The blue hair might be kiddy friendly, but wait for the carnivorous plants

Lynda La Plante, writer

Secondary School Tables 2009

It is the last place you would expect to find close to bankruptcy. But the millionaires' playground of East Hampton, on New York's Long Island, is $12m (£6.25m) in debt.

How does a garden at the Hampton Court Flower Show enrich the soil in Africa? Emma Townshend discovers an organisation that's not afraid to think on the hoof

Sir David Lean is rightly celebrated as one of British cinema's greatest ever directors, the creator of, among others, Lawrence of Arabia, Great Expectations and The Bridge on the River Kwai. And yet little is known of his final project, Nostromo, which proved to be one of the biggest epics never to see the light of day and which caused the downfall of a tormented genius.

Emma Townshend meets the author of a new book celebrating the contentious work of the avant gardeners

Marsha McDonnell, 19, had finished her A-levels and was enjoying a gap year before starting university when she fell into Levi Bellfield's trap.

The 'Atonement' screenwriter is up for his second Academy Award tonight. If he wins, he must remember his lines – or face his family's wrath

When the topiary specialist James Crebbin-Bailey ( www.topiaryarts.com ) showed me some pictures of a small front garden in Hampton, Middlesex, I could have kissed him. Fortunately for him, we were at an RHS event and someone had just started to make a speech, so puckering up and embracing in the middle of the Westminster Hall just wouldn't have been appropriate.

Mostly used for colour in rock and pop, the vibraphone has been a bona fide lead instrument in jazz for decades, most notably with Lionel Hampton, who presented a six-year-old Roy Ayers with a pair of mallets at a concert in the 1940s.

The acid test on economics will be opinion in the City

Sir: Apples! Steve McDonnell should worry (Letters, 2 February). While I waited 20 minutes for a bus in Teddington High Street this morning 18 drivers using mobile phones passed me. Sad to count, I know, but little else to do in Teddington High Street at 8am. Oh yes, three were bus drivers - alas or thank God, not mine.