THE River Café on the edge of the Thames in Hammersmith was started as a staff canteen for architect Richard Rodgers and his team in 1985. His wife Ruthie and her friend Rose Gray loved to cook and had fun reproducing the Italian food they enjoyed on holiday in Tuscany and Florence.

PALESTINIAN president Mahmoud Abbas described as “abominable” a weekend stabbing attack which killed five Israelis, including a baby, in their beds in a West Bank settlement.

THERE’S been a surge of teenage fiction by established Irish authors of late. And it seems a natural diversion for Denise Deegan, who has published four well-received novels for adults.