From sun cream and shower gel to  hair serum and scent, these products  will see you jetting off in style

Torrential rain that washes sewage into waters people might want to swim in blamed

Now’s the time to stock up on macho moisturisers, soothing sprays and chic shaving gear for the hotter months ahead

From lightweight formulas to long-lasting sprays, the latest lotions make it easy to keep your skin safe

Sometimes a story's comic spark burns out before the first line

Benedict Cumberbatch has revealed how his co-stars played a prank which left him filming the new Star Trek movie with his face covered in blobs of sun cream.

1. Colour Splash Multi-Tone Bronzer in Hilarious Honey £13.90, kikocosmetics.co.uk

We're not sure about… MIC mania

Beauty, like fashion, feeds on novelty only to a certain extent. Cosmetics' shades and textures change seasonally with the clothes they accompany on the catwalks, but in the same way that there are some things in your wardrobe that thankfully stay pretty much the same year-in, year-out (the classic white tee, a trench coat, your pants… that kind of thing), there are a few essentials in your make-up bag that rarely alter.

There's a lot to love about Jacques Audiard's unlikely romance between a bare-knuckle boxer (Matthias Schoenaerts) and a killer-whale trainer (Marion Cotillard) – not least its gritty depiction of the Cote d'Azur demi-monde, and the raw intensity of Cotillard's performance.

There's a lot being said at the moment about the shocking amount of food that gets wasted each day as perfectly good produce gets binned.

(From top) 1. New Beginning scrub £26, Ole Henriksen, feelunique.com

Viscountess Astor (1879-1964) resembled Stephen Leacock's Sir Ronald, who "leapt on his horse and rode madly off in all directions". The first woman elected to Parliament who took up her seat (in 1919), she was a doer of good when it came to the protection of poor children and, at the moderate end of her war against drink, promoted essential legislation limiting hours of sale. Yet she would see Nazi re-occupation of the Rhineland in the spirit of her friend, Lord Lothian, as "the Germans re-entering their own garden".

The world of beauty may already have Christmas gifting wrapped up in the form of sets of smellies, but a host of brands has also branched out into crackers to ensure lunch goes off with a bang. Instead of flinging the usual cheap plastic keyrings into the nooks and crannies of your dining room, there are skincare and beauty miniatures to please the most discerning of guests.