Vivienne Westwood's franchise partner of 18 years has placed itself into liquidation following an out-of-court settlement to end its agreement with the eccentric fashion designer.

The convicted "hippie painter" behind Germany's most spectacular art-forgery scandal has revealed that he faked the works of at least 50 famous painters over a career spanning decades and started because he wanted to "have fun, travel and meet women".

The so-called 'eternal hippie' sold faked works to auction houses such as Sotheby's and Christie's

Each week we invite three companies to offer us their best deal for a specific holiday. Today: a two-week hiking holiday in Nepal.

Urban Outfitters may have been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, but it's still one of the loudest and proudest personalities on the high street, says Harriet Walker

For those who over indulged at Christmas, January is often the time when people vow to eat healthier, sign up to a gym or take a seat in the doctor's waiting room – if they have really overdone it.

Zimbabwe has banned the import and sale of second-hand underwear after the Finance Minister said women should not suffer the indignity of wearing hand-me-down lingerie.

The wave of redundancies sweeping Britain's stricken high streets gathered pace yesterday as 1,600 staff were laid off at the shoe shop chain Barratts and the toy retailer Hawkin's Bazaar collapsed, with the potential loss of 380 jobs.

Graham Hollick has just come back from Nepal; he's working on a humanitarian project that encourages women's groups there, and in India, to make money through embroidering textiles. It's obviously a worthy initiative, but a quick glance at his home tells you this must be a cause close to Hollick's aesthetic heart too. He acknowledges the influence on his style, commenting that he "loves India" – a passion reflected in the masks and puppets that stride above his fireplace or adorn his walls.

The death toll from a car bombing outside a medical clinic in eastern Afghanistan has risen to at least 60, authorities said.

Once upon a time, clothes and objets from another era were a signifier of one's social status. Only the very poor or the very privileged would embrace hand-me-downs or jumble sales (the former out of necessity; the latter because "old" is no stigma when your crumbling pile is stuffed with priceless antiques).

Ron Berry's fifth novel, first published in 1970, has been, and continues to be, a guide and pilot to my genesis and evolution as a writer. Other books share this badge, of course - 'Moby Dick', 'The Return of the Native', 'Last Exit to Brooklyn' - but 'Bebb' came first, at age nine or thereabouts, and stunned me with recognition and a wondrous awe at the possibilities in words. As a reader, I flailed and floundered when a child; 'Rothman's Football Yearbook' was a staple, as was the 'I-Spy Guide to the Hedgerow', which told me everything I needed to know about the daddy-long-legs except why.

Everything from dried rose petals to $5,000 (£3,300) silk carpets to cheap sweets and gaudy plastic sandals could be found on sale in Tehran's grand bazaar. The vast covered market, its narrow lanes typically heaving with shoppers and the raucous sounds of busy commerce, stands empty now, though. The bazaris, the city's merchant classes, have shut their doors in protest at tax hikes proposed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

They are the stuff of childhood nostalgia, dimly remembered but not necessarily missed. The traditional British jumble sale was a quaint affair. Frequently manned by primary school mothers and grannies, and enacted in the functional confines of the church hall or school gym, it wasn't noted for its glamour.