Music festival guide: let the wild rumpus begin
It's the time of year that festivals across the UK start to announce their line-ups. Glastonbury may already be sold out, but there are another 485 festivals to choose between. Here we present some festival Highlights: to help you make your decision.
Doctor who - has age withered this time lord?
Icouldn't make it to Cardiff this week for the press launch for the new series of Doctor Who, but then, although mildly intrigued, I'm in no desperate hurry to make the acquaintance of the Doctor's latest incarnation. With his long, ascetic face, rather like Mervyn Peake's sketches of Steerpike in his Gormenghast novels, the 27-year-old Matt Smith has all the makings of an interesting Time Lord. And, after all, this revived version of the venerable BBC1 classic, with both David Tennant and Christopher Eccleston, has a good track record with its principal casting. I can well imagine that he will continue the vein of English (even the West Lothian-born Tennant spoke with an English accent) eccentricity that has permeated the show since its inception. However, on the whole, I increasingly can't be bothered with Doctor Who.
Two Irish wedding receptions colliding in the same hotel isn't a bad idea for a comedy, but Stephen Burke's feature doesn't even clear the hurdles of basic competence.
Album: goldfrapp, head first (mute)
Having leapt feet-first on 2008's Seventh Tree into the spooky wyrd-folk world then being opened up by the likes of Bat For Lashes, Goldfrapp now suddenly effect a complete volte-face on Head First, heading back to the electronic pop of their three previous releases.
Nissan turns over a new leaf with a zero-emission family hatchback
With their new Leaf, Nissan are offering motorists a potentially revolutionary choice; a useable, practical, conventional-looking electric vehicle that will be in dealer showrooms by this time next year and for the price of an equivalent Ford Focus. It differs from petrol-electric hybrid models on the market now, such as the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight, in that it entirely dispenses with the internal combustion engine. It is truly all-electric, and can be plugged in to the mains like any other appliance. As a zero emissions vehicle (not counting those produced at the power stations that generate its electricity) the Leaf is also far greener than the most fuel-miserly hybrids or small diesel and petrol models. Nissan describe their newest addition as "the world's first affordable, mass produced zero emission car".
Marco pierre white endorses firm behind turkey twizzlers
What links exquisitely cooked young leeks, girolle mushrooms and roasted guinea fowl, and factory-farmed turkey breasts? The chef-turned-stock-cube-salesman Marco Pierre White.
Texan accused of disabling 100 cars over internet
A man fired from a Texas auto dealership used an internet service to remotely disable ignitions and set off car horns of more than 100 vehicles sold at his old workplace, police said yesterday.
Econoblog: the seeds of a new british green motor industry
Good for Peter Mandelson. For just a few hundred million pounds he seems to have single-handedly created an entire new industry.
Facebook 'no objection in principle to panic button'
Facebook has "no objection in principle" to installing an anti-paedophile panic button on its site, Home Secretary Alan Johnson said today.
Mary dejevsky: it really won't be the internet that wins it
Not a day now goes by without someone dubbing the coming election the e-election, the Twitter election, the Facebook election, the first British election that will be won or lost in the virtual world. My inbox is stuffed with invitations to hear stars of the youthful e-establishment and their older acolytes expatiate on the theme. So far as I can judge, our revolutionary e-election has eclipsed climate change as the belief of the age – and it is being preached with similar evangelistic fervour.
Hamant verma: the british indian approach to business can help us escape recession
British Indians have a conservative culture, with a small "c", which means they are sceptical of change, resourceful and austere – perfect for dealing with a recession. While the regular sight of an Indian housewife parking a large new Mercedes saloon outside one of Ealing Road's modest vegetarian restaurants probably looks ostentatious to indigenous Brits, shrewd Desis will have the nagging feeling that her husband could probably have afforded a bigger one if he wanted.
Lives remembered: gillie johnson
Gillie Johnson, who died on 17 January aged 61 from pancreatic cancer, was a mentor, advisor, and friend to hundreds of people in the voluntary sector. A love of music, a commitment to social justice, and an expansive and varied community of friends and neighbours were central to Gillie's childhood in Wimbledon – she was born on 3 April 1948 – and remained central for the rest of her life.
Almagro collapse hands murray victory
Andy Murray eased into the quarter-finals of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells after fourth-round opponent Nicolas Almagro was forced to retire with an ankle injury. Fourth seed Murray was leading 6-2, 1-0 when his unseeded Spanish opponent was forced to call it a day having already called a medical time out at the end of the first set. Next up for Murray is a tricky looking encounter with sixth-seeded Swede Robin Soderling.
