Visitors to the Portobello Aquarium loved Sid the octopus but all Sid wanted was to find a mate. After several escape attempts worthy of Houdini, he finally tasted freedom yesterday, with his keepers returning him to the ocean just in time for Valentine's Day.

Deborah Kay Davies has achieved something rare: a collection of short stories wherein each story is complete in its own right (many were competition winners, or radio broadcasts) but which also work together as a novella-length sequence. The connecting thread is the two sisters Grace and Tamar: this is a study of a lifelong sibling rivalry, or rather, sister rivalry, since though they do have a brother he is not important enough even to merit a name. In fact, the male characters are shadowy and undeveloped in all these stories.

Apparently Jane Grigson said it first, in her 1973 book Jane Grigson's Fish Cookery. After cooking, "throw away any mussels that refuse to open".

They have survived two world wars, a sex scandal and the feet of thousands of visitors to the Berkshire country house of Cliveden, to conduct what must be the slowest invasion of Britain by an alien species.

Twenty-five octopuses will today begin twiddling a Rubik's Cube in the name of scientific research.

They may look like a pair of lychees, but the wobbly specimens pictured here are in fact parts of the lens of the biggest animal eye ever found. The creature in question is none other than a half-tonne colossal squid, whose eyes measure an extraordinary 27cm in diameter.

Amec, the engineering and project management group, yesterday unveiled the £707m sale of its French arm to the private equity group which owns Kwik-Fit and United Biscuits.