Steve Connor discovers uncanny parallels between a swashbuckling pioneer and a new animated hero

Our writer relishes middle age. It means he is in his prime...

The controversial ITV1 drama Appropriate Adult, about Fred West, has received three nominations at this year's Royal Television Society awards, including a Best Actor nod for Dominic West for his role as the notorious serial killer.

Could the British still summon the stoicism of Captain Scott, asks Harry Mount

No one goes as far to bring distant lands closer than David Attenborough. As his latest series draws to a close, Ben Ross meets the king of natural history

David Attenborough has shown us the fragile beauty of the earth's polar regions up close. As his latest series draws to a close, Ben Ross talks to him about filming there and what it has revealed for our future

The McFly guitarist - who is entering the ITV1 show alongside the likes of Mark Wright, Freddie Starr and Antony Cotton on Sunday - has received tips on how to cope with the gruesome challenges presented on the series from his close pal, who was crowned King of the Jungle in 2006.

I guess pretty much everyone's been through a tough patch in the dating game – moments when you wondered whether you'd ever meet up with a suitable partner. Spare a thought for the polar bear, though, obliged by nature and the unforgiving mathematics of the predator pyramid to roam for hundreds of square miles in search of a mate. What's more, both the mate and the miles are blinding white. In Frozen Planet last night, we were able to watch one bear doggedly pursuing another by literally following in her footsteps, placing each paw on to the compacted snow left by his target, in order to conserve energy. And it wasn't foreplay he was saving the energy up for but defence of his prize. When their brief liaison began, the male looked like something off a global warming poster, a Brad Pitt of polar bears. By the end, having had to break off repeatedly to punch interlopers who were eyeing up his date, he looked more like Sylvester Stallone at the end of Rocky.

Otters and salmon have returned to our rivers, red kites are soaring over our motorways and exotic egrets are colonising our wetlands. So has British wildlife really made a comeback? Naturalist Stephen Moss investigates

As the co-writer of huge hits for The Eagles and Linda Ronstadt, JD Souther was one of the original architects of the Laurel Canyon sound so revered by Kalli.

Fancy and folly of the man who fell to earth

In the late 19th century, the English photographer Eadward Muybridge did much to enhance our knowledge of how we and other animals move with his studies of motion – most famously showing that a horse raises all four of its hooves simultaneously while galloping.

It will be hard to fill the mighty planet-traversing shoes of Sir David Attenborough, Britain's greatest broadcasting naturalist.

A lucky encounter with an ugly bat can change a life