There's been a wee bit of low-level griping about this immaculate HBO production – created by Terence Winter (writer on The Sopranos) and produced by Martin Scorsese – but this savage, funny and saucy look at the follies of Twenties Prohibition-era America is thoroughly intoxicating.

"So many memories," reflects Kristin Hersh, leafing through a copy of Paradoxical Undressing, her 2010 memoir, which has formed the basis of this show of the same name both before and after its publication. It's proven a rich vein so far, with her return to Edinburgh yielding two Book Festival appearances – one spoken, one performing – and two more typical gigs such as this at the Edge music festival. These latter events are more Hersh's regular style, rock venue gigs which merge solo song and electric guitar with unconnected spoken word excerpts from the book.

The prospect of financial Armageddon appears to have been averted. Congress seems to have agreed to raise the legal US debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion, meaning that America will not have to default on its borrowings.

Steve Buscemi is a cult-movie favourite. He tells Stephen Applebaum about his latest role, in the story of the courage of a Nazi in Japan

The impression that Michael Cera, star of Superbad and Juno, had overdrawn on his gawky, sweet-faced charm seemed unarguable in the light of the daft caveman comedy Year One.

Outlook If nothing else, Lord Turner has a knack for publicity and self-promotion that few regulators have shown before. Last night he was at it again at Mansion House. Of course, he had another bash at the banking industry for its "socially unacceptable" products, its tendency to add layers of complexity on to things which really aren't much use to anyone, and its habit of selling services that people really don't need. But what was most interesting about his speech was his contention that the financial industry is "no longer fragile". Come again?

Actor, 52

Barbed-wired prairies, hot fudge milkshakes and blood on the snow: Tam Leach goes ice fishing on Devils Lake and learns that there's more to North Dakota than the widescreen vistas of 'Fargo' country

The Coens' latest, 'Burn After Reading', premieres at the Venice Film Festival next week. Geoffrey Macnab pays tribute to a pair of genre-defying, subversive mavericks

The pioneering publisher and activist John La Rose died last year, but his legacy to black British writing lives on. Kevin LeGendre celebrates a life devoted to political struggle and the arts

Con Air Today, 9pm FIVE

IT'S BEEN a good week for money and a bad one for my social life. The money I'm glad of, as I would have to emigrate to Saudi Arabia if I wanted to earn a crust to over the Great Shutdown. The social life - well. I don't really enjoy polite conversation, I can't afford to be dog- sick hungover with this workload, and anyway, no one ever asks you to their office party when you're a temp - not even firms you've worked for on and off for years. I probably wouldn't have had the time or energy: 12-hour days take it out of you.

EUROPE, ASIA and much of America are already in the clear. But, as you read this over breakfast, people are still crossing their fingers in Alaska, Hawaii and Tahiti. In that part of the globe, the world has not yet not ended.

JOHN MALKOVICH (right) has always impressed as a baddie - remember his insinuating seducer in Dangerous Liaisons, or his creepy psycho-killer in In the Line of Fire? He gets to play the villain again in Con Air (10pm Sky Premier), an exciting roller-coaster of an action-picture. The premise is quite straightforward - a single good guy (Nicolas Cage) attempts to wrest control of a plane from a group of desperate criminals (a top-notch bunch of actors led by Malkovich and featuring Steve Buscemi and Ving Rhames). But where Simon West's thriller scores is the sheer panache with which he handles the action sequences.