These shoes were made for walking

ITV's `We Can Work it Out' will wear kid gloves to wage war against the BBC's snappy `Watchdog'. Who's got it right?

Is it so unreasonable to want to combine babies and a serious, part-time career? A new book by Jayne Buxton argues not (and she's a management consultant, so she should know)

He is an ordinary man, seen going about his humdrum job - yet millions of TV viewers have taken him to their hearts. Jeremy Spake takes it all in his stride, but tells Anthony Clavane that fame's a fickle game, and he won't be caught on the hop when Anne Robinson turns her steely gaze upon him.

She became famous for being famous ... Anthea Turner was managed to TV stardom by her husband cum business manager. Then she found new/true love and as Sam Taylor discovers is now famous for being notorious.

Look at yourself. It's early January and you are horribly short of money after the recent mandatory purchase of a half-life-size Scalextric Monaco Grand Prix (pounds 498.99) and a complete set of Spice Girl Dolls (pounds 21.99 each) complete with fully-accessorised electric Union Jack Spicemobile (don't ask). Having failed to penetrate the intricacies of the self-assessment tax form, you face paying the Inland Revenue a penalty of pounds 100 at the end of the month. The bank are wondering, a little noisily, if your overdraft should really be creeping into five figures. The credit card people have sent you a pair of scissors in the post. The great-aunt in Palm Springs, on whose imminent demise and legacy you were pinning all hopes of affording a holiday this summer, has become more spry than ever and has gone snow- boarding in Aspen. A huge bailiff from the local council is on your doorstep, all pristine trainers and nasty haircut. What do you do?

Now here's a straight-thinking woman with a career strategy: 'My tip is that everyone should aim for a million a year.' It seems to work all right for her. But who knows why?

The BBC is investigating how a prankster could have placed a hoax message on the Points of View answering machine, outraging dozens of callers to the television show.

Well, I'm sure glad that's over. I've just spent seven days of agony, stricken by this loathsome virus that's working its way through the metropolis, closing all the theatres in the West End (it attacks understudies, apparently, with a special fury) and turning every conversation in media- land into an antiphon of shared symptoms: "Yeah, I had it too. Yeah, all last week. Yeah, the chest infection. Honestly, I thought I was going to die ..."

Journalists Eve Pollard, Clare Rayner and Anne Robinson among friends and former colleagues at a memorial service to the agony aunt Marjorie Proops.

Anne Robinson, director general of the National Association of Pension Funds, yesterday courted controversy by suggesting that the Government scraps the 25 per cent tax-free lump sum paid to millions of people on retirement, in exchange for restoring tax breaks previously enjoyed by the pension fund industry, writes Nic Cicutti.

Ken and Barbara Follett yesterday accepted undisclosed libel damages over a newspaper column which questioned the sincerity of their fund-raising activities for the Labour Party.

The Gloucester victims: The 10 women and girls Frederick and Rosemary West are alleged to have murdered

Gloucester killings: Trial of builder's widow begins nine months after he committed suicide in his prison cell