There wasn’t a Scotsman among them. But more than 2,500 would-be Scottish revolutionaries, clad in kilts and many with their faces daubed with blue and white paint nevertheless took to the countryside outside the town of Munnerstadt at the weekend.

After six decades of bringing the wonders of the natural world to television audiences, Sir David Attenborough has finally anointed a successor.

Jonathan Meades: the Joy of Essex began with Aaron Copland's "Buckaroo Holiday" on the soundtrack – an unexpectedly Western accompaniment to an uncherished bit eastern hinterland. Perhaps it was a kind of coded warning. Wedge one hand tight under the saddle and prepare to cling on for as long as you can. Because Meades's programmes are never the plodding mounts you'd pick out at the stable for a nervous first-time rider. In fact, they seem almost perversely bent on throwing their viewers off, vaulting and jinking, kicking-up almost constantly.

Howard Goodall's Story of Music, Sat, BBC2 // Wonders of Life, Sun, BBC2

"Are you looking for a job?" James Naughtie asked Dame Ann Leslie on Radio 4's Today, a note of panic in his voice. Now there's an idea. As one of the programme's guest editors, Leslie, the veteran foreign correspondent who famously went to war in a fur coat, arrived like a blast of cold air in a sticky sauna. You can imagine plenty of previous guests proffering feature ideas cobbled together by their agents, but not Leslie. She was first in the office, her sleeves rolled up and ready to kick some serious butt.

Children are more likely to recognise Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg than Albert Einstein, a survey has discovered.

The trouble with Ralph Fiennes's modern-dress film of Coriolanus is that it won't let us forget how achingly "relevant" it is.

"Was ever a man as proud as this Martius?" sneers James Nesbitt's Tribune in Ralph Fiennes' modern-day update of Shakespeare's exceptionally bleak and humourless tale of a heroic soldier (played by Fiennes, below) who is pushed– mostly by his terrifyingly driven mum (Vanessa Redgrave) – into politics.

The controversial ITV1 drama Appropriate Adult, about Fred West, has received three nominations at this year's Royal Television Society awards, including a Best Actor nod for Dominic West for his role as the notorious serial killer.

Next week, Stephen Hawking is 70. The blockbuster author who visits Stringfellows in his wheelchair still astonishes the world

Whether in the cut-throat field of politics or the fashion industry's corridors of power, this year they left our planet a better place. Celebrate 10 of the best, nominated by Independent writers

Need a severed head in a box? He's your man. Not sure if rape and murder are appropriate for a blockbuster? Let David Fincher convince you. James Mottram meets the owner of Hollywood's darkest mind, as he takes on the US remake of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'

They're hardly classic pin-up material, so why are women falling for them?

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