We can't get enough of frightening films, video games and theatre 'experiences'. But why do we find fear so thrilling? It's all down to our biology, discovers Luke Blackall

UK companies are to offer Facebook users everything from free cups of coffee to cut-price theme park rides after the social networking giant launched a service allowing people to log on and claim special rewards.

It still feels odd not to have a proper "end of term"' before the Christmas holiday. The way I separate work from the gluttonous hiatus these days is with the journey from London to my parents' house in Sheffield.

Never heard of it – something to do with the State-owned banks?

Nope. Treasury Holdings is the parent company of Real Estate Opportunities, which does what the name suggests. Mr Tincknell, its point-man, is a property developer of some repute.

A couple spoke of their elation today at sharing in a £2.6 million Lotto jackpot in the week they celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary.

After all the pleasant weather we've had over the past few months, it's hard to believe there are six weeks of summer remaining. The good people at Robert Dyas appear not to have realised either, because they are currently clearing out their top-selling barbecue sets and garden furniture for a fraction of their recommended retail prices. The pick of the bargains is an AWT kettle grill barbecue, below, which is reduced from £100 to £49.99. Dyas also has 2.7m x 2.7m detachable gazebo reduced from £50 to £29.99.

Artful clutter, a super-size bed and a deep free-standing bath – elements which, one might think, could give a good hotel a "homely" air. Not according to Patrick Goff, who ran an award-winning hotel design practice for 25 years before setting up Hoteldesigns.net, an online industry resource: "When a designer talks about a hotel being 'homely'," he says, "he's lying. He's talking about a kind of theatrical, Disneyland 'homely' – not what you actually get at home."

David Cameron launched his party's manifesto at Battersea Power Station the other day. The implication was that the vast, decaying bulk of the famous building was an example of the sort of neglect and abandonment which his government would put right.

I momentarily turned into Norman Tebbit over the weekend – an unsettling experience which was vaguely reminiscent of that bit in The Fly when Jeff Goldblum suddenly starts buzzing uncontrollably. The catalyst in my case wasn't a careless test-run with a matter transmitter but overhearing a comment on the story that teachers were now finding themselves facing their own pupils on interview panels.