Baroness Ford wants to avoid leaving a costly legacy to the public purse and, with other venues such as the aquatics centre, velodrome and media centre also requiring legacy tenants, will choose one or two preferred bidders for the stadium in the autumn before making a final decision before Christmas.

BBC: Deadline set for 2012 London Olympics stadium bids

These living fossils are wildly popular (last autumn one Surrey grammar school had to call the police for crowd control when 1, 500 children turned up to sit its entrance exam for 126 places), but their freedom is being eroded.

ECONOMIST: Grammar schools

The government has mooted reforms that would reduce May Day observance to a single day and distribute the rest over a series of one-day holidays for the traditional Tomb Sweeping day, Dragon Boat festival and Mid-Autumn festival.

ECONOMIST: China's public holidays: Golden weeks or silver days? | The

Give Stewart the edge in one area, though: He picked a perfect, crisp autumn day for it.

FORBES: Jon Stewart And Glenn Beck--They're Not So Unalike

Instead they backed the proposal for a series of rolling local strikes, beginning on 27 June, with a one-day national strike in the autumn.

BBC: Teachers back strike action on pay