Anthony Minghella shot for the stars but still kept his feet on the ground

The printmaker Trevor Allen claimed that there were two major influences upon his work: traditional Japanese printmakers like Kunisada and Utamaro, and the childhood world of the Dandy and Beano and Hergé's Adventures of Tintin. What the images in both prints and comics have in common is a strong outer line and vivid areas of colour. From this improbable combination Allen produced during his career a great number of intelligent, well-made, and extremely striking works of art.

A new year brings a fresh tranche of hotly tipped artists, most of them having releases out no later than spring. This acclaimed trio, though, are keeping their powder dry.

Would-be novelists no longer have to labour over their work alone. Even Oxford University is teaching creative writing these days, reports Clare Longrigg

Pianist, champion of modern music and `conscience of composers'

BRITISH PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY

MAYBE YOU didn't know he'd ever been away, but David Bowie has hit the headlines with his decision to return to live in Britain. It seems that the pop star has been away for a quarter of a century. He has not been on Mars or some more distant planetary body, as his artistic output may have led you to expect, but Bermuda, a place more notable for its golf courses than extraterrestrials. Bowie must have a fondness for places beginning with "B" because he started life in Brixton, grew up in Bromley and first came to public attention in Beckenham. If this suburban community is not exactly the first place that springs to mind as a hot-bed of artistic creativity, it is no fault of David's, because he established the Beckenham Arts Lab (after all, it was the Sixties) in a large, dingy pub called the Three Tuns.

First and Last Things

This summer, Tomoko Takahashi locked herself away from the world in a sea of personal detritus. She spent a month sorting and shaping it, and now it's on display at a London gallery

The artist twins Jane and Louise Wilson live together, work together, and now look set to win the Turner prize together. William Leith enters their shadowy world

It's not just women who seem to be underperforming at Cambridge, ethnic minority students are too - despite being equally well qualified when they arrive. Why? Patrick Leman unpicks the curious and unsettling results of his research

Treated badly at work? Take a course on how to cope.

WHEN IT comes to colourful language, members of the Berinmo tribe have a strange way with words.

A vast space at the top of a Victorian commercial building is now a home, artist's studio, hairdressing salon and theatre. Mary Rose Thompson visits the mistress of ceremonies