The news that Frank Lampard has signed a contract to write children’s books seemed the perfect hook for a quip-happy column until I learned that Frankie had beaten us all to pun, as it were, by naming the second in his series — about a young boy with a magic football — Frankie Versus The Rowdy Romans.

A NUMBER of recent letters to your paper have repeated the oft-made accusation (for so it is intended) that the Catholic church “came up” with the idea of celibacy to protect its property interests.

POPE John Paul II’s successor won’t just face falling church attendance and an ageing priesthood.

The Sistine Chapel is now online.