John Lennon's handwritten lyrics for Beatles hit A Day In The Life sold for more than £810,000 (1.2million US dollars) at an auction in New York today.

There's nothing wrong with rock biopics – but how many more John Lennon dramas do we need? By Gerard Gilbert

A woman arrested while trying to board a plane to Germany with her dead husband has been rebailed, police said today.

Reviewed by Lynne Walker

The teenage John Lennon (Aaron Johnson) has been living with his straitlaced Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas), only to discover that his biological mother, Julia (Anne-Marie Duff), is raising another family just down the road.

The artist Sam Taylor-Wood's pre-Fab Four drama is pretty conventional, forgoing the more visually arresting techniques used by fellow artist Steve McQueen on Hunger, and the artistic flair employed by the likes of Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher) and Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank).

For the right price, some lucky Beatlemaniac will be able to own the lyrics to the final song on the Beatles album "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

Of a similar age to his schoolfriend, John Lennon, Mal Perry attended Quarry Bank school in Liverpool. He obtained a recording contract as early as 1958, some four years before the Beatles.

Two women arrested on suspicion of allegedly trying to smuggle a dead relative on to a flight to Germany insisted they were innocent.

Two women have been arrested on suspicion of trying to smuggle a dead relative on to a flight out of the country.

Stephen Fry is to discuss his complex feelings towards the composer on BBC4, writes Ian Burrell

Longton, Staffordshire, is one of the original six Potteries towns that make up the city of Stoke-on-Trent, where it is known, rather disparagingly, as "the neck end". Once home to so many "bottle-oven" brick kilns that the streets were clogged with the fug of chimney smoke, Longton now fights urban decay. There's no obvious connection to the red carpets of film premieres, to nation builders and iconic revolutionaries, to pioneers of aviation or heroes of motorsport.

Here's a development that is sure to come in handy in the aftermath of this year's election: Jonathan Powell, former chief of staff to Tony Blair, has found a publisher for his forthcoming book, aptly titled The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in Modern Britain.

From Ian Curtis to John Lennon, musical heroes have long fascinated film-makers. As a raft of new biopics hits our screens, Geoffrey Macnab explains the eternal love affair