Pietersen's relief as the old swagger comes back
All the England cricketers who came on this tour will remember Bangladesh. It is not a place – in many ways at least – that easily leaves the system. None, except perhaps Steve Finn who made one of the more unexpected recent debuts, will recall it more fondly down the years than Kevin Pietersen.
Grand Imam Sheikh Mohamed Sayyid Tantawi, Rector of Al Azhar University in Cairo and the leading cleric in Sunni Islam worldwide, often courted controversy. His most notable characteristics in office were his liberal reforming pronouncements, compared to many Sunni clerics, his great Islamic scholarship and his loyalty to the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who appointed him Grand Mufti of Egypt in 1986 and then Head of Al Azhar in 1996. This loyalty was seen in Tantawi's backing for some highly controversial stances of the President: his building a security fence to prevent smuggling of weapons into Gaza, his condemnations of the 9/11 attack and of al-Qaeda, and of his maintaining Sadat's Peace with Israel.
Charlie gillett: broadcaster and author who championed world music
Over the last four decades, the radio presenter, author and music publisher Charlie Gillett was one of the most influential people in the British music industry, a feat he achieved without a national media profile and no trace of an ego. He typically downplayed the excellence of The Sound Of The City – The Rise of Rock'n'Roll – the authoritative book he first published in 1970, and one which has sold 250,000 copies and has remained in print ever since, a rare feat in a market littered with cash-ins and remaindered titles. He made light of the part he played in the careers of Ian Dury, Graham Parker, Elvis Costello, Darts, and most famously Dire Straits, whose demo of "Sultans Of Swing" he aired on his legendary Honky Tonk show on BBC Radio London in July 1977, the first step on their way to a record deal with Phonogram and worldwide success.
Last night's television: masterchef, bbc1kings of pastry, bbc4the lady and the revamp, channel 4
"I am now at the outer limit of my publicity potential," whinnied Rachel sister-of-Boris Johnson mid-way through The Lady and the Revamp. Johnson, freshly appointed celebrity editor (celeditor?) of The Lady and not-so-secret weapon in the magazine's campaign for new readers – codename "get Rach on sofas" – could have been forgiven for thinking she'd done enough of the hard sell what with those perky appearances on BBC Breakfast and a 5,000-word profile in a Sunday newspaper. Not quite, Rachel. There's still a Channel 4 documentary to go. Still, if this hour about her attempts to give the blue-rinsed magazine a 21st-century makeover frequently came across as another plea for readers, it didn't make it any less enjoyable.
Button: mclaren are better suited to melbourne streets
The world champion Jenson Button says he can see plenty of room for improvement at next week's Australian Grand Prix after a disappointing debut with McLaren.
Warrington try to break knowsley road hoodoo
Warrington have their last chance tonight to break the longest losing streak in Super League.
Alex Butterworth's account of anarchists and their pursuers, The World That Never Was sweeps the reader through France, Russia, Britain, Italy, Germany and the United States. The well-known figures are all there: Louise Michel, incarcerated in New Caledonia after the 1871Paris Commune; Peter Kropotkin, the Russian prince who renounced privilege, and the Russian aristocrat turned revolutionary, Michael Bakunin. Many lesser-known figures flit through the pages too: Enrico Malatesta, who pinned his hopes on militant trade unionism; Sergei Kravchinsky, alias "Stepniak", who alerted liberal opinion in Britain to the oppression of Tsardom, and Elisee Reclus, veteran of the Commune, radical geographer and animal rights pioneer.
Tonight BBC4's Sacred Music series turns to France, and two vital figures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Gabriel Fauré and Francis Poulenc. Of all the sacred works of its time, none is better loved than Fauré's Requiem, which dates from 1888 and departed so radically from traditional Requiems that it has never lost its power to astonish us. In the film, Simon Russell Beale wanders through the Madeleine, church of Parisian high society where Fauré was first choirmaster and later "titulaire" (organist), pondering the factors that led the composer to create a piece often termed a "lullaby of death".
A ridiculously starry cast – including Helena Bonham Carter, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson, James Corden and Robbie Coltrane – voice this witty adaptation of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler's children's tale of a shrewd little mouse who outwits a ravenous snake, owl and a fox with the threat of a gruffalo, a creature with terrible claws, orange eyes and purple prickles all over its back. In the old days, one voice – Bernard Cribbins, say – would have voiced the whole lot, no trouble, but this was the centrepiece of the BBC's Christmas schedule so they threw the kitchen sink at it.
