Morrissey Autobiography breaks first-week sales records

Books chart-topper … Morrissey promotes his book at Akademibokhandeln in Gothenburg last week. Photograph: ADAM IHSE / TT/PA

Morrissey's Autobiography, a book "as maddening as the man himself", has shot to number one in the UK book charts in its first week on sale to become one of the fastest-selling memoirs ever, shifting 34,918 copies and overtaking Keith Richards' 2010 book Life, which was the previous record holder for first-week sales of a musician's biography, at 28,213 copies.

Morrissey's insistence that his book be published as a Penguin Classic means that it went straight into paperback, making it cheaper than the average price of a hardback release of a celebrity autobiography.

Simon Key of the Big Green Bookshop in north London, which held a midnight opening to mark the book's publication last week, said that paperback binding was unlikely to have made a difference to the purchasing decisions of "obsessive" Morrissey fans.

"It wouldn't have made much difference if was out in hardback. Morrissey fans are obsessives, there are very few people quite as obsessive as Morrissey fans," said Key. "I'm delighted that they've published in paperback. I don't like hardbacks, they make bookselling elitist. It makes it unique, too – a book like this hasn't been done as a Penguin Classic before."

The British musician, who won legions of fans during his heyday as frontman of the Smiths in the 1980s, had first suggested his book be published as a Penguin Classic in an interview on Radio 4's Front Row in 2011. " I can't see why not – a contemporary Penguin Classic," he said. "When you consider what really hits print these days and when you look at the autobiographies and how they are sold, most of it is appalling. It's a publishing event, not a literary event."

Sales of Autobiography were ahead of the first full week's sales for David Jason's My Life, which topped the hardback non-fiction chart, with 27,210 copies. Since records began in 1998, the only other memoir to have shifted more copies in its first week than Autobiography was Kate McCann's Madeleine (2011), which sold 72,500.

A publisher for Autobiography in the US, where Morrissey has a committed following, has yet to be revealed, and the Big Green Bookshop has been asked to ship UK copies out to customers there. The Penguin Classic edition is available in the UK, Europe and Commonwealth countries.

"People have been getting in touch by email and Twitter. It is unusual, as an independent London bookshop. We don't generally sell a lot of books in America," Key said.

Former Co-op boss refuses to take blame for bank meltdown

The Co-op Group has lost majority ownership of Co-op Bank. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

The Co-operative Group promised a radical overhaul of its boardroom on Tuesday just hours after the former boss of the grocery and funeral care business deflected responsibility for the crisis at its bank which has fallen under the control of hedge funds.

Peter Marks was accused of "selective amnesia", being "gung-ho", "out of his depth", and in "complete denial" during a heated appearance before the Treasury select committee of MPs at the former boss of the UK's largest mutual, described the fate of the bank as a "tragedy". Marks's appearance came as the Co-op Group's chairman, Len Wardle, announced that he is quitting to clear the way for a successor to be appointed from outside the mutual movement.

The decision by Len Wardle to step aside from next May was said to not be related to Marks' appearance before MPs but is significant, signalling a shift from the traditional boardroom composition of the Co-op and the potential for cultural change. The board is made up of 20 members of the movement and Wardle, a former university fellow, has been chairman since 2007.

Mark's appearance before MPs came 24 hours after the Co-op Group had to admit it was ceding control of its bank – for which Marks had once harboured huge ambitions - to hedge funds. The Co-op -– which spans funeral homes, grocers and pharmacies - will be left with just 30% ownership after the deal with hedge funds to plug a £1.5bn capital gap in the bank.

Marks, who left in May after 45 years, was greeted with incredulity by MPs as he repeatedly refused to take personal responsibility for the bank's problems. He said Co-op was not "Peter Marks plc" or a "dictatorship" and described how his job was not like running a plc as he did not have a seat on the Co-op Group board and could not have changed the way the mutual, founded in 1844, was run.

In a blow to his successors, he cast doubt upon their assertions that Co-op bank can maintain its ethical stance despite the involvement of hedge funds.

"It's not a co-op is it?," he said

"Hedge funds are there to maximise profit, that's what their sole purpose in life is. To be truly ethical you cannot do that," Marks told Labour MP Pat McFadden.

Marks said the intervention of the US hedge funds – Silver Point and Aurelius – could be a "good thing" for the wider Co-op Group and that he warned the Co-op Group board that they "were stretching their capital and still do".

