In the countdown to next week’s World Cup finals in South Africa, the Evening Standard’s Michael Hart looks back on the 11 tournaments he has covered for this newspaper . . .... more
At the age of only 22 - and just six months into his first job - Goldman Sachs trader Jan Sramek has been named one of 100 Rising Stars by Financial News... more
Being England football coach is rather like being leader of one of our main political parties: you seldom leave the post with your reputation enhanced. This, as we know, applies especially to Sven-Goran Eriksson or Svennis as he is known in Sweden. ... more
Young London writer Adam Foulds joins the shortlist for this year's £50,000 Man Booker with veteran South African writer JM Coetzee bidding for a prize hat-trick... more
The bar is just one part of this club for exiles from Czechoslovakia at Czechoslovak National House, which has been going since the late 1940s.
... more
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, premiered in 1977, poses a vital question for countries where the still small voice of dissent remains stifled.... more
The Orange Tree’s enterprising season of work by Czech playwright-turned-dissident-turned-president Václav Havel features fours plays from the time his work was banned.... more
Consumer: Thomas Bata, the Canadian industrialist who gave his name to hundreds of millions of shoes across the world, has died in Toronto, aged 93... more
David Cameron has compared Vladimir Putin's war in Georgia to Nazi invasions of the Thirties as he called for international retaliation against Russia... more
Staff at the Courtauld Institute of Art received a collection of more than 50 paintings valued at £5 million. Yet nobody at the gallery had heard of their owner, Dorothy Scharf.... more
Exclusive: After high-profile allegations this season, Charlton's manager is pleased the issue is now being addressed but says the authorities still have plenty of work to do