Could this former stained-glass factory become a theatreland favourite, asks Amol Rajan.

He was rescued from the council car park - and is now heading for a plain-looking tomb in Leicester Cathedral

Chronicles of Narnia author C.S. Lewis will be honoured next year with a memorial stone in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey in central London.

More than 1,000 clergy and senior laity back the historic move in an open letter to The Independent

Veterans of the Battle of El Alamein today described the horror of losing than 4,000 Allied troops as they marked its 70th anniversary.

Three 20-something women who look, in their courtroom cage, no more than girls, are being tried in Moscow for "hooliganism". The charge, which could see them imprisoned for seven years, relates to an anti-Putin song they sang in Moscow's main cathedral. The case of the Pussy Riot Three has, rightly, prompted outrage, both that criminal charges were brought at all for what appears little more than a punk-band prank and for the harshness of their treatment – they have spent the past five months in custody. The celebrated quotation about "a butterfly broken on a wheel", which headed a Times editorial about Mick Jagger's 1967 drugs trial, has received a new outing in the English-speaking world.

Sports stars who win medals at the Olympic Games have it made: money from sponsorship deals, a nation's adulation, corporate speaking gigs for daft fees and a guaranteed spot on their choice of Dancing on Ice or Strictly Come Dancing. But Royal Mail are adding to these accolades by painting red postboxes in their home towns in the colour of whatever medal they should win.

The UK Independence Party has more reason than any other to complain about the British election system: despite winning 900,000 votes at the last general election it has no MPs. In the European Parliament, which is elected by proportional representation, the party has a dozen MEPs.

Protesters camping in Parliament Square could finally have their tents removed under a new by-law being introduced by Westminster City Council.

The design has been chosen for the United Kingdom's first-ever statue of its greatest novelist, Charles Dickens, in spite of his request, made at his funeral, that there should be no monuments in his honour.

This is a cheery work from a US astronomer about the death of everything. Displaying an adroit turn of phrase ("Nature is parsimonious... Think of your atoms as hand-me-downs"), Impey showers the reader with terminal revelations.

The Duchess of York said not being invited to Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding was "so difficult" for her to cope with.

Watch the best moments from The Mall and Westminster Abbey on William and Kate's wedding day.

The bride in ivory walks through Westminster Abbey for her wedding.