Ever wondered what your soul might look like if it was extracted and stored in a jar?
Storm thorgerson - my art on their sleeves
I have made over 400 album covers and as Pink Floyd said, "We've been trying to get rid of him for years, but haven't been able to." It took Pink Floyd three minutes to decide on the album cover for The Dark Side of the Moon in 1973. My memory is a bit hazy, but I think we gave them seven ideas to choose from, including a surfer on a big wave, based on a Marvel Comics superhero called the Silver Surfer. I wish I had kept them because, of course, they would have been a piece of history – but they are long gone. It's not as emotional as some of the other album covers I did for Pink Floyd, such as Wish You Were Here, or even as powerful as The Division Bell or as funny as Animals – but I feel proud of it because it is strikingly graphic.
Abdulrahman Zeitoun was born in Jebleh, on Syria's Mediterranean coast. Decades later and thousand of miles away, he awakes from dreaming of a fishing expedition out of his childhood home: "Beside him he could hear his wife Kathy breathing, her exhalations not unlike the shushing of water against the hull of a wooden boat." As so often in Dave Eggers's latest novel, the docu-drama Zeitoun, a caught image opens a window on an ocean of memory and a state of mind.
Terence blacker: the march of playground morality
"Simplistic" was the word used by the Advertising Standards Authority to describe an ill-fated government campaign to raise awareness of climate change. It was a polite way of describing the smoothing out of inconvenient truths in order to deliver a hard-hitting message in a series of public service announcements. But it was the advertisements themselves, with their use of nursery rhymes, kiddie-book pictures and primary school prose, that have raised a larger question.
Where your leading article (18 March) accepts and defends budget cuts in higher education, it positively flaunts the notion of making their institutions more like technical colleges than universities: "If, as is forecast, the number of university places overall is set to fall, it is right that students are gently channelled into areas where skills are most needed."
Leading article: hide and seek
Has ever a flower been so aptly named? The ghost orchid was presumed to have disappeared from these islands some 20 years ago. But now it has reappeared almost like, well, a ghost.
Leading article: the virtues of our armed forces
The armed forces seem to have become fodder for public argument of late. The Opposition accuses the Prime Minister of under-funding the military. There are fierce rows about the manipulation of bereaved widows by certain sections of the media. And, of course, bigger arguments still rage about the original wisdom of the military engagements in which the armed services are engaged.
Leading article: barack obama should keep the pressure on israel
It is a testament to the hubris of Benjamin Netanyhau's government that having seen off an attempt by Barack Obama to freeze settlement construction, it has now given the US President a second chance to claw back that defeat. Much has been said about the inadequacy of Mr Netanyahu's apologetic admission that last week's announcement of a plan to expand the Ramat Shlomo settlement was badly timed. As the American Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, made admirably clear to the Israeli Prime Minister in her famous telephone call last Friday, Washington objected to the substance as much as to the timing.
Molotov's magic lantern, by rachel polonsky
The genesis of this intriguingly entitled book is the writer's discovery, as an academic expatriate living in Moscow, that the flat directly above hers had been occupied for many years by the disgraced Soviet foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov. His heirs, who were now renting the flat out to well-to-do foreigners, had left bits and pieces from his library, and a "magic lantern" affording faint pictures of a forgotten past. She learned this from the then tenant, an American banker, who cheerfully gave her the run of the place.
East of the Brandenburg Gate, the stones of central Berlin don't merely speak of the city's harrowed history. If you care to hear them, they positively scream. On the south side of Under den Linden, that most imperious of thoroughfares, lies the bleak expanse of Bebelplatz. Here, on 10 May 1933, the Nazis burnt 20,000 "decadent" books by the leaders of modern German literature: an early-warning crime commemorated now in Micha Ullman's eerie underground memorial.
Observations: a comic strip in westminster
Unofficially, the Houses of Parliament plays host to comedy every day, with its corridors full of bungling MPs and the Punch and Judy of Prime Minister's Questions. But next Monday will see Westminster become a comedy venue proper for the first time, when Jewish stand-up Ivor Dembina performs his show This Is Not a Subject for Comedy in front of an audience of MPs.