"How many businesses try to be major bank, major pharmacy, major food retailer, major funeral director?" he said.

MPs grew frustrated as his reluctance to take responsibility for the bank's merger with Britannia Building Society in 2008 –now blamed for many of the losses – and the aborted attempt to buy 632 branches from Lloyds Banking Group which collapsed in April.

"A lack of personal accountability at senior levels, ineffective corporate governance and insufficient experience and expertise among those taking the decisions; this has become a familiar story," said Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the committee, which will take evidence next week from former bank boss Barry Tootell.

Marks said the Britannia deal had been overseen by David Anderson, who ran the Co-op bank at the time and the Britannia boss Neville Richardson, who ran the enlarged entity before leaving in 2011.

He stressed he was only a non-executive director on the bank's board. "We do all have to take some responsibility but I was not approved by the Financial Services Authority to run a bank." Marks said work by KPMGhad been relied upon to agree the Britannia deal.

"I can't take responsibility for something I wasn't in full control of, which was the bank. I wasn't driving the Britannia deal but I absolutely voted for it when it was proposed," said Marks. "Should we have merged with Britannia building society? If we had a crystal ball of course we wouldn't."

Pressed by MPs who repeatedly asked if the deal was a disastrous error, Marks said: "Disastrous error is harsh. Certainly it was an error." Marks said he was "feeling very sad" and the problems at the bank were a "tragedy".

"It's a tragedy what's happened, for the group, for the movement, for me personally," Marks told MPs.

In often confusing evidence, Marks eventually conceded that Richardson had left the bank during a "disagreement" about the capacity to buy the Lloyds branches – code-named Verde – and an internal management programme known as Unity.

Marks defended the Verde deal which would have transformed the bank on the high street, agreeing that he was the "driving force". But still Marks frustrated MPs by refusing to take personal responsibility and was accused of "selective amensia" when he failed to remember a warning about Co-op's capital by Lloyds in December 2012 – four months before the deal fell apart.

At the time Marks blamed the economy for the failed deal – the capital hole was exposed two months later – and told MPs that the bank was a "victim" of the financial services crash.

Asked whether there had been political interference to do the Verde deal – as has been asserted by failed bidders for the branches – Marks replied: "Not that I'm aware of."

GSK boss says firm won't pull out of China despite corruption scandal

GlaxoSmithKline’s chief executive, Sir Andrew Witty, said there “is absolutely no question about our commitment to China” despite the corruption scandal. Photograph: Stephen Morrison/EPA

The boss of GlaxoSmithKline insists the pharmaceutical giant will not pull out of China despite a lurid corruption scandal that has wiped out two-thirds of its business in the world's second-largest economy.

GSK, one of the UK's largest blue-chip companies, reported that sales in the fast-growing Chinese market had dropped by 61% since July as buyers ditched its medicines and vaccines.

GSK is accused of using a £320m fund to bribe doctors and hospital officials with cash and prostitutes in order to sell its products.

Sir Andrew Witty, GSK's chief executive, said the company had no intention of scaling back in China. "There is absolutely no question about our commitment to China," he said. "Even with this decline in sales this is still a multi-hundred million pound business. This would still be at these levels of reduction a very significant European-sized country business."

Witty was speaking as the pharmaceutical company unveiled its results for the third quarter, which revealed that global sales grew modestly at 1%.

He said media comments had led to sales dropping across GSK's portfolio of products. "The bottom line is that just simply the media in China, the commentary in China has created an anxiety, which has led to some disruption in the business."

The Chinese state news agency Xinhua went on the attack last month, saying that the corruption scandal had been orchestrated by senior executives at GSK China, at odds with the defence of "bad apples" in the sales department that GSK had suggested.

Witty declined to comment on the allegations in detail until the investigation is concluded. "The activities described by the authorities are very serious and totally unacceptable. They are contrary to our values and to everything I believe in. We very clearly recognise there is a profound need to earn the trust of Chinese people again. We will take every action to do so.

"We continue to fully co-operate with the authorities and respect the progress of the investigation. As such there is very little further I can say."

He said it was too early for the company to make decisions on setting aside money for fines or to assess the long-term damage to its China business.

