John Lennon once said, "You have to be a bastard to make it. That's a fact. And the Beatles were the biggest bastards on earth." As that statement would suggest, to be a bastard is not to be a villain - nothing quite so obvious. The reality is that bastards are often apparent gents, with the veneer of respectability concealing a character who's ruthlessly ambitious, insufferably smug, a button-pusher, schemer or cheater.

Poetry has always inspired artists. Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Dante’s Divine Comedy are two of the most enduring. And according to Art Everywhere, of which I will say little here but have written about elsewhere (see sidebar), the nation’s favourite painting is inspired by a more recent poem: JW Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott shows the ill-fated heroine of Tennyson’s famous verse moving inexorably towards her watery death “like some bold seer in a trance”.

This week sees the release of the eagerly anticipated Alan Partridge film, Alpha Papa. And while there are those of us who simply cannot wait to cringe along with Norwich’s favourite talk radio host, there is a rather vocal minority that are indignant at having their favourite sitcom sullied by the limitations of the movie format. While it would be churlish to judge a film on the basis of an innate distrust of the movie-making business, a precedent has been set when it comes to much-loved comedies making that considerable leap to the big screen.

There's good cops and bad cops, hard cops and soft cops, old cops and young cops, funny cops and straight cops, maverick cops and by-the-book cops. The pairings are legion, the permutations endless. The movies teem with buddy cops, unlike paired with unlike to bring down bad guys. They've all pretty much got one thing in common: it's a guy thing. Yes, when it comes to reeling in the guilty parties, not a lot of sisters get to do it for themselves.

As someone detached from pop music (more a world, classical, jazz kind of guy) I conducted an unscientific experiment during the past few months to try and discover what the really big tunes out there were. Travelling in Paris, Mumbai, Morocco and elsewhere, I found songs that have gone global in a massive way. I kept hearing them everywhere – in clubs, by the hotel pool, in bars and taxis, blaring out of shops.

Leonard Cohen sang, somewhat indiscreetly, about Janis Joplin “giving head” on his unmade bed, Bob Dylan penned a song to his hero Woody Guthrie, and Don McLean famously sang “the day the music died” about Buddy Holly. The list of pop tributes to pop icons – whether the subject is a distant hero, a dead lover or a good friend – is long.

Even now, as Edward Snowden floats in the diplomatic neverwhere of Sheremetyevo airport, someone somewhere is plotting the movie. Currently the story of the man who blew the whistle on the National Security Agency looks like it could still play out as farce, but it may yet turn to tragedy.

Imagine a scenario in which Daniel Day Lewis is cast as himself. To get into character, he adopts his method technique of total immersion. For months he watches all of Daniel Day Lewis’s movies, studying his voice and physical movements to nail those telltale Daniel Day Lewis ticks. He reads all his EPK interviews and pores over his acceptance speeches. Only when fully prepped is he ready for the cameras to roll, and on set he goes so far as to stay in character between takes, asking people to address him as “Dan”. Naturally he cleans up in awards season.

The onerous task of recording all 205 national anthems for playing at the Olympics medal ceremonies has fallen on the London Philharmonic Orchestra. An edited group of 36 players has recorded the anthems at the Abbey Road Studios in 60 gruelling recording hours over six days. But which would try their patience most?