An edible history of humanity, by tom standage
Did you know that carrots were white or purple until the familiar variety was created by 16th century Dutch growers as a tribute to William I, Prince of Orange? Or that the first farmers were "invariably less healthy", due to a more restricted diet and heavier work-load, than their hunter-gatherer predecessors? Dense in revelations, An Edible History of Humanity demonstrates how food has continually and often radically affected the human story. Spice comes from the Latin word species, which was also the root for the word "special". Imports such as cinnamon and ginger were special and taxed accordingly.
Observations: joseph fiennes is the new face of carte noire readers
At the moment we're used to seeing Joseph Fiennes play action man. As the star of the US television sci-fi drama FlashForward, he charges around Los Angeles waving a gun, trying to work out why everyone on the planet simultaneously lost consciousness for 137 seconds.
Fly by wire, by william langewiesche
"Have you any ideas?" asked Captain Sullenberger. "Actually not," replied co-pilot Skiles. So their Airbus A320 crash-landed on the Hudson River in the shadow of Manhattan's skyscrapers. "The fluency they exhibited at such a critical moment," writes Langewiesche, "helps to explain why their passengers survived."
Fool, by christopher moorethe final act of mr shakespeare, by robert winder
Christopher Moore's Fool is a shaggy-dog story of rumpy-pumpy, a primal soup of violence and sex, the latter notably at the hands of a Quasimodo called Drool. He is the sidekick of King Lear's ever-resourceful Fool, the irrepressible Pocket. Drool either masturbates abstractedly in the palace laundry – he is eventually promoted to Royal Minister of Wank – or else, courtesy of Master Pocket, has bionic intercourse in the dark with Goneril and Regan, both under the mistaken impression that they are being bedded by a turbo-charged Edmund the Bastard. Regan, or "bunny cunny" in the Fool's all-licensed language, oozes sex. She is beautiful, murderous, insatiable, while her younger sister Cordelia, issued from one Lear's later marriages, has an unusually raucous sense of humour.
Book of a lifetime: jude the obscure, by thomas hardy
In a brief moment in my teens when I was able to concentrate on reading many of the classics, the one that lodged with particular resonance in my heart was Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure. Reading it some 50 years later, its potency has not faded one bit.
Great works: a complete new system of midwifery (1751), george stubbs
"Yes – the history of man for the nine months preceding his birth would, probably, be far more interesting, and contain events of greater moment, than all the three-score and 10 years that follow it." That was how Samuel Taylor Coleridge marked a passage in his copy of Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici.
A bright and guilty place, by richard rayner
One of the many paradoxes of ageing is that the past seems ever more recent the older you get. When I was born, at the dawn of the 1960s, the Second World War seemed to have happened a long, long time before. Now I realise that it ended just 16 years before my birth, and 16 years no longer looks like any great span of time. The same is true of the events described in Richard Rayner's fascinating, flawed history of crime in Los Angeles in the first decades of the last century. The stories he tells are of pyramid schemes, ecological disasters, political and police corruption, greed and murder - the raw material for the novels of Raymond Chandler et al.
Three years ago, Reina (daughter of Sid) James aged 60, said of her first novel, a bleak wartime period piece, This Time of Dying: "I'm absolutely fascinated with the way we care for our dead."
With their gently melancholy wit and bittersweet harmonies, Ishiguro's five "stories of music and nightfall" feel much like the Broadway standards that inspire them.
Sex sells: the girl band that changed pop forever
In early October 1976, The Runaways, an all-girl five-piece from Los Angeles, played a sell-out show at London's Roundhouse, their debut date in the UK. At the centre of The Runaways' stage act was the appearance of singer Cherie Currie, dressed in a corset, panties, and fish-net stockings – "my way of being a rebel and out there in my underwear" is how she described it later. Such "rebellion", however, only emphasised her 16-year-old "jailbait" appeal, one exploited with no great subtlety by Kim Fowley, the group's manager.
Observations: the royal court branches out to elephant and castle
Outside Elephant and Castle shopping centre in Southwark, I stop to get directions to the Royal Court Theatre. The first person I ask is a young man exuding an air of cool fatigue in a hoodie. He is nonplussed: "What are you talking about?"
For 200 years humanity has lived in the long, deep shadow of a gloomy cleric-turned-economist from Surrey called Thomas Robert Malthus, cosily if incongruously known to his peers as "Bob". At the end of the 18th century, and in the first decades of the 19th, Malthus predicted that humanity was bound to out-breed its own food supply and so, sooner or later, must perish messily. Food, he declared, can be increased only arithmetically – by a fixed, absolute amount each year. But population rises exponentially – by a set percentage each year; and exponential growth, unlike arithmetical growth, gets faster and faster.
