Colin Wilson, self-declared genius and misfit, remains a specialist taste, perhaps because, as one of the "Angry Young Men" of British literature, he divided opinion so much that Time magazine ran an excoriating article on his book Religion and the Rebel entitled "Scrambled Egghead". He's available in print but, like many prolific writers, this makes him hard to keep track of, and tracing a common thread through his work requires tenacity.

The Royal Academy's superb new exhibition brings together landscapes by Gainsborough, Turner and Constable, and reveals how they were inspired by Europe

Exclusive: The City of London Corporation will reveal that its “City’s Cash” account, where it has been putting donations from benefactors like the real-life Dick Whittington - as well as money it has made from rent and investments - holds more than £1.3bn.

Moving musical memories of 'Titanic', a sodden mystic and a drooling Don make the going soggy

Calm down dears, as David Cameron might have said. The row yesterday over Diane Abbott's remarks about "white people" shines a light on not just British attitudes to race, but also on our ability to absorb and deal with controversy in the era of instant communication. The wisdom – or lack of it – shown by the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, aka "leftwing" or "firebrand", has already been discussed enough. The only tuppenceworth I will add on that score is that she seems stuck in a time warp of 1980s clichés and lazy assumptions. If she had said what she had said in the pub, or more likely at a north London dinner party table, her interlocutors might have agreed with her, challenged her or castigated her. Then they would have poured themselves a glass of chardonnay and moved on.

For all the Michelin meals, first-class air travel and fat salaries, they are not to be envied

London is expensive. Extortionately so – or so runs the conventional wisdom. And it's true: a pint in a Zone One pub costs considerably more than it does anywhere else. The tube is both a necessity and a luxury: yes, it gets you from A to B, but it's also pricey, crowded, dirty and unreliable. And that's before you even take into account the lack of large-scale supermarkets, shunned in favour of their more expensive "metro" equivalents. There's no doubting that London living isn't cheap. But what do visitors to the big city think?

By any measure George Michael has had a glittering chart career - but brushes with the law and tales of his drug use have increasingly made more impact than his musical output.

My parents were... supportive, creative and inspiring. My mother was an optical receptionist and my father had his own television sales company.