You're a movie marketer in your big-shot's office in LA. It's hot, you've had way too much coffee and your client wants to know your plan to publicise their latest blockbuster.

There is really very little that Marc-André Hamelin can’t or won’t do on or with a piano and he did most of it in this characteristically supersonic recital - including one wholesale assault on the Wigmore Steinway’s bottom octave with his fists.

I was propping up the bar at José's eponymous tapas bar in London's Bermondsey when before you can say Rozinante, the barman offered me two red wines to taste, a bobal and a mencia. Not rioja, please note, but two relatively obscure yet delicious Spanish reds each with their own distinctive personality. I couldn't resist a glass of Gramona, a cava that's so refreshing it almost single-handedly redefines Spanish sparkling wine.

Gino D'Acampo makes Carpaccio di Salmone e Pomodorini di Collina.

Home renovation can be pretty costly, so it always pays to check out the deals at B&Q before splashing out elsewhere. The DIY store's top discounts are currently found in the plumbing and heating departments, where everything from boilers to designer fire places has been reduced by up to 20 per cent. Visit http://ind.pn/b9OLYV for the full range of discounts and enter the code SEPTPH20 while purchasing.

Lena Corner discovers what the world's style leaders to eat during London Fashion Week

Odd in the extreme when heard live, the super-sweet timbre of The Monteverdi Choir's high tenors and sopranos is sublime in this recording from two performances in Paris and London.

Serves 4

Deadpan, offbeat, quirkily comic but steeped in loneliness, these early stories and sketches by the leading Dutch writer (translated by Lisa Friedman and Ron de Klerk) add up to a portrait of the artist as a young vagabond and freeloader.

Four months after Gerry and Kate McCann won apologies and a £550,000 libel pay out from four newspapers for "grotesque and grossly defamatory" articles concerning the disappearance of their daughter, Madeleine, seven friends of the couple have employed the same lawyers to act against at least one national newspaper.

Serves 4

The Independent's Great Art series

Graduating with style

LA TASCA, the chain of Spanish tapas bars, has announced plans to float on AIM. The 45-strong chain has raised pounds 19m from institutional investors and will be valued at pounds 54m when it lists.