If you want to get ahead, get in the club

The first thing I hear when I arrive at a private club in London to meet Richard and Judy is Richard saying excitedly: "It looks as if he is doing a poo!", to which Judy responds, as you would hope she would respond, this being Richard and Judy, by flicking her eyes heavenwards and saying: "Richard!", so I say it too. "Richard!" I say, if only out of the sense that unless all exasperated, middle-aged women stick together and flick their eyes heavenwards, the Richards of this world would run riot and then we'd all be in trouble. They'd be jumping out from behind the aisles in the supermarket, broadcasting details of your hormonal ups and downs and menstrual quirks and offering conception advice along the lines of: "When we were trying to conceive, I would douse my balls in icy water before intercourse". So I say: "Richard!" and flicker my eyes heavenwards, even though I have no idea why we are Richard!-ing today. Heavens, if you're given the opportunity to do a Richard! you just run with it, surely? How many people have the opportunity in their lifetime? Still, why are we Richard!-ing?

Richard and Judy have signed a five-year deal with WH Smith after their Book Club proved such a success for the firm - shifting around two million titles since its launch last year.

"How tiny and random are the events that shape our destiny". So begins Rachel Hore's intriguing Richard and Judy recommended read, which is layered with a series of mysteries, some more supernatural than others.

We know the pressure is on banks to come up with less risky revenue streams, but JP Morgan Chase's move into the book club business is a little curious.

The TV Book Club, More4

Crime tale where three is company

Prolific professional novelist – and amateur farm labourer – Patrick Gale jumped from being cult favourite to chart-storming bestseller.

As the 10 titles chosen to make up the Richard and Judy Book Club 2009 shortlist are unveiled, organisers are playing down suggestions that the scarcity of people who followed Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan from their Channel 4 tea-time slot to the digital UKTV channel Watch will damage the Book Club image.

The once-mighty names of teatime TV now face shrinking ratings on a minor digital channel. Paul Bignell reports

Double Your Money, the classic quiz show from the Fifties which attracted record audiences and became synonymous with its host, Hughie Green, could be revived with Richard Madeley as its presenter.

They made their name as the permanently cheery husband and wife presenting team on ITV's This Morning and in recent years have entertained the teatime audience on Channel 4. But from the autumn, Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan will move to the relative obscurity of digital television.

IT'S THE Prime Minister, actually. On Richard & Judy at 5.25, perhaps you saw it. It was a bit like Love Actually from the night before, but with Tony Blair playing Hugh Grant. He was very good; did you see him?

A NIGELLA LAWSON cookery book, an Ian Rankin thriller and a debut novel by a Cambridge undergraduate are among 24 books to be featured in a new television book club, which the BBC insists will not be a "copy cat" version of the successful Richard & Judy reading group.