Two new publishers in Melbourne have cast a stylish eye over an oft-overlooked genre pet magazines

Over recent months, animal lovers in Melbourne have been hunting down a new and stylish, independent magazine dedicated to cats. As Cat People vacated shops, another Melbourne publisher was putting the finishing touches to Four&Sons, also a new and stylish, independent magazine but dedicated to dogs.

Youre entitled to an eye roll. Maybe you're thinking: dogs wearing flat caps, cats wearing cardigans, dogs listening to the National, cats knitting decorative replica cats out of organic kale. Adorably stupid kittens in strategic Buzzfeed lists: Look at me yawn, then burn fat with this one weird trick.

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John Cleese and co reunite this month, but one Python will be missing from the cast. Ken Levy recalls how a chance encounter backstage led to an unlikely friendship

April 1976. There I was, a fledgling reporter for my university's newspaper, come to see Monty Python live at New York's City Centre. I somehow managed to talk my way backstage hours ahead of showtime, when journalists from more grown-up media such as the New York Times were being kept at bay. I couldn't believe my good fortune as I was led through a maze of dressing rooms and wardrobe areas. Gilliam-esque stage sets met my gaze, as did a sign on a half-opened door that read "Carol Cleveland". I remember peering briefly into the empty room and seeing Ms Cleveland's bra hanging over a chair. Heady stuff.

Introduced by his ward, John Tomiczek, I suddenly found myself in front of Graham Chapman. He greeted me affably and invited me to sit while he prepared for the evening's first skit by zipping himself into a Spanish senorita costume.

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Redtory Art & Design Factory, E9 Gallery, Guangzhou
An exhibition in Guangzhou called Yiban Yiban Yellah Fellah has featured three artists of mixed heritage

Yiban Yiban Yellah Fellah opened on a sweltering summer afternoon at Redtory Art & Design Factory in Guangzhou, the sprawling capital of Guangdong province in southern China. While the contemporary art scene in Guangzhou is less pronounced than in Beijing or Shanghai, it is this Cantonese-speaking area that largely spawned Australias early waves of Chinese migration from the mid-19th century onwards. That cultural legacy lies at the heart of Yiban Yiban.

Yiban is Mandarin for half, and Yellah Fellah is an Aboriginal term for people of mixed (Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal) descent. Hence this exhibition, curated by the prominent, senior Aboriginal curator Djon Mundine, comprised the work of three Aboriginal artists who also share Chinese heritage: Gary Lee, Sandra Hill and Jason Wing.

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Prunella Scales, actor: 'I had to keep schtum about my theatre family. In those days, you had to be raw working class'

I first met David Lean in 1942. I was a gofer at Denham Studios and he was a well-known editor, though not yet a director. We took a shine to each other we were both mad about film and started going to the pictures together with our wives. I remember one time David saying: "The sound is terribly low on this let's speak to the manager." The manager said loftily: "You don't understand. The film comes to us and there's nothing we can do." David said: "Let me up to the projector room." Imagine David Lean being told he didn't know about these things!

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Last hurrah of comic quintet at London's O2 Arena will be screened in 2,000 cinemas and on TV across the world

When the surviving members of Monty Python deliver their final performance in three weeks' time the show will be a global event, broadcast live to more than 2,000 cinemas and on TV screens in more than 100 countries from Afghanistan to Yemen.

The five Pythons held a press conference in London on Monday to give more details of their shows at London's O2. They open on Tuesday and will be a cross between theatre and rock concert with dancers and a full orchestra.

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Lionel Richie, Lil Wayne, John Legend and Missy Ellliott performed as newcomers and mainstays won awards

Pharrell's Happy is keeping a smile on the musician's face: the song won video of the year Sunday at the BET Awards, the top prize in a show marking the best in black entertainment.

His win came in the second hour of the three-hour-plus ceremony that featured performances by Pharrell as well as Lil Wayne and Usher. Last year, the network didn't announce the top award in the jam-packed show.

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Like David Lynch for teenagers, Abbott's fiction features a suburbia of closed doors, sexual hysteria and texting

Fear of missing out pervades the young-adult fiction of Megan Abbott. It starts with puberty and is fueled by boredom. How pathetic, says a high-school cheerleader in Abbott's novel Dare Me, from 2012, to an adult who wants to get to know her. Im not even interested in our lives. To be just interesting enough to see how uninteresting you actually are: this is the predicament of the 15-year-old. It leads the teen-girl heroes of Abbotts fiction to drink white wine, take diet pills, and have sex with unworthy boys. Afterward, they go home and text about it.

Reached by phone, in Memphis, where she was on tour with her new book, The Fever, Abbott said, I remember adolescence being a daily disillusionment. Its like a checklist of experiences that you havent had, that you want to have.

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A tomato fight, a Dolly Parton flashmob dance, Kasabian backstage and Ellie Goulding on stage don't miss our highlights of the final day at Glastonbury

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Brutally detailed murder stories appeal to female readers both for the real anxieties they tap into, and for their metaphorical resonances

At this year's Theakstons Old Peculier crime writing festival in Harrogate, roughly 80% of the audience (and half the 80 or so authors appearing) will be women. We will also make up around 80% of those signing up for writing workshops where aspiring crime writers learn their craft. Though only a third of published authors in almost all genres are women and media outlets scandalously persist in reviewing disproportionately more books by men, women have long made up the majority of adult readers and, increasingly, both as readers and writers, we are turning to crime.

Women love crime fiction, and not just in its cosy, sanitised, Midsomer Murders version. The trend towards ever-more explicit accounts of murder, rape and torture in crime novels, often involving a female victim, is led not by men but by women. Why?

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The Leftovers, HBO's new drama based on the Tom Perrotta novel, leaves one guessing and sometimes suffering

Like stale lasagna sitting in a refrigerator, an unnerving reminder of a family get together long past, an existential contest that puts one face-to-face with questions of faith, mortality and indigestion, so HBO serves up The Leftovers. Alternately thrilling, depressing, puzzling and stuffed with occasional chunks of cheese, The Leftovers, (like most leftovers) leaves one guessing and sometimes suffering.

The premise: three years ago, 140 million people disappeared around the world, for which neither science nor major religion can offer any explanation. Many lost a family member, but everyone knows someone who vanished, or who cracked in the aftermath. Children miss their "departed" parents; parents of missing children are left devastated, struggling to move on. The blunt, intimate style of director Peter Berg makes the overwhelming sense of loss that permeates The Leftovers feel personal. Berg has created something between a post-apocalyptic horror movie and a Raymond Carver short story, which works, even if it's not always very fun to watch.

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From Trey Songzs salacious R&B to George Ezras husky folk-pop, here are five new albums to consider

Why you should listen: Lones Matt Cutler has produced a collection of forward-thinking, textured and often slow-burning dance music tracks on this sixth album.

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