This mass-marketisation of one our most highly-prized foods is now in evidence

Serves 4

Mark Hix

Police were surprised it hadn't already detonated

For Evelyn Waugh, it was nothing less than "that original garden from which we are all exiled". Now it is the BBC that has strayed into the paradisal precincts of Blandings castle, bringing woolly-headed Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, his indomitable sister Lady Constance Keeble and the irreverent Galahad Threepwood (last of the Pelicans) to the small screen for the first time since the 1960s.

They might be much-lauded grandees of the literary world, but Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and Naomi Wolf were all gleefully cut down to size by acid-tongued reviewers last year. The critics responsible are now vying for their own honour: that of Hatchet Job of the Year.

Serves 4

It's classic cinematic shorthand. A person eating lobster in a film is usually doing so for one reason: to communicate, at a stroke, that they are horribly snooty – or just plain loaded. It is a synecdoche for luxury living. Or at least it was.

In the small Honduran village of Cocobila, a few metres from the Caribbean, there is a small cemetery filled with the graves of young men. Amid the makeshift crucifixes, Carlos Evans has just been buried. He died four days ago, aged 32, leaving a wife and two small daughters.

Catching crustaceans is a vital source of income for the divers of the Mosquito Coast. But the depths they plumb can prove fatal. Jenny Kleeman reports from Cocobila, Honduras

Serves 4

"Killer Shrimp" are among the worst alien invaders of Britain's waterways, which officials say are costing billions of pounds to tackle.

Makes 12 little snacks

A lobster hatchery in the fishing village of Padstow in Cornwall says it has a novel scheme to re-populate seas of the south-west with thousands of the threatened crustaceans – but needs the help of willing divers.