Sarah Vine – Times columnist, domestic goddess and wife of the Education Secretary, Michael Gove – is, as her readers will be aware, a keen baker. Last week, I'm very reliably informed, she produced a particularly large batch of flapjacks and, unable to feed them to her family fast enough, gave them to her husband as a treat for his hungry cabinet colleagues. Pickles, Clarke et al, she surely concluded, are classic flapjack-lovers. Gove dutifully transported the tasty snacks to Downing Street in a Tupperware container. On his way to the Cabinet Room, however, he was detained by that day's security detail, who informed him, in no uncertain terms, that the Tupperware – not to mention the flapjacks within – was a security risk, and would have to stay with them. So Gove went to Cabinet empty-handed, and Ken Clarke's tea went unaccompanied. But who, we might well ask, ate all the flapjacks?

Justin Bieber has teamed up with PETA to urge his fans to adopt a pet.

In 1957, Miss Maryland, Leona Gage was chosen as Miss USA.

Sometimes it's really hard to be a parent. I'm very keen that my kids have decent taste in music, so I try my best to expose them to a wide variety of what I consider to be good stuff. I make monthly compilation CDs that I slip into my wife's car so that they can osmose it on their way to origami class. Whenever something terrible and hideous appears on telly, such as the Jonas Brothers or Hannah Montana, I'll try to get them to boo and put their hands on their ears. Basically, I do my best – but a lot still gets through. Part of the problem is television. You only realise once you're a parent that there are very few shows that a family can all watch together and enjoy. Sadly, most of the ones that fit this remit are Simon Cowell products. I like Cowell and do enjoy watching things like X Factor as it's well-produced televisual fodder. The problem is that the music is such unadulterated crap, and I feel as if I can see it seeping into my kids' suggestible brains.

Online music store iTunes has passed the 10 billion milestone for download sales.

I'm getting quite excited by the prospect of the general election. As a political anorak/ junkie I can't wait for all the accompanying coverage and gossip. Excitingly, this time we're even going to have three "presidential" debates. One thing is for sure, I'm going to be ready to cast my vote. I'm even going to be a little more informed than usual, thanks to my unusual interaction with all three party leaders in the past couple of years.

The problem for Lewis on her follow-up album is that while this is the exact point at which she should be marking out her own territory, Echo feels and sounds even more a part of the X Factory than her debut album.

Of all the talent-show turns unearthed in the past decade, Leona Lewis is the only one to have parlayed the opportunity, when it knocked, into a significant international career; and judging by this safe, careful follow-up to the multi-platinum Spirit, she's not taking any unnecessary chances that might prematurely derail that career. She might admirably refer to the original Greek myth – in which an unrequited lover pines away till just her voice remained – in explaining the album's title, but one doesn't have to be a complete cynic to place a more prosaic interpretation on Echo, so closely does it stick to its predecessor's formula.