Whoever did this was a berry bad boy indeed…

The Bookshop Band are Britain's only literary band. “We've just written a song inspired by Damian Barr's Maggie & Me,” says Ben Please. The Avon trio are fresh from a UK tour of independent bookshops and last month played Glastonbury. Authors who've had their books immortalised in song love it: “Rachel Joyce brought her family to see us when we played at a shop near her home,” says Please.

A festival intent on ridding us of the myriad modern-day distractions that stop us from embracing the fullness of the present moment will use unconventional artistic methods to cajole audiences into “mindfulness”.

Amazing to think of how much an audience never sees during an opera performance – or never used to see. Live cinema relays from the world's leading opera houses can now convey a level of close-up detail rarely visible in a theatre. But that, says the soprano Danielle de Niese (pictured), brings challenges of its own. Especially if the costumes are none too substantial.

This London-based Norwegian stand-up has just bagged a role in Vic and Bob's new BBC sitcom House of Fools, which airs next year, playing Bob's spoilt son. Currently, he's performing his new show, Stranger, at the Edinburgh Fringe, where he won the Best Newcomer Award last year. His interest in stand-up was sparked at 14 when he saw Eddie Murphy on TV. “I have the freedom to say what I want to say. But you have to work really hard to get it right.”

'I've been listening to a little bit of The xx lately and I like them a lot'

'You could say that what I display is failure, what has not been achieved'

Lyons teashops were the Starbucks of their day. In the aftermath of war, the management of the restaurant chain was faced with a pressing challenge: how to enliven dingy and often war-scarred interiors up and down the country without spending a fortune.

Alice Jones' Arts Diary

Alice Jones' Arts Diary

An exhibition featuring some of the 20th-century’s most iconic figures in music, film and fashion opens at a London gallery on Thursday.

Tim Walker tracks down the man forced out of his makeshift home by a few strokes of the brush – and discovers the extraordinary efforts by the street artist to make amends

"It doesn't matter what art looks like," said the Austrian Franz West (Platonic Moon, 2003). His work with other artists is the subject of Mostly West at Inverleith House (rbge.org .uk, to 22 Sept).

Steinmetz has reverted to the traditions of the French masters of the early 20th century – albeit with a subversive edge – in order to capture the expressive vitality of a city pulsing with life

Lord Rogers has never been afraid to bring politics into the design debate