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Joanna Lumley pays tribute to a World War One soldier as part of a major cultural programme taking place across the United Kingdom to mark the centenary of the conflict

Curators at Tokyo's science museum have unveiled their latest exhibition, which is all about toilets

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Actress Lindsay Lohan says the latest instalment of video game Grand Theft Auto created a character based on her without her permission.

'America's sweetheart', and its least judgmental voice, gives love and sex advice to people who identify as straight, gay, poly, kinky and everything in between

Dan Savage on gender politics: 'We all get to stand up and scream and yell'

A couple disagree about whether to have kids. A woman discovers her boyfriend has an STI. A pastor who likes watching pornography is scared he'll get caught. These people need advice. So what do they do? They call Dan Savage.

As part of our new Listen to This series, we caught up with Savage for a quick conversation about his advice podcast, Savage Lovecast. The conversation quickly derailed into a long discussion about gender politics, which we've published separately for you. In the meantime, read on to find out what he really thinks of all the sex and love advice he dishes out every day. We've added some basic information about his podcast at the bottom of this post.

When I first started Savage Love it was a joke I was going to treat straight people and straight sex with the same contempt that straight advice columnists have always treated gay people and gay sex. I was just going to sneer at heterosexuals and act like straight sex was icky, which, of course, it is. But then so many straight people loved that, because it was such a new experience for them to be treated that way, that I started getting real questions. And suddenly, I had a real advice column on my hands.

The one constant, though, from the start, has been that I feel the column is a conversation Im having with friends about sex and our sex lives in a bar when were drunk. From the beginning, Ive always allowed them to use whatever language they want to use and have a sense of humor. You know, in most sex advice columns, sex writers wouldnt use the term cocksucking; they would use fellatio, and I felt that sexual Sanskrit was patronizing and also more graphic. I remember years ago reading one particular advice column, and the person literally wrote: I licked his penis. That was how she described giving a blow job. And I just thought that was so much more graphic and pornographic than I sucked his dick.

Advice columns are weird. The question is being asked by one person, and that question and its answer are being heard by thousands. And so who is the podcast for? The one asshole with the question? No! If it was, Id call the person back and have a private conversation.

In a sense, when I write an advice column or record a podcast, what Im doing is creating this store of common sense in the heads of the listeners who didnt ask the question. Because often what happens is: someone hears an answer, it doesnt apply to them at that moment, but then they find themselves in a similar circumstance three or six months later and it comes back to them. Thats what advice columns and podcasts do: implant memories of what you do when x is happening to you.

The column and the podcast are a conversation with my friends about sex. You cant take it too seriously. It's not for the extremely delicate. Theres this weird empathy for this fictional delicate moron who happened upon my column who was damaged by the jokes. The ones who are like: Oh my God, I cant believe he said that to that poor person! I would be destroyed! Well, I think people are made of stronger stuff. And they called me because they listen to me, so they know what theyre signing up for. They know theres a good chance you might get slapped around a little bit.

Heres a funny story. A few years ago, I answered a question from an email for my column, and a year later accidentally answered the same question again and I gave the opposite advice! So I guess it depends on when you catch me.

When it comes to the show, the producer Nancy listens to the call, she sends me a synopsis, and I get to pick the questions I want to answer which makes me appear omniscient. You seem to know all the answers, because you get to pick the questions you answer. You dont pick the questions you dont have answers for so nobody goes, Wow, what an idiot.

(Laughs) Oh my God. I love kinks. What people fetishize is all over the map, and its fascinating. There was this woman on the show whose boyfriend had a metal detector fetish you know those things you see people using on the beach? Like, how does that happen? I love those questions. I look forward to them.

The questions that drive me crazy are when people say, Im such a fan, Ive been reading you forever. My boyfriend is awful to me, and doesnt pay any attention to me, and wont have sex with me, and hits on my friends, and is rude to my parents, and I dont know what to do. Really? You dont know what to do? I love him so much. Really, why? Why! No. You love having a boyfriend, you dont love this boyfriend. Hes a piece of shit.

With those questions, I just think, God, how can you have been reading me for 12 years and still be so stupid about sex and relationships? Thats so depressing! (Laughs). It makes me feel like it was all for nothing. All that effort, all that wisdom Ive attempted to impart, nothing took.

People have accused me of that. Back when I was on the dating scene, a guy I was dating said, You need to read that Savage Love column. Its definitely easier to give the advice than take it.

I like [advicecast] My Brother, My Brother and me. I listen to Joe Rogan once in a while, I listen to Mark Marons podcast, of course hes a genius. And I love This American Life, which I have on the actual app. Theres something about getting lost in its style of storytelling at the gym that makes an hour on the treadmill fly by.

The thing is, I have a straight audience. I dont write for gay publications, and most of the people who call and write me are straight. Most people who are listening to the show and reading the column are also straight. We know that nothing changes peoples feelings about sexual minorities more than knowing one, or some. And a lot of people get to know queer people, kinky people, poly people, non-monogamous people, trans people, by reading my column and listening to my podcast.

And they arent just queer people. Straight people who are kinky, poly, non-monogamous, et cetera are people who in their own ways are sexual minorities, who are shamed and silenced and made invisible. I get letters every day from people who say I used to judge people who were not monogamous really severely, and I started listening to your show and I dont anymore, because it opened my eyes. And thats very gratifying.

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• Today we had a look at the Twin Peaks real estate market, Snoop Dogg's nature show, and Bill Murray's babysitting skills.
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5.04pm BST

That's yer lot. We've done Twin Peaks real estate (10.08), great Southern albums (12.01), and a slightly underwhelming Sherlock announcement (14.23), and now we're going home.

