The Editors

Syed Talha Ahsan was arrested in London on 19 July 2006 in response to an extradition request from the United States. He has been detained without trial for five years. Tomorrow evening, the Islamic Human Rights Commission is holding an event to mark the anniversary of his arrest at its bookshop in Wembley. One of the speakers will be Gareth Peirce, who mentioned Ahsan's case in a piece for the LRB last year, outlining the case against extraditing suspects to the US: A number of individuals, arrested in the UK, were astonished to learn that activities they had undertaken years before offended against US law.

From Alan Bennett's diary for last year: I give my details, and my address and phone number, to a constable who, when I get back home, duly rings with the incident number. Ten minutes later, less than an hour after it has occurred, the doorbell rings and on the doorstep is a rather demure girl: ‘My name is Amy. I’m from the Daily Mail. We’ve just heard about your unfortunate experience.’

There are still tickets available for tonight's discussion at the British Museum, After Egypt: Revolutions in the Arab World.

Professional opposition to the government's higher education policies is growing. Tomorrow afternoon, academics at Oxford will be debating and voting on a motion of no confidence in the minister for universities and science, David Willetts. A similar vote may be going ahead in Cambridge, and petitions have been started at Warwick and Goldsmiths. Philip Pullman's account of going to Oxford for interview gives a sense of what's at stake.

Alan Bennett's Smut: Two Unseemly Stories is published this month by Faber and Profile. One of the unseemly stories is 'The Greening of Mrs Donaldson', which first appeared in the LRB. Here he is reading from it.