If there’s one thing a parvenu has to do – otherwise what’s he risen from nowhere to somewhere for? – it’s boast

'It is read from the cabinet to the nursery'

Private collection

Who would want to fill the 'Borgen' slot on BBC4? Sadly, mouth-watering views of Sicily and oodles of pasta do not a detective drama make

Here is a scene from the recent past that becomes baffling in the light of what followed. During the Conservative leadership contest in 2005, David Cameron had a private meeting with the MP John Redwood in an attempt to secure his support. As any candidate does in these circumstances, Cameron highlighted areas of common ground. Then he paused and said to Redwood: "I must be honest with you. I am sure you want to reform the NHS but I am not going to touch it."

To us, the empire may have been about power, commerce and occupation. To many British people at the time it was more a matter of escape – from poverty, family or creditors. For the artist George Chinnery, it seems to have been a combination of all three.

Though he lived in India and China 200 years ago, a rare exhibition of work by the painter George Chinnery shows his modernity

Dubious casting does not guarantee laughter in Shakespeare’s farce of mistaken identities

As soon as I've solved this case and got my luggage, I'll be on the next plane home," Richard Poole told his new colleague in Death in Paradise. "I can't think why they've sent me here." I've got an idea why, though. They've sent him there because the BBC wants something a bit Doc Martinish for Tuesday evenings, and it thought it would be a bit too obvious if it commissioned a drama about a grumpy, uptight doctor in a Cornish village. So, instead, we've got a grumpy, uptight detective inspector on the Caribbean island of Sainte-Marie, where the locals look as if they'll be just as characterfully eccentric as the inhabitants of Port Wenn and the metropolitan prejudices of the newcomer are likely to be confounded in a virtually identical manner. One understands (with a sinking heart) that DI Poole is here to have his shirt unstuffed by easy-going types who appear – in their characterisation – just a whisker away from the sunny hedonists of the Lilt adverts.

With its American basement club vibe, it was apt that this excellent US duo were chosen to be the inaugural act for Soho Theatre's new downstairs venue. Assembled around tightly packed cabaret tables, tonight's audience faced a curtain backdrop on to which the Pajama Men's name was projected, something almost too fancy for this pretty no-frills (yet high-octane) act whose only props are their expressive voices and bodies.

Even before polling booths closed last night, recriminations began over how electoral reformers appeared to have blown a once-in-a-generation chance to change the voting system.