Kerry holds urgent talks as US-Saudi rift deepens over Middle East policy

John Kerry admitted: 'We know the Saudis were obviously disappointed that the [Syria] strike didn't take place.' Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Getty Images

A deepening diplomatic rift between Saudi Arabia and the US burst open on Tuesday after secretary of state John Kerry acknowledged that Washington's key strategic ally had serious misgivings about US foreign policy in the Middle East.

Kerry held urgent talks with his Saudi counterpart in Paris on Monday amid complaints from Riyadh that the US was not doing enough to help Sunni-dominated rebels in Syria following a decision not launch US military action.

"We know that the Saudis were obviously disappointed that the [Syria] strike didn't take place," Kerry told reporters in London on Tuesday.

"It is our obligation to work closely with them – as I am doing," he added, referring to multiple meetings he had on Monday with Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. "The president asked me to come and have the conversations that we have had."

Kerry insisted relations remained fundamentally sound, but news of the meetings appears to confirm reports in the Wall Street Journal that the Saudis had threatened to scale back their regional co-operation with the US in protest at what it saw as a misguided Middle East strategy.

The Journal said Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who is leading the kingdom's efforts to support rebels fighting Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, had invited diplomats to Jeddah over the weekend to voice Riyadh's frustration with the Obama administrationand its regional policies.

Reuters also quoted Prince Bandar telling European diplomats that the kingdom would be making a "major shift" in relations with Washington over perceived inaction towards the conflict in Syria, and a possible rapprochement with Iran over its nuclear program.

Saudi Arabia is understood to be upset at perceived US weakness over Iran – and wants more aggressive steps taken to prevent Tehran's development of nuclear weapons technology – and Egypt, where the US has severed military ties with the new government in protest at crackdowns on demonstrators.

Speaking to reporters at the State Department daily briefing, US spokeswoman Marie Harf admitted all three issues were causing tension but also insisted "the fundamental relationship with the Saudis is a strong one".

"We we working together on some challenging issue,s and we share the same goals, whether it's ending the civil war on Syria, getting back to a democratic government in Egypt, preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons," said Harf.

"The question of how you get there all on these issues is what we're working through right now – with the Saudis and other international partners."

Harf said that a two-hour lunch between Kerry and the Saudi foreign minister remained "productive and enjoyable".

"They have a warm friendship, and even during moments of disagreement have always found ways to have an honest and open discussion," added Harf.

"Obviously we talked about some of the challenging issues that we want to confront together. We share the same goals – whether it's Syria, Egypt or Iran."

These are the latest signs that a US policy of rapprochement with Iran is causing friction with existing allies in the region, following similar concerns expressed by Israel.

Washington is also struggling to maintain good relations with France, Brazil, and Germany over separate arguments about surveillance by the National Security Agency.

But the row with Saudi Arabia threatens to destabilise one of the strongest diplomatic ties in Washington, based historically on mutual oil and security interests. Last week, Riyadh snubbed a US-backed offer to take a seat on the United Nations security council.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said this was "of course its own decision" but added that a seat on the UNSC "affords member states the opportunity to engage directly on issues of great importance, including issues like Syria, Iran, Egypt and the Middle East peace process."

He said the US will continue "close bilateral co-operation with Saudi Arabia on the host of shared challenges we face, including those issues that the security council takes up directly".

"We also have core relationship in national security areas that is very stable and important to US interests as well as Saudi interests," added Carney.

Ben Whishaw and Olivia Colman cast in new film from radical Greek director

Director Yorgos Lanthimos. Photograph: Franco Origlia/Getty

The romantic drama meets the creature feature in The Lobster, a new film from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, in which lonely hearts are ordered to find a partner or face being turned into animals. Ben Whishawand Olivia Colman are set to star in the production, which begins shooting next March.

The Lobster marks the English language debut for Lanthimos, who picked up a best foreign film Oscar nomination for his acclaimed 2009 film Dogtooth but has been based in the UK since 2011. Deadline reportsthat Whishaw and Colman will be joined in the cast by Jason Clarke and French actor Léa Seydoux. Clarke was recently seen in Zero Dark Thirtyand The Great Gatsby, while Seydoux co-stars in the Palme d'Or-winningBlue is the Warmest Colour.

Set in a dystopian near future, The Lobster focuses on a group of single men and women who are brought to a sinister hotel and ordered to find a life partner within 45 days. Those who fail to find a mate are then transformed into animals and released into the woods.

