Culture

  • 3D mini-me statues: 'This must be what Z-list celebrity feels like'

    You can now get a 3D figurine made of yourself in the time it takes to do your shopping. So how does it feel to meet your double? Five Guardian writers find out

  • 10 reasons why today's TV is better than movies

    Stuart Heritage: Forget what you've read about cinema's dominance over the small screen. Television has plenty to teach the movies about characterisation, storytelling and breaking new talent

  • The Smiths' The Queen Is Dead named the Greatest Album of All Time by NME

    As Morrissey's Autobiography flies off the shelves, a publication he has clashed with in the past honours the Smiths' third album, writes Harriet Gibsone

  • DJ Taylor's top 10 counter-factual novels

    From tales of a Jewish state in Alaska to a Hitler who won, the novelist picks the best fiction written in 'the historical subjunctive'

  • Man up: European art and the male nude

    Backs, biceps and buttocks – the naked male form in art has been adored, lusted after and emulated for centuries, finds Jonathan Jones

Film

  • Captain Phillips proves that America is awesome. Got it? Awesome!

    Tom Hanks is great and there's even a fleeting nod to the Somali perspective, but the real hero of Captain Phillips is the US navy, writes Alex von Tunzelmann

  • Stranger With My Face liveblog: watch with us from 3.15pm BST

    Stuart Heritage liveblogged Channel 5's afternoon film – about a stranger who, we're given to understand, has somebody else's face. Witness his slow mental disintegration as it happened here.

  • Thor: The Dark World – first look review

    Hiddleston and Hemsworth's impressive collective charisma rescues this followup to Thor, but the film is missing Kenneth Branagh's directorial delicacy of touch, writes Ben Child

  • Why I love … watching films 20 times

    Fancy bagging yourself a continuity cockup, or gathering a harvest of arcane film facts? Sit down, my friend, and welcome to the strangely thrilling world of the rewatcher, writes Andrew Gilchrist

  • Turbo boosts UK box office, but Captain Phillips really pushes the boat out

    New commercial fare helped box office bounce back; Escape Plan proves Sly + Arnie still works but Enough Said not enough, writes Charles Gant

Music

  • The Pogues: 'We expected censure from the beginning'

    This month is the 25th anniversary of the Northern Ireland broadcast ban. The Pogues' accordion player tells the story of how the band were caught up in a political row

  • Kanye West takes over stadium for rap proposal to Kim Kardashian

    Details of rapper's extravagant marriage proposal emerge, with orchestra, scoreboard in lights – and a touch of West verse

  • Need some pain relief? Try a dose of Robbie Williams or Elton John

    Tim Jonze: Music can help relieve persistent pain, says a new survey, with Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water narrowly beating Robbie and Elton to the top of the pain-relieving pops

  • The musical evolution of cool: from heinous to hip

    Whether it's Phil Collins or Fleetwood Mac, acts that used to be a joke are now being hailed as gods, says New Band of the Day columnist Paul Lester

  • Jimmy Page – 'I've always shied away from leadership in the past because of all that ego thing': a classic interview from the vaults

    The New Yardbirds were formed in 1968, and 45 years ago this week played their first show as Led Zeppelin. Chris Welch met Jimmy Page for Melody Maker – in a classic feature from Rock's Backpages – as rock history was being born

TV and radio

  • Frances Quinn wins The Great British Bake Off

    Winner in 'complete and utter shock' after three-tier wedding cake seals her unexpected victory in front of 8m viewers

  • Masters of Sex recap: season one, episode three – Standard Deviation

    Sarah Hughes' episode recap: Bill Masters' scientific curiosity has finally morphed into a full-blown obsession

  • TV theme tunes: five routes to success

    Graeme Virtue: Singalong TV themes are becoming more rare, but you still can't beat a catchy tune and lyrics. From recap songs to star vehicles, here are the five archetypes

  • The week in TV: The Great British Bake Off; Stephen Fry: Out There ... and more - video review

    Telly addict Andrew Collins reviews The Great British Bake Off; Stephen Fry: Out There; Hello Ladies; The Tunnel; Peaky Blinders; and The Walking Dead

