Mark Ronson has developed an unfortunate habit of putting his foot in it (you'd almost think he had a new album to promote). First, there was his comment, in an interview with Esquire, that he regretted dating a certain 'It' girl: "I look back on it," he lamented, "and think, 'God, did I really just step into the cliché like that?'" Said cliché was, gossips presumed, his relationship with model Daisy Lowe, whom he ran into at the GQ Men of the Year awards, to which she was accompanied by her new boyfriend, Doctor Who. Then, on Friday night, Ronson told Jools Holland that as a producer, he had taken Amy Winehouse's demos and from them "created" the hits on her album Back to Black. "[R]onson you're dead to me", Winehouse tweeted in response, "one album I write an [sic] you take half the credit – make a career out of it? don't think so BRUV". The lingo is authentic, though Ms Winehouse's account remains unverified by Twitter HQ (so may not, in fact, really be hers). It's also possible she was joking.

Any restaurant whose launch party can bring together, under one frenetically decorated roof, the King of the Zulu Nation and Amy Winehouse, has surely got to be worth a look. Shaka Zulu is an 800-seat mega-venue that styles itself a "theatre of food and drink". It's in London's Camden Market and it has a South African theme. Talk about a triple threat.

Mark Ronson has a gift for catchy collaborations. Ahead of a new album, which features stars young and old, Elisa Bray finds out what it's like to work with the industry's most in-demand producer

Carl Barat and Pete Doherty put past differences behind them to remind us why the Libertines were such a cultural phenomenon

’19 Days’, the self-released, Mike Chapman produced, Charlatans funded, gem of a single from Birmingham’s Arcadian Kicks is something of a mongrel of the pop industry. Something about the band doesn’t quite seem right at first, something not quite “organic”, but the more this debut single slams your record player, the less your guard is up, and the more genuine the band seems to feel.

Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen and Florence Welch have towered over pop music in recent years. So why, asks Fiona Sturges, does the backstage arena remain almost entirely dominated by men?

Singer Amy Winehouse has started dating a film director, it was confirmed today.

As Ian Curtis is remembered 30 years after his death, Fiona Sturges looks at the myth of the tortured artist and asks why fans reserve their reverence for the stars who suffer

The volcanic ash hovering over Triesmangate leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, a massive dent in England's 2018 World Cup ambitions and yet another "sit vac" notice pinned on the Football Association's notice board. Worse still, it has enticed Sir Alan Sugar to declare his interest in sipping from then poisoned chalice. Someone should tell him now "You're fired!" before he is hired because with Lord Sugar in charge it would be a decidedly unsweet FA. He doesn't do humility or schmoozing, and would get up more noses than a stash of the white stuff at an Amy Winehouse housewarming. The incoming Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson, is insistent that another independent chairman should succeed the loose-tongued Triesman – but my hunch is that he could be persuaded otherwise if one of the game's most respected figures became a candidate. Please step forward Sir Trevor Brooking, for six years the FA's director or football development. One of the brainiest and most elegant footballers, he has also proved he knows how to steady a ship and steer it intelligently as he showed when he was a first-class chairman of Sport England. There is no one outside of Fabio Capello among the vast number of FA hirelings who knows more about the game from top to bottom. Who better than the thinking fan's pro to bridge the damaging gap between the FA and the Premier League? Brooking would also be a distinguished addition to the bid's front-bench team, whose surprise election tactic may see Seb Coe making the keynote platform address, impressively flanked by two Daves: Beckham and Cameron.

As Kafka once described; "When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous insect”, thus a metamorphosis of the self can definitely make a big change, be it for better or worse. With this in mind, Plan B, obviously failing at Plan A, has transformed into a giant insect that climbs walls for pleasure. Ah, not really, he’s just changed in to a male Amy Winehouse (which is similar to be a big insect climbing the walls come to think of it) and he’s managed to blow away critics with his new album, The Defamation of Strickland Banks.

The "Sweet About Me" singer tells The Independent about being chucked in the same barrel as Amy, Duffy and Adele and her love of Janis Joplin, the Stones and funk

Their follow-up to the splendid 100 Days, 100 Nights finds Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings deftly employing the Sixties soul grammar which made them such a key element of Amy Winehouse's Back To Black.

Singer Amy Winehouse nipped out of hospital to perform on stage alongside her budding chart star father Mitch last night.

It would be easy to imagine, listening to Diane Birch's debut album, that she had spent years keenly studying the same R&B influences that guided her blue-eyed-soul peers Amy Winehouse, Joss Stone and Duffy.