A spirit of discovery at the london lesbian and gay film festival
On a warm summer's evening in June 2001, a Navajo Indian teenager from Cortez, Colorado, left his mother's trailer home to visit a nearby rodeo that had pitched up on the outskirts of their reservation. Growing up in such a remote corner of conservative Middle America, Fred Martinez was always going to stand out from the crowd.
Album: laura marling, i speak because i can (virgin)
On I Speak Because I Can, Laura Marling continues to demonstrate why she's such an exciting singer-songwriter.
I love you phillip morris (15)
This must have been a tricky one to pitch. The words, "It's basically a gay prison escape movie" are not the sort a studio will rejoice to hear. And you can't imagine audiences embracing the notion wholeheartedly, either, Brokeback Mountain notwithstanding. It must have been quite a relief for the film-makers to be able to say that they had Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor on board as stars, because the level of explicitness here – anal-sex jokes, prison-sex jokes – really is the kind that spells box-office death. What's unexpected is that the film manages to be deeply peculiar in a way that actually has nothing to do with "gayness". It is not even what interested audiences think it might be.
Album: the white stripes, under great white northern lights (third man/xl)
As the notion of concert performance retreats ever further into the pre-programmed bowels of a computer, the great live album is virtually a thing of the past.
Album: various artists, the bert berns story volume 2: mr success 1964-1967 (ace)
Songwriter/producer/label boss Bert Berns was one of the great architects of the 1960s pop sound, though rarely accorded his rightful status due to his tragic death in 1967 at the age of 38 from heart failure – by which time, The Beatles' cover of his "Twist And Shout" had earned him a house with a guitar-shaped swimming pool.
Dvd: the twilight saga: new moon (12)
Kristen Stewart's Bella Swan is, like, bummed out 'cos her "hot" young/old bloodsucker beau Edward (Robert Pattinson) has gone and left her – "This is the last time you'll ever see me," he solemnly promises. Yeah, right.
Did you know that Canada, not the Middle East, is the largest supplier of oil to the US?
In which Jennifer Aniston continues to display her remarkable knack for choosing the lamest comedy vehicles on the road.
Party of the week: actresses take the lead for the almeida
The actresses Kim Cattrall, Fiona Shaw and Natascha McElhone attended the Almeida's fundraising gala, which this year raised £115,000 for the theatre.
Oxford history of modern slang, by john ayto and john simpson
Take a butcher's ("short for butcher's hook, rhyming slang for look") at this hash-up ("something concocted afresh from existing material") of street lingo ("probably from Portuguese lingoa language") and you'll expand your vocabulary with such terms as lallygag (dawdle) and slug-nutty (punch drunk).
Andreas whittam smith: to understand modern france, you really must see la rafle
The memory of France's most shameful wartime episode, buried deep for 30 years and then only grudgingly recognised, has finally come fully to the surface. For the appalling fate that the French state inflicted on thousands of its Jewish people one morning in July 1942 has become the subject of a film made with serious and respectful intent, a sort of documentary with actors. It is titled La Rafle (The Round-up). It opened last week in 775 cinemas throughout France. The telling is vivid and leaves one shaken.
Susie rushton: fencing for all hits the mark
this week the Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw announced a £6m scheme to fund a new network of after-school sports clubs. These won't offer football or netball, you understand, but Olympic oddities including badminton, handball, table tennis and fencing. That's right, fencing, chortled the Daily Mirror on Wednesday, under the inevitable "On Guard" headline (we fencers say en guarde, SVP). And why these particular arcane pastimes? The more minority the category, goes the thinking, the better chance Team GB will have at winning medals.
Caught in the net - making an impressive mess
Around about 2008, Vampire Weekend, Yeasayer and MGMT all hit the ground running with a sound that occupied a relatively similar sphere (give or take some different quirks here and there). The first two bands have kicked off 2010 with well-received new records and now it's getting to time for MGMT to re-enter the fray. Thus far, I can't say I've been fully convinced by the Brooklyn duo's brand of Dayglo, hipster-based wide-eyed psych-pop-rock – someone has probably come up with a more succinct label for their sound, but I'm going to ignore it. Perhaps their upcoming new album 'Congratulations' can sway me and other naysayers, when it lands in April. The first song to emerge from it is available as a free download from the band's website, whoismgmt.com. It's called "Flash Delirium", and is a promising opening salvo, full of the aforementioned elements but with more craziness added: shouty vocals, soft rock harmonies, flutes, swirling electronics, horns... Pretty much everything is thrown in there and it's an impressive mess.
