BooksReviewAn eloquent but relentless attempt to prove the superiority of polyglots fails to convince Disclosure: this reviewer is pi-lingual, a word coined by Douglas Hofstadter to describe people who speak three languages and can also have a cringingly inept conversation with a taxi driver in a couple more. Any book like this one, which purports to prove scientifically that polyglots are superior, has my vote. All the more since no great diligence was required of me to achieve this, aside from tagging along with my parents and a couple of patient English girlfriends met at an impressionable age.

Around five o'clock this evening, the Tate Gallery will fax national daily newspapers to let us know the winner of the 1991 Turner Prize of £20,000. But the artists in contention won't be told. They might not turn up at tonight's dinner where, after many courses and speeches, the Channel 4 cameras will wish to capture their expressions - of hope, disappointment, triumph - when the official announcement is made.

PhotographyTwenty-five years since the photographer’s posthumous exhibition – which included images of gay S&M – became a point of debate, what have we learned? It might be ill-advised to reduce an artist’s life and work to a single observation, the magic key that unlocks everything, but in the case of Robert Mapplethorpe there is a pronounced duality – in the themes and subjects depicted in his “icy”, graphically stylized black-and-white photographs; in the dark-angel personae he cultivated; and in the controversies all of these facets wittingly or unwittingly sparked during his short lifetime.

2023 Christmas puzzles specialMusicWho is the only person to sing their own name in Do They Know It’s Christmas? Try our 2023 festive No 1s quizBig on Band Aid? Mad for Mad World? As much a savant of sausage rolls as LadBaby? It’s time to put your festive chart knowledge where your mouth is with our quiz ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaKSZm7KiusOsq7KklWR%2FcX6SaJuem19ngHCz1JqpnaGRo3qktNGiqq2lkah6rsHSoppmqaWexw%3D%3D

Country diaryBirdsLangstone, Hampshire: They’ve been popping in and out of the nest box we put up, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll sign on the dotted line It’s National Nest Box Week and love is in the air. I’ve spotted courting dunnocks and blackbirds, and two robins companionably feeding side by side at the bird table. Our resident duo of collared doves are constantly canoodling, billing and cooing to reinforce their bond, while male wood pigeons are strutting around like regency gentlemen, pecking the females’ rumps, then bowing deeply as their prospective partners flounce around to face them.