Catch up on the week

SUNDAY

Roads were deluged and homes evacuated after torrential rain in northern Scotland. In Aberdeenshire and Angus, three quarters of the month's normal rainfall fell within 12 hours.

MONDAY

Tougher action against the thousands of "thieving" parents who lie to get their children into popular schools was demanded by the chief adjudicator. Parents who make fraudulent or misleading applications are denying other children their "rightful place", Ian Craig said.

TUESDAY

An environmental campaigner won his fight to take his former employer to tribunal on the grounds he was dismissed for his green views.

The successful defence by Tim Nicholson, left, of his right to challenge Grainger plc over his treatment could "open the floodgates" for other claimants, legal expert Peter Mooney said.

WEDNESDAY

Gordon Brown and David Cameron urged their parties to accept in full a shake-up of parliamentary expenses which could save the taxpayer millions of pounds a year and leave some MPs tens of thousands out of pocket.

The long-awaited report from Sir Christopher Kelly's Committee on Standards in Public Life called for an end to MPs claiming mortgage interest payments on expenses and employing family members from the public purse.

THURSDAY

A cross-party parliamentary committee wrote to Home Secretary Alan Johnson demanding an explanation of his decision to sack an adviser who criticised government policy on classifying drugs.

The Commons Science and Technology Committee demanded to know whether Professor David Nutt, left, had breached the terms of his contract or the codes of practice governing government advisers and the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs which he chaired.

FRIDAY

The two sides in the bitter postal dispute, the Communication Workers Union and Royal Mail, pledged to achieve a "radically different" culture in industrial and employee relations under a deal which ended the threat of fresh strikes.

GOOD WEEK

Simon Mann

Mercenary Simon Mann was given a pardon after being jailed in an African prison for his part in a bungled coup in 2004 in Equatorial Guinea. The Old Etonian and former SAS soldier had served just 15 months of a 34-year sentence after leniency showed by the country's leader, President Obiang. He returned for a "wonderful homecoming", meeting his five-year-old son Arthur, born after he left the UK.

BAD WEEK

Sir Mark Thatcher

The son of the former prime minister faces a new probe into his links with the coup affair he hoped was long behind him. Simon Mann says he will help in any prosecution of the businessman, who now lives mainly in Spain. During his trial last year, Mann implicated the son of Baroness Thatcher in the plot.

What the papers said … about withdrawal from Afghanistan

THE INDEPENDENT: Those advocating Western military withdrawal from Afghanistan need to do more than simply urge a rush for the exit. They need to provide a realistic replacement strategy for protecting Britain's national security and promoting stability in this most dangerous of regions.

THE SUN: What we and the United States MUST do is press our allies to up their game. We MUST make Afghan President Karzai end the corruption of his government. We must NOT lose our will and cave in to the clamour to cut and run. There is simply nowhere to run to.

THE TIMES: Britain should circumvent Kabul and focus its energy and investment on local governments. Everyone, in Afghanistan and the West, wants the foreign troops to leave. The question is how and when. Mr Brown needs now to focus as single-mindedly on Afghanistan as he did, for a while, on the global economic downturn.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

"After a string of scandals about taste and decency, it seems to avoid disruptive, potentially controversial ideas like the plague."

Channel 4's programme chief Julian Bellamy on the BBC

"I've explored obsession. I've explored loss and love in terms of being in a grief-stricken place. I've explored strange sexual fetish stuff. I've explored the mundane aspect of marriage and monogamy."

Actress and self-styled explorer Nicole Kidman

"It's pathetic. It's just very sad to see Britain, so important in Europe, just cutting itself out from the rest and disappearing from the radar map."

Pierre Lellouche, the French minister for Europe, damns David Cameron's stance on the Lisbon Treaty

"I went to sleep as Rihanna and woke up as Britney Spears."

R&B star Rihanna on the media furore that engulfed her after news broke of the beating she endured at the hands of then boyfriend Chris Brown

"A lot of problems you hear from people who are moaning are from companies I wouldn't lend a penny to. They are bust. The moaners are bust. They don't need the bank – they need a solvency practitioner.