New young pony club - electro stars rise from the rave
Andy Spence, one quarter of New Young Pony Club (NYPC), is exhibiting some obsessive-compulsive tendencies. He's on his hands and knees, dustpan and brush gripped in his paws, shovelling up dirt. "I just like to keep things clean," laughs the guitarist as the rest of the band – vocalist Tahita "Ty" Bulmer, keyboardist Lou Hayter and drummer Sarah Jones – buzz around their North London studio. Hayter and Jones make their apologies and leave as Bulmer and Spence bounce down on to a comfortably tattered and old-looking sofa.
Taking its cue from films such as The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity may not be the first low-budget horror movie to use the hand-held camera technique, but that doesn't stop it working to terrifying effect.
Story of the scene: the chronicles of narnia: the lion, the witch and the wardrobe (2005)
Cinematographer Don McAlpine began his working life making small films in Australia with Bruce Beresford before becoming one of the LA industry elite trusted to film big-budget Hollywood movies such as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Wolverine. Cinematographers have to work closely with set and art designers and sometimes single scenes can be unbelievably complicated, shot not just in different sites, but different continents. One such was the first time we see the cave of Mr Tumnus in the first Narnia film.
Vocals - Bob MarleyWhen you watch his performances you see he was a genuine star. He was socially aware and all legendary artists usually stand for something or break the mould in some way. He really raised Jamaica into the worldwide consciousness.
The word on... liars, sisterworld
"Liars' usual creeping unease turns seductive —the increasingly rational voice of the inner psychopath... also ranks among Liars' poppiest. It compacts the band's ambient sprawl and mantra-like rhythms into recognisable song structures, even rocking out." - avclub.com
Did the runaways start pop's sexual revolution?
Cherie Currie's knickers changed the course of popular music history. When, in 1976, she appeared on stage in a basque, fishnet stockings and her pants, which might have been the standard attire if you're handing out cocktails at a Brewer Street clip joint but not so much if you were a 16-year-old girl straight out of a high school in Encino, she prematurely and unknowingly fired the starting gun in a sexual arms race which has dominated pop ever since.
Tina fey - from spoofer to movie stardom
Introduced to British audiences as luckless Liz Lemon in TV's 30 Rock, writer Tina Fey has come a long way for a self-confessed "super-nerd" whose career once revolved around making other people sound funny. More than anything, Fey's savagely spot-on skits of former US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin propelled her into the spotlight, adding an Emmy to her growing collection of awards including five other Emmys, two Golden Globes and numerous Writers Guild awards.
Of the two babysitting movies out this week, this one is marginally the less appalling.
Album: serena-maneesh, no 2: abyss in b minor (4ad)
Ever since his school music teacher played his charges The Velvet Underground's "Heroin", Emil Nikolaisen, leader of Norwegian band Serena-Maneesh, has had an affinity for sonic extremity, pushed to the limit on this follow-up to their 2006 debut.
Album: roger woodward, bach: the well-tempered clavier (celestial harmonies)
There has been almost as much of a glut of Well-Tempered Claviers recently as commemorative Chopin editions, including interpretations from Daniel Barenboim and Maurizio Pollini; but this 5CD set of both Books I and II by Roger Woodward may well be the most significant since Glenn Gould's revolutionary completion of the sequence.
The solitude of prime numbers, by paolo giordano
This best-sellling Italian novel of childhood tragedy and its legacy treads a fine line between pathos and bathos. Paolo Giordano sparingly employs the lonely music of the primes as a symbol of post-traumatic grief.
Screen talk: the father of all diary problems
Ah the shame. Audiences will not be able to savour the prospect of Mickey Rourke (right) starring as Conan The Barbarian's father. Rourke's people have been talking to the backers of plans to bring the barbarian warrior created by Robert E Howard back to the big screen. Insiders report that "those discussions fell apart" with Rourke. It seems Rourke, regarded as something of an eccentric these days, just couldn't organise his diary to get to Bulgaria of all places, where the movie is due to begin shooting this month. If the governator Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't so busy sorting out California's economy, he would by now be ideally placed to play the father of his own 1982 breakout turn as Conan.
The spartacus war, by barry strauss
Spartacus is suddenly hot. The UK is braced for the arrival of a "sexed-up" TV series on the slave rebel, which according to one report has already "sparked an outcry in America because of its gore and genitalia."