The Lobster has been bankrolled as a British, Irish and Greek co-production with a script by Efthimis Filippou. Lanthimos and Filippou's previous oddball collaborations include Dogtooth, a stark thriller about life inside a gated community and the 2011 drama Alps, a quasi ghost-story in which actors are hired to impersonate the recently deceased. The Lobster, however, could prove to be the wildest beast of all.

Russian 'borderisation': barricades erected in Georgia, say EU monitors

About 40km of fencing and barbed wire has been erected and surveillance cameras mounted on poles, say EU monitors. Photograph: Scott Barbour/Getty Images

Tina Bidzinashvili and her husband have harvested apples, quinces and peaches from the orchard behind their house since the perestroika years, when they were given it by the local collective farm in reward for hard work. But one morning recently, she woke up to find armed Russian border guards erecting a barbed wire barricade around one side of the orchard.

Her house might be in the Georgian village of Gugutiankari, the Russians explained to her, but her orchard is in the territory of South Ossetia, a small province that the international community believes is part ofGeorgia, but which since the Russia-Georgia war of 2008 is recognised as an independent country by Russia.

The wire is part of a process of "borderisation" by Russian border guards, during which EU monitors claim about 40km of fencing or barbed wire have been erected, augmented with hi-tech surveillance cameras mounted on poles. The fence follows a Soviet administrative boundary that was never previously applied in practice, and which runs through villages, and in some cases, through individual houses. For residents, it is the equivalent of a fence being erected to demarcate Kent and Sussex.

The process has received a sudden flurry of attention as Georgian presidential elections approach this Sunday. Locals say that the fence-building has been going on for months, but now with the vote approaching, being tough on Russia is important and politicians are rushing one after another to travel to the affected villages and show solidarity.

Georgian politicians say the border construction is one part of an increasingly provocative policy towards the country from Moscow, despite the victory in elections a year ago of Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire oligarch who made his fortune in Russia and promised to improve Georgia's relations with its northern neighbour.

This year, exports of Georgian wine and mineral water, under trade embargo since 2006, were allowed back on to the Russian market. More than 10m bottles of wine have made their way across the border since the summer, according to Georgian data. An agreement appears forthcoming that would also allow citrus fruits back into Russia, which would provide a stimulus for Georgia's largely agrarian economy.

But the conciliatory noises from Tbilisi, and the gradual restoration of trade relations, has been overshadowed by the fence-building and by the Russian government's decision to invite a military pilot who bombed Georgia during the 2008 war to be one of its high-profile torch bearers in a 2014 Winter Olympics ceremony. There is public pressure in Georgia to boycott the Olympics, which take place in Sochi, just a few miles from the border with Abkhazia, another breakaway province of Georgia that Russia has recognised as an independent state.

"Taking part in the Olympics was a difficult decision for us, but we decided it was the right one," the Georgian government's point man for relations with Russia, Zurab Abashidze, said. "But these provocative actions make it difficult for us. If it continues in this way, it is possible that we will have to rethink."

Russian border guards erected a barbed wire fence around one side of Tina Bidzinashvili's orchard in Gugutiankari. Photograph: theguardian.com

A veteral political analyst, Alexander Rondeli, said the recent events proved president Mikheil Saakashvili, whose government sparked the 2008 war with Russia, was not entirely to blame for poor relations with Georgia's northern neighbour: "Ivanishvili did everything to please them and what is the result? Russia hasn't liked any of our presidents. For us, normalisation of relations means being good neighbours, for them, it means turning Georgia into a satellite."

Both sides of the border are militarised, even though the ceasefire agreement forbids it, which leads to fears that a small misunderstanding or scuffle could spark something much larger. On the Georgian side, heavily armed men in military fatigues keep guard at a camouflaged base built into the cemetery at Zemo-Nikozi, on the hills overlooking the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali. The police labels attached to their military fatigues fool nobody. On the South Ossetian side, Russia has built 19 border guard bases. Technically not soldiers, the border guards are nevertheless heavily armed, and part of Russia's FSB security services.

