The coat

The easy-going and avuncular Keith Fordyce was the highly reliable host of the chaotic live, beat music programme, Ready Steady Go!, which started in 1963. Part of its attraction was the potential for things going wrong and Fordyce was the ideal person to restore order.

Marianne Faithfull has a new album out, laying bare her soul, and two films due in cinemas later this year. So is it any wonder she's fed up being asked about heroin, Mick Jagger and apocryphal Mars bars?

Another year, another croaky signal from Planet Marianne.

For this latest of their collaborations, producer Hal Willner has surrounded Marianne Faithfull with some great New Orleans musicians, and got her covering a few Crescent City soul numbers. But it's not territory she occupies comfortably: she doesn't have the abandon to animate Joe & Ann's "Gee Baby", and her delivery of Allen Toussaint's "Back in Baby's Arms" is painfully stilted. She's much better reciting the Shangri-Las' "Past, Present and Future" over a melodramatic arrangement of harp, strings and woodwind, and her "Goin' Back" has an arthritic grace that suits the song well. Of her own material, the title-track comprises observations from her Irish and Parisian homes, while "Eternity" finds her trying to "live within the space that's moving all the time... touching the divine", over a blend of Doobie-esque rhythm guitar and sampled Jojouka reeds.

Marianne Faithfull says rumours of Sir Mick Jagger having a small penis are "nearly" true.

The Rolling Stones' latest tour is reportedly in jeopardy following a row over the size of Sir Mick Jagger's manhood.

It must have been something of a shock for those attending a global-warming rally this week to find themselves caught up in an international debate about a dead rock star's penis. Before turning to the state of the planet, the governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, revealed that he had become increasingly concerned about a famous obscenity conviction of the past.

Keith Richards has revealed Johnny Depp was a frequent visitor to his home for two years before he twigged he was a Hollywood star.

The voice of an angel, the lyrics of a crossword puzzle

She was the Sixties pin-up whose beauty bewitched Mick Jagger and inspired some of the Rolling Stones' most famous songs, but Marianne Faithfull has revealed that she hates the way she looks, can't bear to see photographs of herself and is still dealing with the damaging effects of being catapulted to fame at a young age.

It's taken the love and support of lots of people to get Marianne Faithfull to this point in her life; and yes, they've rallied round on her latest album. She talks to Deborah Orr, who's been a pal for years

The grandé dame of postmodern torch songs is reunited here with US producer Hal Wilner and surrounded by choice players, from guitarists Marc Ribot and Barry Reynolds to Cat Power, Nick Cave and Keith Richards.

Gutsy trouper that she is, Marianne Faithfull has always striven beyond the limitations of her voice, finding compensation in brave choices of material and intriguing settings