You might not notice them, but the fonts used on signs and shops can define a city, discovers Simon Usborne

It's the dots that do it, on the "i's". Except that they're not dots at all, but diamonds. The adornments on an otherwise beautifully simple typeface are an identifying quirk of Johnston Sans, a font that is as synonymous with London as Big Ben. It has become known as the "handwriting" of the city, but can you identify it? Did you even know its name?

English Touring Opera shows often embody the old adage about necessity and invention. Portability is the key: their sets must fit in the back of a van, and be shoehorned into a wide variety of spaces.

Strictly Come Dancing star Craig Revel Horwood is swapping the ballroom for the baton - as he learns to become a classical conductor.

Strictly Come Dancing star Craig Revel Horwood is swapping the ballroom for the baton - as he learns to become a classical conductor.

The opera singer Elizabeth Connell enjoyed 10 successful years as a mezzo before becoming a soprano and enjoying over two decades more of international acclaim.

I'm all for cats at the opera – a fuzzy feline will always raise a smile. But isn't there something alarming about it when a mermaid meets one? We all know what cats do to fish. It looks as if that might happen to the unfortunate Rusalka, the eponymous heroine of Dvorak's post-Wagnerian take on The Little Mermaid, in the opera's first-ever production at the Royal Opera House.

The chief executive of Dixons Retail is to swap Hemel Hempstead and an arduous retail turnaround for the Californian sunshine and highly coveted role of running the global stores of the technology giant, Apple.

Our new-style night at the opera took place in a cinema with five-star comfort, drinks being brought as we lounged on our sofas.

Hotel Chocolat will today open the UK's first shop that sells and makes chocolate under one roof.

In these straitened times a new full-length classical ballet is a rarity, so the Opera National de Paris deserves praise for breathing new life into a forgotten hit from the 19th-century. With music by Delibes and Minkus, and costumes by Christian Lacroix, La Source – the spring – is a version of the Rusalka legend set in what is now Chechnya. When it premiered in 1866, its exotic locale was part of its appeal.

Gary Dobson was seen swaggering around his flat bare-chested and holding a knife in police surveillance footage.

Three years ago the Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho was virtually unknown in Britain.

Kirby had a small part in The Hour but made a big impact. Now, she's starring as the heartbreaker from Great Expectations.