Holburne Museum, Bath; until 2 September
Alan Titchmarsh is the sycophant in the room at the jubileeJeremy Paxman, John Humphrys – watch out. Theres a new hard man in town, a pit bull of interrogation. OK, Alan Titchmarsh has been around fo...
As she celebrates her diamond jubilee, the monarch floats above the stink during a national carnival of disillusionmentIts fascinating, isnt it? Here we are in the middle of a national carnival of di...
Brent council officials agree to discuss campaigners proposal of running library at no ongoing cost to local authorityA historic library threatened with closure could survive as a community-run proje...
Fascinated by Homer since childhood, Madeline Miller spent 10 years writing her ancient world novel with a gay rights message that this week won the last-ever Orange prizeThe first time Madeline Mill...
We Face Forward, ManchesterSubtitled Art From West Africa today, this festival concentrates on visual art and music from 11 countries across this vast swathe of the continent, although football and f...
Gatz, LondonJust as one stage adaptation of F Scott Fitzgeralds seminal cult novel finishes, another appears. However, Gatz lasts eight hours in four parts. Quite something for such a slim volume as ...
Grayson Perry, LondonA Rakes Progress, with its Bedlam-bound high-living middle class rubbing shoulders with the upper crust, is Hogarths ultimate satire on the folly of keeping up with the Joneses. ...
The Charlatans frontman and east London indie guru empties the contents of his psychic record bagThe track Ill be opening my next DJ set with New Order: 586 The 16-minute version is a good one to get...
Secretsundaze, LondonIt may not have escaped your attention that theres some kind of pageant taking place on the Thames on Sunday. But if waving a plastic union flag towards an unelected head of stat...
Doc Brown, Kilkenny & BristolThe idea of an English rapper might be comic enough to some, but Ben Smith (brother of novelist Zadie) used to be the real thing, a bona fide hip-hop artist who collabora...
Resistance: Burning Skies, PS VitaIn the Resistance series, the second world war ends and aliens invade, first Europe then, in Burning Skies, fortress America. Youre Tom Riley, the franchises usual J...
Gulp Game Love (ELK) Anyone wondering what the various members of Super Furry Animals are up to has clearly got way too much time on their hands, and yet a quick trawl of the internet reveals a lot o...
Not-so-mysterious-yet-masked producer SBTRKT brings his eclectic dubstep-soul-electronica mash up (3-5 Oct, tour begins O2 Academy Bristol) ...Maxïmo Park are back with more literature-strewn alt roc...
Field Day; The Apple Cart, LondonEvery year Hackneys Victoria Park becomes the London outpost of the festival season and – moved forward two months to avoid clashes with the Olympics – this weekend b...
He idolises John Lennon, doesnt disrespect women, and works with the most eclectic producers, but this Harlem rappers main aim is to stay youngHarlem is changing. As the sun goes down on West 123rd S...
How a gonzo road trip, Halo 3 and the Arab Spring helped make the British directors debut anything but GrimmIt is the morning after a quite colossal night before for director Rupert Sanders. There is...
Boats, dogs, police officers, fake giraffes, florists, mounted soldiers and a mongoose prepare for the event
Facing questions from Ann Robinson and John Humphrys, the Countdown lexicographer was at panic stationsI was invited to appear on Test The Nation, the live BBC television programme hosted by Phillip ...
This job has made me realise there are a lot of lonely people in the worldListeners have told me theyre pregnant before theyve told their boyfriends. Theyve just had nobody else to go to. This job ha...
From the very first sentence - "Sing, O goddess, the destructive rage of Achilles" - I fell completely in loveI first encountered Homer when I was five years old and my mother would read the ...
By Samantha Wynne-RhydderchIf you have leaned back full tiltin a rocking chair on a verandahby moonlight, pulled your coat closerbeneath the balustrades ramblingsas the wind lays itself at your feetl...
Vain, a hypochondriac, antisemetic and misogynistic, Isherwood certainly had his faults, but as the last volume of his diaries reveals, he could be clever and kind, and had a gift for loveReaders of ...
How do conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Simon Rattle and Valery Gergiev work? Tom Service drops in on leading orchestras to find outThe first concert of orchestral music I ever went to – I was seve...
The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa, Just Send Me Word by Orlando Figes and HHhH by Laurent BinetPublished in Spanish in 2010, the year its author won the Nobel prize for literature, Mario Va...
From Victor Hugo to David Peace, via a certain book by George OrwellQuatrevingt-treize by Victor HugoHugos final work was a historical novel that dramatised the uprising against the French revolution...
Was Darwins theory of evolution merely an idea whose time had come?There may be no such thing as originality. In the fourth edition of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin added a historical sket...
Psychoanalysis can fail people by assuming that the best thing you can do in life is to know yourself. Well, I dont think thats trueFour days a week, the psychoanalyst and writer Adam Phillips listen...
How the military want to control our brainsScience long ago struck its Faustian bargain with the military. From Archimedes and Leonardo to the physicists of the Manhattan project, Vietnams electronic...
Will Self, once a YBA fan, now finds himself seduced by the old masters. He takes a guided tour of the National Gallery with its director Nicholas PennyIn the late 1990s I used to hang out a bit with...
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