An EU monitoring mission, set up under the ceasefire agreement that ended the war brokered by then French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, patrols the borderline where Russia is erecting the fences. But the monitors have little real power. They are unarmed, and are not allowed to cross into the South Ossetian side. Instead, they make daily missions in their armoured Land Cruisers along the rutted dusty tracks on the Tbilisi-administered side of the fence, reporting back satellite co-ordinates of the new constructions. In some places the fence cuts off villages from neighbouring settlements they have visited for as long as anyone can remember,; in other places it cuts off families from the graves of their loved ones. In extreme cases, such as in Gugutiankari, it runs through individual houses.

"They told us that if we continue to farm our orchard, we'll be taken to Tskhinvali and put in prison," said Tina Bidzinashvili of the border guards, who put up the barbed wire fence that has cut off her orchard from her house. "They said the only option is if we enter South Ossetia through a legally recognised checkpoint."

The nearest checkpoint is miles away and difficult to cross. Getting to her own back garden would entail Bidzinashvili making a six-hour round trip each day. The house itself is uninhabitable – it was bombed during the war, and the family are living six to a room in the former local school, now a shelter for people who lost their homes. Their last hope was the orchard, and now that has gone too.

Pope suspends German 'bling bishop'

Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst has come under fire for spending tens of millions of euros building a lavish official residence. Photograph: Boris Roessler/EPA

Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, the "bling bishop" of Limburg, has been temporarily suspended from his post by the pope. In a statement released on Wednesday, the Vatican said it had been confronted with a situation in which Tebartz-van Elst "could not follow his duties as bishop" and had decided to allow him "some time outside the diocese". A final verdict on the bishop's future is expected after the completion of an internal investigation into the Limburg building project.

During his suspension Tebartz-van Elst will be replaced by vicar-general Wolfgang Rösch. According to the German news service dpa, the suspension would last for two to three months – but the Vatican press office said it could not comment on the accuracy of this claim.

Tebartz-van Elst has been under fire since an estimated cost of €31m (£26m) for the building, described by some newspapers as "palatial", emerged this month. In addition, he is facing legal action for allegedly lying under oath about a first-class flight to India in a row with the news magazine Der Spiegel.

It is hard to imagine a greater contrast between the alleged luxurious living habits of the German bishop and the ascetic style of the Argentinian pontiff, who, from his first hours in office, has made clear his desire for "a poor church … for the poor". Shunning the large and opulent apostolic palace, the pontiff has chosen instead to live in the simple surrounds of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, a Vatican guesthouse. He often travels in used cars, and has urged priests to do the same, telling them: "If you like the fancy one, just think about how many children are dying of hunger in the world."

In the wake of the revelations, Tebartz-van Elst flew to Rome on an easyJet flight more than a week ago, but was not granted an audition with Pope Francis until Monday. The bishop had described the meeting as "encouraging" to the press. Earlier on Monday the pope had given a sermon in which he castigated greed. "Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one's life does not consist of possessions," he had said in the chapel of Santa Marta.

There has been much speculation in the German press about the bishop of Limburg's future. On Tuesday the former secretary of Angela Merkel's CDU party had suggested that Tebartz-van Elst could be sent to Africa. "Perhaps one could recommend to the bishop that he take over a diocese in Africa, where he can win back his credibility," Heiner Geissler told ARD television.

The tabloid Bild suggested that the Vatican's action was more of a statement of support than a castigation, and a reminder that Pope Francis would not bow to public pressure in his decision-making. "It's a sign of trust – but not an acquittal," it wrote.

John L Allen, a Rome-based senior correspondent with the National Catholic Report, disagreed that it should be read as a sign of support, but thought Francis was giving the bishop a "soft landing".

"They are clearly realising that there is a problem in Limburg that needs to be solved but it looks like the pope has taken into account that Tebartz-van Elst is only 53," he said. In similar cases in the past, bishops have spent a few months in a monastery outside their diocese.

But not all of the bishop's critics were satisfied by the Vatican's reaction to the affair. The German light artist Oliver Bienkowski had on Sunday projected a caricature of the bishop onto the St Peter's dome in Rome, along with the caption "Thou shalt not steal". He said he did not expect the bishop would return to Limburg in three months' time and that the pope should have made this clearer.

He said his projection had been met with widespread approval from atheists and disappointed believers. "The separation between state and church in Germany still doesn't go far enough – now is the time for critics to raise their voices."

In Germany church taxes are collected centrally by the state, but critics say the church manages these funds with too little transparency