Nick Grimshaw has been taking some flak after his Breakfast Show lost nearly a million listeners

Audio CD and book of short stories

Audio CD and book of short stories

Good old Tories, astutely tapping into the real fears faced by modern parents about the dangerous world that confronts their children. In a speech on Thursday about education, Michael Gove laid out just one of the nightmare scenarios that keep parents awake at night: "You come home to find your 17-year-old daughter engrossed in a book." So, which book would be acceptable: "Twilight or Middlemarch?"

I don't want to worry anyone, but all the news suggests that we are a nation permanently on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Uh oh, watch out: the Government is "encouraging" something. You know you should worry if the Government starts encouraging something that you do, because it only ever encourages things that are somewhere between futile and completely suicidal. Remember when it attempted to solve the crisis of too many single households by "encouraging marriage"? Or when its best policy to get us out of a recession was to "encourage spending"? When governments "encourage" things, it means that it would be better for the country if people acted as no sane individual could be persuaded to. Well, now it is encouraging cycling.

Perhaps this has not been the most representative week in the media, but did you know that there have been 51 articles in the British press in the past seven days with the word "hate" in the headline? Some of them have been about the "hate cleric" Abu Qatada. Others revealed "phrases that women hate to hear". One was about hating a neighbour's patio. Of course, there were many about hating Margaret Thatcher, and more about hating people who hate her. There ain't much love in Britain at the moment.

These may well turn out to be the brightest writers of their generation, but while some work truly shines, the list fails to satisfy as a collection

And still he goes on, the masochistic Mr Clegg, with the radio show on which he routinely exposes himself to ridicule, fury, accusations of hypocrisy, and questions about onesies. Last week he waded into a debate about how to change the NHS, the health service formerly known as one of Britain's greatest achievements. Clegg's big idea is to charge people for their treatment in A&E if they are there for alcohol-related injuries.