Peter Rhodes on missing hostages, a royal engagement and the ultimate wrecker of car springs

Here we go again. The traditional build-up to Christmas begins with warnings that one or more items for the Christmas dinner is off, owing to a poor harvest. So what? I bet you can name about a dozen Xmas-related foodstuffs. Given the British climate, it's no surprise that some of them have better harvests than others. What we lose on the parsnips, we gain on the sprouts.