• Advantage Mr Bond. To honour Ian Fleming’s centenary, Sebastian Faulks has accepted espionage fiction’s ultimate challenge: reviving James Bond. In an exclusive excerpt from Devil May Care, Agent 007 takes on perhaps his most dangerous opponent yet, pharmaceutical tycoon Dr. Julius Gorner. As Bond and Gorner hit the tennis court, the distractingly leggy Scarlett Papava referees. — Vanity Fair

  • The value of a human life. In theory, a year of human life is priceless. In reality, it’s worth $US50,000. But Stanford economists have demonstrated that the average value of a year of quality human life is actually closer to about $129,000. How in hell do they determine that? — Time

  • Tracey Spicer reviews ‘Boned’. The Tele had an extract today, but the star so far is Tracey Spicer’s review: “In 20 years in television, I have never met anyone remotely like Kate Cornish. The characterisation of the heroine in the new novel Boned is about as flaky as the pasty of the same name. What 40-something television presenter devours coffee, cigarettes and Red Bull for breakfast? More like an egg white omelette, herbal-tea- for-my-complexion then Botox for brunch…” — Defamer Au 

  • Women are online?! Both Salon and the Wall Street Journal have cottoned on to the fact that the 52% of the population is online, and have launched mini-sites to sell them shoes. Salon’s launched the fabulously named Broadsheet which strikes us somewhat inspired by Gawker’s Jezebel blog. The WSJ launched Journal Women by asking a CEO ‘how she does it all in killer stilettos’. Okaay. Jezebel shot back a “Dear Rupert” letter. Bless.