1. Illuminator, in Copacabana

Burberry is ramping up its expansion plans after earmarking £200m for new stores this year as global demand for its luxury goods defies the downturn in the UK. The luxury brand, which will open in London, Brazil and Shanghai, unveiled a 26 per cent rise in pre-tax profits to £376m for the year to March, on sales up 24 per cent to £1.86bn.

A greater focus on the menswear market boosted Burberry today as the luxury goods group reported a 24% jump in annual profits.

What we love, we're not sure about, we're dying and can't wait for...

The billionaire founders of Cillit Bang cleaner group Reckitt Benckiser yesterday came calling again for door-to-door cosmetics giant Avon with a $10.7bn increased bid and a threat to walk away if the target's shareholders failed to enter talks in the coming days.

Reckitt Benckiser's largest shareholder, JAB Holdings, which is owned by one of the consumer goods giant's founding families, the Reimanns, is selling almost 5 per cent of the group's shares.

A dozen poets were given anonymous scents from which they had to write a poem. Meanwhile, six perfumers were asked to come up with a new fragrance inspired by a poem.

New build

Don’t let April showers get you down – there’s plenty of stylish wet weather gear to keep you warm and dry

Two British heritage brands, two very different fortunes... Harriet Walker considers Burberry's success and Aquascutum's decline

The latest news and views from the world of travel

Avon Products, the cosmetics company, has turned its nose up at a $10bn (£6.24bn) takeover offer from the perfume maker Coty. The bid for Avon is the boldest move so far by its chairman Bart Brecht, who has been running Coty since retiring as chief executive of the household products giant Reckitt Benckiser. Mr Becht decided to go public with details of his offer in an attempt to bounce the Avon board into talks, but they said the company was worth far more.

The newspapers have outdone themselves with an eclectic collection of April Fools' Day japes, but were you taken in?

So I had left Istanbul with its colourful chaos and ended up in a place in America where the wind blew hot as a hair dryer, huge thorny cacti greeted newcomers and Spanish was the official language. What was I doing in Tucson, Arizona? Teaching, writing a new novel... The part of me that couldn't settle down, always a nomad, an outsider, East and West, and yet precisely because of that at home everywhere, that stubborn part was holding the reins. It was as if I had taken a plastic globe, given it a real good spin, and randomly put my finger on a spot.