The life and times of the great composers, by michael steen
Does it assist our appreciation of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony to learn that the composer was obsessed with both numbers (he would count "windows, weather cocks, church crosses, buttons") and dead bodies? Does it enhance Mahler's Eighth Symphony when we know that the composer's "idea of a cosy evening" was to get his "highly sexed and active" wife Alma to report on astronomy lectures he had asked her to attend?
Observations: chip-lit is in the bag at this year's london word festival
Now in its third year, the 2010 London Word Festival has been serving up the kind of verbal gastronomics we have come to expect from the east end's most collaborative literary event, with Toby Litt, Iain Sinclair and physicist Brian Cox just some of the treats on this month's menu.
Nice to see it, to see it, nice, by brian viner
In chapter four, the author explains it was peer pressure that prompted him to a) throw big balls of soaked newspaper from the school bus window and b) watch Top of the Pops.
Boyd tonkin: meagre fare from the digital kitchen
Predictably enough, the value of book sales in Britain dipped by just under 5 per cent in 2009. The total number of books sold also marginally dropped (down from 332 to 330 million). So far, so recession-standard – but note how small the slide. Yet this week's figures from the Books&Consumers conference do spring a surprise. Books purchased as gifts now account for almost half of the entire market.
Tom sutcliffe: happiness – who needs it?
'There's a lot of grimness out there," said the TV producer Daisy Goodwin earlier this week, complaining about the literary miserablism she'd encountered as the chair of this year's Orange Prize for Fiction jury. "There are a lot of books that start with a rape. Pleasure does seem to have become a rather neglected element in publishing." By her account it had been a somewhat gloomy business doing the reading for the long list, finishing off one dispiriting account of human tragedy only to pick up another, un-mediated by jollity or lightness of tone. And though one sympathises with the chore, or the desire for a bit of variety, her grumble couldn't help but sound a slightly naïve and unliterary note – given how important "grimness" is in the canon. Bang goes Hamlet and Macbeth. Bang goes Crime and Punishment. Bang goes most of Thomas Hardy and all of Kafka. Gloomy, gloomy, gloomy guys! Can't you just cheer up and give us a joke every now and then to make the time pass a little quicker?
Adrian hamilton: people vote for competence not policy
Yes, yes. Of course the election is supposed to be about policies and not personalities, and the main parties should be detailing just what precise cuts they are planning to make to public expenditure, and just what they mean by "family" and "society", and what is the "clear water" between them on a host of issues from defence to education.
Album: judith leclair, works for bassoon (avie)
Judith Leclair, principal bassoonist of the New York Philharmonic, valiantly manages in this anthology of chamber pieces to avoid the comical nasal quality that makes the bassoon a little showcased instrument.
Pensioner Harry Brown (Michael Caine) spends his time between caring for his dying wife and drowning his sorrows with best friend Leonard down his local. His life is torn apart when first his wife passes away and then Len, who had been terrorised by the kids who hang out on his estate, is found brutally murdered. As the police fail to respond, Harry, a former marine, decided to take on the killers himself and embarks on a journey into London's dark underbelly.
My last five girlfriends (12a)
Julian Kemp's comedy is apparently based on a book by Alain de Botton, though its plot looks more like a knock-off of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, with quirky interior musing in place of quirky independent music.
Album: morton feldman, trio (mode)
Written in the early Eighties, Trio was one of Feldman's first long-form pieces employing a conventional chamber palette of violin, cello and piano. It involves neither epic musical narrative nor the tedium of process music, its 105 minutes instead built from his usual small-scale blocks of sound.
Album: mose allison, the way of the world (anti-)
Despite having repeatedly said he would never make another album, Mose Allison has been tempted out of retirement at the age of 82 to bring us The Way Of The World, a collection of typically trenchant observations delivered in his trademark laconic drawl.
The arsenic century, by james c whorton
The next time you're having a bad day, pause for a moment to be grateful: that you weren't born in the Victorian age and consequently are not likely to be in danger of being poisoned by arsenic. Come, come, you might be thinking. This is a slender reason to be cheerful – who's to say that anyone would wish to slip a splash of arsenious acid into my cup of tea? But as James Whorton's book points out again and again, you didn't need to have a disgruntled spouse or a deadly enemy to be at risk from a gruesome death caused by arsenic. You didn't even need to leave the house.
Is Jack Reacher dead or alive? I only ask. He's had a good run. He is 13 novels old. 61 Hours is his 14th outing in Lee Child's series. Perhaps that time-frame corresponds to how long it has taken to read that many novels. Or, possibly, how long it took to write them (hey, just kidding, Jack, don't hit me with those cauliflower-sized fists!).
