Comic-book capers abound on the big screen, but MAC has being doing good work on bringing them to the beauty counter, too. The cosmetics brand’s latest limited-edition collection is inspired by the characters of Archie comics. Two contrasting colour stories are inspired by the bubbly girl-next-door Betty and vampy rich girl Veronica.

A new noise shows Ditto's moving in the right direction

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).

The London-based designer, famed for his original approach to sustainable fashion, will be the first fashion to ever show a catwalk collection at the festival

His sharp lines and precise designs epitomised 1990s fashion. Now his creations are being exhibited around the world

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

I don't want to be a drain on the NHS. With luck I won't bother them at all

For the singer and gay icon Beth Ditto, confronting prejudice is a way of life. She talks about fat, fame – and feuding with Katy Perry

So long, Marianne: Ali and her gang reach out to the pure-pop faithful

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.