Lord Sugar, the business tsar, on small businesses

RIP: SIR JOHN CROFTON

1912-2009

He served in field hospitals in the Second World War, but on his return was confronted with the great scourge of TB. Put in charge of a 400-bed TB hospital in Edinburgh, he and his team worked tirelessly to find better treatments. They found that a combination of three separate antibiotics was required to combat the disease. Crofton became a distinguished professor, knighted for his battle against respiratory diseases.

THIS LIFE

Some guys have all the luck. Thousands of amateur metal detectorists have spent freezing days in muddy fields without turning up as much as an abandoned coat-hanger. Rookie Dave Booth kits up with a £240 detector and strikes gold – literally – on his first foray into the countryside. He had only travelled seven yards from his car into a Stirlingshire field when he uncovered four 200-year-old decorative gold torcs (necklaces) once sported by the Iron Age nouveau riche. Booth, 35, a warden at the Blairgowrie Safari Park, sent pictures of his find to the National Museums of Scotland. Curator Dr Fraser Hunter said: "It's one of the most important hoards from Scotland ever and a find of international importance. The find could be worth £1 million and Booth's share will be decided by the Treasure Trove panel.

BEST OF THE BLOGS

"I was delighted to welcome the Prime Minister to the constituency this afternoon.

Gordon and I visited North Glasgow College – a shining example of what Labour has achieved in the area. I'm proud that Gordon was so impressed.

It's sad that some people want to talk down our community, but I think the college is a great example of the changes I have seen in my life here.

Willie Bain, Labour's Glasgow North East candidate, on the Steamie's virtual election blog

Today I'll be joined on the campaign trail by Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop to meet some of the young people that are benefiting from the SNP's investment in education in this constituency. A few weeks ago we visited Glasgow North College and today we'll be heading to John Wheatley's campus. These colleges have received record levels of investment from the SNP and with help from the Scottish Government are providing extra places to support people during the recession. That's the kind of investment we need to bring opportunities to this constituency, to ensure a bright future for our young people.

David Kerr, the SNP Glasgow North East candidate, on the Steamie virtual election blog,

A few weeks ago I posted on how important being local is in a by-election. Well, it would seem that SNP Glasgow North East Candidate David Kerr is indeed not local to Glasgow.

I hasten to add, I don't for a moment believe "being local" is that important, but it does look daft, à la Margaret Curran, when you say you are local and it turns out you aren't…

Tory Boy

THE WEEK ON THE WEB

Interested in checking out some sausage-related merchandise? Then log on to the website of the British Sausage Appreciation Society.

www.britishsausageweek.com/

Dads can be cool. Just not on the dance floor. This handy website lets you post pictures of "awesome parents" in their youth. Just look at those flares!

http://myparentswereawesome.tumblr.com/

This site is aimed, one would guess, at the under-10s. But it is too good to be left to the kids. Uncle Fred will teach you how to draw all sorts of useful things – and then get the nippers to colour them in for you.

http://www.unclefred.com/index.html

TWEETS

SarahBrown10: am thinking someone with sticky jammy fingers has been using my keyboard !

EdwynCollins: Today I was abandoned but I drew a beautiful hare.

eddieizzard: Setting off from Stonehaven towards Aberdeen on a Special Impromptu marathon. I'm going to try and run 26.2 miles before the gig tonight

BarackObama: Inspired as usual by Michelle. Watch her discuss what health reform means to her as a woman and a mom: http://bit.ly/4cKsIK

JimCarrey: at 3am we saw a guy in tophat + girl, in the street behind our london hotel having... well... let's call it, 'taking the tunnel to France.'

RealBoswell: WAIT, I misspelled! 'DRIOT' DE SEIGNEUR is apparently the right to seduce my tenants' firstborn GOATS. Tho in a PINCH....

tracey–thorn, right: am mostly listening to new vampire weekend track. "i'd look psychotic in a balaclava" indeed! love it, though it is a TEENY bit haircut 100

CarrieFFisher: Just left the studio where Rufus Wainright sang some of his new album. He sounds like warm liquid twilight. Music you can get lost in.

yokoono: Transform greed energy to giving. Give as much as you wish to take, And you will receive satisfaction.

realrossnoble: Tell your mates an egg cannot be broken by human buttocks they will have to try.if they offer you an omlete later that day politely decline

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