All who sail in her

A six-thousand-volume library, an 830-seat theatre with West End-style boxes, and a whole room devoted to the life of Queen Victoria. Sounds like the ideal home for me, but in fact it's Cunard's latest liner.

Stjoodents carnt rite

So attests the Royal Literary Fund. (The Fund's own summary of its report is here.)

Mind the gateau

Q: What can you do on a Tube journey, other than plug in your iPod or whatever, browse the discarded newspapers and hope the bloke opposite isn't going to stab you?

A: You can give a dinner party.

Can't-do culture

Reasons to be tearful at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

Apart from the earthquake

What holidaymakers liked least.

Easy in our beds?

The US claims the right to kidnap British citizens.

One's Husband and One

Andrew Pierce and Vicus Scurra on sixty years of a royal marriage.

Constructive criticism

A wee gem from the appraisal culture.

Mysterious ceramic heads

They're popping up everywhere.

(Is Eva McIntyre to blame?)

How do you do?

The best reply, thought Douglas Woodruff, is the classical Chinese one:

"I am trying to diminish the number of my failings, but I have not so far been successful."

K is for KATE who was struck with an axe

It's a brevis old vita for The Gashlycrumb Tinies.

The first science fiction film

…was A Trip to the Moon, directed by George Méliès in 1902. Whimsical and at first slow-moving, it is, I think, much enhanced by the electronic music of Justin Herndon. It's presented here in two parts of six minutes each:

Recessional

Mick Hall deplores the dwindling numbers of working-class MPs.

Floreat Swinesend

Re-live all that time-honoured, character-building, picturesque starvation and torture at The Crap Public Schools Association.

Divas, icons & Gracie

The scene in Little Voice where the incomparable Jane Horrocks channels Shirley Bassey, Marilyn, Marlene, Gracie Fields and Garland, while Brenda Blethyn, Jim Broadbent and Michael Caine look on in amazement:

Brollygate

Wouldn't normally link to a Simon Heffer anecdote, but this Harriet Harman vignette is diverting.

How to argue

Learn from a master.

All about Italy

This animation (5 mins) amused me.

Unsuitable role model

Eartha Kitt wants to be evil:

Was Blake barmy?

Arguably it's irrelevant.