Jay Rayner on restaurantsFoodReviewThe new kids on this block promise ‘good times’. If only it were true Block Soho, Clarion House, 2 Saint Anne’s Court, London W1F 0AZ (020 3376 9999). Starters £9-£17, Sunday lunch £15-£26, desserts £9, wines from £27 Hung on the wall above the urinal at Block Soho was a promotional poster for the Sunday lunch I had recently completed. It bore the slogan: “Whole joints, big flames, good times.

Animals farmedFarm animalsMost US cattle are bred to be require grain rations and antibiotics but the small-framed red cow thrives on a grass-only diet – with benefits to the environment Missouri rancher Greg Judy spots a six-month-old South Poll heifer calf in his herd that is a prime example of what he calls a “good doing cow”. A cow that will “do good” on grass alone. 'In the sun they'd cook': is the US south-west getting too hot for farm animals?

TelevisionMocked by critics, the tropical-island crime drama has been attracting a large and appreciative audience for a decade. It’s time it was reassessed Death in Paradise is the Céline Dion of British TV: mocked in adolescence, tolerated in its prime, beloved in its dotage. When the show debuted in 2011, it was annihilated by critics, including at this newspaper. “The TV equivalent of a boring holiday timeshare,” the Guardian noted. “Everyone’s a caricature, their essential qualities semaphored with a brutal simplicity,” the Independent observed.

James Franco, left, and Emma Roberts in a scene from Palo Alto. Photograph: AP Photograph: APJames Franco, left, and Emma Roberts in a scene from Palo Alto. Photograph: AP Photograph: APFirst look reviewMoviesReviewGia Coppola makes her directorial debut with a faithfully slight adaptation of James Franco's short story collection Anyone for the poetry of doomed youth? Thankfully the angst is at a minimum in Gia Coppola’s directorial debut. Palo Alto is adapted from a short story collection by James Franco in which he made fitful record of his own high-school flirtations with the edge.

FictionReviewWithout Wallander to rein him in, Henning Mankell is in danger of losing his touchHenning Mankell is pursued by demons. He is a radical, a man of causes and purpose, a born storyteller who uses his fabulous gifts to make us read about the worst sufferings, exploitations and crimes human flesh is heir to. As an expert in demons, Mankell has produced one himself in the person of his famous Swedish detective, Kurt Wallander, whose life and work he chronicled in a brilliant series of thrillers published between 1991 and 2004.