Sir Paul McCartney will headline a free public concert to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. The former Beatle will be among a concert line-up that will feature artists from across the 60 years of the monarch's reign, playing in front of Buckingham Palace on 4 June.

It is 60 years since she succeeded to the throne – a reign in which her sense of duty and absolute retention of royal mystique has only deepened her subjects’ affection for her.

The design has been chosen for the United Kingdom's first-ever statue of its greatest novelist, Charles Dickens, in spite of his request, made at his funeral, that there should be no monuments in his honour.

It's curious how the most unlikely topics can generate books of the utmost interest. Whorton has done this with arsenic poisoning, both deliberate and accidental, in 19th century Britain.

When Britons had the ride of their lives

Vintage photographs of dogs may not be everybody's cup of tea – even if they are early daguerreotypes. But for dog-lovers, Photography Going to the Dogs at London's Kennel Club Art Gallery is an essential experience.

Anthony Powell once came up with an ingenious theory of Victorian upward social mobility. Such ascents generally extended over three generations, he proposed. The first made the money and the second consolidated the social position. Come the third, decadence would set in, often accompanied by distinction in the arts, and an inability to produce heirs. Powell's template was the Firbanks: self-made railway-contractor grandfather; Tory MP son; and dandy-novelist homosexual grandson, Ronald.

Those alive in the Victorian age would be astounded to see our enthusiasm for their ideas. What does it say about us, asks DJ Taylor, that we are still working to their ancient templates?

There must have been a moment or two there where the Duke of Edinburgh had to bite his tongue. Maybe the Queen had had it bitten for him. Maybe she'd asked Barack to bring him as a gift those "fell pony bits and shanks" (this had to be repeated to us hacks three or four times). Maybe he was wearing the bits to stop saying the things he is famous for saying as they showed POTUS and FLOTUS around the displays in the Royal Collection.

Rant

This week, The Times asked "100 top lawyers" if they were in favour of public figures having the right to resort to law in order to keep their business and private affairs secret. Yes, they said. Only 27 per cent were against.

The heroine of Margaret's Forster's new novel has a curious name. Her parents have called her Isamay, named after both her grandmothers, Isa and May.

A woman believed to be the oldest person in the UK has died at the age of 111.

How do you turn an underwater tunnel with a flooding problem into a national sensation? Arifa Akbar tells the extraordinary story of the 'Thames Tunnel'