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Since the release of his last album, Frank Turner has gone from a skinny half-arsed English country singer to a skinny half-arsed English country singer who has sold out Wembley and performed at the Olympic Opening Ceremony. You wouldn’t be able to tell this instantly from Tape Deck Heart. His songs are still charmingly down to earth; playing in front of a packed Olympic Stadium hasn’t elevated his ego even remotely, and in fact this album largely lacks the self-confident bravado of his previous four releases. However, there is evidence to suggest that Frank has matured somewhat as an artist since England Keep My Bones, and this makes Tape Deck Heart arguably his strongest record yet.

Aside from possibly Sleep is for the Week, Turner’s albums have always been a little bit scattershot, veering from punk-folk ballads to angry protest songs to wry comments about his lifestyle,...

From a grumpy Ariel Sharon to a splenetic Tracey Emin, some of the most entertaining, controversial – and cringe-making – encounters from the Guardian's daily features section, G2

Thora Hird

Simon Hattenstone

12 April 1999

She introduces me to Scotty by way of a photograph on her sideboard. "That is the best picture of my husband and my grandson. He was a good man." The picture is taken in Beverly Hills where her daughter, the former child movie star Janette Scott, used to live. "We had 54 years together. It was a wonderful life. And you see, Simon, I was ashamed that I didn't know it was a stroke he'd had. I was getting ready to go to work in the back, and we've got two bedrooms, and I was in one and he was in the other, not because we didn't speak to each other, because my arthritis, well, with all this you wouldn't...