  • David Suchet's final Poirot episodes: the end of one of TV's great castings

    Mark Lawson: You could debate who was the best Bond, Doctor or Sherlock, but David Suchet is the definitive Hercule Poirot. After nearly 25 years and 70 episodes, his marathon is almost complete

Books

  • Guardian children's fiction prize goes to Rebecca Stead

    Award goes to 'powerful, moving and surprising' Liar & Spy – the first time an American has won

  • For Who the Bell Tolls: One Man's Quest for Grammatical Perfection by David Marsh – review

    Steven Poole celebrates a grammar guide that knows when to break the rules

  • Morrissey Autobiography breaks first-week sales records

    With almost 35,000 copies sold, singer's story becomes fastest-selling memoir since Kate McCann's Madeleine

  • Sandman: Dave McKean's favourite covers - in pictures

    Illustrator Dave McKean on some of his favourite covers for Neil Gaiman's Sandman series

  • The 100 best novels: No 5 – Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (1749)

    Tom Jones comes a riotous fifth in our list of the 100 greatest novels in English, writes Robert McCrum

Art and design

  • The Turner prize 2013 exhibition: go on, get involved

    With its tea parties, cash giveaways and life drawing drop-in, this year's Turner prize exhibition is fun, engaging and democratic – but is the art any good? Adrian Searle gives his verdict

  • Mark Cohen: the photographer who literally shoots from the hip

    Sarah Moroz: Mark Cohen has spent decades doing hit-and-run street photography in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. His pictures are always taken from waist-height, so he can keep his wits about him – and he's taken 800,000 shots he's never even seen

  • Why is the art world all fingers and thumbs?

    Stuart Heritage: From thumbs-aloft cheer to David Cerny's cheeky middle finger sculpture, there appears to be a digital revolution going on

  • Made in China: how landscape painting was invented in the east

    The history books say that western Renaissance artists invented landscape painting. Not if you believe a new V&A exhibition of Chinese art, writes Jonathan Jones

  • The $60,000 sofa: are the excesses of the art market rubbing off on design?

    From a 'boutique fair' to the Barbican's Pop Art Design show, designers risk reneging on everything they should stand for

Stage

  • How I'd run the National theatre

    Gladiatorial combat, Othello toys, golf in the foyer … as the National theatre celebrates its 50th birthday, we ask Polly Stenham, Jake Chapman, Billy Bragg and other cultural players what they'd do with Britain's flagship venue

  • Why children's theatre matters

    If you are reading this blog, it probably means that you are interested in theatre. So why are some areas of theatre valued over others, particularly theatre for young audiences?

  • The Djinns of Eidgah – review

    Abhishek Majumdar's play about the human cost of the conflict in Kashmir is politically enlightening and theatrically hypnotic, writes Michael Billington

  • Rhod Gilbert announces plans to quit standup comedy

    TV opportunities take the Welsh comic off stage. Plus: BBC postpones Comic Relief investigation, Louis CK battles a union and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fail to liftoff

  • The Hour: 60 minutes before curtain-up at the National Theatre - exclusive video

    Exclusive footage backstage at the National Theatre in the hour before curtain-up, with actors including Simon Russell Beale, Ciarán Hinds and Jenny Jules

Games

  • Smesport: Dota meets Fifa

    The latest experiment from indie star Micheal Brough is where the strategy game meets the beautiful game. By Keith Stuart

  • Skylanders: Swap Force – review

    What could have been a cynical exercise in brand reaffirmment is actually a carefully crafted adventure, filled with fun. By Keith Stuart

  • Sonic Lost World – Wii-U review

    Sega's poster-boy has added a few more strings to his bow, with new moves making this game a novel triumph. By Simon Parkin

  • Watch Dogs and The Crew delayed

    Ubisoft announces that both titles will come several weeks late, removing Watch Dogs from Xbox One and PS4 launch lineup. By Keith Stuart

  • Beyond: Two Souls - review

    Nathan Ditum: Technically extraordinary yet mechanically base, this interactive PS3 drama points a way forward for games