'Maybe one day we could be the English Matt Damon and Ben Affleck...'

Shamim Ahmed Khan was one of the most eloquent sitar players of his generation and scion of a family of hereditary Hindustani classical musicians which upheld and advanced a gharana, meaning a school or style of music-making, historically generally associated with a specific geographical seat, in this case the Agra Gharana. Agra would figure largely in his musical destiny, and bring him to the attention of his life-long guru, Ravi Shankar.

Hundreds line the streets for comedian's funeral

Agyness Deyn sure knows how to wear a frock. It was, after all, in the large print of her separate metier as an ex-supermodel.

Today is either a red-letter day or a world of pain for parents around the country with children in year six of primary school. For it is the day when they receive notification of which secondary school their child has got into.

Since her popular debut, Guppies for Tea, Swedish-born Marika Cobbold has established a reputation for astute and acerbic romances. Her previous novel, Aphrodite's Workshop for Reluctant Lovers, saw the goodness of love intervening in human affairs via the auspices of a relationship therapist. The heroine of her seventh novel, Eliza Cummings, could do with some one-to-one sessions herself.

A crematorium has apologised after a funeral service took place with the wrong coffin.

OMG. Do we really need more jerking-off jokes, orgasm faces and drunk-schoolgirl pratfalls?

The Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has thrown down the gauntlet to Kevin Rudd, challenging him to fight her for the Labor Party leadership and top political office in a ballot next Monday.

Dark subject matter in graphic novels is nothing new – but a memoir about a childhood with serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is up there with the darkest of them.

Couples who, in a spirit of romance and hope, are beginning to prepare for a spring wedding would probably do well to avoid reading the press at the moment.

Read all about it! Lady says she arranged flights for Lord Lucan's children to be seen by their dad in Africa! The murdering aristocrat was secretly smuggled out of Britain by his toff friends! Ex-cop confirms: I spoke to man who says he spoke to other man who swears he saw Lucan in Africa!

British ballet is making a habit of mysterious departures. A month after rising star Sergei Polunin shocked the Royal Ballet by exiting stage left, for reasons that remain best known to himself, it emerged that the artistic director of the English National Ballet (ENB) is also set to leave, without giving any indication why.

Least humbly yours – missives from a great (but starving) artist