HE DIED on Wednesday, the nation briefly mourned and that, most of us thought, was that. Goodbye to the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Place: The Lake District where I live. If I had to pick one specially blessed spot, there's a fell top, not one of the highest but in sight of the highest, unapproached by any of the Wainwright super-highways, where a man can sit in airy solitude and think Wordsworthian thoughts, and it's called... but no; you find your own!

Lose any one of these communities, and something disappears from all our lives

Pop stars used to trash their hotel rooms; these days, they're Hoovering them. Cayte Williams is aghast

Roger Clarke on the anarchic tendencies and lonely death of the altar-boy who never grew up; In the Best Possible Taste: The Crazy Life of Kenny Everett by David Lister Bloomsbury, pounds 16.99

What could a man who has built a career around the public display of his genitalia (albeit occasionally shielded by a hard-pressed balloon or three) possibly have left to reveal? A fair bit, it turns out. This characterful and not overly ghost-written autobiography contains a feast of scabrous reminiscence. It is also a great deal more fun than Malcolm Hardee's act - but then again, so is having your appendix removed.

Malcolm Hardee, hard-drinking King of the Fringe, is still ripping his clothes off in the name of showbiz anarchy.

Simon Calder visits Zanzibar, where gentle people go about their modest business - and moderation is the key

A 10-minute drama with Plasticine stars is Jasper Rees's idea of a good soap opera

The battle for the Christmas number one album is likely to have a particularly ghoulish flavour with the release of new work featuring the late John Lennon and the late Freddie Mercury.

The dance critic of the New Yorker refused to review a recent work by Bill T Jones, dismissing it as `victim art'. Adam Mars-Jones sees red Aids, by its nature, gives people a good long time to think about endings What are artists affected by HIV to do, if not include it in their working prac tice?

No matter how gracious, some queens cannot be saved. It's three years since Freddie Mercury left us for a better place - Rio, one fondly imagines - but the fans haven't forgotten. November sees a month of fan fund-raising - often in 'full regalia' - as the devoted take to the streets of London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Birmingham and 16 other British cities to collect for the Mercury Phoenix Trust. The charity drive ends with a concert by the Queen clones Magic at the Hammersmith Apollo on 30 November. Be there or be somewhere else.

IT WAS the end of 1991. Freddie Mercury had died on 24 November and the year was all set for solemn foreclosure. Nobody expected a rock phenomenon to squeeze in through the little aperture between St Andrew's Day and Christmas. But on 30 Nov-ember, the new singles chart had an extraordinary tale to tell: at No 9, straight in from nowhere, was 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' by Nirvana. A trio of miscreants from America's flaky underbelly had hit serious oil.

Unmodernised houses in Kensington are proving very popular, according to Cluttons. The agent has just sold 7/7a Logan Mews, W8, next-door to Freddie Mercury's former house, for more than pounds 200,000 after 15 buyers tendered sealed bids. The property has two garages with three rooms above, but the total floor area of 1,185sq ft offers great potential.