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A year or so ago I bought some lovely skewers with a pig design on from my favourite cookshop in Paris, E Dehillerin in the Rue Coquillière. I've actually only just started using them but they look great, in a twee sort of way. This recipe involves most bits of the pig but you can really use whatever cuts and offal you fancy. It's also a great way to use rare breed pork from farms where you have to buy a quarter of a beast. Richard Vaughan at Huntsham Farm in Herefordshire does exactly that with his Middle White pork and Longhorn beef.

A 14-part series that attempts to make simple and accessible one of the most complex subjects imaginable will be distributed via booklets given away free with The Independent and The Independent on Sunday beginning tomorrow, and will simultaneously be made available at independent.co.uk/historyoftheworld. Starting with the origins of the Universe itself, it traces the formation of our planet, the first stirrings of life, the shaping of the continents, the evolution of species, the birth of the human race, and the millennia of history that have led up to the sophisticated but precarious civilisations of the present day.

Gordon Brown has banged on relentlessly about the need for "global solutions to a global problem" since the economic crisis broke last autumn. But some Labour MPs have grown increasingly uneasy about the time and energy he has expended on securing a "global new deal" at Thursday's G20 summit in London.

Zermatt offers the wow factor

The Liberal Democrat leader was at the centre of controversy earlier this year over expenses claimed for the semi-detached family home in his constituency.

In a statement that brands Islam as a religion of 'violence and hatred', preacher Bill Keller has launch his '9/11 Christian Centre' directly opposite Ground Zero.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority announced that MPs will no longer have to provide receipts straight away to receive payment for purchases.

Some will face far higher bills, though the Treasury insists no immediate repayment will be required if the sum is more than £2,000.

Experts are warning that lenders could hike their standard variable rate (SVR) at any time.

Over ten years, Chester Mast is said to have abused victims aged from five to 15.

Experts have spent a month cleaning up the Renaissance masterpiece and removed 'several kilos' of debris which had crusted up the paintings.

Smiling, waving and relaxed, the 69-year-old ex-fugitive arrived in a presidential-style cavalcade and prepared to defend himself against £34million theft charges.

The average comprehensive policy costs 30 per cent more this year than last, according to AA Insurance.

It's easy to assume that an operation as distinguished as Le Manoir ticks by while quietly resting on the laurels of the restaurant and the reputation of its proprietor. Especially when that proprietor is Raymond Blanc, who attained the first of his Michelin stars at his original restaurant, Les Quat'Saisons in Oxford back in the late 1970s.

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Route 19 is not a route in the grand sense of the word. It is not a Route 66, a Silk Route, a Garden Route. In sections, it seems unrelated to logic, twisting, writhing and switching course. But here, two miles beyond Sant Miquel de Balansat, it definitely has its charms.

Hackers illegally tapped a mobile phone belonging to Tessa Jowell at least 28 times while she was a serving cabinet minister, it emerged last night.