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Hurrah! If you were troubled at the thought that the world doesn't have quite enough book prizes, there's yet another one to add to your betting calendar.
It's the Desmond Elliot Prize, which will be rewarding writers whose first novels have "both literary and page-turning value".

That sounds nice. But, um, what exactly does it mean?

Cherie Blair took her excellent autobiography to Lorraine Kelly's show this morning and promptly went about setting the record straight. Discussing how contraception and the ability of women to control their fertility was very important, she was apparently unaware that she'd told the whole world she was too embarrassed to take her contraception to Balmoral, and thus ended up getting pregnant.

One of the nicest things about England is the way that we let even our most inexplicable celebrities reinvent themselves through publishing, despite the fact the book sales (and literacy rates) are flagging a little 

In a further sign that the once-proud publishing sector is looking to get taken over by the intergalactic celebrity merchandising complex, Johnny Depp's brother Daniel has written a thriller, and publishing companies everywhere have gone batshit. Loser's Town, it's called, about an A-list Hollywood actor, stalkers, private investigators, etc. It may well be excellent.  Though it's described as 'half-literary, half-commercial', which is something of a red klaxon. And an opportunity for papers everywhere to lead with pictures of Johnny. No pictures of Dan, though this might be him (left), a fatloss expert from here. But probably not. Surely an actor's brother is above taking fauxchalant pictures of himself and then not editing out the arm that's holding the camera.

Blogs-to-books startup The Friday Project spectacularly folded a couple months ago, with directors including Scott Pack (left) rather cynically encouraging its writers and printers to keep working even as bankruptcy came whistling at them. Harper Collins then picked it out of bankruptcy, taking on the titles and the staff (including Scott), but, by the miracle of company law, none of the debts. Creditors: fuck off. Directors who got you into this mess: golden.

A minor setback to the blog movement. Scott Pack is a great blogger, and unquestionably dedicated to the Word, which leaves you wondering why he'd try taking the best of a vibrant, accelerating media form and repackage it into a dying one with an elaborately crummy revenue model? I guess his shiny new Harper Collins salary is why. The rest of us will sit tight, dig in, & wait while the world turns onto blogs. That's The Make's plan, anyway [image from bookseller.com].