Paperback reviews of the week

When you sit down to dine at at tearoom containing items from one of the largest collections of Royal memorabilia in the world, you probably shouldn't be surprised to be asked to stand for the national anthem. However three disgruntled customers did just that and fell foul of the proprietor.

There are few surprises for Blue Nile fans on this first solo album from singer Paul Buchanan, save perhaps for the general mood of stability: even the emotional turbulence sketched in “Wedding Day” is recollected in tranquillity.

After three decades in the wilderness, Kevin Rowland and Dexys have returned with the soul album of the century, and a live show to match

Victorious London mayoralty candidate Boris Johnson was very much on the mind of Michael Gove when he addressed the annual conference of the National Association of Head Teachers last weekend.

Lovely, lush, liveable Lincolnshire, in which I spent a chunk of the Bank Holiday weekend, is where I suspect most of my generation will end up. There and other places – Kent, Surrey, Cambridge, Oxford, Buckingham – that are within commuting distance of London, where our jobs will be, but not in the city proper. Hampshire, not Hampstead, will be where we raise families and make homes. That's because soon the only people who will be able to afford homes in London will be Bob Diamond, X-Factor contestants, and the Queen.

Jogging for as little as an hour a week can put years on your life, new research has shown.

That's the problem with hacks , just a sniff of vodka and they're anybody's

Depending on whom you talk to, there are either a glut of brilliant women jostling to grab a seat in Britain's boardrooms, or a dearth of strong female candidates. Either way, the feminisation of UK plc is continuing at a moderate pace. If the non-executive Class of 2012 don't cut the mustard, we will find out soon enough.

Considering the number of times film and television have revisited Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood, it's surprising that this pair have vanished, despite all efforts to revive them.

Smug Tweeters. Gurning Techno stilt loons. Naked am-dram mums. Bewildered teens. Key parts of any festival, says Nick Moore

Back in the early 1970s, Luton's population is mainly white and working-class, with a handful of Afro-Caribbean families. Among them are the Grants and, in the person of the eponymous Bageye, they have a formidable paterfamilias. Bageye takes his meals alone in Victorian fashion, eating before his wife and five pickney. The pickney try to make themselves invisible, because they go in perpetual fear of their father.

Britain is at war. The pampered baby boomers have feathered their nests at the expense of an increasingly besieged and impoverished young generation. George Osborne's "granny tax", the Budget's freeze in pension allowances, will hit a group in society that has barely been touched by austerity, and in any case it's peanuts compared with what others are expected to cough up.