Verona van de Leur: 'When you have no food you do anything to survive' | Gymnastics
Verona van de Leur won five medals at the 2002 European championships and was named Dutch sportswoman of the year before retiring in 2008. Photograph: Marco OkhuizenVerona van de Leur won five medals at the 2002 European championships and was named Dutch sportswoman of the year before retiring in 2008. Photograph: Marco OkhuizenGymnasticsInterviewVerona van de Leur: 'When you have no food you do anything to survive'Tumaini CarayolDutchwoman was among Europe’s best gymnasts in 2002 but she became penniless and homeless after a bitter dispute with her family and coaches When Verona van de Leur thinks back to the days at the turn of the century when she was one of the best gymnasts in the world, every syllable in her voice is laced with pride.
A sad pastoral
BooksReviewThe Enigma of Arrival by VS Naipaul
320pp, Penguin, £7.99
A few years ago, VS Naipaul said that he still thought of himself as a comic writer, and that his highest ambition was to write a comedy to equal his magnificent 1961 novel, A House for Mr Biswas. To read this was to feel heartened - if the author could find a way of uniting the warmth and energy of the early work that culminated in Biswas with the magisterial technical control of his later writing, we might, might we not, be in for something rather special?
Blackadder fans keen to get their hands on Rowan's codpiece | Media
Media MonkeyMediaBlackadder fans keen to get their hands on Rowan's codpieceThe codpiece worn by Rowan Atkinson on Blackadder II is to be auctionedNot since the famous "does my codpiece look big in this" furore surrounding George Clooney and Chris O'Donnell in 1997's Batman & Robin has there been such interest in, er, codpieces. That's right, the UK's most famous codpiece – that worn by Rowan Atkinson's Blackadder – is to be auctioned.
Days are confused | Books
Culture VultureBooksDays are confusedAny Wednesday children out there, bemoaning the fact that they "full of woe"? Bored of smug Friday children with their "loving and giving" natures?Well, according to the Original Book of Knowledge, published in 1775 and up for sale next month at Bonham's, the old nursery rhyme had it all wrong. It turns the table on those goody-goody Friday sorts, with the news that they are "very lecherous; and if it be a female, she is in great danger of turning whore"
Denyse Plummer obituary | Pop and rock
Pop and rockObituaryDenyse Plummer obituaryEnergetic and vivacious Trinidadian singer who was only the third woman to win the coveted Calypso Monarch crownDenyse Plummer, who has died aged 69 of cancer, was one of the most prominent female singers in the male-dominated world of calypso. Only the third woman to win the coveted Calypso Monarch crown in Trinidad & Tobago, she was also unusual in being a white artist in a genre that typically reflects the interests and concerns of the black population of the Caribbean.
Hugh Lloyd | Television industry
Television industryObituaryHugh LloydA much-loved comedy actor, he went on to more serious rolesPerky and cheeky, or lugubrious and sad, Hugh Lloyd, who has died aged 85, was for more than 50 years one of Britain's best-loved comedy actors, working as a partner with some of the funniest television comedians of the age and ruling the roost as chief comic in numerous seaside shows and pantomimes.
Two years after his first radio programme, the Stay at Home Show, Lloyd made his television debut in 1950 in the Centre Show, broadcast for troops.
I'm a sex addict and lust after every woman I see except my girlfriend
Sexual healingSexAn early experience may explain why you crave sexual conquests, says Pamela Stephenson ConnollyI'm 51 and live with my girlfriend of five years. My problem is my constant, unrelenting obsession with sex. I'm an addict. I can't stop looking at porn or leching at other women. I desire every woman in the world except my girlfriend. Very occasionally I manage to get another woman into bed, or pay for it.
I'm an orphan in my 40s | Family
FamilyI'm an orphan in my 40sPeter Stanford on how the loss of both your parents in early middle age is akin to losing the last vestiges of your childhoodWe are driving along a bendy, hillside road in north Wales. It is pitch dark and the headlights of the oncoming cars are exploding like fireworks in front of my tired seven-year-old eyes. I'm snuggled in these pre-seat-belt days between my mum and dad on the long bench seat in the front of our Ford Zephyr.
Marge Simpson poses naked for Playboy but what would Lisa think?
FeminismTo commemorate The Simpsons 20th anniversary, Marge is to appear naked on the cover of US Playboy. For some, it's a bold satirical move from a cartoon used to raising issues of female empowerment, but to others, its a betrayal of the show's feminist idealsPlayboy has a new cover girl – or make that cover woman: none other than Marge Simpson will strip to her lingerie for the November issue of the original lad's mag, complete with a three-page pictorial spread, pullout, and an interview entitled The Devil in Marge Simpson.
The boy Brando lost | Life and style
The ObserverLife and styleThe boy Brando lostHe was Marlon Brando's 'number one son' and heir to the actor's $20m estate. But his mother had him kidnapped by hippies, he blasted his sister's lover to death, and he died last month destitute, hooked on crystal meth. Christopher Goodwin looks back at the tortured life and tragic death of Christian BrandoIt might have been a blessing that Christian Brando didn't regain consciousness during the last two weeks of his life.