Is the magic community under threat? Photograph: Gk Hart/vikki Hart/Getty Images The changing world of magic shops was the rather sweet subject for John Sugar’s Magic People and Places (Radio 4). It began with a glance back to the glory days of magic shops in postwar London, when magicians... 

Villagers, too good for the definite article. Sticks and stones, you may have been told, can break your bones, but names can never hurt you. True, perhaps, in everyday life; not so in pop music. Names can do serious damage. There’s one very good reason why Parisian baggy revivalists Shit... 

Ah, the good old days Photograph: LARRY W. SMITH/EPA Quite frankly, only the gossamer-touched Fiona Phillips could do justice to a link between Charles Taylor’s war crimes trial and Bristol Palin’s marital disappointment. Lost in Showbiz simply isn’t up to the task, so do... 

Get out the big guns … George Clooney thriller The American will screen at the London film festival, a month after its release in the US If bookies took bets on the lineup at film festivals, whoops and cheers would be shaking the Guardian HQ this lunchtime. As they don’t, the noise...