Former minister waltzes her way into the audience's affections on her 'Strictly' debut

The Week In Arts

Thirteen years is a long time in politics, and the days of 1997 seem an aeon ago, a planet away. Do we remember a time when the UK seemed youthful and spring-heeled, when young English bands (Blur, Oasis, Pulp, The Verve, the Spice Girls) crammed the charts, Young British Artists astonished the global art world, England (all right, the UK) won the Eurovision Song Contest (a year after very nearly winning Euro 96) and the ridiculous Austin Powers made everyone sort-of-proud to be British?

Redheads are having a moment. Not on the catwalk or indeed in the newly unveiled autumn/winter 2009 advertising campaigns – redheads are far too rare and risky a business in the current climate when the order of the day is to keep things as safe as the proverbial houses. I'm thinking instead of the single redeeming feature in the appropriately desperate 'Desperate Romantics' – the burnished locks of muse Lizzie Siddal played by Amy Manson who verily has the most gorgeous hair known to television. Then of course, there's the star of the forthcoming American 'Vogue' documentary, 'The September Issue', Grace Coddington, to consider, whose mane of red hair establishes her as the agent provocateur of the piece where for the most part, once again, appealing to the many rather than the few is the driving force.

Ian Burrell discovers how the iconic Soho café has stayed true to its heritage as it transformed from a social centre for immigrants into a celebrity favourite – and why it'll never reveal its secret coffee blend

Urban Notebook

Not a sound judgement

Until she was about 42, Jennifer Fox had believed that she was living exactly the life that she'd wanted. Based in New York, surrounded by a network of close friends, she had felt happy working as a documentary film-maker and lecturer on film-making, travelling and working all over the world. Then her great friend Pat had been diagnosed with a brain tumour, and suddenly Fox twigged that life was short and bodies grew fragile. "It seemed we had been living our lives," she intoned in her fey, solemn, toneless drawl, "as if we'd be young for ever."

Beatboxing is more than a party trick – it's creeping into the mainstream. By Matilda Egere-Cooper

n The word tattoo comes from the Tahitian tatu which means "to mark something". Polynesian warrior kings were tattooed across their entire body - including eyelids - to reflect their elevated status.

This week in 1994, an expectant music press got their hands on Definitely Maybe, the debut album by Oasis. The five Mancunians had been telling anyone who'd listen how great they were since the beginning of the year. On hearing the album, the critics conceded that they were right.

THE SEARCH for Kevin Gallacher hardly began auspiciously. After dialling the mobile phone number, an unfamiliar voice was on the other end. "Kevin?" "No, mate," replied an exasperated voice, "you want the Blackburn Rovers player - this is Liam's phone!"

In a garret over a synagogue lurk the ghosts of a vanished way of life. Dina Rabinovitch enters a strange time-capsule that holds the secrets of the old East End and its changing peoples

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