50 cent: 'i still have passion for music'
At some point, Curtis James Jackson III will probably want to bid farewell to the gangsta-rapper charmingly known as 50 Cent. The controversial performer – famous for being shot nine times, entertaining disagreements, dodging lawsuits (his most recent involves allegedly posting a sex tape online), and wearing bullet-proof vests like thermals over those intimidating, tattooed biceps – employed the persona well when he debuted in 1999 with the single "How To Rob". He went on to sell 12 million records with his first album, Get Rich or Die Tryin' and, from a brand perspective, it had enough mileage to warrant a movie inspired by his life, his own G-Unit record label, a couple of video games which indulged kids in gangster-like fantasies and a series of "hip-hop noir" novels.
One made it home, one did not: bomb disposal experts given george cross
Two bomb disposal experts who risked their lives combating the most lethal threat facing British forces in Afghanistan have received the George Cross, one of the nation's highest honours.
Clegg could support tories in a minority government
The Liberal Democrats would support a minority Conservative government in a hung parliament despite "profound differences" between the two parties, according to a report published today.
Robert fisk: the mysterious case of the grey lady of bagram
Dr Shams Hassan Faruqi sits amid his rocks and geological records, shakes his bearded head and stares at me. "I strongly doubt if the children are alive," he says. "Probably, they have expired." He says this in a strange way, mournful but resigned, yet somehow he seems oddly unmoved. As a witness, supposedly, to the mysterious 2008 re-appearance of Aafia Siddiqui – the "most wanted woman in the world", according to former US attorney general John Ashcroft – I guess this 73-year-old Pakistani geologist is used to the limelight. But the children, I ask him again. What happened to the children?
They are one of the most spectacular sights in the solar system yet the visual serenity of Saturn's rings belies the violent destruction that continually takes place to maintain these remarkable planetary structures.
Johann hari: the pope, the prophet, and the religious support for evil
What can make tens of millions of people – who are in their daily lives peaceful and compassionate and caring – suddenly want to physically dismember a man for drawing a cartoon, or make excuses for an international criminal conspiracy to protect child-rapists? Not reason. Not evidence. No. But it can happen when people choose their polar opposite – religion. In the past week we have seen two examples of how people can begin to behave in bizarre ways when they decide it is a good thing to abandon any commitment to fact and instead act on faith. It has led some to regard people accused of the attempted murders of the Mohamed cartoonists as victims, and to demand "respect" for the Pope, when he should be in a police station being quizzed about his role in covering up and thereby enabling the rape of children.
Glaxo funded backers of 'danger' drug
More than nine out of 10 scientists who backed a drug at the centre of a safety scare had financial links to the pharmaceutical industry, a study has found.
The ten best acts of sporting revenge
Jose Mourinho exacted the perfect revenge for his bitter departure from Chelsea this week.
What do we want? apocalypse. when do we want it? now!
A rogue nuclear missile. An attack by alien life forms. Plague. Meteors, killer waves, angry volcanos. Ecological meltdown. There’s no end of possibilities when it comes to the end of the world – and we can’t get enough of speculating how it might occur, and what happens next.
Nigeria's stand-in leader goodluck jonathan sacks cabinet
Nigeria's Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, dissolved the cabinet last night in a bid to consolidate his authority at the helm of Africa's most populous nation a month after he assumed executive powers.
Ugandan royal tomb fire stokes tensions between government and king
Ugandan security forces killed two people and wounded five yesterday after fire destroyed historic royal tombs, heightening tension between the government and the powerful Bugandan kingdom.
Wife budget doubled for president jacob zuma
South Africa's opposition leader was yesterday accused of "cultural chauvinism" after she criticised the cost to the state of President Jacob Zuma's three wives.
Five arrested over kidnap of british boy sahil saeed in pakistan
Five people have been arrested in connection with the kidnap of the five-year-old British boy Sahil Saeed after a "substantial" ransom was handed over for his return.
China's shenyang zoo closed after tigers starve to death
It is the Chinese Year of the Tiger but it has been far from auspicious. China's Shenyang Zoo has closed after 11 Siberian tigers died of starvation or were shot this year amid murky tales of body parts being used for traditional medicinal remedies.
Cardinal sean brady 'sorry' for covering up abuse
The leader of Ireland's Roman Catholics said yesterday that he was ashamed of his part in dealing with a child sex abuse scandal 35 years ago, and that he ws uncertain what the future held for him.