With his commanding height – he stood 6ft 3in – his perfect manners and his tendency to wear slightly foppish clothes, Simon Hornby always looked what he was at heart – a latter-day embodiment of Renaissance Man.

WHSmith shows red card to Rooney book

Though it will be all eyes on Wayne Rooney tonight, WHSmith seems to think that people are not interested enough in the England squad's star striker to buy a book about his rather extraordinary life.

So, Kate Swann, any good?

Home entertainment store Richer Sounds and kitchenware chain Lakeland have been voted the UK's best shops in a survey by consumer group Which?

Just as we are told that "bad news sells", so publishers began chanting a similar mantra in the 1990s when misery memoirs – first-person accounts of woe, ranging from sexual abuse to physical privation (or both, ideally, with a side order of anguish thrown in) – became highly marketable fare.

Analysts are looking forward to another strong set of results from British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), the pay-television group which is due to post its half-year results on Thursday. Key performance indicators are expected to have remained strong, with Charles Stanley anticipating news of 165,000 net new pay-TV subscribers during the company's second quarter, while UBS expects to hear of 180,000 net additions. Numis is slightly behind with a forecast of 159,000.

Will Waterstone's survive the new decade? This week, the book chain's likely future looks as slim as one of those volumes of poetry that you won't find in its celebrity-heavy outlets. To lose 8.9 per cent of sales over a tough pre-Christmas period might be pardonable in another business. With a virtual monopoly on high street specialist bookselling in a nation that still reads pretty avidly, it seems like worse than carelessness. Remember that this plunge, which has cost the job of the outgoing MD, Gerry Johnson, happened just as nearest rival Borders gave up.

The failed bookseller Borders UK will launch a stock liquidation sale in its 45 stores on Saturday, dealing a blow to retail rivals in the crucial run up to Christmas.

Retail chain WH Smith reported an 8 per cent rise in annual profits today as it overcame falling sales at its travel and high street divisions.

Thousands of teaching assistant jobs should be cut to help claw back millions of pounds wasted running schools, according to an internal Government report.

Even by the standards of last-minute trawls of the high street for that CD or pair of socks which show a child's love for their father, it seems an improbable gift. But to some branches of Tesco and W H Smith, The Crimes of Josef Fritzl: Uncovering the Truth seemed a surefire hit for the Dad market. The book, which details how the Austrian, now 74, imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth in his cellar for 24 years, repeatedly raping her and fathering her seven children, has featured as a Father's Day promotion.

Sir Martin Gilbert, the allegedly distinguished historian who is one of those appointed to investigate the Iraq war, has let it be known that one day in the future Bush and Blair might be seen in the same light as Roosevelt and Churchill. A good example of the rule that when it comes to talking nonsense it's hard to beat a historian.