Last week, it was the Education Secretary, Michael Gove.

If things had worked out differently, Frank Parr could have been one of the great characters of post-war English cricket. An acrobatic wicketkeeper, he caught the eye almost as soon as he appeared in the Lancashire side. At The Oval in 1952, in only his second county match, he was tipped by The Times to be Godfrey Evans' successor in the England side. Herbert Strudwick, England keeper in the 1920s, thought he was very special. The following year Parr came close to being selected for the winter tour of the West Indies.

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has pledged his support for the expansion of grammar schools, it was claimed yesterday.

Blow to Education Secretary as unions refuse to co-operate with exams for six- and 11-year-olds

Grammar schools should have greater expectations of their pupils when it comes to exam passes, according to a study published today.

The Government's policy on selective education remains confused and highly unsatisfactory. Officially, in the words of a Department for Education spokesman, "legislation prohibits the establishment of new grammar schools – and ministers have been clear that will not change". Which might reasonably be expected to mean that no more grammar schools can be set up.

For some 70 years the impact of Sir Alan Cottrell's work on the basic understanding of materials and its application to engineering structures, his academic leadership, his role of Scientific Adviser to the Government, and his contributions to safe nuclear energy, have been immense. He was the most influential physical metallurgist of the 20th century. Through his pioneering researches, and as an educator, he influenced countless students, scientists and engineers and will continue to do so. His papers and books are remarkable for their clarity.

Allan Segal, who has died aged 70 after a nine-month fight with cancer, was one of a generation of young producers who brought a new era of tough, investigative journalism to British television in the 1970s and 1980s.

Notes from the day the music died

Astonished, I find myself in complete agreement with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, now that she has departed from her usual subject of the problems of Muslim women and turned her talented pen to the eternal subject of the British class system (Comment, 2 January). I will be 70 this year. What depresses me is how little the basic fabric of this UK has changed in my lifetime. The same people still own and run the country now as did in the 1940s, the gap between the classes is still as wide, there is still a great underclass of the desperate poor.

Between 1963 and 1970 Mike Smith produced six No 1 records for Brian Poole, the Tremeloes, Georgie Fame, Marmalade, Love Affair and Christie. He produced many other hit records too – but he missed out on the Beatles, turning them down at their audition for Decca Records on New Year's Day, 1962.

Grammar schools should be barred from becoming academies until they recruit bright pupils from disadvantaged homes, a conference heard yesterday.

For a man who has written a Buffy the Vampire Slayer lexicon, Michael Adams puts together a pretty academic volume. He and his fellow-contributors range from the Bible to Esperanto to alien-speak in computer games. JRR Tolkien invented more languages than most polyglots can speak, crafting several types of Elvish, not to mention dwarf-talk and Mordor-mumble. To him, inventing a language, and the history of the folk who would have spoken it, was an art form.