4.23pm BST

Gor, aren't music videos complicated these days? Time was you could just stick in a cartoon cat and people would be suitably wowed, but now you need narrative, hefty thematic substance, and all that jazz. A case in point is the new How To Dress Well video, the final part of his What Is The Heart trilogy and (*copies in PR spiel*) a 'starkly beautiful cinematic portrait of what happens when people try to live and die right'. Parts one and two featured death, fire, and weird cultish elements, but this one's a rather more positive affair, culminating in some gentle petrol station food porn. Lovely stuff.

3.24pm BST

Watch the trailer here

2.41pm BST

Re. that Sherlock news, it's worth pointing out that - contrary to lots of reports - there's no suggestion in the BBC press release that the special will air over Christmas 2015. Given that it's filming in January, there's a fair chance that it might hit our screens a little sooner. Easter perhaps?

BBC needs to stop trying to turn routine announcements into dramatic cliffhangers.

2.23pm BST

Hi! Gwilym here, plugging my face into the Guide Daily mainframe for the remainder of the afternoon.

First up, some Sherlock news. Yesterday afternoon Mark Gatiss started having a funny turn on Twitter:

Its all gone dark

Somethings coming

Or someone...

It's all gone dark... Something's coming... Or someone. Details at 2.21pm tomorrow. #221back #Sherlock

"Miss me?" #Sherlock, the hit @BBCOne drama, will return for a Special, followed by a series of three new episodes. #221back

After the briefest of exiles, #Sherlock will return to face one of his biggest mysteries yet... #221back

Shooting on the #Sherlock special will begin in January 2015, with the series shooting later next year. #221back

We're ready to unleash the most shocking and surprising series of #Sherlock yet. The only thing is to expect is the unexpected... #221back

The Game is on - again! #Sherlock #221back

12.52pm BST

After a summer anthem? Don't know where to turn. We gave you a little rundown of our favourite Q2 bangers yesterday, and we're carrying on that generosity with some PROPER HUGE SUMMER TUNES M8. Actually, is one bonafide summer anthem from Nile Rodgers and some, er, alternative efforts.

12.01pm BST

Lee Bains III (far left, above) & The Glory Fires caught people's attention with their Dereconstructed album, which came out earlier this year on Sub Pop. Angry, witty and funny - it sounded like something you'd find on a Soul Jazz Swamp Rock comp, full of riffs and lyrical shout outs to towns in Georgia. As part of our top five series we asked Lee to give us his top five southern albums and he picked a mix of mystic oddities, Atlanta hip-hop and the greatest rock'n'roll band of all time. Not bad, eh?

11.23am BST

A group of console-happy Spaniards have put together a shot-by-shot remake of the trailer for Grand Theft Auto V, moving the action from San Andreas to Madrid.

11.01am BST

Theres so much music out there; theres so much stuff that sounds like Haim or CHVRCHES or Vampire Weekend that Im full. The thing Im hungry for is not that. I turn on the rock station in L.A. and it sounds like Disney commercial music.

10.08am BST

Morning all.

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Behind the celebrity circus of his marriage to Kim Kardashian, Kanye West is still a brilliant musican, says Neil McCormick

The miners' strike of 1984 proves a gripping topic, says Charles Spencer

Dave Eggers's hostage-taker novel in dialogue is an angry and astute investigation into the state of America

Dave Eggers has always seemed a very 21st-century phenomenon, and not merely because the debut that made him an American literary star A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius was published in the year 2000. Books have been only part of a portfolio that includes editing print and online publications and running philanthropic and social projects.

But, as a writer, Eggers has become increasingly 19th century. Although his debut work was a memoir recounting, with many digressions and literary games, the experience of being orphaned young and becoming guardian to his younger brother he soon turned to fiction and, since 2012, has been publishing substantial new novels at the rate of one a year.

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As Nicki Minaj's BET awards performance blasted her competitors out of the water, releases from Ab-Soul, Young Thug and the Alchemist were also highlights in hip-hop this month

Black Hippy and TDE crew member Ab-Soul turned heads earlier in the year, when he released Tree of Life; a weird, off-kilter cut which gave shout-outs to Steve Jobs and pastoral scenery. Tree of Life is included on These Days and the rest of the album continues on that trippy feel: opener God's Reign is slow-burning and anthemic and features a turn from fellow TDEer SZA, who provides the chorus. Other guests include Schoolboy Q, Kendrick Lamar, Rick Ross and Danny Brown, but at no point does it feel as if Ab-Soul is ever out-gunned. A lot of people have been hyping up his labelmate Isaiah Rashad this year, and while his introverted flow might well have a bigger critical impact, Ab-Soul makes solid, varied hip-hop that manages to be imaginative (it's actually a concept album, aimed at commenting on the current state of hip-hop) and banging at the same time.

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British Museum moves the Marbles for blockbuster exhibition on ancient Greece

Sherlock creators confirm the hit drama will return to BBC One for a special in 2015, plus a fourth series of three episodes.

Magnificent but decaying Llwyn Celyn, built circa 1480, was among longest-occupied houses in Britain until brothers left

Rainwater pours through the stone roof tiles on to 15th-century carved timbers, and in heavy downpours a river runs down the hill behind the house, in through the back door, along the main passageway and out through the front door.

The manor house in the Black Mountains in Wales was built around 1480, and despite its decrepit appearance the last owners, farming brothers Trevor and Lyndon Powell, only moved out in February, making Llwyn Celyn one of the longest continuously occupied houses in Britain.

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The cast and director of How to Train Your Dragon 2 speak to BBC News about the sequel

A celebrity blogger who says pop star Tulisa hit him at a music festival, is accused of lying to police over a "lost" photograph of his injuries.