Two hardy sub-genres of cricket literature are the adventures (usually disastrous) of a bunch of mixed-ability misfits who form a team to play friendly – and not so friendly – matches, and one-man odysseys around the country to take the temperature of the game in its myriad forms and locations.

The good news is that Welch has given up playing the drums.

On this, Gillian Welch's fifth album, the familiar blending of traditional sounds and moods with modern sensibilities is effortlessly sustained through songs like the mordant "The Way It Goes" ("Betsy Johnson bought the farm, stuck a needle in her arm, that's the way that it goes").

On the publicity trail for their new film The Beaver (as in the semi-aquatic rodent), Jodie Foster continues her spirited defence of co-star and chum Mel Gibson against those unfortunate accusations of racism, anti-semitism and domestic abuse. "I just adored him from the second I met him," she gushes admirably to the Radio Times. "He reads books about crazy historical events and retains every detail [The crucifixion, for example?]... I can talk to him on the phone for, like, three and a half hours..." Yes, I hear he can go on a bit when you get him on the blower.

Tories won this week's only council by-election, defending a safe seat in north London's Harrow Borough.

Parents with a joint income above £26,000 will be barred from sending their children to a state sixth-form college planned for the East End of London. The college will be one of the Government's flagship "free" schools, offering places to bright inner-city children to help them to get into elite universities.

Five teenagers have been arrested in connection with the blaze that closed the M1 in both directions for six days.

Every day, when I finish this missive, I ask one or two of my senior colleagues to read it through. They say that it’s just an expression of my need for external validation (thanks very much, boys, but I pay a shrink good money to tell me things like that).

Harrow School stood by its art teacher today after photographs of her posing topless were circulated among pupils.

Little Bedwyn sounds like it should be the home of miniature desert-dwelling Arabs, but actually it's as English as Midsomer Murders. A 15-minute wiggly slalom down a bumpy C-road from Hungerford running alongside the Kennet and Avon Canal, it's slap bang in the middle of nowhere. I don't think I saw a single signpost to the village, or to Great Bedwyn either. We only found The Harrow after a workman on a building site said he thought there might be some sort of snack bar for well-to-do folk in yonder meadow...

London Underground workers are to be balloted for industrial action in a row over pay, it was announced today.

During a recession, many of us tighten the belt. Perhaps we can forgo the family holiday and new car, pack a lunch. But when it comes to educating children, should our plans change?

A former housemistress at a top school was today cleared of helping a male teacher abuse boys.

Peter Walker was one of the great survivors of the Conservative Party, spanning the Heath and Thatcher eras. At the time of his voluntary retirement in 1990, a few months before Thatcher's downfall, no 20th century politician, apart from Churchill and Lloyd George, had served longer in Cabinets and Shadow Cabinets, and it was appropriate that he should call his memoirs Staying Power. Though he never held one of the "great" offices of state, the variety of posts that he did fill, and the timing of them, ensured that he made significant contributions to British public life, proving a minister of considerable executive efficiency. Political durability was not his only claim to fame. His earlier role as a successful city financier, particularly with Jim Slater, would alone have ensured him the attention of serious commentators.