The Verve's Richard Ashcroft, closing Glastonbury with a mesmerising performance of "Bitter Sweet Symphony", reminds his audience and the countless thousands, like myself, watching at home, that we have to go to work tomorrow "at a job you hate and for a boss you despise". Yikes, I think, I hope he's wrong about that. Because the next morning I have to get up at a time of day I thought [...]

A peculiar way to start the new year. I don't just mean because of the spineless performance of the England cricket team in Sri Lanka. Nor am I thinking of the terrible sense of loss that sweeps over the soul at the premature ending of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, a fabulous but rather overlooked show from Aaron "West Wing" Sorkin. No, I'm feeling strange because last weekend's edition [...]

Harold Evans's Pictures on a Page (30 years old and still essential reading for anyone who cares about journalism) has a fascinating black-and-white picture on the back cover. It shows a beachside scene at some indeterminate foreign location, full of general mayhem, emergency workers and anxious onlookers. In the middle is a young woman. The copy around the picture, which is so good that I assume it was written by [...]