listens to as he looks for fresh thinking to boost growth, but he could do worse than have a chat with Xavier Rolet, the head of the London Stock Exchange.

In the Eighties when I was young and Godless, I penned a frankly filthy, and filthily frank, book called Ambition which went to the top of the paperback novel charts and made me a packet. It concerned the antics of one Susan Street, a young woman who was "almost clever and almost beautiful" and was determined to become the most powerful broad in Fleet Street. In the course of fulfilling this desire, Susan was not only prepared to sell her soul, but to slip it a Rophynol and bend it over the nearest sideboard in order to have it taken roughly from behind by any passing potentate, should this help her advance up the greasy pole.

Evaporation and condensation, the twin engines of cloud formation, are also the yin and yang of a trip to the English seaside – and last weekend in Southwold was no exception. Suffolk's inch-perfect rendition of a classic resort town stood resolute before a series of weather fronts that alternately bathed the coast in sunlight and drenched it with rain.

My earliest food memory... Having rice pudding in the Marine Hotel in Criccieth, north Wales. It was very creamy and sweet. After that, I used to say "only pudding", as that's all I wanted, so "rice pudding" was rechristened "only pudding" in my family.

It's just gone 10am on a sunny June morning and a waiter has brought out my third plate of salt. I gobble it, by the spoonful. To my left, on the green-clothed table, is a plastic shot glass containing my next course: a fragrant olive oil from Sicily. Dessert is six different types of smoked ham.