Its inner-city location may not suggest wellies, but numerous downpours over east London have left Victoria Park resembling something of a mudbath. It certainly makes Lovebox feel like more of a traditional festival, although the event – now in its eighth year – has been a summer fixture for a while now.

Described by her as akin to a sanctioned, temporary affair adding extra spice to her long-term relationship with Gossip, this four-track collaboration with Simian Mobile Disco plays to a different side of Beth Ditto's talent – one where her usual raw-throated rock power is restrained within the context of scudding electropop grooves. Though inspired by Grace Jones's new-wave disco torch-songs, the results are markedly dissimilar: Ditto's far too engaged a singer to emulate Jones's aloof cool, her tremulous vibrato animating "I Wrote the Book" and the uncertain emotional terrain of "Do You Need Someone", where she has to "bite my tongue, my feelings under lock and key". Indeed, over the languid, loping synth-bass groove of "Goodnight Good Morning", she sounds uncannily like Madonna.

Caroline Lucas is right to say that climate change should be tackled with the utmost urgency, especially given Oxfam's estimate that 375 million people could be affected annually by climate-related disasters by 2015 ("Let MoD tackle climate, says Lucas", 26 September).

Alexander McQueen has posthumously won a top design award for his spring and summer 2010 fashion collection.

There is a new attraction at Latitude, the London Literature Festival and other hip gatherings this summer. Eminent writers from The School of Life, the social enterprise specialising in thought and ideas set up last year by the popular author and thinker Alain de Botton will be offering literary and philosophical advice on everyday problems. As de Botton himself once put it: "The words of others can benefit us not only by giving us practical advice, but also – more subtly – by recasting our confusions and griefs into eloquent communal sentences. We feel at once less alone and less afraid."

Beth Ditto is known for her idiosyncratic rock yodel, her sexual preferences and, of course, her habit of taking her clothes off on-stage. She isn't one to hide her lights under a bushel, nor is she one to hide her bushel under the stage lights. Fans and critics alike have been treated to the most intimate details of her (under)garments, and now high street shoppers will be too.

If you're only gonna have one trick, make it a good 'un. The Gossip's template – Beth Ditto's almost absurdly soulful vocals set against an urgent rock-disco backing – hasn't altered significantly on their Rick Rubin-produced fourth album.

Since "Standing in the Way of Control" hoisted Gossip from cult favourites to stars in 2006, Beth Ditto's larger-than-life personality and unfettered outsider opinions have made her the natural focus of media attention, so much so that it would be easy to forget that Gossip is a band, and not just Beth's backing crew. Hence, presumably, the album title - a sardonic hedge against groundless suppositions that she might be addressing a purely lesbian constituency - and the cover photo, which features just the drummer, Hannah Billie, looking like the kind of androgynous rockabilly dreamboat one might find adorning a Morrissey album sleeve.