Sport and leisure booksReviewSwept up by the story of the 'greatest cyclist in the world'Forget Lance Armstrong and his tidy seven victories in the Tour de France. Between 1961 and 1978, Eddy "the Cannibal" Merckx won 525 races, including five Tours de France, four Giros d'Italia and three world championships. He began his season in February and ended in October, a mess of saddle sores and cracked vertebrae. Unlike Armstrong, Merckx never saved himself for a particular event.

‘Cities die just like people’ … civilians in Aleppo. Photograph: Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters‘Cities die just like people’ … civilians in Aleppo. Photograph: Abdalrhman Ismail/ReutersFictionReviewAleppo becomes a central character in this sad, beautiful portrait of a family psychologically scarred by war and tyranny Were Syrians wise to revolt? Aren’t they worse off now? Such questions misapprehend the situation. Syrians didn’t decide out of the blue to destroy a properly functioning state. The state had been destroying them, and itself, for decades.

TV and radio blogCultureThe Gallery of Regrettable FoodFor today's web trawl ... check out this horribly funny site, featuring the worst of past cuisine.If anyone still doubts that food has improved over the last 40 years then they should visit this horribly funny site, featuring the very worst of past cuisine. All the recipes, submitted by the public, come from genuine cookery books, and most are accompanied by photographs. Thus a book called Barb B Trix - which, as the commentary points out, sounds less like a cookery book and more like a prostitute specialising in bondage - advises us to mix ground beef with peas and carnation-evaporated milk in order to get our burgers to bind properly.

US news This article is more than 10 months oldUS Christian group accused of covering up sexual abuse of minorsThis article is more than 10 months oldLawsuits claim International Churches of Christ leaders failed to report as well as plotted to conceal abuse of women and children Michele “Chele” Roland was looking for salvation when she joined the International Churches of Christ. She never imagined that, three decades later, she would lead a legal battle accusing the controversial Christian religious organization of enabling and covering up the sexual molestation of children in its congregation, among other alleged abuses, but that’s exactly what she’s doing.

Film This article is more than 20 years oldBertolucci's Dreamers gets NC-17 ratingThis article is more than 20 years oldBernardo Bertolucci's controversial The Dreamers has received a prohibitive NC-17 certificate for its release in the US next month. It is the first studio film in six years to receive the rating, which is seen to spell box office death for a movie. Set against the backdrop of the 1968 Paris uprisings, The Dreamers stars Eva Green and Louis Garrel as a pair of hothouse siblings who seduce the young American student (Michael Pitt) who moves into their apartment.